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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 20:15

Adam Lanza NEWTOWN, Conn. '-- A lone gunman shot and killed his mother, then drove to the school where she reportedly taught and went on a shooting rampage Friday morning, killing 26 people, including 20 children, before turning a gun on himself. The shooter was identified as Adam Lanza, 20, who was found dead ['...]

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Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Sat, 09 Nov 2013 00:01

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

November 08, 2013

WORLD FREEDOM DAY, 2013

- - - - - - -

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

On November 9, 1989, Germans from East and West united to bring down the Berlin Wall, marking the arrival of a new age. A symbol of oppression crumbled under the force of popular will. A people transitioned from the pain of division to the joy of reunification. And all over Europe, corrupt dictatorships gave way to new democracies. On World Freedom Day, we remember that for all the raw power of authoritarian regimes, it is ultimately citizens who decide whether to be defined by a wall or whether to tear it down.

Twenty-four years ago, the United States stood alongside people who demanded their basic liberties and nations that reclaimed the right to set their own course. The democracies that emerged are now some of America's strongest allies, united around the ideals of freedom and equality. These alliances are the foundation of our global security and the engine of our global economy.

As we commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall, we recognize that the fight for human dignity goes on. Decades after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the United States continues to march with those who are reaching for freedom around the world. Today, let us remember that our fates and fortunes are linked as never before; when one nation takes a step toward liberty, all of us are a little more free. Let us offer our support to all those still struggling to throw off the weight of oppression and embrace a brighter day.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 9, 2013, as World Freedom Day. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities, reaffirming our dedication to freedom and democracy.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this eighth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-eighth.

BARACK OBAMA

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Source: White House.gov Press Office Feed

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 03:57

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

November 07, 2013

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)) provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless, within the 90-day period prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the President publishes in the Federal Register and transmits to the Congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. In accordance with this provision, I have sent to the Federal Register for publication the enclosed notice, stating that the national emergency with respect to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction that was declared in Executive Order 12938, as amended, is to continue in effect for 1 year beyond November 14, 2013.

Sincerely,

BARACK OBAMA

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 14:52

CEBU, Philippines '-- One of the most powerful typhoons ever recorded now appears to have devastated cities, towns and fishing villages with heavy loss of life when it played a deadly form of hopscotch across the islands of the central Philippines on Friday.

Barreling across palm-fringed beaches and plowing into frail homes with a force that by some estimates appoached that of a tornado, but sprawling across a huge area of this far-flung archipelago, Typhoon Haiyan delivered a crippling blow to this country's midsection. Disorder and looting over the weekend compounded the destruction.

President Benigno S. Aquino III declared a ''state of calamity'' in provinces encompassing islands across the breadth of the Philippines. The declaration is designed to release emergency funds from the national coffers.

But those coffers have already been depleted this year by a series of other natural disasters, most notably an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2 that also struck the middle of the country four weeks ago.

Video | Typhoon Haiyan Batters the Philippines Scenes from the Philippines, where a major storm ripped across the islands, leaving a trail of devastation and a rising death toll.

The first and most vocal city to cry for help was Tacloban on Leyte Island, which was also one of the first places hit by the storm. From many other communities along the storm's track, virtually all communications were cut off.

The typhoon left Tacloban in ruins, as a storm surge as high as 13 feet overwhelmed its streets, with reports from the scene saying most of the houses had been damaged or destroyed in the city of 220,000. More than 300 bodies have already been recovered, said Tecson John S. Lim, the city administrator, adding that the toll could reach 10,000 in Tacloban alone.

Mr. Aquino arrived Sunday in Tacloban to meet with victims of the storm and to coordinate rescue and cleanup efforts. His defense secretary, Voltaire Gazmin, described a chaotic scene there.

''There is no power, no water, nothing,'' Mr. Gazmin said. ''People are desperate. They're looting.''

The lack of clear information about the extent of the damage raised the possibility that other areas could have been just as badly hit as Tacloban, where rescue efforts were being concentrated.

News reports from Tacloban told of how officials were unable to get an accurate assessment of the fatalities because law enforcement and government personnel could not be found after the storm, with Tacloban's mayor, Alfred S. Romualdez, ''holding on to his roof'' before being rescued, according to the Daily Inquirer newspaper.

The typhoon began turning its deadly force Sunday toward central and northern Vietnam, where more than 500,000 people were evacuated even as meteorologists said the typhoon had begun weakening from the sustained winds of 190 miles an hour that it brought to the Philippines. But as it neared the mainland, it turned northward, its eye skirting the Vietnamese coastline.

Aid efforts in the Philippines were complicated by the magnitude of the devastation, as communications systems were shut down by the storm. But already international aid agencies and foreign governments were rushing to dispatch emergency teams.

At the request of the Philippine government, the United States defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, ordered the deployment of ships and aircraft to bring in emergency supplies and help in the search-and-rescue operations, the Defense Department said. The United States Embassy in Manila made $100,000 immediately available for health and sanitation efforts, its Twitter feed said. A United Nations disaster assessment team was already on the ground.

''The last time I saw something on this scale was in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami,'' Sebastian Rhodes Stampa, the head of the United Nations team, said in a statement, referring to the 2004 tsunami that devastated parts of Indonesia and 13 other countries. ''This is destruction on a massive scale. There are cars thrown like tumbleweed.''

Mar Roxas, the Philippine interior minister, said that while relief supplies for Tacloban had already begun arriving, they could not leave the airport because debris was blocking the roads in the area.

''The entire airport was under water up to roof level,'' he said, according to The Daily Inquirer.

Photos and television video from the affected areas showed fierce winds ripping tin roofs off homes and sending waves crashing into wooden buildings that splintered under the force. Large ships were tossed onshore, and vehicles were shown piled atop one another. Video footage from Tacloban showed ocean water rushing through the streets of the city, which is about 360 miles southeast of Manila and is the capital of the province of Leyte.

Robert S. Ziegler, the director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Los Ba±os, Philippines, said that he was very concerned that the damage reports seemed to be mainly from Tacloban and not from the many fishing communities that line the coast.

''The coastal areas can be quite vulnerable '-- in many cases, you have fishing communities right up to the shoreline, and they can be wiped out'' by a powerful storm surge of the sort that hit Tacloban, he said. ''The disturbing reports are the lack of reports, and the areas that are cut off could be quite severely hit.''

The research institute, which is one of the world's most famous agricultural research institutes, is near Manila, and far enough north that ''all we experienced was some rain and some wind,'' Mr. Ziegler said by telelphone.

Video from Tacloban on ABS-CBN television showed widespread looting in the city, with scores of people descending on stores and stuffing suitcases and bags with clothing and housewares.

Residents of Cebu, one of the country's largest cities, said that many roads to the north of Cebu Island were still closed after towns there suffered very heavy damage as the typhoon slammed its way through. The roar of the wind during the typhoon was punctuated by the shattering of windows, residents said, although the city of Cebu itself was spared the brunt of the storm.

''It was very loud, like a train,'' said Ranulfo L. Manatad, a night watchman at a street market in Mandaue City, on the northern outskirts of Cebu City.

In Mabolo, another town on the city's northern outskirts, the winds toppled a locally famous tree with a trunk roughly a yard in diameter that had withstood every typhoon for more than a century. The tree damaged a wall of St. Joseph's Church, but no one was injured, residents said.

The extent of the damage across the country and the rising death toll threatened to make the typhoon the worst storm in Philippine history. According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, the deadliest storm to hit the Philippines until now was Tropical Storm Thelma, which flooded the town of Ormoc, on Leyte Island, on Nov. 5, 1991, and killed more than 5,000 people.

On Samar Island, which is across the Philippine Sea from Tacloban, Leo N. Dacaynos of the local disaster office put the local death toll from the typhoon at at least 300 people, and he said an additional 2,000 were missing, The Associated Press reported.

The Social Welfare and Development Office said the storm affected 4.28 million people in about 270 towns and cities spread across 36 provinces in the central Philippines.

Keith Bradsher reported from Cebu, and Gerry Mullany from Hong Kong. Floyd Whaley contributed reporting from Manila.

Correction: November 10, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the date that Tropical Storm Thelma hit the Philippines. It was on Nov. 5, 1991, not Nov. 15.

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Source: ynet - News

Thu, 07 Nov 2013 21:59

European Union's top court rules that refugees facing imprisonment in their home country because they are gay may have grounds to be granted asylum in the EUAssociated Press

Refugees facing imprisonment in their home country because they are gay may have grounds to be granted asylum in the European Union, the 28-nation bloc's top court ruled Thursday.

The existence of laws allowing the imprisonment of homosexuals "may constitute an act of persecution per se," if they are routinely enforced, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice said.

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A homosexual cannot be expected to conceal his sexual orientation in his home country to avoid persecution since that would amount to renouncing a "characteristic fundamental to a person's identity," the EU court added.

It ruled on the cases of three people from Sierra Leone, Uganda and Senegal seeking asylum in the Netherlands.

Worldwide, more than 70 countries have laws that are used to criminalize people on the basis of sexual orientation, according to the International Commission of Jurists, an advocacy group. The laws typically prohibit either certain types of sexual activity or contain a blanket ban on intimacy and sexual activity between members of the same sex.

International treaties say people must prove they have a "well-founded fear" of persecution for reasons of race, religion, ethnicity, political opinion, or membership in a social group targeted by the authorities, if they are to obtain asylum. The court ruled that laws singling out homosexuals make them such a social group.

In some nations, however, the laws are rarely enforced. The court said it will be up to Europe's national authorities to determine whether the situation in an applicant's home country amounts to persecution.

Amnesty International said the court should have gone further and recognized the mere existence of anti-gay laws in a country as persecution, "even when they have not recently been applied in practice."

Amnesty said homosexuality is "increasingly criminalized across Africa," with 36 nations there having laws against same-sex conduct. In addition, many predominantly Muslim nations such as Iran, Kuwait or Afghanistan outlaw homosexuality.

Some European Union member states, including the Netherlands, already accept sexual orientation as a reason for granting asylum under certain circumstances, but the European Court of Justice's ruling clarifies that policy and makes it binding for all 28 EU nations.

It still remains unclear how national authorities should check a person's claim of being homosexual. The EU court isn't expected to rule on that issue before next year.

While Dutch authorities initially rejected the three plaintiff's asylum applications, the government on Thursday said the court ruling "appears to be in line with the current policy in the Netherlands" granting homosexuals asylum on a case-per-case basis.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 14:54

MOSCOW, November 10 (RIA Novosti) - Gays are not discriminated against in Russia, so they have no grounds to ask the Netherlands for asylum over that, the Dutch foreign minister said Sunday.

Earlier some media distributed Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans' statement in which he allegedly said that the Russian law banning homosexual propaganda among minors violates the rights of sexual minorities and may push Amsterdam to grant such people asylum.

''First of all, I've never said this,'' Timmermans told RIA Novosti in an interview.

''I answered a parliamentary request in written form," he said. "In my reply, I spoke generally, without referring to Russia in particular, that in case homosexuals are'... persecuted they may ask the Netherlands for asylum,'' the minister said.

''As of today, people of non-traditional sexual orientation are not persecuted in Russia, so there are no grounds to grant them asylum in the Netherlands,'' Timmermans said.

He thanked RIA Novosti for giving him a chance to clarify the situation.

Russia recently adopted an anti-gay propaganda law. The Kremlin maintains the legislation is aimed solely at protecting children and does not discriminate against homosexuals or prevent adults from making their own sexual choices. Critics insist the law has fueled a wider crackdown on homosexuality in Russian society.

Relations between Russia and the Netherlands have soured over a few issues recently, including the arrest of a Russian diplomat in The Hague and Russia's seizure of a Dutch-registered Greenpeace icebreaker.

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Thu, 07 Nov 2013 21:57

WASHINGTON '-- The Senate on Thursday approved a ban on discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity, voting 64 to 32 in a bipartisan show of support that is rare for any social issue. It was the first time in the institution's history that it had voted to include gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the country's nondiscrimination law.

Despite initial wariness among many Republicans about the bill, 10 of them voted with 54 members of the Democratic majority to approve the measure.

But nothing is guaranteed in the House, where Speaker John A. Boehner has repeatedly said he opposes the bill.

President Obama hailed the Senate action and urged House Republican leaders to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

''One party in one house of Congress should not stand in the way of millions of Americans who want to go to work each day and simply be judged by the job they do,'' Mr. Obama said in a statement. ''Now is the time to end this kind of discrimination in the workplace, not enable it.''

Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said on Thursday that ''the time has come for Congress to pass a federal law that ensures all citizens, regardless of where they live, can go to work not afraid of who they are.'' He noted that a vast majority of Americans already think such a law is in place. ''Well, it isn't already the law,'' he added. ''Let's do what the American people think already exists.''

Senate Republicans who voted against the bill, known as the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, were muted in their opposition. The first senator to rise and speak against the bill on the floor all week was Dan Coats of Indiana, who said Thursday morning that religious freedoms were at risk, despite the bill's broad exemption for religious institutions.

Those exemptions, he said, did not go far enough.

''We can't pick and choose when to adhere to the Constitution, and when to cast it aside,'' Mr. Coats said. ''The so-called protections from religious liberty in this bill are vaguely defined and do not extend to all organizations that wish to adhere to their moral or religious beliefs in their hiring practices.''

The bill includes a number of protections for religious entities, some of which were added this week to gain more Republican support. It now contains a provision that says no federal agency or state or local government that accepts money from the federal government can retaliate against religious institutions for not complying. This would include actions like denying them tax-exempt status, grant money, licenses or certifications.

The institutions that are exempt from the bill include churches, synagogues and mosques that are expressly religious in nature. This would also extend to schools or retail stores affiliated directly with churches, but it would not apply to those that have only loose religious affiliations.

Correction: November 7, 2013

An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect count for a vote to end Senate debate on the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. Fifty-four members of the Democratic majority, not 55, voted to end debate.

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:10

JENNIFER C. KERRPublished: TodayWASHINGTON (AP) - Some parents are scratching their heads over less restrictive head lice policies that allow children with live bugs in their hair to return to the classroom.

And some school nurses are no longer sending home the dreaded "lice note" to other parents with kids in the classroom, alerting them to the possibility of lice in their own child's precious locks. The policy shift is designed to help keep children from missing class, shield children with lice from embarrassment and protect their privacy.

"Lice is icky, but it's not dangerous," says Deborah Pontius, the school nurse for the Pershing County School District in Lovelock, Nev. "It's not infectious, and it's fairly easy to treat."

Usually by the time an itchy child is sent to the nurse, Pontius says, the child has probably had lice for about three weeks to two months. She says classmates already would have been exposed. There's little additional risk of transmission, she says, if the student returns to class for a few hours until the end of the day, when a parent would pick up the child and treat for lice at home.

Pontius also doesn't send lice notes. "It gets out who had lice," she says, and there's no need to panic parents. Parents with elementary school-aged kids should check their children's hair for lice once a week anyway, she says. If they are doing that, then there's really no need for the notes.

The idea of letting kids with untreated lice remain in class doesn't set well with some parents.

"I'm appalled. I am just so disgusted," says Theresa Rice, whose 8-year-old daughter, Jenna, has come home from her elementary school in Hamilton County, Tenn., with lice three times since school started in August.

"It's just a terrible headache to have to deal with lice," says Rice. To pick out the tiny eggs, or nits, and lice from Jenna's long blond hair is a four-hour process. Add to that all the laundry and cleaning - it's exhausting, she says. Rice had to bag up her daughter's treasured stuffed animals, which remained sealed for weeks even after Jenna was lice-free.

Jenna's school implemented a new policy in the past year that allows children with untreated lice to go home at the end of the day, be treated and then return to school. The policy, the district said, complies with the guidelines of both the Tennessee Department of Education and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Other schools, in California, Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Carolina and elsewhere, have similar policies.

The National Pediculosis Association in Massachusetts is opposed to relaxing bans on lice and blames the updated policies for spreading the bugs.

"The new lice policy throws parental values for wellness and children's health under the bus," says Deborah Altschuler, head of the Newton-based group. "It fosters complacency about head lice by minimizing its importance as a communicable parasitic disease."

The association says lice treatment shampoos are pesticides that are not safe for children and not 100 percent effective. The group instead urges parents to screen regularly and use a special comb to manually remove lice and nits from a child's hair.

Lice are tiny grayish-white bugs that infest a scalp, sucking bits of blood every few hours. Lice don't jump or fly. They crawl. They are not a sign of poor hygiene.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that there are 6 million to 12 million head lice infestations each year in the United States among children 3 to 11 years old. While itchy and unpleasant, health experts say lice don't spread disease and are not a health hazard. The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its guidelines in 2010 to adopt a "do not exclude" infested students recommendation for schools dealing with head lice.

The National Association of School Nurses revised its position the following year. In its guidance, the association said children found with live head lice should remain in class but be discouraged from close direct head contact with others. The school nurse should contact the parent to discuss treatment.

The association doesn't have figures on how many schools have adopted less restrictive policies. It varies by state and often by school district.

The ways in which schools manage head lice have been changing over the last couple of decades.

It used to be that schools wouldn't allow children to return to the classroom until all the lice and the nits were removed. The academy has long encouraged schools to discontinue "no-nit" policies. The itty-bitty nits - which can often be confused with dandruff - cement themselves to the hair shaft, making removal difficult.

The CDC says the nits are "very unlikely to be transferred successfully to other people" - and many schools have dropped their no-nit policies. But supporters of no-nit rules, such as the National Pediculosis Association, say the eggs will hatch new lice and need to be removed from a child's hair to be considered lice free.

___

Online

Centers for Disease Control: http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/lice/head/index.html

National Pediculosis Association: http://www.headlice.org/

National Association of School Nurses: http://bit.ly/y8IUdg

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 23:08

07/11/13, 12:08 '' bron: ANP

(C) anp. Archiefbeeld

Agenten hebben woensdag ingebroken in 30 Groningse studentenkamers. De politie wilde hiermee laten zien dat de kamers en studentenhuizen slecht beveiligd zijn, zo maakte de politie donderdag bekend. Als de studenten niet thuis waren, lieten de agenten als bewijs een polaroidfoto achter, waarop ze poseerden in de kamer.

De agenten klommen door ramen om binnen te komen en maakten ook gebruik van bekende inbrekersmethodes als hengelen en flipperen. In totaal werd bij 42 studentenhuizen een poging tot inbraak gedaan. In dertig gevallen lukte dat. Volgens de politie werden veel waardevolle spullen als laptops en tablets aangetroffen.

Deel jouw mening met de andere bezoekers

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Source: RT - USA

Sat, 09 Nov 2013 23:11

Published time: November 08, 2013 16:58Edited time: November 09, 2013 11:25National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander (Reuters / Doug Kapustin)

The White House is reportedly considering a structural change that would task two separate officials with overseeing the United States National Security Agency and the US Cyber Command when the man currently in charge of both operations retires next year.

Gen. Keith Alexander has been the top ranking NSA official since he was appointed director of the controversial intelligence agency in 2005, and five years later he landed the job of heading the newly-created USCYBERCOM upon the Defense Department's decision to launch a unit in charge of the military's offensive and defensive hacking campaigns. Last month Alexander announced he'd retire in the spring, however, and government officials now say the Pentagon may opt to divide the role of NSA chief and cyber commander among two individuals.

Brendan Sasso of Washington's The Hill website first reported allegations of restructuring on Wednesday this week, quoting an unnamed ''former high-ranking administration official familiar with internal discussions'' who said the issue was being floated in DC. On Friday, the Associated Press elaborated on the report further and has since added credence to claims that two of the most critical roles within the Department of Defense could be divvied up.

According to Sasso's source, the Pentagon is considering multiple plans, including one which would task a civilian with directing the NSA and a military officer with overseeing CYBERCOM. Also being considered, the source said, was putting two separate Pentagon officials at the top of both units. Alexander, 61, is a four-star Army general whose tenure in the armed forces includes a stint during the Persian Gulf War that earned him numerous awards.

Currently, Alexander's position allows him in theory to both direct offensive operations against the computers of foreign military targets while also administering campaigns to collect intelligence on those entities.

Caitlin Hayden, a spokesperson for the White House, told the AP that "The current arrangement was designed to ensure that both organizations complement each other effectively.'' Upon recent revelations detailing the previously unknown scope of the NSA's operations, however, officials within the government would likely surprise few if the reports that Alexander is replaced by two individuals prove accurate.

Adding to the AP, Hayden admitted that the White House is ''in consultation with appropriate agencies'' and ''looking to ensure we are appropriately postured to address current and future security needs."

''Obviously we're aware that some have proposed splitting the NSA and Cyber Command position,'' added Laura Lucas Magnuson, another administrative spokesperson reached for comment by the Washington Post.

On his part Alexander went on the record last month to say his successor should be ''dual-hatted,'' telling attendees at an event hosted by Politico, ''If you try to break them up, what you have is two teams not working together.''

''Our nation can't afford, especially in this budget environment, to have one team try to rebuild what the other team does,'' Alexander said at the October event. That same month, he told the Washington Post that ''You create more problems by trying to separate them and have two people fighting over who's in charge than putting it all together.''

As the recent revelations attributed to NSA contractor-turned-leaker Edward Snowden have proved, however, the conduct of the nation's highly secretive intelligence agency has escaped arguably much-needed scrutiny and oversight while being manned by Alexander during the last eight years.

Since June, documents disclosed to the media by Snowden have revealed information about far-reaching surveillance programs conducted by the NSA involving the collecting of intelligence against American citizens and friendly allies alike. At the same time, other documents released since the summer have shown a serious absence of oversight within the agency, despite insistence from administration officials '-- including Alexander himself '-- that appropriate safeguards are in place.

In August, the Washington Post published a top-secret internal NSA audit from the previous year documenting 2,776 infractions, including the unauthorized collection, storage, access to or distribution of legally protected communications, in the preceding 12 months. And since the leaks first began, the NSA and the administration of President Barack Obama has been sued by the likes of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and dozens of advocacy groups from all corners of the country.

Jason Healey, the director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told Sasso at The Hill that it might be in the nation's best interest to split the roles of NSA director and cyber commander, and suggested poor choices could '-- or have '-- been done with Alexander manning the helm of both operations.

''Some things are better to have two centers of power,'' Healey said. ''If you have just one, it's more efficient, but you end up making dumb decisions.''

''We've now created a center of power that we would never allow in any other area,'' Healey added to the Hill. ''And it certainly shouldn't be allowed in something so critical to our future and national security as the Internet and cyberspace.''

Whatever route the Pentagon decides to take, the next NSA director will nonetheless be asked to report to the director of national intelligence '-- a position currently held by James Clapper, who approves of Alexander's job leading both units. According to the Post, DNI Clapper told the White House that ''the dual-hat construct has worked well'' under Alexander, and a spokesperson of his added that ''there are a number of potential benefits to having separate leaders.'' Even still, Clapper rep Shawn Turner told the Post that the director still ''thinks it's important to take a thorough look at the possibility of separating the positions.''

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 03:52

As the role of the US National Security Agency continues to be examined, the White House thinks about picking a civilian to replace outgoing Gen. Keith Alexander, reports The Hill.

Gen. Keith Alexander speaks during a conference at the Ronald Reagan Building on October 30, 2013 in Washington, DC.

(Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)The White House may be looking to appoint a civilian to replace Gen. Keith Alexander as head of the US National Security Agency, reported The Hill on Saturday.

No decision has been made yet, a former administration official told The Hill, but officials have drafted a list of possible civilian candidates for the position. The White House would only name a civilian to lead the NSA if it also decides to split the role of the NSA director and the head of US Cyber Command, according to The Hill.

Alexander, who is expected to resign in the spring of 2014, has been head of the NSA since 2005 and took on the role of head of Cyber Command in 2010.

President Barack Obama promised to reform US surveillance policies after documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the depth of NSA spy programs. Appointing a civilian to lead the agency -- and splitting off Cyber Command -- could help increase transparency and oversight as the NSA tries to rebuild the public's trust.

While civilians lead other US intelligence agencies, such as the CIA and FBI, the top role at the NSA has always been held by military personnel. The Senate would likely have confirmation power over any civilian NSA director, according to The Hill, a power it currently does not have.

(Reuters) - Former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden used login credentials and passwords provided unwittingly by colleagues at a spy base in Hawaii to access some of the classified material he leaked to the media, sources said. A handful of agency employees who gave their login details to Snowden were identified, questioned and removed from their assignments, said a source close to several U.S. government investigations into the damage caused by the leaks. Snowden may have persuaded between 20 and 25 fellow workers at the NSA regional operations center in Hawaii to give him their logins and passwords by telling them they were needed for him to do his job as a computer systems administrator, a second source said. The revelation is the latest to indicate that inadequate security measures at the NSA played a significant role in the worst breach of classified data in the super-secret eavesdropping agency's 61-year history. Reuters reported last month that the NSA failed to install the most up-to-date, anti-leak software at the Hawaii site before Snowden went to work there and downloaded highly classified documents belonging to the agency and its British counterpart, Government Communication Headquarters. It is not clear what rules the employees broke by giving Snowden their passwords, which allowed the contractor access to data that he was not authorized to see. Snowden worked at the Hawaii site for about a month last spring, during which he got access to and downloaded tens of thousands of secret NSA documents. COVERING TRACKS "In the classified world, there is a sharp distinction between insiders and outsiders. If you've been cleared and especially if you've been polygraphed, you're an insider and you are presumed to be trustworthy," said Steven Aftergood, a secrecy expert with the Federation of American Scientists. "What agencies are having a hard time grappling with is the insider threat, the idea that the guy in the next cubicle may not be reliable," he added. Officials with the NSA and the Office of Director of National Intelligence declined to comment due to a criminal investigation related to Snowden, who disclosed previously secret U.S. government mass surveillance programs while in Hong Kong in June and then fled to Russia where he was granted temporary asylum. People familiar with efforts to assess the damage to U.S. intelligence caused by Snowden's leaks have said assessments are proceeding slowly because Snowden succeeded in obscuring some electronic traces of how he accessed NSA records. The sources did not know if the NSA employees who were removed from their assignments were given other duties or fired. While the U.S. government now believes it has a good idea of all the data to which Snowden could have accessed, investigators are not positive which and how much of that data Snowden actually downloaded, the sources said. Snowden and some of his interlocutors, such as former Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald, have said that Snowden provided NSA secrets only to media representatives such as Greenwald, filmmaker Laura Poitras, and a reporter with the British newspaper. They have emphatically denied that he provided any classified material to countries such as China or Russia. The revelation that Snowden got access to some of the material he leaked by using colleagues' passwords surfaced as the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee approved a bill intended in part to tighten security over U.S. intelligence data. One provision of the bill would earmark a classified sum of money - estimated as less than $100 million - to help fund efforts by intelligence agencies to install new software designed to spot and track attempts to access or download secret materials without proper authorization. The bill also requires that the Director of National Intelligence set up a system requiring intelligence contractors to quickly report to spy agencies on incidents in which data networks have been penetrated by unauthorized persons. (Editing by Alistair Bell and Paul Simao)

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 22:09

Former US vice-president Al Gore has described the activities of the National Security Agency as "outrageous" and "completely unacceptable" and said whistleblower Edward Snowden has "revealed evidence" of crimes against the US constitution.

Gore, speaking Tuesday night at McGill University in Montreal, said he was in favour of using surveillance to ensure national security, but Snowden's revelations showed that those measures had gone too far.

"I say that as someone who was a member of the National Security Council working in the White House and getting daily briefings from the CIA," Gore said, in comments reported by the Canadian Press.

Gore had previously said he believed the practice of the NSA collecting US citizens phone records was unlawful and "not really the American way", but his comments on Tuesday represent his strongest criticism yet.

Asked about Snowden, the NSA whistleblower whose revelations have been reported extensively by the Guardian, Gore said the leaks had revealed uncovered unconstitutional practices.

"He has revealed evidence of what appears to be crimes against the Constitution of the United States," Gore said.

Snowden faces criminal charges for leaking classified information to The Guardian and other media outlets. He remains in exile in Russia.

Gore, the former vice-president, 2000 Democratic presidential nominee and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner, said the NSA's efforts to monitor communications had gone to "absurd" lengths, the Canadian Press reported.

"When you are looking for a needle in a haystack, it's not always wise to pile more hay on the haystack," he said.

Gore said he doubted the far-reaching scope of the NSA's surveillance would be allowed to continue.

"I think they will have to pull this back," he said. "I think you will see a reining in."

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 02:29

On December 4, 1981 PresidentRonald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333, an Executive Order intended to extend powers and responsibilities of US intelligence agencies and direct the leaders of U.S. federal agencies to co-operate fully with CIA requests for information.[1] This executive order was entitled United States Intelligence Activities.

It was amended by Executive Order 13355: Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community, on August 27, 2004. On July 30, 2008, President Bush issued Executive Order 13470[2] amending Executive Order 12333 to strengthen the role of the DNI.[3][4]

Proscription on assassination[edit]Part 2.11 of this executive order reiterates a proscription on US intelligence agencies sponsoring or carrying out an assassination. It reads:[5]

No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.Previously, EO 11905 (Gerald Ford) had banned political assassinations and EO 12036 (Jimmy Carter) had further banned indirect U.S. involvement in assassinations.[6] As early as 1998, this proscription against assassination was reinterpreted, and relaxed, for targets who are classified by the United States as connected to terrorism.[7][8]

See also[edit]References[edit]^Ronald Reagan (December 4, 1981). "Executive Order 12333'--United States intelligence activities". US Federal Register. Retrieved December 30, 2008. ^"Executive Order 13470". Fas.org. Retrieved May 6, 2011. ^"Bush Orders Intelligence Overhaul", byAssociated Press, July 31, 2008^Executive Order: Further Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities, White House, July 31, 2008^"Executive Orders". Archives.gov. Retrieved May 6, 2011. ^CRS Report for Congress Assassination Ban and E.O. 12333: A Brief Summary January 4, 2002^Walter Pincus (February 15, 1998). "Saddam Hussein's Death Is a Goal, Says Ex-CIA Chief". Washington Post. p. A36. Retrieved December 30, 2008. mirror^Barton Gellman (October 21, 2001). "CIA Weighs 'Targeted Killing' Missions: Administration Believes Restraints Do Not Bar Singling Out Individual Terrorists". Washington Post. p. A01. Retrieved December 30, 2008. mirrorExternal links[edit]Text of the Order from NARAMetadata concerning Executive Order 12333, US Federal Register '' indicates other executive orders that this E.O. amends, revokes, and is amended by.Should U.S. officials say anything that could harm U.S. soldiers?, Milnet '' (a 5k summary of eo12333)Executive Order 13355: Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community, White House, August 27, 2004Executive Order 13355: Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community, US Federal Register, September 1, 2004Procedures Governing the Activities of DoD Intelligence Components that Affect United States Persons, December 1982Another Law Under Assault, Washington Post, September 29, 2005Hess, Pamela (November 8 2002). "Experts: Yemen strike not assassination". UPI. Elizabeth B. Bazan (January 4, 2002). "Assassination Ban and E.O. 12333:A Brief Summary" (PDF). CRS Report for Congress. Retrieved April 26, 2006. Tom O'Connor, Mark Stevens (November 2005). "The Handling of Illegal Enemy Combatants". Archived from the original on May 5, 2006. Retrieved April 26, 2006. "Memorandum on Executive Order 12333 and Assassination" (PDF). Retrieved April 26, 2006. Jeffrey Addicott (November 7, 2002). "The Yemen Attack: Illegal Assassination or Lawful Killing?". HTML. Retrieved April 26, 2006.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:30

Spiegel online has an article on the non-transparent as well as fictional way the ECB treats Stripped Bonds (Strips) of Italian Banks handed over to ECB as collateral for loans.

Currently ECB rates various Italian Strips with an ''A'' rating, though no rating agency rates Italian bonds, let alone Strips, with an A.

ECB claims it is correct, because a tiny rating agency, DBRS, still rates Italian bonds with an A. However, DBRS said to Spiegel upon being questioned, that this particular rating was not to be applied to Strips.

Two hours later DBRS sent an email to Spiegel, claiming that they (Spiegel) must not use this information in public.

Via Google Translate from Der Spiegel, with thanks to reader Bernd, please consider The strange standards of the ECB

When it comes to the valuation of bonds, the ECB wants to be independent and transparent. But that manages to SPIEGEL ONLINE information, not always. In many Italian government securities, the central bank based on a credit rating that is not according to the rating agency for these bonds.

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE, the European Central Bank (ECB) has very unusual standards when it comes to the valuation of government bonds, on deposit as collateral for loans. Specifically, it's about 116 Italian government bonds without coupon interest rate, known as stripped bonds or short strips. They are currently valued by the ECB and the Italian national central bank with a grade of "A" - although rating agencies actually do not assign that grade.

By assigning an "A" rating, the ECB favors those banks that submit such papers as collateral when they borrow money from the central bank. This especially favors Italian financial institutions.

In the evaluation of collateral, the ECB relies on the scores of the four rating agencies. While large companies S & P, Moody's and Fitch Italy have credit already on a "B" status downgraded, only the smaller agency DBRS, caries the "A" rating of 116 Italian Strips bonds.

The problem: The agency itself has told SPIEGEL ONLINE stated that their ratings are not applicable for Strips.

Stripped bonds are securities of a special kind: The offshoot of fixed rate bonds are sold to pay the revenue generated interest due to other securities. They also have a so-called zero coupon: The yield on these strips with some long term will only be paid when due, until then sees the investors in such securities no money. The profit of the investor resulting from the difference between the purchase price and the redemption at maturity of the bond. It is an investment that requires a lot of trust in the buyer's future solvency of the seller. In this case, the confidence of future Italian governments apply. And this must be long: 56 of these strips have remaining maturities of more than ten years, 30 of which are not paid 20 for years, the last three not until 2041.

Fitch rates 107 of the strips as 'B'. The classification used by the ECB should not be used. It's that simple.

Suddenly, DBRS Is Silent

Just three hours after the ECB's reply to the request by SPIEGEL ONLINE, another e-mail came from DBRS: Statements to SPIEGEL ONLINE should not be made public and DBRS would longer comment on this matter.

That's what you call an emergency brake.

Emergency BrakeMore than a little pressure on DBRS by ECB president Mario Draghi, coupled with a distinct willingness of the ECB to look the other way? Ya Think? What other sleight-of-hand magic is the ECB making?

I used the word "Fictional" in the title of this post. "Fraudulent" seems more like it.

Mike "Mish" Shedlockhttp://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:18

The United States government has asked that Bank of America pay $863.6 million in damages after a federal jury found it liable for fraud over defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide Financial unit.

In a filing on Friday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, the government also asked for penalties against Rebecca Mairone, a former midlevel executive at the bank's Countrywide unit whom the jury also found liable, ''commensurate with her ability to pay.''

The government said the penalties were necessary to punish the bank and Ms. Mairone ''and to send a clear and unambiguous message that mortgage fraud for profit will not be tolerated.'' Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who presided over the four-week trial in Manhattan, will ultimately determine the penalty.

Bank of America and Ms. Mairone were each found liable for defrauding the government-controlled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through the sale of shoddy loans bought from Countrywide in 2007 and 2008 that generated more than $1 billion in losses.

The case centered on a mortgage lending process at Countrywide, which Bank of America bought in July 2008, known as the ''high-speed swim lane,'' or HSSL, nicknamed the ''hustle.''

The government said the program emphasized and rewarded employees for the quantity rather than the quality of loans produced, and it eliminated checkpoints intended to ensure that loans were sound.

The penalties the government requested are slightly higher than the $848.2 million that lawyers in the office of Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, had indicated they would seek. The amount is based on the gross loss that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac incurred on the HSSL loans, the government said. Bank of America is scheduled to respond to the penalty request by Nov. 20.

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 23:35

A Kenyan farmer sun dries her maize harvest, one of the key crops the IPCC says will be affected by climate change. Photograph: Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty ImagesIt's a human-centric approach, but the prospect of a food scare should be one way to get people'--believers and deniers alike'--to seriously evaluate the effects of climate change.

Last week, a source leaked a draft report, drawn up by the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and due to be released next March. It's the second of three reports, following the first that came out in September this year. Among other things, the text clearly outlines the threats climate change poses to the global food supply, citing a decrease of up to 2% each decade in yields of staple crops like maize, wheat, and rice.

That projected dip looks even more serious when one considers the parallel 14% increase per decade in the demand for food that scientists are expecting, to match the needs of a population that will reach 9 billion-plus by 2050.

It's a familiar message. But, "what is probably new compared to previous reports is the recognition of climate change's impacts much sooner than was expected," says Alexandre Meybeck, senior policy officer on Agriculture, Environment and Climate Change with the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation. "We are not talking about 2100, we are talking about what's going to happen in 20, 30 years."

The New York Timesfirst reported on the story in depth, author Justin Gillis writing:

The warning on the food supply is the sharpest in tone the panel has issued. Its previous report, in 2007, was more hopeful'...The new tone reflects a large body of research in recent years that has shown how sensitive crops appear to be to heat waves.

This IPCC report, which focuses on the impacts of, vulnerability and adaption to, climate change, finds that the negative impacts on crops and yields have been more common than the positive ones, the latter occurring in some higher latitudes where atmospheric carbon dioxide can aid plant growth.

Climate will place limits on staple crops, and the variability of yields will also increase year to year, the IPCC concludes. The rising food prices that accompany this uncertainty will affect the world's poorest the most, and countries in the tropics will bear the brunt of climate change. "The more vulnerable populations and countries will be affected more," Meybeck says, emphasising an oft-repeated fact, "because they are already vulnerable and they also have fewer resources to deal with climate change."

America ranks first for global food security according to the Economist's Intelligence Unit. The lowest ten rankings are almost all African countries. While the United Kingdom and the United States share undernourishment rates of just five percent of their populations, Tanzania and Zambia are approaching 50%, and Burundi sits at 73%. So it's predictable that the subject of food scarcity exists in the consciousness of richer nations as a threat that primarily belongs to the world's poor. The cynical view is that the conclusions in the leaked report only strengthen that association. If the threat feels remote, how do we bring it home?

When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City last year, it was in a sad way, a triumph for the cause of climate awareness. Bloomberg Businessweek ran a bold cover showing a flooded New York street and bearing the title, 'It's global warming, stupid.' Climate scientists might be necessarily cautious about stating this link so definitely, but it's hard to deny that it was a disaster that forced the gaze of wealthier nations upon a threat that felt suddenly larger, and more immediate'--not just a problem belonging to yet another poor, disaster-plagued country. A study in the wake of the hurricane showed that, at the very least, Sandy helped opened up the climate dialogue.

Does there need to be a similar spur for the discussion about food insecurity as a truly global problem? There already are several. Last year, America experienced one of its worst droughts, slashing crop yields and elevating the price of cereals. In Europe in 2003, a wave of heat caused a drought that ultimately cost over '‚¬8 billion. Between 2008 and 2010, food pricing sparked riots in 30 countries. Food insecurity is often framed as a poor country puzzle, but several pointers suggest that it is not. Currently, its worst effects play out in impoverished nations, but as the IPCC's report also shows, those impacts are set to spread as food availability rapidly becomes a global concern.

Poorer countries may bear the brunt, but that does not leave the rest of the globe immune, the IPCC finds. Major crops in temperate regions will be increasingly affected too. The scientists demonstrate that future food insecurity could in fact be a driver of entirely new 'poverty pockets' in upper-middle to high-income countries, and also in urban centres, as food availability becomes unpredictable and prices go up. And Meybeck points out that maize, wheat, and rice aren't necessarily the only foods to worry about: they're just the ones with the most data attached to them. Studies on other important crops could reveal similar trends. There are imports and exports to think about too, which lock the world's countries'--secure and insecure alike'--into a giant food web.

The IPCC report will only be released officially next year, but it's unlikely that the core findings will change. If emissions are reduced in coming decades, it states, we'll still have the power to stave off the worst risks, leaving those alive in the latter half of the century to feel the benefits. "There is a growing sense of urgency," Meybeck says. "It's now that we have to do something."

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 22:03

In a press release, Georgia Tech announced that stadium waves, similar to those seen and enjoyed by fans at football games, may provide a much better explanation for the ''hiatus'' or interruption in global temperature increases than those promoted elsewhere:

The stadium wave hypothesis provides a plausible explanation for the hiatus in warming and helps explain why [other] climate models did not predict this hiatus.

Further, the new hypothesis suggests how long the hiatus might last.

The climate-changers have been scrambling lately to explain away the fact that global temperatures haven't changed since 1998. As Judith Curry, chief of Georgia Tech's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, wrote:

One of the most controversial issues emerging from the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report is the failure of global climate models to predict a hiatus in warming of global surface temperatures since 1998.

Indeed, the climate-changers have faced a series of daunting challenges to their theory of imminent total worldwide catastrophe unless something is done. Proofs that climate change is inevitable are increasingly coming under attack. As Rebecca Terrell pointed out at The New American, nearly every statement made by President Obama about climate change, as he announced an executive order to remediate climate change, was patently and provably false. Temperatures are not rising, as the president claimed, droughts are not increasing, incidents of wildfires are not accelerating, and his statement that permafrost thawing was ''already affecting communities '... across the nation'' ignored the fact that permafrost exists only in Alaska and not in any of the other 48 states on the continent nor has it for thousands of years!

Professor Wieslaw Maslowski predicted five years ago that Arctic ice might disappear entirely by 2013, owing to global warming, but was forced to revise his prediction that it will disappear instead in 2016 ''plus or minus three years.'' In fact, not only has Arctic ice not disappeared, it has actually increased by a million square miles in just the last 12 months.

Dr. Ed Hawkins of Reading University analyzed the 138 climate-change models used to ''inform'' the IPCC and compared them to the real world. He concluded that the divergence between those models and what's happening outside is so great as to discredit nearly all of them.

Despite the lack of warming, as predicted by climate-changers, demand for immediate action to stop global warming continues unabated, and was repeated most recently and clearly at the World Resources Forum in Davos, Switzerland in October by Ugo Bardi, a spokesman for the Club of Rome:

We are facing today an unprecedented global challenge: that of the overexploitation of the world's resources. Not only are most natural resources being exploited faster than they can reform, but we are saturating the capability of the atmosphere to absorb the products of the combustion of fossil fuels; with the result of potentially catastrophic climate change.

[This] means slowing down the exploitation rate'....

[We must work] to slow down and eventually stop the deadly economic growth machine.

Climate-changers are also having to deal with a leaked memo to the IPCC that admitted that cool temperatures have created a thick layer of ice stretching from the Canadian Islands to the northern coast of Russia that has prevented dozens of yachts from getting through America's Northwest Passage.

One of those trying to explain away the inconvenient lack of temperature change is Richard Muller, a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Just over two years ago, Muller told the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee that those models had ''sufficient integrity'' to ''confirm the overall warming trend'' and then wrote in theNew York Times a year later:

I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct.

I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.

However, in September Muller stepped away from his claims and those believing them, saying that ''the global warming crowd has a problem.'' He added:

For all of its warnings, and despite a steady escalation of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, the planet's average surface temperature has remained pretty much the same for the last 15 years.

He then regales his readers with all manner of explanations as to why: ''chaotic changes in ocean currents,'' the ''cloud cover has kicked in,'' the ''ocean's absorption of atmospheric heat,'' and so forth.

He remains, as do other climate-changers, calm, confident, and assured that climate-changers can, with great accuracy, predict the future. And what they see they don't like. And that forms the base for concluding, as did Ugo Bardi, that we must ''slow down the exploitation rate and eventually stop the deadly economic growth machine.''

Instead, is it so hard to believe that a ''stadium wave,'' a natural pulse, reflecting the ebb and flow of the tides, the rise and fall of temperatures, like the changing of the seasons, is all that is involved? Why couldn't it be that simple?

As the press release from Georgia Tech notes:

Climate regimes '-- multiple-decade intervals of warming or cooling '-- evolve in a spatially and temporally ordered manner'....

Their repetition is regular'....

The stadium wave signal has existed for at least 300 years.

The Georgia Tech scientists predict that if the stadium wave hypothesis is correct, global temperatures may not warm until the 2030s.

A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 23:13

November 8th, 2013 Tell me another one.

Via: Off The Grid News:

Wood-burning stoves offer warmth and enhance off-grid living options during cold weather months, but the tried-and-true heating devices now are under attack by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA has banned the production and sale of the types of stoves used by about 80 percent of those with such stoves. The regulations limit the amount of ''airborne fine-particle matter'' to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air. The current EPA regulations allow for 15 micrograms in the same amount of air space.

Most of the wood stoves currently nestled inside cabins and homes from coast-to-coast don't meet the new environmental standard. The EPA launched a ''Burn Wise'' website to help convince the public that the new regulations were needed.

Trading in an old stove for a newer stove isn't allowed.

''Replacing an older stove with a cleaner-burning stove will not improve air quality if the older stove is reused somewhere else,'' the website says. ''For this reason, wood stove change out programs usually require older stoves to be destroyed and recycled as scrap metal, or rendered inoperable.''

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 20:57

60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan issued an apology to viewers following the discovery of new information which undercuts her recent report on the Benghazi attack, in an interview that was broadcast live, today, Nov. 8, 2013, on CBS This Morning.

"We were wrong," Logan told co-hosts Norah O'Donnell and Jeff Glor of the report.

Logan said that the report's main source led the program to believe that he was telling the truth about his role in the events that took place the evening of the Benghazi attack, but that "We now know that was not the case."

"We take the vetting of sources and stories very seriously at 60 Minutes and we took it seriously in this case. But we were misled and we were wrong, and that's the important thing," Logan said, adding, "we have to set the record straight and take responsibility."

The transcript of the segment is below:

NORAH O'DONNELL: 60 Minutes has learned of new information that undercuts its Oct. 27 account of an ex-security officer who called himself Morgan Jones. His real name is Dylan Davies, and he recounted to Lara Logan, in great detail, what he claimed were his actions on the night of the attack on the Benghazi compound. Lara joins us this morning. Lara, good morning. What can you tell us?

LARA LOGAN: The most important thing to every person at 60 Minutes is the truth, and today the truth is that we made a mistake. That's very disappointing for any journalist. It's very disappointing for me. Nobody likes to admit that they made a mistake, but if you do, you have to stand up and take responsibility and you have to say that you were wrong. And in this case, we were wrong. We made a mistake. And how did this happen? Well, Dylan Davies worked for the State Department in Libya, was the manager of the local guard force at the Benghazi Special Mission compound. He described for us his actions the night of the attack, saying he had entered the compound and had a confrontation with one of the attackers, and that he had seen the body of Ambassador Chris Stevens in a local hospital. And after our report aired, questions were raised about whether his account was real, after an incident report surfaced that told a different story about what he'd done that night. He denied that report and said that he told the FBI the same story he told us. But what we now know is that he told the FBI a different story from what he told us. That's when we realized that we no longer had confidence in our source, and that we were wrong to put him on air, and we apologize to our viewers.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Why were you convinced that Dylan Davies was a credible source? That the account that he provided was accurate? How did you vet him?

LARA LOGAN: We verified and confirmed that he was who he said he was. That he was working for the State Department at the time, that he was in Benghazi at the Special Mission compound the night of the attack. He gave us access to communications he'd had with U.S. government officials. We used U.S. government reports and congressional testimony to verify many of the details of his story, and everything checked out. He also showed us photographs that he had taken at the Special Mission compound the following morning. We take the vetting of sources and stories very seriously at 60 Minutes and we took it seriously in this case. But we were misled and we were wrong, and that's the important thing. That's what we have to say here. We have to set the record straight and take responsibility.

NORAH O'DONNELL: Last Thursday the Washington Post ran a report that questioned the central parts of what Davies had told you. They cited this incident report right after the attack that he gave to Blue Mountain, the security company he worked for. He told them that he never made it to the compound, that he was at his villa there. Did you know about that report, that incident report?

LARA LOGAN: No, we did not know about that incident report before we did our story. When the Washington Post story came out, he denied it, he said that he never wrote it, had nothing to do with it, and that he told the FBI the same story that he told us. But as we now know, that was not that case.

NORAH O'DONNELL: But why would you stand by this report after Dylan Davies admitted lying to his own employer?

LARA LOGAN: Because he was very upfront about that from the beginning. That was always part of his story. And, the context of it when he tells his story is that his boss is someone he cared about enormously. He cared about his American counterparts in the mission that night, and when his boss told him not to go, he couldn't stay back. That was always part of the record for us. And that part didn't come as any surprise.

JEFF GLOR: "60" acknowledged it was a mistake not to disclose that the book was being published by Simon & Schuster, which is a CBS company. There are also these reports now that Davies was asking for money. Did he ever ask you for money?

LARA LOGAN: He did not. He never asked us for money, it never came up.

NORAH O'DONNELL: So how do you address this moving forward? Are you going to do something on Sunday on 60 Minutes?

LARA LOGAN: Yes. We will apologize to our viewers, and we will correct the record on our broadcast on Sunday night.

NORAH O'DONNELL: And have you been in touch with him since?

LARA LOGAN: We have not. After we learned of the latest news about the FBI report, we tried to contact him, but we have not heard back from him.

NORAH O'DONNELL: You've had no contact with him since then?

LARA LOGAN: Not so far.

NORAH O'DONNELL: And not about this latest news about the FBI report?

LARA LOGAN: No.

JEFF GLOR: Lara Logan, thank you very much.

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 04:31

Dylan Davies, a security officer hired to help protect the United States Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, gave the F.B.I. an account of the night that terrorists attacked the mission on Sept. 11, 2012 that contradicts a version of events he provided in a recently published book and in an interview with the CBS News program ''60 Minutes.''

Mr. Davies told the F.B.I. that he was not on the scene until the morning after the attack.

The information he provided in an F.B.I. interview was described Thursday by two senior government officials as completely consistent with an incident report by the Blue Mountain security business, which had been hired to protect United States interests in Benghazi. The officials who spoke said they had been briefed on the government investigation.

Mr. Davies, who worked for Blue Mountain, has disavowed the incident report, saying in an interview last week with the online magazine The Daily Beast that he did not write it and had never even seen it, and was not responsible for the account of events it contained.

The contradictions between the versions offered in the incident report and what was presented on television and in the book '-- Mr. Davies appeared on the program and wrote the book under the pseudonym Morgan Jones '-- have led to questions about how ''60 Minutes'' came to present Mr. Davies as a credible source for its extensive report on the Benghazi incident.

The incident report described Mr. Davies as remaining at the villa he occupied in Libya and not getting to the scene on the night of the attack. In the version he wrote in his book and gave to ''60 Minutes,'' Mr. Davies said he left the villa that night to visit a hospital where he said he saw the body of the deceased ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and twice rushed to the scene of the attack.

At the compound, he said, he had a confrontation with an attacker, whom he dispatched with a blow to the face with a rifle butt.

Jennifer Robinson, a spokeswoman for the book's publisher, Threshold Editions, which is part of the Simon and Schuster unit of CBS, said, ''Although we have not seen the F.B.I. report, in light of these revelations we will review the book and take appropriate action with regard to its publication status.''

Jeff Fager, the chairman of CBS News and executive producer of ''60 Minutes,'' said Thursday, ''We're surprised to hear about this, and if it shows we've been misled, we will make a correction.''

CBS News had extensively defended Mr. Davies this week, suggesting '-- as Mr. Davies did in the Daily Beast interview '-- that he was the object of a campaign by State Department officials to quiet continued questioning about the events in Benghazi. CBS also publicly vouched for the authenticity of Mr. Davies's account on ''60 Minutes.''

Mr. Fager issued a statement earlier this week saying the program was ''proud of the reporting that went into the story'' and expressing confidence that the sources on the program ''told accurate versions of what happened that night.''

Lara Logan, the correspondent on the report, had also expressed confidence that the incident report did not contradict Mr. Davies's account on ''60 Minutes'' because he had never signed it and disputed its details. ''He never had two stories. He only had one story,'' Ms. Logan said in an interview this week.

But CBS had all along acknowledged that Mr. Davies had also been interviewed by the F.B.I. The network had suggested that the agency's interview would corroborate Mr. Davies's account on ''60 Minutes.'' Instead, the disclosure that the F.B.I. interview matched the incident report leaves CBS facing more questions about the primary source for its investigation.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:16

Kimberly PaxtonActivist PostEvery reader of alternative media knows that the reports from the mainstream are generally biased. They are biased towards the government, corporations, and banks. The ''news'' is rarely more than fiction generated to shed the best possible light on those entities, while keeping people firmly in line with their fear-invoking reports. "Truth" rarely enters into the stories breathlessly espoused by well-coiffed anchors.

That's why I was surprised to see that CBS's 60 Minutes did an in-depth story that was completely damning to the administration.

I was not surprised, however, when all traces of the video were removed from YouTube.

Nor was I surprised when 60 Minutes subsequently issued a complete retraction and apology for the story.

Dylan Davies, the source for the report, wrote a book that was brought to print by the powerhouse publishing company Simon & Schuster. The book is called The Embassy House, and was written under the pseudonym Sgt. Morgan Jones. It was published last month by Threshold Editions, a division of Simon & Schuster, which is, incidentally, owned by CBS. (Can you see how this works?) Simon & Schuster, in classic damage control fashion, is pulling the book off shelves.

Davies has now been ''discredited'' by none other than our own government. That would be the same government that allowed Hillary Clinton to play hooky from the Congressional hearings about the massacre. (Perhaps protecting her potential 2016 run for the presidency?) The same government who put other witnesses in fear of their lives and would not allow them to speak publicly about the ordeal. The same government that sees the coverup unraveling and is still trying to knit the pieces back together.Let's take a look at the ''discrediting'' of this alleged witness.

CBS News acknowledged on Friday that it had suffered a damaging blow to its credibility. Its top executive called the segment ''as big a mistake as there has been'' in the 45-year-old history of the celebrated news program.

The executive, Jeff Fager, conceded that CBS appeared to have been duped by the primary source for the report, a security official who told a national television audience a harrowing tale of the attack last year at the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. On Thursday night it was disclosed that the official, Dylan Davies, had provided a completely different account in interviews with the F.B.I., in which he said he never made it to the mission that night.

Mr. Davies, identified as Morgan Jones on the ''60 Minutes'' report and on the jacket of his book, ''The Embassy House,'' gave three separate interviews to the F.B.I., according to Obama administration officials. Each time he described the events in ways that diverged from his account to CBS, when he claimed to have been personally involved in the action during the attack '-- to the point of disabling one of the attackers with a blow from a rifle.

His interviews with the F.B.I., disclosed Thursday night by The New York Times, were critical in the unraveling of his story. Mr. Davies had already told his employer, the security firm Blue Mountain, that he never appeared at the mission the night of the attack, and the firm had prepared an incident report with that information. Mr. Davies contended that he had not created or approved the incident report and that he had needed to lie to his employer because he had defied orders to remain at his villa. The justification for believing him, Mr. Fager said Friday, was Mr. Davies's assurance that had told the real truth to the F.B.I., one that would corroborate his account to CBS.

With agents unable to operate freely in Benghazi, the F.B.I., which is conducting an investigation into the attack, has struggled to get interviews with the guards hired to protect the mission and other witnesses. That has forced the agents to rely on the accounts provided by State Department officials and contractors who have left the country. As part of those efforts, the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Davies by phone, teleconference and in Wales, where Mr. Davies lives. (source)

Was CBS under government pressure to retract this story? Was Simon & Schuster forced to pull the books from the shelves? It seems that there is a governmental cloak of secrecy over the attack on the embassy. Files have been sealed. Families have more questions than answers about what happened on that fateful night.Here is the section of Davies' book that tells about his dealings with the FBI.

Barely minutes later my phone rang. ''Morgan Jones.'' ''Mr. Jones, this is Sam Peterson from the U.S. State Department. I think you were expecting our call.'' ''Yes. I'm good to talk.'' ''Right, thank you, sir, because right now we really do appreciate it. Stay on the line: it'll take a few moments to get everyone patched in and seated and listening.'' I supped some more beer as I waited. ''Okay, we're all in now. So, Mr. Jones, please tell us everything that you have seen and heard over the last forty-eight hours.'' Fuck me, where did I start? I began relating the lead-up to the attack, then moved on to the events of the night just gone. I found myself reliving it all, and at one moment I found myself breaking down again and the words just wouldn't come. I heard another voice break into the call.

''Look, this guy just isn't up to this

Pause. ''Sir? Mr. Morgan, we can get someone to that airport to sit with you until your flight is called.'' ''No, no. It's okay. I'm fine.'' ''If you want out of that place we can get you to the Embassy.'' ''No, I'm okay. I just want to go home.'' ''Understood, sir. Well, if you think you're able to continue?'' I said I was. I talked them through the events leading up to now, and somehow I got through it all. Then the questions began. ''How many attackers were there?'' ''I don't know, but I was told two hundred minimum. Maybe as many as six hundred.'' ''What time did you find the Ambassador dead?'' ''Sometime around two in the morning.'' ''Who were the attackers?'' ''Shariah Brigade.'' The questions went on and on. When they were finally done, I mentioned the fact that I had the photos from the compound, those that I'd taken when I'd gone back to document the crime scene. ''Hell, we need those ASAP. We have zero. We got nothing.'' ''I'll email them as soon as I get home. I'll need an email address.'' ''We'll get one to you. We would really, really appreciate those photos.'' ''You know about the Libyan policeman taking the recce photos?'' ''Say again.''

I related the story about the Libyan cop'-- or the guy posing as a cop'-- who'd taken all the shots of the Mission's front entrance the morning before the attack. ''No shit. We gotta get someone over to the U.K. to talk to you. Are you up for that?'' I told them that I was. ''So first priority is to email us those photos,'' the guy from State summarized. ''Then we'll see about getting our people to you for a face-to-face.'' That was the call. I downed a few gin-and-tonics just for the extra peace of mind, then made my way toward the gate.

I'd barely settled into my seat before I'd fallen into the sleep of the dead. It was a good nine or ten hours later by the time I finally reached home. Robert was waiting for me, and he warned me that the media had started hounding already. He told me that my default response should be ''No comment.'' I told him that I didn't need this shit. I just wanted to be around those I loved in peace and in quiet. I emailed all the photos that I had taken to the guy I'd spoken to at the State Department. I got a response back almost instantaneously: ''Thank you very much for all of them. Brilliant. This is all we have.'' That evening the four dead Americans were named on the news: Ambassador Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, and Sean Smith. Hearing of Sean's death was heartbreaking. He'd been there only a week and he wasn't even a soldier. He was the IT man and a State Department guy through and through.

I remembered telling Sean just a day or so before not to worry, for we'd never had a serious attack at the Mission. I'd said it just to put his mind at rest. Now he was dead, and there was a grieving wife and two children in The Hague. I still had the fifty-euro note that Sean had given me to change into Libyan dinar so that he could buy some silk scarves for his wife. I pulled it out of my wallet, but I couldn't even bring myself to look at it. I locked it away in a drawer. Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods I didn't know if I'd met. I'd run into guys from the Annex, but we'd never properly swapped names. Both men were ex'' Navy SEALs, and they'd been working at the Annex as private security guys. Their acts during the Embassy siege would turn out to be utterly selfless'-- the deeds of true heroes. I still didn't know exactly what had happened to Dave or Scotty, or the Ambassador's close protection team, and there was little peace to be had at home.

An FBI team was due to fly in from the States to speak with me. Every agency from America kept calling and asking me to tell them my story, and while I knew how important this was, repeating it over and over and over was cracking me up inside. Read more at leestranahan.comIs Davies really a fraud or is this just another layer to the Benghazi cover-up?

We may never know, because Davies is nowhere to be found. CBS executive Jeff Fager says that he has ''gone into hiding.''

Kimberly Paxton is a staff writer for the Daily Sheeple, where this first appeared. She is based out of upstate New York.

BE THE CHANGE! PLEASE SHARE THIS USING THE TOOLS BELOW

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:26

In a paper by Y. Han (Andy) Kim,Nanyang Technological University and Felix MeschkeUniversity of Kansas, they write:The magnitude of price response [after a CEO is interviewed on CNBC] is positively correlated with the viewership as well as the language tone of the CEO. We find that individual investors are net buyers on the interview days, and that they keep on buying if the interview was both carried out by attractive anchorwoman and was watched by more male viewers.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:45

As Pfizer Pharmaceuticals pays out millions of dollars in claims related to depression and suicide associated with the antismoking drug Chantix, a study published September 13 in AJP in Advance found that the drug may be no more harmful than other smoking-cessation therapies.

Researchers in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago and at Columbia University conducted the largest randomized controlled trial to date evaluating the safety and efficacy of varenicline'-- a nicotine receptor partial agonist and the active ingredient in the product Chantix.

Anchor for JumpAnchor for JumpJ. John Mann, M.D. (left), and Robert Gibbons, Ph.D., reanalyzed previous data concerning varenicline and found it was not linked to suicide events, depression, or aggression.

Courtesty of Columbia University and University of Chicago

According to study authors J. John Mann, M.D., and Robert Gibbons, Ph.D., since the Food and Drug Administration issued a black-box warning for Chantix in 2009, varenicline has been extensively studied for its association with neuropsychiatric events, but results have been inconsistent, and the studies have had major limitations.

''There are very few meta-analyses evaluating the effect of varenicline at a personal level,'' Mann told Psychiatric News. He said that it is important to conduct more studies in clinical settings with limited exclusionary criteria, which will allow assessments of more-realistic outcomes. ''In reality, we see people who want to quit smoking with unstable diabetes, heart disease, taking medication for 10 different conditions. Conducting randomized controlled trials in the clinic is important because the patterns of findings may be different.''

Mann, who is the Paul Janssen Professor of Translational Neuroscience in Psychiatry at Columbia, explained that the current study used ''a highly optimized design that is rarely employed'''--a reevaluation of the most pivotal randomized controlled trials of varenicline to thoroughly investigate the causes of psychiatric episodes of each participant.

With information from more than 40,000 subjects, the authors reanalyzed data from 17 placebo-controlled trials conducted by Pfizer to assess smoking abstinence, suicidal ideation, depression, aggression, and nausea in participants with and without a history of psychiatric illness. In addition, data from the Department of Defense were evaluated to compare the rates of neuropsychiatric events and psychiatric symptoms among military health system patients receiving varenicline or nicotine-replacement therapy.

The data showed that varenicline was highly associated with inducing nausea among patients, but not with suicide events, depression, or aggression. Current or past psychiatric illness increased the risk of neuropsychiatric events equally among the varenicline and placebo groups.

In the drug-comparison studies, the rate of neuropsychiatric events in the varenicline cohort was significantly less than in those receiving nicotine-replacement therapy. Overall, varenicline was more successful in achieving smoking abstinence than placebo or alternative smoking-cessation therapies.

''While varenicline is known to be effective, doctors and patients have been reluctant to prescribe varenicline because of concerns regarding its association with neuropsychiatric events,'' said Gibbons, director of the Center for Health Statistics at the University of Chicago. He noted that the study added to the literature by showing that increased risk for psychiatric symptoms is not found when studies look at a highly diverse population. ''Based on these findings, clinicians who were concerned that varenicline increased the risk of neuropsychiatric events should reconsider its use,'' Gibbons added.

When Psychiatric News asked Mann why he thinks thousands of varenicline users have reported adverse psychiatric effects, he replied, ''People who smoke have more pronounced aggressive and impulsive traits'--smoking is associated with suicidal behavior and mood change'--[and] sometimes the side effects or adverse effects reported are due to nicotine withdrawal or the loss of the cognitive-enhancing effects of nicotine.''

Mann also noted that when any medication receives negative media attention for adverse events, clinicians are more likely to inquire about these side effects, and patients are more likely to report them. ''Some reports are due to the patient being alert to the possibility [of a side effect] and [thus] more likely to report its occurrence, and sometimes the person feels that they have the complication, but objective examination fails to confirm this,'' Mann said.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Gibbons served as an expert witness for Pfizer in a case related to varenicline and neuropsychiatric adverse events. Pfizer provided no financial support. '–

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By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

The World Health Organization has approved a new vaccine for a strain of encephalitis that kills thousands of children and leaves many survivors with permanent brain damage.

The move allows United Nations agencies and other donors to buy it.

The disease, called Japanese encephalitis or brain fever, is caused by a mosquito-transmitted virus that can live in pigs, birds and humans. Less than 1 percent of those infected get seriously ill, but it kills up to 15,000 children a year and disables many more. Up to four billion people, from southern Russia to the Pacific islands, are at risk; it is more prevalent near rice paddies.

There is no cure.

The low-cost vaccine, approved last month, is the first authorized by the agency for children and the first Chinese-made vaccine it has approved.

It is made by China National Biotec Group and was tested by PATH, a nonprofit group in Seattle with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr. Margaret Chan, W.H.O.'s director-general, said she hoped that approval would encourage other vaccine makers from China and elsewhere to enter the field.

China had given the vaccine domestically to 200 million children over many years but had never sought W.H.O. approval.

India, which previously bought 88 million doses from China, launched the first locally produced version last month.

A Novartis vaccine for Japanese encephalitis, Ixiaro, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. But travel clinics charge $200 or more for it. Two weeks after the W.H.O. approved the Chinese vaccine, the F.D.A. granted Ixiaro's maker seven years of exclusivity.

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EncephalitisClassification and external resourcesCoronal T2-weighted MR image shows high signal in the temporal lobes including hippocampal formations and parahippocampal gyrae, insulae, and right inferior frontal gyrus. A brain biopsy was performed and the histology was consistent with encephalitis. PCR was repeated on the biopsy specimen and was positive for HSV

ICD-10A83-A86, B94.1, G05ICD-9323DiseasesDB22543MedlinePlus001415eMedicineemerg/163MeSHD004660Encephalitis (from Ancient Greek ἐÎ"κέφαÎ>>ÎÏ‚, egk(C)phalos ''brain'',[1] composed of ἐν en, ''in'' and κεφαÎ>>ή kephal(C), ''head'', and the medical suffix -itis ''inflammation'') is an acuteinflammation of the brain. Encephalitis with meningitis is known as meningoencephalitis. Symptoms include headache, fever, confusion, drowsiness, and fatigue. More advanced and serious symptoms include seizures or convulsions, tremors, hallucinations, and memory problems.

Signs and symptoms[edit]Adult patients with encephalitis present with acute onset of fever, headache, confusion, and sometimes seizures. Younger children or infants may present irritability, poor appetite and fever.[citation needed]

Neurological examinations usually reveal a drowsy or confused patient. Stiff neck, due to the irritation of the meninges covering the brain, indicates that the patient has either meningitis or meningoencephalitis.[citation needed]

Viral[edit]Viral encephalitis can occur either as a direct effect of an acute infection, or as one of the sequelae of a latent infection. The most common causes of acute viral encephalitis are rabies virus, Herpes simplex, poliovirus, measles virus, and JC virus.[citation needed] Other causes include infection by flaviviruses such as Japanese encephalitis virus, St. Louis encephalitis virus or West Nile virus, or by Togaviridae such as Eastern equine encephalitis virus (EEE virus), Western equine encephalitis virus (WEE virus) or Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus (VEE virus). Henipaviruses; Hendra (HeV) and Nipah (NiV), are also known to cause viral encephalitis.[citation needed]

Bacterial and other[edit]It can be caused by a bacterial infection, such as bacterial meningitis, spreading directly to the brain (primary encephalitis), or may be a complication of a current infectious disease syphilis (secondary encephalitis). Certain parasitic or protozoal infestations, such as toxoplasmosis, malaria, or primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, can also cause encephalitis in people with compromisedimmune systems. Lyme disease and/or Bartonella henselae may also cause encephalitis. Cryptococcus neoformans is notorious for causing fungal encephalitis in the immunocompromised. Streptococci, staphylococci and certain Gram-negative bacilli cause cerebritis prior to the formation of a brain abscess.[citation needed]

Limbic system encephalitis[edit]In a large number of cases, called limbic encephalitis, the pathogens responsible for encephalitis attack primarily the limbic system (a collection of structures at the base of the brain responsible for emotions and many other basic functions).[citation needed]

Autoimmune encephalitis[edit]It has recently been recognised that there are types of encephalitis resulting from an attack of the brain by the body's immune system. These autoimmune conditions include but are not limited to VGKC antibody associated encephalitis, Anti-GAD antibody associated encephalitis, NMDA receptor antibody associated encephalitis, and Hashimoto's encephalitis.[citation needed]

The majority of patients with autoimmune encephalitis do not harbor a tumor and the etiology of the disease in these patients is less clear, often leading to a delayed diagnosis.[citation needed]

Encephalitis lethargica[edit]Encephalitis lethargica is an atypical form of encephalitis which caused an epidemic from 1918 to 1930. Those who survived sank into a semi-conscious state that lasted for decades. Neurologist Oliver Sacks used the Parkinson's drug L-DOPA to revive those still alive in the late 1960s.

There have been only a small number of isolated cases in the years since, though in recent years a few patients have shown very similar symptoms. The cause is now thought to be either a bacterial agent or an autoimmune response following infection.

Diagnosis[edit]Examination of the cerebrospinal fluid obtained by a lumbar puncture procedure usually reveals increased amounts of protein and white blood cells with normal glucose, though in a significant percentage of patients, the cerebrospinal fluid may be normal. CT scan often is not helpful, as cerebral abscess is uncommon. Cerebral abscess is more common in patients with meningitis than encephalitis. Bleeding is also uncommon except in patients with herpes simplex type 1 encephalitis. Magnetic resonance imaging offers better resolution. In patients with herpes simplex encephalitis, electroencephalograph may show sharp waves in one or both of the temporal lobes. Lumbar puncture procedure is performed only after the possibility of prominent brain swelling is excluded by a CT scan examination. Diagnosis is often made with detection of antibodies in the cerebrospinal fluid against a specific viral agent (such as herpes simplex virus) or by polymerase chain reaction that amplifies the RNA or DNA of the virus responsible (such as varicella zoster virus). Serological tests may show high antibody titre against the causative antigen.[citation needed]

Treatment[edit]Treatment is usually symptomatic. Reliably tested specific antiviral agents are few in number (e.g. acyclovir for herpes simplex virus) and are used with limited success in treatment of viral infection, with the exception of herpes simplex encephalitis. In patients who are very sick, supportive treatment, such as mechanical ventilation, is equally important. Corticosteroids (e.g., methylprednisolone) are used to reduce brain swelling and inflammation. Sedatives may be needed for irritability or restlessness. For Mycoplasma infection, parenteraltetracycline is given. Encephalitis due to Toxoplasma is treated by giving a combination of pyrimethamine and sulphadimidine.[citation needed]

Prevention[edit]Vaccination is available against tick-borne[2] and Japanese encephalitis[3] and should be considered for at-risk individuals.

Post-infectious encephalomyelitis complicating small pox vaccination is totally avoidable now as small pox is now eradicated. Contraindication to Pertussis immunisation should be observed in patients with encephalitis. An immunodeficient patient who has had contact with chicken pox virus should be given prophylaxis with hyperimmune zoster immunoglobulin.[citation needed]

Epidemiology[edit]The incidence of acute encephalitis in Western countries is 7.4 cases per 100,000 population per year. In tropical countries, the incidence is 6.34 per 100,000 per year.[4] As of 2010 it caused about 120,000 deaths, down from 144,000 in 1990.[5]

Herpes simplex encephalitis has an incidence of 2''4 per million population per year.[6]

See also[edit]References[edit]External links[edit]AcuteChronicProcessesSpecific locationsCNS (Encephalitis, Myelitis) ·Meningitis (Arachnoiditis) ·PNS (Neuritis) ·eye (Dacryoadenitis, Scleritis, Episcleritis, Keratitis, Choroiditis, Retinitis, Chorioretinitis, Blepharitis, Conjunctivitis, Uveitis) ·ear (Otitis, Labyrinthitis, Mastoiditis)mouth (Stomatitis, Gingivitis, Gingivostomatitis, Glossitis, Tonsillitis, Sialadenitis/Parotitis, Cheilitis, Pulpitis, Gnathitis) ·tract (Esophagitis, Gastritis, Gastroenteritis, Enteritis, Colitis, Enterocolitis, Duodenitis, Ileitis, Caecitis, Appendicitis, Proctitis) ·accessory (Hepatitis, Cholangitis, Cholecystitis, Pancreatitis) ·Peritonitis

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Source: Federal Register Latest Entries

Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:05

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined that the drug products listed in this document were not withdrawn from sale for reasons of safety or effectiveness. This determination means that FDA will not begin procedures to withdraw approval of abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) that refer to these drug products, and it will allow FDA to continue to approve ANDAs that refer to the products as long as they meet relevant legal and regulatory requirements.

Amy Hopkins, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, 10903 New Hampshire Ave., Bldg. 51, Rm. 6207, Silver Spring, MD 20993-0002, 301-796-5418.

In 1984, Congress enacted the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 (98) (the 1984 amendments), which authorized the approval of duplicate versions of drug products approved under an ANDA procedure. ANDA sponsors must, with certain exceptions, show that the drug for which they are seeking approval contains the same active ingredient in the same strength and dosage form as the ''listed drug,'' which is a version of the drug that was previously approved. Sponsors of ANDAs do not have to repeat the extensive clinical testing otherwise necessary to gain approval of a new drug application (NDA).

The 1984 amendments include what is now section 505(j)(7) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 355(j)(7)), which requires FDA to publish a list of all approved drugs. FDA publishes this list as part of the ''Approved Drug Products With Therapeutic Equivalence Evaluations,'' which is generally known as the ''Orange Book.'' Under FDA regulations, a drug is removed from the list if the Agency withdraws or suspends approval of the drug's NDA or ANDA for reasons of safety or effectiveness, or if FDA determines that the listed drug was withdrawn from sale for reasons of safety or effectiveness (21 CFR 314.162).

Under § 314.161(a) (21 CFR 314.161(a)), the Agency must determine whether a listed drug was withdrawn from sale for reasons of safety or effectiveness: (1) Before an ANDA that refers to that listed drug may be approved, (2) whenever a listed drug is voluntarily withdrawn from sale and ANDAs that refer to the listed drug have been approved, and (3) when a person petitions for such a determination under 21 CFR 10.25(a) and 10.30. Section 314.161(d) provides that if FDA determines that a listed drug was withdrawn from sale for safety or effectiveness reasons, the Agency will initiate proceedings that could result in the withdrawal of approval of the ANDAs that refer to the listed drug.

FDA has become aware that the drug products listed in the table in this document are no longer being marketed.

Application No.DrugApplicantNDA 011522ADDERALL (amphetamine aspartate; amphetamine sulfate; dextroamphetamine saccharate; dextroamphetamine sulfate) Tablet; Oral, 5 milligrams (mg), 7.5 mg, 10 mg, 12.5 mg, 15 mg, 20 mg, 30 mgTeva Womens Health Inc., 41 Moores Rd., P.O. Box 4011, Frazer, PA 19355.NDA 011601KENALOG (triamcinolone acetonide) Cream; Topical, 0.025%, 0.1%Apothecon Pharmaceuticals, General Offices, P.O. Box 4500, Princeton, NJ 08543-4500.NDA 013601MUCOMYST (acetylcysteine) Solution; Inhalation, Oral, 10%, 20%Do.NDA 018531NITROGLYCERIN (nitroglycerin) Injectable; Injection, 5mg/milliliter (mL)Hospira Inc., 275 North Field Dr., Bldg. H2, Lake Forest, IL 60045-5046.NDA 018726WESTCORT (hydrocortisone valerate) Ointment; Topical, 0.2%Ranbaxy Inc., 600 College Rd., East Princeton, NJ 08540.NDA 018830TAMBOCOR (flecainide acetate) Tablet; Oral, 50 mg, 100 mg, 150 mgMedicis Pharmaceutical Corp., 7720 North Dobson Rd., Scottsdale, AZ 85256.NDA 020336DYNACIRC CR (isradipine) Tablet; Extended Release, Oral, 5 mg, 10 mgGlaxoSmithKline LLC., 2711 Centerville Rd., Ste. 400, Wilmington, DE 19808.NDA 020518RETROVIR (zidovudine) Tablet; Oral, 300 mgViiV Healthcare, 5 Moore Dr., Research Triangle Park, NC 27709.NDA 021745RYZOLT (tramadol HCl) Tablet; Extended Release, Oral, 100 mg, 200 mg, 300 mgPurdue Pharma Products LP, 1 Stamford Forum, Stamford, CT 06901.NDA 022021ALTACE (ramipril) Tablet; Oral, 1.25 mg, 2.5 mg, 5 mg, 10 mgPfizer Inc., 501 5th St., Bristol, TN 37620.NDA 050808SOLODYN (minocycline HCl) Tablet; Extended Release; Equivalent to (EQ) 45 mg Base, EQ 90 mg Base, EQ 135 mg BaseMedicis Pharmaceutical Corp., 7720 North Dobson Rd., Scottsdale, AZ 85256.ANDA 081295ESTRACE (estradiol) Tablet; Oral, 0.5 mgBristol Myers Squibb, P.O. Box 4000, Princeton, NJ 08543.ANDA 084499ESTRACE (estradiol) Tablet; Oral, 1 mgDo.ANDA 084500ESTRACE (estradiol) Tablet; Oral, 2 mgDo.FDA has reviewed its records and, under § 314.161, has determined that the drug products listed in this document were not withdrawn from sale for reasons of safety or effectiveness. Accordingly, the Agency will continue to list the drug products listed in this document in the ''Discontinued Drug Product List'' section of the Orange Book. The ''Discontinued Drug Product List'' identifies, among other items, drug products that have been discontinued from marketing for reasons other than safety or effectiveness.

Approved ANDAs that refer to the NDAs and ANDAs listed in this document are unaffected by the discontinued marketing of the products subject to those NDAs and ANDAs. Additional ANDAs that refer to these products may also be approved by the Agency if they comply with relevant legal and regulatory requirements. If FDA determines that labeling for these drug products should be revised to meet current standards, the Agency will advise ANDA applicants to submit such labeling.

Dated: November 5, 2013.

Leslie Kux,

Assistant Commissioner for Policy.

[FR Doc. 2013-26856 Filed 11-8-13; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 4160-01-P

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Source: Federal Register Latest Entries

Sat, 09 Nov 2013 23:59

This notice is effective on November 12, 2013. As described below, all vaccines against seasonal influenza (except trivalent influenza vaccines, which are already covered under the VICP) will be covered under the VICP on November 12, 2013.

Vito Caserta, M.D., M.P.H., Acting Director, Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation, Healthcare Systems Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration, Parklawn Building, Room 11C-26, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, Maryland 20857; telephone number (301) 443-5287.

The statute authorizing the VICP provides for the inclusion of additional vaccines in the VICP when they are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to the Secretary for routine administration to children. See section 2114(e)(2) of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act, 42 U.S.C. 300aa-14(e)(2). Consistent with section 13632(a)(3) of 103, the regulations governing the VICP provide that such vaccines will be included as covered vaccines in the Table as of the effective date of an excise tax to provide funds for the payment of compensation with respect to such vaccines (42 CFR 100.3(c)(5)).

By way of background, trivalent influenza vaccines (meaning they each contain three vaccine virus strains which are thought most likely to cause disease outbreaks during the influenza season) are routinely given to millions of individuals in the United States each year. Trivalent influenza vaccines include an inactivated (killed) virus vaccine administered using a syringe as well as a live, attenuated product administered in a nasal spray. All trivalent vaccines have been covered under the VICP since July 1, 2005. On April 12, 2005, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) published a notice in the Federal Register announcing that such vaccines were covered under the category for new vaccines on the Table. See 70 FR 19092. Subsequently, the Secretary engaged in rulemaking to add trivalent influenza vaccines as a separate category on the Table (category XIV on the Table). See 76 FR 36367.

Since that time, quadrivalent influenza vaccines (meaning that they contain four vaccine virus strains which are thought most likely to cause disease outbreaks during the influenza season) have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and such vaccines are expected to be administered as an alternative to trivalent influenza vaccines during the upcoming and future flu seasons. On June 25, 2013, Public Law 113-15 was enacted, extending the applicable excise tax on trivalent influenza vaccines to also include any other vaccines against seasonal influenza. See Public Law 113-15 (amending 26 U.S.C. § 4132(a)(1)(N)).

The amendment included in Public Law 113-15 ensures that all FDA-approved seasonal influenza vaccines, including quadrivalent influenza vaccines, and other new seasonal influenza vaccines are covered under the VICP. Under the regulations governing the VICP, Category XVII of the Table specifies that ''[a]ny new vaccine recommended by CDC for routine administration to children, after publication by the Secretary of a notice of coverage'' is a covered vaccine under the Table (42 CFR 100.3(a), Item XVII). As explained in HRSA's notice of coverage with respect to the coverage of trivalent influenza vaccines, the CDC recommended in its May 28, 2004, issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that influenza vaccines be routinely administered to children between 6 and 23 months of age because children in this age group are at an increased risk for complications from influenza. That recommendation extends to seasonal influenza vaccines beyond trivalent vaccines. The latest CDC update of its annual influenza vaccination recommendation was published in the MMWR on September 20, 2013. MMWR 2013;62, No. 7. This report updated the 2012 recommendations by the CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices regarding the use of influenza vaccines for the prevention and control of seasonal influenza. Routine annual influenza vaccination is recommended for all persons aged 6 months and older. For the 2013-14 influenza season, it is expected that trivalent live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV3) will be replaced by a quadrivalent LAIV formulation (LAIV4). Inactivated influenza vaccines (IIVs) will be available in both trivalent (IIV3) and quadrivalent (IIV4) formulations. No preferential recommendation was made for one influenza vaccine product over another for persons for whom more than one product is otherwise appropriate.

This notice serves to satisfy the regulation's publication requirement. Through this notice, all vaccines against seasonal influenza (beyond trivalent influenza vaccines, which are already covered under Category XIV on the Table) are included as covered vaccines under Category XVII of the Table (new vaccines).

Under section 2114(e) of the PHS Act, as amended by section 13632(a) of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, coverage for a vaccine recommended by the CDC for routine administration to children shall take effect upon the effective date of the tax enacted to provide funds for compensation with respect to the vaccine included as a covered vaccine in the Table. Under Public Law 113-15, the excise tax for vaccines against seasonal influenza (beyond trivalent influenza vaccines) ''shall apply to sales and uses on or after the later of: (A) The first day of the first month which begins more than 4 weeks after the date of the enactment of this Act [i.e., Pub. L. 113- 15]; or (B) the date on which the Secretary of Health and Human Services lists any vaccines against seasonal influenza (other than any vaccine against seasonal influenza listed by the Secretary prior to the date of the enactment of this Act) for purposes of compensation for any vaccine-related injury or death through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund.'' Public Law 113-15, § 1. The law further provides that if the vaccines were sold before or on the effective date of the excise tax, but delivered after this date, the delivery date of such vaccines shall be considered the sale date. Id.

Under this statutory language, the effective date of the excise tax for seasonal influenza vaccines other than trivalent influenza vaccines is the later of August 1, 2013 (which is the first day of the first month beginning more than 4 weeks after the effective date of Public Law 113-15, which was June 25, 2013), or the date on which the Secretary publishes a notice of coverage under the VICP for seasonal influenza vaccines not previously covered under the VICP. This publication is the notice referred to in the latter requirement. Because this publication is made after August 1, 2013, the effective date of coverage for all vaccines against seasonal influenza (beyond trivalent influenza vaccines, which are already covered by the VICP) is the effective date of this publication, November 12, 2013.

Petitions filed concerning vaccine-related injuries or deaths associated with all vaccines against seasonal influenza vaccines must be filed within the applicable statute of limitations. The filing limitations applicable to petitions filed with the VICP are set out in section 2116(a) of the PHS Act (42 U.S.C. 300aa-16(a)). In addition, section 2116(b) of the PHS Act lays out specific exceptions to these statutes of limitations that apply when the effect of a revision to the Table makes a previously ineligible person eligible to receive compensation or when an eligible person's likelihood of obtaining compensation significantly increases. Under this provision, persons who may be eligible to file petitions based on the addition of a new category of vaccines under Category XVII of the Table may file a petition for compensation not later than 2 years after the effective date of the revision if the injury or death occurred not more than 8 years before the effective date of the revision of the Table (42 U.S.C. 300aa-16(b)). Thus, persons whose petitions may not be timely under the limitations periods described in section 2116(a) of the PHS Act, may still file petitions concerning vaccine-related injuries or deaths associated with seasonal influenza vaccines (with the exception of trivalent influenza vaccines that are already covered under the VICP) until November 12, 2015, as long as the vaccine-related injury or death occurred on or before November 12, 2021 (8 years prior to the effective date of the addition of non-trivalent seasonal influenza vaccines as covered vaccines).

The Table will be amended through subsequent rulemaking to include all vaccines against seasonal influenza in place of only trivalent influenza vaccines under Category XIV of the Table. Once that is done, the Table's coverage provisions (codified at 42 CFR 100.3(c)) will explain that trivalent influenza vaccines are included on the Table as of July 1, 2005, and that other seasonal influenza vaccines are included on the Table as of November 12, 2013.

Dated: November 5, 2013.

Mary K. Wakefield,

Administrator.

[FR Doc. 2013-26992 Filed 11-8-13; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 4165-15-P

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 07 Nov 2013 21:58

NOAA: No giant floating island of tsunami debris1 hour agoFederal officials say there is no island of debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami floating toward the United States.

Some media reports have warned of a Texas-sized island of wreckage, based on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration map of tsunami debris.

But NOAA marine debris chief Nancy Wallace says that's not true. She said Thursday that there's an area in the Pacific where debris is likely to concentrate more, but there's not much there.

She said if you were on a boat in that area, the chances are you'd only be able to see maybe one or two pieces of debris.

NOAA estimates 1.5 million tons of tsunami debris is dispersed across the vast northern Pacific, but officials have only verified 35 items as from the tsunami.

Explore further:Minimal amount of debris from Japan's tsunami has washed ashore in California

(C) 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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Archived Version

Sat, 09 Nov 2013 22:30

News and notesAs part of the second major "outing" controversy to hit the English Wikipedia in less than a year, the Chelsea/Bradley Manning naming dispute was dragged into the spotlight yet again when the English Wikipedia's Arbitration Committeeruled by motion to remove the administrator tools from long-time Wikipedia contributor Phil Sandifer and to ban him from the site. The committee stated that a personal blog post by Sandifer, which extensively profiled the real-life name, location, and employers of a user involved with the Chelsea Manning renaming case, went too far'--violating a formerly little-used policy corner of the English Wikipedia, "outing", which governs the release of editors' personal information.

Sandifer's ban was surprising in that it was based solely on content published outside Wikipedia; he did not link to his writing or publish any personal information on the English Wikipedia, Wikimedia sites, or associated content areas, such as mailing lists and IRCs. It was instead published solely on his personal blog, focusing on the editor Cla68.

The committee's decision to take action was split into three clauses. The first, which passed 9''2, declared that Sandifer broke policy, while the second removed his administrator tools and had slightly less support at 8''3. The third clause indefinitely banned Sandifer. It passed with the least amount of support: seven in favor, three opposed (Kirill Lokshin, David Fuchs, Carcharoth) and one abstention (Risker).

The Signpost has examined statements by arbitrators on both sides of the issue and contacted specific members for comments, in addition to collecting reactions from Wikipedians on the talk page of the Committee's noticeboard.

What has been revealed?In his 22 October blog post, "Wikipedia Goes All-In on Transphobia", Sandifer revealed personal information about Cla68's location and occupation to make a point about what he considered a conflict of interest in the Chelsea Manning naming case. The post contrasted the associations'--and potential conflicts of interests'--of editors such as David Gerard, who was recently topic-banned by the Committee, to that of Cla68, who received no sanctions. (Editor's note: in keeping with the Signpost's practice in covering outing policy, we give no direct hyperlink to Sandifer's blog post.)

One paragraph in Sandifer's lengthy piece brought up Cla68's involvement in the naming dispute and potential conflict with his occupation, noting that Cla68's background was "a fact he has studiously attempted to hide" from the Internet community. When Sandifer's post was brought to the attention of the Committee, it probably raised red flags, on the basis that revealing this information could be considered "outing" Cla68 against his wishes. For his part, Cla68 told the Signpost:

''With the Manning article, several Wikipedia "old-hands" were trying to use their insider status to try to influence the outcome of a topic debate in which they had an openly activist agenda. After I presented evidence of this in the ArbCom case, one of the participants then appeared to try to retaliate by posting some very personal, but unnecessary information about me in a public forum. To me, it showed that he was not going to stop escalating his battle over that particular topic area in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not supposed to be used as an activist battleground. When someone openly shows that they're not going to stop doing it, especially when they're an admin, then they need to have their access revoked.''Whether it actually constituted an outing by the definition of Wikipedia policy has been a point of debate. In the past, Cla68 has given his full name to a number of media organizations, such as an interview with The Register (UK), and on-wiki in a 2009 "Not the Wikipedia Weekly" episode. As for location, Cla68 has declared his basic prefecture-level geographic location on his user page since 2006. He has also given the name of the city where he once lived on more than one occasion, including in several early revisions on his userpage. However, Cla has never, on Wikipedia, named his current location.

A second claim, that he has never revealed his employer, falls into a far grayer area. Cla68 did detail his work history on at least one open forum that is easily found with an Internet search engine, and on Wikipedia he has edited on multiple occasions'--perhaps inadvertently'--from an IP traceable to his employer. However, the exact details of his occupation (detailed in Sandifer's blog post) did not seem to be previously widely known, and confirming them requires either an inference or some level of off-wiki research.

Sandifer told the Signpost that his alleged outing was discerned from a careful reading of Wikipedia edits and by making inferences from them'--which in a careful reading could fall under the "although references to still-existing, self-disclosed information is not considered outing" clause of the English Wikipedia's harassment policy. Still, given the context of the surrounding text, it could be taken in the opposite direction. The policy also provides guidance, though unclear in places: "If an editor has previously posted their own personal information but later redacted it, it should not be repeated on Wikipedia; although references to still-existing, self-disclosed information is not considered outing. If the previously posted information has been removed by oversight, then repeating it on Wikipedia is considered outing."

Previous outingOddly, Cla68 was himself accused of revealing the personal information of another editor earlier this year. As in this case, the information was published on an outside site'--Wikipediocracy, a well-known forum that is openly critical of the English Wikipedia, where he is a "global moderator." Wikipediocracy has been a host to many personal attacks and outing efforts. For his part, Cla68 told the Signpost that Wikipediocracy moderators "quickly remove overly personal details like phone numbers, home addresses, etc. and usually move the rest to non-public forums. I myself never take part in trying to find personal details on other people. I stay out of it."

For the March story, when the Signpost asked Cla68 how his actions did not constitute outing, he stated:

''...each individual Internet user is responsible for their own privacy. If someone is at least making an effort to be private, then Wikipedia should try to help them maintain their privacy. In this case, however, the editor in question was not making much effort at all, if any, to protect his privacy. In that case, it makes WP's administration look very foolish to act like a serious violation of privacy had occurred.''When prompted with this incident and the above quote, Sandifer commented to us that "I'm more than a little worried that the real objection is the fact that I've been so publicly criticizing people, and that my reporting got picked up by the Guardian. Clearly this isn't really about outing for Cla68. And the shockingly severe sanction makes me worry that it's not really about the outing for the committee either. I dearly hope I'm wrong, of course, and that this is simply a misunderstanding."

Ensuing debateIn discussions after the case, some of the arbitrators detailed their stance in an extensive, spirited debate with community members.

Newyorkbrad, who voted for all three clauses, commented that "it is unacceptable for an administrator, or for any editor sufficiently experienced to be aware of our policies and project norms, to escalate an on-wiki disagreement by publicizing the real-life identity, employer, and geographical location of a fellow editor, as Phil Sandifer ("Phil") did in this instance." Risker, who voted to reprimand and remove Sandifer's adminship, but abstained from a full ban, elaborated on her role:

''I wrote to Phil personally to ask him to consider removing the non-public personal information involved from the blog (and only that information'--even if I disagree with him on several points, I believe his blog is otherwise fair comment), but he responded very clearly that he had no intention of removing the information. I don't believe administrators should be posting that kind of information about other Wikipedians, no matter how strongly they disagree with them. Thus I supported the desysop.''In opposition, arbitrator Kirill Lokshin noted the problem of banning a Wikipedian for aggregating existing information together as a case of outing. To the Committee's mailing list, repeated in communications to the Signpost, he was blunt: "It's untenable for us to pretend that someone's identity is private when they're openly making statements to the press under their real name." Fellow arbitrator David Fuchs, who voted against banning Sandifer, was more nuanced, saying that while Sandifer's blog post was "unnecessary, unhelpful, [and] poorly reasoned", "off-wiki conduct alone is generally not enough to provoke on-wiki sanctions."

David Gerard and Morwen, previous parties involved in the transgender individuals dispute, both vigorously disagreed with the Committee's decision. Gerard disputed the nature of the outing: "It wouldn't pass muster as material to out a user on-site, but it certainly passes muster as an exercise in applied journalism, which is what the post was. So the arbcom has now banned someone from Wikipedia for journalism about Wikipedia."

Samuel Klein, a member of the Wikimedia Foundation's board of trustees, was disappointed: "This does look like a successful breach experiment. Extraordinary and heartbreaking that it extended to a ban."

In the extended discussion about the decision, long-time Wikipedia editor Jehochman echoed the views of a number of commenters about the nature of "outing" someone with known information.

''ArbCom's action creates the appearance that Phil was sanctioned for challenging ArbCom's authority. Risker wrote to him; he refused to comply with her chilling request; and he got banned. AGK has asserted that private info was revealed, when no such thing happened. Cla68 looks like he was head hunting Phil, and snookered ArbCom into doing his bidding. ... Once the subject voluntarily places information in the public view, he can no longer claim outing. He might be able to claim harassment or stalking, but I'm not seeing either of those yet.''Beeblebrox, who was involved with the blocking of Cla68 in March and whom the Committee has granted oversight powers, expressed dismay: "I don't often comment on ArbCom decisions, but this one is so puzzlingly inconsistent and weird I feel compelled to comment ... This is the most schizophrenic thing this schizophrenic incarnation of ArbCom has done yet. Some of you have been consistent as individuals but as a group you have been wildly inconsistent. I can't say it has been a pleasure working for this particular committee and I sincerely hope there are is a substantial turnover in the next election."

Under the committee's interpretation of the outing policy, all external links to Sandifer's blog post on the English Wikipedia have been systematically removed and the revisions oversighted.

Editor's notes: The authors have had several minor interactions with participants on both sides over the years. The ed17 has collaborated on several English Wikipedia featured articles with Cla68.Wikipedia Weekly's podcast #104, which Fuzheado hosts in concert with other Wikipedia editors, had hyperlinks to Phil Sandifer's blog post when discussing the block of David Gerard. The episode was released 22 October 2013. Though the podcast and its participants did not mention the case of Cla68 or his personal details, the wiki page has since been "oversighted" and a link was removed by arbitrator AGK on 7 November.While the original Committee motion did not mention the username in question, it was revealed as Cla68 on the talk page of the Arbitration Committee's noticeboard.In briefWikipedia Zero expands to Myanmar: The Wikimedia Foundation has announced via press release that it has furthered its Wikipedia Zero partnership with the Telenor Group, a global telecommunications company headquartered in Norway, to include the nation of Myanmar in Southeast Asia. The agreement comes after Telenor applied for and was one of a few companies to receive a telecommunications license in Myanmar, which was one of the world's last untapped markets for cell-phone usage. Eight months after the company comes to an agreement with the country's government, it plans to launch teleservices that will include free access to Wikipedia.In related news, the Foundation has released a video of South African students reading an open letter to telecommunications companies, asking them for free access to Wikipedia through Wikipedia Zero. The video's description explains why: "In much of the world, many students only way to study and access knowledge is through Wikipedia on their mobile phones. Six out of seven persons on the planet has a cellphone today. While cellphones are a means of access to Wikipedia, the data charges can be very expensive for many. That leaves many students with a choice to study or save money." The video has spawned a Change.org petition.FLC elections closed: After a 15-day voting period, the 2013 featured list candidates elections are over. The two new delegates are Crisco 1492 and SchroCat, who join Giants2008 and Hahc21.Affcom: The Affiliations Committee has published a call for volunteers. The committee advises the Foundation's board of trustees on which provisional movement affiliates should be approved.WMF audit: The results of the Foundation's fiscal year 2012''13 audit have been published on the Foundation's official wiki.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 19:34

8 November 2013Last updated at 04:38 ET By Bethany BellBBC NewsMany Jews in Europe say anti-Semitism is increasing, particularly on the internet, according to a survey by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).

The survey of 5,847 Jewish people said 66% of those who responded considered anti-Semitism to be a problem.

Three out of four respondents, 76%, believed anti-Semitism had increased over the past five years.

The survey was carried out in 2012 in eight countries which are home to about 90% of the EU's Jewish population.

Respondents in Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Sweden and the United Kingdom were asked to give "their opinions and perceptions on anti-Semitic trends and anti-Semitism as a problem in everyday".

They were also asked about their personal experiences and worries about their own safety and that of family members.

There was particular concern about anti-Semitism online. About three-quarters of respondents considered that to be a problem which is getting worse.

A British woman in her 50s, quoted in the survey, said she had "experienced more anti-Semitic comments" since going on Facebook "than I ever have done throughout my whole life".

Continue reading the main storyWhen do you have a legitimate critique of whatever your position may be in terms of [the Middle East] conflict and when would it be an anti-Semitic statement?''

End QuoteMorten KjaerumFRA DirectorShe added: "This is very dispiriting. The speed at which hostile comments and misinformation can be passed around is frightening and leads to a sense of deep unease, which may not connect with the day-to-day reality of being Jewish in a diverse society."

Condemnation callThe survey found 29% of those surveyed had considered emigrating because of concerns about safety, with particularly high figures recorded in Hungary (48%), France (46%) and Belgium (40%).

It found one in five respondents had personally experienced at least one anti-Semitic verbal insult and/or a physical attack in the year before the survey.

Perpetrators of the most serious incidents were described as "being perceived as someone with Muslim extremist views, 27%, left-wing political views, 22%, or with right-wing views, 19%".

Respondents said the most frequent comments made by non-Jewish people in the UK were: "Israelis behave 'like Nazis' towards the Palestinians" and "Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes" (both 35%).

In France 52% of the Jewish people surveyed described anti-Semitism as a "very big problem" in their country, in Hungary the figure was 49%, while in the UK it was much less - 11%.

The survey showed significant differences between Western and Eastern European countries.

In Latvia, only 8% said the Israeli-Arab conflict had had a large impact on how safe they felt, but the figure rose to 28% for Germany and was as high as 73% in France.

FRA Director Morten Kjaerum said this reflected differing histories, as well as recent patterns of immigration.

"I think that there is across Europe... a traditional form of anti-Semitism that goes back in history for a long time," he said.

"But then we also see a particular sort of anti-Semitism reported by the respondents, namely the anti-Semitism which comes out of the conflict in the Middle East. And this is where you have to be careful: when do you have a legitimate critique of whatever your position may be in terms of that particular conflict and when would it be an anti-Semitic statement?"

Demand for actionThe FRA said EU countries should work "urgently" to find effective ways to combat online anti-Semitism. It called on public figures to condemn anti-Semitic statements.

The President of the European Jewish Congress, Moshe Kantor, welcomed the survey, but said "the fact that a quarter of Jews are not able to express their Jewishness because of fear should be a watershed moment for the continent of Europe and the European Union."

"The Jewish reality in Europe is of great concern and the authorities need to deal with incidents of hate and intolerance in a holistic manner, to really combat these manifestations before it is too late.

"We would like to see concrete steps being taken, including creating legislation to specifically deal with anti-Semitism and racism, bolstering law enforcement agencies and ensure a zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism, even, and perhaps specifically, when opinion-shapers and decision-makers engage in these forms of hate," he said.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:32

European Parliament Members Explore Decriminalizing File-Sharing | TorrentFreakThe place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collideEuropean Parliament Members Explore Decriminalizing File-SharingFrustrated by the lack of copyright reform in Europe, several Members of European Parliament have started a coordinated platform to urge the European Commission to update its outdated policy. The MEPs are looking for a more flexible copyright system which benefits European citizens and businesses, including the decriminalization of file-sharing for personal use. The first steps towards these goals are to be made during an event in Brussels on Tuesday.

The European Copyright Directive (Infosoc) dates back more than a decade.

At the time the Internet looked entirely different from how it does today and as a result many lawmakers believe that significant reforms are needed to bring legislation into line with present reality.

Last year several Members of the European Parliament sent a letter to the President of the European Commission to take up this issue.

''People all over the EU are increasingly concerned that the copyright system is no longer for them, and that many aspects of copyright law as it is currently applied, managed and interpreted by courts in the member states is not satisfactory or relevant,'' the letter read.

However, thus far the Commission has not followed this up, which has prompted the MEPs to take more concrete action themselves. This coming Tuesday European Parliament Members Amelia Andersdotter, Marietje Schaake and Pawel Zalewski will host an event to highlight the lack of progress and the need for change.

Talking to TorrentFreak, hostess and Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter explains that the current copyright directive is heavily outdated. It restricts people's ability to enjoy and share culture, as they constantly have to worry about the legal ramifications.

''Infosoc has created a horrible licensing nightmare that no one is able to penetrate. Those who make use of culture '' filesharers, DJs, libraries, schools '' live in a constant state of uncertainty,'' Andersdotter tells TorrentFreak.

''It's really difficult to find out what the freedoms and rights are of those who use culture. What is permitted and not permitted? When is someone at risk of getting sued? The law really needs to make that more clear.''

Decriminalization of file-sharing is one of the issues that's on the agenda. This directly affects over hundred million Europeans and will facilitate the development of new business models.

But, while the file-sharing issue is good for grabbing headlines, the changes called for by Andersdotter and her colleagues are much broader.

Information in general should be more readily available across Europe, without complex copyright limitations and restrictions.

''We want a reform of the copyright framework to enable greater legal certainty for those who make use of cultural works. Considerably more flexibilities should be worked into the system to enable better access to culture for libraries, online archives, research, visually impaired people and educators,'' Andersdotter says.

''Decriminalizing file-sharing should of course be included in such a reform. That would decrease a lot of the negative pressure on new business models online, and on non-commercial uses of works.''

This coming Tuesday these and other issues will be discussed during ''The Case of Text and Data Mining'' event. This event has been setup to encourage a more coordinated effort among MEPs of various parties to get the copyright reform ball rolling.

''My hopes are that this event will be the first step towards a longer-term platform for collaboration between like-minded members of Parliament who keep the interests of the European public at heart,'' Andersdotter says.

''Starting next year, we have a new parliament and a new Commission, so I have a strong feeling that we need to coordinate early how to ensure that better legal certainty, and more freedom to use culture is established as a norm. More than any other time in Internet history, it's important to build common and shared platforms of cultural exchange and dialogue,'' she concludes.

For those who are interested, tickets for the event '' which will also be streamed live '' are still available.

The European Copyright Directive (Infosoc) dates back more than a decade. At the time the Internet looked entirely different from how it does today and as a result many lawmakers...

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European Parliament Members Explore Decriminalizing File-Sharing | TorrentFreakThe place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collideEuropean Parliament Members Explore Decriminalizing File-SharingFrustrated by the lack of copyright reform in Europe, several Members of European Parliament have started a coordinated platform to urge the European Commission to update its outdated policy. The MEPs are looking for a more flexible copyright system which benefits European citizens and businesses, including the decriminalization of file-sharing for personal use. The first steps towards these goals are to be made during an event in Brussels on Tuesday.

The European Copyright Directive (Infosoc) dates back more than a decade.

At the time the Internet looked entirely different from how it does today and as a result many lawmakers believe that significant reforms are needed to bring legislation into line with present reality.

Last year several Members of the European Parliament sent a letter to the President of the European Commission to take up this issue.

''People all over the EU are increasingly concerned that the copyright system is no longer for them, and that many aspects of copyright law as it is currently applied, managed and interpreted by courts in the member states is not satisfactory or relevant,'' the letter read.

However, thus far the Commission has not followed this up, which has prompted the MEPs to take more concrete action themselves. This coming Tuesday European Parliament Members Amelia Andersdotter, Marietje Schaake and Pawel Zalewski will host an event to highlight the lack of progress and the need for change.

Talking to TorrentFreak, hostess and Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter explains that the current copyright directive is heavily outdated. It restricts people's ability to enjoy and share culture, as they constantly have to worry about the legal ramifications.

''Infosoc has created a horrible licensing nightmare that no one is able to penetrate. Those who make use of culture '' filesharers, DJs, libraries, schools '' live in a constant state of uncertainty,'' Andersdotter tells TorrentFreak.

''It's really difficult to find out what the freedoms and rights are of those who use culture. What is permitted and not permitted? When is someone at risk of getting sued? The law really needs to make that more clear.''

Decriminalization of file-sharing is one of the issues that's on the agenda. This directly affects over hundred million Europeans and will facilitate the development of new business models.

But, while the file-sharing issue is good for grabbing headlines, the changes called for by Andersdotter and her colleagues are much broader.

Information in general should be more readily available across Europe, without complex copyright limitations and restrictions.

''We want a reform of the copyright framework to enable greater legal certainty for those who make use of cultural works. Considerably more flexibilities should be worked into the system to enable better access to culture for libraries, online archives, research, visually impaired people and educators,'' Andersdotter says.

''Decriminalizing file-sharing should of course be included in such a reform. That would decrease a lot of the negative pressure on new business models online, and on non-commercial uses of works.''

This coming Tuesday these and other issues will be discussed during ''The Case of Text and Data Mining'' event. This event has been setup to encourage a more coordinated effort among MEPs of various parties to get the copyright reform ball rolling.

''My hopes are that this event will be the first step towards a longer-term platform for collaboration between like-minded members of Parliament who keep the interests of the European public at heart,'' Andersdotter says.

''Starting next year, we have a new parliament and a new Commission, so I have a strong feeling that we need to coordinate early how to ensure that better legal certainty, and more freedom to use culture is established as a norm. More than any other time in Internet history, it's important to build common and shared platforms of cultural exchange and dialogue,'' she concludes.

For those who are interested, tickets for the event '' which will also be streamed live '' are still available.

The European Copyright Directive (Infosoc) dates back more than a decade. At the time the Internet looked entirely different from how it does today and as a result many lawmakers...

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:06

Donna Leinwand Leger, USA TODAY11:34 p.m. EST November 7, 2013

This artist rendering shows Ross William Ulbricht appearing in Federal Court in San Francisco on Friday, Oct. 4, 2013.(Photo: Vicki Behringer, AP)

Story HighlightsCurtis Green admitted to helping a supposed smuggler find a buyer for cocaineKnown on the Silk Road website as 'Flush' and "chronicpain,' he mediated between buyers and sellersHis instructions came from a boss known to him only as 'Dread Pirate Roberts'SHARE43CONNECTEMAILMOREA Silk Road employee with access to drug buyers' and sellers' accounts on the underground website pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to sell cocaine.

Curtis Green, 47, of Utah, was known on the "darkweb" site by the screen names "Flush" and "chronicpain." Federal agents caught him in a Drug Enforcement Administration sting targeting Silk Road, a website that allowed buyers and sellers to trade anonymously in forged documents, illegal drugs and illegal services such as computer hacking and murder for hire.

Ross Ulbricht, 29, accused of being the mastermind behind the website, appeared Wednesday in federal court in New York on charges of drug dealing, money laundering and computer hacking. Ulbricht, 29, who allegedly operated Silk Road under the screen name "Dread Pirate Roberts," collected more than $80 million in commissions from Silk Road's nearly one million users, court papers say. His attorney said he will plead not guilty. Ulbricht also faces charges in Maryland of drug dealing and attempted witness murder. He is in jail in New York awaiting a hearing on Nov. 21.

On Tuesday, Jacob George, 32, of Edgewood, Md., a Silk Road vendor, admitted to purchasing and selling heroin and synthetic drugs and pleaded guilty to drug trafficking. George told federal investigators he made contact with buyers and got paid through Silk Road.

Green said he began working for Silk Road and a person he knew only as "Dread Pirate Roberts" in November 2012, according to a plea agreement filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. Green's responsibilities included responding to questions and complaints from the site's users, resolving disputes between buyers and sellers, and investigating possible law enforcement activity on the site, court papers say. Green said he had access to messages sent among Silk Road users and details of payments and transactions.

In April 2012, a DEA undercover agent in Maryland posing as a drug smuggler began communicating with "Dread Pirate Roberts" on Silk Road about selling a large amount of illegal drugs. "Dread Pirate Roberts" instructed Green to help the smuggler find a drug dealer who could buy a large amount of drugs, court papers say. Green found a buyer and agreed to act as the middleman for a $27,000 sale of a kilogram of cocaine. Green gave the DEA agent his address.

An undercover U.S. Postal Service inspector delivered the cocaine to Green's house in Utah on Jan. 17.

If convicted, George could be sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Follow @DonnaLeinwand on Twitter.

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:07

47-year-old Curtis Green of Spanish Fork, Utah, has confessed to being a Silk Road admin.

A key administrator who says he helped Ross Ulbricht run the Silk Road online drug empire appeared in a Baltimore courtroom yesterday. Forty-seven-year-old Curtis Clark Green, who went by the aliases "Flush" and "chronicpain" online, lives in a small town about an hour from Salt Lake City; he works at a nonprofit that helps people with learning disabilities, and he's a grandfather.

Green is also the admin who Ulbricht, operating online as Dread Pirate Roberts, allegedly tried to have killed.

He made his appearance in a Baltimore courtroom this morning and gave this statement telling his story to journalist Joshua Davis, who published it in his online magazine, Epic:

I was an employee of Silk Road from approximately November 2012 until January 2013. I got involved in SR because I was interested in Bitcoin and SR was the biggest market place for Bitcoin. I also had an interest in harm reduction related to drug use. Initially I just chatted on the forum, and that led to DPR [Dread Pirate Roberts] hiring me to work for SR. I was basically employed as a customer service rep, assisting people to use the site. I never used illegal drugs and I never intended to be directly involved in illegal drug deals.

In January 2013 federal agents stormed into my home and arrested me on drug charges. According to federal agents, DPR paid an undercover agent to murder me. The agents took photos as they faked my murder. I did not know the identity of DPR or any other user of SR. I never stole from DPR, SR or any SR users. On the advice of my attorney, I cannot give any further details, as I still face serious federal charges.

Green also submitted a list of facts he's stipulated to in court. He was paid a salary to work as a Silk Road admin, and his access allowed him to view all messages on the site, as well as Bitcoin accounts held by users'--and by Dread Pirate Roberts.

He was ultimately busted when Dread Pirate Roberts told him to help out with a drug sale that was actually with an undercover agent. A US Postal Inspector delivered a kilogram of cocaine to his house, sold online for about $27,000. After that, he was arrested.

Green's statement doesn't include much more detail. It all suggests, of course, that he's cooperating with law enforcement to get his charges reduced. That deal might not have been a hard sell once agents told him that Dread Pirate Roberts was trying to kill him and that they needed to fake his death.

Ulbricht, meanwhile, has been transferred to New York and recently made his first court appearance there, covered by Bloomberg News. He'll be back at a November 21 hearing to argue for bail.

''He's not the person they're saying he is,'' Ulbricht's new lawyer told reporters outside court. He's ''a regular person, a loyal friend."

The Bloomberg story has more biographical information about Ulbricht as well. While at the University of Texas at Austin, Ulbricht's interests shifted from Eastern philosophy to libertarian ideology. He used to wear a "Ron Paul for President" T-shirt to class during the 2008 election campaign, classmates recall.

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 14:30

47-year-old Curtis Green of Spanish Fork, Utah, has confessed to being a Silk Road admin.

A key administrator who says he helped Ross Ulbricht run the Silk Road online drug empire appeared in a Baltimore courtroom yesterday. Forty-seven-year-old Curtis Clark Green, who went by the aliases "Flush" and "chronicpain" online, lives in a small town about an hour from Salt Lake City; he works at a nonprofit that helps people with learning disabilities, and he's a grandfather.

Green is also the admin who Ulbricht, operating online as Dread Pirate Roberts, allegedly tried to have killed.

He made his appearance in a Baltimore courtroom this morning and gave this statement telling his story to journalist Joshua Davis, who published it in his online magazine, Epic:

I was an employee of Silk Road from approximately November 2012 until January 2013. I got involved in SR because I was interested in Bitcoin and SR was the biggest market place for Bitcoin. I also had an interest in harm reduction related to drug use. Initially I just chatted on the forum, and that led to DPR [Dread Pirate Roberts] hiring me to work for SR. I was basically employed as a customer service rep, assisting people to use the site. I never used illegal drugs and I never intended to be directly involved in illegal drug deals.

In January 2013 federal agents stormed into my home and arrested me on drug charges. According to federal agents, DPR paid an undercover agent to murder me. The agents took photos as they faked my murder. I did not know the identity of DPR or any other user of SR. I never stole from DPR, SR or any SR users. On the advice of my attorney, I cannot give any further details, as I still face serious federal charges.

Green also submitted a list of facts he's stipulated to in court. He was paid a salary to work as a Silk Road admin, and his access allowed him to view all messages on the site, as well as Bitcoin accounts held by users'--and by Dread Pirate Roberts.

He was ultimately busted when Dread Pirate Roberts told him to help out with a drug sale that was actually with an undercover agent. A US Postal Inspector delivered a kilogram of cocaine to his house, sold online for about $27,000. After that, he was arrested.

Green's statement doesn't include much more detail. It all suggests, of course, that he's cooperating with law enforcement to get his charges reduced. That deal might not have been a hard sell once agents told him that Dread Pirate Roberts was trying to kill him and that they needed to fake his death.

Ulbricht, meanwhile, has been transferred to New York and recently made his first court appearance there, covered by Bloomberg News. He'll be back at a November 21 hearing to argue for bail.

''He's not the person they're saying he is,'' Ulbricht's new lawyer told reporters outside court. He's ''a regular person, a loyal friend."

The Bloomberg story has more biographical information about Ulbricht as well. While at the University of Texas at Austin, Ulbricht's interests shifted from Eastern philosophy to libertarian ideology. He used to wear a "Ron Paul for President" T-shirt to class during the 2008 election campaign, classmates recall.

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Archived Version

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 15:43

By CNN Staff

November 8, 2013 -- Updated 0456 GMT (1256 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The suspect allegedly sent several hundred threatening textsAccording to police, the suspect admitted she sent some of the texts, but not allThe suspect had been friends with the victims, but they had a falling out(CNN) -- Police in St. Petersburg, Florida, have arrested a 15-year-old girl who they say sent several hundred threatening texts to three other 15-year-old girls.

The suspect, who CNN is not naming because of her age, is charged with three counts of aggravated stalking and one count of tampering with a witness, according to a Thursday statement from police.

Many of the texts were allegedly death threats.

According to police, the suspect admitted she sent some of the texts but not all of them.

They said she admitted to sending the following text: "If this isn't bullying then I don't know what is."

The suspect had been friends with the victims, but they had a falling out.

Police detectives interviewed her Monday and told her to steer clear of the victims. She continued to send threatening texts, prompting the tampering with a witness charge, police said.

In a somewhat similar case, police in Florida last month arrested two girls, 14 and 12, in connection with the death of Rebecca Sedwick, who jumped from the top of an abandoned concrete plant. They were charged with felony aggravated stalking.

Sedwick, 12, of Winter Haven, Florida, jumped to her death on September 9.

Charges in suicide suggest 'tipping point' in bullying cases

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:46

Thousands of Haitian protesters have demanded the resignation of President Michel Martelly, clashing with supporters of the leader in the streets of Port-au-Prince.

Protesters said two people suffered gunshot wounds after Martelly loyalists opened fire during Thursday's skirmishes that lasted for several hours.

The two sides hurled stones at each other during the fighting, which brought parts of the city to a standstill and triggered huge traffic jams.

Anti-Martelly demonstrators accused the Haitian president of cronyism, charging that he is ruling the impoverished Caribbean nation for the benefit of his friends and family.

"We are from the ghettos. We get nothing from the government which works only for the rich," protester Johnny Joseph shouted.

The march began peacefully as the crowd grew to a few thousand people and passed through poor neighbourhoods, many of them strongholds of government critics.

"This is the people's fight for a change for better conditions,'' said Carlo Jean Daniel as he walked among the marchers. "Nothing is coming down for the people."

The demonstrators were dispersed by police after attempting to reach the Presidential Palace.

Haiti has seen a wave of anti-government protests over the past month, with demonstrators accusing Martelly of failing to ease poverty and unemployment and demanding his resignation.

The United Nations' peacekeeping mission in Haiti issued a statement on Thursday asking the divided legislative and executive branches to agree on "priority political issues," which include the holding of elections.

232

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 23:30

By Zachary EddingtonFriday, November 8, 2013 at 11:00 AM

On Monday, accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev filed his reply to the government's response to his motion to vacate special administrative measures (SAMs) imposed on him and his attorneys. In his filing, Tsarnaev rejects the government's claim that the court lacks jurisdiction to consider his motion, and he reiterates that the measures are not properly authorized and violate the Constitution.

Tsarnaev opens his reply by discussing jurisdiction, which he did not address in his original motion. In response to prosecutors' assertion that he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as required by 42 U.S.C. § 1997e, he explains that his motion challenging the SAMs is not an ''action'' subject to the statute's exhaustion requirement. In his view, the word ''action'' in the statute refers to a new civil lawsuit, not a motion in a pending criminal case. Alternatively, Tsarnaev contends that, even if the statute does apply, the court nevertheless has jurisdiction over his motion pursuant to its power to manage the case before it. He further notes that no administrative remedies are available for his attorneys to challenge aspects of the SAMs that limit their activities.

Turning to the merits, Tsarnaev repeats his claim that the government has not alleged facts sufficient to justify the SAMs as ''reasonably necessary'' as required by 28 C.F.R. § 501.3. Although the United States argues that his conduct before his arrest provides a legitimate basis for the restrictions, he maintains that his behavior after his arrest is more relevant and that he has done nothing during that period to incite others to violence. Next, Tsarnaev rejects the government's argument that § 501.3(a) authorizes the restrictions on his attorneys, countering that the provision concerns only ''conditions of confinement.'' As to the constitutional issues, Tsarnaev does not challenge the government's claim that the deferential standard from Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders governs his constitutional challenges. Instead, he argues that deference to the expertise of Federal Bureau of Prisons officials is inappropriate here because the U.S. Attorney's Office requested the SAMs and did so four months after his detention began, and he emphasizes that the SAMs prevent his attorneys from effectively representing him.

A hearing on Tsarnaev's motion is scheduled for November 12.

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 04:19

The Obama administration is refusing to make Todd Park, one of the chief technology officials repairing HealthCare.gov, available for a hearing next Wednesday with House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa.

They say he's too busy right now fixing the Obamacare enrollment portal.

''Mr. Park is open to testifying at a hearing before your committee and to providing an appropriate pre-hearing briefing for you and your staff,'' Donna M. Pignatelli, assistant director for legislative affairs, wrote in a letter to the chairman. ''However, because Mr. Park is currently occupied full-time on the critically important work of improving the website for the millions of Americans seeking affordable health insurance options, his testimony needs to be scheduled at a time that is less disruptive to that work.''

(PHOTOS: 10 Sebelius quotes about Obamacare website)

Park is devoting ''nearly all of his attention and expertise'' to helping CMS, Pignatelli wrote. ''Pulling him away from that work even for a short time at this stage would be highly disruptive and would risk slowing the progress that has been made thus far to fix identified issues with the website.''

Park could provide an interesting look inside HealthCare.gov's problems. He was central to the development of HealthCare.gov as the chief technology officer at HHS. But he left the agency in March 2012 for the White House, where he is the chief technology officer.

(PHOTOS: House hearing on Obamacare website)

The letter from the White House to Issa was dated Nov. 6 '-- the day before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform announced the hearing.

Issa's committee released the hearing notice earlier Thursday, saying it was to investigate the ''operational challenges in the development of HealthCare.gov'' and whether IT best practices were followed.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama: 'I am sorry')

The committee released a witness list that included Park, HHS Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Technology Frank Baitman, CMS Deputy Chief Information Officer Henry Chao, U.S. Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel and David Powner, director of IT management at the Government Accountability Office.

The White House suggested rescheduling for the beginning of December.

Read more about: Obamacare, HealthCare.Gov

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 14:30

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

"It's embracing 1960's era technology," former U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra told CNNMoney. "A core issue there is a same set of problems we've seen in the past."

As the first CIO of the United States, Kundra's been credited with instituting a cloud-first policy to help make the government more efficient. It's a policy Kundra says could have saved folks building out healthcare.gov time and money.

For example, Kundra says his understanding is that the Obamacare website uses 800 servers just for authenticating users,

"You could actually have deployed that in a cloud solution without buying a single server," he said.

Related story: Security hold found in Obamacare website

Kundra has since left Washington for Silicon Valley where he serves as executive vice president of marketing at Salesforce(CRM), a company devoted to cloud technology. He said the government could have used Silicon Valley's help with the high-profile website. The site's many contractors may have contributed to the site's inefficiencies, technical errors and lack of ownership over its problems, Kundra said.

"Decisions were made to ... custom build everything rather than saying, 'Who does this best on the planet?'" Kundra noted.

But government bureaucracy rarely functions like Big Tech corporations do.

Clay Johnson, who is also a former member of President Barack Obama's technology team, said government contractors recognize that the way to make money is to throw more people at the problem rather than figuring out a way to deliver the best solution at the lowest cost.

Related story: Obamacare 'hub' back online after malfunction

"Healthcare.gov got this way not because of incompetence or sloppiness of an individual vendor, but because of a deeply engrained and malignant cancer that's eating away at the federal government's ability to provide effective online services," he wrote. "It's a cancer that's shut out the best and brightest minds from working on these problems, diminished competition for federal work, and landed us here '-- where you have half-billion dollar websites that don't work."

Government agencies would like nothing more than to have the best and brightest minds in the world working on healthcare.gov, Johnson said. But the best they've got to choose from are a few dozen companies.

It's a culture that calls for several cooks in the kitchen with little accountability. At a congressional hearing last week, contractors involved in the healthcare.gov roll out deflected responsibility and blamed other contractors, deadlines, and in come cases, administrative decisions.

Kundra says historically, Obama has made an effort to counter "a culture of faceless accountability," rolling out a plan to reform IT management.

But the Obamacare website ultimately fell victim to the same obstacles to innovation that many other government initiatives have in the past.

First Published: October 30, 2013: 7:24 AM ET

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Source: White House.gov Blog Feed

Sat, 09 Nov 2013 23:11

Stefanie FeldmanNovember 08, 201312:40 PM EST

Today, as part of the President and Vice President's continuing efforts to increase access to mental health services, the Administration issued the final rule implementing the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.

Today's action means that for group and individual market health plans, insurance companies must cover mental health and addiction benefits at parity with medical and surgical benefits. In January, the Department of Health and Human Services also released a letter to State health officials clarifying that Medicaid plans must also comply with parity requirements.

Parity is not just a buzzword. It has a real impact for the millions of people who are experiencing or will experience mental illness or addiction. In fact, parity works to break down two key barriers that too often prevent these individuals '' our friends, our family, our neighbors '' from seeking help. First, it breaks down the financial barrier by generally prohibiting health plans from placing more restrictive monetary requirements (for example, co-pays) or treatment limitations (for example, covered visits) on mental health and substance abuse benefits than on comparable medical and surgical benefits. Second, parity reduces the stigma associated with mental illness and addiction by reaffirming that illnesses of the brain should not be treated differently than illnesses of the body.

Today's rule gives consumers new tools that will increase parity. For example, the rule ensures that parity applies to services such as residential or intensive outpatient treatment. It also clarifies the transparency requirements insurance companies must follow, so consumers can be equipped with the information they need to make sure their plans are complying with the law.

In January, as part of their comprehensive plan to reduce gun violence, the President and Vice President committed to issuing this final rule by the end of the calendar year. After accomplishing this step today, the Administration has now completed or made significant progress on all 23 executive actions included in their plan. You can read more about these executive actions in the White House's updated progress report.

Stefanie Feldman is the Assistant Director for Policy in the Office of the Vice President

Related Topics: Health Care

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 17:21

PARIS '' American influence in culture, science and education around the world took a high-profile blow Friday after the U.S. automatically lost voting rights at UNESCO, after missing a crucial deadline to repay its debt to the world's cultural agency.

The U.S. hasn't paid its dues to the Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in protest over the decision by world governments to make Palestine a UNESCO member in 2011. Israel suspended its dues at the same time.

Under UNESCO rules, the U.S. had until Friday morning to resume funding or explain itself, or it automatically loses its vote. A UNESCO official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue, said nothing was received from either country.

The suspension of U.S. contributions, which account for $80 million a year -- 22 percent of UNESCO's overall budget -- brought the agency to the brink of a financial crisis and forced it to cut or scale back American-led initiatives such as Holocaust education and tsunami research over the past two years.

It has worried many in Washington that the U.S. is on track to becoming a toothless UNESCO member with a weakened voice in international programs fighting extremism through education, and promoting gender equality and press freedoms.

Some fear that a weaker U.S. presence will lead to growing anti-Israeli sentiment within UNESCO, where Arab-led criticism of Israel for territorial reasons has long been an issue.

"We won't be able to have the same clout," said Phyllis Magrab, the Washington-based U.S. National Commissioner for UNESCO. "In effect, we (now won't) have a full tool box. We're missing our hammer."

The UNESCO tension has prompted new criticism of U.S. laws that force an automatic funding cutoff for any U.N. agency with Palestine as a member. The official list of countries that lose their votes was expected to be read aloud on Saturday before the entire UNESCO general conference.

Israel's ambassador to UNESCO, Nimrod Barkan, told The Associated Press that his country supported the Unites States' decision, "objecting to the politicization of UNESCO, or any international organization, with the accession of a non-existing country like Palestine."

UNESCO may be best known for its program to protect the cultures of the world via its Heritage sites, which include the Statue of Liberty and Mali's Timbuktu.

But its core mission, as conceived by the U.S., a co-founder of the agency in 1946, was to be an anti-extremist organization. In today's world, it tackles foreign policy issues such as access to clean water, teaches girls to read, works to eradicate poverty, promotes freedom of expression and gives people creative thinking skills to resist violent extremism.

Among UNESCO programs already slashed over funding shortages is one in Iraq that was intended to help restore water facilities. In danger was a Holocaust and genocide awareness program in Africa to teach about non-violence, non-discrimination and ethnic tolerance, using the example of the mass killing of Jews during World War II.

This loss is a particular blow to the U.S., since Holocaust awareness was one of the areas the country aggressively promoted in the agency's agenda when it rejoined in 2002 after an 18-year hiatus, during which the U.S. had withdrawn from the organization over differences in vision.

The concern over UNESCO is resonating in the U.S. Congress.

"The United States must not voluntarily forfeit its leadership in the world community," Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, told The Associated Press in an email.

With efforts by President Barack Obama to get the money restored having failed or stalled, Ellison plans to introduce legislation in Congress to overturn what he calls the "antiquated" laws that automatically halted the flow of funds to the agency from November 2011.

The Obama administration has proposed language to amend the legislation, but it remains on the table amid recent U.S. budget setbacks.

For some it's a question of sooner rather than later, with the U.S. racking up arrears to UNESCO of some $220,000 a day, which it will have to pay back if it ever wants to fill the empty chair and get back the vote.

"Paying off three years is manageable, but it indeed becomes much more difficult if you allow many years to pass and the bill gets larger and larger and larger," said Esther Brimmer, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for international organizations.

The Palestinian Ambassador to UNESCO, Elias Sanbar, said other countries are beginning to make up for the U.S. shortfall.

"Is this in the interest of the U.S., to be replaced?" he asked.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova lamented the changes that are not only seeing America silenced within her organization but also bringing UNESCO financially to its knees.

Bokova told The Associated Press that the last two years had been marked by "a declining American influence and American involvement."

"I can't imagine how we could disengage with the United States at UNESCO. We are so intertwined with our message. What I regret is that this decision became so divisive and triggered this suspension of the funding," she added.

Bokova said she accepts political reality and would find ways for UNESCO to continue its work, despite a 2014 budget that's down by an estimated $150 million.

Some fear this debacle is just the tip of the iceberg, and worry about more serious consequences, if Palestine joins other agencies such as the World Health Organization.

Legislation from the 1990s has prevented the United States of America from paying dues to UNESCO since the Organization voted to admit Palestine in 2011. Member States that do not pay dues for two years lose their right to vote in UNESCO's General Conference. That rule came into effect for the United States today. The Director-General made this statement after the decision was announced:

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 05:16

The New York Times' editorial board has made a disappointing endorsement of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), even as the actual text of the agreement remains secret. That raises two distressing possibilities: either in an act of extraordinary subservience, the Times has endorsed an agreement that neither the public nor its editors have the ability to read. Or, in an act of extraordinary cowardice, it has obtained a copy of the secret text and hasn't yet fulfilled its duty to the public interest to publish it.

Without a publicly available agreement, readers are forced into the uncomfortable position of taking official government statements at face value. That's reflected in the endorsement, which fails to note the myriad ways in which TPP has been negotiated undemocratically, shutting out public oversight while permitting corporate interests to drive the agenda. Given these glaring issues, it is disconcerting that the Times would take such a supportive stance on an agreement that is likely to threaten innovation and users' digital rights well into the 21st century.

That situation leaves unanswered questions. Does the editorial board, for example, support the TPP provisions that would give private corporations new tools to undermine national sovereignty and democratic processes? Because ''investor-state dispute settlement,'' slated for inclusion in both the TPP and the EU-US trade agreement, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), would give multinational companies the power to sue countries over laws that might cut into expected future profits. This could allow corporations to unravel any policy designed to protect users against violations of their right to privacy or free speech online. The paper's endorsement notes that copyright enforcement could be expanded to suit legacy media companies, but provides no explanation of why a trade agreement is an acceptable venue for deciding such issues.

Does the New York Times also endorse an initiative to scrap democratic oversight of TPP by elected lawmakers? After all, Senate Finance committee leaders, Sen. Max Baucus and Sen. Orrin Hatch have renewed their call to pass fast-track, which would hand over Congress' constitutional mandate over US trade policy to the Obama administration. Fast-track, also known as Trade Promotion Authority, would restrict lawmakers from having any proper hearings on its provisions, limiting them to an up-or-down vote on the entire 29 chapter treaty.

The paper's statement emphasizes how the Obama administration strives to make TPP's policies ''an example for the rest of the world to follow.'' But if that's the case, then it's all the more important that the agreement be published immediately. Such a significant body of international law regulating digital policy must not be negotiated without proper, informed public debate. The secrecy of the process itself ensures that only some private interests will be represented at the expense of others. In addition, the U.S. Trade Representative's history of pushing forth extreme copyright enforcement policies through other trade agreements gives little assurance that users' rights will be considered in the TPP.

Trade representatives are working to finalize TPP negotiations by the end of the year. Negotiators are scheduled to meet in Salt Lake City next week to negotiate outstanding issues in this agreement, including provisions on liability for Internet Service Providers and anti-circumvention measures over DRM. Following that, trade delegates are seeking to finalize and sign this agreement in December in a ministerial meeting in Singapore.

It's unfortunate that news outlets are giving little coverage to TPP, when media attention could have a major impact on how the US and the other 11 nations draft digital policy. But public media coverage is precisely the sort of accountability that official secrecy thwarts. Instead of endorsing an agreement the public can't read, a responsible paper would condemn the secrecy involved. And if the Times has seen the text and knows what's contained in the TPP, then they have a responsibility to publish the text immediately and expose the US government's back room dealings.

In either case, it is deeply disappointing that the New York Times would even support the TPP when the public remains in the dark. An endorsement of TPP at this stage is an endorsement of opaque, corporate-driven policymaking.

~

We need to demand that our lawmakers oppose fast track, ask them to call for a hearing, and exercise their authority to oversee the U.S. trade office's secret copyright agenda.

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Source: RT - USA

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 03:58

Published time: November 07, 2013 21:15AFP Photo / Paul J. Richards

A growing bribery scandal has ensnared a third senior Navy official, who is accused of sharing classified information in return for personal favors.

Federal prosecutors arrested Cmdr. Jose Luis Sanchez, 41, in Tampa, Florida on Wednesday. Sanchez stands accused of accepting bribes from the Singapore-based Navy contractor Glenn Defense Marine Asia, including prostitutes, luxury travel, $100,000 in cash, and more.

Sanchez joins Navy Cmdr. Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz and Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Supervisory Special Agent John Bertrand Beliveau II, both of whom were arrested last month on similar bribery charges.

In exchange for the bribes, Sanchez allegedly gave classified information to Leonard Glenn Francis, CEO of Glenn Defense Marine. Francis reportedly wanted to know the movements of the Navy in advance, and lobbied for ships to dock at his ports where they could be overcharged for basic services.

Glenn Defense Marine is accused of overcharging the Navy by millions of dollars for services that would've cost about half as much at other docks. Francis was arrested in September after being lured to the United States under the assumption that he was meeting with Navy officials. The company's general manager of global government contracts, Alex Wisidagama, was also arrested.

According to the Washington Post, the Navy terminated $200 million in contracts with Glenn Defense Marine in September.

''Day by day, this massive Navy fraud and bribery investigation continues to widen, and as the charges announced today show, we will follow the evidence wherever it takes us,'' said Mythili Raman, the Justice Department's acting attorney general, to the Post.

Court papers filed by investigators claim Sanchez, much like Misiewicz, began notifying Glenn Defense Marine of the Navy's ship schedules in 2009 and continued to do so until April of this year. Sanchez and Francis communicated regularly through both email and Facebook, investigators said.

Beliveau, meanwhile, is accused of tipping off Francis as the Navy's investigation unfolded, offering him advice on how to respond to inquiries.

A hearing is scheduled for November 8 that could potentially set a trial date, though Fox News reports it's possible officials of even higher rank could be swept up in the investigation.

''The Navy expects our leaders to uphold the highest standards of conduct and professionalism,'' Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Navy's chief spokesman, said in a statement to the Post. ''As the work of this investigation concludes, we will make public as much information as possible. But we will do nothing to prejudice or preclude the important work investigators need to do and are doing.''

Misiewicz, Beliveau, Francis and Wisidagama are all pleading not guilty. It's unclear how Sanchez will plead.

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Published time: November 09, 2013 04:26Vice Adm. Ted Branch, director of naval intelligence (AFP Photo)

Two Navy admirals have been placed on temporary leave after their access to classified materials was suspended. This comes as part of a growing investigation into allegations that Naval officers illegally accepted bribes from a military contractor.

Vice Adm. Ted Branch, director of naval intelligence, and Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, director of intelligence operations, were reported on Friday to be part of an ongoing probe after they were each accused of having illegal and improper relations with Leonard Francis, CEO of Glenn Defense Marine.

''The suspension was deemed prudent given the sensitive nature of their current duties and to protect and support the integrity of the investigative process,'' a Navy statement announced.

''The allegations against Admirals Branch and Loveless involve inappropriate conduct prior to their current assignments and flag office rank. There is no indication, nor to the allegations suggest, that in either case there was any breach of classified information.''

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began its investigation in 2010. While a Navy spokesman maintained neither has been charged with a crime or service violation, the US attorney's office in San Diego, California has charged Loveless and Branch with passing along classified information, according to the Washington Post.

Branch and Loveless join Commanders Jose Luiz Sanchez, Michael Vannak Khem Misiewiz, and NCIS Supervisory Special Agent John Beliveau as subjects of the NCIS investigation into corruption and bribery at the Navy's Singapore outpost.

Each of the three senior officials have been arrested because of their alleged dealings with the man known as ''Fat Leonard.'' Prosecutors say the Malaysian businessman used his personal connections to bribe Navy officers with prostitutes, luxury travel accommodations, Lady Gaga concert tickets, and $100,000, among others.

Leonard is accused of using these favors to persuade officers into providing insight on upcoming law enforcement probes and contract reviews. He is especially known for the lavish Christmas parties he has thrown every year, decorating his 70,000 Singapore home with decorations so outlandish that spectators would visit.

''He's a larger-than-life figure,'' retired Rear Adm. Terry McKnight told Fox News. ''You talk to any captain on any ship that has sailed in the Pacific and they will know exactly who he is.''

Francis and Glenn Defense Marine are also accused of defrauding the Navy out of more than $10 million by overcharging for fuel, tugboats, docking, sewage disposal, and many other services.

''It's pretty big when you have one person who can dictate where ships are going to go and being influenced by a contractor,'' McKnight said. ''A lot of people are saying how could this happen?''

Sanchez and Misiewicz are believed to have begun notifying Glenn Defense Marine of Navy ship activity in 2009 and continuing to do so until April of this year. Beliveau is accused of ferrying information to Francis even after the Navy investigation started and may have given ''Fat Leonard'' advice on how to answer questions.

Misiewicz was already well-known before he was apprehended by law enforcement. As a child the future Navy Cmdr. was rescued from a violent region of Cambodia and given a new life by an American woman. His emotional return to the region in 2010 was the subject of international media coverage.

Yet prosecutors say Francis was already reengaged in a heated recruitment effort with Misiewicz in his sights. Misiewicz allegedly accepted tickets to a theater production of ''The Lion King'' in Tokyo and was soon referring to Francis as ''Big Brother'' in personal emails.

The charged defendants could be sentenced to five years in prison if found guilty of conspiracy to commit bribery. Francis is being held without bail.

Exactly how Loveless and Branch may have known Francis is not clear, but both officers had stints in the Pacific during their careers. Branch previously served as assistant to the commander of the Pacific fleet before he was promoted to vice admiral in February. Loveless held a command position at the Joint Intelligence Operations Center at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii from 2009 to 2012.

The Washington Post previously reported that the Navy terminated $200 million in contracts with the company in September of this year.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 02:54

Maurice Robert "Mike" Gravel (//; born May 13, 1930) is a former DemocraticUnited States Senator from Alaska, who served two terms from 1969 to 1981, and was a candidate in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

Born and raised in Springfield, Massachusetts, by French-Canadian immigrant parents, Gravel served in the U.S. Army in West Germany, and he later graduated from Columbia University. He moved to Alaska in the late 1950s, becoming a real estate developer and entering politics. He served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963 to 1966 and also became Speaker of the Alaska House. Gravel was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1968.

As a Senator, Gravel became nationally known for his forceful but unsuccessful attempts to end the draft during the War in Vietnam and for putting the Pentagon Papers into the public record in 1971 at some risk to himself. He conducted an unusual campaign for the Democratic nomination in 1972 for Vice President of the United States, and then played a crucial role in getting Congressional approval for the Trans-Alaska pipeline in 1973. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1974, but gradually alienated most of his Alaskan constituencies and his bid for a third term was defeated in a primary election in 1980.

Gravel returned to business ventures and went through difficult times, suffering corporate and personal bankruptcies amid poor health. He has been a quixotic advocate of direct democracy and the National Initiative. In 2006, Gravel began a run for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States to promote those ideas. His campaign gained an Internet following and national attention due to forceful, humorous, and politically unorthodox debate appearances during 2007, but he found very little support in national polls or in 2008 caucuses and primaries. In March 2008, he announced that he was switching to the Libertarian Party to compete for its presidential nomination and the inclusion of the National Initiative into the Libertarian Platform. At the Libertarian National Convention of 2008 he failed on both counts, and he announced that his political electoral career had ended.

Early life, military service, education[edit]Gravel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, one of five children born to French-Canadian immigrant parents, Alphonse Gravel (born 1896/1897/1898, Sorel, Quebec '' died 19??) and Marie (n(C)e Bourassa) Gravel (born January 26, 1901, Saint-Ours, Quebec '' died December 28, 1989).[2][3][4][5]

His parents were part of the Quebec diaspora,[6] and he was raised in a working-class neighborhood[7] during the Great Depression,[5] speaking only French until he was seven years old.[8] Calling him "Mike" from an early age,[4] his father valued work above all else, while his mother stressed to him the importance of education.[9]

Gravel was educated in parochial schools as a Roman Catholic.[4] There he struggled '' due to what he later said was undiagnosed dyslexia[8][10] '' and was left back in third grade.[11] He completed elementary school in 1945[12] and his class voted him "most charming personality".[4] A summer job as a soda jerk led to Gravel handing out campaign fliers for local candidates on behalf of his boss; Gravel was immediately impressed with "the awesomeness of political office."[4][8]

Gravel then boarded at Assumption Preparatory School in Worcester, Massachusetts,[4] where his performance was initially mediocre.[13] Then an English teacher, the Assumptionist Edgar Bourque, gave him personal attention, improving Gravel's language skills and instructing him in public speaking.[13] Gravel's grades improved measurably in his final year,[13] and he graduated in 1949.[14] He has a sister, Marguerite, who became a Holy Cross nun,[4] but Gravel himself struggled with the Catholic faith.[1] He studied for one year at Assumption College, a Catholic school in Worcester, then transferred for his sophomore year to American International College in Springfield.[4] Journalist I. F. Stone and philosopher Bertrand Russell strongly influenced Gravel in their willingness to challenge assumptions and oppose social convention and political authority.[15]

Around May 1951, Gravel saw that he was about to be drafted and instead enlisted in the U.S. Army for a three-year term so that he could get into the Counterintelligence Corps.[16] After basic training and counterintelligence school at Fort Holabird in Maryland and in South Carolina, he went to Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia.[16] While he expected to be sent off to the Korean War when he graduated as a second lieutenant in early 1952, he was instead assigned to Stuttgart, West Germany, as a Special Adjutant in the Army's Communications Intelligence Service.[16] There he had an adventurous time moving around the country, conducting surveillance operations on civilians, and paying off spies.[16] After about a year he transferred to Orl(C)ans, France, where his French language abilities (if not his Quebec-American accent) allowed him to infiltrate French communist rallies.[16] He worked as a Special Agent in the Counterintelligence Corps until 1954,[7] eventually becoming a First Lieutenant.[17]

Following his discharge, Gravel entered the Columbia University School of General Studies in New York City, where he studied economics and received a B.S. in 1956.[18] He had come to New York "flat broke",[17] and supported himself by working as a bar boy in a hotel,[17] driving a taxicab,[19] and working in the investment bond department at Bankers Trust.[17] During this time he left the Catholic religion.[1]

Move to Alaska[edit]Gravel "decided to become a pioneer in a faraway place,"[17] and moved to pre-statehood Alaska in August 1956, without funds or a job, looking for a place where someone without social or political connections could be a viable candidate for public office.[8][19] Alaska's voting age of 19, less than most other states' 21, played a role in his decision,[21] as did its newness[8] and cooler climate.[19] Broke when he arrived, he immediately found work in real estate sales until winter arrived.[20] Gravel then was employed as a brakeman for the Alaska Railroad, working the snow-clearing train on the Anchorage-Fairbanks run.[20] Subsequently he opened a small real estate brokerage in Anchorage (the Territory of Alaska not requiring a license) and saved enough so as not to have to work the railroad again.[20] Gravel joined the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, and would continue a sporadic relationship with the movement throughout his life.[1]

Gravel married Rita Jeannette Martin, who had been Anchorage's "Miss Fur Rendezvous" of 1958, on April 29, 1959.[22] They had two children, Martin Anthony Gravel and Lynne Denise Gravel,[22] born c. 1960 and 1962 respectively.[21]

Meanwhile, he went to Washington, D.C. in 1957 to campaign for Alaskan statehood via the "Tennessee Plan": dressed as Paul Revere, he rode with a petition to the steps of the U.S. Capitol.[23] Seeing Alaska as a wide-open place with no political establishment or entrenched interests, and using the slogan "Gravel, the Roadbed to Prosperity", he ran for the territorial legislature in 1958 but lost.[19][24] He went on a national speaking tour concerning tax reform in 1959, sponsored by the Jaycees.[18] He ran without avail for the City Council in Anchorage in 1960.[19] During this time, he had become a successful real estate agent; after the 1960 election, he became a property developer in a mobile home park on the outskirts of Anchorage.[25] A partner ran into financial difficulty, however, and the project went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Gravel was forced out in 1962.[25]

State legislator[edit]With the support of Alaska wholesale grocer Barney Gottstein and supermarket builder Larry Carr,[4][21] Gravel ran for the Alaska House of Representatives representing Anchorage in 1962 and won.[19]

Gravel served in the Alaska House of Representatives from 1963 to 1966, winning re-election in 1964. In his first term, he served as a minority member on two House committees: Commerce, and Labor and Management.[26]

He coauthored and sponsored the act that created the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights.[4] Gravel was the chief architect of the law that created a regional high school system for rural Alaska; this allowed Alaska Natives to attend schools near where they lived, instead of having to go to schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the lower 48 states.[4]

During the half-years that the legislature was not in session, Gravel resumed his real estate work.[27] With Gottstein and Carr's backing, he became quite successful as a property developer on the Kenai Peninsula.[4][17][28]

During 1965 and 1966, he served as the Speaker of the House, surprising observers by winning that post.[21] Gravel convinced former Speaker Warren A. Taylor to not try for the position against him by promising Taylor chairmanship of the Rules Committee, then reneged on the promise.[29] Gravel denied later press charges that he had promised but not delivered on other committee chairmanships.[29][30][31] As Speaker he antagonized fellow lawmakers by imposing his will on the legislature's committees[21] and feuded with Alaska State Senate president Robert J. McNealy.[30]

Gravel did not run for re-election in 1966, instead choosing to run for Alaska's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, losing in a primary to four-term incumbent Democrat Ralph Rivers[19] by 1,300 votes[21] and splitting the Democratic party in the process.[21] Rivers lost the general election that year to Republican state Senator Howard Wallace Pollock.

Following his defeat, Gravel returned to the real estate business in Anchorage.[21]

U.S. Senator[edit]Election to Senate in 1968[edit]In 1968 he ran against the 81-year-old incumbent Democratic Senator Ernest Gruening, a popular former governor of the Alaska Territory who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood,[19] for his party's nomination to the U.S. Senate. Gravel's campaign was primarily based on his youth rather than issue differences.[21][31] He hired Joseph Napolitan, the first self-described political consultant, in late 1966.[21] They spent over a year and a half planning a short, nine-day primary election campaign that featured the slogans "Alaska first" and "Let's do something about the state we're in", the distribution of a collection of essays entitled Jobs and More Jobs, and the creation of a half-hour, well-produced, glamorized biographical film of Gravel, Man for Alaska.[4][19][21][32] The film was shown twice a day on every television station in Alaska and carried by plane and shown on home projectors in hundreds of Eskimo villages.[4][21][31] The heavy showings quickly reversed a 2''to''1 Gruening lead in polls into a Gravel lead.[21] Gravel visited many remote villages by seaplane and showed a thorough understanding of the needs of the bush country and the fishing and oil industries.[4][33] Gravel also benefited by being deliberately ambiguous about his Vietnam policy.[33] Gruening had been one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and his opposition to President Lyndon B. Johnson's war policies was harming him among the Democratic electorate;[34] according to Gravel, "...all I had to do was stand up and not deal with the subject, and people would assume that I was to the right of Ernest Gruening, when in point of fact I was to the left of him."[19]

Gravel beat Gruening in the primary in a tight result with a margin of about 2,000 votes.[34][35] Gruening found "the unexpected defeat hard to take" and thought that some aspects of his opponent's biographical film had misled viewers.[31] In the general election, Gravel faced RepublicanElmer E. Rasmuson, a banker and former mayor of Anchorage.[34] College students in the state implored Gruening to run a write-in campaign as an Independent, but legal battles prevented the senator from getting approval for it until only two weeks were left.[34] A late appearance by anti-war presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy could not offset Gruening's lack of funds and endorsements; meanwhile, Gravel and Rasmuson both saturated local media with their filmed biographies.[34] On November 5, 1968, Gravel won the general election, gaining 45 percent of the vote against 37 percent for Rasmuson and 18 percent for Gruening.[34]

Senate assignments and style[edit]When Gravel joined the Senate in January 1969, he requested and received a seat on the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, which had direct relevance to Alaskan issues.[33] He also got a spot on the Public Works Committee,[33] which he held throughout his time in the Senate.[36] Finally, he was a member of the Select Committee on Small Business.[37] In 1971 he became chair of the Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds,[33] then by 1973 he was chair of its Subcommittee on Water Resources,[38] then later its Subcommittee on Environmental Pollution. Gravel was also initially named to the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations.[33] By 1973 Gravel was off the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee and the Select Small Business Committee and instead a member of the Finance Committee,[38] and by 1977 was chair of that body's Subcommittee on Energy and Foundations.[39] By 1973 he had also been on the ad hoc Special Committee to Study Secret and Confidential Government Documents.[38]

By his own admission, Gravel was too new and "too abrasive" to be effective in the Senate by the usual means of seniority-based committee assignments or negotiating deals with other senators,[21][40] and was sometimes seen as arrogant by the more senior members.[21] Gravel instead relied upon attention-getting gestures to achieve what he wanted, hoping national exposure would force other senators to listen to him.[40] As part of this he voted with Southern Democrats to keep the Senate filibuster rule in place,[21] and accordingly supported Russell Long and Robert Byrd but opposed Ted Kennedy in Senate leadership battles.[21] In retrospective assessment, University of Alaska Anchorage history professor Stephen Haycox would say, "Loose cannon is a good description of Gravel's Senate career. He was an off-the-wall guy, and you weren't really ever sure what he would do."[41]

Nuclear issues and the Cold War[edit]In the late 1960s and early 1970s the U.S. Department of Defense was in the process of performing tests for the nuclear warhead for the Spartananti-ballistic missile. Two tests, the "Milrow" and "Cannikin" tests, were planned, involving the detonation of nuclear bombs under Amchitka Island in Alaska. The Milrow test would be a one megaton calibration exercise for the second, and larger five megaton, Cannikin test, which would measure the effectiveness of the warhead. Gravel opposed the tests in Congress. Before the Milrow test took place in October 1969, he wrote that there were significant risks of earthquakes and other adverse consequences, and called for an independent national commission on nuclear and seismic safety to be created;[42] he then made a personal appeal to President Nixon to stop the test.[43]

After Milrow was conducted, there was continued pressure on the part of environmental groups against going forward with the larger Cannikin test, while the Federation of American Scientists claimed that the warhead being tested was already obsolete.[43] In May 1971, Gravel sent a letter to U.S. Atomic Energy Commission hearings held in Anchorage, in which he said the risk of the test was not worth taking.[44] Eventually a group not involving Gravel took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to issue an injunction against it,[45] and the Cannikin test took place as scheduled in November 1971.[45] Gravel had failed to stop the tests (notwithstanding his later claims during his 2008 presidential campaign).[nb 2]

Nuclear power was considered an environmentally clean alternative for the commercial generation of electricity and was part of a popular national policy for the peaceful use of atomic energy in the 1950s and 1960s.[46] Gravel publicly opposed this policy; besides the dangers of nuclear testing, he was a vocal critic of the Atomic Energy Commission,[46] which oversaw American nuclear efforts, and of the powerful United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, which had a stranglehold on nuclear policy and which Gravel tried to circumvent.[46] In 1971, Gravel sponsored a bill to impose a moratorium on nuclear power plant construction and to make power utilities liable for any nuclear accidents;[47] in 1975, he was still proposing similar moratoriums.[48] By 1974, Gravel was allied with Ralph Nader's organization in opposing nuclear power.[49]

Six months before U.S. Secretary of StateHenry Kissinger's secret mission to the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.) in July 1971, Gravel introduced legislation to recognize and normalize relations with China, including a proposal for unity talks between the P.R.C. and the Republic of China (Taiwan) regarding the Chinese seat on the U.N. Security Council.[50] Gravel reiterated his position in favor of recognition, with four other senators in agreement, during Senate hearings in June 1971.[51]

Vietnam War, the draft, and the Pentagon Papers[edit]President Richard Nixon had campaigned in 1968 on a promise to end the U.S. military draft,[52][53] a decision endorsed by the February 1970 report of the Gates Commission.[52][54] The existing draft law was scheduled to conclude at the end of June 1971, and the Senate faced a contentious debate about whether to extend it as the Vietnam War continued.[55] The Nixon administration announced in February 1971 that it wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, after which the draft would end;[56][57] Army planners had already been operating under the assumption of a two-year extension, after which an all-volunteer force would be in place.[58] Skeptics such as Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Stennis thought this unrealistic and wanted a four-year extension,[56] but the two-year proposal is what went forward in Congress.[55] By early May 1971, Gravel had indicated his intention to filibuster the draft renewal legislation, halting conscription and thereby bringing U.S. involvement in the war to a rapid end.[59]

By June 1971, some Democratic senators opposed to the war wanted to limit the renewal to a one-year extension, while others wanted to end it immediately;[55] Gravel reiterated that he was one of the latter, saying, "It's a senseless war, and one way to do away with it is to do away with the draft."[55] A Senate vote on June 4 indicated majority support for the two-year extension.[55] On June 18 Gravel announced again his intention to counteract that by filibustering the renewal legislation,[60] defending the practice against those who associated it only with blocking civil rights legislation.[60] The first filibuster attempt failed on June 23 when, by three votes, the Senate voted cloture for only the fifth time since 1927.[61]

Protracted negotiations took place over House conference negotiations on the bill, revolving in large part around Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield's eventually unsuccessful amendment to tie renewal to a troop withdrawal timetable from Vietnam; during this time the draft law expired and no more were conscripted.[62] On August 5, the Nixon administration pleaded for a renewal before the Senate went on recess, but Gravel blocked Stennis's attempt to limit debate, and no vote was held.[63] Finally on September 21, 1971, the Senate invoked cloture over Gravel's second filibuster attempt by one vote, and then passed the two-year draft extension.[62] Gravel's attempts to stop the draft had failed[40] (notwithstanding Gravel's later claims that he had stopped or shortened the draft, taken at face value in some media reports, during his 2008 presidential campaign).[nb 3]

Meanwhile, on June 13, 1971, The New York Times began printing large portions of the Pentagon Papers.[64] The papers were a large collection of secret government documents and studies pertaining to the Vietnam War, of which former Defense Department analyst Daniel Ellsberg had made unauthorized copies and was determined to make public.[65] Ellsberg had for a year and a half approached members of Congress '' such as William Fulbright, George McGovern, Charles Mathias, and Pete McCloskey '' about publishing the documents, on the grounds that the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution would give congressional members immunity from prosecution, but all had refused.[66] Instead, Ellsberg gave the documents to the Times.

The U.S. Justice Department immediately tried to halt publication, on the grounds that the information revealed within the papers harmed the national interest.[65] Within the next two weeks, a federal court injunction halted publication in The Times; The Washington Post and several other newspapers began publishing parts of the documents, with some of them also being halted by injunctions; and the whole matter went to the U.S. Supreme Court for arguments.[65] Looking for an alternate publication mechanism, Ellsberg returned to his idea of having a member of Congress read them, and chose Gravel based on the latter's efforts against the draft;[8] Gravel agreed where previously others had not. Ellsberg arranged for the papers to be given to Gravel on June 26[8] via an intermediary, Washington Post editor Ben Bagdikian.[67] Gravel used his counter-intelligence experience to choose a midnight transfer in front of the Mayflower Hotel in the center of Washington.[68]

On the night of June 29, 1971, Gravel attempted to read the papers on the floor of the Senate as part of his filibuster against the draft, but was thwarted when no quorum could be formed.[69] Gravel instead convened a session of the Buildings and Grounds subcommittee that he chaired.[69] He got New York Congressman John Dow to testify that the war had soaked up funding for public buildings, thus making discussion of the war relevant to the committee.[70] He began reading from the papers with the press in attendance,[69] omitting supporting documents that he felt might compromise national security,[71] and declaring, "It is my constitutional obligation to protect the security of the people by fostering the free flow of information absolutely essential to their democratic decision-making."[71]

He read until 1 a.m., until with tears and sobs he said that he could no longer physically continue,[71] the previous three nights of sleeplessness and fear about the future having taken their toll.[8] Gravel ended the session by, with no other senators present, establishing unanimous consent[70] to insert 4,100 pages of the Papers into the Congressional Record of his subcommittee.[40][65] The following day, the Supreme Court's New York Times Co. v. United States decision ruled in favor of the newspapers[65] and publication in The Times and others resumed. In July 1971, Bantam Books published an inexpensive paperback edition of the papers containing the material The Times had published.[72]

Gravel, too, wanted to privately publish the portion of the papers he had read into the record, believing that "immediate disclosure of the contents of these papers will change the policy that supports the war."[67] After being turned down by many commercial publishers,[67] on August 4 he reached agreement with Beacon Press,[73] the publishing arm of the Unitarian Universalist Association, of which Gravel was a member.[40] Announced on August 17[72] and published on October 22, 1971,[67] this four-volume, relatively expensive set[72] became the "Senator Gravel Edition", which studies from Cornell University and the Annenberg Center for Communication have labeled as the most complete edition of the Pentagon Papers to be published.[74][75] The "Gravel Edition" was edited and annotated by Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, and included an additional volume of analytical articles on the origins and progress of the war, also edited by Chomsky and Zinn.[75] Beacon Press then was subjected to a FBI investigation;[68] an outgrowth of this was the Gravel v. United States court case, which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled upon in June 1972;[68] it held that the Speech or Debate Clause did grant immunity to Gravel for his reading the papers in his subcommittee, did grant some immunity to Gravel's congressional aide, but granted no immunity to Beacon Press in relation to their publishing the same papers.[76]

The events of 1971 changed Gravel in the months following from an obscure freshman senator in a far corner of the country to a nationally visible political figure.[40] He became a sought-after speaker on the college circuit as well as at political fundraisers,[40] opportunities he welcomed as lectures were "the one honest way a Senator has to supplement his income."[40] The Democratic candidates for the 1972 presidential election sought out his endorsement.[40] In January 1972 Gravel did endorse Maine Senator Ed Muskie,[77] hoping his endorsement would help Muskie with the party's left wing and in the ethnic French-Canadian areas in first primary state New Hampshire[40] (which Muskie won, but not strongly, and his campaign faltered soon thereafter). In April 1972, Gravel appeared on all three network nightly newscasts to decry the Nixon administration's reliance on Vietnamization by making reference to the secret National Security Study Memorandum 1 document, which stated it would take 8''13 years before the Army of the Republic of Vietnam could defend South Vietnam.[78] Gravel made excerpts from the study public,[79] but his attempt to read NSSM 1 into the Congressional Record was blocked by Senators Robert P. Griffin and William B. Saxbe.[78]

Run for Vice President in 1972[edit]Gravel actively campaigned for the office of Vice President of the United States during the 1972 presidential election, announcing on June 2, 1972, over a month before the 1972 Democratic National Convention began, that he was interested in running for the nomination should the choice be opened up to convention delegates.[80] Towards this end he began soliciting delegates for their support in advance of the convention.[81] He was not alone in this effort, as former Governor of MassachusettsEndicott Peabody had been running a quixotic campaign for the same post[82] since the prior year. Likely presidential nominee George McGovern was in fact considering the unusual move of naming three or four acceptable vice-presidential candidates and letting the delegates choose.[82]

At the convention's final day on July 14, 1972, presidential nominee McGovern selected and announced Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri as his vice-presidential choice.[83] Eagleton was unknown to many delegates and the choice seemed to smack of traditional ticket balancing considerations.[83][84] Thus, there were delegates willing to look elsewhere. Gravel was nominated by Bettye Fahrenkamp, the Democratic National Committeewoman from Alaska.[85] He then seconded his own nomination, breaking down in tears at his own words[86] and maybe trying to withdraw his nomination.[86] In any case he won 226 delegate votes, coming in third behind Eagleton and Frances "Sissy" Farenthold of Texas, in chaotic balloting[84][87] that included several other candidates as well.

For his efforts, Gravel attracted some attention: famed writer Norman Mailer would say he "provided considerable excitement" and was "good-looking enough to have played leads in B-films",[88] while Rolling Stone correspondent Hunter S. Thompson said Gravel "probably said a few things that might have been worth hearing, under different circumstances ..."[89] Yet, the whole process had been doubly disastrous for the Democrats. The time consumed with the nominating and seconding and other speeches of all the vice-presidential candidates had lost the attention of the delegates on the floor[89] and pushed McGovern's speech until 3:30 a.m.[89] The haste with which Eagleton had been selected led to surprise when his past mental health treatments were revealed; he withdrew from the ticket soon after the convention, to be replaced by Sargent Shriver.

Re-election to Senate in 1974[edit]Several years earlier, Alaska politicians had speculated that Gravel would have a hard time getting both renominated and elected when his first term expired,[40] given that he was originally elected without a base party organization and tended to focus on national rather than local issues.[40]

Nonetheless, in 1974 Gravel was re-elected to the Senate,[90] winning 58 percent of the vote against 42 percent for Republican State Senator C. R. Lewis, who was a national officer of the John Birch Society.[91]

Second term[edit]In June 1976, Gravel was the focus of a federal investigation into allegations that he was involved in a sex-for-vote arrangement. Congressional staff clerk Elizabeth Ray (who was already the subject of a sex scandal that led to the downfall of Representative Wayne Hays) stated that in August 1972, she had sex with Gravel aboard a houseboat on the Potomac River, under the instruction of Representative Kenneth J. Gray, her boss at the time.[92] Gray allegedly wanted to secure Gravel's support for further funding for construction of the National Visitor Center in Washington, a troubled project that was under the jurisdiction of subcommittees that both members chaired.[93][94] Another Congressional staffer said she witnessed the boat encounter, but Gravel said at the time that he had never met either of the women.[92][95] Both Gravel and Gray strongly denied that they had made any arrangement regarding legislation,[92] and neither was ever charged with any wrongdoing.[96] Decades later, Gravel wrote that he had indeed had sex with Ray, but had not changed any votes because of it.[97]

Alaskan issues[edit]By 1971, Gravel was urging construction of the much-argued Trans-Alaska pipeline, addressing environmental concerns by saying that the pipeline's builders and operators should have "total and absolute" responsibility for any consequent environmental damage.[98] Two years later, the debate over the pipeline came to a crux, with The New York Times describing it as "environmentalists [in] a holy war with the major oil companies."[99] In February 1973 the U.S. Court of Appeals blocked the issuance of permits for construction;[100] Gravel and fellow Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens reacted by urging Congress to pass legislation overturning the court's decision.[101] Environmentalists opposed to the pipeline, such as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sierra Club[102] then sought to use the recently passed National Environmental Policy Act to their advantage;[99] Gravel designed an amendment to the pipeline bill that would immunize the pipeline from any further court challenges under that law,[99] and thus speed its construction. Passage of the amendment became the key battle regarding the pipeline. On July 17, 1973, in a dramatic roll call vote, the Gravel amendment was approved as a 49''49 tie was broken in favor by Vice President Spiro Agnew.[102] The actual bill enabling the pipeline then passed easily;[102] Gravel had triumphed.

In opposition to the Alaskan fishing industry, Gravel advocated American participation in the formation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. For two years he opposed legislation that established a 200-mile (320 km) Exclusive Economic Zone for marine resources. He was one of only 19 senators to vote against Senate approval for the expanded zone in 1976,[103] saying it would undermine the U.S. position in Law of the Sea negotiations and that nations arbitrarily extending their fishing rights limits would "produce anarchy of the seas."[103] The legislation was passed, and the United States has signed but never ratified the Law of the Sea treaty.

During his first year in the Senate Gravel urged abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.[37] In the early 1970s Gravel supported a demonstration project that established links between Alaskan villages and the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, for medical diagnostic communications. Gravel helped secure a private grant to facilitate the first Inuit Circumpolar Conference in 1977,[104] attended by Inuit representatives from Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. These conferences now also include representatives from Russia. In 1977, Gravel helped lead an effort to have the U.S. Interior Department rename Mount McKinley to Denali;[105] this eventually led to Denali National Park being so named. Subsequently Gravel proposed a never-built "Denali City" development above the Tokositna River near the mountain, to consist of a giant Teflon dome enclosing hotels, golf courses, condominiums, and commercial buildings.[106]

A key, emotional issue in the state at the time was "locking up Alaska", making reference to allocation of its vast, mostly uninhabited land.[107] In 1978 Gravel blocked passage, via procedural delays[107] such as walking out of House-Senate conference committee meetings,[108] of a complex bill which represented a compromise on land use policy. The bill would have put some of Alaska's vast federal land holdings under state control while preserving other portions for federal parks and refuges;[19] the action would earn Gravel the enmity of fellow Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.[19] In 1980, a new lands bill came up for consideration, that was less favorable to Alaskan interests and more liked by environmentalists; it set aside 127,000,000 acres (510,000 km2) of Alaska's 375,000,000 acres (1,520,000 km2) for national parks, conservation areas, and other restricted federal uses.[109] Gravel blocked it, as not ensuring enough future development in the state.[109] A new compromise version of the bill came forward, which reduced the land set aside to 104,000,000 acres (420,000 km2).[107] Gravel, in representation of Alaskan interests, tried to stop the bill, including staging a filibuster.[19] The Senate, however, voted cloture and then passed the bill.[109][110] Frustrated, Gravel said "the legislation denies Alaska its rights as a state, and denies the U.S. crucial strategic resources,"[109] and commented that the Senate was "a little bit like a tank of barracudas."[107]

In 1978, Gravel authored and secured the passage into law of the General Stock Ownership Corporation, that became Subchapter U of the Tax Code under the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.[111][112] While that was originally done as a prerequisite to a failed 1980 Alaskan ballot initiative that would have paid dividends to Alaskan citizens for pipeline-related revenue,[112] it also turned out to be significant in the development of binary economics.[111][clarification needed]

Loss of Senate seat in 1980[edit]In 1980, Gravel was challenged for the Democratic Party's nomination by State Representative Clark Gruening, the grandson of the man Gravel had defeated in a primary 12 years earlier. Several factors made Gravel vulnerable. As an insurgent candidate in 1968, Gravel had never established a firm party base.[35] Not liking to hunt or fish, he was also always culturally suspect in the state.[113][114] A group of Democrats, including future governor Steve Cowper,[115] led the campaign against Gravel, with Gravel's actions in respect to the 1978 and 1980 Alaskan lands bills a major issue,[19][110] especially given that the latter's d(C)nouement happened but a week before the primary.[107] The sources of Gravel's campaign funds, some of which came from political action committees outside the state, also became an issue in the contest.[110] Another factor may have been Alaska's blanket primary system of the time,[116] which allowed unlimited voting across party lines and from its many independents;[115] Republicans believed Gruening would be an easier candidate to defeat in the general election.[110]

Gruening won the bitterly fought[110] primary, with about 55 percent of the vote to Gravel's 44 percent.[110] Gravel would later concede that by the time of his defeat, he had alienated "almost every constituency in Alaska."[19]

Gruening lost the general election to Republican Frank Murkowski. Gravel was the last Democrat to represent Alaska in Congress for 28 years, until Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich defeated Stevens, by now an aged, iconic figure who had just been convicted of seven felonies for taking unreported gifts, in a very close and protracted election result in mid-November 2008.[117] (The charges against Stevens were subsequently dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct.[118])

Career after leaving the Senate[edit]A difficult transition[edit]Gravel took the 1980 defeat hard, recalling years later: "I had lost my career. I lost my marriage. I was in the doldrums for ten years after my defeat,"[119] and "Nobody wanted to hire me for anything important. I felt like I was worthless. I didn't know what I could do."[8] By his own later description, Gravel had been a womanizer while in the Senate, and in December 1980 he and his wife Rita separated.[97][120][121] They filed for divorce in September 1981;[121] she would later get all of his Senate pension income.[19]

During the 1980s, Gravel was a real estate developer in Anchorage and Kenai, Alaska,[122] a consultant, and a stockbroker.[19] One of his real estate ventures, a condominium business, was forced to declare bankruptcy and a lawsuit ensued.[19] During 1986, Gravel worked in partnership with Merrill Lynch Capital Markets to buy losses that financially troubled Alaska Native Corporations could not take as tax deductions and sell them to large national companies looking for tax writeoffs.[123]

Gravel married his second wife, Whitney Stewart Gravel, a former administrative assistant for Senator Jacob Javits,[8] in 1984.[124]

Return to politics[edit]In 1989, Mike Gravel reentered politics.[19] He founded and led The Democracy Foundation, which promotes direct democracy.[125] He established the Philadelphia II corporation, which seeks to replicate the original 1787 Constitutional Convention in bringing direct democracy about.[126] Around 2000, David Parrish began helping Gravel on a technical level; upon the former's death in 2003, Michael Grant took over the role of running Gravel's websites and technology efforts.[127]

Gravel led a quixotic effort to get a United States Constitutionalamendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives.[19][128] He argued that Americans are able to legislate responsibly, and that the Act and Amendment in the National Initiative would allow American citizens to become "law makers".

In 2001, Gravel became director of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, where he admired institute co-founder Gregory Fossedal's work on direct democracy in Switzerland.[126] By 2004, Gravel had become chair of the institute,[129] and Fossedal (who in turn was a director of the Democracy Foundation) gave the introduction at Gravel's presidential announcement.[130]

Mike and Whitney Gravel lived in Arlington County, Virginia, until 2010 and now reside in Burlingame, California.[131] They have the two grown children from his first marriage, Martin Gravel and Lynne Gravel Mosier, and four grandchildren.[132] Whitney Gravel's income has sustained the couple since 1998.[8] In the 2000s (decade), Gravel suffered poor health, requiring three surgeries in 2003 for back pain and neuropathy.[19] Due to unreimbursed medical expenses and debts from his political causes, he declared personal bankruptcy in 2004.[8][19] He began taking a salary from the non-profit organizations for which he was working; much of that income was lent to his presidential campaign. In 2007, he declared that he had "zero net worth."[19]

Barnes Review controversy[edit]In June 2003, Gravel gave a speech on direct democracy at a conference hosted by the American Free Press. The event was cosponsored by the Barnes Review,[19] a journal that endorses Holocaust denial.[133] In the wake of criticism for his appearance,[134] Gravel has said repeatedly that he does not share such a view,[134] stating, "You better believe I know that six million Jews were killed. I've been to the Holocaust Museum. I've seen the footage of General Eisenhower touring one of the camps. They're [referring to the Barnes Review and publisher Willis Carto] nutty as loons if they don't think it happened".[135] The newspaper had intended to interview Gravel about the National Initiative. Gravel later recounted the background to the event:

"He [Carto] liked the idea of the National Initiative. I figured it was an opportunity to discuss it. Whether it is the far right, far left, whatever, I'll make my pitch to them. They gave me a free subscription to American Free Press. They still send it to me today. I flip through it sometimes. It has some extreme views, and a lot of the ads in it are even more extreme and make me want to upchuck. Anyways, sometime later, Carto contacted me to speak at that Barnes Review Conference. I had never heard of the Barnes Review, didn't know anything about it or what they stood for. I was just coming to give a presentation about the National Initiative. I was there maybe 30 minutes. I could tell from the people in the room (mainly some very old men) that they were pretty extreme. I gave my speech, answered some questions and left. I never saw the agenda for the day or listened to any of the other presentations."[135]

The group invited Gravel to speak again, but he declined.[134]

Political positions[edit]Gravel has stated that he is an advocate for "a national, universal single-payer not-for-profit health care system" in the United States which would utilize vouchers and enable citizens to choose their own doctor.[136] He has proposed to index veteran health care entitlements to take full account of increases in the costs of care and medicine.[136] He supports a drug policy that legalizes and regulates all drugs, treating drug abuse as a medical issue, rather than a criminal matter.[137] Gravel favors a guest worker program,[136] supports the FairTax proposal that calls for eliminating the IRS and the income tax and replacing it with a progressive national sales tax of 23 percent on newly manufactured items and services, retaining progressivity via all taxes on spending up to the poverty level being refunded to every household.[136] Gravel has advocated that carbon energy should be taxed to provide the funding for a global effort to bring together the world's scientific and engineering communities to develop energy alternatives to significantly reduce the world's energy dependence on carbon.[136]

Gravel in principle does not object to the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research purposes. He is avowedly pro-choice on the issue of abortion and women's reproductive rights. He supports constitutional amendments towards direct democracy. His political leanings and convictions are also in his 1972 manifesto, Citizen Power: A People's Platform.

2008 presidential campaign[edit]At the start of 2006, Gravel decided the best way he could promote direct democracy and the National Initiative was to run for president.[19] On April 17, 2006,[138] Gravel became the first candidate for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 election, announcing his run in a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Short on campaign cash, he took public transportation to get to his announcement.[139] Other principal Gravel positions were the FairTax, withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days, a single payer national health care system, and term limits.

Gravel campaigned almost full-time in New Hampshire, the first primary state, following his announcement. Opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination showed Gravel with 1 percent or less support. By the end of March 2007, Gravel's campaign had less than $500 in cash on hand against debts of nearly $90,000.[140]

Because of his time in the Senate, Gravel was invited to many of the early Democratic presidential debates. During the initial one at South Carolina State University on April 26, 2007, he suggested a bill requiring the president to withdraw from Iraq on pain of criminal penalties. He also advocated positions such as opposing preemptive nuclear war. He stated that the Iraq War had the effect of creating more terrorists and that the "war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis." Regarding his fellow candidates, he said, "I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me '' they frighten me."[141] Media stories said that Gravel was responsible for much of whatever "heat" and "flashpoints" had taken place.[141][142][143] Gravel gained considerable publicity by shaking up the normally staid multiple-candidate format; The New York Times' media critic said that what Gravel had done was "steal a debate with outrageous, curmudgeonly statements."[144] The Internet was a benefit: a YouTube video of his responses in the debate was viewed more than 225,892 times, ranking seventeenth in most views for week and first among news and politics clips;[nb 4] his name became the fifteenth most searched-for in the blogosphere;[145] and his website garnered more traffic than those of frontrunners Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards.[19] Gravel appeared on the popular Colbert Report on television on May 2,[19] and his campaign and career were profiled in national publications such as Salon.[19] Two wordless, Warholesque campaign videos, "Rock" and "Fire", were released on YouTube in late May and became hits,[146] and eventually gained over 760,000 and 185,000 views respectively.[147][148] "Rock," in turn, was given airtime during an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Some thirty-five years after he first achieved the national spotlight, he had found it again.

All this did not improve his performance in the polls; a May 2007 CNN poll showed him with less than 0.5 percent support among Democrats.[149] Gravel was in the next several debates, in one case after CNN reversed a decision to exclude him.[150] Gravel, as with some of the other second-tier candidates, did not get as much time as the leaders; during the June 2, 2007, New Hampshire debate, which lasted two hours, he was asked 10 questions and allowed to speak for five minutes and 37 seconds.[151]

During the July 23, 2007, CNN-YouTube presidential debate, Gravel responded to audience applause when he had complained of a lack of airtime and said: "Thank you. Has it been fair thus far?"[152] Detractors began to liken him to "the cranky uncle who lives in the attic,"[153] or "the angry old guy that just seemed to want to become angrier."[154] In the ABC NewsDes Moines, Iowa, debate of August 19, 2007, moderator George Stephanopoulos noted that Gravel polled a statistical zero percent support in the state, meaning less than 0.5% support, and then directed roughly five percent of his questions to Gravel;[155] in a poll asking who did the best in the debate, Gravel placed seventh among the eight candidates.[156]National opinion polls of contenders for the Democratic nomination continued to show Gravel with one percent or zero percent numbers. By the end of the third-quarter 2007, Gravel had about $17,500 in cash on hand, had collected a total of about $380,000 so far during the 2008 election cycle,[157] and was continuing to run a threadbare campaign with minimal staff.[8]

Beginning with the October 30, 2007, Philadelphia event, Gravel was excluded from most of the debates, with the debate sponsors or the Democratic National Committee saying Gravel's campaign had not met fund-raising, polling, or local campaign organizational thresholds.[158][159][160] For the Philadelphia exclusion, Gravel blamed corporate censorship on the part of sponsor owner and alleged military-industrial complex member General Electric for his exclusion[161][162] and mounted a counter-gathering and debate against a video screen a short distance away,[163] but he had lost his easiest publicity. In reaction, supporters organized "mass donation days" to try to help the campaign gain momentum and funds, such as on December 5, 2007, the anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition.[164]

Gravel did not compete in the initial 2008 vote, the Iowa caucuses,[165] but was still subjected to a false report from MSNBC that he had pulled out of the race afterward.[166] Gravel did focus his attention on the second 2008 vote, the New Hampshire primary. There he received about 400 votes out of some 280,000 cast, or 0.14 percent,[167] before taking time off to improve his health.[168] He resumed campaigning, but fared no better in subsequent states. By the end of January 2008, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Gravel were the only remaining Democrats from the initial debates still running;[169] Gravel vowed to stay in the presidential campaign until November.[170][171] On March 11, 2008, Gravel continued to remain in the Democratic race but additionally endorsed a Green Party candidate for president, Jesse Johnson,[172] saying he wanted to help Johnson prevail against Green Party rivals Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader.[173] By late March, Gravel had almost no fundraising and was only on the ballot in one of the next ten Democratic primaries.[174]

Switch to Libertarian Party[edit]On March 25, 2008, Gravel announced that he would leave the Democrats and join the Libertarian Party,[175][176] saying: "My libertarian views, as well as my strong stance against war, the military industrial complex and American imperialism, seem not to be tolerated by Democratic Party elites who are out of touch with the average American; elites that reject the empowerment of American citizens I offered to the Democratic Party at the beginning of this presidential campaign with the National Initiative for Democracy."[175] The following day Gravel entered the race for the 2008 Libertarian presidential nomination,[177] saying that he would have run as a third-party candidate all along except that he needed the public exposure that came from being in the earlier Democratic debates.[177] Gravel's initial notion of running as a fusion candidate with other parties was met with skepticism[178] and not pursued.

As a Libertarian candidate, Gravel faced resistance to his liberal past and unorthodox positions;[179] nevertheless, he garnered more support than he had as a Democrat, placing second and third in two April 2008 straw polls.[180] In the May 25 balloting at the 2008 Libertarian National Convention in Denver, Gravel finished fourth out of eight candidates on the initial ballot, with 71 votes out of a total 618; he trailed former Congressman and eventual winner Bob Barr, author Mary Ruwart, and businessman Wayne Allyn Root.[181] Gravel's position did not subsequently improve and he was eliminated on the fourth ballot.[181] Afterwards he stated that "I just ended my political career," but he vowed to continue promoting his positions as a writer and lecturer.[182]

After the campaigns[edit]In June 2008, Gravel endorsed the NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative, saying the measure would create a "citizens commission rather than a government commission" with subpoena power against top U.S. officials to "make a true investigation as to what happened" regarding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.[183][184] Gravel subsequently said that, "Individuals in and out of government may certainly have participated with the obviously known perpetrators of this dastardly act. Suspicions abound over the analysis presented by government. Obviously an act that has triggered three wars, Afghan, Iraqi and the continuing War on Terror, should be extensively investigated which was not done and which the government avoids addressing."[185]

In August 2008, Gravel was speaking to a crowd of supporters of Sami Al-Arian (who two years earlier had pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison for a charge of conspiracy in helping Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist" organization)[186][187] when he was caught on tape saying of Al-Arian's prosecutor, "Find out where he lives, find out where his kids go to school, find out where his office is: picket him all the time. Call him a racist in signs if you see him. Call him an injustice. Call him whatever you want to call him, but in his face all the time."[188] Gravel was criticized for potentially involving the children of the prosecutor, and Al-Arian's family disavowed the sentiments.[188][189]

Gravel defended Alaska Governor Sarah Palin after she was chosen as Republican presidential nominee John McCain's running mate in September 2008. He praised Palin's record in standing up to corruption among Alaskan Republicans, thought her national inexperience was an asset not a detriment, and predicted that the "Troopergate" investigation into whether she improperly fired a state official would "come out in her favor."[190] Gravel made clear he would not support or vote for either McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden in the general election.[190] The following year, Gravel said that Palin's politics were "terrible, but that doesn't detract from the fact that she's a very talented person". He predicted that Palin would run for president in 2012 and that "she's going to surprise a lot of people"[114] Palin did not run.

From mid-2008 through October 2009 Gravel gave several lectures at South Korean universities about the Korean National Initiative, a Korean adaption of the National Initiative Gravel has proposed in the United States.

In December 2010, Gravel praised WikiLeaks, in the news during the year for the Afghan War documents leak, Iraq War documents leak, and United States diplomatic cables leak, as the "most significant effort to save democracy (which is slowly being eclipsed by the Military Industrial Complex) since the release of the Pentagon Papers".[185] Gravel indicated in December 2010 that he might run for president again and possibly challenge President Obama for the Democratic nomination for the 2012 presidential election,[185] but he did not.

In February 2013, Gravel attended the International Conference on Hollywoodism in Tehran, noting that the conference was attended by "various elements of extremes"[191] but saying that it was necessary to discuss how the U.S. film industry portrayed Iran in order to prevent "an insane war" between the two nations.[192] In May 2013, Gravel was one of several former members of Congress to accept $20,000 from the Paradigm Research Group, an advocacy group for UFO disclosure, as part of holding what they termed a Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, modeled after congressional hearings, regarding supposed U.S. government suppression of evidence concerning UFOs.[193] Gravel said, "Something is monitoring the planet, and they are monitoring it very cautiously, because we are a very warlike planet,"[194] and, "What we're faced with here is, in areas of the media, and the government too, an effort to marginalize and ridicule people who have specific knowledge."[193]

Electoral history[edit]Writings[edit]Gravel, Mike. Jobs and More Jobs. Mt. McKinley Publishers, 1968.Gravel, Mike. Citizen Power: A People's Platform. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972. ISBN 0-03-091465-5.Gravel, Mike and Lauria, Joe. A Political Odyssey: The Rise of American Militarism and One Man's Fight to Stop It. Seven Stories Press, 2008. ISBN 1-58322-826-8.Gravel, Mike and Eisenbach, David. The Kingmakers: How the Media Threatens Our Security and Our Democracy. Phoenix Books, 2008. ISBN 1-59777-586-X.Gravel, Mike. Voice of a Maverick: The Speeches and Writings of Senator Mike Gravel. Brandywine House, 2008.Gravel, Mike. Foreword to "Poisoned Power: The Case Against Nuclear Power Plants." [John W. Goffman & Arthur R. Tamplin, Rodale Press, Inc., Emmaus, PA, June 1971].^The Alaska Constitution as ratified in 1956 had originally placed Anchorage in District 10, and given the community eight seats in the House based upon the 1950 United States Census. The reapportionment and redistricting proclamation of GovernorWilliam A. Egan, dated December 7, 1961, placed Anchorage into District 8 (due to the elimination of two districts earlier in the order), and given the community 14 seats in the House based upon the 1960 United States Census. See Mitchell, Elaine B., ed. (1973). "Documents Section - The Constitution of the State of Alaska". Alaska Blue Book (First ed.). Juneau: Alaska Department of Education, Division of State Libraries. pp. 201''203. This change occurred immediately prior to Gravel's election to the House. These districts were without designated seats. Therefore, it is impossible to determine a direct predecessor or successor, especially with the higher turnover of legislative seats which existed at the time. Gravel served from District 8 with: William H. Sanders (1963-1964); Bennie Leonard, Keith H. Miller, James C. Parsons, Jack H. White, William C. Wiggins (1963-1965); Homer Moseley (1963-1966); Earl D. Hillstrand, Joseph P. Josephson, Bruce Kendall, Carl L. Lottsfeldt, John L. Rader, Harold D. Strandberg (1963-1967); George M. Sullivan (1964-1965); Carl F. Brady, Bernard J. "Pop" Carr, Sr., Gene Guess, M. Daniel Plotnick, Charles J. Sassara, Jr., Ted Stevens (1965-1967); William J. Moran (1966-1967). See Alaska Legislature Roster of Members 1913-2010 (pdf). Juneau: Alaska Legislative Affairs Agency. 2010. pp. 39''42. ^Gravel claimed during his 2008 presidential campaign that "the Pentagon was performing five calibration tests ... [Gravel] succeeded in halting the program after the second test, limiting the expansion of this threat to the marine environment of the North Pacific." See "Mike Gravel's Legislative Accomplishments". Mike Gravel for President 2008. Archived from the original on December 26, 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-30. In reality, the Milrow and Cannikin tests were the only ones planned and both of them were carried out. See "Round 2 at Amchitka". Time. 1971-07-17. Retrieved 2007-12-30. ^During Gravel's 2008 presidential campaign, he would claim that, "In 1971, Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), by waging a lone five-month filibuster, singlehandedly ended the draft in The United States thereby saving thousands of lives." See "Mike Gravel and the Draft". Mike Gravel for President 2008. Archived from the original on January 17, 2008. Retrieved 2007-12-30. A 2006 article in The Nation stated that "It was Gravel who in 1971, against the advice of Democratic leaders in the Senate, launched a one-man filibuster to end the peacetime military draft, forcing the administration to cut a deal that allowed the draft to expire in 1973." See John Nichols (2006-04-15). "Pentagon Papers Figure Bids for Presidency". The Nation. Archived from the original on January 17, 2008. Retrieved 2007-12-20. Neither of these assessments is correct. From the beginning of the draft review process in February 1971, the Nixon administration wanted a two-year extension to June 1973, followed by a shift to an all-volunteer force '' see David E. Rosenbaum (1971-02-03). "Stennis Favors 4-Year Draft Extension, but Laird Asks 2 Years" (fee required). The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-12-30. ; for confirmation, see "Once More, "Greetings"". Time. 1971-10-04. Retrieved 2008-02-02. '' and this is what is what the September 1971 Senate vote gave them. Gravel's goal had been to block the renewal of the draft completely, thereby ending conscription past June 1971. See Mike Gravel (1971-06-22). "Filibustering the Draft" (fee required). The New York Times. Letters to the Editor. Retrieved 2007-12-29. In Gravel's 2008 memoir, he conceded that he failed to bring about the immediate end of the war that he wanted, and that Nixon had gotten the two-year extension he had originally asked for. However, Gravel wrote that he had never trusted Nixon's pledge to only extend the draft for two years, and that when Nixon let the draft expire in 1973 it was the threat of a renewed filibuster that caused him to stick to the pledge. See Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, p. 180. No other accounts support this interpretation; in fact, Nixon had first become interested in the idea of an all-volunteer army during his time out of office, and he saw ending the draft as an effective way to undermine the anti-Vietnam war movement, since he believed affluent youths would stop protesting the war once their own possibility of having to fight in it was gone. See Aitken, Jonathan (1996). Nixon: A Life. Regnery Publishing. ISBN 0-89526-720-9. pp. 396''397 and Ambrose, Nixon, Volume Two: The Triumph of a Politician, pp. 264''266.^"p. Mike Gravel at the Democratic Debate". This video has been removed due to terms of use violation. YouTube. Archived from the original on 2007-05-18. Retrieved 2007-05-04. The YouTube debate clip was also ranked #7 top rated (for week), #23 top favored (for week), #25 most discussed (for week), #4 most linked (for week), and #1 top rated '' news and politics (for week).References[edit]^ abcdMike Gravel's Unitarian Universalism, by Doug Muder, UUWorld, December 10, 2007. Accessed December 19, 2007.^Mike Gravel genealogy site^Mike Gravel genealogy site^ abcdefghijklmnoCurrent Biography Yearbook 1972, p. 182.^ abGravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, pp. 69''70.^Thernstrom, Stephan (ed.) (1980). Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-37512-2. pp. 392, 398.^ abMoriarty, Jo-Ann (February 19, 2007). "Springfield native has sights set on top job". The Republican (Springfield). Retrieved July 7, 2007. ^ abcdefghijklmLeahy, Michael (2007-09-09). "Last". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-12-20. ^Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, p. 74.^"How the Pentagon Papers Came to be Published by the Beacon Press: A Remarkable Story Told by Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Dem Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel and Unitarian Leader Robert West". Democracy Now!. July 2, 2007. ^Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, p. 83.^Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, p. 81.^ abcDudar, Helen (July 3, 1971). "unknown". New York Post. ^Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, pp. 105, 128.^Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, pp. 105, 107''108.^ abcdeGravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, pp. 108''110.^ abcdefMartin Tolchin (1976-02-27). "Senators From Hinterlands Recall Early Years in City; U.S. Senators Recall Their Early Years in City" (fee required). The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-12-11. ^ abStephen Haycox, Gravel entry in American Legislative Leaders in the West, 1911-1994, Greenwood Press, 1997. ISBN 0-313-30212-X. p. 126.^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzaaabAlex Koppelman, "Don't worry, be Mike Gravel", Salon.com, May 7, 2007. Accessed July 4, 2007.^ abcdGravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, pp. 134''135.^ abcdefghijklmnopqWarren Weaver, Jr. (1971-07-02). "Impetuous Senator: Maurice Robert Gravel" (fee required). The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-12-24. ^ abCurrent Biography Yearbook 1972, p. 184.^Hugh G. (Jerry) Wade (2009-01-05). "In territorial Juneau, statehood fans were a minority". Anchorage Daily News. Retrieved 2009-01-16. ^Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, p. 136.^ abGravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, pp. 142''143.^"State Officials". Session Laws of Alaska, 1963. Juneau: Office of the Alaska Secretary of State. 1963. p. viii. ^Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, pp. 143''144, 149.^Democracy in Action (April 17, 2007). "Interview with Former U.S. Sen. Mike Gravel". National Press Club. 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Retrieved 2009-04-05. ^Politics1, "P2008: An Interview With Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel" by Ron Gunzburger, April 17, 2006.^Leonard Jacobs (2008-07-08). "Q&A: Mike Gravel". Metromix. Retrieved 2008-07-20. ^ ab"People in the News". Lewiston Journal. Associated Press. September 12, 1981. p. 14. ^Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Mike Gravel profile^Swardson, Anne (October 22, 1986). "Native corporations offer tax loopholes". The Washington Post for the Anchorage Daily News. p. C''4. ^Gravel and Lauria, A Political Odyssey, p. 243.^"First Democrat to Announce Candidacy for President on Monday", Joe Lauria, CommonDreams New Centre, Published April 13, 2006.^ ab"Direct Democracy in Switzerland: A Review". National Initiative for Democracy. Retrieved 2010-11-13. ^"About Us". National Initiative for Democracy. Retrieved 2013-03-18. ^Jonathan Stein (2007-06-29). "Power to the People: The Democracy Foundation's Plan to Create a Fourth Branch of Government". 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YouTube. 2007-05-27. Retrieved 2008-02-15. ^Mike Gravel '' Fire. YouTube. 2007-05-28. Retrieved 2008-02-15. ^Bill Schneider (2007-05-07). "Poll: Liberals moving toward Clinton; GOP race tightens". CNN.com. Retrieved 2007-12-29. ^"Gravel Dismisses CNN, WMUR-TV And Union Leader Statement" (Press release). Mike Gravel for President 2008. 2007-03-19. Retrieved 2007-12-29. ^"The Mainstream Media Has Gone Underground..." (Press release). Mike Gravel for President 2008. 2007-06-05. Retrieved 2007-12-29. ^"Part I: CNN/YouTube Democratic presidential debate transcript". CNN.com. 2007-07-24. Retrieved 2007-12-28. ^Rick Pearson (2008-01-07). "Mike Gravel to teens: Say 'yes' to drugs". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 2008-01-09. ^Dan Harrie (2008-01-22). "Democratic hopeful Gravel visits Park City". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 2008-02-01. ^"Statistical Analysis Shows ABC News Unfair in Democrat Debate". NewsBusters. 2007-08-24. 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"Mike Gravel has gone from long shot to no shot for presidency". St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2008-05-26. ^ ab"Former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel joins Libertarian Party ranks". Libertarian Party. 2008-03-25. Archived from the original on March 26, 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-25. ^Mike Gravel (2008-03-26). "A Personal Message from Mike". Mike Gravel for President 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-26. ^ abSarah Elkins (2008-03-31). "Maverick Mike". Newsweek. Archived from the original on May 6, 2008. Retrieved 2008-04-01. ^Josh Gerstein (2008-03-27). "Barr, Gravel Eye Libertarian Nod for President". The New York Sun. Retrieved 2008-05-26. ^Philip Klein (2008-05-21). "Will the Real Libertarian Please Stand Up?". The American Spectator. Retrieved 2008-05-26. ^"Straw Poll Results". Mike Gravel for President 2008. 2008-04-08. Retrieved 2008-04-08. ^ ab"Press Releases: Presidential and VP Vote Totals '' Updated Live!". LP.org. 2008-05-25. Archived from the original on May 28, 2008. 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Wilson Company. External links[edit]Official websitesBiographicalPentagon PapersPersondataNameGravel, MikeAlternative namesGravel, Maurice RobertShort descriptionAmerican politician; United States Senator (D-AK)Date of birthMay 13, 1930Place of birthSpringfield, Massachusetts, U.S.Date of deathPlace of death

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 15:11

Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

America has become a gigantic gulag over the past few decades and most of its citizens don't know, or just don't care. One of the primary causes of the over incarceration in the U.S. is the absurd, tragic failure that is the ''war on drugs'', and indeed nearly half of the folks in prison are there for drug related offenses. Making matters worse is a rapidly growing private prison system, which adds a profit motive to the equation. Recently, I wrote an extensive rant against the private prison system and provided details on how it works in: A Deep Look into the Shady World of the Private Prison Industry.

Now here are some of the sad facts. There are 1.57 million people in federal and state prison (does not even include county and local jail) according to the Department of Justice. That's above the nation's 1.53 million engineers and 1.05 million high school teachers.

More from the Huffington Post:

If sitting in a prison cell was a job, it would be one of the most common jobs in the United States. In 2012, there were some1,570,000 inmates in state and federal prisons in the U.S., according to data from the Justice Department.

By contrast, there were about 1,530,000 engineers in America last year, 815,000 construction workers, and 1 million high school teachers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There were also 750,000 car technicians.

Yep, you know it. USA! USA!

Full article here.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 01:26

Published time: November 08, 2013 17:00More than 50 protesters sit in the middle of the road before being arrested during a protest for better wages outside Wal-mart in Los Angeles, November 7, 2013. (Reuters / Lucy Nicholson)

Los Angeles police arrested more than 50 people out of a crowd of 200 protesting what they believe to be unfairly low wages provided by Walmart.

The protest took place Thursday night outside a new Walmart store in Chinatown and was intended to highlight demand for higher wages. It was scheduled to last from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., but dozens of people refused a police order to disperse after their permit expired, keeping the streets closed until law enforcement officials declared an unlawful assembly.

Police then arrested 54 people '' including, according to the protest's organizers, some Walmart employees '' without incident, keeping them in jail overnight unless they posted bail.

The protestors' primary demand is that no full-time Walmart employee earn less than $25,000 a year. Organizers claimed it was the largest act of civil disobedience against Walmart in company history.

The Huffington Post spoke to ''one of several dozen'' Walmart employees participating in the protest. Anthony Goytia, a 31-year-old father with two children, said he expects to make only $12,000 this year.

"The power went out at my house yesterday because I couldn't afford the bill," Goytia explained. ''I had to run around and get two payday loans to pay for my rent from the first" of the month. "Yesterday we went to a food bank."

Walmart spokesman Kory Lundberg downplayed the protest's goal of a $25,000 floor, saying hundreds of thousands of employees already earn more than that, and everyone has the opportunity to do so. Lundberg also said that the number of workers participating in the protest is effectively zero when compared to how many people the company employs.

"We've seen time and again there are virtually no [Walmart] associates participating in these orchestrated events because they know the truth about working for Walmart," Lundberg said to Reuters.

"We provide our associates with more opportunities for career growth and greater economic security for their family than many other companies in America," he added.

According to the Huffington Post, Walmart CEO Bill Simon recently revealed that more than 475,000 Walmart employees earn more than $25,000 a year, leaving anywhere between 525,000 to 825,000 workers making less. Opponents of Walmart claim that with $17 billion in profits, the company can afford to pay its employees at least $25,000.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, meanwhile, have proposed raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour and tying future increases to inflation. President Obama came out in support of the measure on Thursday, though it's unclear what kind of raise Republicans are willing to get behind.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 02:45

Linda Criddle is a tireless advocate for consumers. Her passion and talent for teaching Internet safety principles has benefited youth, parents, and educators. She is author of the award-winning consumer-oriented book, Look Both Ways: Help protect your family on the Internet, and gives consumers the same straightforward, accessible online safety information on her Web site, Look-both-ways.com.

Internet safety expert and author Linda Criddle has her own consulting company LOOKBOTHWAYS Online Safety Consulting LLC. Before establishing her company, Criddle spent 13 years at Microsoft where she was a pioneer in online safety. She was a valuable asset to the MSN division and more broadly to the entire company because of her deep understanding of online predatory behavior and her ability to create practical technical and policy-based solutions. The depth and breadth of Linda's online safety expertise is reflected in her direct participation in the creation and filing of numerous patents on behalf of Microsoft in the areas of emerging technologies and online safety.

Linda has collaborated with several international law enforcement agencies, helping with investigations into the online activities of child predators. She has worked with many government organizations in the U.S. and around the world to prepare online safety regulations and legislation. In Washington state, for example, Linda chairs the Education Committee for the State Attorney General's Youth Internet Safety Taskforce, and she advises several other attorneys general around the U.S. on Internet safety matters. In addition, Linda has offered online safety training and design expertise to executives and product teams across the technology industry. She is at work on a second book that aims to teach the industry how to build safer software and services. LOOKBOTHWAYS also provides product design, safety reviews, and other consulting services to leading technology companies.

For Washington State University, Criddle wrote "Internet Safety for Educators," a distance learning course that she began teaching in July 2007. Utah State University also offers her course. For schools across the U.S., Criddle is currently building a fully integrated K-12 curriculum.

Linda is an active single mother of four who grew up in California and then lived and worked in Kristiansand, Norway, for 15 years. In Norway, she was involved in city politics and a member of the Kristiansand City Council. There, she began her advocacy for women and children's rights, using both her political position and her journalist background to raise awareness and call for the funding of abuse hotlines and crisis shelters. This work inspired her research into predatory behavior, methods, and mindsets, an interest she has pursued for more than 25 years.

Twenty percent of the author's proceeds from Look Both Ways: Help protect your family on the Internet goes to the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.

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Thu, 07 Nov 2013 22:00

Kenya's police cast doubt Saturday (November 2nd) on a schoolgirl's testimony that she was gang-raped, even as the chief justice ordered "immediate action" in the case, AFP reported.

A brutal gang rape that left a schoolgirl in a wheelchair has brought Kenyan women onto the streets, demanding an end to a culture of impunity over violence against women. [AFP] Play Video

The reported attack on a 16-year-old girl known by the pseudonym "Liz" and the lack of action against the perpetrators has led to an outcry in Kenya, while over 1.3 million people worldwide have signed a petition demanding justice.

But Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo said investigations suggested that the girl's report was false.

"Unfortunately, our investigations have revealed information which the public do not have and which members of the public need to appreciate before they offer a blanket condemnation on the incident," he said in a statement.

"The time span between the screams for help and when the villagers actually came out to her rescue is given as too short for six assailants to have gang raped her," the statement reads.

Kimaiyo also pointed out that the assailants were not released from police custody as a result of negligence, but pursuant to an agreement between them and Liz's family, Kenya's Capital FM reported. The officers' oversight was in their failure to put the agreement in writing, he said.

In contrast, Kenya's Chief Justice Willy Mutunga said he sent the matter to the National Council for the Administration of Justice (NCAJ) for "immediate action".

The NCAJ is Kenya's top-level judicial oversight body bringing together the judiciary, police, attorney-general and director of public prosecutions.

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:09

By KATHY MATHESON

PHILADELPHIA (AP) '-- Voters in Philadelphia have elected a Whig to public office for what the victor believes may be the first time in nearly 160 years.

Robert "Heshy" Bucholz, a member of the Modern Whig party, campaigned door-to-door and won 36 votes to his Democratic opponent's 24 on Tuesday to become an election judge in the city's Rhawnhurst section.

Election judges, who serve four-year terms, receive about $100 annually and are responsible for overseeing equipment and procedures at the polls.

Now a heavily Democratic city, Philadelphia's last Whig mayor was elected in 1854. It's hard to verify whether Whigs won any lower offices after that, said Stephanie Singer, one of three commissioners overseeing local elections.

Previously an independent, Bucholz said he joined the Whigs three years ago because of their fiscally conservative but socially liberal views. They represent a sensible "middle path" between Democrats and Republicans, especially in light of the recent government shutdown, he said.

"That pretty much told us we can't trust either party and the system is broken," Bucholz said Thursday.

Four U.S. presidents were Whigs in the mid-1800s. The party largely disappeared in the 20th century, but was revived in 2007 by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who were upset at the lack of bipartisanship in Washington, according to the group's website.

The Modern Whigs have about 30,000 members nationwide, Chairman Andrew Evans said. Bucholz and J. Brendan Galligan, who serves on the school board in Westfield, N.J., are the only two currently holding elected positions, he said.

Bucholz, a 39-year-old engineer, admitted to being "a little bewildered" by the attention to his win, noting that his wife, Dinah, is usually the one getting publicity.

Dinah Bucholz is the author of "The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook." A registered Republican, she won a term on Tuesday as an election inspector.

___

Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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This article is about the 19th-century political party. For the contemporary third party, see Modern Whig Party.The Whig Party was a political party active in the early 19th century in the United States. Four Presidents of the United States were members of the Whig Party. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s,[1] the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. In particular, the Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the Presidency and favored a program of modernization and economic protectionism. This name was chosen to echo the American Whigs of 1776, who fought for independence, and because "Whig" was then a widely recognized label of choice for people who identified as opposing tyranny.[2] The Whig Party counted among its members such national political luminaries as Daniel Webster, William Henry Harrison, and their preeminent leader, Henry Clay of Kentucky. In addition to Harrison, the Whig Party also nominated war hero generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott.

In its two decades of existence, the Whig Party had two of its candidates, William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, elected President. Both died in office. John Tyler succeeded to the Presidency after Harrison's death but was expelled from the party. Millard Fillmore, who became President after Taylor's death, was the last Whig to hold the nation's highest office.

The party was ultimately destroyed by the question of whether to allow the expansion of slavery to the territories. With deep fissures in the party on this question, the anti-slavery faction prevented the re-nomination of its own incumbent President Fillmore in the 1852 presidential election; instead, the party nominated General Winfield Scott. Most Whig party leaders thereupon quit politics (as Abraham Lincoln did temporarily) or changed parties. The northern voter base mostly joined the new Republican Party. By the 1856 presidential election, the party was virtually defunct. In the South, the party vanished but Whig ideology as a policy orientation persisted for decades and played a major role in shaping the modernizing policies of the state governments during Reconstruction.[3]

Origins[edit]The name Whig was derived from a common term Patriots used to refer to themselves during the American Revolution. It indicated hostility to the king. It was not directly derived from the British Whig party.[4]

The American Whigs were modernizers who saw President Andrew Jackson as "a dangerous man on horseback" with a "reactionary opposition" to the forces of social, economic and moral modernization. Most of the founders of the Whig party had supported Jeffersonian democracy and the Democratic-Republican Party. The Democratic-Republicans who formed the Whig party, led by Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, drew on a Jeffersonian tradition of compromise and balance in government, national unity, territorial expansion, and support for a national transportation network and domestic manufacturing. Casting their enemy as "King Andrew", they sought to identify themselves as modern-day opponents of governmental overreaching.

Despite the apparent unity of Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans from 1800 to 1824, ultimately the American people preferred partisan opposition to popular political agreement.[5] As Jackson purged his opponents, vetoed internal improvements and killed the Second Bank of the United States, alarmed local elites fought back. In 1831 Henry Clay re-entered the Senate and started planning a new party. He defended national rather than sectional interests. Clay's plan for distributing among the states the proceeds from the sale of lands in the public domain was intended to serve the nation by providing the states with funds for building roads and canals, which would stimulate growth and knit the sections together. His Jacksonian opponents, however, distrusted the federal government and opposed all federal aid for internal improvements and they again frustrated Clay's plan. Jacksonians promoted opposition to the National Bank and internal improvements and support of egalitarian democracy, state power, and hard money.

The "Tariff of Abominations" of 1828 had outraged Southern feelings; the South's leaders held that the high duties on foreign imports gave an advantage to the North (where the factories were located). Clay's own high tariff schedule of 1832 further disturbed them, as did his stubborn defense of high duties as necessary to his "American System". Clay however moved to pass the Compromise of 1833, which met Southern complaints by a gradual reduction of the rates on imports to a maximum of twenty percent. Controlling the Senate for a while, Whigs passed a censure motion denouncing Jackson's arrogant assumption of executive power in the face of the true will of the people as represented by Congress.

Clay ran as a Whig in 1832 against Jackson but carried only 49 electoral votes against Jackson's 219. Clay and his Whig allies failed in repeated attempts to continue the Second Bank of the United States, which Jackson denounced as a monopoly and from which he abruptly removed all government deposits. Clay was the unquestioned leader of the Whig party nationwide and in Washington, but he was vulnerable to Jacksonian allegations that he associated with the upper class at a time when white males without property had the right to vote and wanted someone more like themselves. The Whigs nominated a war hero in 1840'--and emphasized that William Henry Harrison had given up the high life to live in a log cabin on the frontier. Harrison won.

Party structure[edit]The Whigs suffered greatly from factionalism throughout their existence, as well as weak party loyalty that stood in contrast to the strong party discipline that was the hallmark of a tight Democratic Party organization.[6] One strength of the Whigs, however, was a superb network of newspapers; their leading editor was Horace Greeley of the powerful New York Tribune.

In the 1840s Whigs won 49 percent of gubernatorial elections, with strong bases in the manufacturing Northeast and in the border states. The trend over time, however, was for the Democratic vote to grow faster and for the Whigs to lose more and more marginal states and districts. After the close 1844 contest, the Democratic advantage widened and the Whigs could win the White House only if the Democrats split. This was partly because of the increased political importance of the western states, which generally voted for Democrats, and Irish Catholic and German immigrants, who voted heavily for the Democrats.

The Whigs appealed to voters in every socio-economic category but proved especially attractive to the professional and business classes: doctors, lawyers, merchants, ministers, bankers, storekeepers, factory owners, commercially oriented farmers and large-scale planters. In general, commercial and manufacturing towns and cities voted Whig, save for strongly Democratic precincts in Irish Catholic and German immigrant communities; the Democrats often sharpened their appeal to the poor by ridiculing the Whigs' aristocratic pretensions. Protestant religious revivals also injected a moralistic element into the Whig ranks.[7]

Whig issues[edit]The Whigs celebrated Clay's vision of the "American System" that promoted rapid economic and industrial growth in the United States. Whigs demanded government support for a more modern, market-oriented economy, in which skill, expertise and bank credit would count for more than physical strength or land ownership. Whigs sought to promote faster industrialization through high tariffs, a business-oriented money supply based on a national bank and a vigorous program of government funded "internal improvements," especially expansion of the road and canal systems. To modernize the inner America, the Whigs helped create public schools, private colleges, charities, and cultural institutions. Many were pietistic Protestant reformers who called for public schools to teach moral values and proposed prohibition to end the liquor problem.

The Democrats harkened to the Jeffersonian ideal of an egalitarian agricultural society, advising that traditional farm life bred republican simplicity, while modernization threatened to create a politically powerful caste of rich aristocrats who threatened to subvert democracy. In general the Democrats enacted their policies at the national level, while the Whigs succeeded in passing modernization projects in most states.

Education[edit]Arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens, Horace Mann (1796''1859) won widespread approval from modernizers, especially among fellow Whigs, for building public schools. Indeed, most states adopted one version or another of the system he established in Massachusetts, especially the program for "normal schools" to train professional teachers.[8]

1836''1840[edit]In the 1836 elections, the party was not yet sufficiently organized to run one nationwide candidate; instead William Henry Harrison was its candidate in the northern and border states, Hugh Lawson White ran in the South, and Daniel Webster ran in his home state of Massachusetts. Whigs hoped that their three candidates would amass enough Electoral College votes among them to deny a majority to Martin Van Buren. That would move the election to the House of Representatives, allowing the ascendant Whigs to select their most popular man as president. The Whigs came only a few thousand votes short of victory in Pennsylvania, vindicating their strategy, but failed nonetheless.

In late 1839, the Whigs held their first national convention and nominated William Henry Harrison as their presidential candidate. In March 1840, Harrison pledged to serve only one term as President if elected, a pledge which reflected popular support for a Constitutional limit to Presidential terms among many in the Whig Party. Harrison went on to victory in 1840, defeating Van Buren's re-election bid largely as a result of the Panic of 1837 and subsequent depression. Harrison served only 31 days and became the first President to die in office. He was succeeded by John Tyler, a Virginian and states' rights absolutist. Tyler vetoed the Whig economic legislation and was expelled from the Whig party in 1841. The Whigs' internal disunity and the nation's increasing prosperity made the party's activist economic program seem less necessary and led to a disastrous showing in the 1842 Congressional election.

A brief golden age[edit]The central issue in the 1840s was expansion, with proponents of "Manifest Destiny" arguing in favor of aggressive westward expansion even at the risk of war with Mexico (over the annexation of Texas) and Britain (over control of Oregon). Howe argues that, "Nevertheless American imperialism did not represent an American consensus; it provoked bitter dissent within the national polity."[9] That is, most Democrats strongly supported Manifest Destiny and most Whigs strongly opposed it.

Faragher's analysis of the political polarization between the parties is that:

"Most Democrats were wholehearted supporters of expansion, whereas many Whigs (especially in the North) were opposed. Whigs welcomed most of the changes wrought by industrialization but advocated strong government policies that would guide growth and development within the country's existing boundaries; they feared (correctly) that expansion raised a contentious issue the extension of slavery to the territories. On the other hand, many Democrats feared industrialization the Whigs welcomed. ... For many Democrats, the answer to the nation's social ills was to continue to follow Thomas Jefferson's vision of establishing agriculture in the new territories in order to counterbalance industrialization."[10]By 1844, the Whigs began their recovery by nominating Henry Clay, who lost to Democrat James K. Polk in a closely contested race, with Polk's policy of western expansion (particularly the annexation of Texas) and free trade triumphing over Clay's protectionism and caution over the Texas question. The Whigs, both northern and southern, strongly opposed expansion into Texas, which they (including Whig Congressman Abraham Lincoln) saw as an unprincipled land grab. In 1848, the Whigs, seeing no hope of success by nominating Clay, nominated General Zachary Taylor, a Mexican-American War hero. They stopped criticizing the war and adopted only a very vague platform. Taylor defeated Democratic candidate Lewis Cass and the anti-slavery Free Soil Party, who had nominated former President Martin Van Buren. Van Buren's candidacy split the Democratic vote in New York, throwing that state to the Whigs; at the same time, however, the Free Soilers probably cost the Whigs several Midwestern states.

Compromise of 1850[edit]Taylor was firmly opposed to the Compromise of 1850 and committed to the admission of California as a free state and had proclaimed that he would take military action to prevent secession. In July 1850, Taylor died; Vice President Millard Fillmore, a long-time Whig, became the President, and he helped push the Compromise through Congress in the hopes of ending the controversies over slavery. The Compromise of 1850 had been first proposed by the Whig Henry Clay of Kentucky.

The Whigs were unable to deal with the slavery issue after 1850. Their southern leaders nearly all owned slaves. The northeastern Whigs, led by Daniel Webster, represented businessmen who loved national unity and a national market but cared little about slavery one way or another. However many Whig voters in the North thought that slavery was incompatible with a free-labor, free-market economy and supported the Wilmot Proviso, which did not pass Congress but would have stopped the expansion of slavery. No one discovered a compromise that would keep the party united. Furthermore, the burgeoning economy made full-time careers in business or law much more attractive than politics for ambitious young Whigs. Thus the Whig Party leader in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, simply abandoned politics after 1849.

Death throes, 1852''1856[edit]When new issues of nativism, prohibition and anti-slavery burst on the scene in the mid-1850s,[11] no one looked to the quickly disintegrating Whig party for answers. In the north most ex-Whigs joined the new Republican party, and in the South, they flocked to a new short-lived "American" party.

The election of 1852 marked the beginning of the end for the Whigs. The deaths of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster that year severely weakened the party. The Compromise of 1850 fractured the Whigs along pro- and anti-slavery lines, with the anti-slavery faction having enough power to deny Fillmore the party's nomination in 1852. The Whig Party's 1852 convention in New York City saw the historic meeting between Alvan E. Bovay and The New York Tribune's Horace Greeley, a meeting which led to correspondence between the men as the early Republican Party meetings in 1854 began to take place. Attempting to repeat their earlier successes, the Whigs nominated popular General Winfield Scott, who lost decisively to the Democrats' Franklin Pierce. The Democrats won the election by a large margin: Pierce won 27 of the 31 states including Scott's home state of New Jersey. Whig Representative Lewis D. Campbell of Ohio was particularly distraught by the defeat, exclaiming, "We are slain. The party is dead'--dead'--dead!" Increasingly politicians realized that the party was a loser. Abraham Lincoln, one of its leaders in Illinois, for example, ceased his Whig activities and attended to his law business.

In 1854, the Kansas''Nebraska Act, which opened the new territories to slavery, was passed. Southern Whigs generally supported the Act while Northern Whigs remained strongly opposed. Most remaining Northern Whigs, like Lincoln, joined the new Republican Party and strongly attacked the Act, appealing to widespread northern outrage over the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Other Whigs joined the Know-Nothing Party, attracted by its nativist crusades against so-called "corrupt" Irish and German immigrants. In the South, the Whig party vanished, but as Thomas Alexander has shown, Whiggism as a modernizing policy orientation persisted for decades.[3] Historians estimate that, in the South in 1856, former Whig Fillmore retained 86 percent of the 1852 Whig voters when he ran as the American Party candidate. He won only 13% of the northern vote, though that was just enough to tip Pennsylvania out of the Republican column. The future in the North, most observers thought at the time, was Republican. No one saw any prospects for the shrunken old party, and after 1856 there was virtually no Whig organization left anywhere.[12] Some Whigs and others adopted the mantle of the "Opposition Party" for several years and had some success.

In 1860, many former Whigs who had not joined the Republicans regrouped as the Constitutional Union Party, which nominated only a national ticket. It had considerable strength in the border states, which feared the onset of civil war. John Bell finished third in the electoral college.

During the Lincoln Administration (1861''65), ex-Whigs dominated the Republican Party and enacted much of their so-called "American System". Later their Southern colleagues dominated the White response to Reconstruction. In the long run, America adopted Whiggish economic policies coupled with a Democratic strong presidency.

In the South during the latter part of the American Civil War and during the Reconstruction Era, many former Whigs tried to regroup in the South, calling themselves "Conservatives" and hoping to reconnect with the ex-Whigs in the North. These were merged into the Democratic Party in the South, but they continued to promote modernization policies such as large-scale railroad construction and the founding of public schools.[3]

In today's discourse in American politics, the Whig Party is often cited as an example of a political party that lost its followers and its reason for being, as by the expression "going the way of the Whigs."[13]

The True Whig Party'--named in direct emulation of the American Whig party'--was the dominant force in the politics of Liberia for more than a century.

In 2006, the Florida Whig Party was formed. After fielding one candidate for congress in state elections of 2010, the party dissolved in 2012.[14]

In 2008, a group of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan battlefields formed the Modern Whig Party, with many of the same principles of the historical Whigs.[15]

Presidents from the Whig Party[edit]Presidents of the United States, dates in office

William Henry Harrison (1841)John Tylera (1841''1845)Zachary Taylor (1849''1850)Millard Fillmore (1850''1853)Additionally, John Quincy Adams, elected President as a Democratic-Republican, later became a National Republican and then a Whig after he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1831.

Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Rutherford B. Hayes were Whigs before switching to the Republican Party, from which they were elected to office.

Candidates[edit]^ a: Although Mangum himself was a Whig, his electoral votes came from Nullificationists in South Carolina.^ b: Died in office.^ c: Fillmore and Donelson were also candidates on the American Party ticket.^ d: Bell and Everett were also candidates on the Constitutional Union ticket.See also[edit]^a Although Tyler was elected vice president as a Whig, his policies soon proved to be opposed to most of the Whig agenda, and he was officially expelled from the party in 1841, a few months after taking office as president.^Holt (1999), p. 231.^The name was not directly related to the Whig party in England. Holt (1999), pp. 27''30.^ abcAlexander (1961).^Peter Charles Hoffer (2006). The Brave New World: A History of Early America. JHU Press. p. 449. ISBN 9780801884832. ^David Brown, "Jeffersonian Ideology and the Second Party System." Historian 1999 62(1): 17''30.^Lynn Marshall. "The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party," American Historical Review, (1967) v. 72 pp. 445''68^Holt (1999) p. 83^Mark Groen, "The Whig Party and the Rise of Common Schools, 1837''1854," American Educational History Journal Spring/Summer 2008, Vol. 35 Issue 1/2, pp. 251''260^Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815''1848, (2007) pp. 705''6^John Mack Faragher et al. Out of Many: A History of the American People, (2nd ed. 1997) page 413^When new issues of nativism, prohibition and anti-slavery burst on the scene in the mid-1850s^Holt pp. 979''80.^Donald T. Critchlow, The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History (2007) p. 103. Additional examples are of online.^http://www.floridawhig.com/^http://outfront.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/22/is-it-time-for-a-new-political-party/References[edit]Alexander, Thomas B. (Aug. 1961). "Persistent Whiggery in the Confederate South, 1860''1877". Journal of Southern History27 (3): 305''329. doi:10.2307/2205211. JSTOR 2205211. Atkins, Jonathan M.; "The Whig Party versus the "spoilsmen" of Tennessee," The Historian, Vol. 57, 1994 online versionBeveridge, Albert J. (1928). Abraham Lincoln, 1809''1858, vol. 1, ch. 4''8. Brown, Thomas (1985). Politics and Statesmanship: Essays on the American Whig Party. ISBN 0-231-05602-8. Cole, Arthur Charles (1913). The Whig Party in the South. online versionFoner, Eric (1970). Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. ISBN 0-19-501352-2. Formisano, Ronald P. (Winter 1969). "Political Character, Antipartyism, and the Second Party System". American Quarterly (The Johns Hopkins University Press) 21 (4): 683''709. doi:10.2307/2711603. JSTOR 2711603. Online through JSTORFormisano, Ronald P. (June 1974). "Deferential-Participant Politics: The Early Republic's Political Culture, 1789''1840". American Political Science Review (American Political Science Association) 68 (2): 473''87. doi:10.2307/1959497. JSTOR 1959497. Online through JSTORFormisano, Ronald P. (1983). The Transformation of Political Culture: Massachusetts Parties, 1790s''1840s. ISBN 0-19-503124-5. Hammond, Bray. Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War (1960), Pulitzer prize; the standard history. Pro-BankHolt, Michael F. (1992). Political Parties and American Political Development: From the Age of Jackson to the Age of Lincoln. ISBN 0-8071-2609-8. Holt, Michael F. (1999). The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505544-6. Howe, Daniel Walker (1973). The American Whigs: An Anthology. Howe, Daniel Walker (1979). The Political Culture of the American Whigs. ISBN 0-226-35478-4. Howe, Daniel Walker (March 1991). "The Evangelical Movement and Political Culture during the Second Party System". Journal of American History (Organization of American Historians) 77 (4): 1216''39. doi:10.2307/2078260. JSTOR 2078260. Howe, Daniel Walker (2007). What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815''1848. ISBN 1-4332-6019-0. Kruman, Marc W. (Winter 1992). "The Second Party System and the Transformation of Revolutionary Republicanism". Journal of the Early Republic (Society for Historians of the Early American Republic) 12 (4): 509''37. doi:10.2307/3123876. JSTOR 3123876. Online through JSTORMarshall, Lynn. (January 1967). "The Strange Stillbirth of the Whig Party". American Historical Review (American Historical Association) 72 (2): 445''68. doi:10.2307/1859236. JSTOR 1859236. Online through JSTORMcCormick, Richard P. (1966). The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era. ISBN 0-393-00680-8. Mueller, Henry R.; The Whig Party in Pennsylvania, (1922) online versionNevins, Allan. The Ordeal of the Union (1947) vol 1: Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852; vol 2. A House Dividing, 1852-1857. highly detailed narrative of national politicsPoage, George Rawlings. Henry Clay and the Whig Party (1936)Remini, Robert V. (1991). Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31088-4. Remini, Robert V. (1997). Daniel Webster. ISBN 0-393-04552-8. Riddle, Donald W. (1948). Lincoln Runs for Congress. Schlesinger, Arthur Meier, Jr. ed. History of American Presidential Elections, 1789''2000 (various multivolume editions, latest is 2001). For each election includes good scholarly history and selection of primary documents. Essays on the most important elections are reprinted in Schlesinger, The Coming to Power: Critical presidential elections in American history (1972)Schurz, Carl (1899). Life of Henry Clay: American Statesmen. vol. 2. Shade, William G. (1983). "The Second Party System". In Paul Kleppner, et al. (contributors). Evolution of American Electoral Systems. Sharp, James Roger. The Jacksonians Versus the Banks: Politics in the States after the Panic of 1837 (1970)Silbey, Joel H. (1991). The American Political Nation, 1838''1893. ISBN 0-8047-1878-4. Smith, Craig R. "Daniel Webster's Epideictic Speaking: A Study in Emerging Whig Virtues" onlineVan Deusen, Glyndon G. (1953). Horace Greeley, Nineteenth-Century Crusader. Van Deusen, Glyndon (1973). "The Whig Party". In Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (ed.). History of U.S. Political Parties. Chelsea House Publications. pp. 1:331''63. ISBN 0-7910-5731-3. Van Deusen, Glyndon G. Thurlow Weed, Wizard of the Lobby (1947)Wilentz, Sean (2005). The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. ISBN 0-393-05820-4. Wilson, Major L. Space, Time, and Freedom: The Quest for Nationality and the Irrepressible Conflict, 1815-1861 (1974) intellectual history of Whigs and DemocratsExternal links[edit]

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Source: BBC News - Europe

Fri, 08 Nov 2013 04:18

The BBC's Jonathan Beale reports on a Nato exercise in Poland and Latvia that involves 6,000 troops simulating a response to a attack on a member state.

It is Nato's largest live exercise since 2006 and involves land, air, naval and special forces from 20 Nato countries.

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14-year old Avonte Oquendo disappeared from his Long Island school a month ago. He has autism and does not speak. Unfortunately, he has not been found. Parents with autistic children are joining forces with Schumer, who issued a statement:

The sights and sounds of NYC and other busy places can be over-stimulating and distracting for children and teens with Autism, often leading to wandering as a way to escape. Voluntary tracking devices will help our teachers and parents in the event that the child runs away and, God forbid, goes missing. DOJ already funds these devices for individuals with Alzheimer's and they should do the same for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Funding this program will help put school systems and parents of children and teens with Autism at ease knowing where their children are.

The Alzheimer service costs around $100, and the GPS tracking service is between $5 and $50 a month. Additionally, a service like this would require a federal database with private information. AT&T will now sell Amber Alert GPS for kids. The settings are determined by the parents and cost $199. They can get the device for free if they sign a three-year service agreement.

There are many links at the Autism Speaks website for safety products. One private company is Care Trak Systems. They are cost effective and as low as $3.29 per person but offer their service for free to seniors and families on fixed incomes.

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Published time: November 09, 2013 23:07Edited time: November 10, 2013 00:43King Willem-Alexander of The Netherlands (2-L) and Queen Maxima (RIA Novosti / Vitaliy Belousov)

A couple of Russian activists pelted King of the Netherlands with rotten tomatoes during his visit to the Moscow Conservatory. The instigators of the attack were detained despite the fruits falling short of their illustrious targets.

The two attackers were members of a banned Russian opposition party who allegedly performed the stunt in protest over the death of Russian Opposition activist Aleksander Dolmatov who committed suicide while in a Rotterdam deportation center earlier this year.''Dolmatov's blood is on your hands!'' the National Bolshevik Party activists shouted at the Dutch King, according to eyewitnesses.

King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and his wife were not harmed, as the projectiles fell nowhere near them, and carried on with their official engagements.

The attackers, Victoria Kuznetsova and Denis Kudryavtsev, according to reports, were quickly detained and escorted away in a police van to Krasnopresnenskaya's police station, according to Other Russia party leader, Sergey Aksenov. The unregistered National Bolshevik Party was banned in Russia for extremist ideas, and its organizers created the Other Russia Party from its ashes in 2010.

Opposition activist Alexander Dolmatov applied for political asylum in the Netherlands after fleeing to the country. The Dutch authorities rejected the request, and placed him in a Rotterdam detention center while he awaited return to Russia. He was found dead in January this year, having killed himself in his cell.

While in Russia, Dolmatov had been an active member of Other Russia and had been arrested after being accused of involvement in the Bolotnaya Square riots in Moscow on May 6, 2012. He was released, but left Russia in June fearing he would be arrested again. After his death, the Russian Foreign Ministry demanded an ''immediate and full investigation of the incident.''

The Dutch King Willem-Alexander and his wife, Queen Maxima, have been rounding off a two-day visit to Russia to mark the 400th anniversary of Russian-Dutch relations as part of a ''Year of Friendship'' between the two countries.

While the visit has been overshadowed by recent diplomatic problems, discussions of issues, such as the detention of Greenpeace activists, would not be part of talks as the Dutch king does not involve himself in direct political negotiations, Putin's aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters.

On Wednesday, the Netherlands demanded that Russia free all 30 Arctic Sunrise activists, taking the case to an international tribunal. Russia has rejected participation in the process, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich saying that ''Russia has counter complaints against The Hague in connection with this incident. The current situation has, to a significant extent, been caused by Dutch negligence.''

Lukashevich added that ''it was known that the ship arrived in Russia's economic zone with the intention of committing a crime,'' he said.

The detention of Russian diplomat, Dmitry Borodin, in the Netherlands caused uproar in Russia, increasing tensions between Russia and the Netherlands even further. Borodin was arrested and beaten by local police in violation of his diplomatic immunity. The Dutch media suggested he was taken in over mistreatment of his children reported by neighbors.

Borodin's Dutch counterpart, Onno Elderenbosch, later was attacked in Moscow when people disguised as electricians broke into his house, beat him up, and daubed 'LGBT' across a mirror in red lipstick, according to media reports. The Dutch Foreign Minister claimed on Tuesday that ''victims'' of the Russian ''anti-gay propaganda law'' could receive political asylum in the Netherlands, fueling tensions.

Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov and his counterpart in the Netherlands discussed the situation surrounding both the Greenpeace ship and recent incidents involving Russian and Dutch diplomats on Friday. A follow-up meeting on Saturday was rescheduled over Lavrov's last minute decision to join the talks on Iran's nuclear program in Geneva.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his satisfaction with the way talks with the King have proceeded up to this point, ''in spite of some limitations in the diplomatic service.'' The King also expressed his wish that ''everything can be resolved in the spirit of friendship.''

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 03:35

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Fri, 08 Nov 2013 04:18

The BBC's Jonathan Beale reports on a Nato exercise in Poland and Latvia that involves 6,000 troops simulating a response to a attack on a member state.

It is Nato's largest live exercise since 2006 and involves land, air, naval and special forces from 20 Nato countries.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:37

Mixed student housing in Turkey could be a thing of the past if Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan gets his way.

He has said he wants to ban male and female students from living together both on and off-campus and that the government receives 'intelligence' about what goes on inside coed housing.

His comments have not gone down well with students.One told euronews: ''this is people's own choice. I mean I can invite my friends, my cousin or my family to come and join me. When I make this rent contract I do it on my own. The police has no right to come and control my place.''

Another student said: ''our society which claims to be conservative and Islamic, accepts religious marriage without a civil ceremony as rightful but they think it is unethical when friends talk to each other in houses? I don't understand and accept this mentality.''

The comments have also caused alarm amongst those concerned about too much Islamic religious influence on a secular state.

Dr. Cengiz Aktar, a political analyst from the Istanbul Policy Center said it would have little legal basis: ''I don't even think that this can be done by a legal regulation or decree. But what will happen I tell you. Some people who are willing to play ''the ethic police (by themselves)'' will harass young people and their families, linking their attitude to the statements of the prime minister. It has already started.''

The deputy prime minister has rebuked Erdogan, saying the comments left the government ''unnecessarily open to criticism.''

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 00:28

A satellite which has been mapping the world's gravitational field and ocean circulation is failing and on a crash course for Earth.

The European Space agency's GOCE satellite has been in a low-Earth orbit Since 2009.

The ESA says it cannot predict how quickly or where exactly the one-tonne spacecraft will crash. Most of it will burn up when it hits the earth's atmosphere, thought to be around Sunday.

''In total since Sputnik was launched about 15,000 tons have returned from space'' the ESA's Head of Space Debris, Heiner Klinkrad said, adding ''typically between 10 and 40 percent of the initial mass survives such a re-entry. Velocity upon impact is between 200 and 300 hundred kilometres an hour, which is a speed that you can achieve on German motorways with a good-sized car,''

This may be one of the last crashes of its type, as an international agreement now means satellites must be directional on re-entry to allow them to be crashed harmlessly into the ocean.

However GOCE's fall pales in comparison with the tens of thousands of tonnes of meteorites that land on Earth every year.

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 23:30

Oct 31, 2013 6:06pm

By BRIAN ROSS and RHONDA SCHWARTZ

Several more current and former National Security Agency insiders, inspired by American fugitive Edward Snowden, have come forward as whistleblowers with details of the shadowy agency's operations, according to an attorney at a whistleblower protection organization.

''I think the government hopes to chill speech by employees in the national security and intelligence fields, especially those at the NSA and CIA, but the unintended consequence is [that] more and more whistleblowers are coming through the doors of the Government Accountability Project (GAP),'' said Jesselyn Radack, referring to the organization where she works as the National Security and Human Rights Director. ''I think courage is contagious, and we see more and more people from the NSA coming through our door after Snowden made these revelations.''

Radack, an attorney who has met with and been in communication with Snowden, said ''a handful'' of people in the intelligence community have come forward since this summer when several major international newspapers began writing about the NSA's classified foreign and domestic surveillance programs '' stories based on thousands of secret NSA documents allegedly stolen by Snowden, a former NSA contractor.

FULL COVERAGE: NSA Surveillance

Snowden has been charged in the U.S. with espionage-related crimes, and America's top intelligence officials said he is a traitor who has put America's national security in jeopardy.

But the legal threats and high-level condemnation haven't kept others from coming forward with new information, Radack said.

''There definitely could be more revelations in addition to those that Snowden has revealed and that are continuing to come out,'' she told ABC News.

Snowden is currently living in Russia, after being granted temporary asylum there. Today his Russian lawyer said he had gotten a job at a major Russian website. Radack said she was unaware of any new employment for Snowden.

WATCH: Radack Speaks at Anti-Surveillance Rally at the Nation's Capital

The NSA declined to offer immediate comment in response to an after-hours request by ABC News.

ABC News' Lee Ferran contributed to this report.

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There is an audible pause in our analog lives; a preverbal squelch on the digital line that defines the very privacy everyone expects, but is rarely guaranteed.

That audible pause, that digital squelch carries with it a subtle promise that someone is reading, or listening, or cataloging and (ab)using every footprint we each press into the digital landscape. No one can guarantee that a third-party is or is not eavesdropping on a series of communications, but Dark Mail can guarantee that when a third-party does gain access, or demands access, the privacy users rightfully deserve is maintained without fail.

The Summer of Snowden may have taken the Lavabit email service offline, but the lifeblood of the service is still alive and relevant to Dark Mail. The goal is to perfect and release its source code as a free and open-source software (F/OSS) project. The "magma" daemon supports access via SMTP, POP3, IMAP4 and HTTP. Magma can be clustered and transparently encrypts user data before storing it on disk. It includes a Javascript webmail system that uses a JSON-based API to provide secure mail access via the web.

Along with preserving existing functionality, the team will build in support for the Dark Mail protocol. Dark Mail, a newly developed messaging protocol, is designed to provide end-to-end encryption of both the message itself and the email in transit. Because encryption will be integrated into the protocol itself, it will be invisible to the user. Dark Mail users will get the security of PGP without the cognitive burden; if someone can use email today they will be able to use Dark Mail tomorrow.

The project will also include building, and releasing as F/OSS, the first Dark Mail compatible clients. We are planning to launch with clients for the desktop (Win, Mac, Lin), smartphones and tablets (iOS, Android).

Provide the funding and you'll get access to the source code and binaries before the general public. Be one of the first service providers to support the new Dark Mail protocol!

Risks and challengesLearn about accountability on KickstarterThe challenge will be finding talented programmers to work on and support the project. The more funds we have available, the easier it will be to attract top tier talent!

Lavabit is planning to hire programmers with f/oss development experience and who've worked with C, Javascript, HTML, SQL and JSON.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 01:24

Fox, CNN and other blogs have now picked up versions of the smoking gun video that we found last week. The video shows Eric Cantor informing Obama about the issue in February 2010, and quoting the CBO report about potential millions of cancellations.

So Obama knew about it very clearly. On video, he responds, showing not only did he know, but he understood what was being said.

Via Breitbart:

Last night on Fox News' ''Special Report'' and CNN's ''The Lead with Jake Tapper,'' video aired of President Obama admitting that due to ObamaCare, ''eight to nine million people '... might have to change their coverage.'' The key words there are ''have to.''

The setting is the February of 2010 health care summit with Republicans. Minority Whip Eric Cantor is addressing the president directly on the issue of people losing their insurance due to the Affordable Care Act:

Keep reading'...

However, the version of the video Breitbart cites above is missing a critical point. What those media outlets still haven't covered is the very last part of the video where Cantor asks, what will be the effect of the new benefits regulations on those already insured?

Obama says very clearly, that those regulations will only apply to the people in the exchanges, in other words, they will not apply to those already insured. He then tries to change the subject and move onto other people.

Obama then of course made sure by the regulations that it would apply to those already insured. One more gigantic whopper of a lie.

Check the tape, at the very end, at 13:41.

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 05:39

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Sun, 10 Nov 2013 13:56

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 22:45

Rob Ford , the mayor of Canada's largest city, has been caught on video in an impaired rant saying he is going to kill someone and ''rip his f---ing throat out.''

Ford slurs his words as he staggers around an unknown dining room, apparently high, ranting gibberish and gesticulating wildly.

''I'm gonna kill that f---ing guy. I'm telling you, it's first-degree murder,'' Ford rages as someone in the room secretly uses a cellphone to film the chief magistrate's addled tirade.

Moments after the Star published the video online, Ford emerged from his office and apologized.

''The Toronto Star just released a video that I was very, very inebriated.''

''All I can say is, again, I've made mistakes. I just wanted to come out and tell you I saw a video. It's extremely embarrassing. The whole world's going to see it. You know what? I don't have a problem with that.''

''I hope none of you have ever or will ever be in that state. Obviously, I was extremely, extremely inebriated.''

The target of the mayor's anger in the video is not in the room and is not known to the Star.

''I'll rip his f---ing throat out. I'll poke his eyes out. . . . I'll make sure that motherf---er's dead,'' Ford says, then hitches up his pants as if bracing for action.

His ire appears to be directed at someone who has called him, and brothers Doug and Randy, ''liars, thieves.''

Wednesday, Ford's chief of staff, Earl Provost, said he could not speak to the Star about the video. ''I am sorry I cannot talk to you about this,'' Provost said.

Also on Wednesday, the Star sent a transcript of the video, a description of the video's contents and an offer to show it to the following people in the mayor's circle: Ford, his brother Councillor Doug Ford, Provost, deputy chief of staff Sunny Petrujkic, spokesman Amin Massoudi, and Ford's lawyer, Dennis Morris.

The Star invited all of them to view the video, either at their office or the Star's office, and provide an explanation for Ford's behaviour. No one took the Star up on its offer.

Ford only commented on the video after it appeared on thestar.com.

After apologizing for his behaviour, Ford did not elaborate on his filmed rant.

Last week, Police Chief Bill Blair announced that investigators had recovered two video clips relevant to extortion charges laid against the mayor's ''close friend'' Alexander ''Sandro'' Lisi. One of those videos is of the mayor smoking what appears to be crack, which two Star reporters viewed in May.

There is no suggestion that this video is the second video Blair referred to in his press conference.

In this profanity-laden, 77-second video, Ford is seen pacing about the dining room of a house, threatening death to an unnamed enemy. A person off-camera, who is encouraging Ford's behaviour, tells him to wait until ''after the by-election,'' an apparent reference to the by-election Ford wanted the city to hold to replace departed deputy mayor Doug Holyday.

The reference to the by-election puts the timing of the video sometime in August.

The need to replace Holyday on council came on Aug. 1, when he became an MPP. City council voted on Aug. 26 to choose his successor by appointment instead of the $250,000 by-election Ford said was the more democratic choice.

Similar to the crack video the Star witnessed in May, Ford's words switch rapidly from being easily heard to incomprehensible.

''I am a sick motherf---er, dude,'' says Ford, rolling the cuffs of his collared shirt up to his elbow. ''Like no one's gonna f--- around with me.''

At points in the video, Ford is incoherent. He appears to say that unidentified critics call him and his brothers ''birds.''

At another point, he angrily mutters what sounds like ''This is f---ed, daddy.'' However, the outburst also sounds like: ''That little prick's a racist f---, daddy.''

In the video, Ford frenetically waves his arms and shifts from foot to foot. He stumbles backwards and gently bumps into the dining room table, on which sits a large bottle of alcohol. As he grows more agitated he slaps his stomach hard and appears to be discussing a plan to get ''in the ring'' with someone. Ford and voices off-camera seem to debate how long he will need for the attack. He wants 15 minutes. A man off-camera says he will only have five minutes.

The Star purchased the video for $5,000 from a source who filmed the video from someone else's computer screen, and that person was connected to people who were in the room during Ford's rant, the Star was told.

Asked why the paper paid $5,000 for the video, Editor Michael Cooke said: ''Because of the huge public interest both in Toronto and worldwide.

''We weren't paying a source for information; we were purchasing a video, something newspapers and TV stations do every day. I've paid more for a book excerpt.

''Publisher John Cruickshank and I talked about the price and quickly decided that the crisis at city hall made it essential to get all information relevant to Ford's true character and views in front of Torontonians.

''This was especially crucial as the mayor insisted he had nothing left to hide and has called us liars and maggots from the beginning, when we reported on two of our journalists seeing a video that showed a clearly intoxicated mayor smoking crack cocaine.

''One of the mayor's pals is accused of going to extraordinary lengths to find and suppress the crack video, while all the while he was denying its existence. We feared if we didn't grab it quick, this revealing video might disappear.''

The Star has been assured the money went to ''the legal and beneficial use of a family.''

The Star was told that Ford arrived at a supporter's home and was clearly impaired. The Ford supporter was described to the Star as a businessman. Four people between the age of 20 and 60 were present during Ford's outbursts. One made the video using a phone camera. This man appears to have been sitting on a couch near where the mayor was pacing, in front of a dining room table covered with a white tablecloth and surrounded by six chairs. Blinds are drawn and a chandelier lights the room. It is nighttime.

While Ford is clearly angry with someone who has insulted him and his brothers, he uses sporting terms to discuss his plan of attack.

''No holds barred, brother. He dies, or I die, brother,'' Ford says at the start of the video.

Again, a voice off-camera, as if in call-and-response, says, ''Mike Tyson,'' a reference to the former boxer.

Ford continues: ''I'll fight him. I'll . . . (gibberish)''

''I need f---ing 10 minutes to make sure he's dead. It'll be over in five minutes, brother,'' says Ford, who paces back and forth in short, stilted steps.

Ford, shoes off, struggles to focus his rant, moving around the room and flipping from an aside about his brothers to unintelligible gibberish and back again.

''My brothers are, don't tell me we're liars, thieves, birds?'' he said. ''Randy walks with a ... (unintelligible) ... 80-year-old birds '...''

The Randy section is largely incomprehensible. Randy Ford is the eldest Ford brother.

The video has two distinct cuts where it appears the person stopped filming then started again or edited together three short clips. It is unknown what, if anything, Ford said in the period of time that was not filmed.

''Brother, I just need to go f--king by myself in my f--king underwear,'' he says, slapping his belly six times. Near the end of the video, Ford tells his audience, ''If I win, I will f--king donate,'' before trailing off and leaving the thought unfinished. It is not known what the mayor is referring to.

After one cut, Ford's striped tie is gone and he tugs at his collar.

Near the end of the video, Ford tells his audience, ''If I win, I will f---ing donate,'' before trailing off and leaving the thought unfinished. It is not known what the mayor is referring to.

The video emerges after seven days of revelations. Last Thursday, Chief Bill Blair announced police had found the crack video, the one Star reporters viewed that shows Ford making homophobic and racist comments while smoking a crack pipe. Brother Doug called for Blair to resign. Then the mayor announced he had smoked crack cocaine, once, during a ''drunken stupor.''

Mayor Ford then said, ''I have nothing left to hide.''

This email was sent to Mayor Ford, Doug Ford, Sunny Petrujkic, Amin Massoudi, lawyer Dennis Morris and Ford chief of staff Earl Provost

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

This email is a request from the Toronto Star for you to view, tonight, a video we have obtained.

We have in our possession a 1 minute 17 second video that shows Mayor Ford impaired, at a constituents house, threatening to kill someone. It is somehow related to the byelection and we believe the video was made in August. Mayor Ford is extremely aggressive.

Here is a partial transcript. We would like to show you this video tonight and seek comment. If there is an explanation for this we would like you to provide it. We may publish this story shortly, but again would like to know what your explanation is for this behaviour.

The "Voice" refers to people off camera.

Among Mayor Ford's comments :

RF:'Cause I'm going to kill that f--king guy. I'm telling you it's first-degree murder.

RF: No holds barred, brother. He dies or I die, brother.

RF: Think so, brother? When he's down, I'll rip his f--king throat out. I'll poke his eyes out. I will, f--k, when he's dead, I'll make sure that motherf--ker's dead.

RF: I need f--king 10 minutes to make sure he's dead. It'll be over in five minutes, brother...10 minutes

RF: I am a sick motherf--ker, dude. (rolling up his shirt cuffs) But no one's gonna f--k around with me. My brothers are, don't tell me we're liars, thieves, birds? It hurts.

RF: (unintelligible) This is f--ked, daddy. (unintelligible) Randy walks

RF: Brother, I just need to go f--king by myself in my f--king underwear. I want to go outside I need 15 minutes. That's all I '-- No f--king interference, brother. If I win, I will f--king donate ... (arms spread wide as if searching for a word or idea) Voice (accented): These kids are pros, buddy

The scene for this video is a living room, likely in Etobicoke. At least four people are present, aged 20-60. These people are witnesses to your behaviour. You arrived impaired, we are told. We are curious as to how you arrived. By car, driving, or with a driver.

Please respond shortly and I will show you or your staff the video.

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 22:49

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Sat, 09 Nov 2013 14:30

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

"It's embracing 1960's era technology," former U.S. Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra told CNNMoney. "A core issue there is a same set of problems we've seen in the past."

As the first CIO of the United States, Kundra's been credited with instituting a cloud-first policy to help make the government more efficient. It's a policy Kundra says could have saved folks building out healthcare.gov time and money.

For example, Kundra says his understanding is that the Obamacare website uses 800 servers just for authenticating users,

"You could actually have deployed that in a cloud solution without buying a single server," he said.

Related story: Security hold found in Obamacare website

Kundra has since left Washington for Silicon Valley where he serves as executive vice president of marketing at Salesforce(CRM), a company devoted to cloud technology. He said the government could have used Silicon Valley's help with the high-profile website. The site's many contractors may have contributed to the site's inefficiencies, technical errors and lack of ownership over its problems, Kundra said.

"Decisions were made to ... custom build everything rather than saying, 'Who does this best on the planet?'" Kundra noted.

But government bureaucracy rarely functions like Big Tech corporations do.

Clay Johnson, who is also a former member of President Barack Obama's technology team, said government contractors recognize that the way to make money is to throw more people at the problem rather than figuring out a way to deliver the best solution at the lowest cost.

Related story: Obamacare 'hub' back online after malfunction

"Healthcare.gov got this way not because of incompetence or sloppiness of an individual vendor, but because of a deeply engrained and malignant cancer that's eating away at the federal government's ability to provide effective online services," he wrote. "It's a cancer that's shut out the best and brightest minds from working on these problems, diminished competition for federal work, and landed us here '-- where you have half-billion dollar websites that don't work."

Government agencies would like nothing more than to have the best and brightest minds in the world working on healthcare.gov, Johnson said. But the best they've got to choose from are a few dozen companies.

It's a culture that calls for several cooks in the kitchen with little accountability. At a congressional hearing last week, contractors involved in the healthcare.gov roll out deflected responsibility and blamed other contractors, deadlines, and in come cases, administrative decisions.

Kundra says historically, Obama has made an effort to counter "a culture of faceless accountability," rolling out a plan to reform IT management.

But the Obamacare website ultimately fell victim to the same obstacles to innovation that many other government initiatives have in the past.

First Published: October 30, 2013: 7:24 AM ET