pnwmom
pnwmom's JournalDog loving man adopts Rottweiler. Gets killed by the dog a few hours later.
What is infuriating about this story is that the dog was a stray and under Tennessee law the shelter had no obligation, after they fed and housed the dog for three days, to test it or even to give it a rabies vaccination. So they have no idea whether this "adoptable" dog was healthy, vaccinated, or had the personality to be a good adoption candidate.
The shelter people say their prayers go out to the family. They owe the family a lot more than that.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/11/17/animal-loving-man-killed-newly-adopted-dog/75910376/
During the three days, the animals are fed and watered, but not examined or tested, Tedford said. If unclaimed, they are then put online for adoption. Vaccinations and spaying or neutering are arranged by the owner after adoption.
Adrienne Riggs said policies should be changed for Rabies Control, including evaluating the animals over a period of time.
“They don’t assess the dogs, they don’t vet them, they don’t evaluate them, they just adopt them out,” she said. “You just can’t put a dog that may be dangerous out with an unsuspecting family. That’s just wrong.”
SNIP
“We’ve never had this happen before through our Rabies Control office,” she said. “We certainly hope it’s something that never happens again. Our prayers and thoughts certainly go out to the family.”
According to his ex-wife, Anthony Riggs was a good man who loved animals and was loved by them.
“He never hesitated to be with dogs,” Adrienne Riggs said. “Sometimes I thought he related to dogs better than to people.”
YES to REFUGEES: only Washington, Vermont, Connecticut, Delaware, Colorado, and Pennsylvania.
So far.
There's a map at the link showing the status of each state.
Twenty six states are trying to keep Syrian refugees out (including New England states Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire) and others remain uncommitted (including New York).
http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/16/world/paris-attacks-syrian-refugees-backlash/
More than half the nation's governors -- 26 states -- say they oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states, although the final say on this contentious immigration issue will fall to the federal government.
States protesting the admission of refugees range from Alabama and Georgia, to Texas and Arizona, to Michigan and Illinois, to Maine and New Hampshire. Among these 26 states, all but one have Republican governors.
The announcements came after authorities revealed that at least one of the suspects believed to be involved in the Paris terrorist attacks entered Europe among the current wave of Syrian refugees. He had falsely identified himself as a Syrian named Ahmad al Muhammad and was allowed to enter Greece in early October.
Some leaders say they either oppose taking in any Syrian refugees being relocated as part of a national program or asked that they be particularly scrutinized as potential security threats.
SNIP
PBS & Think Progress: No, the Governors cannot legally ban refugees from their states.
But we will need to fight Rethug efforts to pass new bills preventing federal dollars from helping to relocate refugees.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/u-s-governors-dont-have-power-to-refuse-refugees-access-to-their-states/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=pbsofficial&utm_campaign=newshour
Under the Refugee Act of 1980, “President Obama has explicit statutory authorization to accept foreign refugees into the United States.”
In a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Rick Scott said “it is our understanding that the state does not have the authority to prevent the federal government from funding the relocation of these Syrian refugees to Florida even without state support.”
Instead, Scott said Congress ought “to take immediate and aggressive action to prevent President Obama and his administration from using any federal tax dollars to fund the relocation of up to 425 Syrian refugees” to Florida.
SNIP
Presidential candidate Rand Paul also introduced a bill Monday that imposed an “immediate moratorium on visas for refugees.”
The U.S. plans to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next fiscal year. Some Democrats, including presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Martin O’Malley said that number should increase to 65,000 Syrian refugees. Either way, state governors will have to yield to Obama’s plan.
SNIP
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/11/16/3722628/no-state-governors-cant-refuse-to-accept-syrian-refugees/
The problem for Jindal, Abbott and the other governors opposed to admitting refugees, however, is that there is no lawful means that permits a state government to dictate immigration policy to the president in this way. As the Supreme Court explained in Hines v. Davidowitz, “the supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution.” States do not get to overrule the federal government on matters such as this one.
Just in case there is any doubt, President Obama has explicit statutory authorization to accept foreign refugees into the United States. Under the Refugee Act of 1980, the president may admit refugees who face “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion” into the United States, and the president’s power to do so is particularly robust if they determine that an “unforeseen emergency refugee situation” such as the Syrian refugee crisis exists.
This power to admit refugees fits within the scheme of “broad discretion exercised by immigration officials” that the Supreme Court recognized in its most recent major immigration case, Arizona v. United States. Indeed, in describing the executive branch’s broad authority to make discretionary calls regarding immigration matters, Arizona seemed to explicitly contemplate the circumstances that face President Obama today. The United States may wish to allow a foreign national to remain within its borders, the Court explained, because the individual’s home nation “may be mired in civil war, complicit in political persecution, or enduring conditions that create a real risk that the alien or his family will be harmed upon return.”
Moreover, the Court explained, America could suffer severe foreign policy consequences if the executive does not enjoy broad discretion over immigration matters. . . .
SNIP
To be clear, states still retain the power to deny their own resources to the federal government, so they could potentially make settlement of refugees more difficult than it would be if the states cooperated. Nevertheless, an act of Congress — the Refugee Act of 1980 — has given Obama broad discretion to allow refugees to be admitted into the United States. The states of Texas, Louisiana and others must yield to that act.
Bernie's blooper: his 90% joke about Ike and taxes.
Unfortunately, dry, sarcastic humor only works if the listener is in on the joke:
Yes, it was a funny joke -- if you knew
1) who Ike was (a Republican and a General who by no means considered himself a socialist)
2) if you understand how tax tables work (and that top rates only apply to people at the highest levels) and
3) if you were confident that the top rate wouldn't be raised close to 90%, with all the intervening rates (including yours) taking a similar hike.
Unfortunately, his sarcastic comment required an intelligence and knowledge of percentages and tax tables that too many potential voters might not have.
Especially if he is our candidate in the General Election. A crack like this in the general election debates would go completely over the heads of the majority of viewers. Almost all the Rethugs plus a good fraction of Democrats.
Congrats to everyone here who got the joke. Too many others would not.
Maybe it's time for us to adopt the word the French use, "Daesh," instead of calling the terrorists
by their preferred name. (ISIS or ISIL or IS or The Islamic State)
They do not represent Islam. They just want everyone else to think so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/15/world/europe/paris-terrorist-attacks.html?_r=0
Mr. Hollande vowed to “be unforgiving with the barbarians from Daesh,” adding that France would act within the law but with “all the necessary means, and on all terrains, inside and outside, in coordination with our allies, who are, themselves, targeted by this terrorist threat.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-vs-islamic-state-vs-isil-vs-daesh-what-do-the-different-names-mean-9750629.html
Isis vs Islamic State vs Isil vs Daesh: What do the different names mean – and why does it matter?
If it were up to the terrorists themselves, the world would be calling them the “Islamic State” in recognition of the caliphate they have declared.
The rebrand launched in June year has spread, despite pleas from leading Muslims and other groups not to legitimise their status.
The British and US Governments are among those using the acronym Isil, while the name Isis is more commonly seen.
Adding to the confusion last week, the French announced they would use the Arabic-derived term “Daesh” to replace their previous name, EIIL ( L'Etat islamique en Irak et en Syrie).
The four competing names are only a handful of those used by Isis, which emerged in 1999 when it was established by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant who allegedly ran a terror training camp and orchestrated bombings and beheadings in Iraq.
Amanda Knox: I am resolved to clear the names of the wrongfully convicted.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/7/71/1095973/amanda-knox-resolved-clear-names-wrongfully-convictedIo lo so che non sono sola anche quando sono sola.
I know I’m not alone, even when I’m alone.
Over the past eight years, I must have written this line thousands of times. It was the way I closed every letter to my loved ones from prison. It meant to me that although none of my loved ones could hold my hand through imprisonment, they were with me in every other way possible. I repeated that line to myself throughout this Labor Day. For me, my experience was an experience shared with many people — family, friends and strangers — who believed in my innocence and who worked and advocated for it relentlessly. I was never alone. I will always be tremendously thankful for that.
I realized again on Labor Day that if my experience is going to have meaning beyond my own false imprisonment, it must be a catalyst for continued and increased public attention to the ways our criminal justice system can be improved to prevent injustices. The Italian Supreme Court recognized in its opinion that prosecutors and police detectives are not infallible. They can, as the Italian Supreme Court found in my case, make “glaring errors” and negligent “omissions.” They can fall prey to media pressure, putting speed above thorough analysis. They can, we know, wrongfully accuse, prosecute and imprison innocent people. The consequences can be staggering. People sentenced to life imprisonment, even death, have later been exonerated as a result of DNA evidence.
Throughout my own ordeal, I was sustained on hundreds of days and in countless ways by the resolve – and the hope, the kindness, the work – of others. At the end of my contemplation, I found my own resolve again. In the early days of November 2007, and for almost eight years more, I felt resolve to clear my name, but in tremendous need of help to do so. My name now cleared — by Italy’s highest court and directly as a result of tireless efforts on my behalf — my resolve turns outward. I am resolved to help others who have been wrongfully convicted to clear their names, and to help those who have finally been released from prison to re-adjust to their lives outside of four grey walls.
This coming Dec. 3, I will be speaking at Loyola University Chicago’s Sixth Annual Life After Innocence Luncheon. Like many other local and regional innocence groups, Loyola’s Life After Innocence program advocates for innocent people released from prison, helping them reenter society, clear their records and start their lives over. The luncheon will be my first public opportunity to direct the conversation away from my past, and towards our shared goal of ensuring that other innocents may be freed and, better yet, not accused in the first place. I very much look forward to turning that page.
CBS Rethinks Democratic Debate to Reflect Paris Attacks
Source: New York Times
DES MOINES — In the hours after the deadly attacks in Paris, CBS News significantly reworked its plans for the Democratic presidential debate it is hosting here on Saturday night to focus more on issues of terrorism, national security and foreign relations.
Steve Capus, the executive editor of CBS News and the executive producer of “CBS Evening News,” said in an interview late Friday that he was in the middle of a rehearsal for the debate when news broke about the slaughter in Paris.
The CBS News team immediately shifted gears and reformulated questions to make them more directly related to the attacks. Mr. Capus said it was important for the debate to go on because the world looks to the American president for leadership during international crises.
“American leadership is put to the test,” Mr. Capus said. “The entire world is looking to the White House. These people are vying to take over this office.”
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/14/us/politics/democratic-debate-to-get-new-terrorism-focus-after-paris-attacks-cbs-says.html
This will be a significant change of focus from the topics the candidates have been preparing to address.
Why do people here so easily fall for anti-Obama stories? Like the one now about
the nominations for the Security Exchange Commission?
How come so many people read and recommended this article -- from a minor source -- without ANYONE checking to see if it were true?
It is FALSE that Obama chose an anti-regulatory person to the Security Exchange commission. There were two open seats, and the process is partisan. Obama got to pick one, and the Rethugs got to pick the other. The Rethug appointment is the one that DUers are all up in arms about, and blaming Obama for.
I understand why people were misled by the article, but think, people, think. When something doesn't pass the smell test, then do some research before posting. Or before joining the Obama lynch mob with all your hasty recs.
ON EDIT: Some have asked why Obama didn't just choose another Republican -- one the Republicans in Clongress didn't want but Democrats might like better (as if there were such people). For one thing, that person would then have to be approved by the Repubs. What would the likelihood of that be?
So the suggestion was made that he could let them veto his Repub nomination and leave the seat empty. That would mean he ALSO couldn't get his Democratic nominee, the liberal law professor Lisa Fairfax, appointed. It would accomplish nothing.
Obama was in a box. He can either get both parties nominees appointed, or neither. That was his choice. It's completely unfair to pretend that he favored having Hester Peirce on the SEC.
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21677672-misleading-numbers-and-confused-mission-hallmarks-troubled-financial
TWO of the five seats on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the main Wall Street regulator, are about to be filled. The process is a partisan one, with Barack Obama, a Democrat, picking one new commissioner and the Republican leadership of the Senate the other. That, naturally, is a recipe for discord at an already bruised agency. Its clout has diminished thanks to its poor oversight of investment banks before the financial crisis, to say nothing of its failure to spot the Ponzi scheme of one Bernard Madoff. Now new research suggests that the SEC is doing less well at its main job—policing firms that list shares or issue bonds, among other investments—than its own data suggest.
SNIP
Mr Obama has nominated Lisa Fairfax, a professor of law at George Washington University and an advocate of shareholder activism. In 2011 she published a paper on the gender and ethnicity of corporate boards, which argued that calls for greater diversity on business grounds had been unsuccessful, so “social and moral justifications” should be used instead. That is important because Dodd-Frank requires the SEC to create an Office of Minority and Women Inclusion which “shall develop standards for…assessing the diversity policies and practices of entities regulated by the agency”.
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, have put forward Hester Peirce, a former Senate staffer who is now a research fellow at the Mercatus Centre, a free-market think-tank. She co-edited a book, “Dodd-Frank, What It Does and Why It’s Flawed”, which asserts that “the underlying assumption that regulators can effectively micromanage the market is flawed. Giving regulators more levers to pull and buttons to push with respect to the financial system only creates a false sense of security.”
WA Post: They are terrified that Hillary will get the nomination and win.
Or even worse, that one of their looney-tunes might succeed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/time-for-gop-panic-establishment-worried-carson-and-trump-might-win/2015/11/12/38ea88a6-895b-11e5-be8b-1ae2e4f50f76_story.html
Less than three months before the kick-off Iowa caucuses, there is growing anxiety bordering on panic among Republican elites about the dominance and durability of Donald Trump and Ben Carson and widespread bewilderment over how to defeat them.
Party leaders and donors fear nominating either man would have negative ramifications for the GOP ticket up and down the ballot, virtually ensuring a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency and increasing the odds that the Senate falls into Democratic hands.
The party establishment is paralyzed. Big money is still on the sidelines. No consensus alternative to the outsiders has emerged from the pack of governors and senators running, and there is disagreement about how to prosecute the case against them. Recent focus groups of Trump supporters in Iowa and New Hampshire commissioned by rival campaigns revealed no silver bullet.
SNIP
The concern among some party elites goes beyond electability, according to one Republican strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about the worries.
“We’re potentially careening down this road of nominating somebody who frankly isn’t fit to be president in terms of the basic ability and temperament to do the job,” this strategist said. “It’s not just that it could be somebody Hillary could destroy electorally, but what if Hillary hits a banana peel and this person becomes president?”
Paul Krugman: Since 2010, Wall Street donations almost all going to GOP.
So their influence on Democratic candidates will be very limited.
Krugman also points out that if any Democrat is elected, that person's actions are going to be limited by Congress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/16/opinion/democrats-republicans-and-wall-street-tycoons.html?_r=1
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had an argument about financial regulation during Tuesday’s debate — but it wasn’t about whether to crack down on banks. Instead, it was about whose plan was tougher. The contrast with Republicans like Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio, who have pledged to reverse even the moderate financial reforms enacted in 2010, couldn’t be stronger.
For what it’s worth, Mrs. Clinton had the better case. Mr. Sanders has been focused on restoring Glass-Steagall, the rule that separated deposit-taking banks from riskier wheeling and dealing. And repealing Glass-Steagall was indeed a mistake. But it’s not what caused the financial crisis, which arose instead from “shadow banks” like Lehman Brothers, which don’t take deposits but can nonetheless wreak havoc when they fail. Mrs. Clinton has laid out a plan to rein in shadow banks; so far, Mr. Sanders hasn’t.
But is Mrs. Clinton’s promise to take a tough line on the financial industry credible? Or would she, once in the White House, return to the finance-friendly, deregulatory policies of the 1990s?
Well, if Wall Street’s attitude and its political giving are any indication, financiers themselves believe that any Democrat, Mrs. Clinton very much included, would be serious about policing their industry’s excesses. And that’s why they’re doing all they can to elect a Republican.
SNIP
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