TRUMP SOTU - Black Unemployment

"Video: Black Unemployment Under Trump" by Robert Farley, FactCheck.org 2/2/2018

In this week's fact-checking video [below], CNN's Jake Tapper reviews President Donald Trump's claim that the black unemployment rate is the lowest in recorded history “because of my policies.”

While it's true that the black unemployment rate recently reached its lowest level in decades, the rate has been in steady decline for about the last seven years.

As we wrote, the black unemployment rate was 7.8 percent, the lowest it had been in nearly 10 years, when Trump took office in January 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Under Trump, it dropped a full percentage point to 6.8 percent in December.  That's the lowest rate since the bureau began regularly breaking out unemployment rates by race in 1972.

There was a similar decline during the same 11-month period in 2016, but the drop was even more pronounced in each of the three years before that.  In other words, the downward trend continued under Trump, but at a slower pace than in recent years.

As the video notes, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest data on Feb. 2 — several days after the President had made the claim.  The black unemployment rate crept back up to 7.7 percent in January, almost exactly the rate when Trump became President.


FactCheck.org and Tapper have been collaborating on fact-checking videos since September 2015.  All of the videos can be found on FactCheck.org.

REPUBLICAN AGENDA - Senate's Trumpcare 2.0

IMHO:  Still mean and uncaring.  America, bend over and spread cheeks.

"Senate finally unveils secret health care bill" by MJ Lee, Tami Luhby, Lauren Fox, and Phil Mattingly - CNN 6/22/2015

The closely guarded [secret] Senate health care bill written entirely behind closed doors finally became public [bill text] Thursday in a do-or-die moment for the Republican Party's winding efforts to repeal Obamacare.

The unveiling of the legislation marks the first time that the majority of the Senate GOP conference gets a comprehensive look at the health care proposal.  With Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pressing ahead for a vote next week, senators only a handful of days to decide whether to support or vote against the bill.

The bill is very similar to the version of the House bill that passed last month but with some key changes.  The text released Thursday showed the Senate legislation would still make major changes to the nation's health care system, repealing Obamacare's individual mandate, drastically cutting back federal support of Medicaid, eliminating Obamacare's taxes on the wealthy, insurers and others.  The Senate plan however would keep Obamacare's subsidies to help people pay for individual coverage.

McConnell's decision to keep the details tightly under wraps until Thursday was intentional and aimed at winning over his colleagues out of the public spotlight, but the secretive process has infuriated Democrats -- and aggravated plenty of Republicans, too.

"I need the information to justify a 'yes' vote.  I have a hard time believing that we would have that in such a short period of time," Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, told CNN on Wednesday.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham joked: "We'll know if it's a boy or girl tomorrow."

McConnell has very little room for error -- he can only lose two Republican votes and still pass the bill.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday night he hopes to "surprise" with a plan that has "heart."

"I hope we are going to surprise with a really good plan," Trump said at a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  "You know I've been talking about a plan with heart.  I said add some money to it.  A plan with heart, but Obamacare is dead."

The House passed its version of health care reform last month, but while Republicans celebrated that bill with Trump at the White House, the President has since called it "mean."

A senior administration official said Senate leaders sounded "optimistic" about the fate of the health care bill in the Senate during their briefing for White House officials Wednesday night.

Can McConnell get the votes?

Senior GOP senators were still putting final touches on the draft legislation on Wednesday, and it is still likely to change before any vote as members express their preferences.

Much like in the House, where moderate and conservative lawmakers were deeply divided on health care policy leading up to a vote in May, Senate Republicans also have clashing ideological views and priorities.

Some of the key issues that lawmakers are most concerned about include Medicaid reform, regulatory waivers, the state stability fund and tax credits.  McConnell has a tough needle to thread: making significant concessions to conservatives risks losing moderate votes, and vice versa.

What will CBO say?

The legislation will also have to undergo parliamentary scrutiny to ensure that it meets the strict requirements on what can or can't be included in a bill under the budget reconciliation process.

One report that will inform Senate Republicans as they decide whether to support the bill will be a score from the Congressional Budget Office, expected to come out in the coming days.

The CBO analysis will shed light on how much money the bill would cost and how many people would be covered.  Senate Republicans hope to see better headlines from this CBO report than the one that the House GOP legislation received.  CBO said the House bill would result in 23 million fewer people insured in 2026 than under Obamacare.

What's in the bill and differences with the House

While the Senate bill is largely similar to the House passed-bill, there are some key differences.

Medicaid has been one of the central sticking points in the debate.  The bill would continue the enhanced Medicaid expansion funding from Obamacare until 2021 and then [still] phase it out over three years.  This is a concession to moderates, who weren't pleased that the House version would end the enhanced support for new enrollees in 2020.

However, conservatives also get some of what they want when it comes to overhauling the entire Medicaid program.  The Senate bill would keep the House plan to send a fixed amount of money to states each year based on enrollment or as a lump sum block grant.  But it would shrink the program even more over time by pegging the annual growth rate of those funds to standard inflation, rather than the more generous medical inflation, starting in 2025.  This would likely force states to cut enrollment, benefits or provider payments.

The Senate bill would also largely maintain Obamacare's premium subsidies structure, but tighten the eligibility criteria starting in 2020.  Fewer middle class folks would get help because only those earning up to 350% of the poverty level would qualify, rather than the 400% threshold contained in Obamacare.  But it would also open up the subsidies to enrollees below the poverty level so those living in states that didn't expand Medicaid could get some assistance.

Senators opted to keep Obamacare's subsidies to prevent the funds from being used for abortions.  The House bill called for creating tax credits based largely on age, but adding abortion restrictions to these credits could have run afoul of Senate rules governing the bill.  Still, the similarities to Obamacare will likely infuriate conservatives such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who decried the House version as "Obamacare Lite."

Also, as in the House bill, it would defund Planned Parenthood for one year.

The Senate also backs away from some last minute House concessions to conservatives that would have allowed states to opt out of several protections for those with pre-existing conditions, but insurers would not be allowed to charge higher premiums to those with pre-existing conditions.

The bill would also aim to shore up the existing Obamacare market by allocating funds for the cost-sharing subsidies until 2019.  This will placate insurers, who were distraught by Trump's refusal to commit to continue making these payments, leading many carriers to hike rates or drop out of the exchanges for 2018.

NATIONAL SECURITY - New U.S. Secrets Leaker

"New leaker disclosing U.S. secrets, government concludes" by Evan Perez, CNN 8/6/2014

The federal government has concluded there's a new leaker exposing national security documents in the aftermath of surveillance disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, U.S. officials tell CNN.

Proof of the newest leak comes from national security documents that formed the basis of a news story published Tuesday by the Intercept, the news site launched by Glenn Greenwald, who also published Snowden's leaks.

The Intercept article focuses on the growth in U.S. government databases of known or suspected terrorist names during the Obama administration.

The article cites documents prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center dated August 2013, which is after Snowden left the United States to avoid criminal charges.

Greenwald has suggested there was another leaker.  In July, he said on Twitter "it seems clear at this point" that there was another.

Government officials have been investigating to find out that identity.

In a February interview with CNN's Reliable Sources, Greenwald said:  "I definitely think it's fair to say that there are people who have been inspired by Edward Snowden's courage and by the great good and virtue that it has achieved."

He added, "I have no doubt there will be other sources inside the government who see extreme wrongdoing who are inspired by Edward Snowden."

It's not yet clear how many documents the new leaker has shared and how much damage it may cause.

So far, the documents shared by the new leaker are labeled "Secret" and "NOFORN," which means it isn't to be shared with foreign government.

That's a lower level of classification than most of the documents leaked by Snowden.

Government officials say he stole 1.7 million classified documents, many of which were labeled "Top Secret," a higher classification for the government's most important secrets.

Big databases

The biggest database, called the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, now has 1 million names, a U.S. official confirmed to CNN.

That's boosted from half that many in the aftermath of the botched attempt by the so-called underwear bomber to blow up a U.S.-bound jetliner on Christmas Day in 2009.

The growth of TIDE, and other more specialized terrorist databases and watchlists, was a result of vulnerabilities exposed in the 2009 underwear plot, government officials said.


The underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, was not on government watchlists that would have prevented him from being allowed to fly to the United States.

In 2012, the National Counterterrorism Center reported that the TIDE database contained 875,000 names.  There were about 500,000 in 2009 before the underwear bomb plot.

The Intercept first reported the new TIDE database numbers, along with details of other databases.


As of November, 2013, there were 700,000 people listed in the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), or the "Terrorist Watchlist, according to a U.S. official.  Fewer than 1% are U.S. persons and fewer than 0.5% are U.S. citizens.

The list has grown somewhat since that time, but is nowhere near the 1.5 million figure cited in recent news reports.  Current numbers for the TSDB cannot be released at this time.

The Intercept report said, citing the documents, that 40% on the "Terrorist Watchlist" aren't affiliated with terror groups.

U.S. officials familiar with the matter say the claim is incorrect based on a misreading of the documents.

Americans on lists

The report said that as of August, 2013, 5,000 Americans were on the TSD watchlist.  Another 15,800 were on the wider TIDE list.

A smaller subset, 16,000 names, including 1,200 belonging to Americans, are listed as "selectees" who are subject to more intensive screening at airports and border crossings.

According to the Intercept, citing the documents, the cities with the most names on the list are:  New York, Dearborn, Michigan; Houston; San Diego; and Chicago.  Dearborn is home to one the nation's biggest concentrations of Arab and Muslim populations.

According to the documents cited by the Intercept, the government has also begun a new effort to collect information and biometric data on U.S. persons in the aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.

The data includes photos from driver's licenses.  That effort likely was spurred by the fact that FBI agents investigating the Boston bombings found existing databases lacking when they tried to match images of the two bombers isolated from surveillance video, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Stored on Pentagon system

Documents classified as "Secret" are stored on a Pentagon-operated computer system called SIPRNet, which the Defense and State departments use to share classified information.

A recent Government Accountability Office study found that between 2006-2011 there were 3.2 million approved by the Pentagon to handle secret, top secret, SCI (sensitive compartmented) information.

SIPRnet is one of the computer systems that the former Army soldier now known as Chelsea Manning accessed to leak hundreds of thousands documents, including State Department cables.

The Manning leak was the largest U.S. intelligence leak until Snowden.

TENNESSEE - Brings Back the Electric Chair

The coddle-criminals types are not going to like this.

"Tennessee to use electric chair when lethal drugs unavailable" by Ed Payne and Mariano Castillo, CNN 5/23/2014

As controversies over lethal injection drugs surge, Tennessee has found a way around the issue:  It is bringing back the electric chair.

Eight states authorize electrocution as a method of execution but only at the inmate's discretion.

Now Tennessee is the first state to make use of the electric chair mandatory when lethal injection drugs are unavailable.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed the measure into law Thursday.

"This is unusual and might be both cruel and unusual punishment," said Richard Dieter, president of the Death Penalty Information Center.

"No state says what Tennessee says.  This is forcing the inmate to use electrocution," according to Dieter, who believes "the inmate would have an automatic Eighth Amendment challenge."

The amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment.

"The electric chair is clearly a brutal alternative," Dieter said.

Controversy over lethal injections has been brewing in recent years after European manufacturers, including the Denmark-based manufacturer of Pentobarbital, banned U.S. prisons from using their drugs in executions.

In April, a botched lethal injection in Oklahoma catapulted the issue back into the international spotlight.  It was the state's first time using a new, three-drug cocktail for an execution.  Execution witnesses said convicted murderer and rapist Clayton Lockett convulsed and writhed on the execution gurney and struggled to speak, before officials blocked the witnesses' view.  Lockett died 43 minutes after being administered the first drug, CNN affiliate KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City reported.

Earlier this year, a convicted murderer and rapist in Ohio, Dennis McGuire, appeared to gasp and convulse for at least 10 minutes before dying from the drug cocktail used in his execution.

In 2009, the U.S.-based manufacturer of Sodium Thiopental, a drug also commonly used in executions, stopped making the painkiller.

Many states have scrambled to find products from overseas or have used American-based compounding pharmacies to create substitutes.

This month, a group of criminal justice experts recommended that federal and state governments move to a single lethal drug for executions instead of complex cocktails that can be botched.

The controversy over legal injection drugs raises the question of when a case will arise to test the new law.

The last death penalty by electrocution in Tennessee was that of Daryl Holton in 2007.

Holton -- a convicted murderer who killed his three young sons and his ex-wife's daughter -- elected to be killed by the electric chair.

Before Holton's execution, Tennessee had not used the electric chair in 47 years.

GUN CONTROL - The Real Issue is Mortality During Mas Shootings

Our Vice President stated the issue best when he used "...stop the carnage."  Better gun control will not stop mas shootings, but it will lessen the carnage/mortality when they occur.  The following makes a point.

"Study links gun laws and lower gun mortality" by Tom Watkins, CNN 3/7/2013

States with the most gun laws experienced a lower overall mortality rate from firearms than did states with the fewest laws, researchers in Boston reported in a study published Wednesday.

"States that have the most laws have a 42% decreased rate of firearm fatalities compared to those with the least laws," said Dr. Eric W. Fleegler, an attending physician in pediatric emergency medicine at Boston Children's Hospital and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

Those states with the most gun laws saw a 40% reduction in firearm-related homicides and a 37% reduction in firearm-related suicides, he said in a telephone interview.

Fleegler, the lead author in the study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine, reached that conclusion by analyzing data reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2007 through 2010 and then correlating those figures with state-level firearm legislation aggregated by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Figuring out how many laws existed in each state was difficult.  "What do you do when one law has seven parts" Fleegler asked.  "Is that seven laws?  Is that one law?"

Mark Kelly:  Gun loophole makes no sense (includes video)

So the researchers checked the state laws to determine whether they were intended to curb firearm trafficking; strengthen background checks beyond what's required under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act; ensure child safety; ban military-style assault weapons; or restrict guns in public places.

Based on how many of those categories a state's laws covered, the researchers calculated a "legislative strength score," which they compared with firearm-related mortality rates in all 50 states.  The legislative strength scores ranged from 0 in Utah to 24 out of a possible 28 in Massachusetts.

Over the four years scrutinized, 121,084 firearm fatalities occurred, with rates ranging from a high of 17.9 per 100,000 in Louisiana to a low of 2.9 per 100,000 in Hawaii.

Opinion:  Even NRA members want gun reforms (includes video)

When compared with the quartile of states with the fewest laws, the quartile of states that had the most laws had a lower firearm suicide rate and a lower firearm homicide rate, Fleegler said.  The absolute difference in the suicide rates was 6.25 deaths per 100,000; in the homicide rates it was 0.40 deaths per 100,000.

"When you're talking about 300 million people, you're talking about thousands of deaths that would not otherwise have occurred," Fleegler said.

Even on a state level, some figures were striking.  For example, there was a three-fold difference in firearm-related suicide between Massachusetts and Louisiana, which has few laws limiting the use of firearms.

"We anticipated that there was going to be a relationship between state laws and firearm mortality," he said.  "The magnitude of the effect, a 42% reduction, that was a big number to look at."

Loaded language poisons gun debate (includes video)

The authors acknowledged that they showed only an association; they did not prove that more laws on firearms translate into fewer deaths.

Fleegler said his study "speaks to the importance of having legislation.  One of the things that we've learned over time is that there are laws that have been passed that have large loopholes, and those loopholes make the enforcement and efficacy of the laws diminished.  There are ways to make these laws better and stronger."

But Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, urged caution in interpreting the study in an accompanying editorial published in the journal.

"Correlation does not imply causation," he wrote.  "This fundamental limitation is beyond the power of the authors to redress."

He added that the list of laws takes no account of differences between states in the specifics of laws and takes no account of how hard states worked to enforce those laws.

The biggest difficulty, Wintemute continued, is that almost all of the associations between more laws and fewer deaths disappeared when the investigators took into account the prevalence of gun ownership in each state.

"This is a problem because there are two completely opposite explanations for why that might be the case," Wintemute said in a video issued by his university.  "One is that these laws work, and that they work by decreasing the rate of gun ownership in a state, because we know that the rate of gun ownership is associated with the rate of violent death in a state.

Will states go where Congress hasn't on gun laws? (includes video)

"But the other possibility, that's at least as plausible, is that it's easier to enact these laws in states that have a low rate of gun ownership to begin with.  Gun ownership is not as important in those states, there's less opposition."

He added, "We really don't know what to do with the results.  We cannot say that these laws -- individually or in aggregate -- drive firearm death rates up or down."

He predicted that policy makers would not be able to draw useful conclusions from the work.  "The conclusion that I draw is we need to get this question answered right."

Wintemute said the researchers did a good job with the limited data they had available but said the larger problem dates back to the 1990s, when the National Rifle Association inserted language into the CDC's appropriation that limited its work on how to reduce firearm injuries.

Now, as lawmakers are looking for evidence on what works, "investigators like this group are reduced to doing the best they can with what's available," he said.

For his part, Fleegler bemoaned the dearth of data from individual cities about firearms-related injuries and noted that data on enforcement of those laws were also spotty.  "We agree that there is a lot more research that needs to be done, that funding to allow robust research and robust collection of data is what's really going to move the science forward for understanding how we can reduce deaths," he said.

POLITICS - For Those Who Want "God" Back In Government

"Pentagon generals in trouble for promoting 'Christian Embassy' " by David Edwards & Muriel Kane, RawStory

CNN reported Monday that the Pentagon's Inspector General has found that seven military officers, including four generals, engaged in misconduct three years ago when they appeared in a promotional video for an evangelical group called Christian Embassy.

Although no one in the military is allowed to seek converts while on active duty, the officers appear in uniform in the video, much of which, according to the Washington Post, was filmed inside the Pentagon. Former Acting Secretary of the Air Force Pete Geren appears as well.

Mikey Weinstein, an Air Force Academy graduate and former assistant counsel under President Reagan who founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which asked for the investigation, told CNN, "They were absolutely proselytizing. ... Numbers of them had actually led Christian Embassy Bible studies. They were well aware what this was about."

Christian Embassy, which targets the government and military, is an outreach group of Campus Crusade for Christ. The front page of their website features links for "I Work on Capitol Hill," "I Am a Member of the Diplomatic Community," "I Am a Presidential Appointee," and "I Work at the Pentagon."

"One of the reasons this is so sensitive, and so controversial" explained CNN, "is top commanders know that al Qaeda and other fundamentalist Islamic groups often make the claim that the US military is in, if you will, a crusade against Islam -- those of the Islamic faith. So there are still many, many questions now about just how much control, how much influence this Christian Embassy group and other groups have inside the Pentagon walls."

The full article contains a video clip of CNN's Situation Room and CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, both broadcast on August 6.

Although members of the military have a right to proselytize their personal beliefs, to do so while appearing to represent the military is dangerous and wrong. The PERSONAL RIGHT to practice religion includes NOT being pressured in someone else's religious practice; and having someone in a military uniform or, worst, within a government building, does give the impression that his/her particular religion is government preferred.

Also, this becomes a danger to America when it helps confirm what our Islamic enemies believe, that we are conducting a war against Islam.

Our government (local, state, federal) is Constitutionally prohibited from promoting ANY religion over another, PERIOD.

POLITICS - WAIT A COTTON PICKING MINUTE !!

A local view:

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:57:50 -0800, in "sdnet.politics" Brian David Smith, San Diego, California, wrote:

Cheney lied on CNN

Yesterday, in an interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, Dick Cheney said, "After 9/11, we learned that we have a vested interest in what happens on the ground in the Middle East." Cheney said to remember what happened in Afghanistan. Cheney said, "The United States was actively involved in Afghanistan in the '80s, supporting the effort against the Soviets. The Mujahedeen prevailed. Everybody walked away. And, in Afghanistan, within relatively short order, the Taliban came to power. They created a safe haven for al Qaeda. Training camps were established, where some 20,000 terrorists trained in the late '90s. And, out of that, out of Afghanistan, because we walked away and ignored it, we had the attack on the USS Cole, the attack on the embassies in East Africa, and 9/11, where the people trained and planned in Afghanistan for that attack, and killed 3,000 Americans. That is what happens when we walk away from a situation like that in the Middle East."

Cheney's key phase is, "After 9/11, we learned that we have a vested interest in what happens on the ground in the Middle East." Specifically Cheney is saying the U.S. has reason to monitor the Middle East and circumvent terrorists from developing safe havens, i.e. training and deployment camps.

Fair enough! That seems rational. Why give terrorists a foothold to establish themselves? Why take the chance?

Here is the problem. On January 17 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that U.S. commanders in Afghanistan have requested an increase in U.S. force levels to handle an expected upsurge in Taliban violence. Essentially, an estimated 15,000 Taliban fighters are preparing for battle. The Taliban is going to use guerrilla-like techniques that they adopted last year.

WAIT A COTTON PICKING MINUTE !!

After 9-eleven, didn't the U.S. go into Afghanistan and clean out the Taliban? YES!

Didn't the U.S. stand up Hamid Karzai as the head of the transitional government of Afghanistan? YES!

Further, didn't Hamid Karzai become the first democratically elected head of state in Afghanistan in late 2004? YES!

So why is the Taliban back with 15,000 troops requiring the U.S. to amp up troop strength in Afghanistan?

Apparently, according to Dick Cheney's position, the U.S. must have stopped supervising Afghanistan in the last couple of years because the Taliban is back with 15,000 troops scaring the hell out of the American commander in Afghanistan.

What this truly says is the U.S. must keep constant, ongoing surveillance over the Middle East to prevent terrorists from coming back. Whether it is this year, next year, ten years from now or even further down the line, the U.S. must continually police the Middle East. Otherwise what Cheney claims happened in Afghanistan will reoccur. That is, terror groups will continue to re-establish safe havens and launch attacks.

As such, Cheney is saying the U.S. must continue to fight in the Middle East forever and forever. It is never going to end. The Iraq war will never end because there is a chance the terrorists will be back. The fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan will never end. On and on and on.

Bush and Cheney claim their new "surge" plan in Iraq will leave U.S. troops behind in Baghdad to prevent the terrorist from sneaking back in. Well, for how long? Bush and Cheney established the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan and apparently, the Taliban is back. So who is to say the Maliki government in Iraq will do any better?

It is all hogwash on the part of Bush and Cheney! Just standing up governments in the Middle East is not enough. Otherwise, the Taliban wouldn't be back in Afghanistan. Furthermore, neither would warring elements continually repopulate the Anbar province, Fallujah and Baghdad as they have repeatedly over the last four years.

Essentially, "getting the job done" in the Middle East will require American occupation forever and ever because the terrorists will be back. When Cheney says, "But the fact of the matter is, we need to get the job done," Cheney is disingenuous.

There is no getting the job done!

It will be a continuing occupation!

Did the American public sign on to sacrifice their sons and daughters in an ongoing occupation of the Middle East? NO!

Did Americans sign on to fund a continued war-level American presence in the Middle East? NO!

Essentially, Cheney, and therefore Bush, have lied once again. They do not intend to end U.S. aggression in the Middle East. It will be ongoing and will eventually include Iran and Syria.

So, when Cheney says, "The fact is, we can complete the task in Iraq. We're going to do it. We have General Petraeus taking over. It is a good strategy.It will work. But we have to have the stomach to finish the task," that is not Cheney's intention at all. He lies.

I totally agree with the red paragraphs above. No truer words have been spoken.