The paper is absolutely loaded with the stuff up front, but you dig a little deeper and the divise agenda-pushing is pervasive the whole way through:
"White House scrambles to explain Trump’s response" by Astead W. Herndon Globe Staff August 13, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump faced a bipartisan wave of criticism Sunday for his failure to explicitly condemn the white supremacists whose demonstration ignited a weekend of violence in Charlottesville, Va., leading to multiple deaths and injuries.
The White House has released several statements on the bloody protests, but even Trump’s most ardent supporters have interpreted the response as muted and ambiguous. Few of the White House’s top policy makers have personally denounced the white nationalists at the center of the violence, leading to more accusations that Trump’s political currency rests on racial resentment.
On Sunday’s political talk shows, congressional Republicans and even some Trump loyalists were particularly enraged that the president did not acknowledge that the vast amount of the violence in Charlottesville was carried out by supremacists — including many who acted in Trump’s name.
Trump “should use this opportunity today to say this is terrorism, this is domestic terrorism, this is white nationalism and it has to stop,” said Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican from Colorado.
“This is not a time for vagaries,” Gardner said on CNN. “This isn’t a time for innuendo or to allow room to be read between the lines. This is a time to lay blame — to lay blame on bigotry, to lay blame on white supremacists, on white nationalism and on hatred. And that needs to be said.”
Okay, he said it and the deeper agenda here is to shut down certain protest and certain free speech. I'm not taking a side one way or the other; however, it is a truism that you are only in favor of free speech if you allow any and all viewpoints and most importantly those you dislike. Otherwise, you are only for your right to speak, not the other guy.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I despise the ma$$ media mouthpieces and corporate pre$$titutes, but they have just as much a right as anyone else to spew their slop. It's up to you, the receiver of such wisdom, to think for yourself and do your own investigating. Nor am I professing to be some omnipotent entity. I'm as confused as the rest as the levers of propaganda yank us seven ways from Sunday.
I read further down that Ivanka tweeted the “all come together and be united’’ bit while DJT Jr. is being accused of being a sympathizer. David Duke is flogged again (ha-ha), and the NAACP is calling for the firing of Bannon -- ending with glowing white supremacist support for Trump.
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Related: The New Minority
One that must be silenced, for such a thing threatens certain slivers of power.
Man accused of ramming Charlottesville protesters pictured with racist group
He's alleged to be a Nazi sympathizer with the Vanguard America group, which is nothing more than a false front by government.
Think about it. Government needs not only foreign enemies, but domestic ones as well. The Muslims play good into dovetailing the two, but maintaining the fringe right-wing is a fallback option as well. The heads of all the white supremacist groups turn out to be government infiltrators and agents. It's what is called a straw man so you can knock it down and further other goals.
Globe recaps the last six months for you, strangely omitting one event.
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I turn the page and am greeted with these:
"State attorneys escalate legal fight against Trump" by Steve Peoples Associated Press August 14, 2017
NEW YORK — The Trump resistance movement cheered when the attorneys general of several states sued to block the president’s plan to bar travelers from some Muslim majority countries.
But with far less fanfare in the months since, an emboldened coalition of Democratic attorneys general has unleashed a torrent of lower-profile litigation they argue is necessary to protect public health, the environment, and consumers from a Republican White House.
State attorneys from Massachusetts to California, often working together, have brought more than 40 legal actions against the Trump administration over the last seven months.
Don't you wish they would be more concerned with the rot and corruption in their own states?
The pace, which both parties describe as unprecedented, has produced an average of one lawsuit or legal motion every five days since Trump’s inauguration, not including many more letters, legal threats and formal comments to federal agencies.
‘‘Donald Trump and his administration have been out there in ways that are illegal, that are unprecedented, that don’t seem to understand some of the basics of the rule of law,’’ said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. ‘‘It’s required constant vigilance from Day 1.’’
This from the sanctuary state people who don't seem to understand what the word illegal means.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
But the frequency and variety of the legal challenges — from cases involving the energy efficiency of ceiling fans to gender reassignment surgeries at the Veteran’s Administration — have sparked criticism that Democrats may be playing politics with their states’ legal resources.
Seems to be their job now; that, and meting out kickback fines on corporations on occasion.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who chairs the Republican Attorneys General Association, said she’s increasingly concerned that her Democratic colleagues are ‘‘using these lawsuits for grandstanding to challenge the president.’’
‘‘I grow concerned that their intentions are not as pure as they should be,’’ Rutledge said, acknowledging that Republican attorneys general aggressively fought President Barack Obama’s moves on the environment, health care, and consumer protection during his two terms.
Democrats acknowledge that the pace of their legal actions is extraordinary. But they insist they’ve been given little choice by an inexperienced Trump administration that they accuse of taking extraordinary steps to ignore the law.
It's all a game to keep you divided and distracted!
‘‘We bring our cases based on the merits and it’s just that there are a lot of merits these days,’’ said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. He added, ‘‘There are things that don’t get a lot of attention that could be tremendously harmful.’’
In mid-June, Democratic attorneys general from Maryland and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit claiming that Trump violated the so-called ‘‘emoluments clause’’ in the Constitution that bars members of the federal government from accepting money from foreign governments.
After the country has looked the other way for centuries and politicians accept tons of AIPAC money.
A day later, few noticed when 11 attorneys general sued the administration for delaying energy-efficiency standards for common appliances like air conditioners and freezers.
In early July, 19 Democratic attorneys general sued Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for delaying a rule, years in the making, intended to protect students from predatory lending related to for-profit colleges.
That same day, six attorneys general intervened in another lawsuit against Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency for allowing the use of a pesticide they said was linked to health problems in children.
That is something we could come together on. Just don't mention climate change.
Just 24 hours later, Democratic attorneys general from 14 states urged a court to overturn a class action settlement arranged by gun-maker Remington related to trigger defects on rifles. And over the next three weeks, coalitions of Democratic attorneys general sued the EPA for delaying implementation of rules related to chemical accident safety and smog.
‘‘We’re busy,’’ California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said. ‘‘It’s been made easy by the Trump administration because of their lack of foresight in the way they’ve approached some of these things.’’
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro estimates his office is involved in 50 legal actions against the Trump administration. Aware that Trump won Pennsylvania in last fall’s election, he casts his aggressive steps in apolitical terms.
‘‘I would hope that I would never have to file another legal action against the federal government, the Trump administration,’’ Shapiro said. ‘‘But that would require the Trump administration to follow the rule of the law.’’
On Saturday, the Syrian grandmother at the center of Hawaii’s lawsuit challenging Trump’s travel ban on people from six mostly Muslim countries arrived in Honolulu.
Ismail Elshikh, the imam of a Honolulu mosque, said his 52-year-old mother-in-law Wafa Yahia received approval from the US government several weeks ago. Elshikh is a plaintiff in Hawaii’s challenge to the travel ban.
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"Deportations lag Trump’s promise" Washington Post August 13, 2017
WASHINGTON — President Trump vowed to immediately deport ‘‘bad hombres,’’ but the latest immigration statistics show he is unlikely to meet his goal of expelling 2 million to 3 million criminals anytime soon.
In January, the United States deported 9,913 criminals. After a slight uptick under Trump, expulsions sank to 9,600 criminals in June, according to statistics requested by The Washington Post.
Mostly, deportations have remained lower than during the Obama administration.
Oh, the IRONY!
Advocates on both sides of the immigration debate said the Trump administration’s effort is still gathering steam and that ICE plans to expand deportations.....
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No need for any lawsuits, right?
"Law scholars urge Trump to keep program for young immigrants" Associated Press August 13, 2017
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Legal scholars are urging President Trump to keep a program protecting hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.
A group of about 100 law professors and immigration attorneys are scheduled Monday to send Trump an open letter, arguing he has the authority to preserve the Obama administration program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
A group of Republican attorneys general has called on the Trump administration to phase out the program. Meanwhile, 20 Democratic attorneys general, led by Xavier Becerra of California, are asking Trump to keep the program.....
Oh, he is busy.
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"Alabama senator in tight primary race" Associated Press August 13, 2017
HEFLIN, Ala. — With a crucial Republican primary set for Tuesday, Alabama Senator Luther Strange is locked in a tight race with several firebrand challengers who could force him into a runoff.
Strange’s rivals include Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who was twice removed from office over stances for the public display of the Ten Commandments and against gay marriage, and US Representative Mo Brooks, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who is backed by Tea Party voters.
The field also includes Christian Coalition leader Randy Brinson and state Senator Trip Pittman.
President Trump has endorsed Strange, who was appointed in February to the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Strange also has been backed by millions of dollars in advertising by a super political action committee tied to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.
So much for the twitter feud between Trump and McConnell.
Rallying voters at a county fair on Saturday, Strange said he thought the president’s support would make ‘‘the difference’’ in the race. But he declined to say if he thought he could win without a runoff.
State law would require a primary runoff election on Sept. 26 unless a candidate wins 50 percent of the vote on Tuesday. The final round of voting is scheduled for Dec. 12, when the Republican nominee will face the Democratic nominee.
Strange, Moore, and Brooks are seen as the leading GOP candidates. But surveys of the nine-person Republican field have been scattered, and Alabama’s secretary of state is projecting low turnout of 20 to 25 percent of voters, making the race difficult to predict.
The Alabama race has devolved into a high-dollar GOP civil war. McConnell’s allies have made a heavy investment to keep Strange in the seat, while the challengers hope to ride an anti-Washington backlash to victory.....
Amazing how Trump is supposed to be so toxic and low in the polls, and yet he still lifts candidates.
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Oh, right, Alabama. Home of White Nationalism, right?
Or is that next door in Mississippi?
Wasn't it South Carolina that initiated secession?
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Nothing regarding Jewish supremacism in my paper (no names), but you can meet your friendly neighborhood Muslim. You see, faith is okay as long as it is not White Christian, right? That must be shut down, but if they have it I'm sure there will be no concern in identifying the agent provocateurs and left-wing thugs. The cameras will be on them and nothing is going to disrupt the esports tournament coming to the Garden.
Meanwhile, the face of ari$tocracy changes, but it is still ari$tocracy.
"State used car-tracking tech seven times last year, but got no hits" by Matt Rocheleau Globe Staff August 10, 2017
When the state introduced all-electronic tolling last year, it included a controversial “hot list” feature, capable of alerting law enforcement when cars with specified license plates or transponders pass under toll gantries.
State officials say they have activated that feature seven times since last fall — in a variety of cases from murders to abductions — including during an Amber Alert Wednesday night. But not once has the technology yielded a hit or spotted a vehicle on the list.
In one case, the authorities were looking for a convict who had escaped from federal prison in Rhode Island. In another, police were pursuing a suspect wanted in connection with a double murder. On Wednesday, they were searching for a 3-year-old who was allegedly kidnapped in Worcester by her mother.
Public safety officials said they believe the lack of hits came because the vehicles that police were looking for never passed through any tolls. The technology itself, they said, does not appear to have failed.
Here’s how the system works: When law enforcement officials want to find a particular vehicle, they ask transportation officials to add the vehicle’s license plate or transponder number to the “hot list.” Whenever a vehicle on that list passes under a toll-collection gantry, an e-mail alert is automatically sent to officials within seconds.
Though the technology has yet to yield results, State Police spokesman David Procopio said “the hot list capability is a helpful tool for law enforcement agencies.”
But the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says it worries that in some cases law enforcement officials also requested historical toll records — dating back hours or even days — for listed vehicles, without getting a court order. Hot list cases are the only ones where toll records can be obtained without an order.
This isn’t the first time the group has raised concerns. Last year, the ACLU, along with lawmakers, said it feared that the technology would invade drivers’ privacy.
In response, state transportation and public safety officials drafted regulations saying the hot list would be used only for emergencies involving an “imminent and immediate threat to the safety, health, and well-being of an individual or the public.”
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Why do they need to do that when they are already combing through everything you have?
Now for the literal part based on the film:
"Texas doctor seeks to stop child abuse before it can happen" by Jamie Stengle Associated Press August 14, 2017
FORT WORTH, Texas — A Texas doctor believes a system that identifies neighborhoods, streets, and even specific businesses where shootings and other crimes are likely to occur can also help stop child abuse and neglect before it happens.
Dr. Dyann Daley started a nonprofit this summer to help communities create maps that can zero in on areas as small as a few city blocks where such maltreatment is likeliest to happen, helping prevent it before it starts and allowing advocacy groups to better focus their limited resources.
‘‘This approach is really focused on prevention,’’ said Daley, a pediatric anesthesiologist. ‘‘Because if you know where something is going to happen, then you can do something to stop it.’’
Didn't seem to stop the Iraq invasion.
And who could argue with total tyranny when it comes to child abuse?
Unlike the common hot spot mapping approach, which identifies high-frequency areas of child abuse and neglect based on cases that have already happened, Daley’s risk terrain modeling approach identifies other factors that indicate an area is fertile ground for abuse so that efforts can be made to head it off.
So the elite prep schools must be front and center, huh?
Such prevention can not only save lives, it can help at-risk children avoid the often lifelong harmful effects of maltreatment, including a likelihood of alcohol and drug abuse, depression and anxiety, and risk of aggressive or criminal behavior.
Risk terrain modeling was initially used to understand why shootings were happening time and again at certain locations. Joel Caplan, one of two Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice professors who created risk terrain modeling, said it has since been used in a variety of areas, including traffic planning and suicides but said Daley’s work is the first he knows of to apply it to child maltreatment.
The modeling has helped police departments across the country identify areas to target and what strategies to use to reduce certain crimes. He said a project in Atlantic City found laundromats, convenience stores, and vacant properties were high-risk locations for shootings and robberies.
Interventions this year included police regularly checking in at the convenience stores and city officials prioritizing efforts to clean up vacant lots and board up vacant properties near those convenience stores and laundromats. He said results for the first five months show a 20 percent reduction in violent crimes.
Looking for a meal but found something else.
Daley adapted the modeling for Fort Worth as executive director of the Cook Children’s Center for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment, a post she left in May before starting her nonprofit, Predict-Align-Prevent Inc.
After using the model to analyze 10 known risk factors for child abuse and neglect, she found the most predictive risk factors for child maltreatment in Fort Worth were incidents of domestic violence, runaways, aggravated assaults, and sexual assaults.
That has to be the greatest discovery since the flush toilet.
Perhaps surprisingly, when poverty was removed as a factor the model’s predictive accuracy improved, said Daley, adding that the most influential risk factors might change depending on the city, especially for rural versus urban areas.
The next step is determining what prevention strategies work.....
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All about making a buck, isn't it?
"We touch our phones 4,000 times a day. Can this behavior predict mental illness? by Charles Piller, August 7, 2017
SAN FRANCISCO — Dr. Thomas Insel is one of the most high-profile scientists who has departed Verily Life Sciences, the Google spinoff that has been plagued by turnover at the top and questions about its approach to science.
He left the nest?
Aye, verily!
Insel, a neuroscientist and longtime head of the National Institute of Mental Health, left for a venture that he says could use people’s behavior on smartphones — such as the speed and cadence of their typing and scrolling — to improve diagnosis and treatment of mental health. The idea, he said in an interview, is to apply the kind of precision approach used for cancer or heart disease to “predict and preempt” serious mental illness.
Of what use will that be after they gene-edit out those things?
People touch their phones 4,000 times a day, said Insel, who cofounded Mindstrong Health in May, the month he left Verily. "Every one of those touches is a data point for us... and it looks like it's giving us really special insights into cognition and behavior."
Insel showed STAT unpublished data from studies conducted by his Silicon Valley startup, testing the idea that smartphone interactions offer a window into the user's mental state.
They are looking for Russian agents.
In small clinical trials, the company collected and evaluated a year's worth of smartphone data, particularly keyboard and other touchscreen actions, to see how these behaviors correlated with the various mental states measured by the conventional tests.
A year's worth of data from who?
It found strong correlations between the two, which were further validated by a Stanford University study that Mindstrong collaborated on, Intel said.
Look at the $elf-$erving groupthink validation!
He said he hopes to have the results over the next years from ongoing and planned experiments trying to validate Mindstrong's approach in people with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
If Insel's new venture sounds familiar, it is. He was enticed to join Verily in December 2015 to lead a project to combine smartphones and big data to fight serious mental illness -- something the NIMH had already started to explore on Insel's watch. In mental health, the private sector used to mean pharma and biotech, Insel said, but companies like Google and Apple were starting to get involved in health.
"All of a sudden," he said, "there was pharma, biotech, and tech... which has something that no one else can do" -- apply vast financial resources and unmatched big-data skills to the problem.
What if the phone and use of it is the mental illness, and where does greed fit into all of this?
Insel said he has absorbed Silicon Valley's characteristic impatience, an assumption that even steep challenges can be solved quickly. But he also saw the tech titans struggle with the challenges of medical science, Insel said.
"I almost never quote our president, but he did point out that health care is complicated," he added with a laugh.
Funny, ha-ha!
Patricia Arean, a clinical psychologist at the University of Washington who consults with Verily and knows Insel, said Mindstrong will have to distinguish itself from hundreds of mental health apps.
She cited Koko, one of several that create Facebook-like communities to provide peer support and coaching for young people in emotional pain. Koko can piggyback on Kik, a popular chat app for teens and young adults. Koko's text chatbot uses artificial intelligence to field such calls for help as "I hate my life," then talk it out enough to assess the urgency of the young person's distress, and if needed, make a referral to crisis intervention services.
Just don't call the cops for help.
Ginger.io monitors a user's smartphone for social contact, exercise, sleep habits, and other factors, looking for signs of emotional stress. For $129 a month, users get a 24/7 support via text with a lay "coach." For additional cost, users can buy video sessions with a professional therapist.
Despite all the competition, Areas said Intel gives Mindstrong a leg up. Insel "spearheaded this idea of precision medicine for mental health.
They haven't perfected the physical kind yet, and the mind is vastly unknown.
Mindstrong says its proprietary software crunches the data to measure mood, cognition -- including processing speed, attention, memory -- and other factors. The program gathers objective data passively, with no need for the user to do anything except what they normally do.
Yup, total surveillance of your every move is "normal." For your own good, you know. Authority needs to know if you are thinking right.
Dr. Paul Dagum, the chief executive, who has a PhD in computer science and a medical degree, developed algorithms to sift data for signs of serious mental illness. The big idea is that an accurate reading of a smartphone's "digital biomarkers" could provide early warnings for sever relapses -- including those that could lead to hospitalization and suicide.
All life will soon be reduced to an algorithm.
Dagum said the app would alert clinicians about "who's starting to relapse, who needs help. Early attention is relatively easy and cheap and fast, and keeps patients healthy." That could offer huge cost savings for insurance companies and health systems, Mindstrong's likely customers, as well as pharmaceutical companies that want to monitor, in real times, the efficacy of new medicines.
Oh my flipping God, this whole article is a CORPORATE BU$INE$$ PROMOTION! It isn't about your mental health at all!
THAT'S $ICK!
Mindstrong's algorithm has identified more than 1,000 scrolling and keyboard patterns and has selected a fraction of those digital biomarkers that seem to serve as a proxy for conventional neuropsychological tests. If proven predictive, the approach could help remedy a key problem in mental health services -- a shortage of therapists, or immediate access to help -- and hold out hope for the kind of rapid progress seen in emergent fields like precision oncology, some experts say.
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Excuse me, readers. I gotta go check my phone.
