"Let’s talk about the 25th Amendment" September 06, 2018
It’s time to talk about the 25th Amendment. It would be an unprecedented step, but the alarming accounts coming from Washington this week — Bob Woodward’s new book and an anonymous New York Times op-ed from a senior administration official — suggest President Trump’s inner circle is deeply worried about his mental acuity and fitness for his job.
One wonders how he ever got to be president.
Didn't anyone notice or say anything long before?
Or is this just another attempt to remove this guy because they haven't been able to so far?
They are ones going crazy!
The 1967 change to the United States Constitution provides a legal mechanism to remove a president if top officials determine he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” Unlike the impeachment process, which is intended to respond to wrongdoing, the removal process is not punitive: It’s a safeguard in case of a medical emergency, mental instability, or any other disqualifying “inability.”
Very few Americans are in a position to know whether Trump’s reckless, impulsive behavior has crossed that inherently subjective line. Those who are — the vice president and Cabinet members — carry an awesome responsibility. They agreed to carry it when they took their oaths of office.
What do you call invading a country based on lies blared from pre$$ organ instruments like this one?
Oh, that's right, it wasn't impulsive. The buildup to the invasion took months.
So far, though, they’ve responded to Trump’s erratic actions — including an order to assassinate a foreign leader — with insubordination, trickery, or sabotage.
Those last three actions are treasonable offense, and since when has the CIA pre$$ cared about assassinations?! They never investigate them!
While the officials are clearly in a bind, the “administrative coup d’etat” that Woodward described is not the best answer. Plainly put, if Trump is really too impaired to be president, then Cabinet members should do their job and initiate his removal under the 25th Amendment, as Senator Elizabeth Warren urged on Thursday, but if he’s merely an amoral jerk, the kind of resistance mounted by the officials is inappropriate.
Can you see why reading this agenda-pushing political sh!t sheet has become almost impossible?
Yeah, treason and the thwarting of the voter's will that they seem to care so much about is "inappropriate."
And if he is just an "amoral jerk," well, no use lingering on that because it undercuts their whole tone and tenor of the editorial and coverage.
In a jaw-dropping report, Woodward describes how the secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, defied presidential orders. Woodward’s book confirms, in greater detail, what the public has already seen.
That is TREASON!
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(Blog editor now flips back through the book)
"In a new book, Bob Woodward describes Trump’s White House as ‘crazytown’" by Mark Landler and Maggie Haberman New York Times September 04, 2018
WASHINGTON — Bob Woodward’s reporting adds new details to a recurring theme in the Trump White House: frustrated aides who sometimes resort to extraordinary measures to thwart the president’s decisions — a situation the author describes as “an administrative coup d’état.”
Gary Cohn, the chief economic adviser, told a colleague he had removed a letter from the president’s desk authorizing the withdrawal of the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea, Woodward said.
Cohn told an associate that Trump never realized it was missing, and that looks like a crime to me.
Later, when the president ordered a similar letter authorizing the departure of the United States from the North American Free Trade Agreement, Woodward said, Cohn and other aides plotted how to prevent him from going ahead with a move they feared would be deeply destabilizing.
“I can stop this,” Cohn said to the White House staff secretary at the time, Rob Porter, according to the book. “I’ll just take the paper off his desk.”
I'm glad he is gone, because look what is happening now:
"Investors didn’t commit to many big moves as trading resumed after the Labor Day holiday. They are likely to focuson trade this week, as the United States is scheduled to resume trade talks with Canada on Wednesday and could announce new tariffs on Chinese imports later in the week. Amazon briefly brought its market value to $1 trillion, banks rose as interest rates climbed, and Nike slumped after it gave a major endorsement deal to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, known for his protests of police brutality and racial injustice....."
Yup, Nike just did it, handing the president a winning issue heading into football season.
Woodward reported new details about Cohn’s well-documented clash with the president over his equivocal response to the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017. Cohn, who threatened to resign over the episode, was particularly shaken after one of his daughters discovered a swastika in her college dorm.
Looks like another self-inflicted false flag for the obvious purposes, and that's why Cohn spilled his guts to Woodward. He never got over Charlottesville.
Cohn, Woodward said, concluded that Trump was a “professional liar.”
I think we just found his source for the book.
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Among other things from a book that will soon be on the shelves gathering dust with Wolff's and Omarosa's, I'm told "President Trump so alarmed his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, during a discussion last January of the nuclear standoff with North Korea, [when] Trump questioned Mattis about why the United States keeps a military presence on the Korean Peninsula, and in April 2017 [when] Trump called Mattis and told him by phone that he wanted the United States to assassinate President Bashar Assad of Syria, adding a string of expletives, while in the words of the chief of staff, John Kelly and his predecessor, Reince Priebus, whose clashes with Trump have been reported elsewhere [and who] found a sympathetic ear in Kelly, another retired Marine general, who frequently vented his frustration to colleagues about the president, describing the White House as a Hobbesian world, in which officials delight in sticking knives into one another. Some of the freshest details in the 448-page book involve Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general who has been viewed as a stable anchor in Trump’s Cabinet. The White House dismissed the book, describing it in a statement as “nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the president look bad.”
Lot of that going around as the New York Times attempts to undermine peace.
(We now return to your regular scheduled propaganda)
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It’s not an option to discuss lightly, but the account in the Times makes it clear that constitutional safeguards have already been considered at the highest levels. In a key passage, the author wrote: “Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the Cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.”
That is AWFULLY OMINOUS and COULD BE SEEN as a THREAT to the president's LIFE!
I sure hope the Secret Service is investigating the New York Times and finding out where that letter came from!
Of course, I'm sure the NSA data collection apparatus has already done that -- unless the letter writer handed it to the New York Times while sitting on a Central Park bench, and even then there are cameras!
The artful wording of the passage seems intended to send a message — that Cabinet members have considered removal, and could consider it again. It reads like a warning, a cry for help, a trial balloon, or all of the above. Cabinet officials would have to initiate the removal process, but they wouldn’t have the last word. If the president contests, Congress would have to decide whether to reinstate him.
We have been told the resistance is legion inside the administration, and now it's a forlorn cry for help!
C'MON, Globe!!!
The publicly available evidence suggests that Trump is, at a bare minimum, unhinged, but insiders are best positioned to judge whether he’s “unable.”
Have they been watching CNN and MSNBC at all?
Talk about unhinged! They are suffering PTSD!
If Cabinet members can’t work for a man they simply dislike, they should resign and tell the public why, but if they know that Trump is incapable of handling the “powers and duties” of his office, then the Constitution entrusts them with powers — and duties — of their own.....
Why haven't they?
Is it because they don't really exist?
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Related:
Dire warnings about Donald Trump
Except there are so many ways to misunderstand a person — and that comes from a psychiatrist!!
Now about that letter:
"President Trump’s Washington: The cliff-hanger that never ends" by Matt Viser Globe Staff September 07, 2018
WASHINGTON — Every week is remarkable. Practically every day is bizarre. So how to describe days that are even more remarkably and bizarrely unprecedented than the last?
Surreal barely hints at the mind-bending dramatic spectacle of Donald Trump’s Washington this week.
It’s as if the reality television show that has consumed the nation’s capital for 20 months is working its way toward a jaw-dropping season finale, but the tension is never relieved. It’s the cliffhanger that won’t end.
He's done, folks, proving that the U.S. government is incapable of reform from within. It will have to collapse of its own weight, and the sooner the better for all of us and the world.
The latest installment features a modern-day whodunit wrapped around the core of a constitutional crisis in the executive branch. Trump himself, in a tweet Wednesday night, penned what could be the title page: TREASON?
A parade of top officials came forward Thursday to deny that they were the authors of a scathing, anonymous op-ed in The New York Times that essentially called the president a national security risk. The denials landed amid a frenzy of speculation about the identity of the author.
“Our office is above such amateur acts,” said a spokesman for Vice President Mike Pence.
“It’s not mine,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters while traveling in India.
Related:
"Talks were scheduled to last just a few hours and focus on strategic and security topics. They came amid a series of divisive issues, including Washington’s demands that India stop buying Iranian oil and a Russian air-defense system and news reports that President Trump privately mimicked the accent of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but with trade and strategic ties growing quickly between the United States and India, both countries have been eager to downplay potential diplomatic troubles. Sticking points, however, including the purchase by India of Iranian oil and the Russian S-400 ground-to-air missile system, which could trigger US sanctions on India. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Thursday that talks were ongoing on whether to grant waivers for India from US sanctions on Iran — India’s second-largest oil supplier — and Russia. ‘‘Our effort here is not to penalize great strategic partners like India,’’ he said. Pompeo also said India had committed to purchasing more energy products and aircraft from the United States to reduce the trade deficit. C. Raja Mohan, one of India’s top foreign policy analysts and the director of the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore, noted that US-India ties have strengthened immensely over the past couple of decades, and Trump has ramped up diplomatic pressure on India’s main rivals, Pakistan and China, earning him plenty of good will. Raja Mohan downplayed reports in the US and Indian media that Trump has mimicked Modi’s accent in meetings with his top officials."
They are breaking new ground, and it is getting to the point where you can't believe a word the media says when it comes to Trump.
“It is laughable to think this could come from the secretary,” said a spokesman for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
“Patently false,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said of the suggestion he was the author.
I could see him doing it.
Remember Aspen?
“No,” United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said on her way to a Security Council meeting.
At least two dozen others — including Defense Secretary James Mattis and Attorney General Jeff Sessions — also denied being the authors (although, adding to the intrigue, some noted on Thursday that Mark Felt denied in 1974 that he was the source for The Washington Post’s explosive stories that led to the resignation of Richard Nixon, only to admit in 2005 that he was the source known as Deep Throat).
This source is known as Deep State!
So it's FBI again, huh?
Rosenstein write the letter?
No one has mentioned his name as a suspect, and he is in the perfect position to foil the president!
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a remarkable statement about the “media’s wild obsession with the identity of the anonymous coward.”
“If you want to know who this gutless loser is, call the opinion desk of the failing NYT . . . and ask them,” she wrote, releasing a phone number for the newspaper. “They are the ones complicit in this deceitful act,” but by all accounts the topic of who wrote the piece was consuming the White House.
“It’s almost as if a volcano is erupting in the White House,” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer declared midday.
So he says.
Senator Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, suggested that it would be justified for Trump to start using a lie detector test to find out who wrote the column.
Good idea!
The intrigue around who wrote it temporarily overshadowed what was actually written. It also seemed lost that the list of people who could have potentially written it was long — an indication of just how widely insubordination could be spreading through the administration.
If even the vice president, secretary of state, and secretary of defense fell under immediate suspicion, what does that say about Trump’s command of the levers of government? Does Trump have any loyal lieutenants left?
Just President Kushner, who hasn't been brought up either!
One of the most striking revelations of the anonymous op-ed was that Cabinet members had discussed invoking the 25th Amendment, which would declare the president unfit to carry out his duties, but the overall portrait in the article was a familiar one, of an incurious and impetuous president who cannot be fully contained by those around him — and who craves loyalty but is presiding over an administration with historic levels of staff turnover.
There have been similar warnings before. A striking aspect of the reaction across the political spectrum is that no one is truly shocked by allegations that the president of the United States is not fit for office, that the country is better off with a staff controlling his worst impulses.
Yeah, it confirms that the Deep State is all around Trump!
It was almost a year ago that Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, wrote on Twitter: “It’s a shame the White House has become an adult day care center. Someone obviously missed their shift this morning.”
Corker on Thursday had a blunt message: I told you so.
“I didn’t look at it as new news. This is the reality we’re living in,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. “The biggest issue they’re going to have is who wouldn’t have written something like that.”
Another Republican senator seemed to agree.
“It’s just so similar to what so many of us hear from senior people around the White House, you know, three times a week,” Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican, said on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show Thursday. “So it’s really troubling, and yet in a way, not surprising.”
The same conclusion is drawn by legendary Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, whose new book — “Fear: Trump in the White House” — claims top advisers have removed papers from Trump’s desk to avoid him signing them, or simply ignore his commands.
Removing papers looks like a crime to me. Theft at least!
It was almost easy to forget Thursday that inside the Capitol there was a high-stakes hearing about a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land. Even that got off to a dramatic start on a day that highlighted Washington’s crippling partisanship and internal hostilities that have brought Congress to its virtual knees.
On Thursday morning, Democratic senators released confidential documents related to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, triggering threats from Republicans that they were violating rules that could force them to be ousted from the Senate.
“Bring it,” Senator Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, said several times. “Bring it,” but later in the day it appeared the theater may have been even more manufactured than normal.
Think of that for a minute.
Viser is admitting that IT IS ALL MANUFACTURED THEATER down there!
It's all IMAGERY and ILLUSIONS, folks!
Some might even call it FAKE NEWS!!!
The documents had apparently been cleared for release hours earlier, so Booker wasn’t releasing something that was still considered confidential (as he claimed), and he wasn’t violating any Senate rules (as Republicans claimed), but even with a range of other issues in front of them, few could get away from the speculation about who wrote the Times column.....
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Trump is now an endangered species, especially after he slammed the Fed (even though he is letting them do what they feel is best).
Related:
"Newly revealed e-mails raise fresh objections to confirming Kavanaugh for high court" by Charlie Savage and Sheryl Gay Stolberg New York Times September 07, 2018
WASHINGTON — The revelations from documents that had been given to the committee with the understanding they would not be publicly released inflamed tensions between the Judiciary Committee’s Republicans and Democrats. The disclosures did not appear to set off a revolt among the Republicans who control the Senate, meaning Judge Brett Kavanaugh still appears likely to be confirmed. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, a key swing vote, indicated that she accepted Kavanaugh’s explanation, but the documents hardened partisan lines and once again put the spotlight on Democrats’ bitter complaints that Republicans have kept tens of thousands of pages of Kavanaugh’s White House-era files secret, even from Congress.
Abortion rights proponents pounced on the doubts that Kavanaugh had raised in the confidential writing, portraying him as a potential fifth vote to overturn Roe if he joins the Supreme Court’s now-four-member conservative bloc.
The late emergence of that and other e-mails, and confusion about what was formally public and what remained technically confidential, added to the tension. An unknown person provided many of the secret documents late Wednesday to The New York Times, which began publishing them Thursday morning.
OMFG!!!
Now the New York Times is taking things from UNKNOWN PEOPLE?!!!
Several Democratic senators, including Cory Booker of New Jersey, began posting the previously confidential documents — including some of the same ones published by The Times, as well as many others — later Thursday morning, after receiving clearance from William Burck, a lawyer working for former President George W. Bush who had provided the documents to the committee on the condition they be kept confidential.
Confusion over the timing of the releases led Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, to accuse Booker of breaking committee rules. Threatened with expulsion from the Senate, Booker declared, “Bring it.”
When Booker said he was releasing the documents, Cornyn accused him of grandstanding because he was “running for president,” but Booker dared Cornyn to begin the process of trying to bring charges against him.
“I could not understand — and I violated this rule knowingly — why these issues should be withheld from the public,” Booker said. “This is about the closest I’ll probably ever have in my life to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment.”
An appropriate analogy since this was "theater may have been even more manufactured than normal."
However, Burck later said in a statement that he had already granted permission to Booker to release the specific documents he put out.
“We cleared the documents last night shortly after Senator Booker’s staff asked us to,” Burck said. “We were surprised to learn about Senator Booker’s histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly. In fact, we have said yes to every request made by the Senate Democrats to make documents public.”
Still.....
I say throw the book at him!
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Related:
Harvard Law grads offer Kavanaugh support
The man behind Trump’s conservative judicial nominees
BREAKING NEWS: White House withdraws Kavanaugh nomination
That's crazy!
It's all about workplace change (sweet!) in 2020:
"Is it 2018, or 2020? Warren’s reelection contest has hallmarks of national race" by Victoria McGrane Globe Staff September 07, 2018
Massachusetts voters should be forgiven if in the weeks ahead they start believing the calendar reads 2020 instead of 2018.
Unless you voted for Trump!
Elizabeth Warren says — and then says it again — that she’s focused on winning a second term in the Senate, but while she glad-hands in Plymouth and Pittsfield, Warren is also running a shadow national campaign that has all the appearances of a future presidential run.
It’s a factor that Republicans, including Warren’s opponent, Geoff Diehl, an ardent Trump backer, plan to capitalize on aggressively in a bid to raise questions about Warren’s commitment to Massachusetts voters. And Democrats, for their part, are eager to draw the connection between the new GOP nominee and the president.
It's a “proxy fight between Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren.”
Trump so far has been silent on Warren since Diehl won the primary (it’s been busy in Washington, D.C.). And Diehl, while a steadfast supporter of the president, doesn’t go out of his way to talk about Trump; he didn’t mention the president in his victory speech, but Diehl also doesn’t hesitate to talk about the president when asked. And on the campaign trail, Diehl has mobilized Maine Governor Paul R. LePage, an ardent Trump backer; former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore; and former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain.
On paper, it might seem like Trump and other national Republicans, along with the rest of the country, would ignore this race. In blue-state Massachusetts, Warren has more than $15 million in the bank, and early polls showed her with a more than 20-point gap over Diehl (although those surveys also showed relatively few voters knew who any of the Republican candidates were).
Then why do we have a governor who is red?
There are many more competitive races in the 2018 midterm election cycle on which the balance of the Senate, and control of Congress, rest than a seat that has long been held by a Democrat, with the exception of former senator Scott Brown’s three-year stint.
As for plans beyond Massachusetts, Warren has said repeatedly that she’s focused on her reelection and is not running for president, but her national moves indicate otherwise.
So would the Globe's recent coverage.
She recently started warming up to the national press corps by offering more access, but despite Warren’s repeated denials that she wants a shot at the White House, the political world believes she is positioning herself for a run. That means political prognosticators will be watching the race for portents about her 2020 viability.
And Republicans across the country will be looking to damage her prospects. Partisan opposition research firms are pointing out any inconsistencies in her record, and Republicans are quick to paint her as a “far left leader.”
Warren “is in for a lot of flak,” said Peter N. Ubertaccio, a political science professor at Stonehill College. “Republicans are going to be testing out some themes that they want to use against her if she runs for president.”
What are they saying over at Smith?
America Rising, a Republican opposition research super PAC, has made Warren one of the top targets of its “2020 Initiative” launched this summer, which is focused on finding and disseminating unflattering information on potential Democratic primary candidates.
“We are all in on tracking her this cycle” and into 2020, said Sarah Dolan, America Rising’s communications director. In Warren’s reelection campaign, “She’s going to have to be out there doing press and meeting with constituents. It definitely helps us keep an eye on her.”
As Bay State voters headed to the polls on Tuesday, the Republican National Committee blasted out a memo to reporters seeking to reignite controversy surrounding Warren’s claims of Native American heritage, which the senator sought to lay to rest in recent days by releasing new documents and discussing the issue with the Globe.
Some are skeptical big GOP donors and PACs will pour resources into Massachusetts when their dollars could make a bigger difference elsewhere.
Republicans face a tough challenge winning national office in Massachusetts under normal circumstances, and Trump’s unpopularity makes it even harder this year, said Colin Reed, a Republican strategist and senior vice president at Definers Public Affairs.
“It’s just really challenging right now to be running as a Republican in a blue part of the country,” Reed said.....
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Related:
Sen. Warren calls for increased oversight of troubled Bedford VA
After it was brought to her attention by the Globe.
SJC upholds state ban on corporate political donations
Dan Koh and Lori Trahan prepare potential recount requests
How does that work anyway?
Also see:
Trump approves federal disaster aid to Mass. for March 2 and 3 nor’easter
Not even a f***ing thank you for the Globe, and they placed it in the middle of page B4.
US stocks slip again as tech companies extend slump
"US businesses added 163,000 jobs in August, a private survey found, a decent gain that suggests that employers are confident enough to keep hiring. Payroll processor ADP said Thursday that the job gains were the fewest since October, but last month’s pace of hiring is still enough to lower the unemployment rate over time. Solid economic growth is underpinning an optimistic outlook among businesses. Growth reached 4.2 percent at an annual rate in the April-June quarter, the fastest pace in four years, spurred by tax cuts and robust consumer spending. ADP’s hiring figures come a day before the government will release its official jobs data for August."
"Filings for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest in almost five decades, indicating a tight job market, Labor Department figures showed Thursday. Thursday’s figures, coming before the main jobs report is released Friday, show employment continued to improve in late August. Jobless-claims figures can be more volatile around holidays, such as Labor Day, observed on Monday. Even so, the figures add to signs businesses are keeping existing staff and adding new workers to help meet demand being boosted by tax cuts in the 10th year of the economic expansion."
Proving Trump's policies are “working as the policy makers intended and the sky is not falling.”
Except for this guy.
Better get a good lawyer.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"‘A horrific situation’: 4 dead, including gunman, in Cincinnati bank shooting" by Angie Wang and Dan Sewell Associated Press September 06, 2018
CINCINNATI — A gunman opened fire Thursday morning in a building in the heart of Cincinnati in an attack that left him and three other people dead, police said.
The shooting sent people scrambling across the city’s Fountain Square amid cries of ‘‘shooter!’’
It happened at a 30-story building, home to the corporate headquarters for regional banker Fifth Third Bancorp and other businesses, including popular ice cream, pastry and sandwich shops. The bank building was locked down for most of the morning, and surrounding streets and sidewalks were closed off.
Police Chief Eliot Isaac said the shooter opened fire at about 9:10 a.m. at the loading dock of the Fifth Third Bank building. Isaac said the gunman then entered the bank’s lobby where he exchanged gunfire with police. It was unclear if the gunman shot himself or was shot by officers.
The gunman wasn’t immediately identified, and police didn’t comment on possible motive. Police later swarmed an apartment in North Bend, Ohio, a village some 15 miles west of Cincinnati. They didn’t immediately explain the search.
My printed copy told me it was Omar Enrique Santa Perez, a 25-year-old Indian banker.
I was also told that "police responded within seconds," casting doubt on whether this was a real event, another in a long list of staged and scripted crisis drills gone live, or more false flag fakery. It's a conditioning concept for the public.
‘‘So, a very horrific situation,’’ Isaac said at the shooting scene. ‘‘We’re in the very early stages’’ of the investigation.
Federal and state agents were on the scene as police searched through the building.
Hmmmmmmm.
Michael Richardson, who works in the bank building, told The Cincinnati Enquirer that he was standing outside the entrance when he heard gunshots in the lobby.
‘‘I looked behind me and saw the guy — he shot and then he shot again. After that I started running.’’
Jessica Hanson, a contractor with the bank’s concierge company, works on one of the lower floors overlooking Fountain Square. She said after repeatedly hearing shots, she went to the window and saw people running and ducking for cover as officers started shooting into the bank.
A woman who works with her had taken the elevator down to get a drink. When the elevator doors opened, Hanson said her co-worker almost stepped on a man’s body. She got back in the elevator and rode up to her floor, where Hanson said she was in complete shock and unable to form complete sentences.
‘‘Then we knew what was going on,’’ Hanson said.
Jaenetta Cook, who manages Servatii Bakery on the building’s first floor, said she hurried to lock the door after the first two shots were fired. Then, she heard more that ‘‘sounded as if they were getting closer and closer.’’ Cook said she and two other employees hid in the bathroom for the duration of the shooting.
They sheltered in place.
‘‘I made it out to see my kids, to see another day,’’ she said in relief.
One of the victims died at the scene. Two more died at University of Cincinnati Medical Center. UC Health spokeswoman Kelly Martin said one victim remained there in critical condition and another was listed as serious. All four received at the hospital had gunshot wounds, she said.
Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley said the gunman was ‘‘actively shooting innocent victims.’’ The Fountain Square often hosts concerts, dancing, food trucks and other events around lunchtime or in the evenings and is neighbored by a hotel, restaurants and retail shops.
‘‘It could have been any one of us,’’ Cranley said.
He praised ‘‘the heroism’’ of police who ended the threat within seconds and the response of other emergency personnel.
‘‘It could have been much, much worse,’’ Cranley said.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene, with people running away in fear and confusion while hearing gunshots.
Leonard Cain told The Cincinnati Enquirer he was going inside the bank when someone alerted him there was shooting. He said a woman, who was wearing headphones, didn’t hear the warnings and walked into the bank and was shot.
Fifth Third operates some 1,200 banking centers in 10 states. The company in a statement said it’s working with law enforcement and offers thoughts and prayers for ‘‘everyone caught up in this terrible event.’’
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Related:
Cincinnati clears, sanitizes downtown homeless camp
They are going to start a dialogue about long-term solutions but the encampment was under an overpass near the stadium where the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals play so they had to be moved. just like in Greenfield.
Police shooting of Pa. boy spurs more protests, appeals
He is just another hashtag now, and he was shot by officer Michael Rosfeld.
Kind of alarming, huh?
Cop accused in Australian’s death can’t take stress
He is mentally ill but they let him work anyway in what looks like the defense's strategy.
As for the victim, the family says the shooting was not justified.
Dallas officer mistakes apartment for own, kills man who lives there
8 people shot at San Bernardino apartment complex
I'm told it was during a during a dice game, and it never made print.
Related(?): Jacksonville Just the Beginning
Ironically, that was the end of the coverage!
"The New York City mayor’s office said 10 people hospitalized after a large commercial jet arrived from Dubai have tested positive for influenza. Mayoral spokesman Eric Phillips tweeted on Thursday that some tests came back inconclusive on other viruses and will be readministered. All 10 patients will be kept in the hospital as a precaution until the final results come in. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quarantined the double-decker Emirates aircraft holding 520 passengers Wednesday so it could evaluate about 100 of them. Some had complained about coughs, headaches, sore throats, and fevers. Rapper Vanilla Ice, whose real name is Robert Van Winkle, posted a video on Facebook of an emergency response to an initial report that dozens of people could be sick."
That was the question I asked yesterday, and what pandemic to they have up their sleeve waiting to be released?
"Because of New York State’s highly restrictive statute of limitations on sex abuse crimes, many of the potential abuses that may be uncovered will not be able to be prosecuted. Under current law in New York, victims only have until age 23 to file civil cases or seek criminal charges for most types of child sexual abuse. Some of the most serious child sex crimes, such as rape, have no time limit on the bringing of criminal charges, but only for conduct that occurred in 2001 or later....."
What ever happened to Schneiderman anyway, and who knew about it beforehand?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"A new year for Boston Public Schools, but an old problem — late buses" by James Vaznis and Emily Sweeney Globe Staff September 06, 2018
Late buses plagued the start of school in Boston on Thursday as temperatures climbed into the 90s in thick humid air, causing some students at bus stops to give up in frustration and go home after waiting almost an hour.
Nearly half of the buses were tardy, but 80 percent of all buses arrived within 15 minutes of the opening bell, school officials said. That performance was better than the first day last year when 59 percent of buses were late.
The problems came amid negotiations for a new contract with the bus drivers union, which has threatened to hit the picket lines if members can’t secure a fair deal, but Mayor Martin J. Walsh said he didn’t think the two issues were related, and he put in a good word for the drivers.
Are the parents of Bo$ton shaking their heads like I am?
I guess it's okay to be delusional as long as your name isn't Trump?
“They love transporting the kids of this city,” said Walsh, as he fielded questions at an East Boston park after leading 350 kindergartners in a short parade around the neighborhood. “In some ways, these kids become their family: When they pick the kids up at the corner, they get to know the kids and their families throughout the course of the year.”
Let's hope they aren't molesting any.
Interim Superintendent Laura Perille, who also turned out for the parade, characterized the longer delays as “isolated incidents,” but for many families and students, the delays marred what should have been a fresh start to a new academic year.
“BPS is pleased that Thursday morning’s on-time performance was better than the first day of school last year, and we are confident that service will continue to improve,” the statement said.
I'm wondering how long you have to rub that turd to make it shine.
To help students pass time as they wait for the buses, the city’s Office of New Urban Mechanics created four play areas at school bus stops under an initiative known as Playful Boston.
The corner of Geneva Avenue and Westville Street in Dorchester, where buses pick up more than 200 children, featured brightly colored Vietnamese-inspired folk instruments made out of PVC pipes and recycled materials. In Roxbury, children could use chalk to fill in a life-size coloring book page. In East Boston, students could solve a mystery map by following various lines and paths, but in Roslindale, where students at one stop could spin three wheels to create phrases in English and Spanish that they could act out, the apparatus sat dormant Thursday morning as students grew impatient waiting for the buses, but no bus stopped for them.
Related:
"Some people pop in earbuds and listen to a favored podcast on their walk to work. Others scroll endlessly through social media apps, never once looking up or taking notice of the bustling crowds all around them, but Peter Wolfe does neither on his 20-minute trek from North Station to his job on Congress Street near the Greenway. Instead, on some mornings — and when the weather permits — the Reading resident plugs a set of headphones and his smartphone into a portable amplifier connected to his electric guitar and then shreds tasty licks to his favorite tunes as he strolls to the office. “It’s a good time to practice. I’m on my walk anyway,” said Wolfe, the cofounder of Comlinkdata, a data-telecom research company. “I’ve got a lot else going on — family, hobbies, companies, and stuff — and so it’s just open time that I can use.”
Let that be a lesson for you kids!
Around 8:38 a.m., nearly an hour after the students should have been on their way to school, the children and their grandfather gave up and left.....
You only have to wait 10 minutes for the professor to show up before you can leave.
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Some are wondering if the “city can pay for an Uber?”
Also see:
Auditor says RMV licensed dead people. RMV says all the people are alive
80-year-old using a walker dies in Cambridge hit-and-run crash
"Wellesley police and school resource officers were stationed at Wellesley High School Thursday after a firearm and ammunition were found in the adjacent Hunnewell Field on Wednesday by a person walking a dog, Wellesley police said in a statement. “This will be done to reassure the community that the Wellesley Public Schools are a safe environment for education,’’ police said in the statement. “The preliminary investigation indicates that the firearm is not related in any way to the school community.” According to police, a resident was walking a dog along a path known as the Crosstown Trail around 3:55 p.m. Wednesday when the dog spotted a bag lying in a patch of grass. “The resident opened the bag and immediately noticed what appeared to be a firearm and ammunition inside,’’ police wrote. Authorities said the firearm was a semiautomatic pistol. Police searched the field and brought in a police dog trained to sniff out firearms, but no other weapons were found."
So what are you kids learning from the mind f***s?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Tech community wrestles over working with government" by Hiawatha Bray Globe Staff July 13, 2018
Ken Sutton served his country as a US Army Ranger, but these days he’s chief executive of a Boston technology startup, and he is doing a lot of soul-searching about whether to do business with the US intelligence community.
“I grapple with that every day,” said Sutton, acknowledging that his company, Yobe, makes an artificial intelligence system that could be used “in some very nefarious ways.”
Sutton and other Massachusetts executives are part of a larger debate within the nation’s technology community over the ethics of letting government agencies involved in surveillance or enforcement activities use their inventions for purposes they might find objectionable. In an extraordinary show of dissent, employees of Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com, and Salesforce.com have demanded their companies refuse to do business with police departments, immigration authorities, or the US military.
One Boston company, Affectiva, decided early on that it wouldn’t sell the government its technology, which uses facial recognition to detect a person’s emotional state.
“I’ve been pretty vocal from day one that we’re not doing this,” said Rana el Kaliouby, who launched Affectiva in 2009.
Much of the recent outrage is largely driven by furious opposition to the policies of President Trump. The tech backlash has only grown more intense since, and has risen to new heights since Trump’s controversial decision to separate immigrant children from their parents at the US border, a policy that has since been rescinded.
And yet there it is, the lead story in the Globe today (and they complain no matter what he does). Can't rip 'em from the mother's arms, can't keep 'em together without release.
Related: "Authorities say that a Mexican man held at a south Georgia immigration detention center has died in an apparent suicide. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a news release Thursday that 40-year-old Efrain De La Rosa was pronounced dead around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. ICE says staff at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin found De La Rosa unresponsive in his cell. He died at a hospital in Cuthbert after medical personnel efforts to revive him failed. ICE says the case is under investigation, but the ‘‘preliminary cause of death appears to be self-inflicted strangulation.’’ De La Rosa was handed over to ICE on March 11 by law enforcement in Wake County, N.C., after a March 9 felony conviction for larceny. He was in deportation proceedings at the time of his death."
“The Trump administration’s activities at the border, and frankly their naked racism, has appalled people across the country and has spurred the tech sector to action,” said Kade Crockford, director of the Technology for Liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.
Really?
Is that why they reopened the Emmett Till case?
In the case of Google, the protest worked. The Internet giant in June said it would no longer work on artificial intelligence systems that help military drones conduct aerial surveillance or attack targets.
Other protests have had mixed results. Amazon, for example, has so far declined a request from some employees to stop selling its facial recognition technology to police departments. Critics fear police will use the systems to track people without legal justification.
See: Amazon employees demand company cut ties with ICE
Anybody you Rekognize?
Microsoft and Salesforce have also resisted calls from employees to abandon business deals with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, one of the federal agencies involved in the family separation controversy. The movement has even spread beyond the technology sector. McKinsey & Co., the giant management consulting firm, earlier this week said it will no longer do business with ICE, after employees objected.
Northeastern is also under fire for working with ICE as protesters urge the cancellation of the contract (Globe says they are going after the wrong target).
In this corporate rebellion, the nerds have been leading the way. In many US companies, labor unions are weak or nonexistent, and workers are rarely in a position to challenge their employers’ business practices. Not so for the prized engineers and scientists at technology firms.
“Tech workers occupy a key position in today’s economy, and so they have a certain kind of power,” said Sasha Costanza-Chock, associate professor of civic media at MIT.
Can they bring peace?
Even without goading from employees, some tech company leaders, such as Ken Sutton of Yobe, are fretting about how their innovations might be used — or abused — by governments.
Yobe is making audio processing software that can identify a specific human voice in a roomful of talkers. The technology has plenty of commercial applications — hearing aids, for example, or speech-controlled devices that would answer to just one member of a family.
Sutton said Yobe could also be used in military communications, to enable better communications among groups of soldiers on a battlefield. Indeed, he suggested the idea to officials at the Defense Department, but he was taken aback when members of the intelligence community reached out to the company. Sutton said he fears that investigators could use Yobe technology to eavesdrop on private conversations of citizens, without their knowledge or consent.
Sutton said his time in the military taught him to be wary of the government, but he stressed his misgivings are his alone for now and don’t reflect the policy of the company.
WHAT?
It’s also easy to imagine how technology from Affectiva, meanwhile, could be used by a government agency in, say, the interrogation of a suspected terrorist.
The technology analyzes facial movements and expressions to gauge emotions, and is used by major corporations to test the effectiveness of TV ads.
In 2011, a venture capital company backed by the CIA offered to invest in Affectiva. Kaliouby was tempted.
What is the CIA doing with a venture capital wing?
How much of this economy is the MIC hiding under the false fronts of a corporation?
“We were running out of money,” she recalled. Nevertheless, she said no. “Your emotions are very personal, as personal as your data gets. And we wanted people to trust us. . . . We didn’t want to be a Big Brother.”
Ironically, some of Affectiva’s employees have pushed back against her policy, arguing that if used properly, the company’s technology could help protect the public.
The sad part is I'm almost coming around to the total surveillance society.
If nothing else, it can validate your alibi.
The pressures on tech companies are likely to increase as activists step up their resistance efforts.....
So much so that they are now penning letters to the New York Times editorial board!
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Time to take Wing:
"This investment firm has $112 million to spend on AI startups" by Andy Rosen Globe Staff July 12, 2018
Glasswing Ventures, a young Boston investment firm that funds startup companies focused on artificial intelligence, announced Thursday that it has raised $112 million for its first fund.
The firm, led by former Fairhaven Capital executives Rudina Seseri and Rick Grinnell, has been making early-stage investments for about a year.
Its investments include Talla, a Boston company that makes computerized assistants that carry out office tasks; Allure Security, a Waltham firm that protects against the theft of digital documents; and Terbium Labs, a Baltimore outfit that searches the “dark Web” of hidden Internet activity for potential threats.
Seseri said in an interview that the final size of the fund will allow Glasswing to fund “the next wave around AI,” providing cash to pull promising ideas out of universities and laboratories along the East Coast.
The closing size of the fund makes it one of the largest recent debut efforts in Boston, and Seseri’s role is notable in an industry where firms with women in leadership remain relatively rare.
Seseri said she believes Glasswing is taking advantage of a need in the market for very early-stage startup investments — often called “seed” and “pre-seed” rounds — as many established venture funds focus on larger companies in the later stages of their development.
She said Glasswing’s typical investment will be between $1.5 million and $3 million.
“The engine is there. The machinery is there. We’re just providing the fuel,” she said.
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She has a heart of gla$$.
"UMass Lowell fabric center aims to make smarter clothes" by Allison Hagan Globe Correspondent July 12, 2018
The new Fabric Discovery Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell is about so much more than couture.
Opened Thursday with a ceremony that included Governor Charlie Baker, the center will explore so-called smart clothing — fabrics with special properties and wearable electronics, such as flame-retardant pajamas for children, or military uniforms that track the locations of soldiers. Embedding technology into the fabric is more effective than traditional methods, such as coatings that can wear off or be toxic to humans, or electronic devices that are bulky and awkward to wear.
Julie Chen, UMass Lowell vice chancellor for research and innovation, said the flexibility of modern fibers, coming in so many different sizes and materials, has opened a whole new frontier for products.
“Fabric makes for more human-centered technology. Everything doesn’t have to be a square box,” Chen said.
For example, UMass Lowell students and faculty are working with manufacturer Saint-Gobain on an industrial fabric with embedded sensors that can detect when a building material, such as a pipe or concrete supporting column, has internal deterioration that cannot be seen from the exterior. The center is also partnering with Raytheon to make flexible antennas that can fit inside helmets, to improve communication, for example, or even to detect concussions.
That reminds me, I won't be blogging this Sunday.
Among the many robotics activities at the center is an “armada” of mechanized hands and arms that businesses can use to test new manufacturing processes.
Those are the kinds of jobs that are coming back.
UMass Lowell used most of an $11.3 million state grant to build the fabrics center, which will share space with a robotics testing facility and a medical device center in a renovated mill on Canal Street.
The fabrics center is also funded in part by an initiative of the Defense Department to invest in new technologies developed within the United States.....
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Related: Cloak of Surveillance
Also see: Austin reportedly bests Boston in bid for Army Futures Command
Isn't that agent provocateur Alex Jones territory?
Related:
American Everyman
Should Washington’s Blog Continue?
Meanwhile, back on the farm:
"With family grown apart, historic farm is in the middle" by Brian MacQuarrie and Emily Williams Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent July 13, 2018
SACO, Maine — Rick Grant was known as the Corn King and Bean Baron of Maine, a seventh-generation farmer whose family has worked the land here since King George III handed them 25 acres of wilderness in the 1700s.
The spread eventually grew to 300 acres, and Grant’s Farm became one of the largest in southern Maine, sending fresh corn, squash, beans, zucchini, and tomatoes to supermarkets and vendors in the area and beyond, but when Grant died last year at 57, the Corn King’s estate became locked in a bitter dispute that led directly to what was once unthinkable: an auction Thursday that attracted hundreds of family members, neighbors, and bidders to watch the old farm be sold.
In a small city facing development pressures, the sale of Grant’s Farm threatened another piece of the rural identity that many Mainers prize. So, friends of the Grants — and members of the Grant family themselves — felt no small sense of relief when they learned that Marcel Bertrand, a local businessman, had made the winning bid of $1.3 million and would search for ways to save the farm.
The future is uncertain, but.....
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Their next crop:
Marijuana shops could open in Mass. by early fall
Wait until you see the prices.
I'm sure you have lots of questions regarding the enforcement practices as this milestone brings job training with it (employers can still fire you if you use after work).
The dangers of pot (or whatever you call it) are well known, and we should be worried about its safety.
I know you had high hopes for the state since they are striking a friendlier tone, and you can still sip an Aerosmith-inspired brew at a new South Shore beer garden this weekend (I'll pass on the protein shake, too).
Ever wonder if the Globe smokes the stuff?
