All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Stephen Miller’s bushels of Pinocchios for false voter-fraud claims – The Washington Post – Liar, Liar, Liar!

The Pinocchio TestStephanopoulos is right. The White House continues to provide zero evidence to back up its claims of voter fraud. Officials instead retreat to the same bogus talking points that have been repeatedly shown to be false.It’s pretty shameless to cite research in a way that even the researcher says is inappropriate, and yet Miller keeps saying 14 percent of noncitizens are registered to vote. The Republican governor of New Hampshire has admitted that he was wrong to say buses of illegal voters voted in the election, and yet Miller shamelessly suggests that is the case. Miller cites a supposed expert on voter fraud, Kobach, who has been mocked for failing to prove his own claims of voter fraud. Miller also repeats a claim about people being registered to vote in two states, even though that is not an example of voter fraud.Miller earns Four Pinocchios — over and over again

Source: Stephen Miller’s bushels of Pinocchios for false voter-fraud claims – The Washington Post

Taylor Farms Recalls Chicken and Pork Salad Products Due To Possible Listeria Contamination

Two Taylor Farms establishments, located in Dallas, Texas and in Tracy, California, and headquartered in Salinas, California, are recalling approximately 6,630 pounds of chicken and pork salad products that may be adulterated with Listeria monocytogenes (Lm), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.The firms produced and packaged the products from Feb. 6-9, 2017.

Source: Taylor Farms Recalls Chicken and Pork Salad Products Due To Possible Listeria Contamination

NFL players pull out of Israel propaganda tour | The Electronic Intifada

In an open letter published by The Nation on Thursday afternoon, activists, writers and athletes, including Angela Davis, Alice Walker, John Carlos and Craig Hodges, appealed to the NFL players to reconsider participation in the trip. Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover later signed the letter.They praised the athletes for using their celebrity “to shed light about and support various struggles including Black Lives Matter,” and lauded those who had announced they would not go to the White House.They urged the players not to allow themselves to be used as part of a propaganda campaign “to help the Israeli government normalize and whitewash its ongoing denial of Palestinian rights.”The same day, NFL player and rights activist Michael Bennett tweeted he would not be going.In a fuller statement released on Twitter and Instagram Friday night, Michael Bennett said he would “not be used” by Israel’s government. He recalled that the late Muhammad Ali, one of his heroes, “always stood strongly with the Palestinian people.”“I want to be a ‘voice for the voiceless,’” Bennett added, “and I cannot do that by going on this kind of trip to Israel.”

Source: NFL players pull out of Israel propaganda tour | The Electronic Intifada

Every Year 700 Million People Fall Ill from Contaminated Food | Inter Press Service – So who do you trust for food?

 

contaminated food that every year causes illness to 1 in 10 people around the world – or around 700 million – killing 420,000 people as a result.The leading United Nations body in the field of food agriculture has something to say on this. And it does: food availability and food hygiene are compromised every day by diseases and pests that plague plants and animals as well as various types of contaminants.“This happens on farms, in factories, at home, in fresh or sea water, in the open air and in the midst of dense forests,” warns the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).Whether in the form of pathogen, insect or contaminant, threats are now travelling faster and further, making effective and timely responses more difficult and putting people’s food supplies, their health and livelihoods, and often their lives at greater risk, it adds.Over 70 per cent of new diseases of humans have animal origin, with the potential of becoming major public health threats, FAO adds.

Source: Every Year 700 Million People Fall Ill from Contaminated Food | Inter Press Service

Woman dies following Horner Park police shooting – Chicago Tribune – Two more police cannot disarm a person with a knife? Just kill them because we can? Crap!

He said the woman “made some threatening statements” and the officers tried to calm her down. She continued to walk toward the officers, before they deployed a Taser on her two times, Guglielmi said.”That had no effect,” he said. “She continued to advance after that, making threatening statements toward the officers, and the officers discharged their service weapons.”Guglielmi said the woman was shot twice and transported to an area hospital, where she was pronounced dead. He said the woman had no identification on her and hasn’t been identified yet. Guglielmi said the woman is believed to be about 40 or 50 years old, and a knife was recovered.He said the officers, who were not hurt, have more than 10 years’ experience with the Police Department. They will be placed on a 30-day administrative assignment, mandatory for all Chicago police officers involved in shootings.

Source: Woman dies following Horner Park police shooting – Chicago Tribune

What Happened to Elizabeth Warren Has Roots in Racism – The New York Times

 

In a historical coincidence, like Adams, Ms. Warren represents the state of Massachusetts. She occupies the same seat as Charles Sumner, who was nearly clubbed to death on the Senate floor in 1856 by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who was offended to the point of murderous violence by one of Sumner’s antislavery speeches. And Rule XIX itself was created in its current form in 1902 after the virulently racist Senator Benjamin Tillman assaulted his fellow South Carolinian Senator John McLaurin for saying that Tillman had uttered “a willful, malicious and deliberate lie.”This is the legacy that the 49 Republicans who voted to silence Senator Warren embraced. It is a legacy that regarded the sensitive feelings of thin-skinned congressmen as more important than good government or the voices of the people — especially the voices of women and minorities. Adams was gagged for presenting antislavery petitions from women and blacks, Senator Warren for reading the words of a female civil rights icon. This is a legacy no one should want to preserve.

Betsy DeVos Is Briefly Blocked From Entering a School – The New York Times

 

Democrats have expressed concern about contributions by Ms. DeVos’s family to groups that support so-called conversion therapy for gay people; her donations to Republicans and their causes, which she agreed have totaled about $200 million over the years; and her past statements that government “sucks” and that public schools are a “dead end.”

EU foreign policy chief tells Trump not to interfere in Europe’s politics | World news | The Guardian

She also took the opportunity to remind the administration, which hosted the UK prime minister, Theresa May, as the president’s first foreign guest, and promised her a favourable trade deal, that Britain did not have the right to negotiate independently until it was outside the EU, which was two years away at least.“The strength of the EU and the unity of the EU I believe is more evident today than it was a few months ago. This has to be clearly understood here,” Mogherini said. “This also means respect for the EU not simply as an institution. It is a union of 28 member states.”Mogherini expressed cautious optimism that Brussels and the new administration in Washington could learn to cooperate on a case-by-case basis.“We believe we are probably entering a time of a more pragmatic and transactional kind of relationship with the United States,” Mogherini said.

Source: EU foreign policy chief tells Trump not to interfere in Europe’s politics | World news | The Guardian

Trump and Netanyahu are allies in a losing battle | +972 Magazine

The most important clue to solve this puzzle is Trump and Netanyahu’s obsession with attacking, controlling and manipulating the news media (indeed, this is one of the major sources of Netanyahu’s recent legal troubles). Admittedly, even within their own camps, they are extreme outliers in terms of crudity and relentlessness on this issue — something that surely has to do with their individual psychological makeup. But they are also emblematic of a broader approach on the right, which has fueled the rise of rigorously partisan and uncurious media organs such as Israel Hayom in Israel and Fox News in the U.S.Journalists are a major problem for the Israeli and American extreme right because, despite all their flaws, they occasionally do provide information and cover actual events. In other words, they reflect reality — however partially and inadequately.Reality is the greatest foe of the extreme right wingers currently in power. In the real world, Palestinians, Mexicans, Muslims, and many other groups that they do not like continue to exist, despite travel bans and land grabs. In the real world, international relations are crucial for the prosperity of both countries and cannot be flippantly dismissed. “Alternative facts” are easily malleable. Actual facts cannot be so flexibly managed. The extreme right is not creating “facts on the ground,” it is being undone by them, bit by bit.Netanyahu, Trump, and their allies are fighting a losing battle. Deep inside, they know this. If they truly believed otherwise, their disposition would be sunny and confident, not dark and fretful.This is not cause for complacency. Part of the reason these agendas will be defeated is precisely because people are not complacent — they are mobilized and agitated (at least in the U.S.; this kind of mass opposition seems to be further down the road in Israel and Palestine). Until they are stopped, Trump and Netanyahu can do great harm, some of which will be irreparable. Nonetheless, the struggle against them must begin with the insight that we are not fighting an ascendant and secure power, we are opposing a desperate and fearful faction.

Source: Trump and Netanyahu are allies in a losing battle | +972 Magazine

UPDATE: 9th Circuit Rules on the Refugee Ban: Government’s Request to Block Washington State’s Temporary Restraining Order is Denied |

9TH CIRCUIT’S DECISION ARRIVES—AND THE ANSWER TO TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS: NOOn Thursday afternoon the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announced its ruling on immediate fate of the temporary restraining order that has halted President Donald Trump’s refugee and immigration ban nationwide.The 3-judge panel of the 9th denied the government’s request to do away with the TRO. The temporary restraining order stands.

Source: UPDATE: 9th Circuit Rules on the Refugee Ban: Government’s Request to Block Washington State’s Temporary Restraining Order is Denied |