Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke on Tuesday to the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington.
Credit Alex Brandon/AP
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions indicated on Tuesday that the federal government would back away from monitoring troubled police departments, which was the central strategy of the Obama administration to force accountability onto local law enforcement amid rising racial tensions.
In his first speech as attorney general, Mr. Sessions did not name any specific cities, but he indicated that Justice Department scrutiny from afar was undermining the effectiveness of the police across the country. It was a clear reference to the aggressive efforts of the Obama administration to oversee law enforcement agencies charged with civil rights abuses.
“We need, so far as we can, in my view, help police departments get better, not diminish their effectiveness,” Mr. Sessions said in remarks to the National Association of Attorneys General. “And I’m afraid we’ve done some of that. […]
No Comments
Thursday, March 2nd, 2017
Amarnath Amarasingam, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and co-Directs a Study of Western Foreign Fighters at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada - Politico Magazine
Stephan: The naivete and ineptitude of Trump and his administration in foreign affairs is breathtaking. As this report says, "In a country with police shootings, racial tensions and war-fatigue, a president who some fear may crack down on civil liberties, further marginalize minorities, and turn America inward is, from the jihadist point of view, what they wanted all along. Jihadist groups were never naïve enough to think that they could defeat the U.S. militarily on the battlefield. Rather, the point was to draw them into a war of attrition, let them punch themselves out, make American Muslims aware of their insecure place in the country, and make American citizens afraid of each other."
Isis leader
Credit: Politico
Nine days after 9/11, George W. Bush declared during an address to a joint session of Congress that every nation now “has a decision to make,” that “either you are with us or with the terrorists.” Jihadists saw his statement as a gift from God. They argued that with this line drawn in the sand, members of the Muslim community now had a clear view of the parade of sellouts, hypocrites and “white-washed” Muslims amongst them. It would be obvious who was on the side of the Muslim community and who, as ISIS wrote in the seventh issue of their English-language magazine Dabiq, would rush “to serve the crusaders led by Bush in the war against Islam.”
According to jihadists, this opportunity to unearth the true Muslims, those who had the community’s back and those who didn’t, was a gift from above. As al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden claimed at the time in an interview, which was also later reproduced in the same Dabiq article, this […]
1 Comment
Thursday, March 2nd, 2017
Alan Yuhas, - The Guardian (U.K.)
Stephan: Yet another inept nasty scene at the border. How do you think the greater Tibetan community will respond to this? How about the larger world soccer community? How about people who are not White Christians in general?
The United States enjoys the position it has historically held because of the contributions of immigrants. Indeed the country came into being, and was created by men who were immigrants, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants. Much of our technological lead in the 20th century was the result of contributions made by immigrants or the children of immigrants. Einstein, Tesla, Enrico Fermi, Elie Wiesel, Wernher von Braun, are just a few of the names that come to my mind as I write this. There are thousands more.
By creating these ugly scenes at our borders the U.S. is killing it tourism industry, and crippling its healthcare and technological sectors.
‘Through football I can represent my country and through football I can inspire our girls,’ says a team captain.
Credit: Ed Sykes/Reuters
Fifteen players of a Tibetan women’s soccer team have been refused US visas as guests of a Texas tournament, raising questions about what policy Donald Trump will take toward the contested region.
The team, Tibet Women’s Soccer, had planned to take part in this spring’s Dallas Cup tournament for young players, and was invited by organizers to stay with local players in the tradition of several previous diversity programs, including a Catholic-Protestant team from Ireland and a Muslim-Jewish team from Israel.
On Friday, however, the players were told by US embassy officials in Delhi that they did not merit permission to take the 10-day trip.
“What they said is we don’t have strong reasons to go to Dallas,” said Jamyang Chotso, a team captain. “But I think this is not the reason for them to reject us. [We] think the reason is they think we might run away when we reach […]
No Comments
Wednesday, March 1st, 2017
Quincy Larson, - free Code Camp
Stephan: The Robot Trend is gathering steam, and has profound implications for America, some positive, some quite negative, both little considered. For me the biggest issue of this trend is the displacement by robots of hundreds of thousands of workers. We need to start thinking about this, and preparing people for this, or we will face enormous suffering and economic dislocation.
“The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.” — Stephen Hawking
There’s a rising chorus of concern about how quickly robots are taking away human jobs.
Here’s Elon Musk on Thursday at the the World Government Summit in Dubai:
“What to do about mass unemployment? This is going to be a massive social challenge. There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better [than a human]. These are not things that I wish will happen. These are simply things that I think probably will happen.” — Elon Musk
And today Bill Gates proposed that governments start taxing robot workers the same way we tax human workers:
“You cross the threshold of job-replacement of certain activities all sort of at once. So, you know, warehouse work, driving, room cleanup, there’s quite a few things that are […]
4 Comments
