American News Broadcasting: August 2015

Study Claims Large Numbers of Non-Citizens Vote in U.S.

by Jim Geraghty

This study’s claim is pretty eye-opening…

Our data comes from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). Its large number of observations (32,800 in 2008 and 55,400 in 2010) provide sufficient samples of the non-immigrant sub-population, with 339 non-citizen respondents in 2008 and 489 in 2010.

For the 2008 CCES, we also attempted to match respondents to voter files so that we could verify whether they actually voted. How many non-citizens participate in U.S. elections?

More than 14 percent of non-citizens in both the 2008 and 2010 samples indicated that they were registered to vote. Furthermore, some of these non-citizens voted. Our best guess, based upon extrapolations from the portion of the sample with a verified vote, is that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent of non-citizens voted in 2010. (Note that they keep using the term, “non-citizen,” without specifying whether they mean immigrants who have entered the country illegally or immigrants who are in the process of legally becoming citizens — lawful permanent residents, a.k.a. “green card” holders, or both.

It’s a crime either way, but it’s easier to imagine a lawful permanent resident mistakenly thinking they have already earned the right to vote.) If they mean 6.4 percent of 11 million illegal immigrants… we’re talking about roughly 700,000 votes being cast by non-citizens in 2008. Stunning. If true, it refutes my earlier contention that proven cases of voter fraud would only swing elections in races that come down to a few hundred votes.

But this section is fascinating: We also find that one of the favorite policies advocated by conservatives to prevent voter fraud appears strikingly ineffective. Nearly three quarters of the non-citizens who indicated they were asked to provide photo identification at the polls claimed to have subsequently voted. Is it really that a significant number of illegal immigrants now have a fake photo ID that looks realistic enough to fool voter registration and ballot box authorities? If that’s the case, it’s not really accurate to call them “undocumented immigrants,” now is it? More like “forged document immigrants.” Or is it that the poll workers manning the polling places that day aren’t really bothering to examine the IDs shown to them?

Keep in mind, people’s memories could be faulty. And we’re not dealing with a ton of examples from these interviews: Of the 27 non-citizens who indicated that they were “asked to show picture identification, such as a driver’s license, at the polling place or election office,” in the 2008 survey, 18 claimed to have subsequently voted, and one more indicated that they were “allowed to vote using a pro- visional ballot.” Only 7 (25.9%) indicated that they were not allowed to vote after showing identification.

Citizen’s arrest: Louisiana motorists subdue gunman who shot state trooper

By Jessica Mendoza

Motorists subdued and arrested a man accused of shooting a Louisiana state trooper with a sawed-off shotgun in Calcasieu Parish, La., on Sunday afternoon, reports say.

Two or three drivers stopped immediately, one of them making a swift turnaround on the two-lane highway, after the suspect, Kevin Daigle, reportedly shot Senior Trooper Steven Vincent in the head.

One driver wrestled the shotgun away from Mr. Daigle, and, with the others, got him to the ground.

They then snapped Trooper Vincent's handcuffs on his wrists, Col. Mike Edmonson, head of Louisiana State Police, said Sunday night.

As far as he knew, he said, the civilians were unhurt.

Police video showed Vincent, a 13-year state police veteran in southwest Louisiana and member of a law enforcement family, trying to talk a man out of the vehicle stuck sideways in a ditch, Colonel Edmonson said during a news conference. He said the truck door opened and Daigle came out with the shotgun.

The tape also shows the shotgun blast, according to Edmonson. At least two or three buckshot pellets struck Vincent, causing considerable damage, Fox News reports. "I saw my trooper go backwards and back toward his unit, where he was going to try to get some help out there," Edmonson said. "That shotgun wasn't to do anything else but hurt someone. Kill someone."

After the shooting, he said, Daigle walked over to Vincent, asking if he was alive.

"You could hear him breathing, telling him, 'You're lucky. You're lucky – you're going to die soon.'

That's the words that came out of his mouth," Edmonson said.

Daigle, who had "numerous DWIs" and other arrests that Edmonson wouldn't discuss because he didn't know whether or not they resulted in convictions, now faces charges that include attempted first-degree murder of a police officer. Daigle is under arrest at a hospital where he is being treated for injuries he sustained when the other motorists subdued him.

"He struggled with the guys who came to assist – had some scrapes on him and so on," said Sgt. James Anderson, southwest Louisiana spokesman for state police.

On Sunday night, Edmonson shared the incident on the Louisiana State Police’s Facebook Page. “Please take a moment from your Sunday afternoon to send prayers and well wishes to the Trooper and his family in this critical time,” he wrote.

By Monday morning, the post had more than 18,000 likes and nearly 8,700 people had shared their well-wishes.

Edmonson said Vincent has a wife, Katherine, and a son, Ethan. "More than anything else, my trooper needs your prayers," he said. "He's got a long, hard fight.... He deserves a future – not to die like this."

This report used material from the Associated Press.

QUITE SIMPLY ONE OF THE BEST SPEECHES EVER!

Trump: 'I'm gonna have to scare the Pope'

By Wills Robinson For Dailymail.com
Donald Trump has revealed he would warn the Pope that ISIS were out to get him if they meet next month.

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Chris Cuomo asked the billionaire businessman what he would say in to Pope Francis if he came face-to face with him during his visit to the United States in September.

The Republican presidential hopeful admitted he was a protestant, but said he thought the Pontiff was a 'good guy' because he is becoming very 'political'.

Then Cuomo asked Trump what his response would be if the Pope condemned capitalism as an 'avenue to greed' that 'can be toxic and corrupt'.

Trump then said: 'I'd say "ISIS wants to get you". You that ISIS wants to go in and take over the Vatican. That's a dream of theirs.

Cuomo then asks: 'You would scare the Pope?'

To which Trump replies: ''I am going to have to scare the Pope. The Pope I hope can only be scared by God.

'But the truth is - you know, if you look at what's going on - they better hope that capitalism works, because it's the only thing we have right now. And it's a great thing when it works properly.'

The GOP candidate then went on to say he believes the Pope is a fan of capitalism.

He also claimed Ronda Rousey is part if his legion high-profile fans - even though the UFC champion has already said she wouldn't vote for him.

Trump said he would support women fighting in every facet of the U.S. military - and used Rousey as an example of a woman who could be a great fighter.

'Some of them are really, really good,' he told Chris Cuomo. 'I'll tell you what, I know some woman that are just - Ronda Rousey is an example, who likes me.

Rare ‘Fire Rainbow’ Over South Carolina Explained

By Brian Clark Howard, National Geographic

A colorful “fire rainbow” lit up the sky, and the Internet, this week. But despite its name, the rare phenomenon isn’t related to recent wildfires. Instead, it’s caused by a unique alignment of forces in the atmosphere.

Technically called a circumhorizontal arc, fire rainbows are caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. This one was seen over South Carolina Monday for about an hour. It was photographed and uploaded to Instagram.

Fire rainbows occur only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58° above the horizon). What's more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus cloud’s crystals are aligned just right, the whole section lights up in a spectrum of colors.

The phenomenon is similar to the iridescent clouds, also called “rainbow clouds” —confusingly, they’re sometimes also called fire rainbows—that form on top of cumulus clouds after thunderstorms.

Those form after air is pushed up rapidly, causing it to cool and expand. Water droplets condense that can then act as prisms, forming a rainbow cap over the cumulus cloud. (See photos of sun dogs and other atmospheric delights.)

How North Dakota's Richest Man Is Building His Second $1 Billion Empire -- At 69

Forbes Magazine
Even for a former gym teacher from Dazey, N.D. (pop. 100, give or take), 69-year-old hotel magnate and billionaire Gary Tharaldson is pretty unpretentious.

Tell the richest man in the state that you’re flying in to visit him at his Fargo headquarters and he’ll offer to fetch you himself, rolling up in his red Cadillac crossover and wearing his everyday work uniform of shorts and a sport shirt. Cruising along one of Fargo’s main drags, he’ll frown at all of the undeveloped land–potential competition for the existing hotels (even though they aren’t his).

“He’s beyond down-to-earth–he’s almost subterranean,” says Bruce White, a successful Marriott franchisee who has known Tharaldson since they both started in the hotel business in the early 1980s.

Tharaldson is a driven, shrewd cost-cutter. In March 2006 he sold a portfolio of 130 hotels in a variety of chains to Goldman Sachs for $1.2 billion. Six months later he sold the Westward Ho Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, which he’d owned for only a few months, to Harrah’s at a profit of $109 million.

“Real estate was going crazy in Las Vegas back then,” he says.

Not long after, it cratered. Those sales capped an empire-building effort that began in 1982 when Tharaldson bought a Super 8 motel in Valley City, N.D. He added other low-end hotels and then moved into “limited service” business-suite hotels (no room service, no restaurants), eventually operating more than 350 across the country.

Almost immediately after his massive windfall–with only a brief time-out to head to the 2006 NCAA men’s basketball final in Indianapolis–Tharaldson, then 60, started on his next act.

“I wondered what I’d do with the money and if it would change me,” he recalls. In his Fargo office, looking over projections for his current enterprises, he says, “I think it didn’t.”

This time out he is placing big bets on natural resources: ethanol, raw land and water. It adds up to an estimated personal fortune of $930 million. The plan is to build his current holdings into an additional $1 billion portfolio over the next five years, while his 18-year-old son from his second marriage, Gary II, the one of his seven children he considers most likely to succeed him, gets an education.

When Tharaldson got started in the early ’80s, he was an ambitious working-class guy who’d figured out that the only way to get ahead was to own assets rather than look for a big paycheck. His style has always been to set huge goals and then try to exceed them, once telling an interviewer, “From my youth I always wanted to create something on a big scale. I wasn’t sure what that would be, but I knew whatever it was it was going to be big.”

After college at North Dakota’s Valley City State University, Tharaldson had a brief stint as a high school gym and bookkeeping teacher (he remains a passionate slow-pitch softball pitcher, manager and team sponsor; in 2011 he was inducted into the Amateur Softball Association’s national Hall of Fame) and a longer one as an insurance salesman. Early on, his plan was to own 200 hotels by 2000.

When the millennium arrived, he owned 352.

His main advantages were his merciless focus on costs and his newcomer’s indifference to the way things had usually been done. Bruce White recalls that Tharaldson stood out–with his company-logo shirts and down-home demeanor–when he first visited Marriott’s posh headquarters near Washington, D.C. At the time the hotel industry’s focus was on luxury and volume. Hotels were routinely built with 120 or more rooms, regardless of market size, recalls Marriott’s Liam Brown, president of the chain’s North American midmarket brands. Tharaldson, however, concentrated on midsize cities and on building only as many rooms as a market could fill. Brown recalls that Tharaldson also found a way to create an upscale feel at low cost by putting room entries in interior hallways rather than on a building’s exterior.

“That was a big step forward for our brand,” Brown says.

Tharaldson started his own construction company to save on building costs. He also put laundry rooms behind the front desk in his early hotels so night clerks could fold towels when things got slow.

Meanwhile, for Hilton, Tharaldson was one of the first franchisees to switch from poured-concrete construction to less-expensive wood frames, says Hilton Senior Vice President Phil Cordell.

White says, “The whole industry benefited from Gary’s innovations.”

Tharaldson helped develop a hotel niche that could prosper in both good and bad times. The swings of the real estate market taught him patience and a long-term view. When land values plummeted in 2009, he hunkered down rather than take losses. “I had a period of nonliquidity,” he notes drily. “I’d hate to sell too soon or too low.”

Similarly, the portfolio that he hopes will make him another billion is designed around industries he believes can ride out economic cycles. One project is Cibola Vista Resort & Spa, a time-share near Phoenix where Tharaldson and co-owner Neil Cumsky have built and sold 248 units and are now constructing 40 more. (Cumsky says he and Tharaldson became partners after lunch in the kind of midmarket chain restaurant Tharaldson patronizes exclusively, in this case a P.F. Chang’s.)

Tharaldson says he plans to sell off $80 million of his raw land holdings this year, which by his count would still leave him with roughly $120 million worth.

Prominent writers blast Mexican president over journalist slayings

Mexico City (AFP) - A group of prominent writers, artists and intellectuals have called on the Mexican president to address the country's terrible record on protecting journalists who report on drug violence and other criminal activity.

Across Mexico, 88 journalists have been murdered since 2000, according to Reporters Without Borders, and another 20 or so have disappeared.

Nearly 500 prominent voices, including Britain's Salman Rushdie, American writer Paul Auster and Canada's Margaret Atwood, signed an open letter on Sunday to President Pena Nieto decrying violence against journalists.

We "would like to express our indignation regarding the deadly attacks against reporters in your country," the letter states.

"An attempt on the life of a journalist is an attack on society's very right to be informed."

The most recent case to attract widespread revulsion is that of photojournalist Ruben Espinosa, who had fled the violence-plagued state of Veracruz and gone to Mexico City after receiving threats.

Espinosa was one of five victims found dead this month at an apartment in the capital, their hands bound and their bodies bearing signs of torture.

"This is only the latest in a long series of outrages against the press, and it took place in a city that was considered one of the last safe places in the country for reporters to work. There would now seem to be no safe haven for the profession," the letter states.

At least 11 Veracruz journalists have been killed in the past five years in the eastern state, leading Reporters Without Borders to rank it the third most dangerous place in the world to practise the profession, after Iraq and Syria.

"Mr President, there must be no more murders," states the letter, which goes on to call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

"In your country, the statistics are disastrous regarding impunity in crimes against the press."

Scott Walker Being Trumped by The Donald in Crucial State of Iowa

by John McCormick

When Republican Scott Walker arrives Monday at Iowa's state fair, he'll land in an unfamiliar position: he won't be the front-runner in the state that holds the first presidential nominating contest.

Like most every other candidate in the historically crowded field, the Wisconsin governor's standing in state and national polls has been hurt by the summer surge of billionaire Donald Trump, the party's front-runner.

No state is more critical to Walker's future than Iowa, where media expectations about his candidacy have grown to the point that anything short of a win in the Feb. 1 caucuses is likely to be viewed as a serious momentum killer.

“I run into people who support him, but I think the polls reflect the fact that everyone is just struggling to get traction, outside of the three non-politicians,” said John Bloom, Republican Party treasurer in Polk County, the state's largest.

Bloom, who is undecided in the race, was referring to Trump, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. He's not ruling out the possibility of a Trump win in Iowa.

“If you had asked me a month ago, I would have said no,” he said. “But I think there is more commitment there to something. I don't know if it's for Trump, or this rebellion against our leadership.”

Walker, who has enjoyed a consistent lead all year in Iowa, dropped to third in the most recent CNN poll. He was backed by just 9 percent of likely caucus participants, below Trump at 22 percent and Carson at 14 percent.

It's a dramatic fall for a guy who led in a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll with 17 percent as recently as late May. That was approaching the level of support—roughly 20 percent—that most party insiders agree could win the caucuses in a 17-candidate field.

Walker is the man with the most to lose from Trump's Iowa rise because he's counting on a win in the state to provide momentum in subsequent contests where Trump and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush are almost certain to be better financed.

“We are focused on the fundamentals of caucus organizing on the ground, not a week of snap polls,” said David Polyansky, Walker's senior Iowa adviser. “Governor Walker will continue to share his record of success and his vision for America, and his team will continue to focus on building an operation that is capable of carrying him across the finish line next year.”

For now, Walker has four paid staff members in the state, two consultants, and one campaign office, all numbers that will grow as the fall progresses. His campaign has 65 members on its Iowa leadership team, including more than one-third of the state's senate Republicans and numerous other current and former elected officials, business leaders and party activists.

Underscoring Iowa's importance, Walker spent three days in the state as part of his campaign announcement rollout in mid-July, triple that of any other he visited that week.

He's pledged to visit all of Iowa's 99 counties and has already been to 16, his campaign says. After Walker leaves the fair, he'll squeeze in two more events in the northern part of the state, before heading to Minnesota to deliver a speech on how he proposes to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Asked in mid-July whether he had any concerns about Iowa expectations being too high for him, Walker highlighted his high school track days.

“My coach used to say it’s a lot easier to win if you're ahead,” he said. “In the end, we know there's a lot of time, a lot can happen between now and then. We're just going to stay focused, day by day, week by week, getting our message out.”

Walker added that he hopes to “at least to be first, second or third” in all four of the early states, which also include New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada.

The two-term governor is the closest thing to a native Iowa son in this election cycle. He spent a portion of his childhood in northeast Iowa, the part of the state that's most familiar with him because it's nearest to Wisconsin and the two states share some media markets.

Walker hasn't just lost his standing in Iowa polls. After the first Republican presidential debate on Aug. 6, he's also lost traction in national polls.

A national Fox News poll released Sunday showed Walker has dropped to 6 percentage among likely Republican primary voters, down three points during the past two weeks and the lowest support he’s received this year in that poll.

Stronger showings for Trump and Carson suggest there's a desire in the Republican electorate for an outsider. That's a hard niche for Walker to fill. While he's only been a governor since 2011, he's been a politician most of his adult life, serving first in the Wisconsin legislature and then as Milwaukee County executive.

Walker's top aides point to the fact that at this time four years ago then-Texas Governor Rick Perry was atop polls in Iowa, before finishing fifth in the 2012 Republican caucuses.

Walker's team, of course, isn't alone in building the sort of grassroots network that will be critical to turnout out voters on a cold winter night next year at more than 1,700 precincts.

Chuck Laudner, Trump's top Iowa strategist and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Iowa, said his candidate is doing things like putting his name on a sprint car at a popular Iowa racetrack to try to appeal to new voters.

“We are going into events that are non-political in nature,” he said. “We have to bring new people in.”

That could be a bad thing for Walker. His model is built around a more traditional caucus turnout, not an expanded electorate that might draw more moderate Republicans and some independents.

Bob Woodward: Clinton emails 'reminds me of the Nixon tapes'

By Eddie Scarry
Veteran Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward on Monday compared the email controversy engulfing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to the downfall of President Richard Nixon.

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Woodward, who through his reporting helped break open the Watergate scandal, said it's at least suspicious that Clinton's emails from her tenure as secretary of state were wiped away from a server she owned privately.

"Follow the trail here," Woodward said. "There are all these emails. Well, they were sent to someone or someone sent them to her. So, if things have been erased here, there's a way to go back to these emails or who received them from Hillary Clinton. So, you've got a massive amount of data in a way, reminds me of the Nixon tapes: Thousands of hours of secretly recorded conversations that Nixon thought were exclusively his."

News broke earlier this year that Clinton relied on a private email address and server, rather than a government-owned one, when she served at the State Department. Subsequent reports said that she received classified and top secret information through that system. Federal officials have since taken Clinton's server and are continuing an investigation into whether its security was compromised.

"It's extraordinary," Woodward said. "Again, it's the volume: 60,000 emails and Hillary Clinton has said 30,000 of them, half, were personal and they were deleted. Who decided that? What's on those emails? I would love to have all 60,000, read them. It would be a character study about her personal life and also what she did as secretary of state. And step back for a moment. The big question about Hillary Clinton is, who is she? Is she this secretive hidden person or is she this valiant public servant?

Look at those 60,000 emails and you're going to get some answers."

Woodward added, "This has to go on a long long time; the answers are probably not going to be pretty."

Clinton maintains her status as the national front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, though her favorability ratings has declined since the news about her emails broke.

US Army skydiver dies from Chicago air show injuries

CHICAGO (AP) -- A U.S. Army skydiver who had served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan died Sunday from injuries suffered in a midair collision with another jumper during a stunt at the Chicago Air & Water Show, authorities said.

Sgt. 1st Class Corey Hood of Cincinnati, Ohio, who had recently turned 32, was pronounced dead Sunday afternoon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said Mario Johnson, a Cook County medical examiner's investigator.

Hood had logged more than 200 free fall jumps and 75 military static line jumps during his career, according to his Army biography.

The Army Golden Knights and Navy Leap Frogs parachute teams were performing what is known as a "bomb burst" Saturday when the collision occurred, Golden Knights spokeswoman Donna Dixon said. During the stunt, parachutists fall with red smoke trailing from packs and then separate, creating a colorful visual in the sky.

Dixon said Hood collided with a member of the Navy's precision skydiving team.

Hood was knocked unconscious, "which resulted in an uncontrolled offsite landing," Dixon said in a statement.

Spectator Heather Mendenhall told the Chicago Tribune on Saturday that she was watching the show from a rooftop and saw Hood strike the roof of a high-rise building next door with his feet and then fall - his parachute trailing behind him.

"His legs caught the tip of the roof, and then he fell over. It was horrible," she told the newspaper.

The other parachutist, who has not been identified, landed on North Avenue Beach near the main viewing area for the show, Fire Department spokesman Juan Hernandez said Saturday. He was treated for a broken leg.

The accident is under investigation, the Army said. The team did not perform again on Sunday.

"The Knights are a very close knit team and the military skydiving community is equally close; we will support Corey's family and each other during this difficult time," Col. Matthew Weinrich, commander of the U.S. Army Parachute Team, said in a statement.

Hood served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and had earned numerous awards, including two Bronze Stars. He is survived by his wife, Lyndsay.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called Hood "an American hero," saying in a statement late Sunday, "He defended our freedom, he amazed so many as a member of the Golden Knights, and he will be missed."

Specialists such as the Army and Navy jumpers can reach speeds of up to 180 mph during freefall by pulling their arms to their sides. They typically open their parachutes at around 5,000 feet, joining their canopies together in formation and setting off smoke grenades to send red smoke trailing behind them.

The annual two-day air show draws millions of people to Chicago's Lake Michigan shoreline. Headliners included the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.

3 Disturbing Questions About Sunday’s Ferguson protests NO ONE is Asking

Written by Allen West August 12, 2015

The remembrance march held in Ferguson, Missouri on Sunday was supposed to be peaceful in nature.

But of course that’s not how it ended.

I must first ask, why was there a remembrance march for the one-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown? Was the intention to mark how the community in Ferguson has turned the corner and made improvements to address the real issues underlying the problems in the community?

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I have no time to play a politically correct game, so I will ask, why was there a protest march to remember a young black man who assaulted a store owner, robbed a store, assaulted a police officer and attempted to take away his weapon? I’m quite sure that question will draw the ire of a certain group of people more interested in being victims than resolving the issue at hand.

While there is no doubt deep emotion and grief surrounding the tragedy of Michael Brown, his death is but one small part of a much larger tragedy for the black community as a whole.

To me, it is deeply and personally disturbing that no one – white or black – seems to be asking these questions.

First, in the year that has passed since the original Ferguson incident, what has happened with the growth of minority owned, small businesses in the community? One of the key aspects of urban economic restoration has to do with entrepreneurial spirit and growth. The one-year protest should have brought this issue to light and sought out policy solutions, such as former Rep. Jack Kemp’s urban economic empowerment zones. How do we reinvigorate Ferguson with the capital necessary to rebuild businesses that the local population can see as a matter of pride? Sadly, when nightfall came, the violence came, too, and there was more looting of businesses in Ferguson. Consider the abysmal black teenager unemployment rate and you’ll understand why these young people are busy shooting each other, disrespecting the rule of law and law enforcement officers, and destroying businesses – where they should be working.

Second, if you want to have economic revitalization in the inner city, then we need to have better education opportunities. So where were the placards and signs asking for better schools, school choice, charter schools, and opportunities that come only by way of education? Not every kid needs to go to college, but all kids need to have a viable skill that enables them to be contributing and productive members of society. These skills need to be focused on the local economic and business needs, and ensure the next generation of workers are developed. This doesn’t mean just throwing out a $15 minimum wage which leads folks to believe frying French fries in a fast food restaurant is a career endeavor. That’s a political band aid over a sucking chest wound. Why is there no discussion about skills development and tradesmanship?

In the year since the death of Michael Brown, how many job skills development centers have opened in Ferguson? Again, perhaps if the young folks in that city had to wake up early to get to a job or a workforce development center, they wouldn’t be out shooting at each other. Perhaps the 18-year old friend of Michael Brown, Tyrone Harris Jr., wouldn’t be sitting in a hospital recovering from gunshot wounds after firing on law enforcement officers with a stolen handgun.

And that brings me to the third question – what happened to black dads? I grew up in the inner city of Atlanta and my dad, Herman “Buck” West Sr., raised his first son, Herman West Jr., to seek out service to our nation as a Marine infantryman. Following the example set by Dad, who served as a Soldier in World War II, my older brother served in Vietnam. Upon return, he became an Atlanta police officer – one who inculcated into me the lesson of respect and regard for authority. There are calls for a “day of disobedience” in Ferguson, and how many dads are supporting this? Fifty years ago the two-parent black household was near 77 percent, today it is at 25 percent. Men are needed to raise young men and teach them the lessons of honor, character, and respect. Not saying that a single mom cannot do it, but the odds weigh heavily against.

Booker T. Washington had a three point agenda for the success of the black community under the horrific specter of segregation, Jim Crow, and lynchings – all Democrat policies of the day. He focused on education, entrepreneurship, and self-reliance to enable success for the blacks as individuals and the community as a whole. The policies supporting that agenda then are needed now more than ever.

These questions about Ferguson, Missouri and black communities across the nation must be addressed and elevated until resolved. I look forward to the day when the black community is celebrating the opening of more businesses, the reduction of unemployment, the creation of better inner city schools, the end of black on black murder and violent crime, and the restoration of the black family. Those pursuits are worthy of remembering, not every year, but every day. They represent a nobler endeavor, worthy of the exertions and energy of the black community…and the legacy passed on to subsequent generations.

[This article first appeared in Townhall].

Anne Rice blasts Internet ‘lynch mobs’: ‘We are facing a new era of censorship’

By Jessica Chasmar - The Washington Times

Author Anne Rice took to her Facebook page Tuesday morning to rant against Internet lynch mobs who leave negative reviews on books they’ve never read in order to “take down” authors solely for religious or political reasons.

“Want to see the new censorship in action? Want to witness an internet lynch mob going after its target?” Ms. Rice wrote in a Facebook post linking to Kate Breslin’s 2014 novel “For Such a Time,” which is about a Jewish woman falling in love with the head of a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

“Check out the Amazon review site for this novel and read the one star reviews. Note how many have been posted since August 4th. Note what they say,” Ms. Rice wrote, Mediaite first reported. “And also please note that the Amazon customer review system is one of the greatest innovations the book world has ever seen, and that it is based on the premise that authentic customers will offer honest reviews of books they have purchased and/or read. Do you think these are honest customer reviews? i don’t.”

“I abhor censorship in all forms,” she continued. “I condemn those who abuse the Amazon reviewing system to ‘take down’ authors who books they have not read — for political or religious or ‘social’ reasons. … This book was published in April of 2014. It was well received, and like most books published it received good and bad reviews. Then an article about it written over one year later on August 4th of this year, appears to be what (intentionally or unintentionally) incited the lynch mob.”

Ms. Rice received a wave of support on Facebook and continued her commentary in the comments section of her post.

“I think we are facing a new era of censorship, in the name of political correctness,” she wrote. “There are forces at work in the book world that want to control fiction writing in terms of who ‘has a right’ to write about what. Some even advocate the out and out censorship of older works using words we now deem wholly unacceptable. Some are critical of novels involving rape. Some argue that white novelists have no right to write about people of color; and Christians should not write novels involving Jews or topics involving Jews. I think all this is dangerous.

“I think we have to stand up for the freedom of fiction writers to write what they want to write, no matter how offensive it might be to some one else,” she continued. “We must stand up for fiction as a place where transgressive behavior and ideas can be explored. We must stand up for freedom in the arts. I think we have to be willing to stand up for the despised. It is always a matter of personal choice whether one buys or reads a book. No one can make you do it. But internet campaigns to destroy authors accused of inappropriate subject matter or attitudes are dangerous to us all. That’s my take on it. Ignore what you find offensive. Or talk about it in a substantive way. But don’t set out to censor it, or destroy the career of the offending author.”

In a response to one commenter, Ms. Rice admitted she had not read Ms. Breslin’s book, either, but said she is ordering a copy out of support for the author.

“But I think it is important to stress that this is not about whether the book is offensive,it is about the immorality of internet lynch mobs that ‘game’ book sites to destroy their targets,” she added.

Clinton Aide Cheryl Mills Told to Destroy Emails

Cheryl Mills (Getty Images)

By Sandy Fitzgerald

Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton's chief of staff while she was Secretary of State, plans to delete her email correspondence, her lawyers tell U.S. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in a letter.

"Ms. Mills does not believe that she has paper copies of potential records in her possession," the letter says, 10-year Justice Department employee Sidney Powell writes in The New York Observer.

"Following our production on August 10, 2015 [of the defense counsel’s version of the electronic records], we have instructed her to delete any and all electronic records in her possession," the letter continues.

Powell, the author of "Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice," called the decision a "far stretch" from a statement Mills had made, and points out that Judicial Watch has made an emergency filing in Sullivan's court to stop the records from being destroyed.

The news surfaced in Friday's State Department status report, after on Thursday, the department produced some of its correspondence with Mills and another of Clinton's closest advisers, Huma Abedin.

"It has not produced its correspondence with Mrs. Clinton, and it is now clear that Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Abedin and Ms. Mills plan to thumb their noses at the Judge and the State Department," Powell writes.

However, she said, nobody is cooperating with Sullivan, or Congress, and State allowed Clinton to use her private email server for the whole time she was Secretary.

"It is simply shocking that the State Department did not immediately inform Congress, the Court, and Judicial Watch that Mrs. Clinton operated solely on a private email server and that the State Department did not have her records," said Powell.

It is also telling, she writes, that Clinton did not have an inspector general at State while she was there, but already, the independent watchdog there now has identified classified or sensitive materials that should not have been sent on the private server.

"When one writes an email to the address Clinton.com, one must know that it is not state.gov," said Powell, "and Clinton.com was the way she communicated with everyone in the administration and other branches of government."

Mills has also claimed that Clinton sometimes used her personal account, but as it turns out, the personal server was used exclusively and classified, sensitive information went through it, writes Powell.

"The question now is, with all of this deceit, delay, and destruction past, present and planned, how long will it be before Judge Sullivan issues a show cause order to hold Secretary [John] Kerry, Ms.
Mills and/or others in contempt, issues an order to prevent the destruction of Ms. Mills or anyone’s electronic records, and appoints a special prosecutor to investigate the entire corrupt cabal?" she concludes.

Search Algorithm Could Steal the Presidency

photo by Getty Images
WIRED-

Imagine an election—a close one. You’re undecided. So you type the name of one of the candidates into your search engine of choice.

(Actually, let’s not be coy here. In most of the world, one search engine dominates; in Europe and North America, it’s Google.) And Google coughs up, in fractions of a second, articles and facts about that candidate. Great! Now you are an informed voter, right? But a study published this week says that the order of those results, the ranking of positive or negative stories on the screen, can have an enormous influence on the way you vote. And if the election is close enough, the effect could be profound enough to change the outcome.

In other words: Google’s ranking algorithm for search results could accidentally steal the presidency.

“We estimate, based on win margins in national elections around the world,” says Robert Epstein, a psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and one of the study’s authors, “that Google could determine the outcome of upwards of 25 percent of all national elections.”

Epstein’s paper combines a few years’ worth of experiments in which Epstein and his colleague Ronald Robertson gave people access to information about the race for prime minister in Australia in 2010, two years prior, and then let the mock-voters learn about the candidates via a simulated search engine that displayed real articles.

One group saw positive articles about one candidate first; the other saw positive articles about the other candidate. (A control group saw a random assortment.) The result: Whichever side people saw the positive results for, they were more likely to vote for—by more than 48 percent. The team calls that number the “vote manipulation power,” or VMP. The effect held—strengthened, even—when the researchers swapped in a single negative story into the number-four and number-three spots.

Apparently it made the results seem even more neutral and therefore more trustworthy.

But of course that was all artificial—in the lab. So the researchers packed up and went to India in advance of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, a national campaign with 800 million eligible voters.

(Eventually 430 million people voted over the weeks of the actual election.) “I thought this time we’d be lucky if we got 2 or 3 percent, and my gut said we’re gonna get nothing,” Epstein says, “because this is an intense, intense election environment.” Voters get exposed, heavily, to lots of other information besides a mock search engine result.

The team 2,150 found undecided voters and performed a version of the same experiment. And again, VMP was off the charts. Even taking into account some sloppiness in the data-gathering and a tougher time assessing articles for their positive or negative valence, they got an overall VMP of 24 percent. “In some demographic groups in India we had as high as about 72 percent.”

The fact that media, including whatever search and social deliver, can affect decision-making isn’t exactly news. The “Fox News Effect” says that towns that got the conservative-leaning cable channel tended to become more conservative in their voting in the 2000 election. A well-known effect called recency means that people make decisions based on the last thing they heard. Placement on a list also has a known effect. And all that stuff might be too transient to make it all the way to a voting booth, or get swamped by exposure to other media. So in real life VMP is probably much less pronounced.

But the effect doesn’t have to be enormous to have an enormous effect. The Australian election that Epstein and Robertson used in their experiments came down to a margin of less than 1 percent. Half the presidential elections in US history came down to a margin of less than 8 percent. And presidential elections are really 50 separate state-by-state knife fights, with the focus of campaigns not on poll-tested winners or losers but purple “swing states” with razor-thin margins.

So even at an order of magnitude smaller than the experimental effect, VMP could have serious consequences. “Four to 8 percent would get any campaign manager excited,” says Brian Keegan, a computational social scientist at Harvard Business School. “At the end of the day, the fact is that in a lot of races it only takes a swing of 3 or 4 percent. If the search engine is one or two percent, that’s still really persuasive.”

The Rise of the Machines

It’d be easy to go all 1970s-political-thriller on this research, to assume that presidential campaigns, with their ever-increasing level of technological sophistication, might be able to search-engine-optimize their way to victory. But that’s probably not true. “It would cost a lot of money,” says David Shor, a data scientist at Civis Analytics, a Chicago-based consultancy that grew out of the first Obama campaign’s technology group. “Trying to get the media to present something that is favorable to you is a more favorable strategy.”

That’s called, in the parlance of political hackery, “free media,” and, yes, voters like it. “I think that generally people don’t trust campaigns because they tend to have a low opinion of politicians,” Shor says. “They are more receptive to information from institutions for which they have more respect.”

Plus, in the presidential campaign high season, whoever the Republican and Democratic nominees are will already have high page ranks because they’ll have a huge number of inbound links, one of Google’s key metrics.

Search and social media companies can certainly have a new kind of influence, though. During the 2010 US congressional elections, researchers at Facebook exposed 61 million users to a message exhorting them to vote—it didn’t matter for whom—and found they were able to generate 340,000 extra votes across the board.

But what if—as Harvard Law professor Jonathan Zittrain has proposed—Facebook didn’t push the “vote” message to a random 61 million users? Instead, using the extensive information the social network maintains on all its subscribers, it could hypothetically push specific messaging to supporters or foes of specific legislation or candidates. Facebook could flip an election; Zittrain calls this “digital gerrymandering.” And if you think that companies like the social media giants would never do such a thing, consider the way that Google mobilized its users against the Secure Online Privacy Act and PROTECT IP Act, or “SOPA-PIPA.”

In their paper, Epstein and Robertson equate digital gerrymandering to what a political operative might call GOTV—Get Out the Vote, the mobilization of activated supporters. It’s a standard campaign move when your base agrees with your positions but isn’t highly motivated—because they feel disenfranchised, let’s say, or have problems getting to polling places. What they call the “search engine manipulation effect,” though, works on undecided voters, swing voters. It’s a method of persuasion.

Again, though, it doesn’t require a conspiracy. It’s possible that, as Epstein says, “if executives at Google had decided to study the things we’re studying, they could easily have been flipping elections to their liking with no one having any idea.” But simultaneously more likely and more science-fiction-y is the possibility that this—oh, let’s call it “googlemandering,” why don’t we?—is happening without any human intervention at all. “These numbers are so large that Google executives are irrelevant to the issue,” Epstein says. “If Google’s search algorithm, just through what they call ‘organic processes,’ ends up favoring one candidate over another, that’s enough. In a country like India, that could send millions of votes to one candidate.”

As you’d expect, Google doesn’t think it’s likely their algorithm is stealing elections. “Providing relevant answers has been the cornerstone of Google’s approach to search from the very beginning. It would undermine people’s trust in our results and company if we were to change course,” says a Google spokesperson, who would only comment on condition of anonymity. In short, the algorithms Google uses to rank search results are complicated, ever-changing, and bigger than any one person. A regulatory action that, let’s say, forced Google to change the first search result in a list on a given candidate would break the very thing that makes Google great: giving right answers very quickly all the time. (Plus, it might violate the First Amendment.)

The thing is, though, even though it’s tempting to think of algorithms as the very definition of objective, they’re not. “It’s not really possible to have a completely neutral algorithm,” says Jonathan Bright, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute who studies elections. “I don’t think there’s anyone in Google or Facebook or anywhere else who’s trying to tweak an election. But it’s something these organizations have always struggled with.” Algorithms reflect the values and worldview of the programmers. That’s what an algorithm is, fundamentally. “Do they want to make a good effort to make sure they influence evenly across Democrats and Republicans? Or do they just let the algorithm take its course?” Bright asks.

That course might be scary, if Epstein is right. Add the possibility of search rank influence to the individualization Google can already do based on your gmail, google docs, and every other way you’ve let the company hook into you…combine that with the feedback loop of popular things getting more inbound links and so getting higher search ranking…and the impact stretches way beyond politics. “You can push knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and behavior among people who are vulnerable any way you want using search rankings,” Epstein says. “Now that we’ve discovered this big effect, how do you kill it?”

Schumer comes out against Iran deal

photo by Greg Nash

By Julian Hattem

Sen. Charles Schumer, the heir apparent to the role of Senate Democratic leader, late Thursday evening announced he opposes President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.

Schumer’s decision — revealed while the political world was focused on the first GOP presidential debate — is a serious blow to the Obama administration, which had been gaining significant momentum in support of the Iran deal among Senate Democrats in recent days.

“Advocates on both sides have strong cases for their point of view that cannot simply be dismissed,”

Schumer, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, wrote in a post on Medium. “This has made evaluating the agreement a difficult and deliberate endeavor, and after deep study, careful thought and considerable soul-searching, I have decided I must oppose the agreement and will vote yes on a motion of disapproval.”

“To me, the very real risk that Iran will not moderate and will, instead, use the agreement to pursue its nefarious goals is too great.”

Making matters worse for Obama, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), also came out against the deal Thursday night.

Both supporters and opponents of the Iran deal had been intently following Schumer, who has long
pursued a pro-Israel foreign policy but has been under intense pressure to back the Iran deal from the leaders of his party. Many had been expecting that he would not announce a decision until shortly before Congress's September vote on the agreement, after other lawmakers had already made their positions known.

But The Huffington Post reported that Schumer was planning to oppose the deal earlier on Thursday evening, making the break weeks before the expected vote on the Iran deal in the Senate.

Engel, meanwhile, said in a statement that he “cannot support” the deal.

"I still believe that a negotiated solution is the best course of action,” he said. “That’s the path I believe we should pursue."

"But after careful consideration of all of the material; more than a dozen hearings since the beginning of the negotiating period; and conversations with Administration officials, experts, and many of my constituents, I regret that I cannot support this deal," Engel added.

The opposition of Schumer could be devastating to the Obama administration, which has been vigorously lobbying congressional Democrats to get behind the Iran deal, expecting virtually every Republican lawmaker to oppose it. If GOP lawmakers vote as a bloc, Obama would need Democrats to have his back to sustain his veto of legislation to kill the deal.

It remains to be seen how hard Schumer will work to convince his colleagues to oppose the deal.

Should he mount a vigorous lobbying effort against it, Senate Democrats will be torn between Obama and the man that many hope will lead them back to the majority.

“There are some who believe that I can force my colleagues to vote my way,” Schumer said a separate statement Thursday evening. “While I will certainly share my view and try to persuade them that the vote to disapprove is the right one, in my experience with matters of conscience and great consequence like this, each member ultimately comes to their own conclusion."

While the moves by Schumer and Engel were overshadowed somewhat by the GOP debate, the twin statements effectively upend the White House’s narrative about its lobbying efforts, and cast a shadow over its hopes for securing support from an overwhelming number of congressional Democrats.

The news of the two lawmakers’ thinking came mere hours after their fellow New York Democrat, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D), came out in support of the Iran deal.

- This story was last updated at 12:16 a.m.

Active shooter reported at Tennessee movie theater

BREAKING NEWS!
UPDATE: Suspect dead
Multiple shots fires, teargas used.
by Paul Choate
ANTIOCH, Tenn. — Police are responding to a call of an active shooter at a Tennessee movie theater, according to WSMV.

The incident was reported at about 1:15 p.m. at the Carmike 8 Cinemas in Antioch, southeast of Nashville.

Dispatch confirmed to WSMV three EMS units were sent to the scene.

Witnesses at a nearby business said they saw one person covered in blood.

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