Nike Sales Spike in Wake of Colin Kaepernick Relationship





At its core, Nike’s decision to embrace Colin Kaepernick as one of the primary faces of the 30th anniversary “Just Do it” campaign is about one thing and one thing only: Making money.

Don’t get confused or distracted by notions of principle or a desire to be on the right side of history. A publicly-traded corporation with a fiduciary obligation to its shareholders, Nike exists not to be a beacon of freedom but a bastion of capitalism.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: NBC Sports 

Congressional Black Caucus Chairman: Kavanaugh's Criminal Justice Record 'Unsatisfactory'


In his testimony Friday, Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's record on criminal justice is "entirely unsatisfactory for a country persistently struggling to hold law enforcement accountable for mass incarceration and police brutality.

Cicely Tyson Becomes First Black Woman To Receive Honorary Oscar



Cicely Tyson is finally bringing home the gold.

The 93-year-old actress was named this week as the recipient of an honorary Oscar, making her the first black woman to gain that distinction, according to Essence and People.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Huffington Post 

Passengers Arriving from France and Germany Report Flu-Like Symptoms at Philadelphia Airport


The scare comes just a day after passengers reported similar symptoms at a New York airport. 


Several sick passengers at the Philadelphia airport prompted the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to hold 250 people for medical examination.
Bonus Report: Sick Passengers on Jet at JFK Appear to Have the Flu

The passengers were on American Airlines flights arriving from Paris and Munich and reported flu-like symptoms like coughing, fever, or vomiting akin to the passengers on an Emirates flight at JFK International airport in New York just one day before.
 
Airport spokesperson Diane Gerace said in a statement: "As a precaution, all passengers on the two flights—totaling about 250 plus crew—were held for a medical review and the CDC was notified.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Independent  

Bonus Report: Sick Passengers on Jet at JFK Appear to Have the Flu  

FBI Director Christopher Wray Addresses 9/11 First Responders Forum


Wray delivers remarks at a forum in New York City for federal first responders, who responded to the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001.

Click here for video.

Source: C-SPAN 

New York Attorney General’s Office Has Issued Subpoenas to Every Catholic Diocese in the State

How Grassroots Left is Reshaping Democratic Party Ahead of 2018 Midterms


Candidates Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have toppled establishment Democrats with openly progressive campaigns

By Bill Barrow and Bob Salsberg 

When Ayanna Pressley topped a 10-term congressman in a Massachusetts district once represented by John Fitzgerald Kennedy, she became the latest face of a burgeoning movement of the grassroots left. "This is a fight for the soul of our party and the future of our democracy," Ms Pressley said. That movement is reshaping a Democratic Party still searching for leaders and identity in the era of Donald Trump

What’s happening?

Grassroots activists on the left have a mixed record in Democratic primaries this election year, but the self-described progressive movement has scored enough victories to suggest its popularity is based on more than just protesting the Trump White House. The movement is also remoulding the Democratic Party into a younger, more diverse and decidedly liberal party. 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Independent

As Months Pass in Chicago Shelters, Immigrant Children Contemplate Escape, Even Suicide


Internal documents reveal despair and tedium in one of the nation’s largest shelter networks for unaccompanied minors. 


This story was co-published with Mother Jones.

One 16-year-old from Guatemala said he wanted to “quitarme la vida,” or “take my life away,” as he waited to be released from a Chicago shelter for immigrant children. He was kept there for at least 584 days.

A 17-year-old from Guinea went on a hunger strike, telling staff members he refused to eat until he saw evidence they were trying to find him a home. He was released nearly nine months after he entered a shelter.

And a 10-month-old boy, forcibly separated from his father at the U.S.-Mexico border in March, was bitten repeatedly by an older child and later hospitalized after falling from a highchair. He was detained for five months.

ProPublica Illinois has obtained thousands of confidential records about the nine federally funded shelters in the Chicago area for immigrant youth operated by the nonprofit Heartland Human Care Services — some dating back years, others from as recently as last week.

The documents provide a sweeping overview of the inner workings and life inside one of the country’s largest shelter networks for unaccompanied minors, including children separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy. 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: ProPublica

Speaker Ryan Accuses Anonymous Op-Ed Author of 'Dishonesty'


House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has criticized the author of an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times critical of President Trump's personal behavior as "living in dishonesty." He went on to say that the writer should not be working for the president if they are not interested in helping him. Asked if was concerned about the allegations, the speaker said he is concerned about results in government.

Click here for video.

Democratic Leader Accuses GOP of Enabling White House Mayhem


House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi has accused congressional Republicans of enabling what she calls "the mayhem" at the White House. In her first public comments since the New York Times published an anonymous op-ed by a senior administration official criticizing the president's personal conduct in office. She also said that the president's response to the op-ed on Twitter, where he said "Treason?' was a "manifestation of his instability." She also joked about Vice President Pence being the author of the piece, but added that her party remains focused on the issues that matter to the voters ahead of the November midterms. 

Click here for video.

Trump Administration to Defy Court Order on Child Detention


By Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration said on Thursday that it plans to withdraw from a federal court agreement that strictly limits the conditions under which authorities can detain migrant children, and proposed new rules that it said would enable it to detain minors during their immigration proceedings.

The administration is targeting the Flores Settlement Agreement, a 1997 federal consent decree that places significant curbs on how long and in what conditions the government can detain migrant children as it seeks to dissuade migrants from crossing the U.S. southern border.

Immigrants and their advocates are expected to mount legal challenges to the administration’s effort to exit the agreement, which has been interpreted over the years to set a 20-day limit on detaining children who entered the country illegally, and also requires facilities that house migrant children to be licensed by a state authority.

Click here for the full article.

Source: The Huffington Post

Statement from Governor Andrew Cuomo

"By attempting to withdraw from the Flores Settlement, the Trump administration is launching a new front in its attack on immigrants and our American values. The White House is making an egregious and ill-fated bid to undo critical federal standards that are intended to protect children in this country and ensure we are upholding our moral principles. 

"In New York, we stand with immigrants and we are fighting back against the Trump administration's abhorrent treatment of immigrant families that goes against everything we believe in this country. We are moving forward with our multi-state lawsuit to end the family separation policy once and for all, reunite children with their families, and defend our principles, our rights and our basic humanity." 

Source: The Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo 

Brett Kavanaugh Said Roe v. Wade Is Not ‘Settled Law’ In 2003 White House Email



Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote an email in March 2003 questioning whether Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights decision, was “settled law of the land.” The email had been deemed confidential by Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans but was provided to The New York Times by an anonymous source.

Kavanaugh, whom President Donald Trump nominated for the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy, has attempted to portray himself as believing that the abortion rights secured under Roe v. Wade and affirmed by Casey v. Planned Parenthood are precedent. Roe, according to Kavanaugh in his confirmation hearing, is “an important precedent of the Supreme Court that has been reaffirmed many times.”

Click here for the full article.

Source: The Huffington Post

NYPD Update: Mayor de Blasio, Commissioner O'Neill on Crime Stats


This video was published on YouTube on September 4. 

Source: NYC Mayor's Office

New York Counties with the Highest Rates of Hunger


By James T. Mulder

About 2.3 million New Yorkers, or 12 percent of the state population, struggle with hunger, according to a report by Feeding America, a national network of more than 200 food banks.

The group's latest report reveals food insecurity rates for every county in the state.

The term food insecurity is defined as having limited or uncertain access to adequate food.

The report is based on 2016 data from the U.S. Census, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Click here for the full article and listing. 

Source: syracuse.com (via Empire Report New York)

Teachout Rejects Wall Street Donations, But Accepts Money from Financial Sector Individuals


A New York Daily News Exclusive

By Kenneth Lovett

ALBANY – State Attorney General wannabe Zephyr Teachout has touted that she does not take corporate contributions — but that has not stopped her from taking money from individuals in the financial sector.

In fact, $174,210, or more than 11.5%, of the money she raised for her attorney general run so far this year has come from those with ties to the financial sector, according to a review of her campaign financial disclosure filings.

Click here for the full article.

CBS Board Offering CEO Moonves $100 Million in Stock as Exit Package: Sources



The CBS board is deep in settlement talks with CEO Les Moonves that would result in his departure and the appointment of COO Joe Ianniello as his interim replacement, people close to the negotiations told CNBC.

The talks have been going on for some time but have yet to reach a conclusion given continued back-and-forth about his exit package, the sources said.

While under his contract he is due as much as $180 million in severance and a production deal, the 
board is offering a roughly $100 million exit package made up almost entirely of CBS stock, sources said. 

Click here for video. 

Source: CNBC (via Empire Report New York) 

Happening in Harlem: New York Fall Fashion Week Celebration

Click on the flier to increase its size. 

Click here for additional information.

Source: ImageNation

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Black Police Group Supports Nike Deal with Colin Kaepernick Despite Police Unions’ Boycott



We often hear that police officers across the country are pissed at Colin Kaepernick. When Nike announced an endorsement deal with the former NFL quarterback, who has been effectively banned from the league for his protests during the national anthem, an umbrella group of police unions called the National Association of Police Organizations called for its ranks to boycott the shoemaker’s products.

Yet we often don’t hear about how black police officers across the country think of Kaepernick and the subjects he raised with his protest. The reality is that these cops are often in support not only of Kaepernick’s stance against police brutality, racism, and injustice in the United States, but that black police actually support and defend his previous protests around those issues during the national anthem.

On Wednesday, the National Black Police Association released an open letter they sent to Mark Parker, Nike’s CEO. In the letter, the group not only condemned the calls from traditionally white police organizations to boycott Nike, but congratulated Nike on its new campaign featuring Kaepernick.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Intercept_ 

Sex, Sin, and Abortion Rights


By Steven Jonas


Over the last several years, the Roman Catholic Church has found itself confronted with a wide variety of scandal --- some of them have been described even by Catholics as horrors --- that involve sex and what Catholics describe as sins of one sort or another. First came the discoveries in Ireland of the Catholic orphanages/homes-for-unwed mothers and, at some of them, the widespread practice of forcibly taking babies away from their mothers in the homes and putting them up for adoption. This practice was denounced by the Pope himself. But of course, it occurred in the past. Occurring in the past, too, was the apparent practice of killing babies and dumping them in unmarked graves (one was a septic tank) along with fetuses aborted in the homes.

The current scandal revolves around the report of a grand jury in Pennsylvania of widespread sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, over a period of many years. The scandal here concerns the sexual assaults themselves, discovered on a scale not previously known of, and the cover-ups. The general public has recently learned of the latter on a broadening scale since the original reporting by The Boston Globe some years ago, which was made into a movie ("Spotlight"). Additionally, charges have been made against the Pope himself of covering-up reports of sexual abuse by a cardinal. There are also charges of the broad toleration of homosexuality within the Church, which may well be wide-spread. Interestingly enough, the latter charges are being used against a Pope intent on reforming the Church on a grand scale in how it deals with economic, political and social issues around the world, by a powerful reactionary wing with the Church hierarchy.

Interestingly enough, too, all of these scandals involve sex --- one of basic humans drives, both for procreation and for pleasure --- and sin, a concept that has driven Catholic theology since it was codified by St, Augustine in the 4th and 5th centuries. "Sin" is, of course, a concept unique to a certain set of religious beliefs, but not to others, and is totally alien to those of us who are humanists/reasonists/atheists. As is well known, there is a list of sins which, if committed by Catholics without confession and absolution, will lead upon death to eternal damnation in Hell.

In the list of sins are such matters as pre-marital sex, giving birth out-of-wedlock, using contraceptives (other than "Vatican Roulette"), and homosexuality. I must say that I don't know whether or not the commission of a crime such as sexual assault or a crime such as knowing of a sexual assault and not reporting it to law enforcement (the latter being the crime in Pennsylvania on which the former fabled Penn State football coach Joe Paterno --- a Catholic himself --- got hung up) are considered sins of the order of magnitude of the sex-related ones listed above. 

Click here for the full article. 

Source: OpEdNews

Social Media Executives Testify Before Congress Amid Election Security Concerns


Facebook and Twitter executives plan to defend their companies in two congressional hearings, arguing they are aggressively trying to root out foreign actors who want to do the United States harm just weeks before the midterm elections. 

Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey will also face angry Republicans who claim the companies have shown evidence of bias against conservatives. In prepared testimony released ahead of a House hearing Wednesday afternoon, Dorsey says his company does not use political ideology to make decisions. 

Congress has sharply criticized the social media companies over the last year as it has become clear that they were at the forefront of Russia's interference in the 2016 elections and beyond. That scrutiny has led to additional criticism over the companies' respect for user privacy and whether conservatives are being censored — frustrations that are particularly heightened ahead of the midterms.

Source: CBS News 

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Governor Doug Ducey Appoints Sen. Jon Kyl to Fill John McCain's Seat

 
In announcing his decision, the Arizona governor told reporters that Mr. Kyl was the “best possible person regardless of politics” and that he would be “prepared to hit the ground running.” Former Sen. Kyl, who served in the Senate from 1995-2013, said he was committed to serving until January 2019.

Click here for video. 

Source: C-SPAN 

Op-Ed: Increased Russian Aggression Catalyzes U.S. Response

By Matthew Dubas

The following commentary is in response to a report published today on From The G-Man, which was entitled Is Renewed Fighting in Ukraine Linked to Trump Taking Office? 

I'm not sure if this has any influence on the story or the spin, but Dmytro Firtash, who is wanted by the FBI and is residing in exile in Austria (which refuses to extradite him to the U.S.), is director for Euronews in Ukraine. Firtash, through his companies OstChem and DF Group has promoted the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, has links to Russia and Putin through energy dealings, as well as Victor Medvedchuk (his daughter's godfather is Putin), who has styled himself as the go-between (a back channel) in Russia-Ukraine negotiations via the Normandy format (France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia) from the failed Minsk agreements.



If there is an uptick in fighting in Ukraine's east, it is more as a result of Russian troops and mercenaries, hardware and weapons being illegally supplied from Russia, rather than what happens in the White House. However, this latest action is more of a provocation by Russia to see how the West, particularly the U.S. responds. Russia recently did some house cleaning with the bombing of Alexander Zakharchenko - the former puppet war lord (and war criminal) of the Russian-occupied Donetsk region - who was killed as a result. A new face plucked from the local populace will maintain the narrative that this is somehow a civil war between Ukrainians and not a Russian invasion orchestrated from the Kremlin.

Russia's latest war games "Vostok" is another distraction and should be more disturbing as it includes Russia, China and Mongolia (a new axis powers?), as are Russia's moves in the Mediterranean and the Azov seas. Russia is attempting to form a naval blockade of the Azov and Black seas to cripple Ukraine's maritime shipping and commerce (and the Kerch bridge built by Russia, connecting Crimea with Russia, limits larger commercial ships from entering Ukrainian ports  of Mariupol and Berdyansk in the Azov Sea). The U.S. is preparing a response to that threat as well, with increased patrols and naval exercises in the Black Sea and Mediterranean with its allies.

The U.S. has also responded with the reactivation of the 2nd U.S. Fleet (on August 24, Ukrainian Independence Day), which is based in Norfolk, Va., and is tasked with patrolling the U.S. east coast, the Arctic and North Atlantic - its flagship is the newly constructed USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier. Previously the 6th fleet, based in the Mediterranean, shared double duty. The 2nd fleet was deactivated in 2011 under President Obama, with the administration claiming that Russia posed no threat. The 2nd fleet was reactivated by President Trump as a direct response to the increased Russian threat.

Are Putin and Trump pursuing brinksmanship or detente? Deterrence through strength? Russia will not be able to sustain a course of brinksmanship with its economy in a downward spiral, making it more dangerous with respect to non-conventional weapons, which Russia has shown it is not afraid to use (chemical weapons, radioactive elements, etc) on foreign soil. Or will we see China step up its military threat and cooperation to ease the burden on Russia? 

And let us not forget the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia's foreign policy goals (a centuries-long relationship that traces back to tsarist days).


Matthew Dubas is an editor for the The Ukrainian Weekly. The newspaper is distributed throughout the United States and Canada and serves as a major source of news and information for the Ukrainian-American community. He has reported on many of the country’s political and social conflicts and worked with ambassadors, politicians, policy advisers, activists and scholars on a range of issues concerning Ukraine. The views expressed by Mr. Dubas do not necessarily reflect those of the publication's management or editorial staff.  

From Ministry to Muckraking: The Biblical Basis for Investigative Reporting


Some people say journalists are “godless.” But I spent five years in full-time Christian ministry, and my faith has made me a better reporter.


This story was co-published with The New York Times.

More than a dozen years ago I was a finalist for a reporting job at a small newspaper. All I needed to do was survive an interview with the top editor. The other editors warned me, saying their boss took perverse pleasure from smashing the hopes of naive reporters. I braced myself as he studied my resume. His lips curled into a sneer.

To be fair, my job history was a tad unusual. I had spent five years in full-time ministry, including three as an evangelical Christian missionary in Kenya. Then there was my master’s degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. There didn’t seem to be a lot of churchgoing, Bible-believing, born-again Christians like me working at daily papers.

The editor scowled and said, “So what makes you think that a Christian can be a good journalist?”
He emphasized “Christian” as if it were some kind of slur.

I liked that he spoke his mind, but I was taken aback. I explained what I saw as a natural progression from the ministry to muckraking, pointing out that both are valid ways of serving a higher cause. The Bible endorses telling the truth, without bias. So does journalism. The Bible commands honesty and integrity. In journalism, your reputation is your main calling card with sources and readers.

Click here for the full article. 

Source: ProPublica

Are We Making Elections Less Secure Just to Save Time?



Something strange happens on election night. With polls closing, American supporters of both parties briefly, intensely align as one: We all want to know who’s going to win, and we don’t want to wait one more minute. The ravenous national appetite for an immediate victor, pumped up by frenzied cable news coverage and now Twitter, means delivering hyper-updated results and projections before any official tally is available. But the technologies that help ferry lightning-quick results out of polling places and onto CNN are also some of the riskiest, experts say.

It’s been almost two years since Russian military hackers attempted to hijack computers used by both local election officials and VR Systems, an e-voting company that helps make Election Day possible in several key swing states. Since then, reports detailing the potent duo of inherent technical risk and abject negligence have made election security a national topic. In November, millions of Americans will vote again — but despite hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid poured into beefing up the security of your local polling station, tension between experts, corporations, and the status quo over what secure even means is leaving key questions unanswered: Should every single vote be recorded on paper, so there’s a physical trail to follow? Should every election be audited after the fact, as both a deterrent and check against fraud? And, in an age where basically everything else is online, should election equipment be allowed anywhere near the internet?

Click here for the full article. 

Source: The Intercept_