Black Lives Matter Protesters Demand Mayor Garcetti Fire LAPD Chief Charlie Beck http://t.co/SdThM3Ejad
— CBS Los Angeles (@CBSLA) June 8, 2015
Germany's soft power is stronger than ever, but it still comes up short on the global stage: http://t.co/oQCGiLmO2F pic.twitter.com/eJ1ONPsY4J
— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) June 6, 2015The road that took Title IX from a classically liberal antidiscrimination law to an illiberal gender-quota regime began in 1996 with an innocent-seeming “Dear Colleague” letter written by federal education officials in the Clinton administration. The letter targeted colleges and universities struggling to answer the difficult question of what constitutes (unlawful) discrimination under Title IX in sports programs that are already segregated on the basis of sex. It instructed schools that quotas—equalizing the participation of men and women in athletics, despite demonstrated disparities of interest—were the way to comply with the law.
Activists who had been instrumental in creating the new standard took the federal guidance and ran with it. Aided by the trial bar, they initiated lawsuits that enshrined the new bureaucratic “guidance.” The case brought against Brown University in the early 1990s by a coalition of feminists and trial lawyers set the stage. It alleged that Brown—which offered more women’s sports teams than men’s at the time—had violated the law by downgrading two women’s teams. The university produced reams of data showing that women at Brown had more opportunities to play sports than men, but more men than women played intramural sports by 3 to 1 and club sports by a whopping 8 to 1.
To the applause of the Clinton administration, the court ruled that such data didn’t matter. The responsibility of the school wasn’t to provide equal opportunity to participate in sports—it was to educate women to be interested in sports. In effect the ruling said that Brown women didn’t know what they wanted. They only thought they were dancers or actors or musicians. They had to be taught that they were really athletes. They didn’t know what was good for them but the government did.
With that, Title IX was transformed. It no longer mattered if schools offered equal or more-than-equal opportunities for women in athletics. If colleges couldn’t produce enough actual female bodies on the playing field, the schools were forced to cut male athletes until the participation rates of both sexes were the same. No legislation, let alone public discussion, made this so. When it comes to Title IX, quaint notions of the people’s representatives having anything to do with the law ended when the law passed.
The movement of Title IX into areas as remote as the mere discussion of sexual politics on campus has followed the same trajectory. Beginning in 2011 the Obama Education Department wrote “Dear Colleague” letters to schools. Suddenly, schools were responsible for harassment and assault that occur off campus. A lower standard of evidence was established to prove the guilt of the accused. Earlier protections for academic freedom and free expression were dropped.
With that, the pas de deux with activist groups commenced. Title IX investigations of accusations of sexual assault and harassment on campuses exploded. Just as they had with Title IX in sports, activists went in search of victims to be the media face of a rape crisis—and to become plaintiffs in litigation against schools.
The notorious and now-debunked story of the University of Virginia’s “Jackie” gang-rape is a case in point. Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely was, in her words, searching for a victim who would show “what it’s like to be on campus now . . . not only where rape is so prevalent but also that there is this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture.”
The new demands to combat what federal education officials also call a “rape culture” on campus are so excessive that even current and former Harvard Law professors have publicly complained that their school’s attempt to comply has undermined due process and is “overwhelmingly stacked against the accused.”
Rapper Ice T: Manhood is Dead; you’re dealing w/the pussyfication of the male sex http://t.co/w9ROJxSgSK #BruceJenner pic.twitter.com/6uVkxocjgP
— Wayne DuPree ★彡 (@WayneDupreeShow) June 7, 2015.@AmPowerBlog Here's the link: http://t.co/M506iAxexB via @Instapundit
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 7, 2015Why Did That Horrible Thing Happen on ‘Game of Thrones’? http://t.co/4Zav9Z33W7 #Got
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 8, 2015#GameofThrones took it to the extreme with that disturbing death scene. A showrunner speaks: http://t.co/9wUjVhxvg3 pic.twitter.com/JOcvbGHpE9
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) June 8, 2015Here’s a question: What role does President Barack Obama believe the U.S. should play in the world? His words and his actions tell different stories. Obama’s speeches often detail a vision as grand as anything Ronald Reagan ever offered about America’s timeless greatness and its leadership in the world. At other times, Obama focuses on pragmatism and the need to set hard priorities. At still other times, he stresses the burdensome costs of an ambitious foreign policy with an urgency we haven’t heard from Washington since the 1930s.
Words aside, Obama’s deeds suggest that he’s not acting in the world so much as reacting to crises as they appear. The eruption of the Arab Spring in 2011, for example, caught the White House flat-footed. Eventual support for pro-democracy demonstrators in Egypt only opened a rift with Saudi Arabia, America’s closest Arab ally, that Obama is still scrambling to manage. In Syria, Obama threatened “enormous consequences” if President Bashar Assad employed chemical weapons on his country’s battlefields, only to back down and accept a Russian-brokered compromise when Assad went ahead and used those weapons on his own people. A crisis in Ukraine drew the President into a confrontation with Russia that stoked real conflict with little potential reward, beyond the satisfaction of defending a principle–and not even defending it very well.
But the U.S.’s foreign policy incoherence didn’t begin with Barack Obama. The intellectual drift and the growing gap between words and deeds dates back to the Cold War’s end. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton’s joint misadventure in Somalia, George W. Bush’s ill-considered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the near constant mishandling of relations with Russia and the halfhearted efforts to both engage and contain a rising China have taken a heavy toll on America’s treasury, credibility and self-confidence.
That toll will keep rising. The best-funded, most heavily armed terrorist group in history still occupies large sections of Iraq and Syria–capturing the Iraqi city of Ramadi on May 17–and now inspires followers from West Africa to Southeast Asia. Russia’s defiant leader will likely up the ante in Ukraine. The Prime Minister of Israel–one of America’s closest allies–will continue to fight the White House over Iran. China is challenging U.S. naval supremacy in the South China Sea and its economic dominance everywhere else.
At the same time, the U.S. itself has changed. The next President will have fewer options than Clinton, George W. Bush or even Obama, because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left the American public deeply reluctant to support any military action that might require a long-term U.S. troop presence. Without the credible threat of military commitment, the rest of our foreign policy tools become much less effective.
The world has changed too. Powerful allies like Britain, Germany, Japan and South Korea still care about what America wants, but they can’t create jobs and grow their economies without broader and deeper commercial relations with China. Emerging countries are not strong enough to overthrow U.S. dominance, but they have more than enough strength and self-confidence to refuse to follow Washington’s lead. The U.S. remains the world’s sole superpower, the only country able to project military power in every region of the world. Its cutting-edge industries and universities are second to none. But China is now the only country in the world with a carefully considered global strategy.
Listen to the next wave of presidential candidates, though, and you might think nothing has changed. “We have to use all of America’s strengths to build a world with more partners and fewer adversaries,” says Hillary Clinton. “If we withdraw from the defense of liberty anywhere,” warns Jeb Bush, “the battle eventually comes to us.” Marco Rubio tops them both: “The free nations of the world still look to America to champion our shared ideals. Vulnerable nations still depend on us to deter aggression from their larger neighbors. And oppressed people still turn their eyes toward our shores wondering if we hear their cries, wondering if we notice their afflictions.”
These and the other candidates rattle off long lists of foreign policy priorities, but they avoid any mention of the costs and the risks. They speak as if successful foreign policy depends mainly on faith in the country’s greatness and the will to use American power, with barely a nod to what the American public wants. They tell us America must lead–but they don’t tell us why or how.
Except in 1940 and 1968, presidential campaigns have rarely been fought over foreign policy....
*****
It’s not simply that America can no longer police the world. It’s that it has no right to force those who disagree with us to see things our way. Americans like to believe that democracy is so undeniably attractive and our commitment to it so obvious that others should simply trust us to create it for them within their borders. That’s just not the case. Some countries still want American leadership, but many around the world want less U.S. interference, not more. They love American technology, social media, music, movies and fashion. But they don’t much care what Washington thinks about how they should be governed, who their international friends should be and how they should manage their money.
This might sound like isolationism, a term that’s been the kiss of death in U.S. politics since World War II. But that word is an unfair dismissal of every legitimate concern Americans have about the obvious foreign policy excesses and costly miscalculations of their government. Those who want Washington to declare independence from the need to play Superman believe that the U.S. has profound potential that’s been wasted in mistakes overseas. Imagine for a moment that every dollar spent in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past dozen years had been spent instead to empower Americans and their economy. Redirect the attention, energy and resources we now squander on a failed superhero foreign policy toward building the America we imagine, one that empowers all its people to realize their human potential.
Something happened in America last week that cannot be passed over. There are two parts to it. The first is what happened. The second is what happened in response.Still more.
On Tuesday, June 2, a 26-year old man, Usaama Rahim, was shot and killed by a Boston Police officer and FBI agent. Boston Police and federal law enforcement sources say that Rahim, who made a living as a security guard, was under surveillance. Officials believe that he was radicalized by ISIS and was planning to behead someone. One name that apparently came up in his conversations was that of blogger and activist Pamela Geller. However, Rahim subsequently appears to have decided to target what he called in one conversation the 'boys in blue' (the police). On the basis of Rahim's conversations, the police and FBI anti-terror investigators decided it was time to move in. When they did so, Rahim threatened them with a military-style knife, and after refusing to give it up, was shot dead by a police officer and FBI agent.
This is the sort of event that can now happen on a regular basis in America and other Western countries. The ability of ISIS to reach and influence citizens far away from Iraq and Syria has been shown a number of times to date, most recently last month in Garland, Texas, where two men attempted to attack a Mohammed cartoon contest organized by Pamela Geller. That is what happened. But what happened next in some ways deserves more focus.
In the hours after the shooting, there was intense media interest in what the police knew about the dead suspect. The name of Ms. Geller came out. And something subtly changed. In a set of media interviews with Ms. Geller and with her colleague at the American Freedom Defense Initiative, Robert Spencer, their interviewers expressed relief that they were safe -- and then turned on them.
The nadir was an interview on CNN conducted by Erin Burnett, where the news anchor questioned Ms. Geller down the line. The interview is well worth watching, if for nothing else than for what should become a seminal example of the mess the West has got itself into on these questions. The interviewer got herself into an oddly self-strangulating position from the start when she mentioned to Geller, "Obviously the Prophet Mohamed cartoon exhibition in Texas -- you were the one behind that. Obviously people died during that. There was a gunfight." This is presenting facts in a weirdly neutral light. Of course, as Geller pointed out to Burnett, it was not the case that "people died" during the cartoon exhibition. Two men who came to the event, apparently intent on mass murder, fired at police officers and security guards (wounding one), and were then themselves killed by police returning fire. But it soon became clear that this was just the groundwork of a bigger point that the CNN interviewer was gearing up to make.
"On that 'Draw Mohammed' cartoon event in Texas, obviously you know some people see it very differently from how you see it. You see it as an art event. They see it as showing pictures of the Prophet Mohammed, who should not be drawn. You know, obviously you've done other things." At this point, the interviewer raised the ads that Pamela Geller sponsored on the New York City subway, which said, "In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad." The CNN interviewer then went on to her question: "Are you surprised that there are some who would want to target you for words like that?"
There is much to be said about this. Why, for instance, would anyone want to behead someone for posting an advertisement attacking "savages"? To show that they are not savage? It certainly does not follow that such an advertisement would inevitably lead to violence. In any event, the interviewer's piece had not yet reached its lowest point. That came when Burnett brought up the "Southern Poverty Law Center" (SPLC), which the interviewer said "track[s] hate groups in this country." Pamela Geller is on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of "hate groups."
And then came the humdinger. "They track hate groups. They're putting you on that list. Nothing justifies a beheading or a beheading plot. But..."
It is often rightly said on vital questions of our time that everything up to the "but" is throat-clearing. It is what everybody expects you to say and everything you need to say. It is what happens after the "but" that matters. On this occasion, Burnett went on, "But it's important to note this. I mean, are you stoking the flames? Do you on some level relish being the target of these attacks?"
There is a whole thesis in the presumptions behind those questions. The idea that a self-designated highly politicized institution such as the Southern Poverty Law Center gets to say who is hateful and who is not would be a starter. As would be the unquestioning acceptance of the methods of such organizations ('Hope not Hate' in the UK being another example), which appear to be doing a lining-up of targets that they would most certainly and rightly damn anyone else for.
But a pattern of thought about this beheading plot emerged. It was the same pattern that showed itself hours later when Robert Spencer was interviewed on CNN and asked, strangely, what he had done before the attempted attack to reach out to the Islamic community in Boston. The presumption at work, of course, is that Geller and Spencer have brought these beheading plots and assassination attempts on themselves. If this sounds familiar, it is because it is. This is exactly what we heard from certain people across the political spectrum in the wake of the January murders in France of the staff of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and after the murder of a filmmaker and the attempted murder of many others taking part in a free speech event in Copenhagen weeks after that.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government is less than a month old, but it’s already apparent that it is different from its predecessors. And if it continues on its current diplomatic trajectory, it may do something that its six predecessors failed to accomplish. Netanyahu’s new government may improve Israel’s position internationally.It's a Holocaust of moral inversion, yet still, Israel will win the BDS leftist-terrorists will lose. Thank God.
The stakes are high. Over the years, Israel has largely concentrated its efforts on developing the tools to contend with its military challenges. But as we have seen over the past decade and a half, Israel’s capacity to fight and defeat its enemies is not limited principally by the IDF’s war-fighting capabilities.
Israel’s ability to defend itself and its citizens is constrained first and foremost by its shrinking capacity to defend itself diplomatically. Its enemies in the diplomatic arena have met with great success in their use of diplomatic condemnation and intimidation to force Israel to limit its military operations to the point where it is incapable of defeating its enemies outright.
The flagship of the diplomatic war against Israel is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Participants in the movement propagate and disseminate the libelous claim that Israel’s use of force in self-defense is inherently immoral and illegal. Over the years BDS activists’ assaults on Israel’s right to exist have become ever more shrill and radical. So, too, whereas just a few years ago their operations tended to be concentrated around military confrontations, today they are everyday occurrences. And their demands become greater and more openly anti-Semitic from week to week and day to day.
Consider the events of the past seven days alone.
Late last week Israel fended off a major international effort led by Palestinian Authority Soccer Federation chairman and former terrorist chief Jibril Rajoub to expel it from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. Not only is Rajoub a man with blood on his hands. The Fatah luminary is admired by the Israeli far-Left while also being a favorite of Qatar, the chief state sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
Rajoub is sympathetically inclined toward enabling Hamas in Gaza to expand its presence in Judea and Samaria.
Before the government had a chance to sigh in relief that FIFA was settled, Britain’s National Union of Students voted to join the BDS movement. This means that the anti-Israel demonstrations and assaults that take place several times a week at Britain’s universities will now take place under the NUS banner.
Also Wednesday, the French telecom giant Orange’s CEO Stéphane Richard told reporters in Cairo that he wishes to cut off his contract with Israel’s Partner telecommunications company, one of Israel’s largest cellular telephone services providers.
Richard was apparently coerced into making his statement by the Egyptian BDS movement which has threatened to boycott Orange’s subsidiary in Egypt due to its contract with Partner.
Tuesday it was reported that last month the Dutch government issued a travel advisory to its citizens traveling in Israel. In an act of anti-Jewish inversion now common in the Western discourse about Israel and its enemies, the Dutch government warned that Jews in Judea and Samaria constitute a threat to Dutch travelers because they throw stones “toward Palestinian and foreign vehicles.”
In the US, the Anti-Defamation League reported that this past academic year there was a 38 percent rise in anti-Israel events on college campuses over the previous year. The number of BDS campaigns doubled over the previous academic year.
By ADL’s count, there were 520 anti-Israel events on campuses. BDS campaigns were initiated on 29 campuses.
At the UN, Tuesday “The Palestinian Return Center,” Hamas’s European chapter, was granted official status as a recognized nongovernmental organization by the UN’s Commission on NGOs. Now, thanks to the commission, Hamas terrorists can participate in UN meetings, have full access to UN facilities and wear their new, official UN badges.
Incidentally, the same commission rejected a request by ZAKA to receive the same status. ZAKA is an Israeli NGO that provides first aid and handles the remains of terrorism victims and victims of major disasters in Israel and worldwide.
Also at the UN, Leila Zerrougui, the envoy for children in armed conflicts, is pushing to get the IDF added to the blacklist of groups that harm children.
Boko Haram, Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Taliban are among the current names of the list.
Wednesday Republican Sen. Ted Cruz sent a pointed letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemning Zerrougui’s actions. Cruz threatened, “Congress will have no choice but to reassess the United States’ relationship with the United Nations and consider serious consequences if you choose to take this action.”
In contrast to Cruz’s position, in his interview with Channel 2 broadcast Tuesday, US President Barack Obama indicated that due to the rising tide of anti-Israel sentiment and campaigns, if Israel doesn’t make unreciprocated concessions to the PA then the administration will have no choice but to join the anti-Israel UN bandwagon.
The time has come, then, for Israel to take the wheels off the wagon.
Feras Morad was hopped up on mushrooms and attacked a policeman? No wonder he's dead. #FerasMorad http://t.co/gVRIWfddMJ
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 7, 2015#AmericanPharoah OMG!
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 6, 2015.@lamblock That was! My heart was pounding and I'm screaming, "OMG! OMG!!" #AmericanPharoah
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) June 6, 2015The wait is over. History has been made. The sporting world has its newest hero.More.
On a near-perfect Saturday at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., American Pharoah became the first winner of horse racing’s Triple Crown in 37 years. He now takes his place as racing royalty by becoming the 12th horse to win this three-race series.
The 3-year-old colt was spectacular in winning the grueling 1 1/2-mile race. American Pharoah’s quest started five weeks ago when he won the Kentucky Derby and followed that up two weeks later by winning the Preakness Stakes.
American Pharoah broke slowly but went immediately to the lead and held about a 3/4-length advantage over Materiality through the backstretch and into the final turn.
The race was very moderately paced, meaning that the front-running style of American Pharoah might hold up.
It more than did that.
As American Pharoah entered the home stretch, he had about a length on the late-charging Frosted and wasn’t giving up any ground. With 1/8 of a mile to go he widened his lead and pulled away from the field for an uncontested and unquestioned victory. His winning margin was 5 1/2 lengths.
“I think it's is owed to the fans of New York who kept showing up, paying their money and hoping,” trainer Bob Baffert said of the Triple Crown. “I still cant believe it happened and I’m just blessed with a super 3-year-old by the name of American Pharoah. I couldn’t be happier.”
Jockey Victor Espinoza talked about how confident he was in American Pharoah before slipping into some numerology.
“Twelfth Triple Crown,” Espinoza said. “I have 12 brothers and sisters: 12-12.”
American Pharoah paid $3.50, $2.80 and $2.50. Frosted finished second and returned $3.50 and $2.90. Keen Ice was third paying $4.60.
Baffert and Espinzoa, who both make Southern California their home, are now in the rarified air of being the only active people in their professions to have won a Triple Crown.
This was the fourth time that Baffert had found himself going for a Triple Crown. Earlier attempts with Silver Charm (1997), Real Quiet (1998) and War Emblem (2002) all came up short. It was Espinoza’s third time going for the Triple Crown. He was the jockey for War Emblem and last year with California Chrome.
The win is a much-needed boost to horse racing, which has been in decline for many years. Recent movies have been made about two horses, Seabiscuit and Secretariat, that have rekindled America’s love affair with the horse.
But those horses are so long gone and no equine superstar has stepped up to take their place.
Now there is one...
I've long been bearish on Hillary Clinton. It isn't that I particularly dislike her; I don't, and there are certainly a number of presidential aspirants that I like less. I'm simply puzzled at what seems to be the conventional wisdom among Democrats I meet: that Clinton basically has a lock on the presidency, and the next 18 months are a tiresome formality we have to go through in order to set the right tone for her swearing in.More.
My bearishness had a bit of confirmation this week: a poll showed that Clinton had dropped from massive double-digit leads over plausible Republican presidential contenders to something more in the range of 1-3 points. Tempting though it is to leap on a single piece of data and declare victory, I will ruthlessly squash this primitive urge. It's a single poll, and others will likely show Clinton with more commanding leads in the near term.
However, I do think that Fred Barnes is right that as the polls narrow, we can expect to see some panic from the Democrats. By allowing Clinton to take the lion's share of the fundraising dollars and the media attention, the party has left itself without a plausible alternative candidate. That seemed dandy as long as she was easily trouncing Republicans in polls. But those polls were always going to narrow, because the early polls were basically measuring whether people recognized the candidate's name, not whether they were going to vote for her more than a year hence. As the GOP race sorts out, and the front-runners achieve more public awareness, you're going to see our highly partisan electorate lock into much narrower margins.
Moreover, Clinton will have less room to improve her margins than whoever the Republican is...
ORLANDO, Fla. — The employees who kept the data systems humming in the vast Walt Disney fantasy fief did not suspect trouble when they were suddenly summoned to meetings with their boss.But wait, we're a nation of immigrants, blah blah.
While families rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and searched for Nemo on clamobiles in the theme parks, these workers monitored computers in industrial buildings nearby, making sure millions of Walt Disney World ticket sales, store purchases and hotel reservations went through without a hitch. Some were performing so well that they thought they had been called in for bonuses.
Instead, about 250 Disney employees were told in late October that they would be laid off. Many of their jobs were transferred to immigrants on temporary visas for highly skilled technical workers, who were brought in by an outsourcing firm based in India. Over the next three months, some Disney employees were required to train their replacements to do the jobs they had lost.
“I just couldn’t believe they could fly people in to sit at our desks and take over our jobs exactly,” said one former worker, an American in his 40s who remains unemployed since his last day at Disney on Jan. 30. “It was so humiliating to train somebody else to take over your job. I still can’t grasp it.”
Disney executives said that the layoffs were part of a reorganization, and that the company opened more positions than it eliminated.
But the layoffs at Disney and at other companies, including the Southern California Edison power utility, are raising new questions about how businesses and outsourcing companies are using the temporary visas, known as H-1B, to place immigrants in technology jobs in the United States. These visas are at the center of a fierce debate in Congress over whether they complement American workers or displace them...
From the Archives: First Wave at Omaha Beach #DDay71
http://t.co/oee3ebPfzJ pic.twitter.com/HivpRM1W81
— The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) June 6, 2015U.S. Army Rangers after landing at Pointe Du Hoc. In the end they would suffer 70% casualties. #WW2 #DDay71 pic.twitter.com/Yx3UfvxIUH
— WWII Pictures (@WWIIpix) June 6, 2015Does Bradley Cooper care about Irina Shayk and Sepp Blatter rumours? Hell no http://t.co/3NlIREeU4c pic.twitter.com/ShVLyDA7w2
— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) June 6, 2015
In June 1944 a celestial observer in low orbit would have marveled at the immense breadth and variety of violence on Planet Earth. It was a watershed period in World War II, and not only Operation Overlord in Normandy on June 6. That month truly defined the phrase “world war.”More. Plus more articles on D-Day at RCH.
On June 4, Allied forces entered Rome, liberating the Eternal City after nine months of muddy, bloody slogging up the Italian boot. The U.S. Fifth Army received the credit, but the victory also belonged to Britons, New Zealanders, South Africans, Frenchmen, Poles, Indians and Gurkhas; even some Brazilians. But at the end of the war in May 1945, enemy forces still owned northern Italy. In fact, the Axis — outnumbered six to one and out-produced beyond computing — tied the rest of the world in knots for six years, including America, the British Empire, China, and the Soviet Union.
Also in Italy, the frequently forgotten U.S. Fifteenth Air Force — responsible for destroying Hitler’s oil supply — flew its first shuttle mission to Russia. Between June 2 and 11, nearly 200 bombers and fighters attacked German targets in Romania while staging out of Soviet bases.
Meanwhile on the Eurasian landmass, Russia prepared a massive blow. Along the Donets the Wehrmacht still occupied land several hundred miles east of Kiev. Four Soviet army groups — 124 divisions with 1.2 million men — were poised to strike, a cocked fist with an armored avalanche of 5,200 tanks and massive artillery on a scale that only Russians have ever managed. Half a million Germans awaited the blow on Army Group Center.
In northeastern India, British imperial forces shot it out with determined Japanese attackers (the only kind the emperor had) at Imphal, which controlled the only all-weather highway on the Burmese frontier. In that soggy jungle, soldiers on both sides watched their uniforms mold and weapons rust almost before their eyes. Tokyo’s hope of seizing the jewel in Britain’s crown died in the rot and decay of Manipur Province.
Meanwhile, American power also projected westward that June. On the opposite side of the globe...
The five ships of the Carl Vinson carrier strike group returned home Thursday after a marathon deployment, including six months of dropping bombs on Islamic jihadists in Iraq and Syria.More.
At piers around San Diego Bay, there were kisses, tears and long sighs of relief.
“I’m immensely proud of the 6,000 men and women of the Carl Vinson carrier strike group,” said Rear Adm. Christopher Grady, the group’s commander. “I hope you are, too.”
He was speaking from a pier at North Island Naval Air Station, where the Vinson had just docked to the cheers of waiting family members.
Signs in the crowd spoke of feelings pent up during the nearly 10-month odyssey — the longest scheduled deployment since the Vietnam era.
One said, “#300 Days Without You.” Another read, “We Made It.”
“It was really hard,” said Keila Bennekin, 29, who was five months pregnant when her sailor husband, Anthony, departed with the Vinson on Aug. 22.
They are worried about crime. They don’t want to pay any more taxes. And they really, really miss Michael Bloomberg."Almost" a social-communist? Actually, De Blasio is a social-communist.
But to understand why many white voters are so down on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, consider that some of them said they believed the feeling was mutual.
“He’s so down on me,” said Gene Reilly, a 71-year-old Democrat from Manhattan’s Cooper Square neighborhood who is white. “He’s looking out for the poor.”
Mr. de Blasio, also a Democrat, rode into office on a landslide in 2013, taking 73% of the vote. But the racial divide was there from the beginning. While winning 85% of Hispanic voters and 96% of black voters, he captured just 54% of the white vote.
A year and a half later, the mayor’s approval rating among whites is at 32%, according to a Wall Street Journal-NBC 4-Marist Poll in May. That compares with a 49% approval rating among Hispanics and 59% among blacks.
The heart of the mayor’s political support, in his campaign and in his administration, has been New Yorkers of color and liberals. They responded to his calls to address income inequality and de-emphasize long-standing policies that had a disproportionate impact on the poor and minorities, including the street-policing tactic known as stop-and-frisk.
Yet in interviews, many white voters said they were increasingly concerned about crime, and they faulted the mayor for how he had handled policing issues.
And many said the mayor’s loyalty to his base and his liberal agenda had left them uneasy.
Some cited his decision to continue a losing battle last year to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for his prekindergarten program even after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had made state funding available.
“He thinks it’s all the fault of the rich,” said Aida Gurwicz, a 69-year-old retiree on the Upper East Side.
Some said they felt overlooked or even abandoned by the mayor.
“I think he has good intentions…yes, I’m glad you’re giving something to the lower class. But what about the middle class? He has to deliver something for us,” said Ellen Warmstein, 62, of Rockaway Beach.
And many white voters said they struggled to identify with Mr. de Blasio, who followed two mayors with deep reserves of white support— Rudolph Giuliani among the working class and Mr. Bloomberg among the well-to-do business set.
“He’s almost a social-communist,” Rochelle Weinberg, a Democrat from the Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills, said of the mayor. “He’s out of town all the time. He’s disrespectful and shows up late. I can’t stand him. Everything he does makes me angry.”
Comment from @Jezebel on #MattressGirl #EmmaSulkowicz's rape re-enactment art porn: pic.twitter.com/eJ2jA5wlA6
— Barbarian Brad (@Barbarian_Brad) June 5, 2015How do you say FUBAR in French? @AmPowerBlog https://t.co/ymAvFkXnsC
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) June 5, 2015If this video is actually Emma Sulkowicz, she is mentally ill. Period. http://t.co/k2VPh44JdR
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) June 5, 2015U.S. officials suspect that hackers in China stole the personal records of as many as four million people in one of the most far-reaching breaches of government computers.More.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing the breach, detected in April at the Office of Personnel Management. The agency essentially functions as the federal government’s human resources department, managing background checks, pension payments and job training across dozens of federal agencies.
Investigators suspect that hackers based in China are responsible for the attack, though the probe is continuing, according to people familiar with the matter. On Thursday, several U.S. officials described the breach as among the largest known thefts of government data in history.
It isn’t clear exactly what was stolen in the hack attack, but officials said the information can be used to facilitate identity theft or fraud. The Department of Homeland Security said it “concluded at the beginning of May” that the records had been taken.
China’s foreign ministry, the cabinet’s information office and the Cyberspace Administration didn’t respond to requests for comment. In response to previous allegations of Chinese hacking and cyber-espionage, Beijing has said that China is also a target of hacking attacks from overseas.
China and the U.S. have sparred over cybersecurity, with the U.S. accusing Chinese government military officers of sustained hacking of U.S. firms for economic advantage. Chinese authorities have denied those accusations.
Investigators believe the attack is separate from a hacking incident detected last year at the Office of Personnel Management. That attack was far smaller, although officials didn’t disclose at the time how many employees were affected. In another apparently unrelated computer attack, Russian hackers are suspected in a large, long-running breach of State Department computers.
In February, The Wall Street Journal reported that the State Department had been unable to evict suspected Russian hackers from its unclassified email system despite months of effort and help from spies and private companies.
The breach disclosed Thursday is the latest sign of the U.S. government’s struggles to protect its own data, even though the Obama administration has spent much of the past year pushing companies to do a better job protecting their computer networks and sharing crucial intelligence on cyber weapons.
Last week, the Internal Revenue Service said identity thieves illegally obtained prior-year tax-return data for more than 100,000 households from an agency website. The criminals used personal data obtained elsewhere to gain access to the tax-return data, the IRS said. The return data can help in filing false refund claims.
The IRS is working on an agreement with tax-preparation firms on ways to strengthen security of the tax system.
The data breach at the Office of Personnel Management is smaller as measured by the number of people affected than some so-called mega breaches in the private sector.
Health insurer Anthem Inc. said earlier this year that hackers gained access to personal information on as many as 80 million customers. Home Depot Inc. said last year that 56 million cards might have been compromised in a five-month attack on its payment terminals.
The Office of Personnel Management hasn’t said how many of the four million people affected by its latest breach are current or former employees or government contractors.
The agency has estimated that there are about 4.2 million federal employees, including 1.5 million who serve as uniformed military personnel.
“We take very seriously our responsibility to secure the information stored in our systems, and in coordination with our agency partners, our experienced team is constantly identifying opportunities to further protect the data with which we are entrusted,” said Katherine Archuleta, director of the Office of Personnel Management...
Pam Key of Breitbart writes:Also at Jihad Watch, "Boston jihadis originally planned to behead Pamela Geller."
Wednesday on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” American Freedom Defense Initiative president Pamela Geller reacted to reports that the Boston terror suspect plotted to behead her and said, “This is a war.”
“This is a showdown for American freedom,” she said. “Will we stand against the savagery or bow down to them and silence ourselves?”
Geller said, “Well, they targeted me for violating Sharia blasphemy laws. They mean to kill everyone who doesn’t do their bidding and abide by their law voluntarily. This is a showdown for American freedom. Will we stand against this savagery or bow down to them and silence ourselves? It won’t end with me, no matter what happens to me or the cops. This is just the beginning. The one thing that’s being ignored that came out of Garland, Texas, is that ISIS is here. Islamic terrorism is here. now. Will the media realize what’s at stake and that their heads are next? Or will they continue to target me because they hate my message of freedom? That’s the question.”
When Brown quizzed Geller on the controversial ad she runs to counter Islamic extremists Geller said, “Of course I’m not surprised they would target me. This is a war and they seek to impose the Sharia. The ads that I’ve done across the country were in response to vicious anti-Israel, anti-Semitic ads already running. And my question to you is, do we not want to defeat jihad? i mean, what is wrong with those ads? there is nothing wrong with the cartoon. there is nothing about the cartoon that incites violence. It is within established American tradition of satire. And if America surrenders on this point, the freedom of speech is a relic of history.”
When Brown asked if Geller relished being the target she shot back, “Relish being the target? Who self-promotes to get killed?”
I'm not welcoming Bruce Jenner into the sisterhood. We frown upon appropriating culture, so, too, do I frown upon appropriating sexuality (more on this later). It's not that I care what someone does on their own time -- and if that's what this was, people minding their own business and living their lives, it wouldn't be an issue -- but it's no longer on someone's own time. People used to say "what goes on behind closed doors ..." but things are no longer behind closed doors and it's not simply that the doors are open, either; it's that some are forcefully ushering everyone else into the room and told to legitimize with their approval the lifestyle choices of the individual in question. I and other females are told that we are no different from someone who buys a tube of Mac lipstick and the best plastic surgery in town. We are told that our sex, our gender, is a nothing more than a new product at retail. You can identify, but I will not.More, as well as audio, at the link.
Hillary Clinton’s allies are working to win over unenthusiastic rich liberals by pitting her against the Koch brothers and prospective GOP rivals rather than more progressive Democrats, according to a draft of a secret memo obtained by POLITICO.Heh, when leftist big-money hypocrites are worried about forking over big money to Hillary, you know something's not right in leftist la-la land.
The memo was prepared for Clinton enforcer David Brock ahead of a major donor meeting in April in San Francisco. But the concerns it reveals about liberal donors’ coolness toward her presidential candidacy — with some even holding out hope for a robust primary challenge from the left — are just as acute today, Clinton allies say.
Winning over such donors is seen as critical to Clinton’s White House prospects.
The Clinton forces are counting on a constellation of allied outside groups to raise as much as $500 million to take on a Republican big-money machine that has been raking in cash from dozens of super-rich and highly engaged partisans. By contrast, the main super PAC supporting Clinton, Priorities USA Action, has struggled to collect million-dollar checks.
Part of the donors’ reluctance stems from liberal queasiness about the expanding role of big money in politics since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. But there’s also some discomfort with Clinton, the former New York senator and secretary of state, who is seen as too hawkish on foreign policy and insufficiently progressive on key issues like fighting climate change, income inequality and the role of big money in politics. Additionally, Democratic finance operatives say, efforts to rustle up seven-figure checks are suffering from a lack of a single, unifying enemy on the right.
All those concerns are addressed in the Brock memo, which appears to have been drafted in preparation for his appearance at the annual spring meeting of the Democracy Alliance — a major liberal donor club — in April in San Francisco. The memo is written as a question-and-answer exchange between Brock and Democracy Alliance donors.
The memo suggests that Brock, who has built a fleet of deep-pocketed groups aligned with Clinton, is taking a conciliatory approach to assuage donors’ concerns — conceding she’s not as liberal as some donors wish but emphasizing her progressiveness in public service and minimizing the prospects of a vigorous Democratic primary.
“You say the Kochs represent all that is bad in this broken system, yet our presumptive nominee is in the pocket of big Wall Street banks,” begins one of the memo’s hypothetical donor questions. “Aren’t we going to have a hard time going after the Kochs’ big money when some could argue that Sec. Clinton is bank rolled by Wall Street and therefore there is a pox on both our houses?”
The answer Brock should give, according to the memo: “It is no secret that Sec. Clinton is fair-left and not far-left. I think it is safe to say that there will be a dramatic difference between Sec. Clinton and whoever is the Republican opponent. She has spent a lifetime advocating for women and children and fighting for the middle class and there is not one GOP candidate who has that record.”
Brock did not dispute the authenticity of the memo, which leaves a pair of questions about the internal politics of the Clinton big-money effort unanswered. But he declined to comment on the memo, or whether it reflected his fundraising approach or his presentation at the Democracy Alliance gathering, which was closed to the news media.
The three-day meeting of the Democracy Alliance — a group that includes more than 100 individual and institutional donors and various unions — took place at San Francisco’s Four Seasons Hotel just as Clinton officially launched her campaign.
The Vanity Fair photo of Bruce Jenner in a boob-enhancing swimsuit is being described as iconic. Bruce, one-time American athlete, now wants to be known as Caitlyn, having recently undergone some gender transitioning. And he’s using the cover of the latest Vanity Fair to make his ‘debut as a woman’. Next to the headline ‘Call me Caitlyn’, he’s all photoshopped svelteness, pampered hair and look-at-me breasts, in what many experts are already describing as ‘an iconic image in magazine history’.Well, payback's a bitch.
The photo is indeed iconic. And not just in the shallow celeb meaning of that word. It’s iconic in the traditional sense, too, in that it’s being venerated as an actual icon, a devotional image of an apparently holy human. It’s an image we’re all expected to bow down to, whose essential truth we must imbibe; an image you question or ridicule at your peril, with those who refuse to genuflect before it facing excommunication from polite society. Yesterday’s Jennermania confirms how weirdly authoritarian, even idolatrous, trans politics has become.
There is a palpable religiosity to the wild hailing of Bruce/Caitlyn as a modern-day saint, a Virgin Mary with testicles. Within four hours, more than a million people were following Bruce/Caitlyn’s new Twitter account, hanging on her words like the expectant horde waiting for Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai. Her every utterance, all banal celeb-speak, was retweeted tens of thousands of times. Celebs and commentators greeted her as a kind of messiah. ‘We’ve been waiting for you with open arms’, said an overexcited editor at Buzzfeed. Across the Twittersphere Caitlyn was worshipped as a ‘goddess’, a ‘goddess in human form’, a ‘goddess made manifest on Earth’. ‘Caitlyn Jenner could fucking stab me right now and leave me for dead and I’d die fucking overjoyed we are not WORTHY OF THIS GODDESS’, said one trans tweeter, and she wasn’t joking.
In the media, the talk is of how Caitlyn and her iconic likeness might give an adrenalin shot to humanity itself. A writer for the Guardian describes Caitlyn as a ‘queen’ and instructs us to ‘bow down, bitches’, telling us her icon on the front of Vanity Fair is ‘life-affirming’. Treating Caitlyn as a kind of Christ figure, only in a push-up bra rather than smock, Ellen DeGeneres says this goddess brings ‘hope for the world’, and we should all try to be ‘as brave as Caitlyn’. Susan Sarandon celebrated Bruce/Caitlyn’s mysterious ‘rebirth’ while Demi Moore thanked him/her for sharing with humanity ‘the gift of your beautiful authentic self’. A writer for the Huff Post says the name Caitlyn means ‘pure’ – ‘what a perfect meaning, right?’ Truly, yes, for St Caitlyn, reborn to educate us all, is most pure.
With its millions of agog followers, its worship of an iconic image, its insistence we all ‘bow down’, the Cult of Caitlyn gives Catholic mariolatry a run for its money in the blind-devotion stakes. And of course, as with all venerated icons, anyone who refuses to recognise the truth of Caitlyn’s Vanity Fair cover has faced mob punishment or finger-wagging corrections of their goddess-defying blasphemy.
So when Drake Bell, a former American child star, tweeted ‘Sorry… still calling you Bruce’, he became the subject of global fury. The Cult of Caitlyn went insane. Even after Bell deleted his blasphemous comment, tweeters mauled him, suggesting he deactivate his Twitter account, or better still, ‘deactivate his life’. Meanwhile, a Twitter robot called @she_not_he has been set up to correct any ‘misgendering’ of Caitlyn. Winning high praise from much of the media, this bot is ‘scrubbing Twitter, looking for anyone who uses the “he” pronoun in conjunction with Caitlyn Jenner’s name’. The bot’s inventor says he is delighted that these misgendering miscreants have been ‘apologetic in their replies to the bot’, and ‘some have even deleted their original tweet’.
In short, they’ve repented...
question for the male media types/extremist activists (but I repeat myself) insisting that Caitlyn Jenner is a woman: Would you fuck her?
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015this question isn't as crude as it sounds. It's merely direct. If you are insisting that "Caitlyn" is in all ways a woman, then naturally...
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015..."she" would be on your list of possible sexual partners.
Y'all keep saying how hot she is.
So is she on your list of possible partners?
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015if "she" is not on a straight progressive man's list of possible romantic dalliances, are you saying "she" is not entirely a woman?
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015what is the truth here? The actual truth? Not the progressive falsehood we pressure people into agreeing to?
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015I have no problem or interest in Caitlyn Jenner' decisions, except when it becomes formally demanded of me that I repeat a falsehood.
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015Should she be credited as holding all Decathalon records for a female athlete?
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015This is of a piece with the left's constant demand that we accept the crudest, most extremist restatements of their political desiderata.
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015And these are "Political truths," by which I mean, Not Truths: absurdly crude falsehoods urged as true by a faction of the Prog caucus.
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015the media, as always, swoops in as the angel-winged, spear-carrying Valkerie for segments of the Democrat political coalition.
— TheClassyLife (@AceofSpadesHQ) June 3, 2015
Tahera Ahmad, diet coke lady, Muslim 'activist' Muslim Brotherhood links, met Obama. #Islam http://t.co/XJn2XbufAu
— Jihadi Kermit ☮ (@islamlie2) June 3, 2015
United Airlines says a flight attendant involved in a dispute with a customer over a can of Diet Coke, leading to accusations of discrimination, won’t be serving customers on the airline any longer.Also at Bare Naked Islam, "MUSLIM BITCH who accused United Airlines of “racism” (What ‘race’ is Islam?) for refusing to give her an unopened can of Diet Coke has ties to Islamic terror-linked groups and individuals."
The dispute arose after Tahera Ahmad, a Muslim American chaplain at Northwestern University, claimed she was told she couldn’t have the unopened can of Diet Coke she requested because passengers “may use it as a weapon” on the plane.
When the man sitting next to Ahmad received an unopened can of beer, Ahmad said she protested. A fellow passenger then allegedly yelled, “You Muslim, you need to shut the … up,” and that “You know you would use it as a weapon.”
Ahmad wears a hijab in a photo on the university's website, but it's unclear what identified her as Muslim on the plane.
Both United Airlines and the company that was operating the flight characterized it as a “misunderstanding regarding a can of diet soda,” a statement Ahmad and others pilloried on social media as trivializing. United says it has apologized to Ahmad, and will also be sending her a written apology.
According to a United statement released Wednesday, the flight attendant “will no longer serve” United customers.
“United does not tolerate behavior that is discriminatory – or that appears to be discriminatory – against our customers or employees,” the company said in the statement. Employees at United and Shuttle America, the company that employed the flight attendant and was operating the flight, will undergo cultural sensitivity training, the airline said.
It’s not clear whether the flight attendant has been fired; officials at Republic Airways Holdings, which owns Shuttle America, declined to discuss the employee’s status, citing personnel issues.
There is no policy barring flight attendants from providing full, unopened beverage cans to customers upon request, Republic Airways Holdings said, and no policy regarding speculation as to how passengers may use the can.
In a statement, the company said Wednesday that it “deeply regrets the poor judgment and lack of sensitivity” the flight attendant demonstrated toward Ahmad. Both companies say they have opened investigations into the incident, and Republic Airways Holdings says it is “confident that this is an isolated incident.” Officials there are reviewing company training policies, Republic Airways said, and are “in the process” of reaching out to Ahmad to apologize.
Denounced by @KevinNR, my 'Standing Athwart History Shouting: 'F Me Up the Ass' column now has 350+ comments! http://t.co/CGKNt8pNpZ #tcot
— Kathy Shaidle (@kshaidle) June 3, 2015
The Huffington Post? Or a Stalinist state? http://t.co/Bv1BXrdvid
— R.M. Schneiderman (@RMSchneiderman) June 2, 2015Everybody is required to play along in the game of Celebrity Fantasy Dress Up With "Caitlyn" or else you're a HATER!
— Robert Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) June 2, 2015I'm happy to call Bruce Caitlyn because people can switch names. I will not call him a woman because he isn't one.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 2, 2015In recent years, the LGBT civil rights movement has been making huge strides. It has taken decades, but transgender men and women are now an essential part of the necessary equality mix. Jenner, by effectively stage-managing her transition, has largely avoided what could have been a cruel and ugly scenario.RTWT.
Yet the Vanity Fair photograph seems a missed opportunity — a picture from the past rather than the present. Maybe that's because all its conventional, glamour-girl signals weigh down the lively fluidity swirling at the center of gender identity.
Leibovitz and Jenner, photographer and subject, are both 65. They were raised in an era when gender ideas were more stable, fixed and binary than they are today.
In 1991, Los Angeles photographer Catherine Opie blew up those inflexible conventions in a now famous suite of 13 color photographs titled "Being and Having." The artist shot tight, close-up portraits of lesbian friends against screaming yellow backgrounds. Each suddenly ambiguous face sports an exaggerated mustache, beard, sideburns or other masculine props — tattoos, piercings, a do-rag or shades.
Fakery and play mingle with authenticity and solemnity. In these iconic images, identity is a question, not an answer. Homosexuality unfolds as something marvelously heterogeneous.
By coincidence, the series followed the 1990 publication of "Gender Trouble," the landmark book by UC Berkeley philosopher Judith Butler pointedly subtitled "Feminism and the Subversion of Identity." In it, she persuasively argued that gender is not rooted in biological fact but in culturally determined symbols, signs and images.
Butler's trailblazing notion is that gender isn't natural — it's a performance. But Jenner's performance on the cover of Vanity Fair is predictable.
During her celebrated career, Leibovitz has made many photographs that skillfully represent popular symbols. She has pictured dozens of celebrity subjects as visual puns.
The New York artist Christo stands in Central Park wrapped up like one of his sculptures, mummified in his art. Paralyzed Marine Corps veteran and antiwar activist Ron Kovic is seated in his wheelchair at the shallow edge of the Pacific Ocean in Santa Monica — a man of peace "walking" on water.
Lauren Hutton is sprawled naked in the Mississippi mud, an all-American Earth mother. Bette Midler, publicizing her Oscar-nominated role as a doomed pop star in 1979's "The Rose," lies sprawled beneath a dense tangle of crimson buds — life is a bed of roses, albeit hiding thorns.
Leibovitz's Caitlyn Jenner is a newfangled Vargas girl, one of those airbrushed cuties from the old pages of Playboy. Is that all there is?
Usaama Rahim allegedly wielded large, military knife before he was shot, killed in Roslindale http://t.co/Bjm5RLXBYE pic.twitter.com/nPLvfsbRTC
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) June 3, 2015'He was someone we were watching for quite a time,' police said of man who was shot and killed in Roslindale http://t.co/zs9AQOj78I
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) June 3, 2015Man shot and killed by police in Roslindale was under 24-hour surveillance http://t.co/nGhwCKnVju pic.twitter.com/nm5DFMNxAS
— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) June 2, 2015CHULA VISTA — A 25-year-old Imperial Beach woman deliberately ran over over a motorcyclist on a South County freeway "in a purposeful and intentional act”, a prosecutor told a judge Tuesday.More.
Darla Renee Jackson pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder in the hearing.
Jackson was in her Nissan Altima Thursday when she and motorcyclist Zacharias Buob, a 39-year-old chief petty officer in the Navy, got into a dispute on north Interstate 5 near E Street about 5:30 p.m. Thursday, California Highway Patrol officers said.
Deputy District Attorney Laura Evans described it in court as “some sort of back-and-forth altercation” between the two.
The dispute continued as the two vehicles transitioned from I-5 to state Route 54, where Jackson chased the victim, crossing into all lanes of traffic, and then hit the back of his Ducati, Evans said. Jackson is accused of pushing the bike some 300 feet until both Buob and the motorcycle went down. Her car then ran Buob over, the prosecutor said. He died at the hospital.
Evans told the judge witness accounts indicated “this was a purposeful and intentional act.”
“She endangered the life of herself, other motorists and ultimately killed the victim in this case,” Evans said.
The prosecutor argued for $3 million bail, citing the danger Jackson poses to the community, but Chula Vista Superior Court Judge Patricia Garcia said $1 million bail was sufficient.
Defense attorney Stephen Cline said Jackson’s version of events differed from that of authorities, saying after the hearing that she told him Buob kicked her car and they later collided.
Jackson, her hands shackled at her waist, trembled and rocked in her chair as she cried during the short hearing.
“She’s very sorry, she’s very upset and she’s very traumatized,” Cline said outside the courthouse.
WASHINGTON—The Obama administration published more information Monday about hefty premium increases for 2016 sought by large insurers selling plans under the health law.More.
Major carriers from around the country are proposing big increases in the premium rates paid by consumers who buy insurance policies on their own.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is looking to raise rates by averages of 29% or more. In Pennsylvania, Highmark Health Insurance Co. is asking for 30%, according to proposals submitted by insurers for the year ahead. Around the country, some of the main market leaders are looking for double digit increases.
The new requests for premiums come at a time when the political and legal future of the law hangs in the balance. The Supreme Court is set to issue a decision later this month on the validity of the law’s tax credits to offset the cost of premiums for lower-income consumers in most states in the country.
Republicans opposed to the health law still plan to make it part of their 2016 election campaign, and for the law’s Democratic supporters, the proposed rate increases mean a tough conversation about how the law is working.
Some of the significant increases being sought were first reported in The Wall Street Journal.
As part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, insurers must justify increases of 10% or more to the Obama administration, which published those explanations online Monday. The administration cannot force insurers to reduce rates, but many state regulators can negotiate with health plans, and the rates could come down.
The Obama administration sought to emphasize that point on Monday.
“The rate review process kicks off an important set of steps designed to provide consumers and others the opportunity to weigh in on proposed rate increases of 10% or more,” said Andy Slavitt, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the health law’s implementation. “These specific rates will be subject to vigorous rate review and revision.”
Some of the insurers couldn’t immediately be reached for comment following the Department of Health and Human Services’ publication of the data Monday.
But Greg Thompson, a spokesman for the Illinois insurer, said rate proposals reflected the health plan’s medical claims, and noted provisions in the health law that require insurers to spend the vast majority of premium income on claims or refund the difference to consumers.
Other insurers also have said their rates for the year ahead reflect the impact of the law’s sweeping changes to the way health insurance is sold and priced.
Under the health law, plans have to sell coverage to everyone, regardless of their medical history, and can’t charge people who are more seriously ill higher rates. Health-plan officials say that means they are bearing bigger medical claims than they had expected.
Moreover, insurers have said they face substantial pent-up demand for health-care services from the newly enrolled, including for expensive drugs.
Consumer groups contend they want state and federal regulators to be as tough as they can on insurers’ requests to raise rates...
