A look at transportation safety rules sidelined under Trump

A look at transportation safety rules sidelined under Trump | 26 Feb 2018 | President Donald Trump says his administration has ended more unnecessary regulations than any previous administration. In response to his orders, the Transportation Department has withdrawn, repealed, delayed or put on the back burner at least a dozen significant safety rules, according to an Associated Press review of the department’s regulatory actions over the past year. Here is a look at some of those regulations…Trains: DOT has repealed a 2015 rule requiring train cars that haul highly flammable crude oil be equipped with advanced braking systems that stop tank cars simultaneously. Most trains use conventional air brakes that stop cars one after the other…

CLG News

President Trump to run for re-election in 2020

President Trump to run for re-election in 2020 | 27 Feb 2018 | Donald Trump will stand again for president in 2020 and has chosen his campaign manager. Political strategist Brad Parscale, who was digital director for his successful 2016 White House bid, will head up his team for the next run. The news comes 980 days before election day, earlier than any previous presidents. News of the Trump bid has emerged eight months before November congressional elections that will determine whether his Republican Party will hold on to control of the US Congress.

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Kushner’s security clearance downgraded per Kelly policy

Kushner’s security clearance downgraded per Kelly policy | 27 Feb 2018 | The security clearance of White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has been downgraded, according to two people informed of the decision. Kushner had been operating with an interim clearance at the “top secret/sensitive compartmented information” level for more than a year. Now he is only authorized to access information at the lower “secret” level, according to a White House official and a person familiar with the decision, both of whom spoke on condition of anonymity.

CLG News

Letter opened at Virginia’s Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall triggers hazmat situation; 11 fall ill

Breaking: Letter opened at Virginia’s Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall triggers hazmat situation; 11 fall ill –‘Several Marines are receiving medical care as a result of this incident’ | 27 Feb 2018 | Investigators are looking into an apparent hazmat situation at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Ft. Myer, Virginia, after a number of people began feeling sick after opening a letter, officials said. Arlington Fire, one of the units responding to the scene, said 11 people started feeling ill after the letter was opened in an administration building. Three patients were hospitalized and were said to be in stable condition. According to the U.S. Marines, personnel took “preventative measures” and evacuated people from the building.

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‘He never went in’: Armed officer did not confront Florida school gunman

‘He never went in’: Armed officer did not confront Florida school gunman | 23 Feb 2018 | An armed officer who was on duty at the Florida high school where 17 people were killed failed to confront the gunman during the attack, a local sheriff has said. Scot Peterson was the armed sheriff’s deputy assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the only law enforcement officer present during the six-minute rampage last Wednesday, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said. Mr Peterson’s actions were caught on video during the massacre, and he has now resigned after being suspended without pay and placed under investigation.

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Florida lawmakers call for suspension of Broward sheriff after Parkland massacre as he defends ‘amazing leadership’

Florida lawmakers call for suspension of Broward sheriff after Parkland massacre as he defends ‘amazing leadership’ | 25 Feb 2018 | Republican state lawmakers in Florida called on Sunday for the suspension of Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, accusing him of “incompetence and neglect of duty” in the months before the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran and 73 Republican colleagues urged Gov. Rick Scott, R, to suspend Israel, a Democrat who was reelected in 2016.

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California Democrats decline to endorse Feinstein

California Democrats decline to endorse Feinstein | 25 Feb 2018 | In a sharp rebuke to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democratic Party has declined to endorse the state’s own senior senator in her bid for reelection. Riven by conflict between progressive and more moderate forces at the state party’s annual convention here, delegates favored Feinstein’s progressive rival, state Senate leader Kevin de León, over Feinstein by a vote of 54 percent to 37 percent, according to results announced Sunday. Neither candidate reached the 60 percent threshold required to receive the party endorsement for 2018. But the snubbing of Feinstein led de León to claim a victory for his struggling campaign.

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Silence! Twitter, YouTube scrubbing all content and banning all users who question the official narrative on the Florida school shooting

Silence! Twitter, YouTube scrubbing all content and banning all users who question the official narrative on the Florida school shooting | 25 Feb 2018 | A few years from now, looking back on why Twitter collapsed and YouTube was abandoned by every intelligent person, we’ll remember what these totalitarian tech giants did in February, 2018. Starting a few days ago, both Twitter and YouTube began scrubbing all videos and tweets that don’t follow the “official narrative” on the Florida school shooting. Anyone who questions the wisdom of the school students-turned-propagandists — who were all probably eating Tide pods a week ago — [LOL!] is immediately banned and silenced. Only one side of this “debate” is allowed to exist: The side that worships the lunatic Left’s demands that all law-abiding Americans surrender their self-defense firearms because a group of traumatized school kids were shot at by their own lunatic classmate. The insanity, stupidity and derangement of all this is beyond description.

CLG News

Sheriff Scott Israel battling calls to resign as blame shifts in wake of Florida high school shooting

Sheriff Scott Israel battling calls to resign as blame shifts in wake of Florida high school shooting | 26 Feb 2018 | The vocal sheriff who has criticized everyone from local politicians to the NRA to one of his own officers in the wake of the Florida high school shooting is facing the pressure himself Monday, as calls mount for him to resign amid reports about his department’s alleged incompetence in stopping the gunman. The heat against Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel is coming from all angles, including from a survivor of the attack who told Fox News that he “failed to act on so many different levels” and from dozens of state lawmakers who are urging Florida Gov. Rick Scott to suspend him. “Listen, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, O.J. Simpson would still be in the record books,” was Israel’s bizarre defense Sunday after being asked on CNN if the shooting might not have happened if his department handled things differently.

CLG News

Dennis Stone and ‘America’s Stonehenge’ March 12/18

Dennis Stone, owner of New Hampshire’s America’s Stonehenge, will be providing updates on this 4000 year old ceremonial site and discussing new theories about the influence of southern migrations and new testing that may reveal the purpose of and who built this enigmatic complex. For more information about America’s Stonehenge visit http://www.stonehengeusa.com/
Pics are at http://beyondthestrange.com/gallery/
Beyond The Strange

Affordable Housing Built in Days with Recycled Plastic Bricks

Conceptos Plásticos is a Colombian construction company that builds homes, shelters, classrooms, and community spaces out bricks and pillars made entirely from recycled plastic, rubber, and electronic waste. The company was founded by Oscar Mendez, an architect, and Fernando Llano, who had previously researched the reuse of plastics as building materials to create “ecoblocks.”  This business venture intends to address three major issues: affordable housing, jobs for vulnerable communities, and reuse of materials that would otherwise end up in landfills.

The base material for these homes are gathered from local recyclers resulting in a reduction of water and energy consumption. By reusing plastics, the company is able to divert materials that otherwise would take 500 years to biodegrade from being dumped in landfills. This plastic is ground into a rough powder then melted and poured into a mold that creates stackable bricks or “ecoblocks” that can be put together in a Lego-like fashion to build walls, roofs, and decks that are insulated as well as earthquake- and fire-resistant. Simple assembly and disassembly make for homes that are easily relocated, making them useful for temporary housing of refugees, homeless people, or military personnel.

Conceptos Plásticos aims not only to mitigate plastic waste generation but also to reduce the housing deficit, which is currently around 45% across all Latin American countries. In just five days, a team of four people were able to build a two-bedroom and one-bathroom house for only $ 6,800 USD. Because houses are easy to piece together or dismantle members of the community can easily build them with simple instructions, creating local jobs as well as practical, affordable housing.

The company’s biggest accomplishment so far was a four-week construction project for people who had been displaced by armed conflict in Guapi, Colombia. The completed project provided housing for 42 families while recycling 200 tons of plastic. CP is a tremendous inspiration for other business endeavors that have the potential to address similar multifaceted global challenges.

Source: Nicolás Valencia, “This House was Built in 5 Days Using Recycled Plastic Bricks,” ArchDaily, May 01, 2017, https://www.archdaily.com/869926/this-house-was-buiilt-in-5-days-using-recycled-plastic-bricks.

Student Researcher: Taylar Wilhelmsen (San Francisco State University)

Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows (San Francisco State University)

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Baltimore Conference Organizes Opposition against US Foreign Military Bases

During a January, 2018 conference in Baltimore hosted by the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases, organizations from all over the world gathered to discuss and criticize the United States’ 800 foreign military bases, which are located around the world in around 80 countries. These operations cost the US over $ 156 billion annually. The Coalition’s conference opened with a peaceful protest on the streets, showing the local community that the antiwar movement is still alive.

Beyond their economic cost, these bases also endanger civilians living in the areas surrounding them. As Michael Byrne reported for Antiwar.com, “The most tragic incident was the 1959 crash of a US military jet into an elementary school in Okinawa that killed 18 people, including small children. The people of Okinawa have been sick of these bases. There is even an ongoing protest against the relocation of a base in Futenma that has recently reached 5,000 consecutive days!” The Okinawa Peace Appeal was one of the many groups present at the conference and they have made it clear: As much as 80% of Okinawa’s population opposed US military bases there. As Byrne wrote, from Okinawa to the Korean peninsula, across Africa, to Cuba (where Guantanamo is located), citizens of nations around the world are opposed to US military presence. are afraid of being involved in war crimes and exposure to unnecessary violence.

Another organizations present at the conference was BAYAN USA, which works “to mobilize Filipinos in the US against imperialism” and to make the case for ending the US military’s presence in the Philippines. A previously unused military base had recently become active again and they were there to figure out how to get this reversed.

This story was under-reported in the US establishment press. The only platforms with information about the Baltimore conference were SoundCloud, YouTube, Byrne’s article, and a newspaper article from Okinawa. As Byrne observed in his report, “It is still highly taboo to criticize US foreign policy and the violent war machine that is behind it.”

Source: Michael Byrne, “No US Foreign Bases – A Call for Peace from a New Coalition,” AntiWar.com, January 16, 2018, https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2018/01/16/no-us-foreign-bases-a-call-for-peace-from-a-new-coalition/.

Student Researcher: Anthony Vattimo (North Central College)

Faculty Evaluator: Steve Macek (North Central College)

Editor’s Note: For prior Project Censored coverage of the US military presence around the world, see “US Military Forces Deployed in Seventy Percent of World’s Nations,” story #1 from Censored 2017http://projectcensored.org/1-us-military-forces-deployed-seventy-percent-worlds-nations/.

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$21 Trillion Missing from US Federal Budget

A whopping $ 21 trillion was found to be missing from the US federal budget as of this past year. Michigan State University professor Mark Skidmore and a group of graduate students made the discovery after overhearing a government official say that the 2016 report by the Department of Defense’s Office of Inspector General (DoDIG) indicated $ 6.5 trillion in adjustments had not been adequately documented. Attempting to uncover the reasoning behind these adjustments, Skidmore began to dig deeper. He says, “I tried to call and talk to the office of the Inspector General to talk to the people who helped generate these reports. I haven’t been successful, and I stopped trying when they disabled the links.”

Despite disabled links and neglect from officials, the verification of over $ 6T inspired Skidmore and his students to comb through thousands of Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports for 1998-2015. Regarding his findings Skidmore stated, “This is incomplete, but we have found $ 21 trillion in adjustments over that period. The biggest chunk is for the Army. We were able to find 13 of the 17 years and we found about $ 11.5 trillion just for the Army.” While it is known that the US government engages in unauthorized spending and black budgets, quantities this large abuse basic Constitutional and legislative requirements on spending.

Shortly after Skidmore’s findings went public, the Pentagon announced the first ever audit of the Department of Defense (DoD). Despite having $ 2.2 trillion in assets and billions of dollars flowing through each year, the DoD has famously never been audited. The audits are set to begin in 2018 and occur annually. Defense Department’s Comptroller David L. Norquist is confident that the audits will benefit DoD’s management of tax dollars and establish confidence in Congress as well as the American people.

In addition to depriving the public of access to US financial accounting reports by disabling links, the Department of Defense’s clever implementation of an audit bent this twisted act into a positive endeavor for DoD in the eyes of the public. Apart from Forbes’ brief report on the adjustments and NPR’s recognition of the first audit, US corporate media has failed to recount any of the details concerning the shocking findings of Mark Skidmore’s research.

Sources:

Greg Hunter, “Missing $ 21 Trillion Means Federal Government Is Lawless – Dr. Mark Skidmore,” USAWatchdog, December 3, 2017, https://usawatchdog.com/missing-21-trillion-means-federal-government-is-lawless-dr-mark-skidmore/

“$ 21 trillion of unauthorized spending by US govt discovered by economics professor.” RT, December 16, 2017, https://www.rt.com/usa/413411-trillions-dollars-missing-research/

Student Researcher: Andrea Fekete (North Central College)

Faculty Evaluator: Steve Macek (North Central College)

Editor’s Note: For previous Project Censored coverage of related stories, see “Over Six Trillion Dollars in Unaccountable Army Spending,” story #2 in Censored 2018, http://projectcensored.org/2-six-trillion-dollars-unaccountable-army-spending/; and “Pentagon Awash in Money Despite Serious Audit Problems,” story #12 in Censored 2015, http://projectcensored.org/12-pentagon-awash-money-despite-serious-audit-problems/.

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Nebraska Supreme Court Decision a Victory against Alcoholism for Pine Ridge Reservation

Oliver Laughland and Oliver Silverstone of the Guardian reported that in late summer 2017, the Nebraska Supreme Court unanimously ruled to close Whiteclay, Nebraska’s four liquor stores–which had fueled generations of alcoholism on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Alcoholism has been a prominent issue for the Oglala Lakota Sioux tribe which inhabits Pine Ridge. According to Laughland and Silverstone’s report, “Up to two-thirds of adults live with alcoholism,” and according to the website for the documentary Sober Indian Dangerous Indian, “One out of four children born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation has fetal alcohol syndrome,” which has “irreversible physical and emotional effects” on children who are born with it.

Closing the liquor stores was a huge win, but the people of the reservation still face many problems. Whiteclay’s liquor stores flooded Pine Ridge with roughly 11,000 cans of beer each day. While the stores are gone, the demand for alcohol remains. “Local bootleggers now travel further afield, to the towns of Rushville and Chadron in Nebraska, about 30 miles from the south of the reservation, to buy gallons of cheap spirits, dilute them with water and sell a 500ml bottle for around $ 10 – about a 1,000% markup,” per Laughland and Silverstone’s report. Police Lieutenant Jason Lone Hill says there is a bootlegger in every district of the reservation supplying alcohol, with vodka being the drink of choice.

Alcohol has been illegal in Pine Ridge since the reservation was established in 1889, but there are not enough officers to enforce its legally dry status. Laughland and Silverstone note that “After a loss of grant money under the George W Bush administration, there are now just 32 officers in the entire department–10 years ago, it was more than 100.” 32 officers are assigned the task of supervising the 3,500-square mile reservation.

Federal budget cuts have affected Pine Ridge for years. An article by David Melmer published in Indian Country Today in February 2003 stated, “The Bush Administration tax cuts also translated to budget cuts for many South Dakota water projects.” The article also noted empty promises from the Bush administration. “In President Bush’s campaign speeches he said he would provide $ 100 million for education in Indian country to provide new and updated class rooms and his ‘Leave no Child Behind’ campaign was passed by Congress, signed into law, yet lawmakers and educators complain that funding is not available to carry out the mandates of the law, especially in Indian country.” According to Laughland and Silverstone’s article, Pine Ridge fears budget cuts from the current presidential administration. “Trump’s proposed 25% budget cuts to the food stamp programme (on which at least 49% of people here relied in 2009) would make many more children go hungry here…”

There has been virtually no corporate media coverage Whiteclay’s liquor stores closing. A January 2018 Huffington Post article written by Eleanor Goldberg covered suicide rates and poverty on the reservation. Goldberg’s article addressed those two topics in-depth, and even described how poor Pine Ridge is compared to other counties throughout the United States, but her Huffington Post report did not address the problem of alcoholism on the reservation. It mentions funds Pine Ridge received from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, and how the amount it receives will likely lower in the future, but it does not mention anything else about federal budget cuts or increases.

Source: Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone, “Liquid Genocide: Alcohol Destroyed Pine Ridge Reservation – Then They Fought Back,” Guardian, September 29, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/29/pine-ridge-indian-reservation-south-dakota.

Student Researcher: Anthony La Parry (North Central College)

Faculty Evaluator: Steve Macek (North Central College)

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Losing the War on Opioid Addiction: “Tough on Crime” Policies Often Ineffective and State Rules for Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs Raise Privacy Concerns

In recent efforts to combat the deadly opioid epidemic many states have turned to “tough on crime” policies; however, these policies have not proven to be an effective. German Lopez of Vox.com reported on “tough on crime” policies that have been passed since 2011, the year opioid crisis was declared an epidemic. Lopez found that 16 states have passed laws that could lead to sentence increases for offenses involving opioids. Steps such as these will go over well with a public that sees addiction as the fault of the individual, but these polices are in direct conflict with the stances taken by lawmakers to stop mass incarceration.

Noting that opioid addiction in the US claims nearly 100 lives every day, Lopez detailed how treating the current opioid epidemic in ways comparable to previous drug crises will lead to a worsening crisis. Lopez provided examples of addiction medication and treatments that have been successful in fighting opioid addiction (such as naloxone) but noted that states’ budgets might prevent them from being used. Lopez wrote that this in turn contributes to “tough on crime” policies that “have hidden or delayed costs in the form of prison expenses down the line.” Tough on crime policies also appeal to state leaders who want to demonstrate a public willingness to fight the inaction that has characterized much of the broader US response to the opioid epidemic.

Federal anti-drug spending has two main tracks: 1) law enforcement and 2) treatment, according to Lopez. Law enforcement programs have received three billion more dollars in funding than treatment programs, despite experts advocating that treatment programs are more effective. His report cited an estimate that some 650,000 people will die from opioid overdoses in the next decade.

“Tough on crime” policies are not the only way that states are trying to tackle the opioid epidemic. In fact, all fifty states have launched prescription-drug monitoring programs, or PDMPs, as Beth Schwartzapfel reported for the Marshall Project. A PDMP is a database that allow for the tracking of certain prescription drugs. PDMP’s are state run and as Schwartzapfel stated: “are widely regarded as an essential tool to stem the opioid epidemic.” However, PDMP’s have what Schwartzapfel and others call a “chilling” effect. Although these databases are intended to alert doctors or pharmacists to patients who may be seeking pills from multiple prescribers (so-called “doctor shopping”), in 21 states and the District of Columbia law enforcement officials also can access these databases. As Schwartzapfel reported, a 2016 Scripps News investigation found that, in those states alone, law enforcement viewed over 300,000 patients’ prescription histories during a two year period. Accessing PDMPs requires a warrant in 27 states. But, as Schwartzapfel noted, federal courts in Utah and Oregon recently ruled that the Drug Enforcement Administration “can access information in those states’ PDMPs without a warrant, even over the states’ objections.” In defense of patients’ privacy, some doctors turn away patients seeking attention for addiction—“problem” patients as they are often referred to—if they fear law enforcement scrutiny.

The opioid epidemic has gained corporate media coverage because of its deadly toll in human lives. However, much of this coverage has lacked depth, focusing instead on President Trump’s dramatic statements. Coverage of PDMPs took an uptick when Missouri passed legislation, and, for example, the Washington Post has published several pieces that mention PDMPs. Yet this coverage has not addressed how debilitating PDMPs can be for people seeking treatment. Instead establishment coverage has focused on what PDMPs entail for physicians. The other significant factor shaping news coverage is the negative stigma attached to addiction. Addiction is often framed in terms of individual weakness or failure, instead of as a public health issue.

Sources:

German Lopez, “The New War on Drugs,” Vox, September 13, 2017, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/9/5/16135848/drug-war-opioid-epidemic.

Beth Schwartzapfel, “Guess Who’s Tracking Your Prescription Drugs?,” The Marshall Project, August 2, 2017, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/08/02/guess-whos-tracking-your-prescription-drugs.

Student Researcher: Anthony Marocco-Cuellar (North Central College)

Faculty Evaluator: Steve Macek (North Central College)

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Truckers Report Moving Military Equipment Across U.S, FEMA Involved!

Still at the rumor stage, it seems that several voices say mass movements of military equipment are taking place from one side of the territory of the United States of America to the other.

The post Truckers Report Moving Military Equipment Across U.S, FEMA Involved! appeared first on TheIntelHub.com.

TheIntelHub.com

Former Trump adviser pleads guilty in Mueller probe

Former Trump adviser pleads guilty in Mueller probe | 23 Feb 2018 | Former Trump campaign adviser Richard Gates pleaded guilty on Friday afternoon as part of a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation into [alleged] Russian interference in the election. Gates pleaded guilty to two charges brought against him by Mueller’s team in federal court in Washington, D.C.: one count of conspiracy against the United States and one count of making a false a statement to the FBI agents investigating Russian interference. He has also agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation.

CLG News

Hospitals Waste Extravagant Amounts of Unused Medical Supplies, Study Finds

In March 2017, ProPublica reported that big hospitals nationwide are wasting millions of dollars a year by discarding perfectly good medical supplies. The type of equipment that gets thrown away ranges from simple items like surgical masks that cost just over a dollar each, to more serious equipment like infant warmers that cost $ 4,000 or even $ 25,000 ultrasound machines.  These wasted supplies add up, accounting for a significant amount of a hospital’s operating costs that Americans pay for through high healthcare costs.

Marshall Allen’s report cited a University of California-San Francisco study focused on UCSF’s own medical center. In its neurosurgery department, the study found almost $ 1,000 in wasted resources for each case, accounting for nearly $ 3 million in estimated annual costs. That’s $ 3 million wasted in one department at one hospital. As ProPublica’s report noted, this kind of waste occurs all over the country, despite the existence of non-profit organizations whose mission it is to accept unused medical supplies as donations and to ship them to medical facilities in need all over the world. Although facilities that receive donated supplies eventually make use of them, they still account for millions out of hospitals’ operating budgets, increasing the cost of healthcare. And this is all happening while poorer hospitals in rural areas of the United States are unable to afford the high quality medical supplies that big hospitals are throwing out.

Similar stories were published in topical or industry-focused news websites including Healthcare Finance News and Fierce Healthcare – organizations that target healthcare professionals instead of the majority of the healthcare-purchasing American public. The closest to mainstream coverage that this received was a small piece published on the Washington Post’s “PostEverything” section, written by the original author of the ProPublica report, Marshall Allen. While coverage by the Washington Post could constitute mainstream coverage, it’s important to note both the story’s location and content. PostEverything is an online-only opinion section that hosts content from contributors who are not regular Post reporters. The Post did not devote any of their own resources to pursuing the story and did not place it in a prominent location where it would be seen by the majority of its readers. Secondly, the article is an opinion piece instead of Allen’s original hard-hitting report. While it still communicates that there is a problem, it simply does not have the impact of ProPublica’s story. In March 2017, US News and World Report published a story based on the ProPublica report.

Source: Marshall Allen, “What Hospitals Waste,” ProPublica, March 9, 2017, https://www.propublica.org/article/what-hospitals-waste.

Student Researcher: Blane Erwin (North Central College)

Faculty Evaluator: Steve Macek (North Central College)

The post Hospitals Waste Extravagant Amounts of Unused Medical Supplies, Study Finds appeared first on Project Censored.

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Hundreds of teachers sign up for free gun training in Ohio

Hundreds of teachers sign up for free gun training in Ohio | 22 Feb 2018 | An Ohio Sheriff is offering free gun training to teachers in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead. Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones told FOX Business that the response from teachers and school administrators has been overwhelming. “We thought we’d get 20, 25 signed up. We had 50 within the first hour. We had 100 within two hours, we had three hundred within like five hours. We offered to teachers first, then we start getting calls from a secretary that works in the school, janitors that work in the school,” Jones said.

CLG News

Trends: Age discrimination getting much harder to prove

Many feel that ageism and age discrimination in the workplace has been getting harder to prove and has been so for many years. Some that have been following the trends will remember the issue was surfacing back in 2009 and 2005 and the issue has periodically made headlines since then. The following collection of articles includes some recent action by the United States Supreme Court in addition to other cases that can give a more detailed overview of age discrimination related issues, although the ensuing list is by no means comprehensive and further research is encouraged.

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The nation’s high court this morning agreed to decide whether Mount Lemmon Fire District is exempt from age-discrimination laws.

Read more at Tucson

Age discrimination is widespread, well documented and, sadly, deeply entrenched in the American workplace. It’s also illegal, thanks to the 50-year-old Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), which is aimed at protecting people 40 and older from discrimination in hiring, promotion and retention at firms with 20 or more employees.

Read more at Forbes

The 5-4 decision, controlled by the high court’s conservatives, requires workers alleging age discrimination to prove from the start that bias was the crucial factor in a demotion, not just one of possibly many factors leading to it. That standard for the Age Discrimination in Employment Act is tougher than the requirement for workers suing for race or sex bias under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Read more at ABC News

In discrimination lawsuits involving what lawyers call “mixed motive” cases, a worker previously might have had a valid claim of discrimination if age or another prohibited factor, such as race, was one of the motivations behind a firing or demotion.

Read more at the LA Times

The older police officers argued that when the city’s pay plan gave proportionately higher raises to officers with less than five years of service, the older workers, most of whom had more than five years of service, were adversely affected because of their age. The city argued that the plan based salary increases on rank and seniority and was motivated by the city’s desire to bring the starting salaries of police officers to a level comparable with and competitive in the market.

Read more at Littler

When news of Arney’s departure first hit on Feb. 14, he wasn’t available for comment. A Geffen representative said at the time that the leadership change was prompted by the theater’s desire to ensure it was “well positioned for the future.”

Read more at the LA Times

Former Los Angeles Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Jeff Gottlieb has filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the newspaper.

Read more at BizJournals

Multiple Military Vehicle Convoys Were Spotted In Oregon While Reports Indicate Massive Troop Movements During The Tyranny Of The So-called “Super Congress”

In the last 50 days, more people have seen intense troop movements and military equipment in Oregon. There are no clues about the motives of these movements.

The post Multiple Military Vehicle Convoys Were Spotted In Oregon While Reports Indicate Massive Troop Movements During The Tyranny Of The So-called “Super Congress” appeared first on TheIntelHub.com.

TheIntelHub.com

Facebook Stalls on Advertisers’ Option to Discriminate Online

In February 2017, the Congressional Black Caucus raised concerns that Facebook was allowing advertisers to use the exclusion tools on their ads to target specific ethnic groups. Later that month, Facebook addressed these concerns with a new algorithm that would theoretically identify housing, credit, or employment advertisements that discriminated on the basis of ethnicity and reject those ads.

In November 2017, ProPublica tested Facebook’s new algorithm. They intentionally purchased ads that were racist and sexist to see if Facebook’s new algorithm would detect them. As Julia Angwin, Ariana Tobin, and Madeleine Varner reported, Facebook’s program failed to reject or take down any of the discriminating ads. The algorithm did not identify the fake advertisements and allowed for them to tailor their ads to a targeted audience.

In response, Facebook has decided to once again discontinue the option for advertisers to filter their ads by excluding specific ethnic groups. In the meantime, they are reviewing their ad regulating system. “Until we can better ensure that our tools will not be used inappropriately, we are disabling the option that permits advertisers to exclude multicultural affinity segments from the audiences for their ads,” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg wrote.

As Angwin reported in a subsequent article, these findings indicate that Facebook continues  to violate the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which made it illegal to “make, print, publish, or cause to be made, printed or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.”

This story as well as other Facebook-centered news has received some coverage in publications like USA Today and the New York Times. A November 2016 New York Times article covered Facebook’s initial response to the criticism that it was violating anti-discrimination laws by allowing marketers to post ads that targeted Facebook users by ethnicity. The Times reported, “This is hardly the first time Facebook has received intense scrutiny over its ad-targeting practices,” noting a 2013 settlement of $ 20 million in a class-action lawsuit against the company for sharing data with advertisers about users’ ‘likes’ without asking permission. In a November 2017 article, the USA Today reported that “Washington scrutiny of Facebook has intensified in recent months after hundreds of fake accounts from a Kremlin-linked organization in Russia injected inflammatory ads on politically divisive issues from race to religion into unsuspecting Facebook users’ news feeds in the tense political climate surrounding the U.S. election.”

Sources:

Julia Angwin, Ariana Tobin and Madeleine Varner, “Facebook (Still) Letting Housing Advertisers Exclude Users by Race,” ProPublica, November 21, 2017, https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-discrimination-housing-race-sex-national-origin.

Julia Angwin, “Facebook to Temporarily Block Advertisers from Excluding Audiences by Race,” ProPublica, November 27, 2017, https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-to-temporarily-block-advertisers-from-excluding-audiences-by-race.

Student Researcher: Grace Phillippe (North Central College)

Faculty Evaluator: Steve Macek (North Central College)

Editor’s Note: For previous Project Censored coverage of concerns about Facebook’s advertising practices, see “Facebook Buys Sensitive User Data to Offer Marketers Targeted Advertising,” story #23 in Censored 2018: http://projectcensored.org/23-facebook-buys-sensitive-user-data-offer-marketers-targeted-advertising/.

The post Facebook Stalls on Advertisers’ Option to Discriminate Online appeared first on Project Censored.

Validated Independent News – Project Censored

Poisons of the Plastic Age

All across the world, people drinking a glass of water are also consuming microplastics. Coming from everyday items, these microplastics have infected more than 80 percent of five continents, according to Chris Tyree and Dan Morrison’s report for Orb Media. In one study, ninety-four percent of samples from places in the US—including Trump Tower in Manhattan—tested positive for microplastics. And now they’re moving into our food via plastic packaging and airborne fibers. The public is largely unaware of microplastics and their impacts on human health and the environment.

Microplastics are plastics that are less than five millimeters in length, which often result from the breakdown of larger plastic debris that ends up on the side of the road or in the ocean. Microbeads—once a common ingredient in health and beauty products—are also considered microplastics as they easily pass through filtration systems, ending up in natural water sources.

This problem has been neglected by almost everyone in the world, in part because the effects on the human body are relatively unknown.  Meanwhile, factories produce approximately 300 million tons of plastic each year, 120 million tons of which will be thrown away. According to a February 2018 report in the Guardian, microplastics have affected whales and sharks the most, as they swallow hundreds of gallons of water every day. The microplastics that they also ingest can block the absorption of nutrients, as well as release toxic chemicals in their bodies as the plastics breakdown.

Corporate news outlets have offered sporadic coverage of this topic. In November 2017, establishment news organizations including CNN and the New York Times reported on attempts to ban plastic glitter. However, these reports did not emphasize microplastics that derive from from clothing, upholstery and carpets—consumer goods that people come in contact with on a daily basis. In 2016, the Washington Post ran an article on whether synthetic fleece and other clothing fabrics might be bad for the environment.

Sources:

Fiona Harvey, “Whales and Shark Species at Increasing Risk from Microplastic Pollution–Study,” The Guardian, February 19, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/feb/05/whale-and-shark-species-at-increasing-risk-from-microplastic-pollution-study.

Chris Tyree and Dan Morrison, “Invisibles,” Orb Media, January 24, 2018, https://orbmedia.org/stories/Invisibles_plastics/multimedia.

Student Researcher: Halle Olson (North Central College)

Faculty Evaluator: Steve Macek (North Central College)

The post Poisons of the Plastic Age appeared first on Project Censored.

Validated Independent News – Project Censored

White House on lockdown after vehicle strikes security barrier

White House on lockdown after vehicle strikes security barrier | 23 Feb 2018 | The White House is on lockdown after a passenger vehicle struck a security barrier. The U.S. Secret Service tweets that the vehicle “did not breach the security barrier of the White House complex.” No shots were fired during the incident, the Secret Service says.

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