03 November 19
Robert Reich | Facebook and Twitter Spread Trump's Lies, So We Must Break Them Up
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says he'll run political ads even if they are false. Jack Dorsey of Twitter says he'll stop running political ads altogether."
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The national debt is at an all-time high. (photo: The Hill)
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says he'll run political ads even if they are false. Jack Dorsey of Twitter says he'll stop running political ads altogether."
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The national debt is at an all-time high. (photo: The Hill)
teleSUR
Excerpt: "U.S. public debt has surpassed $23 trillion for the first time in history, rising more than 100 percent in less than a decade and more than a trillion dollars this year alone, according to Treasury Department figures released Friday."
.S. public debt has surpassed $23 trillion for the first time in history, rising more than 100 percent in less than a decade and more than a trillion dollars this year alone, according to Treasury Department figures released Friday.
Of the total, less than US$17 trillion is owed to individuals, while the remaining $6 trillion comes from loans within government agencies.
The figure marks a new record after the national debt reached US$22 billion dollars in February this year while the fiscal imbalance as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose from 3.8% in 2018 to 4.6% this year.
United States President, Donald Trump, who repeatedly criticized the deficit of his predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, looks now responsible of the U.S. deficit rising almost 50 percent in his first three years in office.
According to the head of The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Michael Peterson, "reaching a debt of US$23 billion on Halloween is a terrifying milestone for our economy and the next generation, but Washington shows no fear."
"Accumulating debts like this is especially reckless and unnecessary in a strong economy," he added.
U.S. debt began to rise after the 2008 financial crisis, but after Trump came to power it declined slightly. Thus, in January 2017, the national debt was estimated at $19,899 billion.
However, due to the fiscal reform, at the end of that year it started to grow again and by the end of 2018 it amounted to 21,974 billion dollars.
Representative Devin Nunes. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Whistleblower Willing to Answer Republicans' Questions in Impeachment Probe, Lawyer Says
Margaret Brennan, CBS News
Brennan writes: "A lawyer for the whistleblower who reported concerns about the president's dealings with Ukraine told CBS News he offered to have Republicans on the House Intelligence Community submit questions to his client directly without having to go through the committee's Democratic majority."
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People applaud Friday after the Pardon and Parole Board read the names of 527 Oklahoma inmates recommended for commutation at the Kate Barnard Correctional Center in Oklahoma City. (photo: Sarah Phipps/The Oklahoman/AP)
Margaret Brennan, CBS News
Brennan writes: "A lawyer for the whistleblower who reported concerns about the president's dealings with Ukraine told CBS News he offered to have Republicans on the House Intelligence Community submit questions to his client directly without having to go through the committee's Democratic majority."
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People applaud Friday after the Pardon and Parole Board read the names of 527 Oklahoma inmates recommended for commutation at the Kate Barnard Correctional Center in Oklahoma City. (photo: Sarah Phipps/The Oklahoman/AP)
Kim Bellware, The Washington Post
Bellware writes: "In a flurry of signatures Friday afternoon, Oklahoma moved one step closer to shucking its dubious distinction as the state with the highest incarceration rate in the United States."
In 2016, Oklahoma voters approved State Question 780 and 781, a pair of ballot measures that reclassified certain simple drug possession and nonviolent property crimes under $1,000 as misdemeanors instead of felonies and mandated that the cost savings would go to drug treatment and rehabilitation services. In January, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers voted to make the 2016 laws apply retroactively.
The commutations are just a fraction of the state’s 26,334-person state prison population, but they mean a second chance for the hundreds of incarcerated people who will be freed as a result.
Stitt, who campaigned on reducing the prison population, noted that on Monday night, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections will have “about 2,000 empty beds in our system.” The figure prompted an attendee at the news conference to call out, “Amen!”
Hand delivering 524 signed commutations to be processed in time for the release of hundreds of non-violent, low-level inmates across our state on Monday. Thank you to the dedicated Oklahomans who made this historic step towards criminal justice reform possible! #OklaProud
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On Friday, the first day the retroactive law took effect, 814 prisoners applied for commutation consideration, according to the state Pardon and Parole Board. The state said the mass commutations will save taxpayers an estimated $11.9 million based on costs projected if the eligible prisoners served their full sentences.
But a third factor Steele identifies is more stark: Oklahoma’s incarceration rate is more than 10 times that of Canada, according to the Tulsa-based nonprofit think tank Oklahoma Policy Institute, meaning more than 1 in 100 Oklahoma adults is locked up at any given time.
Former DeKalb Police Officer Robert Olsen stands during his arraignment in Decatur, Georgia. (photo: Branden Camp/AP)
White Ex-Officer Gets 12 Years for Shooting Dead Naked Black Man
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "A former police officer in the US state of Georgia who was convicted of aggravated assault and other crimes in the fatal shooting of an unarmed, naked man was sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison."
EXCERPT:
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "A former police officer in the US state of Georgia who was convicted of aggravated assault and other crimes in the fatal shooting of an unarmed, naked man was sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison."
EXCERPT:
Against a backdrop of white officers around the country frequently not being charged or convicted after shooting black men, Olsen's trial overlapped with the trials of two other white police officers who shot unarmed black men.
A jury in Dallas found former officer Amber Guyger guilty of murder in the shooting of Botham Jean. Guyger testified that she mistook Jean's apartment for her own, which was one floor below, and that she thought he was a burglar in her home. She was convicted October 1 and was sentenced to serve 10 years in prison.
A few days later, on October 5, a southeast Georgia jury found a white former police officer who fatally shot a fleeing, unarmed black man not guilty on charges of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter. Jurors did find Zechariah Presley guilty of violating his oath of office in the 2018 shooting of Tony Green in coastal Camden County, near the Georgia-Florida state line. Presley was sentenced to serve a year in prison.
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An indigenous leader holds a gun during a search for illegal loggers in Brazil. (photo: Reuters)
Illegal Loggers Kill Amazon Indigenous Warrior Who Guarded Forest, Wound Another
Reuters
Excerpt: "Illegal loggers in the Amazon ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest and shot dead a young warrior and wounded another, leaders of the Guajajara tribe in northern Brazil said on Saturday."
Reuters
Excerpt: "Illegal loggers in the Amazon ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest and shot dead a young warrior and wounded another, leaders of the Guajajara tribe in northern Brazil said on Saturday."
Illegal loggers in the Amazon ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest and shot dead a young warrior and wounded another, leaders of the Guajajara tribe in northern Brazil said on Saturday.
Paulo Paulino Guajajara, or Lobo (which means ‘wolf’ in Portuguese), was hunting on Friday inside the Arariboia reservation in Maranhao state when he was attacked and shot in the head. Another Guajajara, Laercio, was wounded but escaped, they said.
The clash comes amid an increase in invasions of reservations by illegal loggers and miners since right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro took office this year and vowed to open up protected indigenous lands to economic development.
“The Bolsonaro government has indigenous blood on its hands,” Brazil’s pan-indigenous organization APIB, which represents many of the country’s 900,000 native people, said in a statement on Saturday.
“The increase in violence in indigenous territories is a direct result of his hateful speeches and steps taken against our people,” APIB said.
APIB leader Sonia Guajajara said the government was dismantling environmental and indigenous agencies, and leaving tribes to defend themselves from invasion of their lands.
“It’s time to say enough of this institutionalized genocide,” she said in a post on Twitter.
Brazil’s federal police said they had sent a team to investigate the circumstances of Paulino Guajajara’s death. APIB said his body was still lying in the forest where he was killed.
The Guajajaras, one of Brazil's largest indigenous groups with some 20,000 people, set up the Guardians of the Forest here in 2012 to patrol a vast reservation. The area is so large that a small and endangered tribe, the Awá Guajá, lives deep in the forest without any contact with the outside world.
Paulino Guajajara, who was in his twenties and leaves behind one son, told Reuters in an interview here on the reservation in September that protecting the forest from intruders had become a dangerous task, but his people could not give in to fear.
“I’m scared at times, but we have to lift up our heads and act. We are here fighting,” he said, as he and other warriors prepared to move through the forest towards a logging camp.
“We are protecting our land and the life on it, the animals, the birds, even the Awá who are here too,” Paulino Guajajara said at the time. “There is so much destruction of Nature happening, good trees with wood as hard as steel being cut down and taken away.”
“We have to preserve this life for our children’s future,” he said.
Protesters gather outside the White House to protest President Trump's decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate change accord. (photo: Susan Walsh/AP)
Trump Now Has Opening to Pull US Out of Paris Climate Pact
Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
Borenstein writes: "For more than two years President Donald Trump has talked about pulling the United States out of the landmark Paris climate agreement. Starting Monday he finally can do something about it."
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Seth Borenstein, Associated Press
Borenstein writes: "For more than two years President Donald Trump has talked about pulling the United States out of the landmark Paris climate agreement. Starting Monday he finally can do something about it."
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