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November 6, 2016

Do they still let you know the results of a jury?

I was on a jury for a post about 4 hours ago and have no idea if the post remained or not.

October 29, 2016

What is the longest running thread?

I nominate this one http://www.democraticunderground.com/120422985#post2

It started out as a 3 post thread back in 2012 with real DUers then months down the road all these brand new members all of sudden are communicating and replying to each other. They all seem to be bots strangest thread I've seen on DU.

September 12, 2016

Charleston Southern Debacle Shows Futility of NCAA Rules-And National Office Interpretations

Short Handed in Tallahassee

Charleston Southern University lost to the vaunted Florida State Seminoles on the football field last Saturday by a lopsided score of 52-8. That outcome is not a surprise. Even though Charleston Southern is a pretty solid football team at the FCS level, demonstrated by playing powerhouse North Dakota State tough a couple weeks ago in a loss, even coming close to FSU on the field would have been a major accomplishment. Considering the Buccaneers were not even at full strength-finishing with the score only being 52-8 and not worse is somewhat admirable.

Player Suspensions

Charleston Southern and several of its football athletes, 32 to be exact, unfortunately ran afoul of arbitrary and capricious NCAA extra benefit rules prior to the game last week when it was determined that several athletes had used leftover money from their scholarship book allowance to buy school supplies. Due to this “indiscretion,” all of these players received varying levels of suspensions and financial penalties, including 16 suspensions alone for the Florida State game. In addition, these extra purchases were apparently sanctioned or at least encouraged by the school. The campus bookstore was singled out by players as an entity that said for the players to spend the extra cash or it would disappear if they don’t. As silly as this sounds, by the letter of the law, I suppose it is an NCAA extra benefit violation and by the letter of the law there should be punishment based on the value received. Typically the NCAA assigns suspensions for monetary benefits based on $100 increments with each $100 in impermissible benefit counting for a game suspension. With that being said, the letter of the law should not apply here in any way.

Kudos to CSU for self-reporting its mistake and taking on obvious national embarrassment and ridicule, but in the end who are the ones really suffering here? Obviously it is the athletes and all involved and who love college sports must ask why? First off, why is it a violation to pocket extra financial aid money-regular students are allowed to do it all of the time? My daughter who is currently a freshman at Ohio University had an overage in her account and it was deposited in her bank account to spend on anything she desires. It was for all practical purposes her money because everything that needed to be paid for was paid for. What did she do with the extra money-ironically spent most of it on school supplies! The horror!

We can quibble that NCAA rules are made by the membership and a school or athlete must live by them. We can also try to justify that the NCAA national office in Indianapolis only enforces rules that the membership approves and accepts. On the surface that sounds true but in practice it is far from reality. The NCAA national office wields great authority to interpret said rules and regulations and the end result of an interpretation is often not so easy to determine or even it if it is correct. The NCAA national office has an army of legislative services employees who spend a lions share of their time on the phones and on the computer issuing interpretations of NCAA rules to the membership in all three divisions. These interpretations can vary widely and be diametrically different at times depending on who you contact or when you call. After all you just want someone to get you to yes, whether they are correct often doesn’t matter and often the NCAA is not correct. It just adds to the circus of an almost 500 page manual that has dozens of interpretations attached to every rule. The old Bagel being a snack, but adding cream cheese makes it meal is one of the most famous, and ridiculous NCAA interpretations of how many meals per day an athlete is allowed. Thankfully after years and years of thousands of food violations, the NCAA-led by the national office, completely deregulated the dreaded “food rules” and no one seems to care that we are actually feeding athletes a lot of food, and that Alabama can provide more food that Samford. We really do not care if Charleston Southern athletes used extra money for school supplies, and the NCAA should not either. It is a bad rule.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bdavidridpath/2016/09/12/charleston-southern-debacle-shows-futility-of-ncaa-rules-and-national-office-interpretations/#670c4a443ef5

June 29, 2015

Jordan proposed "Houthi sanctions"

at the UN Security Council (this is a really screwed up system only 4 or 5 permanent nations -- at-least balance there) and 10 temporary members with one that can sponsor stuff. At-this time it was Jordan which US & Saudi Arabia strongly favored the Houthi Sanctions. Basically no one can give them weapons, they are required to give up and release "political prisoners" which amazed me because how do they have political prisoners already but the hypocrisy & double standard of it with the Hadi Government is a top 5 corrupt country "kleptocracy" and with a very brutal human rights record that lock up people for being Houthi or a suspicious of being a Houthi loyalist as well as Sunnis in the South (the old North & South Yemen divide -- Saudi backed the north & the South was "socialist/marxist" backed by the USSR until the funds dried up and they reunificated followed by a "socialist purge" but not long after there was the 1994 Yemen Civil War -- basically civil wars since the 1960s). Also the former President who also happens to be Houthi was also sanctioned.

Russia was actually calling for both sanctions for all sides & humanitarian pauses in the Saudi airstrikes because they has been a problem with refugees trying to escape the country with all the bombing going on. Including US citizens. That was denied & Russia ended up abstaining from the vote which is effectively a "no vote" but the Houthi sanctions were passed (I imagine rather easily based on the lineup like Nigeria which is owned by Shell).

So we end up doing a lot to help the Saudi-coalition bomb them with American made top flight helicopters and planes which includes Jordan Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. All but Sudan (that I know of) receive US arms deals except Sudan (that i know of but somebody supplies them) as I imagine it would be incredibly controversial though the US media no longer covers them except to report George Clooney reporting a human rights violation (remember Rwanda?). Also everyone is sanctioned by the US (not referring to the UN-type), if you used your phone to order something from the US you can't deliver it to Sudan. They won't let you -- unless the company is willing to get hemmed up. So consider the financial incentive from the defense industry to push war because all those countries are going to need a refill of $1.5 million Lockheed Martin bombs dropped for one example.

On edit -- I don't know exactly what has been spent to "keep Houthis quiet" except maybe to send it to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to "silence them" but there has been a lot of rumbling in Yemen far outside the Houthis. What outrages Saudi Arabia is the religious minority they are specifically ramping up and targeting. They also don't like Socialism or anything that gives back money to the people. They are just like "Qatar's World Cup slaves" which is the status quo that the DoD and US oil companies are guilty of.

Southern Movement

The Southern Movement, sometimes known as the Southern Mobility Movement, Southern Separatist Movement, or South Yemen Movement, and colloquially known as al-Hirak (Arabic: الحراك الجنوبي? [1] is a popular movement active in the former South Yemen since 2007, demanding secession from the Republic of Yemen.

After the union between South Yemen and North Yemen on May 22, 1990, a civil war broke out in 1994, resulting in the defeat of the weakened southern armed forces and the expulsion of most of its leaders, including the former Secretary-General of the Yemeni Socialist party and the Vice-President of the unified Yemen, Ali Salim al-Beidh.[citation needed]

After the 1994 civil war and the national unity which followed, many southerners expressed grievance at perceived injustices against them which remained unaddressed for years. Their main accusations against the Yemeni government included widespread corruption, electoral fraud, and a mishandling of the power-sharing arrangement agreed to by both parties in 1990. The bulk of these claims were levelled at the ruling party based in Sana'a, led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh. This was the same accusation given by the former southern leaders which eventually led to the 1994 civil war.[citation needed]

Many southerners also felt that their land, home to the much of the country’s oil reserves and wealth, had been illegally appropriated by the rulers of North Yemen. Privately owned land was seized and distributed amongst individuals affiliated with the Sana'a government. Several hundred thousand military and civil employees from the south were forced into early retirement, and compensated with pensions below the sustenance level. Although such living standards and poverty was ripe throughout all parts of Yemen, many residents of the south felt that they were being intentionally targeted and dismissed from important posts, and being replaced with northern officials affiliated with the new government.[citation needed]

In May 2007, southern strife took a new turn. Grieving pensioners who had not been paid for years began to organise small demonstrations calling for equal rights and an end to the economic and political marginalization of the south. As the popularity of such protests grew and more people began to attend, the demands of the protests also developed. Eventually, calls were being made for the full secession of the south and the re-establishment of South Yemen as an independent state. The government's response to these protests was dismissive, labelling them as ‘apostates of the state’.[citation needed]

<snip>

The movement remains popular and is growing across the south of Yemen, especially in areas outside of the former capital Aden where government control is limited. In the mountainous region of Yafa - now termed the 'Free South' or الجنوب الحر - the rule of law is imposed by a network of tribes who have all pledged allegiance to the South Yemen Movement. Just minutes outside of Aden, flags of the former South Yemen can be seen raised in the open and graffitied upon many walls, a practice which has now been made illegal by the government. Many Northern Yemeni Houthi citizens involved with the 2011 Yemeni uprising against Saleh's government are trying to develop an alliance with the South Yemen Movement.[citation needed]

After the 2014–15 Yemeni coup d'état by the Houthis, Southern Movement demonstrators and militants seized control of government buildings in Aden, as well as Aden International Airport, where they hoisted the flag of South Yemen, and bloodlessly took over police checkpoints in Ataq. Officials in Aden Governorate and several others, including Hadhramaut Governorate, said they would no longer take orders from Sana'a as a result of the coup. The Southern Movement reportedly deployed armed fighters in and around Aden to counter a "possible attack".[2][3][4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Movement

The whole West area, especially Northwest is Houthi territory. The majority of the South are Sunni. You probably don't hear of them much though I imagine you hear a lot of AQAP which the area is a breeding ground for recruiting but outside of killing (Houthis) and plotting terrorist attacks in the West I'm not sure what their primary goals are in Yemen outside of finding recruits but the media has forgotten the Southern Movement which historically has supported populism (socialism & wahabbism don't mix hence Saudi Arabia) but it is the religious minority aspect of it that really outrages Saudi Arabia.

On edit -- the bold is what I added rather than what is on the Wikipedia page.

June 29, 2015

House of Saud when they made the deal with Roosevelt

in return for cheap oil they asked for the US to military protect them so defend them was part of the original agreement. Also to go to them first for their opinion to do something in the region which the very next President abandoned with Truman & Israel -- indicating his concerns were with "Justice not Oil"

What changed in the oil embargo, particularly was guns for oil. That especially poured gasoline on the fire. Not so much protect them which the US will answer the call to but the billions arms deals which they do what they do.

The Pakistan ISI stepped in for the Bahrain uprisings and assisted with the brutal crackdown of protestors -- hired thugs "mercenaries". US quietly sold them a weapons package during this crackdown, they reason quietly is because if it is under $1 million then the US doesn't need Congressional approval but no info (that I could find) how much was sold. Also the US lifted the freeze on Egypt while they were having mass trials handing out life sentences for attending a protest. I'm not sure the full details of the 70s but certainly the Pakistan ISI is very interesting. They organized, trained, and branded the Taliban and they are obviously involved in Al-Qaeda or they were but it is one country I really need to learn more about trying to figure out what is real and why? In any case I'm so glad there is a "trust deficit" I hear so much about.

(The title is wrong. The US was called a stepmother by the person asking the question -- a stepmother that is impossible please but don't know why or what or WTH we are doing over there though I'm willing to wager a get rich quick scheme is what it is we are doing because the war on terrorism stuff makes no sense logically particularly the source of the ideology but not to mention the human rights violations the Saudi-coalition is known for.

On edit -- I overlooked Kuwait but there was way more to that. Kuwait was the last of the Arabian Peninsula countries to refuse our "assistance", didn't want us there for the longest time until 1987 when they wanted the US flag on their flags to fly on their ships so it was on opportunity to become good friends, plus Saddam Hussein nationalized oil production in the 70s so it was an opportunity and this is where the primary staging territory is. CENTCOM is in Camp Arif Jan, Kuwait which is actually where I was stationed but nothing high up the food chain as I was in Zone 6 while the Olympic Sized Swimming Pool, mall, and top shelf gymnasium (where Obama "played ball with the troops" in his 2008 presidential campaign) and the 5 story building where CENTCOM is Zone 1.

Side story. I was in transportation, long haul semi convoys. We didn't transport weapons hardly ever because when we did there was a big show when we did which my Platoon Sergeant was tasked with the 1 weapons convoy. We changed every tire for a brand new tire, replaced every lock for a new lock all to drive the grand distance from Camp Arif Jan to Kuwaiti Naval Base which probably was exported to who the hell knows where or to some stockpile somewhere I have no idea.

April 11, 2015

Yes they do

Elizabeth Warren Wants HSBC Bankers Jailed for Money Laundering

In December, U.S. Justice Department officials announced that HSBC, Europe's largest bank, would pay a $1.92 billion fine after laundering $881 million for drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia. At the time, the Justice Department disputed accusations that it views some banks as too big to prosecute.

The two regulators, Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen and Federal Reserve Governor Jerome H. Powell, deflected Warren's questions, saying that criminal prosecutions are for the Justice Department to decide.

"If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're going to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life," an exasperated Warren said, as she wrapped up her questioning. "But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night - every single individual associated with this - and I just think that's fundamentally wrong."
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/03/elizabeth-warren-wants-hsbc-bankers-jailed-for-money-laundering/

Trafficking Lawsuit Against KBR for Wrongful Deaths in Iraq Dismissed

Families of 12 Nepali workers killed in Iraq in August 2004 have been denied permission by a federal judge to sue Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), the former subsidiary of Halliburton of Houston, in an abrupt reversal of a previous court decision.

The 12 men - Prakash Adhikari, Ramesh Khadka, Lalan Koiri, Mangal Limbu, Jeet Magar, Gyanendra Shrestha, Budham Sudi, Manoj Thakur, Sanjay Thakur, Bishnu Thapa, and Jhok Bahadur Thapa – were killed by militants of the Ansar al-Sunna Army.

The families say the workers were recruited by Daoud & Partners in Jordan to work in a luxury hotel in Amman and promised salaries of $500 a month. After arriving in Amman, the men were taken to Iraq in an unprotected caravan of vehicles on August 17, 2004 to work at the Al Asad base for KBR.

Before the Nepalese arrived at the base, they were ambushed and kidnapped by a group of armed men. On August 31, the captors sent out a video message showing the execution of the one of the 12 men with a message: "We have carried out the sentence of God against 12 Nepalese who came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians . . . believing in Buddha as their God." The bodies of the men were never found.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15921

A U.S. Fortress Rises in Baghdad:
Asian Workers Trafficked to Build World's Largest Embassy

John Owens didn’t realize how different his job would be from his last 27 years in construction until he signed on with First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting in November 2005. Working as general foreman, he would be overseeing an army of workers building the largest, most expensive and heavily fortified US embassy in the world. Scheduled to open in 2007, the sprawling complex near the Tigris River will equal Vatican City in size.

Not one of the five different US embassy sites he had worked on around the world compared to the mess he describes. Armenia, Bulgaria, Angola, Cameroon and Cambodia all had their share of dictators, violence and economic disruption, but the companies building the embassies were always fair and professional, he says. The Kuwait-based company building the $592-million Baghdad project is the exception. Brutal and inhumane, he says “I’ve never seen a project more fucked up. Every US labor law was broken.”

<snip>

He also complained of poor sanitation, squalid living conditions and medical malpractice in the labor camps where several thousand low-paid migrant workers lived. Those workers, recruited on the global labor market from the Philippines, India, Pakistan and other poor south Asian countries, earned as little as $10 to $30 a day.

<snip>

My March 2006, First Kuwaiti’s operation began looking even sketchier to Owens as he boarded a nondescript white jet on his way back to Baghdad following some R&R in Kuwait city. He remembers being surrounded by about 50 First Kuwaiti laborers freshly hired from the Philippines and India. Everyone was holding boarding passes to Dubai – not to Baghdad.

“I thought there was some sort of mix up and I was getting on the wrong plane,” says the 48-year-old Floridian who once worked as a fisherman with his father before moving into the construction business.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14173