AZProgressive
AZProgressive's JournalChristine Blasey Ford: 'I Am Grateful To Have Had The Opportunity To Fulfill My Civic Duty'
The college professor who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault spoke out in a rare post.
By Alanna Vagianos
11/26/2018 02:35 PM ET
In a post on GoFundMe thanking her supporters, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford shared what her life has been like since she accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
Although coming forward was terrifying, and caused disruption to our lives, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to fulfill my civic duty, Ford wrote in a post published to the fundraising site last Wednesday.
Having done so, I am in awe of the many women and men who have written me to share similar life experiences, and now have bravely shared their experience with friends and family, many for the first time, she continued. I send you my heartfelt love and support.
A group of supporters created the GoFundMe page last month to help defray the cost of security and other unexpected expenses Ford has faced since she accused Kavanaugh in September of sexually assaulting her when the two were in high school. The fundraiser easily surpassed its initial goal of $150,000 and, as of Monday afternoon, had raised over $647,000 for Ford and her family.
https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5bfc3dade4b0eb6d931276cf/amp
Arizona State WR N'Keal Harry declares for 2019 NFL Draft
TEMPE, Ariz. Arizona State receiver NKeal Harry will forego his senior season and enter the 2019 NFL Draft, he announced on Monday.
This has been a great ride. This has been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, something that Ill take with me the rest of my life, Harry said.
This definitely was not an easy decision. I truly do love this university. This place has given me opportunities Ive only dreamt of, he added. I really feel like Im leaving this place as a grown man.
Harry, who ESPNs Todd McShay has projected as a first-round pick in 2019, has yet to decide if he will play in the Sun Devils upcoming bowl game.
(Snip)
I always side on the side of the player, Edwards said. Im going to do whats best for the football player every time.
http://arizonasports.com/story/1750467/arizona-state-wr-nkeal-harry-declares-2019-nfl-draft/amp/
How Loneliness Is Tearing America Apart
When people have a hole in their life, they often fill it with angry politics.
Arthur C. Brooks
By Arthur C. Brooks
Mr. Brooks is the president of the American Enterprise Institute.
America is suffering an epidemic of loneliness.
According to a recent large-scale survey from the health care provider Cigna, most Americans suffer from strong feelings of loneliness and a lack of significance in their relationships. Nearly half say they sometimes or always feel alone or left out. Thirteen percent of Americans say that zero people know them well. The survey, which charts social isolation using a common measure known as the U.C.L.A. Loneliness Scale, shows that loneliness is worse in each successive generation.
This problem is at the heart of the new book Them: Why We Hate Each Other and How to Heal, by Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska. Mr. Sasse argues that loneliness is killing us, citing, among other things, the skyrocketing rates of suicide and overdose deaths in America. This year, 45,000 Americans will take their lives, and more than 70,000 will die from drug overdoses.
Mr. Sasses assertion that loneliness is killing us takes on even darker significance in the wake of the mail-bomb campaign against critics of President Trump and the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, both of which were perpetrated by isolated and apparently very lonely men. Mr. Sasses book was published before these events, but he presciently described what he believes lonely people increasingly do to fill the hole of belonging in their lives: They turn to angry politics.
In the siloed, or isolated, worlds of cable television, ideological punditry, campus politics and social media, people find a sense of community in the polarized tribes forming on the left and the right in America. Essentially, people locate their sense of us through the contempt peddled about them on the other side of the political spectrum.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/opinion/loneliness-political-polarization.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Colombia has been in a civil war though I think it ended
Ever since this happened.
Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala (January 23, 1903 April 9, 1948) was a politician, a leader of a populist movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister (1940) and Labor Minister (19431944), mayor of Bogotá (1936) and one of the most charismatic leaders of the Liberal Party. He was assassinated during his second presidential campaign in 1948, setting off the Bogotazo[2] and leading to a violent period of political unrest in Colombian history known as La Violencia (approx. 1948 to 1958).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Eliécer_Gaitán
I'd have to research more but I think there were a lot of privitazed armies. US taking sides. Venezuela taking sides.
Do you watch movies?
A lot of video games have a plot and I'm not sure what autism has to do with it as plenty of people play video games. The average age is 35. I believe one of the site administrators plays video games.
?w=420
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/11/younger-men-play-video-games-but-so-do-a-diverse-group-of-other-americans/ft_17-09-11_videogames_youngeramericans/
I never had autism myself.
Anti-slavery amendment passed, but faced resistance in rural Colorado
Coloradans had a rare opportunity to take a stand against slavery. Even in 2018, there are still holdouts.
The proposed constitutional amendment to abolish slavery as a criminal punishment received more than 765,000 votes against it. The likely reasons were a combination of misinformation, a lack of outreach in rural areas and a fear of going soft on crime. Despite passing, the opposition was widespread: the majority of voters in 26 counties opposed the constitutional amendment.
Our reach was very limited, said Kamau Allen, a spokesman for Abolish Slavery Colorado, the group that pushed the amendment. So we didnt have as many coalition people out there as we did at other locations in the state.
The measure, called Amendment A, had a straightforward purpose: Get rid of archaic language in the state constitution that allows slavery and involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime.
The amendment passed with 65 percent support statewide. Another 35 percent of voters rejected the amendment, according to Secretary of State results.
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/11/09/slavery-abolished-colorado-election/amp/
Mom of Calif. shooting victim: "I don't want prayers... I want gun control"
https://m.Voting is so simple and secure in other countries
How Estonia Secures Its Electronic Elections From Kremlin Attacks
Americans fret a lot about the threat of a crippling cyber attack. But the small European country of Estonia lived through one, a 2007 Kremlin-led effort to destabilize the country by attacking government websites. Yet the experience only strengthened Estonians resolve to extend digital service to its people, most notably electronic voting.
Just two years before Russias attack, Estonia began a pilot program that essentially allows its citizens to vote from home or work. To many Americans, this seems to promise a solution to increasingly common election-day problems: long lines, fewer polling places, uneven hours, etc. Some 25 U.S. states are experimenting with some form of e-voting for military service members. But most U.S. citizens cant do it, despite polls showing a strong preference for it, particularly among young voters.
The Estonians havent had any major problems with e-voting, thanks to pioneering approaches to securing elections and keeping digital records that have made its government a best-practices showcase. But not all of them are easily transferable to the United States.
To begin, everybody in Estonia has a unique national identification number, similar to a social security number. Your vote is tied to your personal Identification number but kept away from the prying eyes of politicians and election officials, unless theres a certain incident where they have to see what happened in one precinct or another. In any case, its secure, Erki Kodar, Undersecretary for Legal and Admin Affairs at the Estonian Defense Ministry, said during a recent visit to his countrys embassy in Washington, D.C
That state-issued number works alongside a personal identification number chosen by each citizen. The two, together, form a lock and key relationship, authenticating one another. You log into the system with your state ID number and your PIN. Result: theres no question of whether someone should be disqualified because of a dubious signature discrepancy. Instead, an individual uses their secret PIN with their state ID number to verify who they are. In the sense of your PIN number, thats your digital signature, said Kodar.
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2018/11/how-estonia-secures-its-electronic-elections-kremlin-attacks/152582/
I'll Never Forget Brett Kavanaugh's Anger
I saw a frightening side of him in 1998. I saw it again at the Christine Blasey Ford hearing 20 years later.
By Judi Hershman
Nov. 5, 2018 6:20 PM
Back in the 1990s, when my last name was Nardella, I was a mother of two living in a Virginia suburb of Washington, working as a Republican fundraiser. Through community engagement and charity work, I met Alice and Ken Starr. The Starrs, in turn, introduced me to the head of a Dallas-based strategic communications firm, Merrie Spaeth, and around 1997, Spaeth hired me to run her boutique D.C. office. Starr was then serving as the independent counsel investigating the relationship between Bill Clinton and a White House intern, and in 1998, Spaeth and I were charged with helping prep Starr to present his history-making report to Congress. In the course of our work, I met one of his teams key lawyers, 33-year-old Brett Kavanaugh.
One day, after a group meeting in the independent counsels offices, I was alone in the conference room, walking around the table and gathering up materials. The door opened, and someone came in. I dont believe I looked up to see who it wasI just assumed that somebody had forgotten something. In what seemed like a split second, Kavanaugh had come around to my side of the table and was invading my space, badgering me in a way that I didnt understand. I changed directions around the table and kept moving. He followed on my heels.
Heres how I remember our interaction:
Him (very angry): You are going to tell me exactly who you are and why you are here.
Me: I am here at the invitation of Judge Starr, and he shared with the group who I am and why Im here.
Him (pointing a finger in my face, I can feel his breath): No. Im telling you
Me (defiant stance): And Im telling you to go talk to Judge Starr.
I didnt know what prompted the confrontation at the time, and I still dont. He couldnt have possibly thought I was a spy, because he knew who I waswe had met before and been in each others company several times since.
https://amp.slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/brett-kavanaugh-ken-starr-heidi-heitkamp-republican-campaign-democrat.html
"Misery Mountain": Violence plagued West Virginia prison before Whitey Bulger killing
An independent government commission found that United States Penitentiary Hazelton, near the state's border with Maryland in Bruceton Mills, has been overcrowded for years. Inmates have repeatedly expressed concerns about their safety at the high-security prison, which houses 1,270 male inmates. A 2016 report from the District of Columbia's Corrections Information Council said that prisoners warned officials, "Inmates can lose their lives quickly here."
According to news reports, the penitentiary has garnered a grim nickname among inmates: "Misery Mountain."
(Snip)
Justin Tarovisky, executive vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 420, which represents Hazelton prison guards, said Bulger's death "outlines how dangerous this prison is." The union voiced its concerns about staffing in a picket outside the prison as far back as 2015.
The letter sent to Sessions last week by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; Pat Toomey, R-Pa.; Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.; and Bob Casey, D-Pa.; and Rep. Bill Schuster, R-Pa., said Congress had provided additional funding to ensure there would be at least two corrections officers on duty in each housing unit for each shift and that the policy was "not being enforced as intended." The legislators said they were concerned that the Bureau of Prisons hasn't followed Congress' direction to curtail "its overreliance on augmentation, particularly in housing units."
A hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration has left the agency short-staffed and some already overloaded federal prisons have been housing immigration detainees in recent months as well.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/whitey-bulger-dead-misery-mountain-violence-plagued-west-virginia-prison-hazelton/
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