Blue Shoes
Blue Shoes's JournalUber Driver Saves 16-Year-Old Girl From Sex Trafficking
Source: NBC
Once Avila dropped them off at the hotel, he called the police.
"The worst thing I thought would happen when driving Uber is that I would be getting drunk passengers and I would have to handle them," Avila, 34, who is also a quinceañera photographer, told NBC Latino. "All my life, I thought about people throwing up in the car as the worst scenario."
Avila started streaming to Facebook LIVE once the police arrived. His reaction to breaking up a child sex trafficking ring had been viewed more than 119,000 times as of Thursday afternoon
Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/uber-driver-saves-16-year-old-girl-sex-trafficking-n701241
Paula White, prosperity preacher once investigated by Senate, is a controversial pick for inaugurati
Source: Washington Post
After Donald Trump’s inaugural committee announced its chosen clergy to The Washington Post on Wednesday, the dissent was quieter — and it was not about political issues, but theological ones.
What little criticism emerged on Wednesday mostly focused on one of the six clergy members who will pray at Trump’s inauguration: Paula White, a Florida-based televangelist who has long been close to Trump.
White is known for embracing the prosperity gospel — the theology that God will bless true believers not just with eternal salvation but with material wealth here on Earth. To many believers, the prosperity gospel offers hope and promise. But to other Christians, it’s heretical; and to some, prosperity gospel preachers’ motives are suspect, especially when they seem to be enriching themselves by asking for money from their followers.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/12/29/paula-white-prosperity-preacher-once-investigated-by-senate-is-a-controversial-pick-for-inauguration-prayer/?utm_term=.121ebaa13f14
Philippines' Duterte calls U.S. envoys 'spies' over alleged ouster plot
Source: Reuters
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte derided U.S. ambassadors as "spies" on Thursday, responding to a media report of an alleged American plot to destabilize his government, a job he said some envoys were appointed solely to do.
The volatile former mayor said though had received no intelligence reports of any U.S. plan to undermine his presidency, he believed most ambassadors were in cahoots with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which had a track record of meddling in other countries' affairs.
The Manila Times newspaper on Tuesday reported a former U.S. ambassador to the Philippines had prepared a "blueprint to undermine Duterte", citing a document it had received from a what it described as a "highly placed source". (bit.ly/2hhzEGk)
The U.S. State Department has described the allegations as "false".
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-duterte-usa-idUSKBN14I14R
After states legalized medical marijuana, traffic deaths fell
Legalization of medical marijuana is not linked with increased traffic fatalities, a new study finds. In some states, in fact, the number of people killed in traffic accidents dropped after medical marijuana laws were enacted.
“Instead of seeing an increase in fatalities, we saw a reduction, which was totally unexpected,” said Julian Santaella-Tenorio, the study’s lead author and a doctoral student at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.
Since 1996, 28 states have legalized marijuana for medical use.
Deaths dropped 11 percent on average in states that legalized medical marijuana, researchers discovered after analyzing 1.2 million traffic fatalities nationwide from 1985 through 2014.
source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-marijuana-traffic-death-idUSKBN14H1LQ
South Carolina church shooter seeks to keep mental health evidence from jury
Source: Yahoo News
CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - Dylann Roof, the man convicted in a church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, asked a judge on Wednesday to keep details about his mental health sealed for the sentencing phase of his federal death penalty trial next week.
Roof, a 22-year-old avowed white supremacist, was found guilty on Dec. 15 on 33 charges of federal hate crimes resulting in death, obstruction of religion and firearms violations stemming from the June 2015 massacre of nine people at a historic black church.
The same jury that heard six days of testimony about the bloodshed at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church will reconvene on Tuesday for the trial's penalty phase.
Roof, handcuffed and wearing a prison jumpsuit, smiled and answered "yes" when U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel asked if he still planned to serve as his own lawyer as prosecutors make the case that he should be executed instead of spending the rest of his life in prison without parole.
Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/charleston-church-shooter-offer-no-evidence-jury-weighing-164325893.html
Trump accuses Obama of putting up roadblocks to a smooth transition
Source: Washington Post
After having repeatedly praised President Obama’s efforts to ensure a smooth transition, President-elect Donald Trump reversed course on Wednesday, accusing the current occupant of the Oval Office of putting “roadblocks” in his way.
Trump took to Twitter shortly after 9 a.m., saying he was “doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.”
“Thought it was going to be a smooth transition — NOT!” the Republican president-elect wrote.
The White House declined to comment on Trump's tweets.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/12/28/trump-accuses-obama-of-putting-up-roadblocks-to-a-smooth-transition/
Trumps Homeland Security Pick Falsely Claimed Narcoterrorism Has Killed 500,000 Americans
Source: The Intercept
While Trump continues to regularly contradict his own supposed views on U.S. foreign policy, his approach to the U.S. southern border is clear. He talked a lot about building a wall while running for president. Since winning, he’s repeatedly emphasized the seriousness of his promise.
...
John Kelly, the retired Marine general who Trump has chosen to lead the Department of Homeland Security, has his own pattern of exaggerating the border threat. Between 2012 and his retirement in early 2016, Kelly served as head of U.S. Southern Command. In this role, he coordinated all U.S. forces in the Western Hemisphere south of Mexico, including the Caribbean and Guantánamo, which is home to the hemisphere’s largest overseas U.S. military base. As Obama trimmed the military’s budget with the sequester, and prioritized Asia and the Middle East over the relatively peaceful Western Hemisphere, Kelly complained that the budget cuts were undermining regional security.
In a 2014 interview, he said that the flow of drugs and instability in Latin America posed an “existential” threat to the United States. During a March 2015 hearing before the Senate Armed Service Committee, Sen. Mike Lee. R-Utah, asked him to explain why the southern border posed such a large threat. Kelly responded with these words:
...
Kelly’s second claim to the Senate committee, that 500,000 Americans “have died from narcoterrorism” since 9/11, is a significant exaggeration. The real number of Americans who have died of post-9/11 terrorism in all its forms is well under 1,000, according to a 2014 study that was supported by the Department of Homeland Security. And at least one-third of the 40,000 killed by drugs annually do not die, as Kelly claimed, from drugs coming into the U.S. across the southern border, but from overdoses of legally prescribed opioids. Almost all of the profits from those addicts flow not to drug cartels but to pharmaceutical companies. Sales of legal opioids have quadrupled since 1999, particularly in those white, rural areas of the country where Trump’s support is strongest.
Read more: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/27/trumps-homeland-security-pick-falsely-claimed-narcoterrorism-has-killed-500000-americans/
Exxon Mobil Is Fighting to Keep Its Dangerous Chemicals in Childrens Toys
Source: The Intercept
Among Exxon Mobil’s chemical products are phthalates, a family of chemicals widely used to make plastic pliable. Phthalates are in everything from food containers and plastic wrap to rattles, pacifiers, bottle nipples, and teething toys for babies. More than 75 percent of Americans have at least five of the chemicals in their body, according to a 2000 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Exxon Mobil insists its products pose no harm. In response to inquiries for this story, the company emailed a statement to The Intercept saying that “Exxon Mobil phthalates have been thoroughly tested, and evaluations by multiple government agencies in the U.S., EU, and Australia show they are safe in their current applications.” (The email also included a link to the company’s webpage on the health and environmental impacts of phthalates.) But numerous independent studies have linked the chemicals to health problems, including cancer, neurodevelopmental effects, endocrine disruption, and adverse harm to the male reproductive system.
Given the risks, Congress permanently banned several phthalates in 2008, temporarily banned a few others, and directed the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) to study whether several other phthalates should also be removed from kids’ products. The law required the CPSC to act within 180 days of its final decision.
...
“Exxon has been sending letters, having meetings, they’re just constantly in CPSC’s face in a way designed to suggest that, if you go the wrong way on this, we’re going to sue you,” said Eve Gartner, an attorney with Earthjustice. Gartner and a few other environmental advocates try to attend these meetings whenever possible, but they describe being outgunned by the big company’s lobbying efforts.
Read more: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/20/exxonmobil-is-fighting-to-keep-its-dangerous-chemicals-in-childrens-toys/
I forget which company Trumps SoS used to work for, but surely they must be extremely ethical for him to even be considered. /s
Trumps Pick for Interior Secretary Was Caught in Pattern of Fraud at SEAL Team 6
Source: The Intercept
A Montana lawmaker tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be secretary of the interior committed travel fraud when he was a member of the elite Navy SEAL Team 6, according to three former unit leaders and a military consultant.
In announcing the nomination of Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, a retired Navy SEAL commander, Trump praised his military background. “As a former Navy SEAL, he has incredible leadership skills and an attitude of doing whatever it takes to win,” Trump said last week.
...
Two SEAL officers investigated Zinke’s records and discovered a yearslong “pattern of travel fraud,” according to two of the sources. When confronted about the trips, Zinke acknowledged that he spent the time repairing and restoring a home in Whitefish, Montana, and visiting his mother, according to two retired SEAL Team 6 leaders. The future lawmaker eventually told SEAL leaders that the Montana house was where he intended to live after he retired from the Navy.
After Zinke was caught and warned, he continued to travel home and submit the expenses to the Navy. The offense would normally have been serious enough to have ended Zinke’s career, but senior officers at SEAL Team 6 did not formally punish him. Zinke could have been referred for criminal charges, or subjected to a nonjudicial proceeding that would have censured him, likely removing him from the unit. Neither of those things happened, and he was allowed to finish his assignment at the elite unit.
Read more: https://theintercept.com/2016/12/20/trumps-pick-for-interior-secretary-was-caught-in-pattern-of-fraud-at-seal-team-6/
Look ANOTHER swindler in the Trump administration.
Texas blocked from requiring burial for fetus remains, judge rules
Source: CBS
A federal judge on Thursday blocked until at least next month hotly debated Texas rules mandating burial or cremation of fetal remains that were set to go into effect within days.
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The lawsuit argues that the rules serve no medical purpose and are meant to shame women who seek abortions and make it harder for doctors to provide them.
Sparks granted a temporary restraining order blocking the rules, then scheduled two days of testimony for early next month. He expects to rule by Jan. 6 on whether they will be allowed to stand going forward.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-blocked-burial-cremation-fetus-remains-judge-rules/
A little bit of good news, if this ends up like the previous law, it'll get struck down fast.
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