Journalist critical of Argentina's Macri found dead

Martín Licata, an Argentine investigative journalist who had been missing since Saturday, was found dead in a Buenos Aires hotel today.

Licata, 27, had been reported missing Saturday morning from his home in Buenos Aires' westside. Police confirmed earlier today that the body of a man found Saturday afternoon in a small, nearby hotel was in fact Licata's.

According to official sources, his body had been found by cleaning staff that day. He was found handcuffed and garroted with a rubber braid attached to a piece of wood around the neck.

A young woman seen entering the hotel with Licata around 11:30 a.m. and leaving two hours later, remains at large.

"Martín left home at nine in the morning," his mother Mónica Ibáñez had told the Télam news agency. "It's not common for him to leave at that time on a Saturday. When he does it's because he has a meeting at work or is going to interview someone."

Licata wrote for two online news journals and a magazine - all of them critical of the right-wing Mauricio Macri administration. He had recently reported receiving threats through his Facebook account and was physically attacked two months ago by unknown assailants.

His death comes just one day after that of labor lawyer Juan Pablo Labaké, 59, who reportedly fell from his office window on the fifth floor of a downtown building. His father, Juan Gabriel Labaké, is an attorney representing survivors of the 1994 AMIA boming, and a prominent critic of the both the Argentine and Israeli governments' handling of the as-yet unsolved incident, which killed 85.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eldestapeweb.com%2Fencontraron-muerto-al-periodista-martin-licata-n52374&edit-text=

Martín Licata, 1991-2018.

Licata had written numerous investigative pieces on alleged corruption by the Macri administration.

McMurray will not concede to Collins, citing 'extensive irregularities'

Source: Buffalo News

Citing “extensive irregularities in the voting process,” Democrat Nate McMurray is not conceding defeat to Republican incumbent Chris Collins in the 27th Congressional District election.

Now McMurray says he will announce his next step on Monday, noting a vote difference with Collins of 0.5 percent that he says would trigger an automatic recount in many counties and states.

“We have seen extensive irregularities in the voting process, especially pertaining to absentee ballots, and there are issues that need to be addressed not only for this election but for all elections in the future to ensure voters are not disenfranchised and that every voice is heard,” he said.

“With this election, we are setting the stage for years to come.”

Read more: https://buffalonews.com/2018/11/21/mcmurray-will-not-concede-to-collins-citing-extensive-irregularities/

Nate McMurray: Facing a counting process as crooked as Chris Collins.

GOP Senate candidate Cindy Hyde-Smith, who made 'lynching' joke, seen wearing Confederate gear

Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith’s first-round victory in the special election for the Senate seat in Mississippi has hit a number of obstacles in the final weeks, leading up to her November 27, runoff against Democrat Mike Espy.

Cindy Hyde-Smith made a “lynching” joke a couple of weeks ago Hyde-Smith, exposing a variety of corporate interests for their support of white supremacy and leading donors such as Wal Mart to recall their donations to her campaign.

She then “joked” about suppressing black people’s vote in Mississippi. Cindy Hyde-Smith’s newest bit of news is a Facebook post she wrote back in 2014, touring Confederate “president” Jefferson Davis’s home.

I enjoyed my tour of Beauvoir. The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library located in Biloxi. This is a must see. Currently on display are artifacts connected to the daily life of the Confederate Soldier including weapons. Mississippi history at its best!

Cindy Hyde-Smith in Confederate battle gear. She ain't whistling Dixie.

Federal investigators pinpoint what caused string of Massachusetts gas explosions

On an afternoon last September, a string of explosions suddenly hit Merrimack Valley, Mass. At least five homes were destroyed and a person was killed. More than 20 others were injured.

Federal investigators say they have now pinpointed what caused the sudden explosions on Sept. 13 — a natural gas company field engineer made a major mistake in the plans he developed for construction work that happened earlier that day, resulting in a disastrous chain reaction.

After the incident, authorities immediately suggested it was caused by a problem with the natural gas distribution system, ultimately resulting in damage to some 131 structures.

In the Safety Recommendation Report released Wednesday by the National Transportation Safety Board, investigators found that on the day of the explosions, Columbia Gas of Massachusetts had been in the process of installing a new plastic distribution main to replace an old cast-iron one.

But, according to the report, the crew abandoned the old main with regulator-sensing lines still in it. The regulator-sensing lines were part of a system that controlled the gas network's pressure.

At: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/16/668612558/federal-investigators-pinpoint-what-caused-string-of-gas-explosions-in-mass?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2045&fbclid=IwAR2tmycM0LcnMb5-QYJkyx7GPXQ1kJN0By55b0OKUewfdc6I1qfmQ0VqiYo

G-20 countersummit kicks off in Buenos Aires

Several former Latin American presidents and progressive political activists are on hand in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to hold the First Forum of Critical Thinking, eleven days before the G20 summit begins on November 30.

The November 19-23 summit is organized by the Rio de Janeiro-based Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO), and its current director, Argentine born Pablo Gentili.

Given the list of participants and their largely populist ideology, the meeting is widely considered this year's “G20 countersummit.” Organizers, however, noted that the event had been scheduled long in advance and is mainly academic.

The keynote speakers include former presidents Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Argentina), José Mujica (Uruguay), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), Ernesto Samper (Colombia), and Bolivia's current Vice President Álvaro García Linera.

Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who was ousted in a 2016 parliamentary coup, will address “Democracy, Citizenry, and the State of Exception (emergency),” while 2018 Brazilian Workers Party (PT) nominees Fernando Haddad and Manuela Davila will discuss their recent experience in elections won on October 28 won by fascist President-elect Jair Bolsonaro.

Former Argentine President Cristina Kirchner will address “Capitalism, Neoliberalism, and the Crisis of Democracy.”

Kirchner, 65, is widely expected to run next year against right-wing Argentine President Mauricio Macri or his stand-in amid an ongoing economic crisis. Polls show her winning by around 10 points in a hypothetical matchup.

Other figures headlining the event include Estela Barnes de Carlotto, head of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo; former Bogotá mayor and Colombian presidential candidate Gustavo Petro; the chairman of the Spain's Podemos, Juan Carlos Monedero; Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel; and former Spanish magistrate and human rights activist Baltasar Garzón.

The Critical Thinking summit recalls the 2005 Summit of the Americas in the Argentine seaside city of Mar del Plata, when efforts by U.S. President George W. Bush to convince his Latin American peers to adopt ALCA, a free trade area of the Americas, failed.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.baenegocios.com%2Fpolitica%2FCristina-y-Dilma-al-frente-de-la-contracumbre-del-G20-20181118-0035.html&edit-text=

Keynote speakers Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (Argentina), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), José Mujica (Uruguay), Fernando Haddad (Brazil), and Álvaro García Linera (Bolivia).

Georgia 7th: Bourdeaux to request recount

Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux said Friday she plans to request a recount in Georgia’s 7th Congressional District, where she appears to have been narrowly defeated by Republican incumbent Rob Woodall.

The Georgia State University professor trailed Woodall by 419 votes, about 0.14% of votes cast, as the state prepared to certify its election results on Friday evening.

“It is crucial that every eligible vote is counted and every voice is heard,” Bourdeaux spokesman Jake Best said. “We want to make sure every vote was counted correctly and fairly, and that is why we intend to request a recount of this race.”

Georgia code allows a losing candidate down by less than 1 percent of the vote to request a taxpayer-funded recount within two business days of the election results being finalized by the state.

The exact timing of a recount was unclear. A spokeswoman for the Secretary of State, which is charged with directing recounts, did not immediately respond to an inquiry.

At: https://politics.myajc.com/blog/politics/georgia-7th-bourdeaux-request-recount/1OypCb9FHHe3e7dJkZNt3N/

Democratic candidate Carolyn Bourdeaux: Still in the fight.

New video provides proof of cellular modems in Florida voting machines

n the past few days, election integrity activists got up close to the current generation of ES&S voting machines — close enough to record video of a digital scanner voting machine sending results wirelessly.

The ability of the machines to communicate with the outside world has generally not been acknowledged by either the manufacturer or election officials. Yet this wireless link is at the heart of concerns that election results could be hacked or manipulated, “including attacks that could change vote totals and election results,” said Emily Levy, director of communications at the voting transparency group AUDIT-USA.

Almost two decades after its starring role in the 2000 Bush v. Gore Florida voting debacle, the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office is still the centerfold for election integrity issues — not just in Florida but in the country as a whole.

John Brakey, director of AUDIT-USA, recorded the wireless transmission of election results from an ES&S DS200 digital scanner voting machine at a Broward County polling place on Election Day.

In the videos, Brakey confirms that modems are installed in the DS200 voting machine and that they operate with a wireless antenna. He observed one as it successfully transmitted the results to the election management system, a program on a central computer at the election department that tabulates the results.

“A vulnerability like this means there is no secure chain of custody for election materials in Broward County or any other county that has modems inside or connected to their election systems,” Levy said. “That means we can’t trust the official election results produced by those voting systems.”

Levy said the only way to verify an election with vulnerabilities created by these types of voting machines would be to do a manual hand count of all paper ballots.

But the bigger problem is that this type of recount is currently not permitted. “A recount of all the paper ballots is actually illegal in the state of Florida,” Levy said.

At: https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/11/14/new-video-provides-proof-of-cellular-modems-in-fl-voting-machines/

William Goldman, screenwriter of 'All the President's Men' and 'The Princess Bride,' dies

William Goldman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter and Hollywood wise man who won Academy Awards for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “All the President’s Men” and summed up the mystery of making a box office hit by declaring “nobody knows anything,” has died. He was 87.

Goldman’s daughter Jenny said her father died early Friday in New York due to complications from colon cancer and pneumonia. “So much of what’s he’s written can express who he was and what he was about,” she said, adding that the last few weeks, while Goldman was ailing, revealed just how many people considered him family.

Goldman, who also converted his novels “Marathon Man,” “Magic,” “The Princess Bride” and “Heat” into screenplays, clearly knew more than most about what the audience wanted. He was not only a successful film writer but a top script doctor, the industry title for an uncredited writer brought in to improve or “punch up” weak screenplays.

He also made political history by coining the phrase “follow the money” in his script for “All the President’s Men,” adapted from the book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the Watergate political scandal.

At: https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2018/11/16/william-goldman-who-wrote-princess-bride/2024552002/

Legendary screenwriter William Goldman, 1931-2018. Follow the talent.

Buffalo's 'Subsidy Tour' underscores dangers of incentive abuse

Opposition to tax-exemption programs that benefit wealthy developers and upscale renters instead of average Buffalonians is not going to go away.

Not surprisingly, any "subsidy tour" would have to begin at One Canalside, the $32 million Benderson Development initiative that has become the poster project for subsidized abuse. Benderson converted a former state office building into a hotel, law offices and a restaurant – and a single apartment.

That lone dwelling allowed it to qualify for $5.9 million in tax breaks under the state’s 485-a program, which is supposed to spur the conversion of old buildings into viable new enterprises.

The tour, organized by the Our City coalition of community groups pressing officials to respond to citizens instead of developers, wound up at the old School 77 on Plymouth Avenue - which was cited as an example of how tax credits can be used to benefit the community instead of the well-off and well-connected.

PUSH Buffalo used historic tax credits, low-interest loans and grants to turn the school into a $14.8 million community hub that taps solar power while housing its offices plus affordable senior citizen apartments, new space for Ujima Theater Co., and space for the anti-poverty group Peace of the City.

The contrast between development efforts that work for those on the middle and lower rungs of the economic ladder and development that works for those at the top could not have been more clear.

At: https://buffalonews.com/2018/11/15/rod-watson-subsidy-tour-is-latest-salvo-in-fight-for-soul-of-city/?utm_medium=more_stories

Poster child for developer incentive abuse, One Canalside (left) included a single apartment so developers could reap $5.9 million in tax breaks.

Other subsidized projects however, such as the School 77 community/residential hub built by PUSH Buffalo, have earned praise.

Argentina's Macrisis: Industrial output plummets 11.5%, worst since 2002 collapse

Data published last week by Argentina's National Statistics and Census Institute (INDEC) show that industrial production fell by 11.5% in September from the same time last year.

The downturn was the most severe since a 12.2% decline in July 2002, at the depths of the 2001 collapse, and, for this September, the second most severe in the world next to Burundi.

Declines were registered in nearly all sectors, led by drops in textiles (24.6%), publishing and music (21.6%), machinery (20.5%), and rubber and plastic (20.4%).

Only steel and aluminum registered growth (2.7%), bouyed by higher demand from neighboring Brazil.

After doubling since the 2002 lows, Argentine manufacturing has struggled since President Mauricio Macri took office three years ago: Output fell 4.6% in 2016 and grew 1.8% last year before resuming its decline in May.

Free trade policies and rising imports were compounded by utility rate hikes of over 1000% and two recessions, to create the most sustained industrial downturn since the 1999-2002 collapse.

September's decline, moreover, was led by falling demand, rather than rising imports: Fixed investment that month fell by 18.9% and imports, by 21.2%; industrial investment plunged by 33.4%.

Over 98,000 industrial jobs have been lost under Macri as of August, or 7.8%.

Disbelief

The crisis has troubled even Macri's most supportive industiral leaders.

"Interest rates are absurd. Inflation is at 45%, so how can interest rates be 70%!?" Cristiano Ratazzi, the chairman of Fiat Argentina, lamented.

Fiat has cut its local production from 77,000 in 2015 to 33,000 last year, and recently announced its assembly line will be suspended until next March.

The Italian-born Ratazzi, 70, had been an early and vocal supporter of Macri, whose father was born in Rome, and two years ago suggested a monument be built to the president.

"One day," he noted, "the market stops believing you."

At: http://www.batimes.com.ar/news/economy/sharpest-monthly-drop-in-industrial-activity-since-2002-prompts-concern.phtml

Workers at the Tandil Metalworks protest the closure of their auto parts factory, which opened in 1948.

Tandil is Macri's hometown.