Ridgewood NJ, the annual US Census Bureau report on income and poverty in America – the gold standard of economic data – was released yesterday and it highlighted how swiftly minorities climbed up the economic ladder under Trump.
Ridgewood NJ, New climate report: Oceans rising faster, ice melting more, the sky is falling, hurricanes are brewing ,oy vey run for the life.
A grim new international science assessment concludes that climate change is making the world’s oceans warm, rise, lose oxygen and get more acidic at an ever-faster pace, while melting even more ice and snow
the end is near or is it….
TMZ reports that the former president and first lady are in escrow — aka in contract to purchase — a 29-acre beachfront plot with a 6,892-square-foot main house. The Obamas were initially just renting the seven-bedroom, 8½-bathroom spread for summer 2019, but apparently loved it so much that they made an offer.
It was most recently on the market asking $14.85 million, but the Obamas are apparently paying less. Like the Obama’s or not I would think and ex president would know something .
Maplewood NJ, A United States entertainer and businessman and a Malaysian financier were charged in a four-count indictment unsealed today in the District of Columbia for conspiring to make and conceal foreign and conduit campaign contributions during the United States presidential election in 2012, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
Ridgewood NJ, Jim Fitzgerald, the FBI profiler that caught UnaBomber Ted Kaczynski told Martha MacCallum that the pipe bombs could be a False Flag by the Democrats 2 weeks before this important election as a real possibility.
University of Chicago faculty tell Obama to move ‘socially regressive’ library
Letter from Faculty Concerning the Obama Center
We members of the University of Chicago faculty who sign this letter support the idea of establishing the Obama Center in our neighborhood, in the South Side. However, as details of the plans have become public we share concerns expressed by neighborhood groups throughout the South Side. The neighborhood groups are diverse. They include the Community Benefits Agreement Coalition whose active members include the Black Youth Project 100, the Bronzeville Regional Collective — which itself includes Blacks in Green — the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, the Poor People’s Campaign, the Southside Together Organizing for Power, UChicago for a CBA, the Westside Health Authority and Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights; and whose allied members include the Chicago Teachers Union, Chicago Women in Trades, Friends of the Park, Metropolitan Tenants Association, Woodlawn East Community and Neighbors, Chicago Jobs Council, Chicago Rehab Council, Brighton Park Neighborhood Council and many others. Other groups opposed to the current plans include the Midway Plaisance Park Advisory Committee, Save the Midway, Jackson Park Watch, and South Shore Nature Sanctuary. The concerns of these groups are different. But taken together they form an intelligible whole.
First, there are concerns that the Obama Center as currently planned will not provide the promised development or economic benefits to the neighborhoods. Because the current plans place the Center next to the Museum of Science and Industry and across the street from the University of Chicago campus, there is no available adjacent land in which to start a new business, set up a new café or restaurant, bring another cultural center to the neighborhood. It looks to many neighbors that the only new jobs created will be as staff to the Obama Center, hence the widespread support for a Community Benefits Agreement.
Second, the current plan calls for taking a large section of an historic public park and giving it to a private entity for development. Jackson Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, is on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of the most important urban parks in the nation. Construction of a permanent architectural monument violates Olmsted’s vision of a democratic urban park. On the current plans the intrusion into the park is huge: twenty-one acres, the size of two large city blocks. At a time of increasing complexity and pressure in urban life, Chicago should be dedicated to preserving our public parks as open areas for relaxation and play for all its citizens. We also note that the Obama Center has abandoned its original plans to be a Presidential Library. It will be a private entity with no official connection to the National Archives.
Third, because of the planned location of the Obama Center, the Obama Foundation plans to take over a section of another historic, public park — Midway Plaisance, also designed by Olmsted — and turn it into an above-ground parking garage. They have to date rejected many pleas of neighborhood groups to place the garage underground. The planners say they need the parking lot there so that visitors can walk directly across the street to the Obama Center, but that raises problems of its own. (1) The planners also intend to close Cornell Avenue to traffic, thus making Stony Island Avenue the only major north-south thoroughfare on the South Side, other than the Interstate Highway. So every visitor who comes by car or by Metra will have to cross the busiest street on the South Side. And those of our neighbors who depend on driving north or south for their livelihoods will inevitably be significantly held up. This is a traffic-jam in the making. (2) Those who can walk straight across the street to the Obama Center can also walk straight back to their cars and go home. Given the location, if they do any visiting at all it is overwhelmingly likely they will visit those areas that are already well developed, the Museum of Science and Industry and the University of Chicago campus. (3) A parking lot, of course, privileges cars and those who can afford them. Parking is expensive, and though public lands are being given away, all the profits from this parking lot will go to the Obama Foundation. None of the funds will go back to the City to improve train lines and public transportation infrastructure. Overall, this is a socially regressive plan (4) Again, this is a precious, historic urban park that ought to be preserved for future generations not given to a private entity for development into a parking lot.
Finally, it is the taxpayers of Chicago who are going to be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for this project, according to estimates by the Chicago Department of Transportation. The required widening of Lake Shore Drive alone is estimated to be over $100 million. Not only are public lands being given to a private entity but the public will pay to have Cornell Drive closed and Stony Island Avenue and Lake Shore Drive widened. We are concerned that these are not the best ways to use public funds to invest in the future of Chicago.
We University of Chicago faculty who sign this letter are ourselves a diverse group and different issues will matter more to some of us than to others. But we share with so many of our neighbors the belief that the current plans need significant revision. We are concerned that rather than becoming a bold vision for urban living in the future it will soon become an object-lesson in the mistakes of the past. We urge the Obama Foundation to explore alternative sites on the South Side that could be developed with more economic benefits, better public transportation, and less cost to taxpayers. We would be pleased to support the Obama Center if the plan genuinely promoted economic development in our neighborhoods and respected our precious public urban parks.
(Please sign below. The list of signatures will be updated each day.)
Jonathan Lear, Professor, Social Thought and Philosophy W. J. T. Mitchell, Professor, English, Art History, and Visual Arts Tara Zahra, Professor, History Richard Strier, Sulzberger Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, English Martha Feldman, Professor, Music and Romance Languages Mark Siegler, Professor, Medicine William Mazzarella, Professor, Anthropology Bruce Lincoln, Caroline E. Haskell Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Divinity School Michael Geyer, Samuel N. Harper Professor Emeritus, History Jessica Stockholder, Professor, Visual Arts Rosanna Warren, Professor, Social Thought Matthew Jesse Jackson, Associate Professor, Art History and Visual Arts Emilio Kourí, Professor, History Marshall Sahlins, Charles F. Grey Distinguished Professor of Anthropology Emeritus Frances Ferguson, Professor, English Linda Zerilli, Charles E. Merriam Distinguished Professor, Political Science Elizabeth Helsinger, John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, English Gabriel Lear, Professor, Philosophy and Social Thought Robert Pippin, Evelyn Steffanson Nef Distinguished Service Professor, Social Thought Susan Gal, Professor, Anthropology and Linguistics Susan Goldin-Meadow, Beardsley Ruml Distinguished Service Professor, Psychology Jonathan Levy, Professor, History Dipesh Chakrabarty, Professor, History Daniel Brudney, Professor, Philosophy Robert Richards, Morris Fishbein Distinguished Service Professor, History Catherine Sullivan, Associate Professor, Visual Arts David Wellbery, LeRoy T. and Margaret Deffenbaugh Carlson University Professor, Germanic Studies and Social Thought Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions, Divinity School David Levin, Professor, Theater & Performance Studies and Germanic Studies Haun Saussy, University Professor, Comparative Literature Eric Santner, Philip and Ida Romberg Distinguished Service Professor, Germanic Studies Nathan Tarcov, Professor, Social Thought Elaine Hadley, Professor, English Annie Dorsen, Visiting Assistant Professor of Practice, Theater and Performing Studies John Muse, Assistant Professor, English and Theater & Performance Studies Steven Rings, Associate Professor, Music Heidi Coleman, Senior Lecturer, Theater and Performance Studies Thomas Pavel, Professor, Romance Languages Florian Klinger, Associate Professor, Germanic Studies Anne Robertson, Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music; Dean, Division of the Humanities Françoise Meltzer, Professor, Comparative Literature (Chair) and Divinity School Philip Bohlman, Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in Jewish History, Music Danielle Roper, Provost’s Career Enhancement Postdoctoral Scholar, Romance Languages Nicholas Rudall, Professor Emeritus, Classics Richard Neer, William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor, Art History James Conant, Chester D. Tripp Professor of Humanities, Philosophy Catherine Baumann, Director, Chicago Language Center Margareta Christian, Assistant Professor, Germanic Studies Andrew Abbott, Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor, Sociology Kimberly Kenny, Senior Lecturer, Norwegian Studies Michael LaBarbera, Emeritus Professor, Organismal Biology & Anatomy Andrei Pop, Associate Professor, Social Thought Salikoko Mufwene, Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor, Linguistics Agnes Lugo-Ortiz, Associate Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures, HLBS Ben Laurence, Lecturer, Philosophy David Finkelstein, Associate Professor, Philosophy Itamar Francez, Assistant Professor, Linguistics James Wilson, Assistant Professor, Political Science Daisy Delogu, Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures Lauren Berlant, George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor, English Patrick Jagoda, Associate Professor, English and Cinema & Media Studies Charles Lipson, Peter B. Ritzma Professor, Political Science Loren Kruger, Professor, English James Chandler, Barbara E. and Richard J. Franke Professor, English Aaron Turkewitz, Professor, Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology Mark Berger, Collegiate Assistant Professor, Humanities Adom Getachew, Assistant Professor, Political Science Amy Dru Stanley, Associate Professor, History Mario Santana, Associate Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures Kristen Schilt, Associate Professor, Sociology Spencer Bloch, R.M. Hutchins D.S. Professor Emeritus, Mathematics Adrian Johns, Maclear Professor, History Bozena Shallcross, Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures Francois Richard, Associate Professor, Anthropology Petra Goedegebuure, Associate Professor, Oriental Institute Norma Field, Robert Ingersoll Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, East Asian Languages and Civilizations Elena Bashir, Senior Lecturer, South Asian Languages & Civilizations Veronica Vegna, Senior Lecturer and Coordinator, Romance Languages and Literatures Lucia B. Rothman-Denes, A. J. Carlson Professor, Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology Choudhri Naim, Professor Emeritus, South Asian Languages & Civilizations Christopher Skelly, Associate Professor, Surgery William Sites, Associate Professor, School of Social Service Administration Joel Isaac, Associate Professor, Social Thought Na’ama Rokem, Associate Professor, Comparative Literature and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Howard Stein, Professor Emeritus, Philosophy Daniel Yohanna, Associate Professor and Interim Chair, Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience William Sewell, Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Political Science and History Laura Letinsky, Professor, Visual Arts Leora Auslander, Arthur and Joann Rasmussen Professor of Western Civilization, History Paola Iovene, Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and Civilizations David Orlinsky, Professor Emeritus, Comparative Human Development Moishe Postone, Professor, History Michael Bourdaghs, Robert S. Ingersoll Professor, East Asian Languages and Civilizations William Tait, Professor Emeritus, Philosophy Anna Mueller, Assistant Professor, Comparative Human Development Hans Schreiber, Professor, Pathology Michael Silverstein, C. F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology, Linguistics, and Psychology Fred Donner, Peter B. Ritzma Professor, Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations and Oriental Institute Matthew Boyle, Professor, Philosophy James Hopson, Emeritus Professor, Organismal Biology & Anatomy Allan Rechtschaffen, Professor Emeritus, Psychiatry and Psychology Jim Lastra, Associate Professor, Cinema and Media Studies Joshua Scodel, Helen A. Regenstein Professor, English Janet Johnson, Hull Professor of Egyptology, Oriental Institute and Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations Jennifer Cole, Professor, Comparative Human Development Godfrey Getz, Emeritus Professor, Pathology Seth Brodsky, Associate Professor, Music Elizabeth Asmis, Professor, Classics Nicole Marwell, Associate Professor, School of Social Service Administration Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky, Assistant Professor, Cinema and Media Studies Daniel Morgan, Associate Professor, Cinema and Media Studies Robert L. Kendrick, Professor, Music Jason Grunebaum, Senior Lecturer, South Asian Languages and Civilizations Janel Mueller, Dean of Humanities Emerita, William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, College Daniel Johnson, Professor, Pediatics John Woods, Professor, History Rachel DeWoskin, Lecturer, Creative Writing George S. Tolley, Professor Emeritus, Economics, and former Director of the Center for Urban Studies Anna Di Rienzo, Professor, Human Genetics Michael I. Allen, Associate Professor, Classics John McCormick, Professor, Political Science Ralph Austen, Emeritus Professor, History Neil Harris, Preston and Sterling Morton Professor Emeritus, History Joel Snyder, Professor, Art History Kenneth Warren, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor, English Eve Ewing, Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholar & Assistant Professor, School of Social Service Administration Catherine Kearns, Assistant Professor, Classics James Shapiro, Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Travis A. Jackson, Associate Professor, Music Mark Bradley, Bernadotte E. Schmitt Distinguished Service Professor, History Douglas Bishop, Professor, Radiation and Cellular Oncology Jessica Baker, Assistant Professor, Music Christian Wedemeyer, Associate Professor, Divinity School Patchen Markell, Associate Professor, Political Science Hussein Ali Agrama, Associate Professor, Anthropology Andreas Glaeser, Professor, Sociology Alida Bouris, Associate Professor, School of Social Service Administration Joseph Masco, Professor, Anthropology Wadad Kadi, The Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor Emerita, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Miguel Martinez, Assistant Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures Julie Orlemanski, Assistant Professor, English Darryl Li, Assistant Professor, Anthropology Cornell Fleischer, Kanuni Süleyman Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies, History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Yali Amit, Professor, Statistics Maria Anna Mariani, Assistant Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures Jennifer Scappettone, Associate Professor, English, Creative Writing, Romance Languages and Literatures Elissa Weaver, Professor Emerita, Romance Languages & Literatures Gary Herrigel, Paul Klapper Professor, Political Science Larissa Brewer-García, Assistant Professor, Romance Languages and Literatures Colm O’Muircheartaigh, Professor, Harris School of Public Policy Jenny Trinitapoli, Associate Professor, Sociology Chad Broughton, Senior Lecturer, College George Tolley, Emeritus Professor, Economics, and Former Director, Center for Urban Studies Ross Stolzenberg, Professor, Sociology Kaushik Sunder Rajan, Professor, Anthropology
By
James Freeman
Updated May 12, 2017 5:42 p.m. ET
Another day brings another series of tweets from President Trump that have his opponents—and even some of his allies—expressing shock and outrage. In one particularly incendiary missive this morning Mr. Trump wrote, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” It’s no surprise that Mr. Trump is once again dominating the news via Twitter, but reporters might also want to pay attention to presidential use of a much more powerful set of electronic tools.
Late on Friday, with the US population embracing the upcoming holidays and oblivious of most news emerging from the administration, Obama quietly signed into law the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which authorizes $611 billion for the military in 2017.
In a statement, Obama said that:
Today, I have signed into law S. 2943, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017.” This Act authorizes fiscal year 2017 appropriations principally for the Department of Defense and for Department of Energy national security programs, provides vital benefits for military personnel and their families, and includes authorities to facilitate ongoing operations around the globe. It continues many critical authorizations necessary to ensure that we are able to sustain our momentum in countering the threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and to reassure our European allies, as well as many new authorizations that, among other things, provide the Departments of Defense and Energy more flexibility in countering cyber-attacks and our adversaries’ use of unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Much of the balance of Obama’s statement blamed the GOP for Guantanamo’s continued operation and warned that “unless the Congress changes course, it will be judged harshly by history,” Obama said. Obama also said Congress failed to use the bill to reduce wasteful overhead (like perhaps massive F-35 cost overruns?) or modernize military health care, which he said would exacerbate budget pressures facing the military in the years ahead.
Comedian Jon Stewart sat down for a lengthy post-election conversationWednesday with New York Times editor Chris Smith and dished on all aspects of politics in the era of Trump.
“It is odd to be in a position of knowing that the leader of the free world tweeted that you were a pussy at 1:30 in the morning,” the former Daily Show host said of President-elect Donald Trump.
Stewart was set to discuss his new book, The Daily Show: An Oral History, but spent most of the evening airing his thoughts on the presidential election, why Obama was bad for freedom of the press and Hispanics, and how corporate media helps divide America.
“Not everybody that voted for Trump is a racist,” Stewart said, mimicking remarks he made in November. “I don’t give a fuck what any of you say to me. You can yell it at me, you can tweet it at me. They’re not all racists. Or they’re not giving tacit support to a racist system. We all give tacit support to exploitative systems as long as they don’t affect us that badly.”
The White House says it will remain neutral regarding the reopening of an investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server, after the discovery of more emails that FBI Director James Comey said may be relevant.
After a letter from Comey to Congress on Friday, which stated that new emails found on a laptop used by Clinton aide Huma Abedin “appear to be pertinent to our investigation,” members of both parties have criticized the timing of the move.
Today the White House declined to state an opinion on Comey’s action.
“I’ll neither defend nor criticize what Director Comey has decided to communicate to the public about this investigation,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in Monday’s press briefing.
In an effort to stay neutral on the topic, Earnest said, the White House will continue to be “scrupulous” in “avoiding even the appearance of political interference” in the investigation entrusted to the Department of Justice and the FBI.
He also said that President Barack Obama doesn’t think Comey is trying to sway the presidential race.
We cause you pain inside your house,” one ISIS supporter bragged online
By Gilad Shiloach
Sep 18, 2016 at 6:05 AM ET
Supporters of the Islamic State rushed to celebrate Saturday night’s powerful explosion in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood that injured at least 29 people, even as no group or individual has been arrested or claimed responsibility.
“The lions of the Caliphate roar in New York, we cause you pain inside your house, the carrier of the Cross,” wrote one Twitter user who went by the name “I am ISIS, come and block me.” The account was soon suspended. Another, called “The Lone Wolves,” tweeted with the Arabic hashtag #ExplosionManhattanNewYork “Oh God burn America, take revenge in the name of your oppressed slaves and believers’ blood.”
Others tweeted about “good tidings that keep coming” from New York, and one user affiliated with al-Qaeda in Syria tweeted: “Oh God go against America, the head of infidels. Oh God, count them and kill them one by one, and do not spare anyone of them.”
The hashtag #ExplosionManhattanNewYork was popular among other Arab users, mostly from Saudi Arabia, who don’t seem to be affiliated with terror groups but still criticized America, Vocativ found. One user said “ISIS is an American product, their goods come back to them.” Anotherwrote: “This is all your doing Mister Obama, you are the reason for the spread of ISIS in the region. I wish you would listen to the words of King Abdallah and his warning for the Arabs from ISIS.”
“Obama has managed to put together the most intensive surveillance state in the history of the world,” the ‘Snowden’ director told THR while discussing his film at the Toronto Film Festival. “This is pretty frightening when you think about the implications.”
Oliver Stone warned against the dangers of global surveillance in a sit-down with The Hollywood Reporter at the Toronto Film Festival.
The Snowden director, speaking about his biopic of famous whistleblower Edward Snowden, spoke about the current state of the country’s surveillance system, which says has intensified under the Obama administration.
“I thought Obama, like everyone else, was going to be a reformer. He had criticized the surveillance prior,” Stone told THR. “Since 2013, I have to tell you it’s gotten a lot more serious because they’ve expanded the surveillance. It’s gotten better.”
GOP nominee tours disaster area while Obama, Clinton won’t be parted from politics and rest
by Keith Koffler | Updated 19 Aug 2016 at 2:28 PM
In a brilliant maneuver perfectly timed to complement his campaign revamp, Republican nominee Donald Trump today landed in Louisiana to witness first-hand the devastation wrought by flooding not seen there since Hurricane Katrina pummeled the Gulf Coast in 2005.
Trump’s arrival on the scene helps him on a number of levels. Most importantly, it provides a dramatic contrast to Hillary Clinton and President Obama, both of whom have neglected to visit a region where more than a dozen have died and tens of thousands have been forced out of their homes.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told the European Union and United States to “mind your own business” after the West expressed alarm over the growing crackdown against suspected accomplices in the failed coup.
“Some people give us advice. They say they are worried. Mind your own business! Look at your own deeds,” Erdogan said at the presidential palace, complaining no senior Western official had visited Turkey in the wake of the coup.
“Not a single person has come to give condolences either from the European Union… or from the West,” said Erdogan.
ARVADA, Colorado (AP) — Eight years ago, Barbara Conley was one of the millions of Americans swept up in Barack Obama’s promises of hope and change when he accepted the Democratic nomination at a packed stadium a few miles from her home in the Denver suburbs.
But those optimistic days are almost unrecognizable to Conley now.
President Obama is calling on Congress to add a “public option” to ObamaCare to improve his signature health law.
The pitch from Obama comes after he abandoned pursuit of a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers during the long legislative battle over healthcare because of opposition from some Democrats in Congress.
“Public programs like Medicare often deliver care more cost-effectively by curtailing administrative overhead and securing better prices from providers,” Obama writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“The public plan did not make it into the final legislation. Now, based on experience with the ACA, I think Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited,” writes the president.
The new embrace from the president also comes amid what appears to be a concerted push by the Democratic Party to rally around the public option.
It’s a shift that reflects how the party has tilted leftward during the Obama years.