Since news of the horror in Paris broke, Pope Francis has been vocal over his sadness and distraught.
Speaking during Sunday Mass the Pope condemned the Paris terror attacks, calling it “blasphemy” to use the name of God to justify “violence and hatred.”
He went on to express his shock at the sheer “barbarity” of the attacks, telling crowds in St Peter’s Square:
We wonder how can it come to the heart of man to conceive and carry out of such horrible events…
…the road of violence and hatred does not resolve humanity’s problems. And using the name of God to justify this road is blasphemy.
(Read more from “Everyone Should Read What Pope Francis Said Following the Paris Attacks” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-11-15 23:44:532016-04-11 10:56:08Everyone Should Read What Pope Francis Said Following the Paris Attacks
Hospitals are increasingly turning to “last-resort” antibiotics as the number of drug-resistant infections continues to rise.
More people suffered a “significant antibiotic-resistant infection” – both in hospitals and the community – between 2010 and 2014, a new report from Public Health England (PHE) shows.
Rates of bloodstream infections caused by E. coli jumped 15.6 per cent and Klebsiella pneumoniae increased by 20.8 per cent from 2010 to 2014.
E. coli can cause severe stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea that may be bloody, and in serious cases can lead to kidney failure and death. Klebsiella pneumoniae causes urinary-tract infections and pneumonia but can also lead to blood poisoning.
While overall resistance to key antibiotics used to treat infections has remained constant in E. coli, the fact there are more bloodstream infections means more people have suffered a significant antibiotic-resistant infection. (Read more from “Hospitals Turning to ‘Last-Resort’ Antibiotics as Drug-Resistant Infections Continue to Rise” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-15 23:43:532016-04-11 10:56:08Hospitals Turning to ‘Last-Resort’ Antibiotics as Drug-Resistant Infections Continue to Rise
Georgetown University will rename two buildings named for school presidents who organized the sale of Jesuit-owned slaves to help pay off campus debt in the 1830s, the university’s president announced.
Mulledy Hall, a new student dormitory named for the president who authorized the sale of about 272 slaves to a Louisiana plantation owner in 1838, will be called Freedom Hall until a permanent name is chosen.
McSherry Hall, which houses a meditation center and was named for another university president who served as an adviser on the slave sale, will be called Remembrance Hall until it is renamed.
In a letter e-mailed to the Georgetown community Saturday evening, President John J. DeGioia said he was changing the names based on a recommendation he received Friday from his Working Group on Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation. DeGioia appointed the panel of 16 administrators, faculty and students in September to examine slavery-related sites on campus . . .
The announcement came amid weeks of heightened racial tensions at some U.S. universities, including a demonstration Thursday in Georgetown’s Red Square. A reported 250 Georgetown students and other activists gathered to show solidarity with students protesting the failure of administrators at the University of Missouri and Yale University to take complaints about racism and racial incidents on their campuses seriously. (Read more from “University to Rename Two Buildings That Reflect School’s Ties to Slavery” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-11-15 23:43:152016-04-11 10:56:08University to Rename Two Buildings That Reflect School’s Ties to Slavery
Cristy Beckman, who suffers from chronic pain in her spine and osteoarthritis, spent six hours in a doctor’s crowded waiting room in severe pain.
That was enough, the Middletown resident decided. It was time to make a drastic change in how she was treated.
At about the same time, Dr. Christina Bovelsky opened Peachtree Family Medicine in downtown Middletown with a unique approach to medicine.
Instead of dealing with traditional insurance, co-pays and deductibles, her patients pay a one-year membership fee that includes an annual physical exam and between two and four office visits. Small procedures such as nebulizer treatments, strep tests and electrocardiograms, are included . . .
Bovelsky’s patients can pay monthly fees between $65 and $75. Yearly rates for adults vary between $780 and $900, depending on the number of visits a patient wants. Care for children under 18 ranges from $240 to $360. Additional office visits cost $80 each. (Read more from “Forget Insurance, These Docs Only Take Fees” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-15 23:42:432016-04-11 10:56:08Forget Insurance, These Docs Only Take Fees
Here’s a question an incisive debate moderator ought to ask Marco Rubio: are you happy Senators Sessions and Cruz helped defeat your Gang of 8 immigration bill?
One of the more obscure yet destructive provisions of the Gang of 8 bill I wrote about in 2013 was section 3405 (page 693), which created an entire new pipeline for refugees. This bill would have concocted an unconditional right to immediate legal permanent resident status for any person in the world who declares himself “stateless.” Had the bill passed in 2013, it would have given the Obama administration power to define who is considered stateless. Most of those likely to be designated as stateless are from Islamic hell holes and would include the Syrians, Somalis, Palestinians, and the Muslim Rohingya in Burma.
In addition, section 3403 would have granted Obama broad authority to create entire classes of refugees by categorically declaring them eligible based on humanitarian grounds. Under existing law, to the extent it is adhered to, each application must be scrutinized on a case-by-case basis and the prospective refugee must demonstrate a credible fear of persecution on an individual level.
Section 3401 of the bill also dramatically weakened the precautions against fraudulent asylum petitions by, among other things, eliminating the time constraints on filing those applications.
In totality, this bill would have created endless avenues for this president to bring in an unlimited numbers of Islamic immigrants from the most volatile corners of the world.
Step back and ponder this thought for a moment: had Rubio gotten his away – had Sessions and Cruz and other conservatives followed his lead – Obama would have had an unlimited pipeline at his disposal to bring in the worst security risks among the entire Islamic world. Yet, Rubio touts himself as the paragon of national security because of his alacritous desire to support every Islamic insurgency in the Middle East.
While much of the conservative media is promoting the notion that Rubio has changed his position on immigration, the reality is that to this very day he believes the Gang bill was good legislation. According to the Washington Post, Rubio said late last week that “the bill had the correct security components but was waylaid by voter mistrust.” In other words, the bill was near-perfect, it’s just that the plebes weren’t smart enough to understand its virtues. Accordingly, Rubio’s current position is that the Gang of 8 was prudent legislation.
Republicans would never nominate someone who openly promoted Obamacare, abortion, raising taxes, or increasing regulations. How can they possibly nominate someone who is on the wrong side of the most existential threat of our time and who – to this very day – defends a bill that would have saddled America with what we are seeing in Germany and France today? (For more from the author of “Rubio’s Bill Would Have Opened Floodgates to Islamic Refugees” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-15 11:36:192016-04-11 10:56:09Rubio’s Bill Would Have Opened Floodgates to Islamic Refugees
By The Judicial Watch. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has nearly 1,000 active probes involving the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) inside the United States, dozens of law enforcement officials disclose in a letter to President Obama.
The officials are elected sheriffs in Colorado making a case against the administration’s plan to transfer terrorists held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to facilities in the state. Forty-one of Colorado’s elected sheriffs fired off the letter after two federal prisons in Florence (Supermax and the U.S. Penitentiary) along with a state complex near Canon City were reviewed by the Pentagon for the potential transfer. The plan is part of the president’s longtime promise to close the top-security compound at the U.S. Naval base in southeast Cuba.
The big question is what will the government do with the remaining captives, indisputably the world’s most dangerous terrorists? Just a few weeks ago Obama’s Defense Secretary said that around half of the remaining 112 prisoners at Gitmo must be locked up “indefinitely.” They include 9/11 masterminds Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi as well as Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the Al-Qaeda terrorist charged with orchestrating the 2000 attack on the Navy destroyer USS Cole. (Read more from “The Amount of Active ISIS Probes in America Will Frighten You” HERE)
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U.S. ‘Reasonably Certain’ Drone Strike Killed ISIS Mouthpiece ‘Jihadi John’
By Greg Botelho and Barbara Starr. He hid his face, but “Jihadi John” was the English-speaking voice of ISIS. His twisted, videotaped taunts and acts of terrible cruelty — beheading hostages who had gone to the Middle East to report stories and help others — symbolized the Islamist militant group’s depravity and ruthlessness.
Not anymore, it appears.
U.S. Army Col. Steven Warren said Friday that a drone strike the previous night killed everyone in the targeted vehicle, with Mohammed Emwazi — a.k.a. “Jihadi John” — likely among them.
“We are reasonably certain that we killed the target that we intended to kill, which is Jihadi John,” the Army spokesman said. “…This guy was a human animal, and killing him is probably making the world a little bit better place.”
The United States had been tracking Emwazi closely since Wednesday, and he was seen leaving a building and getting into a car Thursday, U.S. officials said. Three drones went after that vehicle, which also had another person inside, and two Hellfire missiles were fired. (Read more from “U.S. ‘Reasonably Certain’ Drone Strike Killed ISIS Mouthpiece ‘Jihadi John'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-14 01:11:102016-04-11 10:56:09The Amount of Active ISIS Probes in America Will Frighten You
By AFP. Sirens blaring, blood on the roads, weeping relatives: nightmare scenes played out on the streets of Paris on Friday night as at least 120 people were killed in simultaneous attacks.
Pierre Montfort lives close to a Cambodian restaurant on Rue Bichat, where one of seven attacks took place in a night of bloodshed not seen in decades . . .
Another witness described the scene: “For a moment, we could only see the flames from the gun. We were scared, how did we know he wasn’t going to shoot the windows?” . . .
Further east, near the Bataclan concert hall and not far from the scene of another deadly attack in January on the offices of satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, the area was on lock down.
Police say around 100 people were killed at the music venue, with reports saying armed attackers shot dead people attending a rock concert one by one before police stormed the building. (Read more from “Apocalyptic Scenes as Paris Hit by Multiple Attacks” HERE)
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Paris Attacks: Bataclan and Other Assaults Leave Many Dead
By BBC News. rance has declared a national state of emergency and tightened borders after at least 120 people were killed in a night of gun and bomb attacks in Paris.
Eighty people were reported killed after gunmen burst into the Bataclan concert hall and took hostages before security forces stormed the hall.
People were shot dead at restaurants and bars at five other sites in Paris. Eight attackers are reported killed.
These are the deadliest attacks in Europe since the 2004 Madrid bombings.
French President Francois Hollande, visibly shaken, called Friday night’s events “a horror” and vowed to wage a “merciless” fight against terrorism. (Read more from “Paris Attacks: Bataclan and Other Assaults Leave Many Dead” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-14 01:10:002016-04-11 10:56:09Apocalyptic Scenes as Paris Hit by Multiple Attacks
Starbucks announced Wednesday that its Seattle stores are officially “Safe Places” for members of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) community.
Partnering with the Seattle Police Department’s “Safe Place” program, 97 of Starbucks’ stores in the Seattle area will finish specific employee training early next week on “how to respond to and engage with LGBT victims of violence and effectively report hate crimes to police.”
“Safe Place,” started by openly gay Seattle Police Officer Jim Ritter, is a campaign against bias crimes. Since May, Officer Ritter has spoken with 650 businesses across Seattle, all of whom have supported the campaign, displaying rainbow-badge decals in their windows . . .
Starbucks may serve as precedent for other large companies to support the initiative as well. With 2,000 extra pairs of eyes, Ritter is convinced the program will help “put bullies on notice that they can’t get away with victimizing people.”
Starbucks has shown its support for the LGBT community in other ways recently, raising a gay pride flag at its Seattle headquarters and airing a commercial featuring contestants from “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Bianca Del Rio and Adore Delano. (Read more from “Starbucks to Become an LGBT ‘Safe Place'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-14 01:09:222016-04-11 10:56:09Starbucks to Become an LGBT ‘Safe Place’
Parental concerns about student privacy have been rising in recent years amid the growing use by schools, school districts and states use technology to collect mountains of detailed information on students. Last year, a controversial $100 million student data collection project funded by the Gates Foundation and operated by a specially created nonprofit organization called inBloom was forced to shut down because of these concerns, an episode that served as a warning to parents about just how much information about their children is being shared without their knowledge.
Here’s an important piece on the issue by Leonie Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker. Haimson was a leading advocate against the inBloom project who then, along with Rachael Stickland, created the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, a national alliance of parents and advocates defending the rights of parents and students to protect their data. Kiesecker is a member of the coalition.
Remember that ominous threat from your childhood, “This will go down on your permanent record?” Well, your children’s permanent record is a whole lot bigger today and it may be permanent. Information about your children’s behavior and nearly everything else that a school or state agency knows about them is being tracked, profiled and potentially shared.
During a February 2015 congressional hearing on “How Emerging Technology Affects Student Privacy,” Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin asked the panel to “provide a summary of all the information collected by the time a student reaches graduate school.” Joel Reidenberg, director of the Center on Law & Information Policy at Fordham Law School, responded:
“Just think George Orwell, and take it to the nth degree. We’re in an environment of surveillance, essentially. It will be an extraordinarily rich data set of your life.”
(Read more from “The Astonishing Amount of Data Being Collected About Your Children” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-11-14 01:08:482016-04-11 10:56:09The Astonishing Amount of Data Being Collected About Your Children
I remember the spring of 2013 like it was yesterday. It was one of the busiest times of my career. Republicans were working overtime to codify Obama’s open borders agenda into law, and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was the ring leader of the effort. The voice of the people was not being heard and we were subjected to fallacious talking points on a daily basis.
Along with several other conservative writers, I wrote dozens of articles exposing the details and the broader implications of the 1,000-page piece of bilge that is known as the “Gang of 8” bill. Instead of working with conservatives, Rubio and his office coordinated attacks on conservatives together with liberals. Even after all of his promises were exposed as pure fabrications, he still went on to star in ads for Mark Zuckerberg touting his bill as something it was not.
Now Rubio wants our votes and suddenly he is on our side.
In order to convince voters that he has walked the Road to Damascus on the road to winning Des Moines, his campaign is promulgating the following narrative: Rubio learned his lesson from the Gang of 8 and now shares the same views on immigration as Ted Cruz, so nothing to see here – let’s move on.
There is a lot to like about Marco Rubio. But as it relates to the all-important compound issue of immigration, one would have to erase all of history to suggest he is on the same playing field as Ted Cruz. When it mattered, Cruz wasn’t just a vote for sovereignty and security, he was a voice for it. Rubio wasn’t just a vote for Obama’s prize agenda, he was a voice for it.
For those of us who fought with everything we had to defeat the Gang of 8 despite Rubio’s best effort to score the ultimate game-winning touchdown for Obama, we can’t just let this go. The only similarity Rubio and Cruz share as it relates to immigration is the same similarity that a firefighter and an arsonist share with regards to fire – they were both there at the scene of the crime. The one was a perpetrator of the problem; the other was part of the solution.
TURNING CRUZ’S FIREFIGHTING INTO ARSON
Rubio is now suggesting that Cruz also supported amnesty because at the time of the Gang of 8 debate, Cruz introduced an amendment stripping the provision providing a path to citizenship from the bill. Rubio’s camp disingenuously submits that this act means Cruz implicitly supported legalization so long as no citizenship is involved.
Perhaps Rubio is unfamiliar with an amendment strategy when fighting legislation because he has been in very few firefights for the cause of conservatism since his election to the Senate. One way of embarrassing and exposing proponents of a bad bill is by introducing amendments to tweak the bill with changes its proponents are hard-pressed to oppose. This doesn’t mean the senator would otherwise support the legislation if it contained those changes, it’s merely a strategy to derail the bill altogether.
It’s for this reason that Rubio, during one of the few battles he actively fought, introduced an amendment to the Corker-Cardin bill forcing Iran to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. It’s not that he otherwise would have been fine with the Iran deal or the Corker-Cardin process. This was merely a way to expose the other side for their extreme position.
This is what Cruz was doing when he introduced amendments to pause any amnesty until the enforcement was implemented or to take away the pathway to citizenship or his amendment to expand legal immigration. He wanted to show that the entire Gang effort had nothing to do with being compassionate, pro-immigrant, or enforcement oriented – as proponents of the bill, including Rubio, so ardently asserted – rather this was a scheme to create new Democrat voters and disenfranchise the citizenry. Indeed, Senator Sessions, who clearly opposes legalization, supported Cruz’s amendment, while Rubio’s fellow Gang members on committee opposed it.
Hence, in the irony of all ironies, Rubio is using the hard work of Cruz in defeating his bill to suggest that they really share the same view!
Rubio was promoting his bill as ‘enforcement first’ even as he was voting down amendments to make the bill do just that.
RUBIO NEGATED HIS OWN TALKING POINTS AT THE TIME
As highlighted in his Conservative Review profile, Rubio was promoting his bill as ‘enforcement first’ even as he was voting down amendments to make the bill do just that. It’s not just that Rubio changed his position to “enforcement first,” it’s that he touted that Gang of 8 bill for months as doing just that. He opposed the following amendments:
A provision to ensure that the border is secured before any amnesty is granted. (Senate.gov)
A provision requiring completion of the reinforced double-layered border fencing. He was one of only five Republicans to do so. (Senate.gov)
A provision requiring that a visa tracking system be implemented before any amnesty is granted. (Senate.gov)
A provision that would require congressional votes affirming the border has been secured before the granting of temporary legal status. (Senate.gov)
As noted in our guide to political conversions, a legitimate recent convert to a cause is usually the most zealous in championing the issue unprompted by political pressure. When Cruz was fighting Obama’s executive amnesty, the border surge, sanctuary cities, the release of criminal aliens, the Islamic refugee scheme, and homegrown terror threats via immigration – using all his platforms on committee, floor speeches, and in the media – where was Rubio? Until Breitbart called him out for not supporting a single enforcement effort, Rubio never even signed onto the effort against sanctuary cities.
Moreover, even long after the Gang of 8, Rubio continued to promote his amnesty agenda and gave tail winds to Obama instead of actually fighting him on his executive amnesty. While Cruz was fighting DACA, Rubio was saying he’d keep it and the only problem he had with it is that it wasn’t permanent amnesty. He seemed to be bothered more by Obama poisoning the well against his legislative amnesty effort than actually stopping Obama’s broader open borders agenda.
Every candidate engages in conversions while running for office to a certain extent. Even Cruz has changed his tune on H1B visas. But Cruz has a lot more credibility on the overall immigration issue because “enforcement first” has been more than a campaign talking point to serve as window dressing for amnesty; it has embodied his tenure in the Senate.
Ask yourself this question: do you believe in your heart of hearts that Rubio will fight for conservatives on sovereignty and borders the minute he wins the primary and commences his general election messaging? (For more from the author of “Cruz Fought Amnesty, Rubio Fought Conservatives” please click HERE)
