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Information from some sites may not be reliable, or may not be vetted.
Some sources may require subscription.
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from BBC News (UK)
Mariam Hammad, despite every adversity of war and hardship, is trying to be a student in Aleppo in the dark heart of Syria's civil war.
One of my cousins is volunteering as an instructor in management principles, an undergraduate program in the University of the People, a low cost tuition international college. Mariam, the focus of this BBC article, is one of his students.
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from The Center for Public Integrity
President Trump said he will 'do a big number' on the 2010 financial regulation law
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from CNSNews.com (& MRC & NewsBusters)
Oregon Gov. Launches ‘Social Action Team’ Against Trump
The governor of Oregon is looking to create a “Social Action Team” to take to social media to resist Donald Trump’s presidency. OregonLive reports Gov. Kate Brown sent an email to her supporters accusing Trump of attacking “our values as Americans and as Oregonians.”
Dems Bash Gorsuch Rulings for Favoring Law Over Identity Politics
Democrats were quick to attack Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch – based on WHO he ruled for, NOT on whether the ruling was legally justified.
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from Competitive Enterprise Institute
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) received an important ruling today in its appeal of the settlement regarding the much-publicized 2013 data breach at retail giant Target Corporation. The Eighth Circuit remanded the case back to the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota, finding that the lower court abandoned its ongoing duty to ensure class certification was proper when it failed to consider CEI’s objections. Additionally, the judge reversed the lower court’s ruling for an unlawful appeal bond and ordered that $46,872 be returned to CEI.
Congress is taking a first step in rolling back parts of the Obama administration’s costly red-tape put out by the Department of Labor. The blacklisting rule imposes massive costs and provides no quantifiable benefits. The rule institutes new reporting provisions, requiring contractors who bid on federal contracts in excess of $500,000 to report alleged as well as actual labor violations from the last three years. Reported violations of any of the 14 federal labor statutes may be used to block a company’s bid.
This week, CEI joined dozens of public interest groups, trade associations, and companies in sending a letter to Congress in support of the Email Privacy Act (H.R. 387). The bill, an earlier version of which passed the House of Representatives by a unanimous vote in April 2016, would amend the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) to require that the government obtain a warrant—based on a showing of probable cause—to compel a cloud computing provider to divulge the contents of a user’s private electronic communications.
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from Douglas County Empire Press
Waterville Clerk/Treasurer Marsha Peterson recently came across a folder with historical information about Pioneer Park. The folder contained photos, blueprint drawings of the park, park board minutes from 1946 to 1953, minutes from the same group — renamed the Waterville Planning Council — from 1953 to 1961, and other letters and documents that had been collected about the park over the years.
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| State Gov. Clarence D. Martin attended the dedication of the park on Sept. 23, 1939. He is shown with the mayor and park board members. From left, are city Mayor John F. Jones, Ruby Hensel, Nell Dickson, Allie Mitchell, Martin, Etta Schluenz, Mabel Thomas, Beulah “Nifty” Brown and Father Juda. |
Our Pictorial Past | Solid River
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| Scenes like this on the Columbia River were quite common before Grand Coulee Dam with its large reservoir of heat-holding water was built. This February 1916 photo shows the Bridgeport ferry anchored to the bank by a two-foot crust of ice that covered the river from bank-to-bank. It was said that this was one of the worst winters in North Central Washington’s history. (Wenatchee World archives) |
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from Episcopal News Service
Dioceses across The Episcopal Church are looking at practical ways to provide sanctuary and help to refugees, immigrants and the undocumented, such as offering legal aid clinics and sheltering people from deportation.
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from First Things
I've come to want old age as I've watched my father live to see things he started get finished. Old age allows us to harvest what we sow.
So, this is 2017: A few days after issuing an incompetently executed, morally dubious, and in many ways misguided executive order on immigrants and refugees, the president nominated an outstanding and unassailable jurist to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia. It only took a few minutes of channel-surfing to know that whatever opposition is lobbed in Judge Neil Gorsuch's direction will consist primarily of frustrated and inaccurate distortions and simplifications. Gorsuch is easily among the most qualified and well-credentialled judicial nominees in history, and his temperament and collegiality will not be questioned by any informed person.
We tend to defend religious liberty, but what about its perils?
The struggle for religious liberty is crucial as a means of making possible a more-than-defensive approach to the broader society. It is a prerequisite for the essential work of social conservatism. Its goal is to keep open the space in which cultural conservatives might appeal to their neighbors. Yet it must not substitute for that appeal.
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from The Heritage Foundation
Congressional Ban on Earmarks Hasn’t Stopped Pork-Barrel Spending
Members of Congress have several back-door avenues to get federal dollars into favored districts. Congress has the responsibility to use federal funds with prudence and efficacy. Holding its own members accountable is the place to start.
More Is Needed to Combat Excessive Regulation Than Trump’s Executive Order
President Donald Trump's executive order on regulation is only a first step, and achieving the goal of reducing the burden of red tape will take much more.
The Question the Left Won’t Answer on Abortion
If there weren’t, well, lives at stake, Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell’s dodging of Fox News’ Tucker Carlson’s questions about whether abortion was the taking of a human life would be comical.
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from The Hill
Homeland Security chief hopes to complete border wall in two years
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly is setting his sights on completing President Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall in two years, he said Wednesday. "The wall will be built where it's needed first, and then it will be filled in. That's the way I look at it," Kelly told Fox News in an interview. "I really hope to have it done within the next two years." In his first interview since being sworn in, Kelly called for the quick construction of the wall and laid out the need for a robust force of Border Patrol agents.
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from LifeZette (& PoliZette)
Senate Republicans Smash Obstructionist Tactics
Senate Republicans pushed back against Democratic obstructionism Wednesday, suspending the rules to advance two Cabinet nominees out of committee and moving along the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general, who had been held up.
Endangered Democrats Face ‘Political Suicide’ in Gorsuch Fight
12 liberal senators can't run from 2006 votes to confirm SCOTUS pick for the 10th Circuit
Trump Administration Puts Iran ‘On Notice’
National Security Adviser Flynn warns Tehran in wake of missile tests, Red Sea attack
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from The Living Church
Originalist and Episcopalian
President Trump nominates Judge Neil M. Gorsuch of Colorado for the Supreme Court.
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from Mises Institute
[Information from this site may not be reliable.]Yesterday, the Census Bureau released its measure of homeownership for 2016, and the annual average for 2016 was 63.4 percent. That's the lowest rate measured since 1965 when the homeownership rate was 63 percent. 2016 was also the twelfth year in a row in which the homeownership rate was lower than the year prior. In other words, the homeownership rate in the US has been falling since 2004.
Many of us were once convinced that idea of the centrally-planned economy, both in theory and in practice, had been completely buried. Most economists today would argue that the planned economy doesn't work, and in the last two decades of the twentieth century, almost all the planned economies shifted toward market economics. However, with the development of new technologies such as cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence, some people start to believe that — with the help of powerful new technologies — we can finally achieve a planned economy. Statistical data about past purchases is not the same thing as market prices. And prices are what make a functioning economy possible.
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from New Statesman
"The leading voice of the British left, since 1913."
Labour must be an alternative political leadership, not advocates for positions in which we don’t actually believe.
It is Emmanuel Macron who has the most to gain.
from The Spokesman-Review
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from The Washington Post
Ignore the attacks on Neil Gorsuch. He’s an intellectual giant — and a good man.
Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court will be smeared. But those who know him know better.
Enormous Sigmund Freud collection available online for the first time
In 1859, a Jewish wool and textile merchant from Moravia tried to immigrate to Leipzig, Saxony (now part of Germany), with his wife, toddler son and infant daughter. He carried with him a “good conduct certificate,” or personal reference, in ornate script, from the mayor of their official home village. But it was not enough: A restriction barred Jews from settling there. So the family moved to Vienna, the toddler grew up to be the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, and the rest is history. As of Wednesday, that history — including the certificate, with its calligraphic flourishes and teal-colored stamps — will for the first time be available to anyone in the world with an Internet connection. The Library of Congress has digitized much of its extensive Sigmund Freud Collection, 20,000 items in all, including letters, artifacts from his personal and professional life and hundreds of interviews with colleagues, family members, patients and even his housekeeper.
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