I am an African-American male with a Ph.D. and post-doctoral studies in Theology and Philosophy. Contrary to the TAK (Traditional Analysis of Knowledge), I believe that Inspiration is also a source of knowledge, therefore my blog, Provocative Inspiration
Clinton calls Trump’s budget ‘a blow to women and children’
Caitlin Dickson2 hours 23 minutes ago
You better believe it, his disrepect for women We learned more about it during the campaign Some of the ugly things he said about women Yes, he cut Planned Parenthood Yes, he cut after school programs and meals for children No more worthy funding for women and future adults
Hillary Clinton took aim on Friday at President Trump’s proposed cuts to U.S. foreign aid and diplomacy.
Speaking at a Georgetown University awards ceremony for four women who facilitated the 2016 Colombian peace agreement, the former U.S. secretary of state declared, “We are seeing signals of a shift that should alarm us all.”
According to Reuters’ tabulation, Trump’s proposed budget contains a 28 percent cut for U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid next year. The document is merely a blueprint, and Congress will ultimately set its own funding priorities. Clinton made her position clear.
“This administration’s proposed cuts to international health level and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country,” she said.
“Standing up for the rights and opportunities for women and girls must be a cornerstone of American global leadership,” Trump’s former Democratic rival argued.
She also pointed out that more than 120 retired U.S. generals and admirals recently signed a letter to Trump, urging him not to slash spending on diplomacy and foreign aid. These top U.S. military brass “recognize that turning our back on diplomacy won’t make our country safer. It will undermine our security and our standing in the world,” she said.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks at Georgetown University on Friday. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Clinton’s remarks at Georgetown followed a speech before thousands of businesswomen in San Francisco earlier this week — one of her first since losing the election to Trump in November — and in both cases she alternated between throwing sharp critiques at the current administration and poking fun at herself.
“Here I go again, talking about research, evidence, and facts,” Clinton laughed, eliciting cheers and applause from the crowd as she cited studies on the influential role of women in peace negotiations.
“Advancing the rights and full participation of women and girls,” she continued, is “not just a nice thing to do,” but rather, “strategic and necessary for matters of peace, prosperity and security.”
“It is not a partisan issue,” she insisted. “It’s a human issue.”
In another possible jab at Trump, Clinton stated, “If we are to build more just, free and peaceful countries and indeed a world, it’s not enough just to pay lip service to empowering women.” Earlier this week, both the president and first lady Melania Trump spoke about women’s “empowerment” at events marking the end of Women’s History Month.
Clinton concluded, “I am pleading that our government will continue its leadership role on behalf of peace in the world, because the world must continue this work with or without U.S. involvement.”
The latest reported reason teams aren't signing Colin Kaepernick: His vegan diet
He is his own man and has his convictions for life
He is willing to stand by them, no matter
We’ve reached a tipping point on the Colin Kaepernick saga. It has officially entered a phase of absolute ridiculousness.
Whether you believe Kaepernick is unsigned because of his national-anthem protest or simply because he’s not accurate enough from the pocket, I bet you didn’t see this coming: Matt Maiocco, who covers the San Francisco 49ers for NBC Sports Bay Area, said teams haven’t signed Kaepernick because they are worried about the quarterback’s … vegan diet.
To clarify, Maiocco is a fine and thorough reporter. I’m not questioning the report. I’m questioning if NFL teams have collectively lost their minds. And Maiocco seemed to recognize the silliness of it; he was just passing along information.
Let’s point out that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who is probably the greatest quarterback ever, has an intense diet that has been described as vegan for “most of the year,” with some lean meats in the winter.
Kaepernick’s weight was down last season, and that was an issue in him not being fully ready at the start of the season, but he also had multiple offseason surgeries. That played a big part. And he’s reportedly back to his full weight this offseason, so the vegan excuse seems even stranger.
What are we really talking about here? NFL teams clearly don’t want to be accused of colluding against Kaepernick, but does that mean we’re going to get a parade of dumb excuses why he’s unsigned. It’s very unusual for a quarterback of Kaepernick’s age and ability to be unsigned, and if you want to buy that it’s because he’s vegan, go ahead. Feel free to believe it when someone else reports in a week that Kaepernick has too many vowels in his name or whatever will be next for The Real Reason he’s scaring NFL teams off.
But this is the road we’re seemingly taking with the Kaepernick story now. His national anthem protest isn’t why he’s unsigned, it’s because teams are worried about him being a vegan. Sure, sounds plausible. Like if he showed up for a meeting with an NFL team eating a steak, they’d sign him on the spot.
Maybe Kaepernick will get signed before long (Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh thinks there’s no question he will be signed… and we’ll be revisiting those glowing Harbaugh quotes if Kaepernick is still unsigned as training camps start). In the meantime, we can count how many insane excuses teams come up with for not picking him up.
Colin Kaepernick remains an unsigned free agent. (AP)
They are interpreting the graph one way in favor of providing more Mexicans with jobs!!, but what it really says is how cheaply they are building, the enormous profit that they are making, all by using glittering and sparkly business language to subdue the real reason!! Nobody is stupid!! And yes, they should be heavily taxed
AfterDonald Trump’s election, the flow of manufacturers setting up shop south of the border dwindled to a trickle.Ford Motor Co. and Carrier Corp., caught in Trump’s Twitter crosshairs, scrapped plans to move jobs to Mexico in two very public examples of the slowdown.
But now the pace is picking back up.Illinois Tool Works Inc. will close an auto-parts plant in Mazon, Illinois, this month and head to Ciudad Juarez. Triumph Group Inc. is reducing the Spokane, Washington, workforce that makes fiber-composite parts for Boeing Co. aircraft and moving production to Zacatecas and Baja California. TE Connectivity Ltd. is shuttering a pressure-sensor plant in Pennsauken, New Jersey, in favor of a facility in Hermosillo.
While Trump hasn’t stopped pounding his America First bully pulpit, and the future of Nafta remains uncertain, “there’s cautious optimism and a hopeful attitude that cooler heads will prevail in Washington,” said Ross Baldwin, chief executive officer of Tacna Services Inc., which facilitates relocations.
Baldwin has seen the evidence: After business ground to a halt back in November, he’s now juggling two Mexico-bound clients. San Diego-based Tacna helps manage 4,500 workers in Mexico, where factory wages are about a fifth of those in the U.S. That may explain why Mexican manufacturing jobs rose 3.2 percent in January from a year ago as they dropped 0.3 percent in the U.S.
The renewed exodus shows how difficult it will be for Trump to turn the macroeconomic tide just by jawboning alone. This week, he trumpeted a Ford investment in Michigan plants with a cap-lock fanfare: “JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!” The $1.2 billion will create or retain only 130 positions, though. (While Ford canceled plans in November for a new $1.6 billion facility in Mexico, winning Trump’s praise, it employs more than 7,000 workers in that country.)
Trump’s plans to renegotiate Nafta and talk of punitive tariffs can’t erase the need to manufacture in lower-cost countries, said Alan Russell, CEO of El Paso, Texas-based Tecma Group., which also helps open and operate factories in Mexico. European companies tap the Czech Republic for low wages and Asia has Vietnam, and the U.S.
A previously defeated proposal to amend the state constitution to say that God is the source of Tennesseans' liberties has been resurrected in the House.
The measure sponsored by Republican Rep. Micah Van Huss of Jonesborough failed on a 3-3 vote in the House Civil Justice Subcommittee earlier this month. But the panel agreed to a motion to reconsider the bill made by Republican Rep. Martin Daniel of Knoxville.
The resolution is scheduled to be reheard April 5.
The proposed addition to the Tennessee Constitution would read: "We recognize that our liberties do not come from governments, but from almighty God."
Amending the state constitution is a lengthy process in Tennessee. Proposed changes must pass during one successive General Assemblies and then be approved by voters in a gubernatorial election year
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article141605584.html#storylink=cpy
Poll: Americans dislike GOP's, Trump's plan on health care
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase
In the United States Declaration of Independence.
The phrase gives three examples of the "unalienable rights"
Which the Declaration says have been given to all human beings
By their Creator, and which governments are created to protect.
This has to mean AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE as one of those
"UNALIENABLE RIGHTS"
WASHINGTON (AP) — Note to President Donald Trump and House Republicans: People really don't like your approach to overhauling America's health care. If you're hoping to revive the effort, you may want to try something different.
Sixty-two percent of Americans turned thumbs down on Trump's handling of health care during the initial weeks of his presidency, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released Wednesday. It was his worst rating among seven issues the poll tested, including the economy, foreign policy and immigration.
Of six changes the failed House GOP bill would have made to President Barack Obama's law, five drew more negative than positive reviews.
An overwhelming 8 in 10 opposed the Republican proposal to let insurers boost premiums on older people. Seven in 10 disapproved of premium surcharges for people whose coverage lapses.
By wide margins, people also disliked proposed cuts in Medicaid, which helps lower-earning people cover medical costs, a halt in federal payments to Planned Parenthood and a transformation of the Obama law's subsidies — based on income and premium costs — into aid linked to age.
"His campaign promise was great health care for everyone, for all Americans at great prices," said Raymond Brown, 64, a Republican and retired truck driver from Rio Grande, New Jersey. "He isn't fulfilling his campaign promise."
Overall, just over half in the poll said they worry many Americans would have lost coverage had the GOP bill become law. Would their own families and average Americans have been better or worse off? More said worse.
The results underscore that annulling Obama's statute is not an issue to be trifled with. More people support than oppose that law by 45 percent to 38 percent, a slightly narrower margin than in January. And a slender majority say covering all Americans is a federal responsibility — a view embraced by Democrats but not Republicans, who instead focus on access and lower premiums.
The survey was conducted over five days preceding and following last Friday's withdrawal of the GOP health care bill. Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., short-circuited a House vote that would have spelled defeat for the Republican legislation because of opposition from conservative and moderate Republicans. It was a mortifying setback for Trump and his party.
The poll suggests that health care is damaging Trump's image.
Fifty-eight percent disapproved of his overall performance as president, not much different from his negative grade on health care. Even among those approving the job he's doing in office, about 1 in 5 was unhappy with his approach to health care.
The GOP bill scared off many Republican lawmakers after the Congressional Budget Office projected there would be 24 million more uninsured people over a decade and a boost in out-of-pocket costs for many, especially poorer people and Americans nearing retirement age.
The negative views in the poll make any new GOP effort embracing pieces of the crumbled legislation potentially perilous for the party.
Nearly all Democrats and most independents disapproved of Trump's performance on health care, but so did around 1 in 3 Republicans.
In addition, Republicans had mixed views on the collapsed House GOP bill. Clear majorities of them opposed boosting premiums for older people and those who've had gaps in coverage. They were more likely to oppose than support cutting Medicaid and were divided over linking subsidies to age more than income.
Republicans did mostly back the Republican bill's blocking of federal payments to Planned Parenthood. And they were likelier to say their own families and average Americans would have been better off, not worse, under the legislation.
Rosiland Russell, 71, a retired apartment complex manager from Clifton, Texas, said she was glad to see the attempt to unravel Obama's law.
"It's not cheap, it's not what it's cracked up to be," Russell, a Republican, said of Obama's statute. "We've got to have change, it's ridiculous."
Of the proposed Republican changes examined by the poll, only one received a positive reception. That was its elimination of the tax penalty on people who don't buy coverage, though by a modest 48 percent to 35 percent margin.
Strong majorities backed two Obama requirements the GOP would have left in place: Insurers can't deny policies to sick people and must cover children up to age 26 under their parents' plans.
___
The AP-NORC poll of 1,110 adults was conducted March 23-27 using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
Interviews were conducted online and using landlines and cellphones.
Venezuela's Maduro decried as 'dictator' after Congress annulled
By Diego Oré and Andrew Cawthorne,Reuters5 hours ago
By Diego Oré and Andrew Cawthorne
CARACAS (Reuters) - Opposition leaders branded Venezuela's socialist President Nicolas Maduro a "dictator" on Thursday after the Supreme Court took over the functions of Congress and pushed a lengthy political standoff to new heights.
There was swift and widespread international condemnation of the de facto annulment of the National Assembly, where the opposition won a majority in late 2015 amid an unprecedented economic crisis that has seen Maduro's popularity plummet.
The head of the 34-nation Organization of International States (OAS), Luis Almagro, said the Venezuelan court had dealt the final blows to democracy and accused Maduro's "regime" of carrying out a "coup."
Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala and Panama expressed strong concerns while Peru withdrew its envoy after what it termed a rupture of democracy.
The United States described the move as a "serious setback for democracy in Venezuela" while the European Union called for a "clear electoral calendar" going forward.
Venezuela's top court had already overturned most National Assembly decisions since the opposition win. Then late on Wednesday, it explicitly stated it was assuming Congress' role in a ruling authorizing Maduro to create oil joint ventures without the previously mandated congressional approval.
"As long as the situation of contempt in the National Assembly continues, this constitutional chamber guarantees congressional functions will be exercised by this chamber or another chosen organ," the court said in its ruling.
The contempt charge stems from vote-buying accusations against three lawmakers from southern Amazonas state. Even though they no longer sit in Congress, the court said parliamentary leaders had not handled their case legally.
Critics of Maduro say it is an excuse for him to consolidate power and muzzle the opposition amid a severe recession, soaring inflation and acute shortages of food and medicine.
Maduro, a 54-year-old former bus driver and foreign minister, was narrowly elected in 2013 to replace late leftist President Hugo Chavez. He has accused Washington of leading a push to topple him as part of a wider offensive against leftist governments.
Stung by the rebukes around Latin America, Maduro's government condemned what it described as a "right-wing regional pact" against it on Thursday.
"We reject the Peruvian government's rude support for the violent and extremist sectors in Venezuela," Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez said in a series of tweets.
Leaders of Venezuela's Democratic Unity opposition coalition renewed their demand for early presidential elections and accused Maduro of duplicating Peruvian leader Alberto Fujimori's notorious 1992 closure of Congress.
"Nicolas Maduro has carried out a 'coup d'etat' ... this is a dictatorship," said National Assembly President Julio Borges, before tearing up a copy of the Supreme Court ruling at a news conference in the gardens of the legislature.
"This is trash from people who have kidnapped the constitution, rights and freedom of Venezuelans ... The National Assembly does not recognize the Supreme Court."
PROTESTS
The opposition promised new street protests starting from Saturday - but that tactic has failed in the past despite marches that have drawn hundreds of thousands of protesters.
Last year, the opposition pushed for a referendum to recall Maduro and force a new presidential election, but authorities thwarted them and also postponed local electoral races that were supposed to have been held in 2016.
Maduro's term in office ends in January 2019.
Around a dozen opposition lawmakers trying to march to the Supreme Court on Thursday clashed with National Guard soldiers and pro-government supporters lined up to stop them.
Pockets of youths took to the streets in parts of Caracas and attempted to block a major highway. They held flags and banners saying, "No to dictatorship."
However, numbers were small and they quickly dispersed.
In 2014, a wave of unrest swept the country, leaving more than 40 dead, though now many opposed to the government say they feel protesting is pointless.
"If the international community stays firm, demanding elections, we are sure the government will have to turn back," another opposition leader and two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles said.
Spooked by the opposition's warning that investment deals bypassing Congress would not be valid, foreign oil companies were closely following the political showdown.
As Venezuela tries to raise funds for bond payments and a reeling economy, it has sought to sell stakes in oil fields. State oil company PDVSA recently offered Russia's Rosneft a stake in the Petropiar oil joint venture, sources with knowledge of the proposal told Reuters.
"We want to make perfectly clear to all the oil companies that any strategic alliance (that did not go through Congress) is null," Borges said on Thursday.
While some investors could see the Supreme Court sentence as giving them the green light to invest, others are increasingly worried about Venezuela's murky legal framework.
"There is reasonable doubt about the legality of all this," said a source at a foreign oil company.
(Additional reporting by Corina Pons, Eyanir Chinea, Andreina Aponte, Girish Gupta in Caracas, Mitra Taj in Lima, Rosalba O'Brien in Santiago and Enrique Pretel in San Jose; Writing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Tom Brown and Andrew Hay
It needs to be understood as a chronic medical disease and take crime aspect out of it for users. Locking people us is not helping
President Donald Trump speaks during an opioid and drug abuse listening session. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP Photo)
“How does heroin work with these beautiful lakes and trees?” then–presidential candidate Donald Trump asked during a campaign stop in New Hampshire in September 2016. “More than any place, this state, I’ve never seen anything like it with what’s happening with the drugs.” He promised to “stop the heroin from pouring in.”
Experts say Trump was accurate in his observation. The rippling White Mountains and sparkling blue lakes of New Hampshire offer a stark contrast to the ravages of a heroin epidemic that has torn through the state’s quintessential small towns, with the “Live Free or Die” state landing at the forefront of the crisis. It continually ranks among the states with the most opioid overdoses in the U.S.
Yesterday President Trump, in an apparent attempt to make good on his promise to tackle what’s become a national epidemic, held a listening session on the opioid crisis, where he announced that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would take a leading advisory role in a commission to fight the scourge. “I’m just so honored that the president would ask me to take on this task,” Christie said during the meeting
“We want to help those who have become so badly addicted,” Trump said during the session, which included family members of those who have experienced an opioid overdose. “This is a total epidemic, and I think it is probably un-talked about compared to the severity we are witnessing.” The president went on to say that the commission will work with local officials, along with law enforcement and victims of the crisis, to combat the issue.
“Solving the drug crisis will require cooperation across government and across society, including early intervention to keep America’s youth off this destructive path,” the president said.
In a statement to NH1, a local news station, New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen expressed disappointment that not one official from her state was at the session but said she welcomes the federal government’s aid in fighting the problem. Still, Shaheen said, the Trump administration’s policies are in “desperate need of a course correction.”
“I hope this commission will help facilitate a turnaround before New Hampshire’s efforts are severely undermined,” she added. “There is a massive gulf between President Trump’s promises to tackle this crisis and the policies this administration has proposed during his first two months in office.”
New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan echoed Shaheen’s sentiment, saying she’s ready to work with the administration to combat the crisis but that officials need “more than just window dressing.” Both Shaheen and Hassan argued that the attempt to dramatically cut funding to addiction recovery programs and ending Medicaid expansion in the now-defunct Obamacare repeal would have had dire consequences for people battling opioid addiction. Experts estimated that nearly 1.3 million Americans would have lost access to substance-abuse treatment under Trump’s failed health care bill.
The New Hampshire leaders and addiction experts also criticized Trump’s proposed budget plan, which includes an unprecedented $1.2 billion cut to research grants from the National Institutes of Health. The budget proposal has already been met with bipartisan resistance and will likely be rejected by Congress. Experts say the cuts would greatly undermine rehab efforts.
The listening session also included high-profile White House officials, such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has argued for harsher penalties for drug users. Sessions also has voiced the opinion that the answer to the drug problem might be a return to the 1980s-era abstinence programs spearheaded by Nancy Reagan, when the U.S. government urged people to “Just Say No.”
But those on the front lines of the battle don’t agree that those tactics would be the most effective.
Dr. John Kelly, director of Harvard’s Recovery Research Institute, noted that some of the most innovative solutions have come from law enforcement, such as facilitating the rehabilitation of drug users, rather than arresting and prosecuting them. Other efforts that have seen success include greater prescriber education, prescription monitoring programs, medication take-backs and disposal efforts, and increased availability of, and training for, naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversal drug.
“We must look to the causes of this epidemic, which have included the vastly underrecognized potential for harm from opioids, which has been directly related to overprescribing by medical professionals,” said Kelly.
President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks during an opioid and drug abuse listening session in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 29 March 2017. (Photo: Shawn Thew / Pool via CNP /MediaPunch/IPX/AP)
Opioids — both prescription medications and street drugs like heroin — are now the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., killing more than 33,000 people in 2015, more than any year on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About half that number involved prescription opioids.
Experts acknowledge the complexity of the crisis, in which many users often are legally prescribed a painkiller for a medical treatment, but then turn to a cheaper, more potent high from illicit drugs like heroin, fentanyl and carfentanil.
“The opioid crisis is different than other drug crises in our history in that abusers have a different pathway to addiction — through pain medication, pharmacies — than other addicts,” said Faye Taxman, professor of criminology, law, and society at George Mason University. “The new strategy must reduce the barriers to treatment and also provide for a path to deal with the stigma of having a drug addiction problem.”
Dr. Dominic Graziano, an internist who treats opioid addicts in Chicago, praised the new commission’s multidisciplinary approach, which includes the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Veterans Affairs. He noted, however, that it’s imperative for the medical community — pharmacists, nurses and doctors — to come together to create robust inpatient and outpatient rehab programs.
Currently, there are areas the coalition needs to address within a medical setting, said Graziano. National programs must be implemented to help doctors identify prescription drug abuse more quickly in hospitals and other medical settings. In addition, he said, a multidisciplinary approach to rehabilitation — including the involvement of psychiatrists, psychologists, internists and drug rehab specialists — would make “a huge difference” in overall recovery and sobriety.
“There used to be many programs years ago for inpatient illicit and prescription drug addiction,” said Graziano. “These are practically nonexistent now.” He argued that there needs to be greater expansion and accessibility of treatment facilities. “I presently have a patient who is begging for a heroin-inpatient program. Insurance will not pay for it.
