Sunday, January 26, 2020
Tuesday, January 07, 2020
Words.
Nixak*77* TylerB 7 days ago
So per your WTF {il}'logic' the best way to address poverty in Africa, is to join / work for a bank who's main purpose was to distribute condoms all over Africa, instead of grants, low interest loans, scholarships, finance Biz that create jobs paying a living-wage; supply financing for small farms to grow sufficient food for Africans dietary needs; help fund schools, hospitals & critical water & sanitation infrastructure; fund projects to rid malaria in Africa, etc... - Humm...
Nixak*77* •
In response to Tara, Tyler & others of their anti-theistic ilk, who keep trying to assert atheism is the 'Church of What's Happening Now' while belief in God is waning the world over ['Don't Believe Their Hype']. This 'may' well be so in westernized countries [Tyler hyped a poll that said 'nones' are now 22% of the US' adult population, which = 78% of the US' population still ID as 'Folks of Faith, while less than half of those US 'nones' even ID as atheists], but in most of the rest of the World, that 'Ain't Necessarily So' by a long shot!!
- Last week Marvin linked to an article that even I found surprising, that officially atheistic China [of all places] is on course to have the most Xtians of any country in the world within a decade or 2 [FYI: China's currently the world's most atheistic country both by % & total numbers]. Tyler & Tara tried to dismiss this info, with the standard anti-theistic rhetoric that Xtianity is waning [again maybe so among well-off western white-guys].
- From the Guardian, Aug 27, 2018: Religion: Why Faith Is Becoming More and More Popular [despite the hype] Faith Is on the Rise as 84% of the Global Population Identifies with a Religious Group [see @ www.theguardian.com/news/20... ]: Some key excerpts: } If you think religion belongs to the past and we live in a new age of reason, you need to check out the facts: 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religious group. Members of this demographic are generally younger and produce more children than those who have no religious affiliation, so the world is getting more religious, not less – although there are significant geographical variations.
- Christians form the biggest religious group by some margin, with 2.3 billion adherents or 31.2% of the total world population of 7.3 billion. Next come Muslims (1.8 billion, or 24.1%), Hindus (1.1 billion, or 15.1%) and Buddhists (500 million, or 6.9%). [Note: so Xtians = 31% + Muslims = 24% = 55% & adding Jews / Hebrews = about 57% of the World's people are of the Abrahamic Faiths traditions vs at best maybe barely 10% of the World's people are atheists]
- The third biggest category is missing from the above list. In 2015, 1.2 billion people in the world, or 16%, said they have no religious affiliation at all. But this does not mean all those people are committed atheists; some – perhaps most – have a strong sense of spirituality or belief in God, gods or guiding forces, but they just don’t identify with or practise an organised religion.
- Geography is important in religion. Asia-Pacific is the most populous region in the world, and also the most religious. It is home to 99% of Hindus, 99% of Buddhists, and 90% of those practising folk or traditional religions. The region also hosts 76% of the world’s religiously unaffiliated people, 700m of whom are Chinese.
- Religion is on the wane in western Europe and North America, but it’s growing everywhere else.
- Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world – more than twice as fast as the overall global population. Between 2015 and 2060, the world’s inhabitants are expected to increase by 32%, but the Muslim population is forecast to grow by 70%. And even though Christians will also outgrow the general population over that period, with an increase of 34% forecast mainly thanks to population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, Christianity is likely to lose its top spot in the world religion league table to Islam by the middle of this century.
- Hindus are set to grow by 27%, and Jews by 15% mainly because of the high birth rate among the ultra-Orthodox. However the religiously unaffiliated will see an increase of just 3%. - And while the religiously unaffiliated currently make up 16% of the global population, only about 10% of the world’s newborns were born to religiously unaffiliated mothers between 2010 and 2015.
- China has seen a huge religious revival in recent years and some predict it will have the world’s largest Christian population by 2030. The number of Chinese Protestants has grown by an average of 10 % annually since 1979, to between 93 million and 115 million, according to one estimate. There are reckoned to be another 10-12 million Chinese Catholics.... {
- So as(s) Tyler & Tara & their ilk, hype that there maybe a couple of million more atheists in the US, & 10 - 20 mn more atheists in the EU & Canada, the World's most atheistic country China, has 90 - 100 mn more Xtians [& that don't even count the growing number of Chinese Muslims & of course Buddhists & Confucianists]. And how many atheists in Russia were lost in that count w the fall of the Berlin Wall?? - And there's Africa where atheists are almost as rare as African saber-tooth tigers!!
- And this sidebar to the article: Science and Religion: } A key proponent of the incompatibility of science and religion is Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist [& out-spoken anti-theistic author of The God Delusion], who has ridiculed creation and intelligent design theories.
- A survey of 3,000 science, medical, technical, and engineering professionals in the UK, Germany and France, commissioned by the Scientific and Medical Network, found that 25% described themselves as atheists, and 45% as religious or spiritual.
- Professor Eric Priest, a mathematician and a former president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said the supposed conflict between science and spirituality was outdated, and many scientists had “a more subtle, nuanced view of the relationship, and recognise that questioning, imagination, creativity, reason, faith and community are common features of both science and religion”.
- In the US, a survey of scientists in 2009 found they were roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. One in three scientists said they believed in God compared with 83% of the general population. Just under half the scientists polled said they had no religious affiliation, compared with only 17% of the public.
- Jennifer Wiseman, a Christian astrophysicist and director of Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion, a programme of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told ABC News that science was a “wonderful tool for understanding the physical universe” but religious belief provides answers to bigger philosophical questions in life. “We are physically connected to the universe and I think we have a deeper connection as well.” {
- What this shows is, despite Dawkins & his {not so}'New Atheists' ilk, one can indeed be a serious scientist & still be a 'Person of Faith', but we should already know that based on the bios of legendary scientists like Sir Isaac Newton, George Washington Carver, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, among many others. It's only become 'fashionable' to try to associate science w atheism / agnosticism since in the wake of Darwin.
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Nixak*77* Jim 17 days ago
IMO what's good about this is that a hi-profile US Xtian publication has finally stated that Trump is morally unfit to be POTUS / morally unfit to be any kind of leader for Xtians to look up to [IMO this can be said for most POTUSes & politicians]. But that was true re this Trumpster Dumpster joker from Day-1 [& both Billary Clintons & Bush Jr too].
- That being said IMO this Dim led impeachment of Trump is totally based on partisan politics, NOT on principles. As such IMO a Repug controlled US Senate will not remove the Trumpster from office [2/3s of the senate = 66 / 67 senators must vote yea on removal or it ain't gonna happen]. Plus as Aaron Mate' in a recent Real News interview showed, the Dims have FAILED to actually make an air-tight case- IE: their case for Trumpeachment is full of holes [see @ https://therealnews.com/sto... ]: Some Key Excerpts: } Mate': When it comes to these articles of impeachment, the Democrats say that Trump compromised the national security of the United States. Presumably they mean by withholding this military funding to Ukraine. First of all, they should have to explain what they mean by that because that’s a very serious allegation. Do they seriously mean that briefly putting on hold some military funding to Ukraine is a threat to U.S. National security? We heard at the impeachment hearings held by the House Judiciary Committee from witnesses who said that we’re arming Ukraine so that they can fight the Russians so that we don’t have to fight them here. But does anybody seriously believe that? If Democrats are trying to make that argument, it’s farcical. It’s especially farcical because President Obama, when he was in office, faced heavy bipartisan pressure, including from some of the Democrats star witnesses, to send lethal assistance to Ukraine. The very assistance that Trump briefly paused, and Obama rightfully I think said no. So according to the argument put forward in the Democrats articles of impeachment, they’re basically accusing President Obama when he refused throughout his entire Presidency during the time he was asked to do it, to refuse to send the military assistance, they’re essentially accusing him of endangering U.S. national security, which is a joke.
- And... Democrats didn’t even try to subpoena people like Mike Pompeo or Rudy Giuliani or Mick Mulvaney. They instead relied on witnesses who basically had no firsthand knowledge at all. And their only witness who claimed to have firsthand knowledge and the only witness in fact who we know even communicated that there was such linkage to the Ukrainian side, was Gordon Sondland. But what did Gordon’s Sondland say when he came before Congress? He said that this linkage of military assistance and investigations in Ukraine was only his presumption and that in fact he and Trump never even discussed the military assistance specifically. That Trump never brought it up and that when he briefly mentioned it to a Ukrainian official, that that was only his presumption. - Well, you can’t make an impeachment case based on one person’s presumption. Gordon Sondland’s presumption is just as valid as the presumption of Kurt Volker, who was the U.S. Envoy to Ukraine, who said that he saw no such linkage and that’s why it never even came up in his multiple meetings with Ukrainians And that is why even the person who Sondland reportedly communicated with on the Ukrainian side, André Yermack. He said just now in an interview with Time Magazine that he never saw there to be linkage between opening investigations and the military assistance. In fact, he [Yermack] doesn’t even remember this conversation with Sondland that was seen by some as the quid pro quo evidence... {
I mean w a case full of such holes as(s) that, if I were a Repug senator, I would NOT vote to remove Repug Trump from the Oval Office, based on these flimsy allegations. The Dims are playing pure politics w this dubious impeachment ploy, after their Russia-Gate scheme/scam fell-flat! Now IMO there are real principled reasons to impeach this Trumpster joker, which the Dims failed to even bring up- IE: Trump has been in blatant violation of the emoluments clause of the US Constitution from Day-1. He was supposed to either sell all his assets / holdings in Trump Intl, Inc or put them in a blind-trust till he leaves office, which he's steadfastly refused to do. And Trump's almost certainly guilty of multiple counts of tax evasion, & IMO likely shady money laundering schemes, too. Plus this Trumpster Dumpster dude scammed a bunch of people out of their money w shady biz schemes & practices, before becoming POTUS!!
- Then there's this travesty that Trump's caused at the US southern border where he's separated immigrant children from their parents & locked them-up in cages! Plus he's openly called for US boarder security to violate the law to stop immigrants from crossing the southern boarder into the US. And Trump's abused his POTUS power by calling a phony national 'emergency' to try to force the Dims to fund his 'wall'- Which by the way he first said he would get Mexico to pay for it. - Then there's the fact that Trump has made not 1 but 2 known racists / white-supremacists [Steve Bannon & now Stephen Miller who Trump's put in-charge of his immigration policy] his top presidential advisers [but then Trump himself is an overt racist].
- And this yr alone the Trump regime has instigated 2 regime-change coups vs duly elected Govts in S.America [unsuccessfully in Venezuela, successfully in Bolivia- coups which most Dims {including to some extent even Bernie} back]. And when the coup in Venezuela failed to topple the rightfully elected govt, the Trump regime hit Venezuela w punishing sanctions just to make Venezuelans suffer. - And Oh let's not forget the Trump regime's role in arming the Saudis to whole-sale massacre & slaughter folks in Yemen [but the Dims won't bring that up, because that atrocity began under Obama].
- And then there're all these sexual-assault [including rape] allegations by several women vs 'nookie-grabbing' Trump, including his links to convicted child rapist-prostitutor / pimp [to the 1%] the late Jeff Epstein ala Trump being a frequent-flyer on Epstein's 'Lolita Express'. But the Dims won't go there because Dim 'Ole Slick-Willy Clinton' [& Prince Andrew, too] are just as guilty as Trump on that score, in-fact maybe even more so.
IMO any one of these real & mostly easily provable Trumpster violations was truly worthy of impeachment & even removal from office, let alone all of them are IMO a wrap / a done-deal!! So did the Dims include any of them in their articles of impeachment vs Repug Trump? Hell NO!! IMO cause the Dims are playing politics, their Trumpeachment ploy ain't about real principles at-all!!
- Plus... IMO Hunter Biden getting a well-paid seat on Ukraine's top energy corp [to the tune of $50K / mon], while his pops 'Ole 'Record-Player' Joe' was the sitting VP under Obama, when the whole thing was set-up by the Obama-Biden Regime supporting a 2014 coup vs yet another elected govt spearheaded by a bunch of literal Ukrainian Neo-N@zis- Needed / Needs to be investigated, which actually was happening when Ole Joe.B as VP personally went to Ukraine & demanded they shut it down or else he'd see they'd not get an aid package they were desperately seeking from the US- Which the then Ukraine govt folded & capitulated to 'Ole Joe's' demands [FYI: there's actually video of 'Ole Joe' boasting about this]. Again from the Mate' interview @TRNN: } Mate': The fact is some of the investigations that Trump was demanding, IE: an investigation into Burisma, which was the company that Hunter Biden got his lucrative board seat on, was an investigation that was also demanded by Trump’s predecessors. The Obama administration had also been calling for investigations into Burisma and even some of the Democrats' impeachment witnesses said that it was appropriate to call for probes into Burisma. And the same way that everybody [among the Dims] seems to think it’s appropriate for Joe Biden as he did and bragged about, to condition U.S. aid to Ukraine on the firing of a prosecutor. The same prosecutor who was investigating Burisma [vis-a-vis Hunter Biden]... { - Also note anti-war activist Dave Swanson's take on the Dims' lame-duck Trumpeachment ploy [& the history of impeachment in general] @ www.counterpunch.org/2019/1...
Nixak*77* Herald Newman 21 days ago
I said I could name a number of assertions / 'predictions' Darwinists have made that turned out to be WRONG, & you diss that as me just so-called 'frothing'. Well Dude I'm calling your bluff.
- Darwinists asserted the appendix, tonsils, tail-bone, thyroid, the pineal & pituitary glands, thymus, hypothalamus, & even a woman's clitoris were all so-called 'vestigial-organs' [which allegedly 'proved' Darwin's theory], Yet they were proven WRONG! None of those organs are functionless vestiges! [Note: Per Darwinists male nipples are functionless vestiges of female nipples, while a woman's clitoris is a functionless vestige of a man's penis -EXCEPT- Human males & females are of the very same, not different, species, & as such per Darwin's theory, they must have co-evolved together, not separately- Duhh!! Thus men's nipples & a woman's clitoris could not possibly be 'proof' of / for Darwinian Macro-evolution!!]
- Using the same lame 'reasoning' as(s) they used re so-called 'vestigial-organs' [w the same objective in mind], Darwinists asserted that 95% of our DNA was just so-called 'junk' -EXCEPT- ENCODE showed that at-least 80% of what Darwinists had dismissed as so-called 'junk-DNA' is NOT junk at-all = Yet another WRONG Darwinist 'prediction' / assertion!
- Darwinists have asserted human DNA is 99% similar to chimp DNA since the mid-1970s, even tho both sets of DNA were not fully sequenced till circa 2005. So what did they find when they finally did fully sequence human & chimp DNA? Human DNA has 3235 mega bp -vs- chimp DNA has 2996 mega bp. FYI: 2996 / 3235 = 92.6% NOT 99%. Darwinists shown to be WRONG yet again!!
- Darwinists asserted the Coelacanth went extinct circa 65 mybp [along w dinos], & also that they were allegedly a so-called 'transitional-form' of a fish 'evolving' into a tetrapod land-creature -EXCEPT- Coelacanths have NOT gone extinct, NOT 65 mybp Nor even 6.5K yrs ago, they still exist [Duhh!]; -&- They ain't no type of 'transitional-form' either, they are FISH- PERIOD [Double-Duhh!!]. A Darwinist assertion / 'prediction' shown to be WRONG yet again- TWICE!!
- IMO between the findings of intact soft-tissue in dino fossil-bones allegedly over +65 mn yrs old [really?], & studies showing birds almost certainly could NOT have evolved from Dinos, another Darwinist assertion will likely [more sooner than later] see the branches cut right from under it / see its wings clipped & come crashing to the ground!!
Just a few blatantly obvious things Darwin's theory of evolution has FAILED to adequately explain after 160 yrs [& counting]. So 'Riddle Me This, Joker': Why do humans lack a thick-coat of fur compared to our supposed great-ape 'kin'? - Why are we up-right bipeds? - And how could human language capabilities have ever 'evolved' via the Darwinian random-selection paradigm? - And Oh, IMO there's never been a truly satisfactory Darwinian based explanation for the 'evolution' of sexual reproduction, without which Darwinian evolution would be a NON-starter re complex multi-cellular macroscopic organisms- Darwinists haven't explained it, they've just assumed & co-opted / usurped it into their theory.
PS: If you really make me mad, I'll bring-up Piltdown & Nebraska Man, Haeckel's fake embryo-drawings, & the Ota-Benga travesty!!
FYI: There's a reason why the Dims dredged-up 2 dozen wannabe candidates, many who few have ever heard of before [IE: Mayor Pete]- in their attempt to blur the obvious fact that either Bernie Sanders or maybe Liz Warren would have obviously been the Dems' front-runner(s). That's why they got 'Ole 'Record-Player' Joe' Biden to belatedly jump-in [based on him being Obama's VP], to try to blunt Bernie's front-runner status, but now that it looks like 'Ole Joe's' run may flame-out yet again [He's run for POTUS 2Xs before both resulting in 'no-shows']. So now they've even got Mr 1% of the 1%, Wall-St bankster-pal billionaire Mike Bloomberg talking about taking the plunge [apparently Mr 0.01% Wall-St Mike.B thinks he can buy the Oval-Office desk the same way he bought his way to NYC's mayor's chair]. All to try to swamp Bernie's populist run [& to a lesser extent Liz.W]. PS: IMO Tulsi Gabbard's the exception, I largely agree w Arthur.J's assessment of her re foreign-policy & her anti-'regime-change' / anti-war stance vs the other Dims, including Bernie.
- This is the true context in which to view Mayor Pete's run now that he's in the top 4 of the Dims POTUS candidates [along w Bernie, Liz.W & 'Ole 'Record-Player' Joe']. So what's Mayor Pete's real track record? Here are a few articles that one should peruse to know what the real-deal is re 'Mayor Pete'.B: Warren vs. Buttigieg Clash Offers Contrast with Sanders’ Consistency [@ www.counterpunch.org/2019/1... ]: a short excerpt: } Big money continues to flood into Buttigieg’s campaign from corp-execs, lobbyists & billionaires. While Warren & Sanders don’t hold high-dollar events for wealthy donors, Buttigieg & Biden do. But unlike Biden, Buttigieg had refused to allow reporters into those events. [so what's 'Mayor Pete' hiding]... {
- And also see this piece @ CounterPunch Buttigieg and McKinsey [@ www.counterpunch.org/2019/1... ]: Some Key Excerpts: } Major questions have been raised about presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s work for global consulting firm McKinsey, with even the NY-Times editorial board demanding that he release the information. After Buttigieg issued a sparse and vague overview on Dec 7, questions remain unanswered about his work for McKinsey from 2007 to 2010.
- My [the author Joyce Nelson's] recent book Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism has a major focus on McKinsey, which has long been one of the lead corporate players engaged in privatizing the world. - It appears that Mayor Pete did indeed “drink the McKinsey Kool-Aid” on at least one issue – health care.
- As one of its many consulting services, McKinsey functions as a “turn-around specialist,” advising failing companies on ways to become profitable again – usually by laying off thousands of employees. But as I wrote in Beyond Banksters, “It’s important to note that apparently, there are times when a ‘turn-around specialist’ like McKinsey & Co. actually can take a functioning organization and turn it into a disaster. Or at least that seems to be view across much of England toward McKinsey.”
- Over the past dozen years, McKinsey has been largely responsible for the creeping privatization of the UK’s beloved National Health Service (NHS), advocating policies adopted by Conservative governments that have underfunded and eroded public health services and which favor the private sector.
- For example, a major 2009 report from McKinsey called on the NHS to find “efficiency savings” of 4 billion pounds sterling every year for five years – a gargantuan amount of $20 billion pounds sterling in total. McKinsey’s advice eventually led to major NHS cuts, including the loss of 6,000 nursing jobs.
- As well, McKinsey has drafted UK healthcare policy proposals that have been incorporated wholesale into legislation, to the financial benefit of McKinsey itself as well as its corporate clients who have gained increasing access to the UK's healthcare system.
- McKinsey has been pushing the UK's NHS toward the US for-profit healthcare model, and has even taken UK legislators on trips to the US to see the ‘integrated care model” in action. After one such trip, private discussions took place between McKinsey and the UK health watchdog over the possibility that some 65,000 hospital beds could be closed.
- Such revelations have shocked the British public and added to the urgency around the Brexit vote. Equally important, McKinsey’s creeping privatization of the NHS has pushed that service further into a “two-tier healthcare system”....
- So turn-around specialist McKinsey had taken an organization that had been functioning well for decades and gradually (and with the cooperation of conservative government) turned it into mess – a standard corporate playbook for privateers. The next step is usually for the private sector to “come to the rescue” and “save” the failing entity by privatizing it...
- Pete Buttigieg’s attacks on single-payer and Medicare For All [which Bernie strongly endorses] echo the McKinsey vision. Apparently, he learned well during his 3 yrs of employment with that company. His “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan is a clever recapitulation of the “two-tier” system that McKinsey has fostered in the UK, with private insurance companies making millions off the system, while the public sector erodes.... {
And then there's this issue re 'Mayor Pete'.B's track-record as Mayor of South-Bend IN: Pete Buttigieg Fired South Bend’s 1st Black Police Chief. And It Still Stings. [@ www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/... ]: Some Excerpts: } SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Pete Buttigieg had been mayor just 13 weeks when he faced a leadership crisis. - It was March 2012, and 300 residents of South Bend, Ind., solemnly marched to the Martin Luther King Center to protest the killing in FL Black teenager, Trayvon Martin.
- A prominent figure at the demonstration was Darryl Boykins, South Bend’s first [& only] Black police chief. Admired for teaching tennis and boxing to young people, he had been promoted to chief five years earlier after winning the respect of both black and white officers in a department that oft-times divided along racial lines.
- Mr. Buttigieg addressed the protesters, but seemed not to interact with Mr. Boykins. What no one in the crowd knew was that the police top brass were in turmoil — shaken by allegations that Mr. Boykins had improperly taped phone calls of senior white officers who were said to have used racist language, including about him.
- With federal prosecutors scrutinizing Mr. Boykins, the 29-year-old mayor fired the veteran police chief just before the Trayvon Martin protest. No action was taken against the officers. Precisely what they said on the tapes of their department phone calls is unknown to the public: Mr. Buttigieg has refused to release them, saying the matter is still being resolved in court.
- In the weeks, months and years that followed, Mayor Pete's firing of Mr. Boykins unleashed a blizzard of claims, counterclaims and lawsuits, as well as anguish among South Bend’s minority residents over whether an ambitious white mayor had sided with white police officers against their Black police chief. The day after Mr. Boykins’s dismissal, he was applauded at a gathering of 100 officers, council members and clergy. The events played out against a backdrop of frustration among some African-Americans that they have not benefited equally from an economic resurgence in South Bend, which Mr. Buttigieg extols in his presidential bid.
- As Mr. Buttigieg seeks the Democratic nomination in a party whose base is anchored by minority voters, his handling of Mr. Boykins’ dismissal and its messy aftermath raise questions whether the mayor either misunderstood or mishandled sensitivities surrounding race and policing in the place he knew best, a city which is 37% Black & Latino.
- ... There were/are few people of color at 'Mayor Pete's' rallies. The former Democratic consultant David Axelrod, a friend of the mayor’s [& was one of Obama's top political advisers], noted in a tweet: “Crowd seems very large, very impressive but also very white — an obstacle he will have to overcome.”
- Regina Williams-Preston, who represents a majority Black district on the South Bend City Council, called Mr. Buttigieg “a smart guy, a nice guy,” but added, “We have to look past the polish and really look at the policy.”..
- Mr. Buttigieg has appointed two white chiefs since ending Mr. Boykins’s tenure. - And minority representation on the department remains low. Only 5% of officers were African-American & 5% Hispanic in 2018, a slight decline from the previous yr [in a city that's 37% Black & Hispanic, Humm...]...
So why did Mr. Buttigieg fire Mr. Boykins in the first place? He maintains he was pressured by federal prosecutors. In “Shortest Way Home,” his memoir published in February, he writes that “a message came through” from prosecutors that he must push out Mr. Boykins or they would file charges against him for violating the Federal Wiretap Act. - 'Mayor Pete' speculates in his book that prosecutors were trying to duck responsibility for “taking down a beloved African-American police chief” by getting Mr. Buttigieg to fire him instead.
- Mr. Boykins’s lawyer, Tom Dixon, said that when he first heard this explanation, invoked by Mr. Buttigieg in 2012, a red flag went up. So he asked an assistant prosecutor in the US attorney’s office, a lawyer he knew from church, about Mayor Pete’s [dubious] assertion. And “He said, ‘Tom, that explanation is so contrary to the protocols of U.S. attorneys’ offices,”’ Mr. Dixon recalled. “‘We never would condition a determination on prosecuting or not prosecuting based on an employment decision. It would never happen.”
- One person who did hear the tapes was the then police communications director, Karen DePaepe. In court filings, she described them as “discriminatory racial comments of high ranking officers” in the department, and said she told Mr. Boykins about them. She also heard “something I believe to be possibly illegal.”
- Eleven days after Mr. Boykins’s removal as chief, Ms. DePaepe, who had made eight cassettes of the phone calls and given them to the chief, was fired.
- In an interview that night, she told The South Bend Tribune that Mr. Buttigieg’s chief of staff, Mike Schmuhl — who is today his presidential campaign manager — threatened her with arrest if she spoke publicly. - “He said, ‘Now you understand that...neither you nor anyone else is allowed to discuss the federal investigation or anything that was recorded,’” Ms. DePaepe said she was told by Mr. Schmuhl, according to the newspaper. “‘And if you or anyone else does, you will be arrested.’”
- Subsequently the city paid Ms. DePaepe $235,000 in 2014 to settle a suit she brought over defamation and other claims. But as part of her settlement, she had to agree not to discuss what was on those tapes... {
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So some apparently white-racist cops were caught on tape by the Dept's then communications officer who gave the '411' to her boss, the Black police-chief [Note: she was also fired after Mayor Pete forced Boykins' removal], where top white-cops made some outrageously racist comments [even about their own chief], thus they accused the Black chief of 'illegally-taping' them [even tho apparently it was the communications officer, not Boykins, who actually taped them] & demanded that young 'Mayor Pete' fire South-Bend's 1st [& only] Black 'top-cop', which Mayor Pete dutifully followed orders / took his marching-orders from & 'bends' to the racist white-cops' demands. He didn't even wait for the Feds to complete their probe into the matter & make their recommendations. Plus IMO 'Mayor Pete' must know what's on those tapes [despite his dubious denial], & if they are indeed racistly outrageous & offensive, he should have at-least demanded the resignations of all those offenders as well [& told them if they didn't resign he would NOT fire the Black police-chief]- But NO!! Instead 'Mayor Pete' dropped the ball, got played like a 'sucker', or however you want to term it!!
- And 'Mayor Pete' can continue try to play the 'nut-role' about what's really on those tapes, IMO it's bound to eventually all 'come out of the closet' so to speak, IMO likely sooner than later if Mayor Pete's POTUS run really begins to take off during the Dims' 2020 primaries. And if it's as bad as Ms DePaepe says it is, it's gonna look like Mayor Pete participated in a cover-up of wrong doing by some South Bend PD top-cops, which he then 'bend' to their racist will & put South Bend's 1st & only Black police-chief on the chopping-block along w Ms DePaepe, for really dubious reasons.
Nixak*77* Marvin a month ago
Note that Tara [& others here] have repeatedly given higher praise for Hinduism vs any of the Abrahamic Faiths. Yet she chooses to 'blissfully' ignore the Hindu widow-burning tradition, &/or the Hindu caste-system & the yet on-going plight of the Dalits [aka the 'untouchables'] as(s) the Hindu-caste system permanently cast Dalits down to the effective status of perpetual slaves.
- But apparently for Tara: 'Ignorance is Bliss'!
Nixak*77* Tara a month ago
Per you: 'For the first 1800 or so years... Christians owned slaves...'
- OK Tara if that's true then 'Riddle Me this Joker': How many slaves did Yeshua [aka 'Jesus'] own? How many slaves did Yeshua say was Kool & the Gang to own? Ditto for Yeshua's father Yosafe, His brother Ya'akov [aka St 'James'], &/or any of His original apostles?
- In fact I defy you or any of your chums here to say when any so-called 'Xtians' began regularly owning slaves pre 325 ACE / Council of Nicea!! The fact is Yeshua's Judean followers were effectively themselves slaves - enslaved by the Roman Empire, ditto for the early 'Xtians' in Rome as well!!
So per your WTF {il}'logic' the best way to address poverty in Africa, is to join / work for a bank who's main purpose was to distribute condoms all over Africa, instead of grants, low interest loans, scholarships, finance Biz that create jobs paying a living-wage; supply financing for small farms to grow sufficient food for Africans dietary needs; help fund schools, hospitals & critical water & sanitation infrastructure; fund projects to rid malaria in Africa, etc... - Humm...
Nixak*77* •
In response to Tara, Tyler & others of their anti-theistic ilk, who keep trying to assert atheism is the 'Church of What's Happening Now' while belief in God is waning the world over ['Don't Believe Their Hype']. This 'may' well be so in westernized countries [Tyler hyped a poll that said 'nones' are now 22% of the US' adult population, which = 78% of the US' population still ID as 'Folks of Faith, while less than half of those US 'nones' even ID as atheists], but in most of the rest of the World, that 'Ain't Necessarily So' by a long shot!!
- Last week Marvin linked to an article that even I found surprising, that officially atheistic China [of all places] is on course to have the most Xtians of any country in the world within a decade or 2 [FYI: China's currently the world's most atheistic country both by % & total numbers]. Tyler & Tara tried to dismiss this info, with the standard anti-theistic rhetoric that Xtianity is waning [again maybe so among well-off western white-guys].
- From the Guardian, Aug 27, 2018: Religion: Why Faith Is Becoming More and More Popular [despite the hype] Faith Is on the Rise as 84% of the Global Population Identifies with a Religious Group [see @ www.theguardian.com/news/20... ]: Some key excerpts: } If you think religion belongs to the past and we live in a new age of reason, you need to check out the facts: 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religious group. Members of this demographic are generally younger and produce more children than those who have no religious affiliation, so the world is getting more religious, not less – although there are significant geographical variations.
- Christians form the biggest religious group by some margin, with 2.3 billion adherents or 31.2% of the total world population of 7.3 billion. Next come Muslims (1.8 billion, or 24.1%), Hindus (1.1 billion, or 15.1%) and Buddhists (500 million, or 6.9%). [Note: so Xtians = 31% + Muslims = 24% = 55% & adding Jews / Hebrews = about 57% of the World's people are of the Abrahamic Faiths traditions vs at best maybe barely 10% of the World's people are atheists]
- The third biggest category is missing from the above list. In 2015, 1.2 billion people in the world, or 16%, said they have no religious affiliation at all. But this does not mean all those people are committed atheists; some – perhaps most – have a strong sense of spirituality or belief in God, gods or guiding forces, but they just don’t identify with or practise an organised religion.
- Geography is important in religion. Asia-Pacific is the most populous region in the world, and also the most religious. It is home to 99% of Hindus, 99% of Buddhists, and 90% of those practising folk or traditional religions. The region also hosts 76% of the world’s religiously unaffiliated people, 700m of whom are Chinese.
- Religion is on the wane in western Europe and North America, but it’s growing everywhere else.
- Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world – more than twice as fast as the overall global population. Between 2015 and 2060, the world’s inhabitants are expected to increase by 32%, but the Muslim population is forecast to grow by 70%. And even though Christians will also outgrow the general population over that period, with an increase of 34% forecast mainly thanks to population growth in sub-Saharan Africa, Christianity is likely to lose its top spot in the world religion league table to Islam by the middle of this century.
- Hindus are set to grow by 27%, and Jews by 15% mainly because of the high birth rate among the ultra-Orthodox. However the religiously unaffiliated will see an increase of just 3%. - And while the religiously unaffiliated currently make up 16% of the global population, only about 10% of the world’s newborns were born to religiously unaffiliated mothers between 2010 and 2015.
- China has seen a huge religious revival in recent years and some predict it will have the world’s largest Christian population by 2030. The number of Chinese Protestants has grown by an average of 10 % annually since 1979, to between 93 million and 115 million, according to one estimate. There are reckoned to be another 10-12 million Chinese Catholics.... {
- So as(s) Tyler & Tara & their ilk, hype that there maybe a couple of million more atheists in the US, & 10 - 20 mn more atheists in the EU & Canada, the World's most atheistic country China, has 90 - 100 mn more Xtians [& that don't even count the growing number of Chinese Muslims & of course Buddhists & Confucianists]. And how many atheists in Russia were lost in that count w the fall of the Berlin Wall?? - And there's Africa where atheists are almost as rare as African saber-tooth tigers!!
- And this sidebar to the article: Science and Religion: } A key proponent of the incompatibility of science and religion is Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist [& out-spoken anti-theistic author of The God Delusion], who has ridiculed creation and intelligent design theories.
- A survey of 3,000 science, medical, technical, and engineering professionals in the UK, Germany and France, commissioned by the Scientific and Medical Network, found that 25% described themselves as atheists, and 45% as religious or spiritual.
- Professor Eric Priest, a mathematician and a former president of the Royal Astronomical Society, said the supposed conflict between science and spirituality was outdated, and many scientists had “a more subtle, nuanced view of the relationship, and recognise that questioning, imagination, creativity, reason, faith and community are common features of both science and religion”.
- In the US, a survey of scientists in 2009 found they were roughly half as likely as the general public to believe in God or a higher power. One in three scientists said they believed in God compared with 83% of the general population. Just under half the scientists polled said they had no religious affiliation, compared with only 17% of the public.
- Jennifer Wiseman, a Christian astrophysicist and director of Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion, a programme of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told ABC News that science was a “wonderful tool for understanding the physical universe” but religious belief provides answers to bigger philosophical questions in life. “We are physically connected to the universe and I think we have a deeper connection as well.” {
- What this shows is, despite Dawkins & his {not so}'New Atheists' ilk, one can indeed be a serious scientist & still be a 'Person of Faith', but we should already know that based on the bios of legendary scientists like Sir Isaac Newton, George Washington Carver, Gregor Mendel, Louis Pasteur, among many others. It's only become 'fashionable' to try to associate science w atheism / agnosticism since in the wake of Darwin.
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Nixak*77* Jim 17 days ago
IMO what's good about this is that a hi-profile US Xtian publication has finally stated that Trump is morally unfit to be POTUS / morally unfit to be any kind of leader for Xtians to look up to [IMO this can be said for most POTUSes & politicians]. But that was true re this Trumpster Dumpster joker from Day-1 [& both Billary Clintons & Bush Jr too].
- That being said IMO this Dim led impeachment of Trump is totally based on partisan politics, NOT on principles. As such IMO a Repug controlled US Senate will not remove the Trumpster from office [2/3s of the senate = 66 / 67 senators must vote yea on removal or it ain't gonna happen]. Plus as Aaron Mate' in a recent Real News interview showed, the Dims have FAILED to actually make an air-tight case- IE: their case for Trumpeachment is full of holes [see @ https://therealnews.com/sto... ]: Some Key Excerpts: } Mate': When it comes to these articles of impeachment, the Democrats say that Trump compromised the national security of the United States. Presumably they mean by withholding this military funding to Ukraine. First of all, they should have to explain what they mean by that because that’s a very serious allegation. Do they seriously mean that briefly putting on hold some military funding to Ukraine is a threat to U.S. National security? We heard at the impeachment hearings held by the House Judiciary Committee from witnesses who said that we’re arming Ukraine so that they can fight the Russians so that we don’t have to fight them here. But does anybody seriously believe that? If Democrats are trying to make that argument, it’s farcical. It’s especially farcical because President Obama, when he was in office, faced heavy bipartisan pressure, including from some of the Democrats star witnesses, to send lethal assistance to Ukraine. The very assistance that Trump briefly paused, and Obama rightfully I think said no. So according to the argument put forward in the Democrats articles of impeachment, they’re basically accusing President Obama when he refused throughout his entire Presidency during the time he was asked to do it, to refuse to send the military assistance, they’re essentially accusing him of endangering U.S. national security, which is a joke.
- And... Democrats didn’t even try to subpoena people like Mike Pompeo or Rudy Giuliani or Mick Mulvaney. They instead relied on witnesses who basically had no firsthand knowledge at all. And their only witness who claimed to have firsthand knowledge and the only witness in fact who we know even communicated that there was such linkage to the Ukrainian side, was Gordon Sondland. But what did Gordon’s Sondland say when he came before Congress? He said that this linkage of military assistance and investigations in Ukraine was only his presumption and that in fact he and Trump never even discussed the military assistance specifically. That Trump never brought it up and that when he briefly mentioned it to a Ukrainian official, that that was only his presumption. - Well, you can’t make an impeachment case based on one person’s presumption. Gordon Sondland’s presumption is just as valid as the presumption of Kurt Volker, who was the U.S. Envoy to Ukraine, who said that he saw no such linkage and that’s why it never even came up in his multiple meetings with Ukrainians And that is why even the person who Sondland reportedly communicated with on the Ukrainian side, André Yermack. He said just now in an interview with Time Magazine that he never saw there to be linkage between opening investigations and the military assistance. In fact, he [Yermack] doesn’t even remember this conversation with Sondland that was seen by some as the quid pro quo evidence... {
I mean w a case full of such holes as(s) that, if I were a Repug senator, I would NOT vote to remove Repug Trump from the Oval Office, based on these flimsy allegations. The Dims are playing pure politics w this dubious impeachment ploy, after their Russia-Gate scheme/scam fell-flat! Now IMO there are real principled reasons to impeach this Trumpster joker, which the Dims failed to even bring up- IE: Trump has been in blatant violation of the emoluments clause of the US Constitution from Day-1. He was supposed to either sell all his assets / holdings in Trump Intl, Inc or put them in a blind-trust till he leaves office, which he's steadfastly refused to do. And Trump's almost certainly guilty of multiple counts of tax evasion, & IMO likely shady money laundering schemes, too. Plus this Trumpster Dumpster dude scammed a bunch of people out of their money w shady biz schemes & practices, before becoming POTUS!!
- Then there's this travesty that Trump's caused at the US southern border where he's separated immigrant children from their parents & locked them-up in cages! Plus he's openly called for US boarder security to violate the law to stop immigrants from crossing the southern boarder into the US. And Trump's abused his POTUS power by calling a phony national 'emergency' to try to force the Dims to fund his 'wall'- Which by the way he first said he would get Mexico to pay for it. - Then there's the fact that Trump has made not 1 but 2 known racists / white-supremacists [Steve Bannon & now Stephen Miller who Trump's put in-charge of his immigration policy] his top presidential advisers [but then Trump himself is an overt racist].
- And this yr alone the Trump regime has instigated 2 regime-change coups vs duly elected Govts in S.America [unsuccessfully in Venezuela, successfully in Bolivia- coups which most Dims {including to some extent even Bernie} back]. And when the coup in Venezuela failed to topple the rightfully elected govt, the Trump regime hit Venezuela w punishing sanctions just to make Venezuelans suffer. - And Oh let's not forget the Trump regime's role in arming the Saudis to whole-sale massacre & slaughter folks in Yemen [but the Dims won't bring that up, because that atrocity began under Obama].
- And then there're all these sexual-assault [including rape] allegations by several women vs 'nookie-grabbing' Trump, including his links to convicted child rapist-prostitutor / pimp [to the 1%] the late Jeff Epstein ala Trump being a frequent-flyer on Epstein's 'Lolita Express'. But the Dims won't go there because Dim 'Ole Slick-Willy Clinton' [& Prince Andrew, too] are just as guilty as Trump on that score, in-fact maybe even more so.
IMO any one of these real & mostly easily provable Trumpster violations was truly worthy of impeachment & even removal from office, let alone all of them are IMO a wrap / a done-deal!! So did the Dims include any of them in their articles of impeachment vs Repug Trump? Hell NO!! IMO cause the Dims are playing politics, their Trumpeachment ploy ain't about real principles at-all!!
- Plus... IMO Hunter Biden getting a well-paid seat on Ukraine's top energy corp [to the tune of $50K / mon], while his pops 'Ole 'Record-Player' Joe' was the sitting VP under Obama, when the whole thing was set-up by the Obama-Biden Regime supporting a 2014 coup vs yet another elected govt spearheaded by a bunch of literal Ukrainian Neo-N@zis- Needed / Needs to be investigated, which actually was happening when Ole Joe.B as VP personally went to Ukraine & demanded they shut it down or else he'd see they'd not get an aid package they were desperately seeking from the US- Which the then Ukraine govt folded & capitulated to 'Ole Joe's' demands [FYI: there's actually video of 'Ole Joe' boasting about this]. Again from the Mate' interview @TRNN: } Mate': The fact is some of the investigations that Trump was demanding, IE: an investigation into Burisma, which was the company that Hunter Biden got his lucrative board seat on, was an investigation that was also demanded by Trump’s predecessors. The Obama administration had also been calling for investigations into Burisma and even some of the Democrats' impeachment witnesses said that it was appropriate to call for probes into Burisma. And the same way that everybody [among the Dims] seems to think it’s appropriate for Joe Biden as he did and bragged about, to condition U.S. aid to Ukraine on the firing of a prosecutor. The same prosecutor who was investigating Burisma [vis-a-vis Hunter Biden]... { - Also note anti-war activist Dave Swanson's take on the Dims' lame-duck Trumpeachment ploy [& the history of impeachment in general] @ www.counterpunch.org/2019/1...
Nixak*77* Herald Newman 21 days ago
I said I could name a number of assertions / 'predictions' Darwinists have made that turned out to be WRONG, & you diss that as me just so-called 'frothing'. Well Dude I'm calling your bluff.
- Darwinists asserted the appendix, tonsils, tail-bone, thyroid, the pineal & pituitary glands, thymus, hypothalamus, & even a woman's clitoris were all so-called 'vestigial-organs' [which allegedly 'proved' Darwin's theory], Yet they were proven WRONG! None of those organs are functionless vestiges! [Note: Per Darwinists male nipples are functionless vestiges of female nipples, while a woman's clitoris is a functionless vestige of a man's penis -EXCEPT- Human males & females are of the very same, not different, species, & as such per Darwin's theory, they must have co-evolved together, not separately- Duhh!! Thus men's nipples & a woman's clitoris could not possibly be 'proof' of / for Darwinian Macro-evolution!!]
- Using the same lame 'reasoning' as(s) they used re so-called 'vestigial-organs' [w the same objective in mind], Darwinists asserted that 95% of our DNA was just so-called 'junk' -EXCEPT- ENCODE showed that at-least 80% of what Darwinists had dismissed as so-called 'junk-DNA' is NOT junk at-all = Yet another WRONG Darwinist 'prediction' / assertion!
- Darwinists have asserted human DNA is 99% similar to chimp DNA since the mid-1970s, even tho both sets of DNA were not fully sequenced till circa 2005. So what did they find when they finally did fully sequence human & chimp DNA? Human DNA has 3235 mega bp -vs- chimp DNA has 2996 mega bp. FYI: 2996 / 3235 = 92.6% NOT 99%. Darwinists shown to be WRONG yet again!!
- Darwinists asserted the Coelacanth went extinct circa 65 mybp [along w dinos], & also that they were allegedly a so-called 'transitional-form' of a fish 'evolving' into a tetrapod land-creature -EXCEPT- Coelacanths have NOT gone extinct, NOT 65 mybp Nor even 6.5K yrs ago, they still exist [Duhh!]; -&- They ain't no type of 'transitional-form' either, they are FISH- PERIOD [Double-Duhh!!]. A Darwinist assertion / 'prediction' shown to be WRONG yet again- TWICE!!
- IMO between the findings of intact soft-tissue in dino fossil-bones allegedly over +65 mn yrs old [really?], & studies showing birds almost certainly could NOT have evolved from Dinos, another Darwinist assertion will likely [more sooner than later] see the branches cut right from under it / see its wings clipped & come crashing to the ground!!
Just a few blatantly obvious things Darwin's theory of evolution has FAILED to adequately explain after 160 yrs [& counting]. So 'Riddle Me This, Joker': Why do humans lack a thick-coat of fur compared to our supposed great-ape 'kin'? - Why are we up-right bipeds? - And how could human language capabilities have ever 'evolved' via the Darwinian random-selection paradigm? - And Oh, IMO there's never been a truly satisfactory Darwinian based explanation for the 'evolution' of sexual reproduction, without which Darwinian evolution would be a NON-starter re complex multi-cellular macroscopic organisms- Darwinists haven't explained it, they've just assumed & co-opted / usurped it into their theory.
PS: If you really make me mad, I'll bring-up Piltdown & Nebraska Man, Haeckel's fake embryo-drawings, & the Ota-Benga travesty!!
FYI: There's a reason why the Dims dredged-up 2 dozen wannabe candidates, many who few have ever heard of before [IE: Mayor Pete]- in their attempt to blur the obvious fact that either Bernie Sanders or maybe Liz Warren would have obviously been the Dems' front-runner(s). That's why they got 'Ole 'Record-Player' Joe' Biden to belatedly jump-in [based on him being Obama's VP], to try to blunt Bernie's front-runner status, but now that it looks like 'Ole Joe's' run may flame-out yet again [He's run for POTUS 2Xs before both resulting in 'no-shows']. So now they've even got Mr 1% of the 1%, Wall-St bankster-pal billionaire Mike Bloomberg talking about taking the plunge [apparently Mr 0.01% Wall-St Mike.B thinks he can buy the Oval-Office desk the same way he bought his way to NYC's mayor's chair]. All to try to swamp Bernie's populist run [& to a lesser extent Liz.W]. PS: IMO Tulsi Gabbard's the exception, I largely agree w Arthur.J's assessment of her re foreign-policy & her anti-'regime-change' / anti-war stance vs the other Dims, including Bernie.
- This is the true context in which to view Mayor Pete's run now that he's in the top 4 of the Dims POTUS candidates [along w Bernie, Liz.W & 'Ole 'Record-Player' Joe']. So what's Mayor Pete's real track record? Here are a few articles that one should peruse to know what the real-deal is re 'Mayor Pete'.B: Warren vs. Buttigieg Clash Offers Contrast with Sanders’ Consistency [@ www.counterpunch.org/2019/1... ]: a short excerpt: } Big money continues to flood into Buttigieg’s campaign from corp-execs, lobbyists & billionaires. While Warren & Sanders don’t hold high-dollar events for wealthy donors, Buttigieg & Biden do. But unlike Biden, Buttigieg had refused to allow reporters into those events. [so what's 'Mayor Pete' hiding]... {
- And also see this piece @ CounterPunch Buttigieg and McKinsey [@ www.counterpunch.org/2019/1... ]: Some Key Excerpts: } Major questions have been raised about presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s work for global consulting firm McKinsey, with even the NY-Times editorial board demanding that he release the information. After Buttigieg issued a sparse and vague overview on Dec 7, questions remain unanswered about his work for McKinsey from 2007 to 2010.
- My [the author Joyce Nelson's] recent book Beyond Banksters: Resisting the New Feudalism has a major focus on McKinsey, which has long been one of the lead corporate players engaged in privatizing the world. - It appears that Mayor Pete did indeed “drink the McKinsey Kool-Aid” on at least one issue – health care.
- As one of its many consulting services, McKinsey functions as a “turn-around specialist,” advising failing companies on ways to become profitable again – usually by laying off thousands of employees. But as I wrote in Beyond Banksters, “It’s important to note that apparently, there are times when a ‘turn-around specialist’ like McKinsey & Co. actually can take a functioning organization and turn it into a disaster. Or at least that seems to be view across much of England toward McKinsey.”
- Over the past dozen years, McKinsey has been largely responsible for the creeping privatization of the UK’s beloved National Health Service (NHS), advocating policies adopted by Conservative governments that have underfunded and eroded public health services and which favor the private sector.
- For example, a major 2009 report from McKinsey called on the NHS to find “efficiency savings” of 4 billion pounds sterling every year for five years – a gargantuan amount of $20 billion pounds sterling in total. McKinsey’s advice eventually led to major NHS cuts, including the loss of 6,000 nursing jobs.
- As well, McKinsey has drafted UK healthcare policy proposals that have been incorporated wholesale into legislation, to the financial benefit of McKinsey itself as well as its corporate clients who have gained increasing access to the UK's healthcare system.
- McKinsey has been pushing the UK's NHS toward the US for-profit healthcare model, and has even taken UK legislators on trips to the US to see the ‘integrated care model” in action. After one such trip, private discussions took place between McKinsey and the UK health watchdog over the possibility that some 65,000 hospital beds could be closed.
- Such revelations have shocked the British public and added to the urgency around the Brexit vote. Equally important, McKinsey’s creeping privatization of the NHS has pushed that service further into a “two-tier healthcare system”....
- So turn-around specialist McKinsey had taken an organization that had been functioning well for decades and gradually (and with the cooperation of conservative government) turned it into mess – a standard corporate playbook for privateers. The next step is usually for the private sector to “come to the rescue” and “save” the failing entity by privatizing it...
- Pete Buttigieg’s attacks on single-payer and Medicare For All [which Bernie strongly endorses] echo the McKinsey vision. Apparently, he learned well during his 3 yrs of employment with that company. His “Medicare for All Who Want It” plan is a clever recapitulation of the “two-tier” system that McKinsey has fostered in the UK, with private insurance companies making millions off the system, while the public sector erodes.... {
And then there's this issue re 'Mayor Pete'.B's track-record as Mayor of South-Bend IN: Pete Buttigieg Fired South Bend’s 1st Black Police Chief. And It Still Stings. [@ www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/... ]: Some Excerpts: } SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Pete Buttigieg had been mayor just 13 weeks when he faced a leadership crisis. - It was March 2012, and 300 residents of South Bend, Ind., solemnly marched to the Martin Luther King Center to protest the killing in FL Black teenager, Trayvon Martin.
- A prominent figure at the demonstration was Darryl Boykins, South Bend’s first [& only] Black police chief. Admired for teaching tennis and boxing to young people, he had been promoted to chief five years earlier after winning the respect of both black and white officers in a department that oft-times divided along racial lines.
- Mr. Buttigieg addressed the protesters, but seemed not to interact with Mr. Boykins. What no one in the crowd knew was that the police top brass were in turmoil — shaken by allegations that Mr. Boykins had improperly taped phone calls of senior white officers who were said to have used racist language, including about him.
- With federal prosecutors scrutinizing Mr. Boykins, the 29-year-old mayor fired the veteran police chief just before the Trayvon Martin protest. No action was taken against the officers. Precisely what they said on the tapes of their department phone calls is unknown to the public: Mr. Buttigieg has refused to release them, saying the matter is still being resolved in court.
- In the weeks, months and years that followed, Mayor Pete's firing of Mr. Boykins unleashed a blizzard of claims, counterclaims and lawsuits, as well as anguish among South Bend’s minority residents over whether an ambitious white mayor had sided with white police officers against their Black police chief. The day after Mr. Boykins’s dismissal, he was applauded at a gathering of 100 officers, council members and clergy. The events played out against a backdrop of frustration among some African-Americans that they have not benefited equally from an economic resurgence in South Bend, which Mr. Buttigieg extols in his presidential bid.
- As Mr. Buttigieg seeks the Democratic nomination in a party whose base is anchored by minority voters, his handling of Mr. Boykins’ dismissal and its messy aftermath raise questions whether the mayor either misunderstood or mishandled sensitivities surrounding race and policing in the place he knew best, a city which is 37% Black & Latino.
- ... There were/are few people of color at 'Mayor Pete's' rallies. The former Democratic consultant David Axelrod, a friend of the mayor’s [& was one of Obama's top political advisers], noted in a tweet: “Crowd seems very large, very impressive but also very white — an obstacle he will have to overcome.”
- Regina Williams-Preston, who represents a majority Black district on the South Bend City Council, called Mr. Buttigieg “a smart guy, a nice guy,” but added, “We have to look past the polish and really look at the policy.”..
- Mr. Buttigieg has appointed two white chiefs since ending Mr. Boykins’s tenure. - And minority representation on the department remains low. Only 5% of officers were African-American & 5% Hispanic in 2018, a slight decline from the previous yr [in a city that's 37% Black & Hispanic, Humm...]...
So why did Mr. Buttigieg fire Mr. Boykins in the first place? He maintains he was pressured by federal prosecutors. In “Shortest Way Home,” his memoir published in February, he writes that “a message came through” from prosecutors that he must push out Mr. Boykins or they would file charges against him for violating the Federal Wiretap Act. - 'Mayor Pete' speculates in his book that prosecutors were trying to duck responsibility for “taking down a beloved African-American police chief” by getting Mr. Buttigieg to fire him instead.
- Mr. Boykins’s lawyer, Tom Dixon, said that when he first heard this explanation, invoked by Mr. Buttigieg in 2012, a red flag went up. So he asked an assistant prosecutor in the US attorney’s office, a lawyer he knew from church, about Mayor Pete’s [dubious] assertion. And “He said, ‘Tom, that explanation is so contrary to the protocols of U.S. attorneys’ offices,”’ Mr. Dixon recalled. “‘We never would condition a determination on prosecuting or not prosecuting based on an employment decision. It would never happen.”
- One person who did hear the tapes was the then police communications director, Karen DePaepe. In court filings, she described them as “discriminatory racial comments of high ranking officers” in the department, and said she told Mr. Boykins about them. She also heard “something I believe to be possibly illegal.”
- Eleven days after Mr. Boykins’s removal as chief, Ms. DePaepe, who had made eight cassettes of the phone calls and given them to the chief, was fired.
- In an interview that night, she told The South Bend Tribune that Mr. Buttigieg’s chief of staff, Mike Schmuhl — who is today his presidential campaign manager — threatened her with arrest if she spoke publicly. - “He said, ‘Now you understand that...neither you nor anyone else is allowed to discuss the federal investigation or anything that was recorded,’” Ms. DePaepe said she was told by Mr. Schmuhl, according to the newspaper. “‘And if you or anyone else does, you will be arrested.’”
- Subsequently the city paid Ms. DePaepe $235,000 in 2014 to settle a suit she brought over defamation and other claims. But as part of her settlement, she had to agree not to discuss what was on those tapes... {
-
So some apparently white-racist cops were caught on tape by the Dept's then communications officer who gave the '411' to her boss, the Black police-chief [Note: she was also fired after Mayor Pete forced Boykins' removal], where top white-cops made some outrageously racist comments [even about their own chief], thus they accused the Black chief of 'illegally-taping' them [even tho apparently it was the communications officer, not Boykins, who actually taped them] & demanded that young 'Mayor Pete' fire South-Bend's 1st [& only] Black 'top-cop', which Mayor Pete dutifully followed orders / took his marching-orders from & 'bends' to the racist white-cops' demands. He didn't even wait for the Feds to complete their probe into the matter & make their recommendations. Plus IMO 'Mayor Pete' must know what's on those tapes [despite his dubious denial], & if they are indeed racistly outrageous & offensive, he should have at-least demanded the resignations of all those offenders as well [& told them if they didn't resign he would NOT fire the Black police-chief]- But NO!! Instead 'Mayor Pete' dropped the ball, got played like a 'sucker', or however you want to term it!!
- And 'Mayor Pete' can continue try to play the 'nut-role' about what's really on those tapes, IMO it's bound to eventually all 'come out of the closet' so to speak, IMO likely sooner than later if Mayor Pete's POTUS run really begins to take off during the Dims' 2020 primaries. And if it's as bad as Ms DePaepe says it is, it's gonna look like Mayor Pete participated in a cover-up of wrong doing by some South Bend PD top-cops, which he then 'bend' to their racist will & put South Bend's 1st & only Black police-chief on the chopping-block along w Ms DePaepe, for really dubious reasons.
Nixak*77* Marvin a month ago
Note that Tara [& others here] have repeatedly given higher praise for Hinduism vs any of the Abrahamic Faiths. Yet she chooses to 'blissfully' ignore the Hindu widow-burning tradition, &/or the Hindu caste-system & the yet on-going plight of the Dalits [aka the 'untouchables'] as(s) the Hindu-caste system permanently cast Dalits down to the effective status of perpetual slaves.
- But apparently for Tara: 'Ignorance is Bliss'!
Nixak*77* Tara a month ago
Per you: 'For the first 1800 or so years... Christians owned slaves...'
- OK Tara if that's true then 'Riddle Me this Joker': How many slaves did Yeshua [aka 'Jesus'] own? How many slaves did Yeshua say was Kool & the Gang to own? Ditto for Yeshua's father Yosafe, His brother Ya'akov [aka St 'James'], &/or any of His original apostles?
- In fact I defy you or any of your chums here to say when any so-called 'Xtians' began regularly owning slaves pre 325 ACE / Council of Nicea!! The fact is Yeshua's Judean followers were effectively themselves slaves - enslaved by the Roman Empire, ditto for the early 'Xtians' in Rome as well!!
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