Motley Moose – Archive

A few weeks ago I had planned to write a piece about the upcoming anniversary of a case of police brutality that had a slightly different end to it than we have come to expect from the criminal injustice system in America. The unarmed black man assaulted by police didn’t die. Not only did he not die, he went on to sue the NYC and the NYPD and won “the largest police brutality settlement in New York City history”. His primary police assailants were put on trial, and the officer responsible for the sodomizing, Justin Volpe is still incarcerated. Sadly, the others involved are not.

That man was Abner Louima, and the anniversary of his brutal attack, beating and sodomizing while in NYPD custody was on August the 9th, 1997.

But August the 9th is now the anniversary of yet another attack, this time ending in death, of an unarmed young black teenager, at the hands of police. Michael Brown.  

I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in “Cheers & Jeers”. For example …..

OLDER-YOUNGER BROTHERS? – two political conservatives: singer Pat Boone and former congressman Todd Akin.

   

OK, you’ve been warned – here is this week’s tomfoolery material that I posted.

 The first thing I remember seeing on TV was Dr. Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 bestseller: “The Population Bomb”. With cool authority he explained how the earth was physically incapable of feeding more than 3.54B people, and since the population at the time stood at 3.52B that there was no way to avoid the starvation riots in the US in the early 70s.

I was three.

To say this put me off my stroke a bit would be an understatement. The thesis was underscored throughout my youth by elders far and wide. The world was – certainly, irrevocably – going to end before I grew up. The best I could hope for would be to be one of the survivors living in a post-apocalyptic landscape. Hollywood repeated the theme endlessly, the paucity of human care and surplus of greed and selfishness.

It is nearly the end of March tonight as I start this diary. It has been a very long time since I have posted here and there are many reasons for this…most of all because it has been a very, very brutal 12 or more months for me.

The Moose seems to have changed a lot since I was last here, but I think a few of you may remember me and hope that I brought a few smiles and laughter to an otherwise often harsh and frustrating world. I am afraid I have not had much reason to smile for a long time now and have mostly spent the last nine months in extreme denial, despair, anguish, grief and crying.

Music has always been an outlet of sorts for how I am feeling. Unfortunately I have not allowed myself to listen to much lately, as the pain is too frightening and overwhelming. For some reason I allowed myself to listen to some of my favorites on the Tubes and what started with Joan Armatrading’s Love and Affection and ended my little journey with this tear jerker from kd lang…

Found on the Internets …

State Abortion Laws Face a New Round of Legal Challenges

States led by anti-abortion governors and legislatures have been passing a broad array of measures over the past few years aimed at making the procedure more difficult for women to obtain.[…]

[A] federal district court judge in Alabama this week struck down as unconstitutional a portion of state law requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges. Last week, a federal appeals court panel struck down a similar law in Mississippi. And a third law of the same type is awaiting a ruling in Wisconsin.[…]

Admitting-privileges legislation would impose stricter requirements on facilities where abortions are performed than on facilities that perform much riskier procedures,” says Jeanne Conry, former president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

“As an example, the mortality rate associated with a colonoscopy is more than 40 times greater than that of abortion,” she says, yet gastroenterologists who perform such procedures outside of the hospital setting do not face similar requirements “in the context of safety.”

Federal Court in Alabama Strikes Down Alabama TRAP Law

Judge Myron Thompson explains in his opinion striking down the law, it “would have the striking result of closing three of Alabama’s five abortion clinics.” As Thompson interprets the Supreme Court’s precedents, his court “must determine whether, examining the regulation in its real-world context,” it imposes an obstacle to women’s right to choose an abortion that “is more significant than is warranted by the State’s justifications for the regulation.”

Thanks To Obamacare, More Young People Are Getting Mental Health Treatment

A provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that allows young people to remain on their parents’ insurance may have increased the use of mental health services among that demographic, a new study suggests. The findings make a case for an expansion of mental health services for the Millennial generation.

Researchers collected data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health and surveyed more than 20,000 people from 2008 – two years before the ACA provision went into effect – to 2012. They found that young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 who screened positive for mental disorders or substance abuse sought mental health services at a rate five percentage points greater than that of adults in the 26- to 35-year-old age bracket. Out-of-pocket payments for mental health visits among young people also decreased by more than 12 percentage points, according to the study.

More …

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings diary series give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

President Obama made a statement Thursday evening about the humanitarian crisis in Iraq:

Selected quotes:

Today I authorized two operations in Iraq — targeted airstrikes to protect our American personnel, and a humanitarian effort to help save thousands of Iraqi civilians who are trapped on a mountain without food and water and facing almost certain death.  […]

To stop the advance on Erbil, I’ve directed our military to take targeted strikes against ISIL terrorist convoys should they move toward the city.  We intend to stay vigilant, and take action if these terrorist forces threaten our personnel or facilities anywhere in Iraq, including our consulate in Erbil and our embassy in Baghdad.  We’re also providing urgent assistance to Iraqi government and Kurdish forces so they can more effectively wage the fight against ISIL.

Second, at the request of the Iraqi government — we’ve begun operations to help save Iraqi civilians stranded on the mountain.  As ISIL has marched across Iraq, it has waged a ruthless campaign against innocent Iraqis.  And these terrorists have been especially barbaric towards religious minorities, including Christian and Yezidis, a small and ancient religious sect.  Countless Iraqis have been displaced.  And chilling reports describe ISIL militants rounding up families, conducting mass executions, and enslaving Yezidi women.

ISIL forces below have called for the systematic destruction of the entire Yezidi people, which would constitute genocide.  

I’ve said before, the United States cannot and should not intervene every time there’s a crisis in the world.  So let me be clear about why we must act, and act now.  When we face a situation like we do on that mountain — with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help — in this case, a request from the Iraqi government — and when we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye.  We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide.  That’s what we’re doing on that mountain.

I’ve, therefore, authorized targeted airstrikes, if necessary, to help forces in Iraq as they fight to break the siege of Mount Sinjar and protect the civilians trapped there.  Already, American aircraft have begun conducting humanitarian airdrops of food and water to help these desperate men, women and children survive.  Earlier this week, one Iraqi in the area cried to the world, “There is no one coming to help.”  Well today, America is coming to help.  We’re also consulting with other countries — and the United Nations — who have called for action to address this humanitarian crisis.

[…]

I know that many of you are rightly concerned about any American military action in Iraq, even limited strikes like these.  I understand that.  I ran for this office in part to end our war in Iraq and welcome our troops home, and that’s what we’ve done.  As Commander-in-Chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq.  And so even as we support Iraqis as they take the fight to these terrorists, American combat troops will not be returning to fight in Iraq, because there’s no American military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq.  The only lasting solution is reconciliation among Iraqi communities and stronger Iraqi security forces.

More on the humanitarian crisis and the president’s statement …

Now available:

Everything about the phone hacking trial that couldn’t be reported

Beyond Contempt by award-winning reporter Peter Jukes – available for pre-order now – tells the full inside story of the trial of the century, and reveals for the first time

• all the backstage manoeuvres

• the unprecedented costs of the trial – mainly paid by the defence

• bitter legal fights and media strategies

• personal dramas and constant threat of contempt

And the thrills, scoops and insights from one of the most complicated and expensive trials in British legal history.

So 'Beyond Contempt' now available for immediate download http://t.co/ZoAq09yXnt #MyProWebsite #ItsOKtoStare #hackingtrial

— Peter Jukes (@peterjukes) August 6, 2014

#ItsOKtoStare? I hope #ItsOKtoShare also …

Found on the Internets …

The president held a news conference yesterday as part of the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit. One of the topics was executive actions on inversions.

Q: Along the lines of executive authority, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has previously said that the executive branch of government doesn’t have the authority to slow or stop corporate inversions, the practice that you have called distasteful, unpatriotic, et cetera.  But now he is reviewing options to do so.  And this is an issue that a lot of business, probably including some of the ones who were paying a lot of attention to this summit, are interested in.  So what I wanted to ask you was, what prompted this apparent reversal?  What actions are now under consideration?  Will you consider an executive order that would limit or ban such companies from getting federal contracts?  And how soon would you like to see Treasury act, given Congress’s schedule?

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Just to review why we’re concerned here. You have accountants going to some big corporations — multinational corporations but that are clearly U.S.-based and have the bulk of their operations in the United States — and these accountants are saying, you know what, we found a great loophole — if you just flip your citizenship to another country, even though it’s just a paper transaction, we think we can get you out of paying a whole bunch of taxes.

Well, it’s not fair.  It’s not right.  The lost revenue to Treasury means it’s got to be made up somewhere, and that typically is going to be a bunch of hardworking Americans who either pay through higher taxes themselves or through reduced services. And in the meantime, the company is still using all the services and all the benefits of effectively being a U.S. corporation; they just decided that they’d go through this paper exercise.

Walgreens Drops Plan To Move Headquarters – And Profits – Overseas

Walgreens Co. will complete its merger with Alliance Boots, a British pharmacy, but it will not move its headquarters overseas to reduce its U.S. tax bill.Walgreens had flirted with the idea of moving its headquarters from Chicago to the United Kingdom to avoid paying corporate taxes in the U.S.

That drew the attention of those who are concerned about profits made in America being taxed overseas, if at all.

“The company concluded it was not in the best, long-term interest of our shareholders to attempt to re-domicile outside the U.S.,” Walgreens CEO Greg Wasson said in a statement.

Yeah. The shareholders who saw images like this, perhaps?



Maybe a pharmaceutical company like Abbott Laboratories can get away with this but companies that deal directly with consumers and which has competition probably should at least pretend to be a good corporate citizen.

More …

An historic event is taking place in Washington D.C. this week. The U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit

August 4-6

“I do not see the countries and peoples of Africa as a world apart; I see Africa as a fundamental part of our interconnected world – partners with America on behalf of the future we want for all of our children. That partnership must be grounded in mutual responsibility and mutual respect.”

President Obama

President Obama in August will welcome leaders from across the African continent to the Nation’s Capital for a three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the first such event of its kind. This Summit, the largest event any U.S. President has held with African heads of state and government, will build on the President’s trip to Africa in the summer of 2013 and it will strengthen ties between the United States and one of the world’s most dynamic and fastest growing regions. Specifically, the August 4-6 Summit will advance the Administration’s focus on trade and investment in Africa and highlight America’s commitment to Africa’s security, its democratic development, and its people. At the same time, it will highlight the depth and breadth of the United States’ commitment to the African continent, advance our shared priorities and enable discussion of concrete ideas to deepen the partnership. At its core, this Summit is about fostering stronger ties between the United States and Africa.

The theme of the Summit is “Investing in the Next Generation.” Focusing on the next generation is at the core of a government’s responsibility and work, and this Summit is an opportunity to discuss ways of stimulating growth, unlocking opportunities, and creating an enabling environment for the next generation.