I also came across another article about Kerry from 1996:

http://www.usvetdsp.com/story10.htm

John Kerry: The Chameleon Senator
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
October-December 1996 Issue


Despite the prayers and wishful thinking of POW/MIA families and Vietnam veteran activists, Sen. John Forbes Kerry, the "chameleon" senator from Massachusetts, was re-elected to the Senate in the 1996 election. Apparently Kerry's well publicized history as a longtime radical supporter of the Vietnamese communists and a recent flap about whether or not he is guilty of a war crime meant very little to the voters in Massachusetts.

Sen. Kerry, the "noble statesman" and "highly decorated Vietnam vet" of today, is a far cry from Kerry, the radical, hippie-like leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in the early 1970s. After Kerry, as a Navy Lieutenant (junior grade) commanding a Swift boat in Vietnam, was awarded the Silver he found it advantageous to quit the Navy, change the color of his politics and become a leader of VVAW. He went to work organizing opposition in America against the efforts of his former buddies still ducking communist bullets back in Vietnam. Kerry gained national attention in April 1971, when he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then chaired by Sen. J. William Fulbright (D-AR), who led opposition in the Congress against U.S. participation in the war. During the course of his testimony, Kerry stated that the United States had a definite obligation to make extensive economic reparations to the people of Vietnam.

Kerry's testimony, it should be noted, occurred while some of his fellow Vietnam veterans were known by the world to be enduring terrible suffering as prisoners of war in North Vietnamese prisons. Kerry was a supporter of the "People's Peace Treaty," a supposed "people's" declaration to end the war, reportedly drawn up in communist East Germany. It included nine points, all of which were taken from Viet Cong peace proposals at the Paris peace talks as conditions for ending the war.

One of the provisions stated: "The Vietnamese pledge that as soon as the U.S. government publicly sets a date for total withdrawal [from Vietnam], they will enter discussion to secure the release of all American prisoners, including pilots captured while bombing North Vietnam." In other words, Kerry and his VVAW advocated the communist line to withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam first and then negotiate with Hanoi over the release of prisoners. Had the nine points of the "People's Peace Treaty" favored by Kerry been accepted by American negotiators, the United States would have totally lost all leverage to get the communists to release any POWs captured during the war years.

Kerry was fundamental in organizing antiwar activists to demonstrate in Washington, including the splattering of red paint, representing blood, on the Capitol steps. Several hundred of Kerry's VVAW demonstrators and supporters were allowed by Fulbright to jam into a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 1972 and to chant "Right on, brother!" as Sen. George McGovern (D-SD), then the only declared Democratic presidential candidate, accused U.S. troops of committing barbarisms in Vietnam.

Kerry became even more of a press celebrity during a highly publicized "anti-war" protest when he threw medals the press reported were his over a barricade and onto the steps of the Capitol. Kerry never mentioned that the medals he so gloriously tossed were not his own. The 1988 issue of Current Biography Yearbook explained: " . . . the ones he had discarded were not his own but had belonged to another veteran who asked him to make the gesture for him. When a 'Washington Post' reporter asked Kerry about the incident, he said: 'They're my medals. I'll do what I want with them. And there shouldn't be any expectations about them.'" Kerry's medals have reappeared, today hanging in his Senate office, now that it is "politically correct" for a U.S. Senator to be portrayed as a Vietnam War hero. Alas, so much for integrity.

Recently, Kerry became extremely defensive when David Warsh, an economics columnist for The Boston Globe, questioned the circumstances for which Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. Kerry, who was in a close re-election battle with Gov. William F. Weld, a Republican, quickly gathered his former crew from his Swift boat days to rebuff the "assault on his integrity."

According to the official citation accompanying the Silver Star for Kerry's actions on the waters of the Mekong Delta on February 28, 1969: "Kerry's craft received a B-40 rocket close aboard. Once again Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry ordered his units to charge the enemy positions. . . Patrol Craft Fast 94 then beached in the center of the enemy positions and an enemy soldier sprang up from his position not ten feet from Patrol Craft 94 and fled. Without hesitation Lieutenant (j.g.) Kerry leaped ashore, pursued the man behind a hootch and killed him, capturing a B-40 rocket launcher with a round in the chamber." In an article printed in the October 21st and 28th 1996 edition of The New Yorker, Kerry was asked about the man he had killed.

"It was either going to be him or it was going to be us. It was that simple. I don't know why it wasn't us--I mean, to this day. He had a rocket pointed right at our boat. He stood up out of the hole, and none of us saw him until he was standing in front of us, aiming a rocket right at us, and, for whatever reason, he didn't pull the trigger--he turned and ran. He was shocked to see our boat right in front of him. If he'd pulled the trigger, we'd all be dead . . . I just won't talk about all of it. I don't and I can't. The things that probably really turn me I've never told anybody. Nobody would understand," Kerry said. In the column, Warsh quoted the Swift boat's former gunner, Tom Belodeau, as saying the Viet Cong soldier who Kerry chased "behind a hootch" and "finished off" actually had already been wounded by the gunner.

Warsh wrote that such a "coup de grace" would have been considered a war crime. Belodeau stood beside Kerry and said he'd been misquoted. He conceded that he had fired at and wounded the Viet Cong, but denied Kerry had simply executed the wounded Viet Cong. Dan Carr, a former Marine from Massachusetts, who served 14 months as a rifleman sloshing around in the humid jungles of I Corps, South Vietnam, questioned whether or not Kerry deserved a Silver Star for chasing and killing a lone, wounded, retreating Viet Cong. "Kerry is certainly showing some sensitivity there. Most people I knew in Vietnam were just trying to pull their time there and get the hell out. There were some, though, who actually used Vietnam to get their tickets punched. You know, to build their resumes for future endeavors," Carr said.

In 1991, the United States Senate created the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs to examine the possibility that U.S. POW/MIAs might still be held by the Vietnamese. As chairman of the Select Committee, Kerry proved himself to be a masterful chameleon portraying to the public at large what appeared to be an unbiased approach to resolving the POW/MIA issue. But, in reality, no one in the United States Senate pushed harder to bury the POW/MIA issue, the last obstacle preventing normalization of relations with Hanoi, than John Forbes Kerry. (Remember the middle name "Forbes").

In fact, his first act as chairman was to travel to Southeast Asia, where during a stopover in Bangkok, Thailand, he lectured the U.S. Chamber of Commerce there on the importance of lifting the trade embargo and normalizing relations with Vietnam. During the entire life of the Senate Select Committee, Kerry never missed a chance to propaganderize and distort the facts in favor of Hanoi.

Sydney H. Schanberg, associate editor and columnist for New York Newsday and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist veteran of the Indochina War whose book, The Death and Life of Dith Pran, became the subject of the Academy Award-winning film The Killing Fields, chronicled some of Kerry's more blatant pro-Hanoi biases in several of his columns.

In a Nov. 21, 1993 column, Schanberg wrote, "Highly credible information has been surfacing in recent days which indicates that the headlines you have been reading about a 'breakthrough' in Hanoi's cooperation on the POW/MIA issue are part of a carefully scripted performance. The apparent purpose is to move toward normalization of relations with Hanoi.

"Sen. John F. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, is one of the key figures pushing for normalization. Kerry is currently on a visit to Vietnam where he has been doing two things: (1) praising the Vietnamese effusively for granting access to their war archives and (2) telling the press that there's no believable evidence to back up the stories of live POWs still being held. "Ironically, that very kind of live-POW evidence has been brought to Kerry's own committee on a regular basis over the past year, and he has repeatedly sought to impeach its value. Moreover, Kerry and his allies on the committee - such as Sens. John McCain, Nancy Kassebaum and Tom Daschle - have worked to block much of this evidence from being made public."

In December of 1992, not long after Kerry was quoted in the world press stating "President Bush should reward Vietnam within a month for its increased cooperation in accounting for American MIAs," Vietnam announced it had granted Colliers International, based in Boston, Massachusetts, a contract worth billions designating Colliers International as the exclusive real estate agent representing Vietnam.

That deal alone put Colliers in a position to make tens of millions of dollars on the rush to upgrade Vietnam's ports, railroads, highways, government buildings, etc. C. Stewart Forbes, Chief Executive Officer of Colliers International, is Kerry's cousin. Kerry was portrayed in The New Yorker as a proud Vietnam veteran and "war hero" who, as chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, dared to take on and defeat the "mendacious POW lobby."

In its 1993 final report, the Select Committee determined that live U.S. prisoners of war were left behind in the hands of the Vietnamese after the end of the war. The committee also claimed it found no "compelling" evidence proving the POWs remain alive today. Kerry's committee stopped there without answering three of the most profound questions of the entire Senate POW/MIA investigation: What happened to those U.S. prisoners of war who the Select Committee said were alive and in the hands of the Vietnamese but not released at the end of the war? If they are dead, where are their remains? Who is responsible for their deaths?

No doubt most of the Establishment press will continue to obscure from the public and themselves the raw truth about Kerry, the communist Vietnamese and the POW/MIA issue because it is politically convenient. There is also no doubt the POW/MIA families and Vietnam veteran activists know the truth and recognize Kerry for what he truly is--a traitor, hypocrite, liar and chameleon.

 **************************************************************************************************************

Husband and brother of missing Staten Island woman heading to Turkey to hunt for her

Sarai Sierra, 33, arrived in Istanbul for vacation Jan. 7 and was supposed to return home last Tuesday, but didn't show up for her return flight

By Chelsia Rose Marcius AND Barry Paddock / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, January 27, 2013, 12:39 PM

Sarai Sierra of Staten Island, missing in Turkey.

The husband of a Staten Island woman who vanished on vacation is headed to Turkey to look for her — but he isn’t telling his two young sons about their mom’s disappearance.

Steven Sierra, 40, is determined to find his 33-year-old wife Sarai Sierra, who arrived in Istanbul Jan. 7 and was supposed to return home last Tuesday.

She never showed up for her return flight.

Sierra, along with his wife’s brother, were poised to fly Sunday night to Turkey, where they will meet with American embassy officials.

Their sons, ages 9 and 11, are staying with a family friend and being kept in the dark.

“They don't know what's going on and I don't want them to,” Steven Sierra said. “We’re doing our best to hide it from them."

Sarai Sierra developed a passion for photography in recent years, and was headed to Turkey to photograph graffiti and to meet up with strangers she met online through Instagram, her family said.

A friend was supposed to accompany her to the former Ottoman Empire, but the pal backed out at the last minute.

“Sarai was so excited to go, she just continued with the trip,” her husband said. "We were all nervous and scared that she was going to go alone, but you want to be supportive and encouraging."

The day before her return flight, Sierra texted her sister that she was looking forward to coming home. She planned to register for classes at College of Staten Island, where she studies psychology part time.

"She was in contact with us every day while she was out there,” her husband said.

“Everything was fine until the day before she was supposed to arrive home. That’s strange."

The landlord of the hostel where she was staying in the pleasant neighborhood of Beyoglu found her belongings in her abandoned room, including her passport, iPad and the Samsung Galaxy phone she took pictures with.

Cops are checking hospitals, police stations and other institutions. Steven Sierra plans to join the search when he arrives Monday.

“If I don't go then I haven't done everything I can to find my wife — and I can't live with that,” he said.

“I’m hoping this is very quick, that we all come home, and it's a beautiful story in the end.”

bpaddock@nydailynews.com

Flashback: A Rare Broadcast of John Kerry’s 1971 Speech Against the Vietnam War Before the Senate

After returning from the Vietnam War, John Kerry became a prominent critic of the war. He testified before the Senate in 1971 and told of atrocities being committed by U.S. troops. He called for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops. And he asked: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" We broadcast a rare recording of this historic address from the Pacifica Radio Archives.

On October 9, 2002, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry stood on the Senate floor and spoke in favor of the invasion of Iraq. The next day he voted to authorize President Bush to go to war.
Thirty years earlier, Kerry became a leading voice against the war in Vietnam.
Kerry returned from Vietnam in April 1969, having won early transfer out of the conflict because of his three Purple Hearts. He had also won a Silver Star.
When Kerry returned home, over 540,000 U.S. troops were deployed in Vietnam. Some 33,400 had been killed, and the number of protests in the U.S. was surging.
Kerry gradually became active in the antiwar movement. After working behind the scenes and making a few little-noticed appearances at rallies, he joined a group called Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
In January 1971, the organization held a series of hearings in Detroit called the "Winter Soldier Investigation." Kerry did not speak at the event, which received only modest press coverage. This is an excerpt of a veteran testifying at the hearings. He describes what it was like in Vietnam.

• Winter Soldier Investigation documentary

John Kerry declined to speak at the "Winter Soldier Investigation" hearings, but a bigger stage awaited him.
Three months after the hearings, Kerry took his case to congress and spoke before a jammed Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Television cameras lined the walls, and veterans packed the seats.
Kerry was 27 years old and dressed in his green fatigues and Silver Star and Purple Heart ribbons. On April 22, 1971, he sat at a witness table and delivered the most famous speech of his life. It was to become the speech that defined him and make possible his political career. Overnight, he emerged as one of the most recognized veterans in America.
Pacifica Radio played his speech on the air. Today, we will play a rare broadcast of that speech. From the Pacifica Radio Archives, this is John Kerry in 1971.

• John Kerry, testifying on April 22, 1971.
• * Pacifica Radio Archives*

*********WARNING  Some of the pictures are vivid and gruesome
 

The "Winter Soldier Investigation" was a media event sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) from January 31, 1971 -- February 2, 1971. It was intended to publicize war crimes and atrocities by the United States Armed Forces and their allies in the Vietnam War. The VVAW challenged the morality and conduct of the war by showing the direct relationship between military policies and war crimes in Vietnam. The three-day gathering of 109 veterans and 16 civilians took place in Detroit, Michigan. Discharged servicemen from each branch of military service, as well as civilian contractors, medical personnel and academics, all gave testimony about war crimes they had committed or witnessed during the years of 1963--1970.

With the exception of Pacifica Radio, the event was not covered extensively outside Detroit. However, several journalists and a film crew recorded the event, and a documentary film called Winter Soldier was released in 1972. A complete transcript was later entered into the Congressional Record by Senator Mark Hatfield, and discussed in the Fulbright Hearings in April and May 1971, convened by Senator J. William Fulbright, chair of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

The purpose of the Winter Soldier Investigation was to show that American policies in Vietnam had led to war crimes. In the words of one participant veteran, Donald Dzagulones,

"We gathered not to sensationalize our service but to decry the travesty that was Lt. William Calley's trial for the My Lai Massacre. The U.S. had established the principle of culpability with the Nuremberg trials of the Nazis. Following those principles, we held that if Calley were responsible, so were his superiors up the chain of command — even to the president. The causes of My Lai and the brutality of the Vietnam War were rooted in the policies of our government as executed by our military commanders."

The name "Winter Soldier Investigation" was proposed by Mark Lane, and was derived from Thomas Paine's first Crisis paper, written in December 1776. When future Senator John Kerry, then a decorated Lieutenant in the Naval Reserve (Inactive), later spoke before a Senate Committee, he explained,

"We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out."

Inauguration social gallery

SHARE YOUR INAUGURATION PHOTOS ON INSTAGRAM AND TWITTER WITH #NBCPOLITICS

 

President Barack Obama arrives at the inauguration. This is also the view he wanted to see one more time.

  

People attend the 57th presidential inauguration on Jan. 21, 2013.

 

People gather near the U.S. Capitol building on the National Mall while attending the public Inauguration ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn arrive for the swearing-in ceremonies for President Barack Obama.

A crowd gathers in front of the U.S. Capitol for the second inauguration of President Barack Obama.

  

Crowds gather at The National Mall for the 57th Presidential Inauguration.

People cheer as the enter the National Mall before the ceremonial swearing-in ceremonies on the West front of the U.S. Capitol

 

The sun rises before the presidential inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 21, in Washington, D.C.

3 Arrested in Hate Crime Attacks in Compton

Three Latino males are alleged to have tried to drive out a black family in Compton, sheriff's officials said

By Jason Kandel   |  Friday, Jan 25, 2013  |  Updated 7:48 PM PST

Two men and a teenage boy were arrested in connection with a series of race-based attacks on an African American family in an attempt to drive them out of Compton, sheriff’s officials said.

A group of Latino males who claimed to be in a local street gang used metal pipes and shouted racial epithets at a black man who had recently moved into the neighborhood, sheriff’s officials said.

One of the suspects, identified as Efren Marquez, 21, allegedly pointed a gun at the victim and threatened to shoot him while he was being beaten with a metal pipe allegedly by a second suspect, identified as Jeffrey Aguilar, 19, officials said.

After the attack, the group left in a black sport utility vehicle.

Marquez and Aguilar returned 30 minutes later with a group of up to 20 gang members, who surrounded the front of the victims’ home shouting racial epithets and telling them that members of the African American race (using the ‘n-word’) were not allowed to live in the neighborhood, sheriff’s officials said.

An unidentified member of the group threw a beer bottle through the front living room window.

Sheriff’s officials said the suspects continued to drive by the home of the family -- which includes four children -- several times a day, shouting racial epithets while ordering the family to leave the neighborhood.

Aguilar, Marquez and a juvenile were arrested on Thursday, said Capt. Mike Parker of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Headquarters Bureau.

They face hate crime charges.

Michelle Valles

LA County sheriff's deputies are investigating two hate crimes in Compton. In one case, authorities say gang members repeatedly terrorized an African-American family. Michelle Valles reports from Compton for the NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on January 25, 2013.

 

Anyone with information is asked to contact Sheriff’s Operation Safe Streets Bureau gang investigators at (310) 603-3100 or the Compton Sheriff’s Station at (310) 605-6500.

Por Vanessa Cardenass | 1/25/2013

Uno no tiene que ser padre para sentir dolor, rabia, y pena después de tantas vidas perdidas en el  tiroteo en la escuela Sandy Hook. Desafortunadamente, para las comunidades de color tiroteos y la muerte de niños son a menudo parte de la vida diaria. Aunque sin duda un hecho de la magnitud de la tragedia de Newtown es fuera de lo común, la violencia en las comunidades caracterizadas por la pobreza y falta de recursos es común y afecta a personas de color muy profundamente.

Lo único que necesitamos hacer es conocer los datos para entender esta realidad. En Chicago, 319 estudiantes fueron heridos con armas de fuego durante el año escolar 2011-2012 y 24 de ellos murieron. En 2008 y 2009, la causa principal de muertes entre los adolescentes afroamericanos fue a causa de un arma homicida. La tasa de homicidios por arma de fuego entre los hombres afro-americanos es 2.4 veces más alta que los varones hispanos, y 15.3 veces mas alta que para los varones no-hispanos blancos. Las víctimas de asesinatos y homicidio involuntario son más frecuentemente de raza afroamericana o hispana,  los afroamericanos comprenden el 67 perfil de las víctimas y los hispanos comprenden el 28.1 perfil. Los afro-americanos representan casi cerca 13 por ciento de la población de los Estados Unidos, pero en 2009 sufrieron casi 24 por ciento de todas las muertes por armas— y más del 54 por ciento de todos los homicidios a mano armada. Justo este pasado verano el Departamento de Policía de la ciudad de Nueva York público un reporte indicando que 96 por ciento de todas la victimas de tiroteos y 97 por ciento de todas las personas sospechosas de tiroteos en la ciudad eran latinos o afro-americanos. 

La protesta pública contra la violencia de armas después de Sandy Hook debería haber pasado hace mucho tiempo  y ya es hora que el Congreso y al presidente tomen medidas significativas para evitar más violencia y derramamiento de sangre. El presidente Barack Obama está dando pasos importantes en la actualidad con el anuncio de medidas ejecutivas para fortalecer el sistema de verificación de antecedentes existente para mantener las armas lejos de las manos de las personas potencialmente peligrosas, así como para mejorar la salud mental y programas de seguridad escolar.

Pero el presidente no puede hacer esto solo. El Congreso debe aprobar una ley de sentido común que proteja a nuestras familias y comunidades. Necesitamos asegurarnos de que exista un sistema de verificación de antecedentes universal que impida a personas peligrosas la posibilidad de comprar un arma y también que nuestras comunidades y familias sean protegidas de armas de asalto de tipo militar. El Congreso también puede financiar la prevención y estrategias de intervención, tales como programas de fortalecimiento familiar, apoyos académicos y escolares, el desarrollo positivo de la juventud y otras intervenciones para prevenir la delincuencia juvenil y apoyar la rehabilitación de delincuentes juveniles.

Las comunidades de color entienden la importancia de la aplicación de estas medidas y las apoyan. Una encuesta encargada por Common Sense Media y el Centro para el Progreso Estadounidense muestra que los padres de color están especialmente preocupados por la seguridad de sus hijos y la mayoría apoyan las leyes estrictas de armas. La encuesta les preguntó a los padres con niños de 18 años o menos que compartan sus opiniones acerca de los factores que contribuyen a la violencia en Estados Unidos. La encuesta encontró que:

• La mayoría de los padres de color se encuentran muy de acuerdo en que enfrentar la violencia de armas en los Estados Unidos requiere tomar medidas en los medios de comunicación y mantener las armas lejos de nuestros hijos.
• El setenta y seis por ciento de los padres afroamericanos y 69 por ciento de los padres americanos asiáticos, creen que proteger a sus hijos de la violencia hoy en día es difícil.
• Cuando se les preguntó qué factores contribuyen a la violencia en los EE.UU., los padres de color manifestaron que la violencia en la televisión, el cine y la delincuencia diaria son los factores más importantes. El 84 por ciento de los afroamericanos y los hispanos y el 88 por ciento de los asiáticos consideraron que la delincuencia diaria contribuyen a la violencia en los EE.UU. en comparación con el 82 por ciento de los blancos. 85 por ciento de los afroamericanos, el 81 por ciento de los hispanos y el 90 por ciento de los asiáticos citó la violencia en la televisión y el cine como un factor comparado con el 85 por ciento de los blancos.
• La gran mayoría de los padres de color, el 91 por ciento de los afroamericanos, el 83 por ciento de los hispanos y el 92 por ciento de los asiático-americanos creen  que políticas que impiden la publicidad de los juegos y películas violentas cuando los niños están viendo televisión deben ser implementadas.

Además, un recién estudio realizado por Pew Research Center encontró que los afroamericanos y los latinos están 66 por ciento y 72 por ciento, respectivamente, a favor de controlar la tenencia de armas por encima de la protección del derecho a poseer armas en comparación con sus homólogos blancos en un 42 por ciento.

La violencia armada conlleva una enorme carga sobre los niños y los jóvenes de Estados Unidos, tanto en términos de vidas perdidas como en la calidad de vida. Políticas más sensibles de reducción de armas y de la violencia son un paso, pero si realmente nos concierne prevenir la violencia necesitamos también  intervenciones focalizadas en los barrios urbanos y pobres. Es el momento de defender a todos nuestros niños y comunidades y protegerlos contra la violencia de armas de fuego.

By Vanessa Cardenass | 1/25/2013

One need not be a parent to feel pain, anger, and grief after so many lives lost in the school shooting Sandy Hook. Unfortunately, for communities of color shooting and death of children are often part of daily life. While certainly an event of the magnitude of the tragedy of Newtown is unusual, violence in communities characterized by poverty and lack of resources is common and affects people very deeply colored.

All we need do is find the data to understand this reality. In Chicago, 319 students were wounded by firearms during the 2011-2012 school year and 24 of them died. In 2008 and 2009, the leading cause of death among black teens was because of a murder weapon. The rate of firearm homicides among African-American men is 2.4 times higher than Hispanic men, and 15.3 times higher than for non-Hispanic white males. The victims of murder and manslaughter are more often African American or Hispanic race, African Americans comprise 67 profile of victims and Hispanics comprise 28.1 profile. African Americans make up nearly 13 percent near the population of the United States, but in 2009 were almost 24 percent of all gun deaths, and more than 54 percent of all homicides at gunpoint. Just this past summer the Police Department of the City of New York released a report indicating that 96 percent of all the victims of shootings and 97 percent of all persons suspected of shootings in the city were Latino or African-American. 

Public outcry against gun violence after Sandy Hook should have happened a long time ago and it is time that Congress and the president take significant steps to prevent further violence and bloodshed. President Barack Obama is taking important steps today with the announcement of executive measures to strengthen the existing background checks to keep guns out of the hands of potentially dangerous people and to improve mental health and programs school safety.

But the president can not do this alone. Congress should pass a law common sense to protect our families and communities. We need to ensure that a system of universal background checks that would prevent dangerous people from buying the gun and also our communities and families are protected from assault weapons military type.Congress also can fund prevention and intervention strategies, such as family strengthening programs, school academic support and the positive youth development and other interventions to prevent youth crime and support the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders.

Communities of color understand the importance of the implementation of these measures and their supporters. A poll commissioned by Common Sense Media and the Center for American Progress shows that parents of color are especially concerned about the safety of their children and support the most stringent gun laws. The survey asked parents with children 18 years old and younger who occupy their views on the factors that contribute to violence in America. The survey found that:

• Most parents of color are strongly agreed that confront gun violence in the United States requires action in the media and keep guns away from our children.
• Seventy-six percent of African American parents and 69 percent of Asian American parents believe that to protect their children from violence today is difficult.
• When asked what factors contribute to violence in the U.S., parents of color stated that violence on television, film and everyday crime are the most important factors. 84 percent of African Americans and Hispanics and 88 percent of Asians felt that daily crime contribute to violence in the U.S. compared with 82 percent of whites. 85 percent of African Americans, 81 percent of Hispanics and 90 percent of Asians cited violence in television and film as a factor compared to 85 percent of whites.
• The vast majority of parents of color, 91 percent of blacks, 83 percent of Hispanics and 92 percent of Asian Americans believe that policies that prevent advertising of games and violent movies when children watching television should be implemented.

Furthermore, a recent study by Pew Research Center found that African Americans and Latinos are 66 percent and 72 percent, respectively, in favor of gun ownership control over the protection of the right to own guns compared to their white counterparts by 42 percent.

Armed violence carries a huge burden on children and youth in the United States, both in terms of lives lost and the quality of life. Most sensitive political arms reduction and violence are a step, but if we really need to prevent violence concerns also focused interventions and poor urban neighborhoods. It's time to defend our communities and protect children against violence of firearms.

Impact of ‘2016’ on 2012 presidential race uncertain

But anti-Obama documentary a box-office hit

I know this is really late, and I should have added this sometime around November of 2012,  but I had not seen it and I had to wait until  I could find it to download and add it. I found it full of misinformation, lies, and supposition.  The way Mr D'Souza, weaved his story and tried to make you believe that Obama's father had influence that was so much more than it was. Obama did not know him  A father who only saw him once in his entire life.

It was dull, flat and uninspiring. It looked pieced together, and brother it was boring. D'Souza made you believe, that Obama had salacious plans to do our country wrong.  The movie was a let down totally.....thank goodness and did not influence voters.
Movie itself is at bottom of this post......

By Valerie Richardson

-

The Washington Times

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Early in the 2012 campaign season, predictions were that a major film would reach theaters in the fall, shine a spotlight on one of the presidential candidates, and possibly influence the outcome of the election.

And that's how it happened, except the movie wasn't "Zero Dark Thirty," the surefire Hollywood blockbuster about the killing of Osama bin Laden that Republicans feared would throw the election to President Obama. That film is now slated for wide release Dec. 19.

Instead, the movie at the center of this year's presidential race is "2016: Obama's America," an upstart independent documentary by conservative author Dinesh D'Souza that has stunned the filmmaking world with its success.

As of last weekend, "2016" had grossed more than $30 million, making it the second-highest-grossing political documentary and fifth-highest documentary of all time. It appears poised to climb still higher, given that it continues to play on 1,876 screens after opening in wide release Aug. 24, according to Box Office Mojo.

While conservative filmmakers have a long way to go before they rule Hollywood, they've become a force to be reckoned with on the documentary side. Dozens of serious documentaries from the right have burst onto the scene in the past decade and, while most have gone straight to DVD, they've achieved a rough parity with their brethren on the left.

"In terms of what's being produced and released, there is far more ideological balance in documentary films," said Michael Medved, the former film critic turned conservative author and radio host.

Mr. D'Souza sees a simple reason for the success of "2016."

"There is a hunger for information about Obama," he said. "Americans feel that they don't have the full story and the film supplies the missing pieces."

What distinguishes "2016" is its blue-chip bona fides. The film's producer is Gerald Molen, the Academy Award-winning producer behind "Schindler's List" and "Jurassic Park," who gave "2016" the kind of insider clout that most conservative documentaries lack.

"You have two things different here: One is the credibility of Gerald Molen, and, two, they spent a boatload on advertising," Mr. Medved said. "They probably spent more on advertising the film than producing it. There have always been these attempts to break through, but this one really did it."

The film centers on Mr. D'Souza's search for the president's "compass" by examining the president's childhood and relationship with his largely absent Kenyan father. He concludes that Mr. Obama has been heavily influenced by anti-colonialist views that he would have absorbed in Indonesia and Hawaii, and from his father, a leftist academic.

Other conservative filmmakers are hoping the success of "2016" opens doors for them with distributors and theaters. Certainly there is no shortage of such films in the pipeline: On Tuesday, Citizens United released, "The Hope and the Change," another film critical of Mr. Obama, on six cable channels and six broadcast networks, and plans to issue a second documentary, "Occupy Unmasked," in limited release Friday.

Conservatives say they have one man to thank: Michael Moore, who hit it big with a string of liberal documentaries beginning in the 1990s and culminating in 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which made more than $119 million and remains the highest-grossing political documentary of all time.

David Bossie, president of Citizens United, credits the success of "Fahrenheit 9/11" with compelling him to go into show business.

"When I called around Washington, D.C., in 2004, 'How do we respond to this?' 'Fahrenheit 9/11' was a 90-minute attack piece on George Bush," said Mr. Bossie. "My thought was, 'My gosh, we have to respond to this,' but nobody I called knew how to make a movie."

Mr. Bossie ended up connecting with a couple of Hollywood conservatives, actor Ron Silver and screenwriter Lionel Chetwynd, and released "Celsius 41.11: The Truth Behind the Lies of 'Fahrenheit 9/11'" in 2004. The documentary did well enough that Mr. Bossie went on to make "Hillary: The Movie" in 2007 about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, which became the basis for the 2010 Supreme Court case Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission.

Don't expect "2016: Obama's America" to change that trend. Only three of 14 "major critics" listed on the Rotten Tomatoes website gave the film a positive review, with reviewers describing it as everything from "a vicious, larger-than-life racist lie" to "deeply boring." On the other hand, 77 percent of moviegoers gave it a positive rating.

"There is a huge market that is not being well-served by Hollywood. If conservatives can make high quality films that are entertaining and informative then there is a lot of opportunity out there," Mr. D'Souza said.

    The Great Divide is a series on inequality — the haves, the have-nots and everyone in between — in the United States and around the world, and its implications for economics, politics, society and culture. The series moderator is Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, a Columbia professor and a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist for the World Bank.

Inequality Is Holding Back the Recovery

By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

January 19, 2013, 6:47 pm
 722 Comments

The re-election of President Obama was like a Rorschach test, subject to many interpretations. In this election, each side debated issues that deeply worry me: the long malaise into which the economy seems to be settling, and the growing divide between the 1 percent and the rest — an inequality not only of outcomes but also of opportunity. To me, these problems are two sides of the same coin: with inequality at its highest level since before the Depression, a robust recovery will be difficult in the short term, and the American dream — a good life in exchange for hard work — is slowly dying.

Politicians typically talk about rising inequality and the sluggish recovery as separate phenomena, when they are in fact intertwined. Inequality stifles, restrains and holds back our growth. When even the free-market-oriented magazine The Economist argues — as it did in a special feature in October — that the magnitude and nature of the country’s inequality represent a serious threat to America, we should know that something has gone horribly wrong. And yet, after four decades of widening inequality and the greatest economic downturn since the Depression, we haven’t done anything about it.

A fifth of our kids live in poverty — an aberration among rich nations.

There are four major reasons inequality is squelching our recovery. The most immediate is that our middle class is too weak to support the consumer spending that has historically driven our economic growth. While the top 1 percent of income earners took home 93 percent of the growth in incomes in 2010, the households in the middle — who are most likely to spend their incomes rather than save them and who are, in a sense, the true job creators — have lower household incomes, adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1996. The growth in the decade before the crisis was unsustainable — it was reliant on the bottom 80 percent consuming about 110 percent of their income.

Second, the hollowing out of the middle class since the 1970s, a phenomenon interrupted only briefly in the 1990s, means that they are unable to invest in their future, by educating themselves and their children and by starting or improving businesses.

Third, the weakness of the middle class is holding back tax receipts, especially because those at the top are so adroit in avoiding taxes and in getting Washington to give them tax breaks. The recent modest agreement to restore Clinton-level marginal income-tax rates for individuals making more than $400,000 and households making more than $450,000 did nothing to change this. Returns from Wall Street speculation are taxed at a far lower rate than other forms of income. Low tax receipts mean that the government cannot make the vital investments in infrastructure, education, research and health that are crucial for restoring long-term economic strength.

Fourth, inequality is associated with more frequent and more severe boom-and-bust cycles that make our economy more volatile and vulnerable. Though inequality did not directly cause the crisis, it is no coincidence that the 1920s — the last time inequality of income and wealth in the United States was so high — ended with the Great Crash and the Depression. The International Monetary Fund has noted the systematic relationship between economic instability and economic inequality, but American leaders haven’t absorbed the lesson.

Our skyrocketing inequality — so contrary to our meritocratic ideal of America as a place where anyone with hard work and talent can “make it” — means that those who are born to parents of limited means are likely never to live up to their potential. Children in other rich countries like Canada, France, Germany and Sweden have a better chance of doing better than their parents did than American kids have. More than a fifth of our children live in poverty — the second worst of all the advanced economies, putting us behind countries like Bulgaria, Latvia and Greece.

Our society is squandering its most valuable resource: our young. The dream of a better life that attracted immigrants to our shores is being crushed by an ever-widening chasm of income and wealth. Tocqueville, who in the 1830s found the egalitarian impulse to be the essence of the American character, is rolling in his grave.


Bryan Patrick/The Sacramento Bee, via Associated Press Protesters at California State University, Sacramento, railed against cuts to higher education in April 2011.

Even were we able to ignore the economic imperative of fixing our inequality problem, the damage it is doing to our social fabric and political life should prompt us to worry. Economic inequality leads to political inequality and a broken decision-making process.

Despite Mr. Obama’s stated commitment to helping all Americans, the recession and the lingering effects of the way it was handled have made matters much, much worse. While bailout money poured into the banks in 2009, unemployment soared to 10 percent that October. The rate today (7.8 percent) appears better partly because so many people have dropped out of the labor force, or never entered it, or accepted part-time jobs because there was no full-time job for them.

High unemployment, of course, depresses wages. Adjusted for inflation, real wages have stagnated or fallen; a typical male worker’s income in 2011 ($32,986) was lower than it was in 1968 ($33,880). Lower tax receipts, in turn, have forced state and local cutbacks in services vital to those at the bottom and middle.

Most Americans’ most important asset is their home, and as home prices have plummeted, so has household wealth — especially since so many had borrowed so much on their homes. Large numbers are left with negative net worth, and median household wealth fell nearly 40 percent, to $77,300 in 2010 from $126,400 in 2007, and has rebounded only slightly. Since the Great Recession, most of the increase in the nation’s wealth has gone to the very top.

Meanwhile, as incomes have stagnated or fallen, tuition has soared. In the United States now, the principal way to get education — the only sure way to move up — is to borrow. In 2010, student debt, now $1 trillion, exceeded credit-card debt for the first time.

Student debt can almost never be wiped out, even in bankruptcy. A parent who co-signs a loan can’t necessarily have the debt discharged even if his child dies. The debt can’t be discharged even if the school — operated for profit and owned by exploitative financiers — provided an inadequate education, enticed the student with misleading promises, and failed to get her a decent job.

Instead of pouring money into the banks, we could have tried rebuilding the economy from the bottom up. We could have enabled homeowners who were “underwater” — those who owe more money on their homes than the homes are worth — to get a fresh start, by writing down principal, in exchange for giving banks a share of the gains if and when home prices recovered.

Obama bailed out banks but didn’t invest enough in workers and students.

We could have recognized that when young people are jobless, their skills atrophy. We could have made sure that every young person was either in school, in a training program or on a job. Instead, we let youth unemployment rise to twice the national average. The children of the rich can stay in college or attend graduate school, without accumulating enormous debt, or take unpaid internships to beef up their résumés. Not so for those in the middle and bottom. We are sowing the seeds of ever more inequality in the coming years.

The Obama administration does not, of course, bear the sole blame. President George W. Bush’s steep tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and his multitrillion-dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan emptied the piggy bank while exacerbating the great divide. His party’s newfound commitment to fiscal discipline — in the form of insisting on low taxes for the rich while slashing services for the poor — is the height of hypocrisy.

There are all kinds of excuses for inequality. Some say it’s beyond our control, pointing to market forces like globalization, trade liberalization, the technological revolution, the “rise of the rest.” Others assert that doing anything about it would make us all worse off, by stifling our already sputtering economic engine. These are self-serving, ignorant falsehoods.

Market forces don’t exist in a vacuum — we shape them. Other countries, like fast-growing Brazil, have shaped them in ways that have lowered inequality while creating more opportunity and higher growth. Countries far poorer than ours have decided that all young people should have access to food, education and health care so they can fulfill their aspirations.

Our legal framework and the way we enforce it has provided more scope here for abuses by the financial sector; for perverse compensation for chief executives; for monopolies’ ability to take unjust advantage of their concentrated power.

Yes, the market values some skills more highly than others, and those who have those skills will do well. Yes, globalization and technological advances have led to the loss of good manufacturing jobs, which are not likely ever to come back. Global manufacturing employment is shrinking, simply because of enormous increases in productivity, and America is likely to get a shrinking share of the shrinking number of new jobs. If we do succeed in “saving” these jobs, it may be only by converting higher-paid jobs to lower-paid ones — hardly a long-term strategy.

Globalization, and the unbalanced way it has been pursued, has shifted bargaining power away from workers: firms can threaten to move elsewhere, especially when tax laws treat such overseas investments so favorably. This in turn has weakened unions, and though unions have sometimes been a source of rigidity, the countries that responded most effectively to the global financial crisis, like Germany and Sweden, have strong unions and strong systems of social protection.

As Mr. Obama’s second term begins, we must all face the fact that our country cannot quickly, meaningfully recover without policies that directly address inequality. What’s needed is a comprehensive response that should include, at least, significant investments in education, a more progressive tax system and a tax on financial speculation.

The good news is that our thinking has been reframed: it used to be that we asked how much growth we would be willing to sacrifice for a little more equality and opportunity. Now we realize that we are paying a high price for our inequality and that alleviating it and promoting growth are intertwined, complementary goals. It will be up to all of us — our leaders included — to muster the courage and foresight to finally treat this beleaguering malady.

---

Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, a professor at Columbia and a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist for the World Bank, is the author of “The Price of Inequality.”

Here’s A Video Of Two Men Experiencing Labor Contractions 

Girls this is 2 funny....and I am quite amazed that they lasted that long.

Jan. 24, 2013

By Charlie Morrigan

A Dutch TV program had a brilliant idea: have men put on devices that simulate childbirth contractions and film the results. Hilarity ensues

Grover Norquist Tax Orgy: 'The Onion' Breaks Corporate Income Tax Affair (VIDEO)

Grover Norquist: 'I Engaged In A Week-Long Drug-Filled Orgy With Corporate Income Taxes'
First Posted: 01/12/2012 2:50 pm Updated: 01/12/2012 2:50 pm

"I engaged in a week-long, drug-fueled orgy with corporate income taxes."

It doesn't get any more cut and dried -- or shocking -- than that.
Founder of Americans for Tax Reform, Grover Norquist has been outed by "The Onion" as carrying on a sordid fling with taxes*.
The paper reported Thursday that scandalous photos had surfaced revealing a decades-long affair between Norquist and his sworn enemy. Later that day, Norquist appeared in front of cameras admitting all of the salacious details.

Over the last 28 years, I have carried on multiple affairs with numerous kinds of taxes; income taxes, sales taxes and, even, estate taxes.... I was leading a selfishly double life, buying presents for and taking exotic trips with capital gains taxes and transfer taxes. In 2004, I engaged in a week-long, drug-fueled orgy with corporate income taxes, a decision I now wholeheartedly regret. And in 2010, at the height of my misconduct, while in Paris, I strongly flirted with a European style value-added tax.

Signers of Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," included current GOP presidential hopefuls, have yet to respond to Norquist's shocking announcement.


*As a reminder, "The Onion" is a satirical newspaper and this is a fake scandal. Norquist is a long-time fan of "The Onion," and is well-regarded as having a fine sense of humor. This would seem to prove it.

Not so fast: Women on frontlines 'distracting,' say critics

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

Critics of the Pentagon’s decision to allow women to serve in many combat positions accused the military of putting social experimentation and political correctness ahead of the fighting power of American troops.

The decision, announced Thursday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, appeared to be met mostly with approval on Capitol Hill — and jubilation among women who have served in the armed forces.

But others, including some combat veterans, Republicans in Congress and culturally conservative groups, expressed deep reservations or outright opposition.

One former Marine infantryman, Ryan Smith, said that combat readiness could be harmed by the decision. In an Op-Ed article published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, Smith focused on some of the more unseemly aspects of combat service.

During the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, he wrote, his unit went more than a month without showering and then was lined up naked to be pressure-washed.

“It would be distracting and potentially traumatizing to be forced to be naked in front of the opposite sex, particularly when your body has been ravaged by lack of hygiene,” Smith wrote. “In the reverse, it would be painful to witness a member of the opposite sex in such an uncomfortable and awkward position.

“The relationships among members of a unit can be irreparably harmed by forcing them to violate societal norms,” he concluded.

Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, a Marine combat veteran who served two tours in Iraq and a third in Afghanistan, said that the question was whether the change would “actually make our military better at operating in combat and killing the enemy.”

“What needs to be explained is how this decision, when all is said and done, increases combat effectiveness rather than being a move done for political purposes,” Hunter said in a statement. A spokesman told NBC News that the congressman believes the decision was rushed, and that it was unclear how the Pentagon reached its decision.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, quickly announced his support for Panetta’s decision. But he said Thursday that he wants to be sure “to make sure that the standards, particularly the physical standards, are met so that the combat efficiency of the units are not degraded.”

For the past 10 years, women in the U.S. military have served at the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan but never as ground combat troops. That will soon change as a ban against women in combat is lifted. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports and retired Col. Jack Jacobs gives his take.

In remarks as he was entering a confirmation hearing for Sen. John Kerry as secretary of state, McCain said that allowing women in combat was “the right thing to do.”

When a reporter suggested that American military women were already in combat roles — more than 150 women have died and nearly 1,000 have been wounded in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — McCain said, “Well, not really.”

“It’s one thing to be some place where a rocket hits and be wounded, and it’s another thing to be out there on a night raid against al-Qaida,” McCain said. “But the fact is that this is a — I support this decision, and I think that women are fully qualified to carry out that mission.”

A senior defense official told NBC News on Wednesday that exceptions would probably remain, and that elite special operations positions among the Navy SEALs, Army Rangers and Delta Force, another branch of the Army, would probably stay closed to women.

There were about 166,000 women serving in active duty in 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available. They accounted for about 14 percent of the active armed forces. Women were most represented in the Air Force, at 19 percent, and least in the Marines, 6 percent.

There were about 36,000 women among active-duty officers, or about 17 percent.

Polls consistently show broad support for allowing women in combat roles. Support ran almost 3-to-1 in a Quinnipiac University poll conducted last February.

Still, a conservative Christian activist group, Concerned Women for America, was blunt in its opposition to the shift.

“The point of the military is to protect our country,” the group’s president, Penny Nance, said in a statement. “Anything that distracts from that is detrimental. Our military cannot continue to choose social experimentation and political correctness over combat readiness.”

Some critics of Panetta’s decision expressed concern that women would not be able to meet physical-fitness requirements of the military, or that the standards for physical fitness would be lowered, weakening the force, to make them fair to women.

Anne Coughlin, a University of Virginia law professor who helped form a group that inspired a lawsuit against Panetta last year, opposing the ban, said that she saw no merit in any of the arguments for the ban.

Arguments about unit cohesion, she said, rely on a stereotype — that men and women will get up to “mischief” in close quarters. She said that she applauded strict fitness requirements, physical and psychological, and that there was no reason to expect that the military would endanger troops by lowering them.

“Some women, just like some men, may not be able to satisfy some of those standards,” she told NBC News in a telephone interview. “It seems preposterous to me to think that the secretary of defense and the people who are in charge of designing the military standards would put the nation in peril in this way, and they are certainly not be being asked to do that.”

Related: 'It's about time!': Female veterans cheer over women's right to fight

Do women have mettle to qualify for special forces?

By Tracy Connor and Jim Miklaszewski, NBC News

The Pentagon has given women the go-ahead to be grunts, but will they also be joining elite special units such as Delta Force or Navy SEALs?

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he believes there are women in the military today who would meet the rigorous screening requirements for special forces.

That's no easy feat — for man or woman.

To become a Navy SEAL, for instance, the ideal candidate will swim 500 yards in nine minutes, do 90 push-ups in two minutes, 85 curl-ups in two minutes, 18 pull-ups in two minutes, and run 1.5 miles in under 10 minutes.

Marine Special Operations wannabes need to swim 300 meters in a utility shirt and trousers, tread water for 10 minutes while clothed, and hike 12 miles with a 45-pound load in under four hours

Delta Force, which is so secretive that the Army doesn't even acknowledge its existence, recruits members of other special forces units who have already proven their physical mettle.

Then, according to the book "Inside Delta Force," it makes them complete land-navigation courses that include an 18-mile nighttime trek with a 40-pound backpack and a 40-mile march over rough terrain.

Women who've passed the Army's grueling Sapper Leader course say they're well-prepared to enter combat, and in some cases, better prepared than men. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

No problem says Kate Wilder, a retired lieutenant colonel who was the first woman to qualify for the Army's Special Forces in 1980.

"Just to get into the course, I had to pass the male advanced PT class, which was the toughest class at the time," she said. "I was in my 20s, in top condition.

"If I could do it, these young women who are so in shape today can do it," she said.

Wilder said she got into the course but was told just before graduation that she failed a field exercise. She filed a sex-discrimination complaint and a judge found she was unfairly denied qualification.

Now 61, Wilder said many of the physical screenings for the Green Berets and similar units are are tests of endurance and agility, not brute force.

She remembered trouble she had with a course of overhead bars she had to complete. "My trainer told me, 'It's not strength, it's technique," she recalled.
 "And one day I just got it. But there were a lot of men who couldn't master the bars.

"There is nothing today's women physically can't do and if she can't do it right away, she can be trained to do it," Wilder said.