Remember how big a deal the Pluto flyby was? We may get an encore.
Source CNN.com - Technology http://ift.tt/1N6ZOLi
Source CNN.com - Technology http://ift.tt/1N6ZOLi
Friday, April 29, 2016
Powerful lasers fired up for space exploration
It's the kind of laser show you'd expect from the Death Star, only there are four of them.
Podcast favorites: Blindsided: How ISIS Shook The World | Bernie gets the Axe | Guns in America
Source CNN.com - Technology http://ift.tt/24oSC1h
Podcast favorites: Blindsided: How ISIS Shook The World | Bernie gets the Axe | Guns in America
Source CNN.com - Technology http://ift.tt/24oSC1h
White House Moves To "Ban The Box" For Many Federal Job Seekers
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is announcing a proposed federal rule on Friday that senior administration officials say would effectively “ban the box” for many federal agency jobs.
The rule will prohibit federal employers from asking questions about criminal history until later in the employment process for the affected jobs — a move administration officials say is their part to advance the "ban the box" effort. The phrase is a reference to the check box many job application forms include asking about whether a person has any criminal arrest and/or conviction history.
In a call with reporters, Beth Cobert, the acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, said that the proposed rule would bar criminal history questions from being asked "until a conditional offer of employment has been made."
Requirements to report criminal history on job applications often makes securing employment significantly harder, which advocates say becomes a hindrance for reintegrating people with such history into their communities.
The proposed rule, Cobert said, would apply to applicants for jobs in the competitive service, which she said accounts for roughly half of the 200,000 hires made in 2015 by the federal government.
“The rule would affect tens of thousands of individuals,” Cobert said. “As the nation’s largest employer, the federal government should lead the way and serve as a model for all employers, both public and private.”
The excepted service — jobs that primarily relate to the intelligence community, national security, or law enforcement — would not be covered by the new rule, Cobert said, and covered agencies would be able to seek exemptions from the rule on a case-by-case basis.
The move comes at the end of a week the Obama administration has highlighted as Re-Entry Week — focused on efforts to help prepare incarcerated individuals for their life after returning to their communities and to help address barriers to re-entry for those who are or have returned to those communities.
On the call, Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett called the proposed rule "a big step" toward supporting re-entry efforts, "one that will truly make a difference."
Cobert noted that the proposed rule — which will be the default for competitive service jobs once it goes into effect — "builds on current practice at many agencies, which already choose to collect information on criminal history at late stages of the hiring process." She said, "The proposed rule takes the important step to formalize, expand, and codify this best practice."
Jarrett also highlighted two other efforts being taken by the administration, announcing that President Obama will sign a presidential memorandum establishing the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, which builds on prior efforts by Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. Jarrett said the council will "lead the government’s work on the rehabilitation and reintegration of Americans returning to their communities."
She also said that 112 employers and organizations have signed on to the White House's Fair Chance Business Pledge.
Jarrett described the pledge as "a call to action for all employers to improve their communities by eliminating barriers for those with criminal records and creating a pathway for a second chance." Among the provisions in the pledge is an agreement to "ban the box," as well as other human resources efforts to prevent those with a criminal record from unnecessarily not being considered by employment.
Among the 112 companies and organizations to sign the pledge are Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Xerox, Best Buy, Kellogg Company, American Airlines, Starbucks, Koch Industries, Pepsi, Coca Cola, and Staples — as well as the ACLU, Catholic Charities USA, and NAACP.
Asked whether there was consideration of whether to take action to require federal contractors to "ban the box," Jarrett said, "The president has supported federal legislation that would ban the box for federal contractors. He thinks that’s the best approach."
Jarrett also noted, however, that the Department of Labor in 2013 adopted earlier guidance from Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to, in her words, "recommend that contractors refrain from inquiring about convictions on job applications." That Labor Department directive, she assed, also warned there are scenarios in which criminal records-based exclusions could violate civil rights protections.
As part of the week's mission to promote the federal efforts and the coordination with private companies on their re-entry support, Attorney General Loretta Lynch will be visiting a federal prison in Talladega, Alabama, as well as attend a Re-Entry Week "Fair Chance" event in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday.
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/1pN5I8Z
A Year Ago, Clinton Planted A Flag On Immigration In Nevada That Changed The Election
John Locher / AP
One of the most important moments in this election happened at a high school library in Nevada.
Nearly a year ago, Hillary Clinton spoke to young undocumented immigrants and their families at Rancho High School in the working-class neighborhood of North Las Vegas, where 40% of the population is Latino. The setting was risky — just the kind of event that activists have turned into protests, with videos that travel far and wide.
Her words were directed at Jeb Bush.
She would offer a “path to full and equal citizenship” she said, while Bush, a favorite to win his party’s nomination, supported earned legal status — or as Clinton dismissed it, “second-class status.” That wasn’t unusual. Nor was her support for “comprehensive immigration reform.”
What she said next, however, was. “If Congress continues to refuse to act,” Clinton told the activists, she “would do everything possible under the law to go even further.” She wanted the parents of DREAMers, the parents of those seated around her, to be eligible for protection from deportation.
Clinton would prove to be very, very wrong about Bush. But she was correct about the driving issue of the election. The event would prove to be one of the most significant moments in the Democratic primary, and the policies Clinton outlined that day and as a result of that day will inform an election dominated by immigration policy, and the increasingly polarized approaches by both parties.
While Donald Trump talks of the wall and a far more restrictionist immigration policy, Clinton began her campaign with likely one of the most liberal immigration platforms ever adopted by a mainstream Democratic candidate.
And the entire event was conceived of and organized in a week.
After the campaign’s morning call, a top campaign official, Marlon Marshall, called the Nevada director Emmy Ruiz — at this point, brushing her teeth — with an idea. Clinton would head to Nevada the next week, and they wanted to do a roundtable with DREAMer activists.
Together, Ruiz and Jorge Neri, the Nevada organizing director, had held the same general election roles in 2012, when Obama won Nevada with the highest margin of any battleground state and 70% Latino support.
Now they were being asked to pull off the equivalent of 8-Mile-esque freestyle rap battle in a week — casual and informal, in front of real deal activists, with maximum news, with minimal disaster.
Just months before, DREAMer protesters had disrupted Clinton’s speeches all over the country, pressing her and other Democrats on deportation policy. In the eyes of the activists and many Latino Democrats, Clinton herself had erred seriously in the past, saying she would send most unaccompanied minors back to their home countries during the border surge of 2014, and in 2008, when she opposed driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.
In North Las Vegas, the campaign invited activists just like these to sit in a small room with the candidate, for an hour, with dozens of reporters.
“You never know when someone is going to decide to become a YouTube sensation,” said Jose Parra, a former senior adviser to Harry Reid. “It was a definitely a risk, that amount of time is an eternity anywhere, let alone in front of rolling cameras.”
The young activists didn’t want the Clinton campaign to view their involvement as an endorsement. They are the type that are wary of participating in a high-profile event — the dangers of going home looking like a push-over or a sell out are too high. They came to the event expecting to come at Clinton strong, to keep her honest.
“We’re not one entity, this is not a photo op, we want her to be authentic with us,” said Blanca Gamez, who earned two degrees at UNLV, and has since endorsed Clinton of the sentiments she expressed to the Clinton campaign at the time.
Clinton has not been protested as often in the past year on immigration, as she likely would have been, if she stuck to an "immigration reform" and pathway to citizenship-only script. She also had a very simple advantage in a key state like Nevada and elsewhere: Staffers already had existing relationships with prominent and local activists.
“Emmy and Jorge knew all the players,” said national political director Amanda Renteria, who also took an active role in planning the event. Neri’s “life’s work has been immigration reform,” Ruiz said — he had the relationships with activists, he was trusted. Jorge Silva, a skilled operative in Reid’s office who eventually joined the campaign and worked on the event, also had longstanding connections with activists.
“To be honest, they knew how skeptical we were of her stance on policies,” said Astrid Silva, an activist whose story was elevated by Harry Reid to rally support for the DREAM Act. (She knows Jorge Silva well enough from the experience that she affectionately calls him primo — cousin — because of their shared last name.)
“We expressed to them for a really long time how skeptical we were, not only of Clinton, but of all the candidates,” she added.
The activists even offered to tell the campaign the kinds of questions they’d be asking — the answers they wanted, often answers not given by politicians — before the event. We don’t want anything, was the message that came back from the campaign.
If that sounds risky, the campaign took other precautions.
To avoid a damaging “YouTube” moment, Jorge Silva spoke with the activists about the dual role activists can play: one outside the room, yelling toward it versus another sitting down at the table and getting things done, a message recently echoed by President Obama on the subject of the Black Lives Matter movement.
To make the conversation flow, Neri and Jorge Silva made sure the activists jotted down their stories, which were put into a memo given to Clinton. During the roundtable, she deftly went from DREAMer to DREAMer, at times prodding them to reveal more details of their family story — details she clearly already knew, like whose parents were eligible for DAPA, and who had an exemplary GPA.
(This is pretty normal for campaign or political staffers to do for people like a senator or President Obama. “I hate when people say she studies an issue, it makes her sound like she’s in the books,” Renteria said. “Her studying comes from listening to real people.”)
For Ruiz, the roundtable was the beginning of a process of engaging the activists, which she said was followed by “partnership, then endorsement, to now fighting for her.”
While those moments included the influential roundtable, there were also quiet, under the radar days in a long but eventually victorious Nevada campaign. At Table 54 restaurant in Las Vegas in December during a lunch before the holidays, Ruiz and Neri went outside for a policy call with senior advisor Maya Harris. Also on the call were the DREAMers Astrid and Blanca Gamez.
“You need activists yelling and you need those sitting at the table,” Astrid Silva said. “Here in Nevada we’ve had the role of being both, being heard and providing real solutions.”
Policy calls like that eventually led to what the roundtable participants viewed as a breakthrough.
At an immigration townhall days before the February Nevada caucus, Clinton said she would move to work on immigration in her first 100 days as president and addressed a question that Sanders, who spoke before her, hadn’t quite answered. Clinton, she said, would end the laws that require undocumented immigrants to leave the country for three- and 10-year periods before returning. (Both candidates have connections to the law. Bill Clinton signed the bill that included the 3- and 10-year bar, while Sanders voted for it.)
Blanca Gamez, who brought up the 3- and 10-year bar, was pleased by Clinton saying she would move to change the law.
“You saw the growth and progression since May, her evolving as a person and as a candidate and taking into account what we said and what our families said,” Gamez said.
The spring roundtable not only momentarily won over immigration activists quite comfortable opposing Clinton, but even surprised two well-known DREAMers who would eventually join the Sanders campaign.
Cesar Vargas, who has taken Clinton to task on immigration since going to work for Bernie, called on Clinton to go beyond Obama administratively, just a day before the roundtable. After the event, Erika Andiola told BuzzFeed News she was “happy,” calling it “a really great step recognizing what she could do.”
Chuck Rocha, a consultant for the Sanders campaign, said the May 5 event reinforced the importance of the Latino vote in 2016 and credited her campaign.“It was about understanding that the tip of the spear is the DREAMer movement,” he said.
With some exceptions in caucus states (Nevada and Colorado), Clinton has won Latino voters by wide margins, especially in the country’s most Latino states. Although Sanders has dominated with young voters, Clinton’s successful coalition — older voters, the affluent, and most importantly, people of color — reflects the idea of “the Obama coalition” or in other words, an increasingly diverse Democratic Party.
“The reason it’s been very difficult for Sen. Sanders to tap into our communities is because we started these conversations early,” Renteria said.
As Clinton moves to lock up the nomination after a strong showing on Tuesday, the challenge will be how she can bring over Sanders supporters still passionate over a hard-fought campaign. Rocha said it’s imperative for unity to happen eventually to defeat the Republican nominee.
“No matter who wins the nomination, neither one of them can win the general without the other one’s percentage of the Latino vote in those states,” he said.
Clinton will want the support of Bernie supporters like Jose Macias, a Nevada activist for Fight for 15, the minimum wage campaign. This support may not seem totally imminent: Macias stingingly likened Clinton’s support for a $12 federal minimum wage to those who would say “all lives matter” in response to the “black lives matter” movement.
Still, Macias, who was impressed by the May 5 event that featured activists he has worked with in Nevada, said he would support Clinton if Sanders loses.
He framed it as a choice on issues that matter to individuals, rising above the particular candidate.
“As a Bernie supporter, I will support Hillary if she is the nominee and people will do the same thing if they’re passionate about immigration or raising the minimum wage, black lives matter or education,” he said. “In the end, they will go out not for the candidate, but for the things they believe in.”
And if the DREAMer roundtable served as a flag planted in the Democratic primary, the contrast will perhaps be the sharpest policy gulf in a general election matchup with Trump or Ted Cruz, who have both called for building a wall along the border and deportations of those in the country illegally.
“That wall image, that got said a year ago, is a tangible way for people out there to get it,” Renteria, who is Mexican-American said. “My son said, ‘They’re going to throw Mexicans over that wall.’”
The policy shift to the left, though, isn’t without its perils. Daniel Garza, executive director of the LIBRE Initiative, which is backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, has often criticized Trump and Cruz for their immigration policies, but said Clinton will struggle to forge consensus on immigration now that she has said she will go further than Obama did.
“No matter what she promises, she isn’t going to deliver unless she reconciles her positions with Republicans” in Congress, Garza said.
Still, the Clinton campaign believes the general election contest will be decided by those in the middle, and that those who are anti-immigrant will never support her.
“We’re going to talk to people on the fence and educate them on why immigration is important and why these changes need to happen,” Neri said.
Gamez said in Nevada she sees signs of a Latino community offended and taken aback by the Republican frontrunner Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric. Last week, when she worked a citizenship fair, she asked “Why now?” to a 40-year resident only now choosing to become a citizen and vote.
The response? “Because of this election, I have to be here for my brothers and sisters.”
While Clinton may have the political and policy advantage, immigration and Latino issues may never come completely naturally. As she began speaking at the roundtable, she said Cinco de Mayo was an “especially appropriate day to be having this conversation.” (It’s a holiday that produces a shrug from most Mexican-Americans and Hispanics; it’s mostly used by Americans as an excuse to get drunk and eat Mexican food.)
But, at least with this group of skeptical DREAMers turned ardent surrogates, Clinton’s relationships led to trust and a different kind of familiarity.
Minutes before the roundtable last year, Astrid Silva introduced Clinton to the group. When it came to Juan Salazar, who owns a pool company with his father and used to sell tacos, she lapsed into an old nickname introduced him as “Taco Juan,” which Clinton couldn’t get enough of.
“What? I love tacos,” Clinton said. “What kind of tacos?”
And now when she sees Silva, the question comes fast.
“How’s Taco Juan?”
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/1T8XUpy
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Trump In 1993 On Dating And STDs: "The Equivalent Of A Soldier Going Over To Vietnam"
“You know, if you’re young, and in this era, and if you have any guilt about not having gone to Vietnam. We have our own Vietnam. It’s called the dating game.”
The Art of the Comeback
In a 1993 interview on The Howard Stern Show, Donald Trump said those who did not serve in the Vietnam War had their own Vietnam to deal with — dating.
"You know, if you're young, and in this era, and if you have any guilt about not having gone to Vietnam. We have our own Vietnam. It's called the dating game," he said during a discussion of Trump's well-publicized germaphobia and the ongoing AIDs epidemic.
"It's pretty dangerous out there Robin. It's like Vietnam," Trump said earlier in the interview.
"It is, it is," Stern said. "The dating scene is like Vietnam."
"Dating is like being in Vietnam," Trump said. "You're the equivalent of a soldier going over to Vietnam."
Trump himself never served in Vietnam after receiving five draft deferments—four while he was at college and another for bone spurs in his feet. His own campaign said the latter condition was minor and temporary.
While campaigning for president, in December 2015, Trump expressed guilt over not serving in Vietnam and said helping to build a Vietnam War memorial in New York was his way of making up for it.
Trump made similar comments on Stern's show in 1997, saying dating was dangerous because of women with sexually transmitted infections, comparing it, again, to Vietnam.
"I've been so lucky in terms of that whole world," said Trump. "It is a dangerous world out there — it's scary, like Vietnam. Sort of like the Vietnam era. It is my personal Vietnam. I feel like a great and very brave soldier."
Here's the full appearance:
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/1NXC07t
Republican Operatives Advise Governors: Be Careful With Trans Bathroom Bills
Gov. Pat McCrory
Davis Turner / Getty Images
WASHINGTON — National Republicans aren’t in panic mode over the re-election prospects of North Carolina’s Gov. Pat McCrory’s amid backlash over the state's broad new anti-LGBT law.
But those Republicans operatives are telling governors and candidates to heed North Carolina as a cautionary tale.
Republicans closely involved in gubernatorial races are advising governors — who might be pushed to consider similar bills or asked about the law by reporters — to keep precise wording and perception in mind. They believe the broadly written bill in North Carolina created a PR nightmare for the governor, one that’s made it more difficult for him to explain his position to voters.
“If there’s an appetite in the state, something we’ve been advising is that perception needs to be on par with the wording,” said one such Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly about strategy in dealing with transgender-bathroom bills.
The law in North Carolina not only requires people to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate, but it also mandates that state law supersedes all local non-discrimination ordinances.
Governors, especially those who have difficult re-election battles ahead — whether it’s this cycle or next — are being advised to distance themselves from the issue entirely.
Already, Republicans across the country are taking a more cautious approach in the aftermath of the backlash in North Carolina.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam expressed concern over a transgender-bathroom bill introduced in the legislature; South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley also quickly dismissed the need for such a bill; and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, who serves as chairwoman of the Republican Governors Association, canceled an appearance at North Carolina’s Republican Party convention, citing a scheduling conflict. (Haslam, however, did sign a bill into law allowing counselors and therapists to refuse clients based on their beliefs. And Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed a broad religious liberty bill into law that specifically included LGBT exceptions.)
On Wednesday, the state legislature in Missouri also decided not to bring a “religious freedom” bill up for a vote after Democrats in the state pounced on the issue.
The Republican Governors Association declined to comment.
Unlike other governors who have been able to dodge the issue, McCrory’s allies believe he had no choice but to act because conservatives in the state legislature were determined to stop a new ordinance in Charlotte that would have allowed transgender people to use the bathroom based on their gender identity. They didn’t, however, foresee the extent of the backlash it would create.
Nearly 100 major corporations signed a letter to McCrory after he signed the bill into law, asking him to repeal it. Bruce Springsteen and Ringo Starr also canceled concerts in the state. NBA commissioner Adam Silver warned the league might have to move its 2017 All-Star Game that’s supposed to take place in Charlotte, and on Thursday, the NCAA board of governors announced that cities bidding for league events like the Final Four cannot have laws in place that allow for discrimination.
Protesters demanding changes to the law have been rallying outside the state legislature this week, as a string of recent polls showed a majority of those surveyed disapprove of the bill.
And Democratic groups are already airing ads against McCrory, who is facing a tough re-election this year, focused on how the the legislation has cost the state hundreds of jobs and hurt the economy.
The Democratic Governors Association’s spot, which is backed by six-figures, features news anchors talking about the new law costing the state $1 billion in lost revenue and PayPal declining to invest in the state as a result of the law. (The RGA has responded with its own ad attacking Democrat Roy Cooper for being a career politician who likes to increase taxes.)
The DGA is using a similar attack line against Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who signed a controversial religious freedom law last year (that was later amended), making it clear that they will target any governor or candidate who makes a decision similar to McCrory and Pence and make the issue central to the race.
“You can make a strong argument that they both have damaged their states," said Jared Leopold, spokesman for DGA. "That's been compelling for folks. People want to move forward and these governors have been bad for businesses and the economy."
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/1rlnCkJ
Pat Toomey: "Outrageous" For Democratic Challenger To Tie Me To Trump
Facing what is expected to be a close race for reelection, the incumbent Republican senator from Pennsylvania says he plans to support Trump if he becomes the nominee.
Marc Levy / AP
Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said on Wednesday that it's "outrageous" for his Democratic opponent Katie McGinty to tie him to Donald Trump.
Toomey, whose spot in the Senate is considered vulnerable, made the comment on the Dom Giordano Program after the host, imitating McGinty, said, "Well, it's Pat Toomey and Donald Trump, that's what we're gonna run on, and that's a bigotry ticket."
"Yeah, that's pretty outrageous actually," Toomey replied. "But Dom, you know how this presidential race has been unfolding. I supported Marco Rubio. He was my first choice. I still think he'd have been a great president and a great candidate. As of yesterday, we were down to three guys standing and I voted for Ted Cruz."
"They, you know, Katie McGinty may somehow try to tie me to Donald Trump. You know, fine. She can do whatever she's gonna feel she need to do. But the fact is, she is in lockstep with Hillary Clinton. She actually agrees with Hillary Clinton and the most liberal wing of the Democrats on everything," he said of his opponent, who became the Democratic nominee in the Senate race after defeating Joe Sestak in Tuesday's primary.
Asked what he thought about Trump being the nominee, Toomey said that the businessman's odds were "improving" and that he would support him in his campaign against Clinton.
"Well, look, you know, obviously, it looks like his odds have been improving recently," Toomey said. "Yesterday was an amazing—I had a chance to go through the numbers outside of Pennsylvania. So he does not have this wrapped up yet and we could still have an open convention, but certainly he's in a very strong position. And look, I've said all along, I intend to support the Republican nominee. Donald Trump was not my first choice. He wasn't my second choice. But, you know, I don't want to see Hillary Clinton take this country further to the left, to make the terrible policy of President Obama permanent, which she would tend to do."
Source BuzzFeed - Politics http://ift.tt/24mSNdv
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