May 19, 2019

Theresa May's spy chiefs were briefed on explosive Chistopher Steele dossier before Donald Trump

Read this Tweet thread

https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1130225239265284098

https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1130225244311040000

URL
https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1130225247515480065

https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1130225259775447041

It goes on from there. Here is the final tweet


https://twitter.com/benrileysmith/status/1130227943924469760

Theresa May’s spy chiefs were secretly briefed on an explosive dossier of claims about Donald Trump’s ties to Russia before the US president was made aware of its existence, The Telegraph can reveal.

The heads of MI5 and MI6 and one of Mrs May’s most trusted security advisers were told about former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele’s memos on the Trump campaign in the weeks after his November 2016 election victory.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/05/19/theresa-mays-spy-chiefs-briefed-explosive-chistopher-steele/

May 19, 2019

EA Sports says it would be 'very interested' in rebooting NCAA Football

https://twitter.com/247Sports/status/1129722048484298752

“I’d definitely would like to see it come back,” Robinson told 247Sports. “If they were to do a pool and asked kids if they want to be on NCAA football and if they want to bring NCAA back, a lot of kids would say yes although they wouldn’t get paid.”

About that … The story of NCAA football’s demise is a tale well worn at this point. Lawsuits over athlete likeness, including the landmark proceedings of Ed O’Bannon, ended the game’s circulation with the 2014 version. The courts ruled EA Sports had used athlete likeness without permission or compensation. EA Sports eventually paid out $60 million in settlements to athletes who appeared in its games between 2003-14, according to CBS Sports.

Thus ended NCAA Football for the modern generation. The NCAA did not renew its licensing agreement with EA, and though recent Madden games have featured colleges – EA individually licenses the brands from the schools – there has been little movement toward a new flagship college football game.

That could change soon.

The NCAA made a quiet yet potentially momentous announcement May 14 that it would create a working group to examine the issue of likeness in college athletics. Currently, athletes lack the right to monetize their name or brand. If the NCAA choose to alter its rules and allow athletes to capitalize on their image, it would potentially open an avenue for the return of NCAA Football.

https://247sports.com/Article/NCAA-football-video-game-return-college-football-athlete-likeness-132110322/

Do it NCAA and end the monopsonic rule.



Monopsony in College Athletics—Posner
The most common type of cartel is an agreement among competitors not to sell their product below a fixed price that will generate monopoly profits for the parties to the agreement. But another type of cartel, termed monopsonistic (from the Greek words for “one” and “purchasing of food”) rather than monopolistic (one seller, versus one buyer in a monopsonized market), is an agreement among competitors not to pay more than a fixed price for a key input, such as labor. By agreeing to pay less, the cartel purchases less of the input (and perhaps of lower quality), because less is supplied at the lower price (and suppliers may lower quality to compensate, by reducing their costs, for the lower price they receive).

The National Collegiate Athletic Association behaves monopsonistically in forbidding its member colleges and universities to pay its athletes. Although cartels, including monopsonistic ones, are generally deemed to be illegal per se under American antitrust law, the NCAA’s monopsonistic behavior has thus far not been successfully challenged. The justification that the NCAA offers—that collegiate athletes are students and would be corrupted by being salaried—coupled with the fact that the members of the NCAA, and the NCAA itself, are formally not-for-profit institutions, have had sufficient appeal to enable the association to continue to impose and enforce its rule against paying student athletes, and a number of subsidiary rules designed to prevent the cheating by cartel members that plagues most cartels.

As Becker points out, were it not for the monopsonistic rule against paying student athletes, these athletes would be paid; the monopsony transfers wealth from them to their “employers,” the colleges. A further consequence is that college teams are smaller and, more important, of lower quality than they would be if the student athletes were paid.

One might ask why colleges choose to collude on the student athlete dimension rather than on some other dimension, such as tuition—agreeing to minimum tuition levels, or maximum scholarships. The answer I think lies in my earlier point—the “justification” (specious though it may be) that paying student athletes would corrupt the educational process, an argument that draws on a tradition of admiration for amateurism even in adult athletic competition, as in tennis until 1968. Efforts to fix the price for a college education would encounter sharper antitrust challenges—and indeed the Ivy League schools were forced by antitrust litigation to drop their attempt to limit competition in scholarship aid, a form of price fixing—in effect colluding on tuition discounts, which is what a scholarship is.
https://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/04/monopsony-in-college-athleticsposner.html

May 19, 2019

Where women call the shots

The nation’s first majority-female legislature is currently meeting in Nevada. Carson City may never be the same.

CARSON CITY, Nev. — She didn’t plan to say it. Yvanna Cancela, a newly elected Democrat in the Nevada Senate, didn’t want to “sound crass.” But when a Republican colleague defended a century-old law requiring doctors to ask women seeking abortions whether they’re married, Cancela couldn’t help firing back.

“A man is not asked his marital status before he gets a vasectomy,” she countered — and the packed hearing room fell silent.

Since Nevada seated the nation’s first majority-female state legislature in January, the male old guard has been shaken up by the perspectives of female lawmakers. Bills prioritizing women’s health and safety have soared to the top of the agenda. Mounting reports of sexual harassment have led one male lawmaker to resign. And policy debates long dominated by men, including prison reform and gun safety, are yielding to female voices.

Cancela, 32, is part of the wave of women elected by both parties in November, many of them younger than 40. Today, women hold the majority with 23 seats in the Assembly and 10 in the Senate, or a combined 52 percent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/17/nevadas-legislature-women-outnumber-men-first-nation-carson-city-may-never-be-same/?utm_term=.f4392d5adf51

May 19, 2019

Reps. Omar and Schakowsky: We must confront threat of white nationalism -- together

By Ilhan Omar and Jan Schakowsky

Editor's Note:Ilhan Omar, a Democrat, is the US Representative for Minnesota's 5th Congressional District. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat is a US Representative for Illinois's 9th Congressional District.. The views expressed in this commentary belong to the authors. Read more opinion at CNN.

(CNN) — Just over two weeks ago, we watched in horror after a man walked into Chabad of Poway synagogue in California and opened fire on worshippers, killing 60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye and injuring three others. The attack on the synagogue took place on Shabbat, the holiest day of the week, and Acharon Shel Pesach -- the final day of Passover.

As information about the attack came in, we learned more shocking details. The same terrorist who attacked the Chabad Synagogue allegedly set fire to a nearby mosque, Dar-ul-Arqam, just weeks earlier. Evidence also suggests that the suspected Poway shooter was inspired by the Christchurch mosque massacre in New Zealand, which took the lives of 50 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand in March.

As a Muslim American and a Jewish American elected to the United States Congress, we can no longer sit silently as terror strikes our communities. We cannot allow those who seek to divide and intimidate us to succeed. Whatever our differences, our two communities, Muslim and Jewish, must come together to confront the twin evils of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic violence.

The evidence that violence against both our communities is on the rise is overwhelming. Anti-Semitic assaults in the US more than doubled in 2018 compared to the year before, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The organization also tallied a total of 1,879 incidents of assault, vandalism and harassment against Jews and Jewish institutions last year, marking the third-highest year on record since the ADL started keeping track in 1979.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/05/14/opinions/stop-white-nationalism-together-omar-schakowsky/index.html?r=android-app%3A%2F%2Fcom.google.android.gm

May 18, 2019

Mysterious rash of Russian deaths casts suspicion on Vladimir Putin

A former member of the Russian parliament is gunned down in broad daylight in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev. A longtime Russian ambassador to the United Nations drops dead at work. A Russian-backed commander in the breakaway Ukrainian province of Donetsk is blown up in an elevator. A Russian media executive is found dead in his Washington, D.C., hotel room.

What do they have in common? They are among 38 prominent Russians who are victims of unsolved murders or suspicious deaths since the beginning of 2014, according to a list compiled by USA TODAY and British journalist Sarah Hurst, who has done research in Russia.

The list contains 10 high-profile critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin, seven diplomats, six associates of Kremlin power brokers who had a falling out — often over corruption — and 13 military or political leaders involved in the conflict in eastern Ukraine, including commanders of Russian-backed separatist forces. Two are possibly connected to a dossier alleging connections between President Trump's campaign staff and Kremlin officials that was produced by a former British spy and shared with the FBI.

Twelve were shot, stabbed or beaten to death. Six were blown up. Ten died allegedly of natural causes. One died of mysterious head injuries, one reportedly slipped and hit his head in a public bath, one was hanged in his jail cell, and one died after drinking coffee. The cause of six deaths was reported as unknown.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/05/02/dozens-russian-deaths-cast-suspicion-vladimir-putin/100480734/

May 18, 2019

K&R

Didn't know I posted a duplicate. I don't keep up with GD every minute and this was on page 3.

https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1129042825432240128

https://twitter.com/mynameisjro/status/1129107437980651520

May 17, 2019

"As president, I would re-enter the Iran nuclear deal," - Tulsi Gabbard

https://twitter.com/NewsHour/status/1129521547062927360

May 15, 2019

Theresa May Will Reject Calls By Muslim Groups To Define Islamophobia As A Type Of Racism

Exclusive: BuzzFeed News has been briefed on plans to oppose the definition on free speech grounds.

Theresa May is to reject a definition of Islamophobia proposed by British Muslim groups, BuzzFeed News can reveal.

At a parliamentary debate on anti-Muslim prejudice on Thursday, ministers will oppose the definition which states: “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.”

More than 750 British Muslim organisations had called on the government to adopt the British Muslims all-party parliamentary group definition, which was produced after consultation with legal experts, MPs, and Muslim groups.

The definition has been formally endorsed by the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the Scottish Conservatives.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexwickham/theresa-may-will-reject-calls-by-muslim-groups-to-define

May 13, 2019

Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending

Study: U.S. Fossil Fuel Subsidies Exceed Pentagon Spending
The world would be richer and healthier if the full costs of fossil fuels were paid, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund

TIM DICKINSON
MAY 8, 2019 4:48PM EDT



Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/REX/Shuttersto
The United States has spent more subsidizing fossil fuels in recent years than it has on defense spending, according to a new report from the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF found that direct and indirect subsidies for coal, oil and gas in the U.S. reached $649 billion in 2015. Pentagon spending that same year was $599 billion.

The study defines “subsidy” very broadly, as many economists do. It accounts for the “differences between actual consumer fuel prices and how much consumers would pay if prices fully reflected supply costs plus the taxes needed to reflect environmental costs” and other damage, including premature deaths from air pollution.

These subsidies are largely invisible to the public, and don’t appear in national budgets. But according the the IMF, the world spent $4.7 trillion — or 6.3 percent of global GDP — in 2015 to subsidize fossil fuel use, a figure it estimated rose to $5.2 trillion in 2017. China, which is heavily reliant on coal and has major air-pollution problems, was the largest subsidizer by far, at $1.4 trillion in 2015. But the U.S. ranked second in the world.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fossil-fuel-subsidies-pentagon-spending-imf-report-833035/amp/

May 9, 2019

Foreign agents introduced Ukranian politician to US political figures in secretive lobbying arrangem

A failed Ukrainian presidential candidate. Former congressmen turned lobbyists. Mysterious shell companies and offshore accounts funding it all.

Foreign agents and lobbyists accused of orchestrating a disinformation campaign attacking former Ukrainian Prime Minister and 2019 presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko actually introduced her to key U.S. political players last year, an investigation by the Center for Responsive Responsive Politics has found.

New FARA records reveal foreign agents and lobbyists on the payroll of Livingston Group, a lobbying firm run by former Rep. Bob Livingston (R-La.), played a previously unreported role in Tymoshenko’s meetings with lawmakers during a December 2018 trip to Washington, D.C., including House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

That week, former Congressman-turned-lobbyist Bob McEwen (R-Ohio) also quietly introduced Tymoshenko to former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s attorney who joined Trump’s personal legal team amidst special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Giuliani is under scrutiny for his simultaneous “shadow lobbying” operations for foreign clients, including Ukrainian interests.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/05/foreign-agents-introduced-ukranian-politician-to-us-political-figures-in-secretive-lobbying-arrangement/#utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=twitt_foreign-agents-introduced-ukranian-politician-050819