Uni. N. Carolina is a Broken Institution

Posted on June 27, 2016June 27, 2016 by Denise Simon

UNC claims Christmas vacations, golf outings are microaggressions

CampusReform: To help staff members avoid microaggressions, the University of North Carolina advises gender-neutral dress codes and avoiding phrases like “husband/boyfriend.”

The guidelines, which were posted to UNC’s Employee Forum website Thursday, also warn against such potentially offensive behaviors as complimenting a woman’s shoes, asking people to “stand and be recognized,” and even scheduling vacations around religious observances.

“I don’t know any LGBTQ people.” Tweet This

The school categorized microaggressions based on “social identity group,” with separate sections for race, gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, ability, national origin, and class.

The document asserts, for instance, that “referring to ‘husband/boyfriend’ of women, ‘wife/girlfriend’ of men who are coworkers instead of partner/spouse … sets the expectation that people do not identify as LGBTQ until they say otherwise or disclose their sexual orientation.”

Similarly, saying “I don’t know any LGBTQ people” implies that “you have to openly declare your gender identity and sexual orientation for me to care about LGBTQ issues.”

Moreover, the guide adds that “addressing trans people with incorrect gender pronouns, calling them by former names, inquiring about their ‘real’ identity, asking them to explain their gender identity, and denying or failing to acknowledge their pronouns, name, or identity” suggests to the recipient that “as a trans person, you are inferior to and less authentic than cisgender (non-trans) people.”

Even a simple compliment like “I love your shoes,” at least when addressed to a woman in leadership during a Q&A after a speech, really means “I notice how you look and dress more than I value your intellectual contributions. How you look is really important.”

The post also addresses microaggressions against individuals with physical and mental disabilities, warning against phrases that trivialize such conditions.

“Please stand and be recognized,” the school explains, “assumes that everyone is able in this way and ignores the diversity of ability in the space,” while using expressions such as “I’m totally OCD about my files” and “I get ADHD sometimes” “minimizes the experiences of people who live with mental health issues.”

According to UNC, “having an office dress code that applies to men and women differently assumes that your staff fits into one of two gender categories; can also be a violation of anti-discrimination policies.”

For the same reason, the guide adds, “only having ‘man’/’woman’ or ‘male’/‘female’ as options for gender on forms” constitutes a microaggression because it means that one “must fit in the gender binary and select among these predefined categories.”

Suggesting that the staff play golf at a retreat is also a microaggression, UNC contends, since it “assumes employees have the financial resources/exposure to a fairly (expensive and inaccessible) [sic] sport.”

Race and national origin are apparently fraught topics, as well, leading UNC to recommend that individuals neither ask too many questions about those topics nor remain ignorant about them.

“When I look at you, I don’t see color” is a microaggression, for instance, because it constitutes “minimizing/denying a person of color’s racial/ethnic experiences,” as is asking to touch a black person’s hair, because it implies that they are foreign and exotic.

“How did you get here?” constitutes a national origin microaggression because it acknowledges that some “immigrants get to this country illegally,” while asking “Where are you from?” implies that “you are not American and do not belong to this community.”

Meanwhile, telling a foreign-born person that “you speak English really well!” suggests that “if you are born anywhere ‘foreign,’ you cannot speak English well,” and thus is also a microaggression.

Regarding religion, the guide avers that telling someone that “you don’t look Jewish/Native/Muslim” implies that “there is an expected look/attire and you must fit into that norm.”

UNC also states that academic calendars planned around significant religious holidays “further centers the Christian faith and minimizes non-Christian spiritual rituals and observances.”

In a section suggesting strategies for self-correction, the guide encourages staff members who “tend to say ‘you guys’ in mixed company” to “become more inclusive with your language and social media posts,” as well as to “reflect on ways you can increase your cultural intelligence on issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion.”

The list was made by Sharbari Dey, assistant director for education and special initiatives at UNC’s Diversity and Multicultural Affairs, and Kristia Prince, coordinator for leadership development in the school’s Housing and Residential Education department.

For further reading, the post recommends reading 35 Dumb Things Well-Intended People Say by Dr. Maura Cullen to learn more about microaggressions.

Several public colleges and universities have published similar guides to microagressions in recent years. (RELATED: Public University’s Bias-Free Language Guide Calls The Word ‘American’ ‘PROBLEMATIC’)

UNC Chapel Hill is home to a “cultural competency workshop” which instructs that white people are privileged because they can buy Band-Aids “in ‘flesh’ color and have them more or less match” their vaguely beige-hued skin. At least some students have apparently been required to participate in the workshop. (RELATED: University Of North Carolina Diversity Workshop Brands Beige Band-Aids As ‘White Privilege’

Don’t Fully Celebrate Brexit Yet

Posted on June 27, 2016June 27, 2016 by Denise Simon

Moving forward, should Brexit occur fully, it wont happen with Prime Minister David Cameron, while France wants the process to be fast, Germany is demanding it be slow and measured.

The Brexit campaign started as a cry for liberty, perhaps articulated most clearly by Michael Gove, the British justice secretary (and, on this issue, the most prominent dissenter in Mr. Cameron’s cabinet). Mr. Gove offered practical examples of the problems of EU membership. As a minister, he said, he deals constantly with edicts and regulations framed at the European level—rules that he doesn’t want and can’t change. These were rules that no one in Britain asked for, rules promulgated by officials whose names Brits don’t know, people whom they never elected and cannot remove from office. Yet they become the law of the land. Much of what we think of as British democracy, Mr. Gove argued, is now no such thing. Read more from the WallStreetJournal.

To Brexit or Regrexit? A dis-United Kingdom ponders turmoil of EU divorce

To leave, or not to leave: that is the question. Still.

Reuters: After Britain’s historic vote to leave the European Union, there is no indication that a so-called Brexit will happen soon. It maybe never will.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who is resigning, has said he will not take the formal step to an EU divorce on the grounds that his successor should. Because the referendum is not legally-binding, some politicians are suggesting a parliament vote before formally triggering Brexit.

A petition on the UK government’s website on holding a second referendum has gained more than 3 million signatories in just two days.

European leaders, facing the biggest threat to European unity since World War Two, are divided over how swiftly divorce talks should start. Paris wants haste and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging patience. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he wanted to “start immediately”.

And on Sunday, Scotland’s leader said Scotland may veto Brexit altogether. Under devolution rules, the parliaments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales are required to consent to any EU divorce, according to a report by the House of Lords.

Most British politicians agree such a decisive 52-48 win for Leave in the referendum means a divorce must happen. Anything less would be a slap in the face of democracy.

“The will of the British people is an instruction that must be delivered,” a choking Cameron said in his resignation speech, which marked the most tumultuous end to a British premiership since Anthony Eden resigned in 1957 after the Suez crisis.

Still, the upswell of chatter – #regrexit is trending big on twitter – over whether Britain might be able to reconsider speaks to the disbelief gripping this continent in the wake of a vote that has unleashed financial and political mayhem.

Sterling has plunged, and Britain’s political parties are both crippled. Cameron is a lameduck leader, and the main opposition Labour party on Sunday attempted a coup against its leader, with nine top officials resigning.

“The kaleidoscope has been shaken up not just in terms of our relationship with the EU but in terms of who runs our parties, who governs the country and what the country is made up of,” said Anand Menon, Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at King’s College London.

“It is very hard to see where the pieces are.”

ARTICLE 50

The law provisioning an EU member country’s exit from the union is Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty that is effectively the EU’s constitution. It has never been invoked before.

Before the vote, Cameron had said Article 50 would be triggered straight away if Britain voted to leave. Over the weekend, several EU officials also said the UK needed to formally split right away – possibly at a Tuesday EU meeting.

But officials of the Leave campaign – including former London mayor Boris Johnson – are stepping on the brakes. They say they want to negotiate Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU before formally pulling the trigger to divorce.

European officials and observers say such a deal is unlikely, especially considering the thorny issues involved.

For example, it is unlikely that the EU would grant Britain access to the single market – key to allowing Britain trade goods and services in the EU – without London accepting the free movement of EU workers. But the biggest issue for those who voted to leave the bloc was limits on immigration – something the Leave campaigners promised.

DIVIDED UK

On Sunday, a petition to call for a second referendum was gaining supporters, reaching 3.3 million signatories by the afternoon. David Lammy, a lawmaker for the opposition Labour Party, said it was within parliament’s powers to call a second referendum and urged that it be done.

Perhaps the most vocal resistance to a British exit is coming from Scotland.

Scotland, a nation of five million people, voted to stay in the EU by 62 to 38 percent, compared to the 54 percent in England who voted to leave.

Under the United Kingdom’s complex arrangements to devolve some powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, legislation generated in London to set off an EU divorce would have to gain consent from the three devolved parliaments, according to a report by the House of Lords’ European Union Committee.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the BBC on Sunday that she would consider urging the Scottish parliament to block such a motion. It is not clear, however, whether such a scenario would ever materialize or be binding. Sturgeon’s spokesman later said that the British government might not seek consent in the first place.

Moreover, Sturgeon is simply laying out the groundwork for a new referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom –something the first minister said was “highly likely.”

WITHDRAWAL

While there is no precedent for Article 50, the House of Lords has discussed how any Brexit would work. In May, it published a report after consultations with legal experts.

In the report, Derrick Wyatt, one of the professors involved, said that while it would be politically difficult, the law allows the UK to change its mind after invoking Article 50.

“In law, the UK could change its mind before withdrawal from the EU and decide to stay in after all,” said Wyatt.

5 Injured at Terrifying Rally in Sacramento

Posted on June 26, 2016June 26, 2016 by Denise Simon

At least five people injured including some in critical after ‘mass stabbing’ at neo-Nazi rally in California

Authorities say they responded to a ‘mass casualty’ event in Sacramento
At least five people are in hospital, some reported to be in critical condition
Stabbings happened at event organized by the Traditionalist Worker Party
Members are believed to have clashed with counter-demonstrators

At least five people have been rushed to hospital including several in critical condition after a mass stabbing at a neo-Nazi rally in Los Angeles today.

The attacks are thought to have come amid clashes between the far-right activists and counter-demonstrators outside the Capitol building in Sacramento.

Police were eventually forced to use tear gas in order to disperse the demonstrators, according to local reports.

Emergency crews were called to the area at 11.45am and found victims strewn across the grounds outside of the Capitol building.

Around an hour later police had cordoned off parts of the area and most of the demonstrators had left, according to the LA Times.

Demonstrations by the Traditionalist Worker Party had been planned for several weeks, while posts on social media suggest counter-demonstrations were also well-organized.

Images from the scene show dozens of counter demonstrators lined up in front of the Capitol building, vastly outnumbering the the neo-Nazis protesters gathered in the park opposite.

Video from the scene suggests the clashes took place in the park, with footage showing people being dragged, kicked and punched as violence broke out.

More here from DailyMail.

Who is behind this? Check out their series of videos.

Regulations Cost $108 Billion Each Year

Posted on June 24, 2016June 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

Hey, Obama was are the cost benefits and where is this a part of law? Further, who is watching this and who is challenging the postings? Are they really legal in the first place?

Revealed: President Obama’s 229 Major Regulations Cost $108 Billion Each Year

NationalInterest: The Obama administration is responsible for thousands of new regulations—including a historic number of major regulations. As the costs of these regulations add up, they place more of a burden on economic freedom in America.

In 2015, 43 new major regulations went into effect, increasing regulatory costs by more than $22 billion, according to the latest “Red Tape Rising” study from The Heritage Foundation.

Since President Barack Obama took office in 2009, 229 new major regulations have increased regulatory burdens by $108 billion annually. But it doesn’t stop there. As the administration tries to push its agenda before the end of Obama’s term, 144 more major regulations are already in the works.

Among the biggest culprits are the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Energy. Although Congress funds these bureaucratic agencies, the rules they impose do not typically need congressional approval. Some independent agencies, like the Federal Communication Commission, are not even required to perform analyses to determine if their regulations will be cost-effective.

Not only do regulations cost American families and businesses more money, they have a damaging effect on economic freedom.

The Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by The Heritage Foundation, shows a decrease in economic freedom in the United States for eight of the last nine years. To make matters worse, since 2010, the U.S. has been stuck in the “mostly free” category, due in large part to falling scores related to business and labor regulation. In just one year, U.S. scores for business freedom and labor freedom have dropped by 4.1 points and 7.1 points, respectively.

Heritage Foundation researchers James Gattuso and Diane Katz have argued that “the unparalleled increase in regulatory burden spells a decline in economic freedom and individual liberty.”

All that red tape is piling up and Congress needs to take immediate action to prevent further growth in the regulatory burden and to restore economic freedom in the U.S.

**** Additional information for context:

Regulatory Federal Agencies
Agencies, like the FDA, EPA, OSHA and at least 50 others, are called “regulatory” agencies, because they are empowered to create and enforce rules – regulations – that carry the full force of a law. Individuals, businesses, and private and public organizations can be fined, sanctioned, forced to close, and even jailed for violating federal regulations.

The oldest Federal regulatory agency still in existence is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, established in 1863 to charter and regulate national banks.

The Federal Rulemaking Process
The process of creating and enacting federal regulations is generally referred to as the “rulemaking” process.

First, Congress passes a law designed to address a social or economic need or problem. The appropriate regulatory agency then creates regulations necessary to implement the law. For example, the Food and Drug Administration creates its regulations under the authority of the Food Drug and Cosmetics Act, the Controlled Substances Act and several other acts created by Congress over the years. Acts such as these are known as “enabling legislation,” because the literally enable the regulatory agencies to create the regulations required to administer enforce them.

The “Rules” of Rulemaking
Regulatory agencies create regulations according to rules and processes defined by another law known as the Administration Procedure Act (APA).

The APA defines a “rule” or “regulation” as…

“[T]he whole or a part of an agency statement of general or particular applicability and future effect designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy or describing the organization, procedure, or practice requirements of an agency.

The APA defines “rulemaking” as…

“[A]gency action which regulates the future conduct of either groups of persons or a single person; it is essentially legislative in nature, not only because it operates in the future but because it is primarily concerned with policy considerations.”

Under the APA, the agencies must publish all proposed new regulations in the Federal Register at least 30 days before they take effect, and they must provide a way for interested parties to comment, offer amendments, or to object to the regulation.

Some regulations require only publication and an opportunity for comments to become effective. Others require publication and one or more formal public hearings. The enabling legislations states which process is to be used in creating the regulations. Regulations requiring hearings can take several months to become final.

New regulations or amendments to existing regulations are known as “proposed rules.” Notices of public hearings or requests for comments on proposed rules are published in the Federal Register, on the Web sites of the regulatory agencies and in many newspapers and other publications. The notices will include information on how to submit comments, or participate in public hearings on the proposed rule.

Once a regulation takes effect, it becomes a “final rule” and is printed in the Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and usually posted on the Web site of the regulatory agency. Keep reading here.

Missing Hillary Communications Surfacing

Posted on June 24, 2016June 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

Investigators are performing remarkable but tedious work to uncover papertrails and to located items that are missing. Facts, details, dates, times and names are pesky things, while the process is slow, a question remains, how much is actually complete such that details are leaking out?

Clinton’s State Dept. calendar missing scores of entries

WASHINGTON (AP)— An Associated Press review of the official calendar Hillary Clinton kept as secretary of state identified at least 75 meetings with longtime political donors, Clinton Foundation contributors and corporate and other outside interests that were not recorded or omitted the names of those she met. The fuller details of those meetings were included in files the State Department turned over to AP after it sued the government in federal court.

The missing entries raise new questions about how Clinton and her inner circle handled government records documenting her State Department tenure — in this case, why the official chronology of her four-year term does not closely mirror the other, more detailed records of her daily meetings.

At a time when Clinton’s private email system is under scrutiny by an FBI criminal investigation, the calendar omissions reinforce concerns that she sought to eliminate the “risk of the personal being accessible” — as she wrote in an email exchange that she failed to turn over to the government but was subsequently uncovered in a top aide’s inbox.

The AP found the omissions by comparing the 1,500-page calendar with separate planning schedules supplied to Clinton by aides in advance of each day’s events. The names of at least 114 outsiders who met with Clinton were missing from her calendar, the records show.

*****

Clinton failed to hand over key email to State Department

FNC: WASHINGTON – Former Secretary Hillary Clinton failed to turn over a copy of a key message involving problems caused by her use of a private homebrew email server, the State Department confirmed Thursday. The disclosure makes it unclear what other work-related emails may have been deleted by the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

The email was included within messages exchanged Nov. 13, 2010, between Clinton and one of her closest aides, Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin. At the time, emails sent from Clinton’s BlackBerry device and routed through her private clintonemail.com server in the basement of her New York home were being blocked by the State Department’s spam filter. A suggested remedy was for Clinton to obtain a state.gov email account.

“Let’s get separate address or device but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible,” Clinton responded to Abedin.

Clinton never used a government account that was set up for her, instead continuing to rely on her private server until leaving office.

The email was not among the tens of thousands of emails Clinton turned over to the agency in response to public records lawsuits seeking copies of her official correspondence. Abedin, who also used a private account on Clinton’s server, provided a copy from her own inbox after the State Department asked her to return any work-related emails. That copy of the email was publicly cited last month in a blistering audit by the State Department’s inspector general that concluded Clinton and her team ignored clear internal guidance that her email setup violated federal standards and could have left sensitive material vulnerable to hackers.

“While this exchange was not part of the approximately 55,000 pages provided to the State Department by former Secretary Clinton, the exchange was included within the set of documents Ms. Abedin provided the department in response to our March 2015 request,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said she provided “all potentially work-related emails” that were still in her possession when she received the 2014 request from the State Department.

“Secretary Clinton had some emails with Huma that Huma did not have, and Huma had some emails with Secretary Clinton that Secretary Clinton did not have,” Fallon said.

Fallon declined to say whether Clinton deleted any work-related emails before they were reviewed by her legal team. Clinton’s lead lawyer, David Kendall, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The November 2010 email was among documents released under court order Wednesday to the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch, which has sued the State Department over access to public records related to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s service as the nation’s top diplomat between 2009 and 2013. The case is one of about three dozen lawsuits over access to records related to Clinton, including one filed by the AP.

Before turning over her emails to the department for review and potential public release, Clinton and her lawyers withheld thousands of additional emails she said were clearly personal, such as those involving what she described as “planning Chelsea’s wedding or my mother’s funeral arrangements, condolence notes to friends as well as yoga routines, family vacations.”

Clinton has never outlined in detail what criteria she and her lawyers used to determine which emails to release and which to delete, but her 2010 email with Abedin appears clearly work-related under the State Department’s own criteria for agency records under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Dozens of the emails sent or received by Clinton through her private server were later determined to contain classified material. The FBI has been investigating for months whether Clinton’s use of the private email server imperiled government secrets. Agents recently interviewed several of Clinton’s top aides, including Abedin.

As part of the probe, Clinton turned over the hard drive from her email server to the FBI. It had been wiped clean, and Clinton has said she did not keep copies of the emails she choose to withhold.

On Wednesday, lawyers from Judicial Watch, a conservative legal organization, questioned under oath Bryan Pagliano, the computer technician who set up Clinton’s private server. A transcript released Thursday shows Pagliano repeatedly responded to detailed questions by invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, as he did last year before a congressional committee.

Dozens of questions Pagiliano declined to answer included who paid for the system, whether there was technical help to support its users and who else at the State Department used email accounts on it. Pagliano also would not answer whether he discussed setting up a home server with Clinton prior to her tenure as secretary of state, according to the transcript.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said the November 2010 email cited in the inspector general audit was one of more than a dozen work-related emails that his group identified that Clinton sent or received but later failed to turn over the State Department.

“Contrary to her statement under oath suggesting otherwise, Mrs. Clinton did not return all her government emails to the State Department,” Fitton said. “Our goal is to find out what other emails Mrs. Clinton and the State Department are hiding.”