Microsoft Pix Camera uses artificial intelligence to make your pictures of people better. It uses algorithms behind the scenes to analyze the 10 frames it snaps for every picture you take, looking for sharpness, exposure and even facial expressions t…
In hindsight, this was a bad idea. I’m rubbish at almost every kind of competitive, multiplayer game, and motion controls are a waggling “am I doing this right?” nightmare. Still, at E3, I couldn’t resist the chance to try Arms, the spring-loaded box…
Wacom is an old name when it comes to digitizer tablets as well as styluses that simply work, and work well. This time around, the Wacom Clipboard has been revealed to transform your business into a more paperless environment. Granted, one can never end up with a truly paperless environment, but there is the possibility of minimizing whatever use of paper wherever possible. With the Wacom Clipboard, such a vision becomes easier, since businesses are able to transform paper documents into the digital format — in real-time.
Also known as the PHU-111, the Wacom Clipboard is a smartpad which will allow users to complete and sign documents with the help of standard paper forms as well as ink. It will then convert the documents to a digital version in real-time. Biometric handwritten signatures will also be able to be captured and attached. The digital documents can subsequently be stored on local PCs, or simply have them uploaded immediately to servers or the cloud for easy document management.
Businesses such as service, healthcare, insurance industries and public sectors that still require paper forms but would like to move to a digital archive can always rely on the Wacom Clipboard to deliver a secure and easy method of instantaneously digitizing and saving these paper documents, all without having to change existing paper-based workflows.
The electronic clipboard will be paired to a host PC or a mobile device through Bluetooth, although there is also an option for USB connectivity when making use of a PC. Anytime a document is placed onto the Wacom Clipboard, the integrated barcode reader will be able to automatically identify the document, communicating with the PC or mobile device in order for the corresponding digital document to be called up.
While there is no word on pricing just yet, the Wacom Clipboard is tipped to be ready for shipping at the end of July 2017.
Press Release
[ Wacom Clipboard intends to turn your business paperless copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Despite his sharp criticisms and deep concerns about President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden said he remains hopeful the Republican will be successful and recognize the gravity of his office.
“I give you my word as a Biden: I’ve been rooting for his success,” he told Terry Gross, host of NPR’s “Fresh Air,” in an interview that aired Thursday. “It’s desperately in all of our interest to do that.”
Biden said his hope that Trump “would rise to the office” contributes to his and former President Barack Obama’s decisions to only weigh in on him when they feel it is necessary, focusing on policy issues or Trump’s unsupported allegation that Obama ordered wiretapping of his campaign.
“If you’ve noticed, Barack and I have not gone after him personally. We’ve not gotten into that mosh pit . We have taken issue with him when we think he’s wrong, which is ―to be very blunt about it ― most of the time,” Biden said to laughter from the Philadelphia audience sitting in on the interview.
“But here’s the thing: He is not ideological in my view,’’ Biden said. “Barack and I talked about it, and the hope was that he would be able to find some common ground, he would reach out, but it seems as though his leadership style has gotten in the way of what, intellectually, I don’t think he has a problem with.”
When asked his thoughts as he watched Trump take the oath of office in January, Biden said he hoped ― and still does ― that Trump acknowledges his lack of political experience and tries to become more informed.
“I was hoping that he would know what he didn’t know, and not let the bravado get in the way of acknowledging what he didn’t know and reaching out to really talented people to fill the void for him,” Biden said. “I was hoping he would step up, in a way. And I still hope that will happen, as reality sinks in.”
“I mean, here’s a man who said he was surprised, and I believe him ― he was genuinely surprised that being president was as difficult as running a real estate empire,” he added, before pausing to make the sign of the cross.
“For our radio audience, can I just say you just crossed yourself?” Gross said.
Biden said he believes Trump has damaged the presidency’s image on the world stage, particularly through his demeanor. When asked about Trump’s prolific use of Twitter, the one-time Democratic senator did not mince words.
“There’s a difference between using the modern media and the means of communication than there is being irresponsible or irrational in the way you do it and just venting,” Biden said. “You know, words matter. Words matter. When presidents speak, the world listens.”
He added that when Trump “gets up at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning and tweets vitriol … it fundamentally alters the view of the character of the presidency in the rest of the world.”
Biden defended the Obama administration’s decision not to comment during last year’s campaign about what officials knew of Russian attempts to meddle in the election.
“There was no direct evidence that we could find of them actually able to manipulate the actual machines and/or voter rolls,” he said.
Obama was right to keep his administration silent on the matter because “we would have been accused of being engaged in trying to manipulate the election by using information that was not self-evident to the public, and required the release of classified information to prove,” he said.
As a result, it would been “far worse” to disclose the Russian interference than keep quiet about it, he said.
Warning that such interference would continue, Biden chided Republicans for not being “apoplectic” about Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government “trying to fundamentally alter our democratic processes.”
He seemed to echo fired FBI director James Comey, who warned in Senate testimony last week that the issue was “about as unfake as you can possibly get” ― a clear reference to Trump, who has called Russian interference “fake news.”
Biden said the Russian effort is “real and it’s not going to stop. Mark my words.”
Listen to Biden’s full interview here.
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In response to Wednesday’s shooting at a congressional baseball practice, Ralph Norman, the Republican candidate to represent South Carolina’s 5th District in the U.S. House, called for more members of Congress to carry guns.
Norman told The Associated Press that if he’s elected to Congress he would “absolutely” like to carry a gun.
“More people ought to be armed,” Norman said. The former state representative and real estate developer is running to fill a seat vacated by Mick Mulvaney, who’s now the director of the president’s Office of Management and Budget.
James Hodgkinson, a liberal enthusiast of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with a history of violent behavior, opened fire on a Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia on Wednesday morning. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and five others were wounded before U.S. Capitol Police, with assistance from Alexandria Police, were able to stop the shooter.
Scalise is in critical condition Thursday following emergency surgery. Hodgkinson died from wounds sustained during the shootout with police.
Gun rights advocates have long argued the solution to gun violence is for more civilians to have guns so they can defend themselves against potential assailants. (In fact, evidence that armed civilians save lives in “active shooter” scenarios is greatly exaggerated.)
Several sitting Republican members of Congress also responded to Wednesday’s shooting by proposing increased gun possession. Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) promised to start carrying his gun at public events.
It is not clear exactly how that would work when members of Congress are not in their home districts. The U.S. Capitol Police forbids possession of firearms on the Capitol premises. And Washington, D.C., has strict rules regulating permits for concealed guns.
However, in Virginia, where the shooting took place, citizens can openly carry weapons without a permit, or obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
Norman, 63, squares off against Democrat Archie Parnell, a 66-year-old tax attorney, in a special election on Tuesday. Norman is highly favored to win in the Republican-leaning district, but Parnell released a poll at the end of May showing he had narrowed Norman’s lead to 10 percentage points from a 16-point interval in March.
Parnell supports closing gaps in the country’s background check system, including the “default to proceed” loophole waiving the need for a background check if the FBI does not complete it within three days of the request. The loophole enabled Dylann Roof, who perpetrated the June 2015 massacre at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, to obtain a weapon despite his criminal record.
“Ralph Norman should be ashamed of himself and he should publicly apologize to the victims and their families for trying to use this tragedy to score cheap points,” Parnell said in a statement responding to Norman’s comments.
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WASHINGTON ― For a few hours after a gunman shot a member of Congress and four other people at baseball practice in the Northern Virginia suburbs on Wednesday, lawmakers were unified against the political vitriol that seemed to drive the attack.
But when questions inevitably shifted to how lawmakers would respond to the bloodshed of yet another mass shooting, it became clear that the brief display of agreement was more symbolism than substance.
Democrats and Republicans both were quick to stake out their standard positions in the seemingly intractable debate over gun violence. At a press conference shortly after the shooting, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) expressed concern that “there are too many guns on the street,” and called for legislative action “to protect all of our citizens.”
For some Republicans, however, the immediate answer to the violence ― the 153rd mass shooting of this year, but the first of 2017 to involve lawmakers ― was more guns.
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) told a news outlet in Buffalo, New York, that he’d be carrying his pistol in his pocket “from this day forward,” though it was unclear if he also planned to do so in Washington, where concealed carry is strictly regulated. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), who was at the scene of the attack, said the shooting showed the need for a reciprocity law that would give members of Congress from states with more permissive gun laws the right to carry firearms in D.C. as well. Virginia allows concealed and open carry of firearms, but Loudermilk pointed out that most lawmakers and their staffers are based in Washington.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) made a pitch for a GOP bill that would offer similar reciprocity to all permitted gun owners, not just members of Congress.
It may make sense for politicians to be concerned about personal security, given mounting hostility and an apparent uptick in threats to members of Congress. But some of these lawmakers already have their own security teams to usher them through a heavily armed society.
Besides, arming more civilians is hardly a solution to mass shootings, which have become more frequent in recent years. The more-guns argument is grounded in a controversial belief that allowing more people to carry weapons in more places is a good way prevent violence ― a belief based on scant evidence.
“There’s no empirical evidence to support the idea that more guns would make things better, and my study says it would make things worse.”
Stanford law professor John Donohue
Economist and gun-rights advocate John Lott first attempted to give empirical support to this theory in a paper and 1998 book, More Guns, Less Crime. Lott claimed his research showed that as the number of people with concealed-carry permits went up in a state, crime rates went down. Gun lobbyists and lawmakers across the country eagerly adopted Lott’s writing to push pro-gun legislation, and still appear to be using it to make it easier to own guns and carry them pretty much everywhere.
But other researchers have questioned Lott’s work, and study after study in the years since has contradicted his conclusion and cast doubt on the supposed correlation between concealed-carry laws and crime.
A paper published this week, from Stanford law professor John Donohue, found violent crime is higher in states that allow concealed carry ― building on his previous research that shows more guns actually led to more crime.
“There’s no empirical evidence to support the idea that more guns would make things better, and my study says it would make things worse,” Donohue told HuffPost in an interview.
There are a few simple reasons for this, said Donohue.
“Once everybody’s carrying guns, a lot of guns get lost and stolen, which means they’re in the hands of criminal right away,” Donohue explained. “Also, criminals start becoming a lot quicker to shoot when they think a lot of guns are in circulation, for the same reason police in the United States shoot a lot more people than police in England or France or Germany or Italy ― they’re afraid that they’re gonna meet somebody who’s got a gun.”
The National Rifle Association often repeats the quote: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.” Using that logic, gun advocates argue that the objective should be to increase the number of good guys who have guns.
But there are already an estimated 300 million firearms, or more, in civilian hands in the United States ― 112.6 guns per 100 residents, according to a recent survey ― and it’s hard to argue we’re safer because of it. While the U.S. has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, it endures far more gun violence than any other developed nation.
There’s a distinct difference between the black-and-white rhetoric of the law-abiding “good guy” gun owner and the practical implications of a wholesale loosening of gun laws, said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.
“The reality of the policy is that the standards for legal gun ownership and carrying loaded guns in public is so low that you very commonly get individuals who don’t hit the threshold for legal prohibition to own a gun, but if you look in their background you see problems,” Webster told HuffPost. “If you’re not a felon, you’re a so-called legal good guy with a gun.”
Such a broad definition misses the “hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people out there, who have anger issues or other issues of impulse control or histories of reckless or violent behavior,” added Webster. “When the door is open to so many people to carry guns legally, it only takes a relatively small number of those who aren’t such good guys.”
The gunman in Wednesday’s shooting, for example, was a legally licensed gun owner in Illinois, although authorities haven’t said where he got the weapons he used in the attack. Despite a history of criminal charges involving firearms and domestic violence that were ultimately dropped, he was still considered “good” enough to have a gun ― until he started shooting.
The gun lobby’s reductive thinking may be useful to increase sales, but it gets dangerous when it’s used to promote policies that affect millions of people.
“The NRA is always playing a game of checkers and the world is a game of chess, and if you play checkers in a world of chess, you almost always lose,” said Donohue.
Beyond the possible effects of a heavily armed populace on crime, there’s also reason to be skeptical of the idea that armed bystanders ― lawmakers or otherwise ― would be able to successfully intervene in a mass shooting.
A 2014 FBI study on 160 active-shooter incidents from 2000 to 2013 found evidence of just five instances in which armed individuals who were not law enforcement personnel engaged with gunmen. Only one of those involved a civilian with a valid firearms permit who was not a security guard.
“It’s a hard enough thing for a well-trained officer or military person to respond to fire,” said Donohue. “It’s not a very easy thing for just your average Joe to do.”
When untrained gun owners do get involved in tense active-shooter scenarios, there can be a fine line between success and catastrophe. In 2011, an armed bystander rushed to confront a man he thought had just carried out the mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, that nearly killed then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.). He later admitted he nearly shot the wrong man.
With mass shooters increasingly using military-style weaponry to inflict vast casualties ― the gunman in Wednesday’s shooting was reportedly armed with an AR-15 or similar rifle ― there’s also a good chance that someone carrying a concealed handgun would be “outgunned,” said Webster. Although the Capitol Police officers who neutralized the shooter had the benefit of training, they were armed with pistols. The perpetrator had the advantage of a rifle with better range, power and accuracy.
It’s not yet clear how Wednesday’s shooting will affect the gun debate in Congress. Democrats were not particularly optimistic that lawmakers would be moved to act at all, noting that they hadn’t been able to pass any gun legislation following high-profile mass shootings in Tucson or in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 26 dead, including 20 young children.
Some Republicans seemed satisfied to say they should continue to do nothing.
“We’ve got plenty of gun laws. I own a gun; I don’t go around shooting people with it,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told reporters on Wednesday. “Bottom line: People get shot, run over by cars, stabbed. It’s just a crazy world.”
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One day after a gunman opened fire on a group of GOP lawmakers at an early morning baseball practice, many of those same lawmakers took to the field at Nationals Park in Washington D.C. on Thursday to face off against their Democratic colleagues in the 56th annual congressional game.
Five people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), were wounded in the shooting. Scalise is still in critical condition.
The annual game, which raises money for multiple charities including the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, is one of Capitol Hill’s last remaining bipartisan traditions. Ticket sales for the game surged after Wednesday’s shooting, putting the event on track to raise upwards of $1 million.
In the wake of the shooting, organizers decided the game must go on, and added the Capitol Police Memorial Fund to the game’s beneficiaries.
“We’re not going to let incidents like this change our way of life or our daily routine. We’re going to go ahead and play the ballgame,” Rep. Michael Doyle (D-Pa.), who manages the Democratic team, said Wednesday.
Attendees showed support for Scalise and advocated for bipartisan unity in the wake of the shooting.
President Donald Trump did not plan to attend the game, but recorded a video message to air during the event.
Read more on Wednesday’s shooting here.
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The Congressional Baseball Game is going ahead tonight; if the 2000s New York Yankees didn’t sate your appetite for old rich dudes with little-to-no athletic ability, you should definitely go. The Commerce Department removed LGBT protections from its workplace regulations, so now you know what people will be discriminating about around the water cooler tomorrow. And the GIF turned 30 today, meaning it’s old enough to sell out and land a job tweeting GIFs for a multinational corporation so it can afford daycare for its kid. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, June 15th, 2017:
@AlexNBCNews: A source familiar with the situation tells NBC News Whip Steve Scalise is out of surgery and remains in critical condition.
PENCE HIRES OUTSIDE COUNSEL FOR RUSSIA PROBE – Ashley Parker: “Vice President Mike Pence has hired outside legal counsel to help with both congressional committee inquiries and the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between President Trump’s campaign and Russia. The vice president’s office said Thursday that Pence has retained Richard Cullen, a Richmond-based attorney and chairman of McGuire Woods who previously served as a U.S. attorney in Eastern District of Virginia. Pence’s decision comes less than a month after Trump hired his own private attorney, Marc E. Kasowitz, to help navigate the investigations related to the Russia probe, and a day after the Washington Post reported that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is now widening his investigation to examine whether the president attempted to obstruct justice.” [WaPo]
JEFF SESSION’S ELASTIC RELATIONSHIP TO THE TRUTH INCREASINGLY OBVIOUS – Stephanie Kirchgaessner: “An American lobbyist for Russian interests who helped craft an important foreign policy speech for Donald Trump has confirmed that he attended two dinners hosted by Jeff Sessions during the 2016 campaign, apparently contradicting the attorney general’s sworn testimony given this week. Sessions testified under oath on Tuesday that he did not believe he had any contacts with lobbyists working for Russian interests over the course of Trump’s campaign. But Richard Burt, a former ambassador to Germany during the Reagan administration, who has represented Russian interests in Washington, told the Guardian that he could confirm previous media reports that stated he had contacts with Sessions at the time.” [Guardian]
TRUMP ADMIN TARGETING MUELLER – Igor Bobic: “It’s only been a month since the Justice Department appointed him, but the knives are already out for special counsel Robert Mueller. President Donald Trump on Thursday denounced what he called ‘the single greatest witch hunt in American political history’ after The Washington Post reported that he is being investigated for obstructing justice. The investigation into his presidential campaign’s possible ties to Russia, the president said on Twitter, is being led by ‘some very bad and conflicted people.’ Mueller is a highly-respected former director of the FBI and is the second-longest-serving director in the agency’s history. He was appointed by a Republican president in 2001 and confirmed unanimously by a 98-0 vote in the Senate…. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Trump ally, on Thursday called Mueller the ‘anti-Trump special counsel.’” [HuffPost]
Like HuffPost Hill? Then order Eliot’s book, The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide To Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government
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MANAFORT GONNA MANAFORT – Corey Lewandowski must be so jealous of this guy. Kenneth P. Vogel: “Paul Manafort is at the center of an FBI investigation into ties between President Donald Trump’s team and the Russians, but that hasn’t stopped him from doing business with international figures and companies, partly by claiming continued access to Trump, according to people familiar with his dealings. Manafort in recent weeks has either consulted or worked with a Chinese construction billionaire looking to expand his business overseas and a telecommunications firm interested in regulatory approval from governments in Asia and the Middle East, as well as an investment fund claiming links to the Chinese government, according to documents and interviews. Manafort quietly consulted on a proposal under which the Chinese fund — the China Development Fund — would invest $30 billion or more in the Puerto Rican government’s bond debt and possibly the island’s critical infrastructure, according to documents and interviews with four people familiar with the negotiations, including a Manafort business partner.” [Politico]
IT GETS WORSE – Hillary is just as bad as Trump. David Mack: “The Trump Administration’s Department of Commerce has outraged LGBT groups by removing sexual orientation and gender identity from the list of categories explicitly protected from discrimination in its latest equal employment opportunity statement. ‘The Department of Commerce does not tolerate behavior, harassment, discrimination or prejudice based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, or disability,” reads the 2017 Secretarial Policy Statement on Equal Employment Opportunity signed by Secretary Wilbur Ross. ‘We will also provide reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities.’” [BuzzFeed]
ANGRY OLD MAN AWAITING RESPONSES TO HIS LETTERS – Do you ever get the sense that if Chuck Grassley weren’t a senator, he’d be writing letters to his senator? Todd Ruger: “Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley is tired of his requests to the Justice Department going unanswered — and he’s fighting back yet again. The Iowa Republican announced Thursday that the committee won’t advance the nomination of Stephen Boyd to be assistant attorney general for legislative affairs until he gets responses to at least 15 letters, some due more than six months ago. Grassley, whose other frustrations led him to delay nominees this year and take to Twitter to get information from the Trump administration, spoke emphatically at a committee business meeting.” [Roll Call]
EBONY AND IVORY, LIVE TOGETHER IN PERFECT HARMONY – GOP lobbyists dream of an America where someone is judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their Rolodexes. Ryan Grim: “CGCN Group, a Republican lobbying firm with ties to the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus, has formed a new strategic alliance with four Democratic firms that work closely with the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses. The odd quintuple said that despite wildly diverging politics on a slew of issues, they all have one thing in common: high levels of poverty back home…. Entrenched, generational poverty has bred universal anger at Washington, Wall Street, and other elite institutions, which establishment Democrats have yet to figure out how to channel, according to the memo. That creates an opening for Republicans looking to exploit class politics, while using Democratic identity politics as leverage. The preponderance of white faces at Democratic lobby shops, meanwhile, puts such firms at a disadvantage in challenging the attack.” [Intercept]
LISA MURKOWSKI REGRETS IN ADVANCE VOTING FOR THE HEALTH CARE BILL – Woe betide those who count on “moderates” not caving. Dylan Scott: “’I want greater access and lower costs. So far, I’m not seeing that happen.’ … ‘I think the requirements that I’m looking for and my constituents are asking for are pretty basic. My task is going to be to make sure that those basic asks are met.’ … ‘My constituents expect me to know, and if we had utilized the process that goes through a committee, I would be able to answer not only your questions but my constituents’ questions.’” [Vox]
BAN MEN – It’s a good thing our country has a leader whose behavior and views stand athwart these disturbing trends. Laura Bassett: “While young women of the baby-boom generation saw rapid progress in terms of economic equality, health and overall well-being compared to their mothers, that trend has started to reverse for young millennial women, according to a new study by the Population Reference Bureau. American women under 35 are more likely than the generation before them to be incarcerated, live in poverty, commit suicide or die from pregnancy-related causes and less likely to hold high-paying jobs in STEM fields, according to the report, which compared 14 key indicators of socioeconomic progress and well-being. While young women of the baby-boom generation saw a 66 percent gain in overall well-being compared to their World War II-era mothers, Generation X experienced only a 2 percent gain, and well-being for young women today has actually declined 1 percent.” [HuffPost]
THAT’S NOT A SICK BURN. THAT’S A SICK BURN – Put another Trump on the barbie, mate! Nine News: “Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull isn’t known for being a comedian but he tried some daring Donald Trump material on a room full of journalists in Canberra last night…. ‘The Donald and I, we are winning and winning in the polls. We are winning so much, we are winning, we are winning like we have never won before,’ he says. He also alludes to the probe into the Trump campaign’s links with Russia, adding: ‘I have this Russian guy… Believe me, it’s true, it is true.’” [Nine News]
Cleanse us all in fire: “After President Donald Trump tweeted the word ‘covfefe’ accidentally a few weeks ago (we know, it feels like years), some people simply refuse to let it die. So much so that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has received more than 30 trademark requests that include the word ‘covfefe,’ according to The Hill. Outside of requests to trademark the word as-is, other requests include hashtag versions of the word and even ‘Covfefe Coffee.’” [HuffPost’s Jenna Amatulli]
LONGTIME D.C. COUNCILMAN JIM GRAHAM DEAD – No one drove around D.C. in a Volkswagen Beetle convertible while wearing a sharp hat and surrounded by a bunch of svelte men better. Andrew Giambrone and Jeffrey Anderson: “Colorful former Ward 1 D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham, an openly gay member who was known as a tireless advocate for the LGBT community and the poor, died Sunday after a recent illness at the age of 71, the D.C. Council confirms. Graham, who was executive director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic for 15 years during the early years of the AIDS crisis, served on the D.C. Council from 1999 to 2015, leaving after being unseated in 2014 by Brianne Nadeau…. Graham had his foibles, not the least of which was the way he wielded power, particularly toward the end of his career. Exhibit A would be his insistence that a lottery subcontractor would have to give up a transportation-related contract in order to gain his support.” [WCP]
BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR – Here’s a literal D.C. fat cat.
JUST ANOTHER REASON TO FEEL WEIRD ABOUT WASHINGTON’S FOOTBALL TEAM – None of this would’ve happened if they took Arthur Delaney’s suggestion and rename themselves the Washington Department of Football. MIke Jones and David Fahrenthold: “As quarterback of the Washington Redskins, Kirk Cousins has the highest-profile job in the city except for the president of the United States. Or so it is sometimes said. Now, Cousins is rubbing shoulders with President Trump. The Redskins quarterback joined Trump and two others for a round of golf Saturday at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminister, N.J. Cousins said that Eric Shuster, the director of strategic partnerships at CSN Midatlantic, had something to do with the pairing. Approached on the subject, Cousins said playing golf with the president was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. ‘Great experience,’ Cousins said after a Redskins practice in Ashburn on Wednesday.” [WaPo]
COMFORT FOOD
– Very good dog photobombs Google Street View.
– Respect to Third Eye Blind for how they announced their 20th anniversary album.
TWITTERAMA
Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffpost.com)
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When a black pastor submitted a statement condemning white supremacy to the Southern Baptist Convention for review this week, the resolutions committee swiftly denied it and moved on.
A revised version of the resolution ultimately passed, but only after considerable internal and outside pressure forced the denomination’s president to step in.
It’s not uncommon for the committee to turn down a resolution, said Rev. Dwight McKissic, the Texas pastor who submitted the proposal.
“When that happens, you can either accept it or challenge it by asking the convention in session to request that the resolutions committee bring your resolution to the floor to be voted on,” McKissic told HuffPost. “So I chose to challenge it.”
The Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, convened on Tuesday and Wednesday in Arizona for its annual meeting, during which church leaders discussed denominational issues, made budget decisions, and voted on resolutions outlining their theological and social stances on various issues.
Every year, a 10-person resolutions committee reviews proposals and determines which issues will be voted upon at the meeting. Just one of the committee’s members is black this year, McKissic said.
The pastor’s original resolution, a draft of which he posted on Southern Baptist blog site SBC Voices in May, denounced the alt-right movement ― the beliefs of which include white supremacist rhetoric ― as a “toxic menace.” It urged the convention to oppose its “totalitarian impulses, xenophobic biases, and bigoted ideologies that infect the minds and actions of its violent disciples.”
It referenced the “curse of Ham” as the root of white supremacy in the “Christian context.” This once-touted theory was used in the justification of slavery and racial segregation and claimed that “God through Noah ordained descendants of Africa to be subservient to Anglos.”
The committee initially refused to consider the resolution. After McKissic challenged the committee’s decision, convention attendees voted on whether to instruct the panel to reconsider, which would require a two-thirds majority. The vote failed.
“After that I took my seat,” McKissic said. “I could live with that because everything had gone by the rules.”
Barrett Duke, the head of the resolutions committee, told The Atlantic that he was aware that “feelings rightly run high regarding alt-right ideology,” but didn’t clarify what those feelings were. “We share those feelings,” he said. “We just weren’t certain we could craft a resolution that would enable us to measure our strong convictions with the grace of love, which we’re also commended by Jesus to incorporate.”
But resolutions rarely go for a vote in their original forms, McKissic said. Duke confirmed to The Atlantic that the committee hadn’t reached out to McKissic to work on a revised version.
Duke did not immediately respond to a request from HuffPost for comment.
After internal debate and social media backlash, the convention decided to vote on whether to challenge the committee’s decision once again. And once again, the vote failed to reach a two-thirds majority.
“I just want clarity from the president of the Southern Baptist Convention about whether we condemn, as a convention, racism,” said Rev. Garrett Kell, a white pastor in Virginia, addressing SBC president Rev. Steve Gaines from the microphone Tuesday night.
Gaines responded, CNN reported, by saying: “I’ll speak for myself. I don’t know that I can speak for everyone in this room, but I believe God loves everyone. I believe there is only one race and that is the human race.”
The Southern Baptist Convention has long grappled with issues of racial equality. The denomination first apologized in 1995 for its role in upholding the practice of slavery. Since then, the denomination has passed resolutions supporting racial reconciliation and calling on Christians to stop displaying the Confederate flag.
Just when the denomination seemed poised to forgo an opportunity to categorically denounce white supremacy, a group of Southern Baptist leaders quickly got to work on a new draft of the resolution, which Gaines personally endorsed.
The damage was done by taking three votes on something that was a no-brainer.”
The final resolution, unambiguously titled “On The Anti-Gospel Of Alt-Right White Supremacy,” finally went to the floor for a vote on Wednesday and passed.
The resolution condemned “every form of racism, including alt-right white supremacy, as antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” It didn’t mention the curse of Ham, which Duke said would be “redundant.”
McKissic said he was satisfied with the final resolution and hoped it would be a stepping stone for further action on racial justice. But he added that “until the convention repents the curse of Ham by name,” the denomination will continue to be haunted by its racist past.
“The damage was done by taking three votes on something that was a no-brainer,” McKissic said. “What’s the reason they couldn’t so readily say that white supremacy is wrong and the alt-right is evil? Many of us are asking that question.”
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A century ago, the U.S. government forced hundreds of thousands of Native American students to attend boarding schools where authorities shaved their heads, banned their traditional languages and gave them Western names. Today, these students still attend schools in crumbling buildings with white-washed curriculum and dismal resources.
So when recent college graduate Teddy McCullough went to the White House’s first ever Tribal Youth Gathering in 2015 and listened to Michelle Obama celebrate the beauty of his people, he finally felt recognized.
“It was one of the most inspiring events I’ve been to,” said McCullough, a member of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians. “To have the First Lady of the United States talk about her own experiences growing up and relating it to some of the things a lot of Native youth face … it felt personal.”
Former President Barack Obama made unprecedented investments in Native American youth. He budgeted millions of dollars to repair and replace dilapidated Native American schools. He launched a cross-agency initiative to help Native American students become future leaders. And he invited over 1,000 Native American students to D.C. for a gathering to celebrate their potential.
But President Donald Trump, who released his full budget proposal in May, plans to dismantle all of that.
The cuts proposed in Trump’s budget to Native American youth initiatives have received little attention on a national scale. But community leaders say that if the budget passes in its current form, the results will be beyond devastating for their children.
“This budget as it’s been proposed would absolutely decimate Indian education,” said Ahniwake Rose, executive director of the National Indian Education Association and member of the Cherokee and Muscogee Creek Nation. “They’re not just numbers. These are real kids going to be affected everyday by these slashes.”
This budget as it’s been proposed would absolutely decimate Indian education.
The stakes are high for Native American students, who post some of the lowest achievement rates of any student group in the country. Of the major racial and ethnic groups, Native American/Alaskan Indian students have the lowest average high school graduation rates and the highest high school dropout rates. They lead the nation in numbers of 20 to 24 year olds who are neither working nor in school. A staggering number of Native American young people have committed suicide in recent years.
In other words, students are some of the nation’s most vulnerable. But instead of investing in this group, the Trump budget proposes over $303.3 million in cuts to the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs, including a $64.4 million cut to Indian education programs. The Department of Interior budget also proposes nearly $60 million in cuts to education construction projects that help replace and repair dilapidated Bureau of Indian Education schools. (Many are in a notorious state of structural disrepair.) Additionally, the Department of Education proposed budget eliminates a $32.4 million program for Alaska Native education.
Across agencies, there are also broad cuts to civil rights initiatives that could harm Native American children.
If passed, the cuts mean “students are going to continue to go to schools with exposed wiring and air conditioning not working, heat not working, and get taught by teachers who are not trained in best way to teach Native students,” said Rose, who is confident that Congress will work to revise the budget from its current form.
McCullough, who is now 23 and who just recently left his job at the Center for Native American Youth at the Aspen Institute, said he has spoken to young people who are “devastated” by the Trump administration’s setbacks after seeing so much progress under Obama.
“Its pretty unique to have that amount of energy coming out of the White House towards Native issues,” McCullough said. “Kids are struggling with the idea that there had been progress, and now it seems like there’s not going to be anything.”
Another recent college graduate, John Petoskey, doesn’t see Obama’s tenure in such a rosy light, although he says Obama generally had a pro-Native American agenda. Petoskey, a member of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians who was involved in the White House’s initiatives for Native American students, said Obama could have done better when it came to supporting Dakota Access Pipeline protesters who faced harsh police treatment.
“There was a recognition that things aren’t perfect. And here is a person who had the ability to take a stand on behalf of Indian people and they did not take that stand,” Petoskey told HuffPost, currently a student at the University of Michigan School of Law.
Still, Petoskey worries that Trump could be uniquely bad for Native Americans.
“They can’t walk all over us and we’re not going to go away. I think 500 years of indigenous resistance is much stronger than temporary politics. And we matter. They need to recognize that going forward,” he said of the Trump administration.
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