Hedonism II | CheapCaribbean.com

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If you're ready to shed your inhibitions, you've found what you're looking for at Hedonism II, a world-renowned Negril beach resort. Eat, drink, play and party 'round the clock, all while enjoying the services and amenities of a first-rate resort... without any rules.

When you book, choose either the "nude" or "prude" side of the resort. While some may be a-ok with shedding all inhibitions (and clothing), if it's your first time, you may want to check out the more moderate version. Whether you dare to bare all or play it safe, there's windsurfing school, snorkeling and sailing. Work on your tan at one of three freshwater pools, or enjoy the spectacular beauty of the 500-foot-long beach, where you can choose to go au naturel or wear your sexiest bikini.

Entertainment is paramount at Hedonism II, and there's no shortage of amazing things to do during the day and after the sun goes down. Theme nights keep it interesting, and every evening brings a new party. Be prepared with a mask, toga, sexy PJs and rock-star duds to join in the never-ending festivities. Nightly entertainment includes live bands and shows, and the bars, lounges and a nightclub stay open 'til the wee hours. In need of relaxation after a hard night of partying? Blue Mahoe Spa offers spectacular treatments, including the Sea Me Glow, which removes dead skin cells, unclogs pores and revitalizes skin.

Such delightful debauchery works up an appetite, and Hedonism II delivers with a variety of choices. Start the day with breakfast at Planter's Punch, grab sushi at Harrysan, or head to Beach Grills for burgers and snacks. And with premium-brand cocktails flowing day and night, you'll never go thirsty.

For more than 30 years, Hedonism II has delighted guests and shattered preconceived notions. As an adult-only getaway, this place is second to none, and guests come back year after year to delight in the no-rules atmosphere and exemplary service. Sleep all day. Stay out all night. Go skinny dipping. Try wind surfing. Dress in costume. Whatever strikes your fancy, Hedonism II answers the call.

This resort is All-Inclusive. Features include:

Harrysan Type: Japanese Hours: Sat-Mon, Wed-Thu, 6:30pm-10pm Description: Harrysan is an open-air restaurant with teppanyaki tables and a sushi menu. Reservations are required. Dress code: Men are required to wear dress shorts or long pants and collared shirts.

Pastafari Type: Italian-Jamaican Hours: Mon-Thu, Sat, 6:30pm-11pm Description: Unique Italian with a Jamaican accent brings a magic touch to pasta. Reservations are required. Dress code: Guests may wear tailored shorts.

Terrace Room Type: Buffet Hours: Breakfast - daily, 7:30am-10:30am; Lunch - daily, 12:30pm-3pm; Dinner - daily, 7:30pm-10pm; Midnight snack - daily, midnight-2am Description: Dine buffet style in the constantly changing Terrace Room, a large, open-air main dining room serving creative Caribbean surprises and tradition favorites.

Beach Grill Type: Grill Hours: Daily, 11am-6pm Description: Hamburgers and other treats sizzle all day at both Beach Grills for lunch and snacks. One is located on the main beach (also called the "prude" beach) and one on the nude beach.

All hours are subject to change.

Club Hurricane The world-famous nightclub has been completely refurbished and is open from 10:30pm-5am or until the last person leaves.

Jezebel Disco This glass-front bar has TVs and underwater windows looking into the swimming pool. DJ music is offered nightly. Open 10:30p-3am.

Main Bar The Main Bar is located in the hotel and is open nearly all day from 11am-2am.

Piano Bar The Piano Bar is a great air-conditioned late-night spot with two levels, an aquarium and a large-screen television. Sing along with the pianist and new found friends. Karaoke is at 10pm on Mondays and Tuesdays. Daily, 10:30pm-1am.

Swim-up Bar Located at both pools.

Nightly ThemesNightly themes and PJ Party (on Tuesday night), and Toga Party (on Thursday night).

Exciting weekly themed parties:

Live Music Live band 8:30pm to midnight each night (except Fridays) in dining/entertainment area. Performers and floor shows every night in the open-air entertainment area of the Main Terrace.

The main beach is connected to the main pool entertainment area by way of the Jungle bridge.

Water

Land

Golf Negril Hills Golf Club, an 18-hole course, is a 15-minute drive from Hedonism II.

There is a minimum of a 3 night stay. For couples who stay 7 nights or longer, SuperClubs will absorb the government fee.

Location Hedonism II is situated 55 miles west of Montego Bay and approximately one hour from Montego Bay Airport.

Check In/Check Out Check-in: 3pm Check-out: noon.

Age RequirementHedonism II is for couples and singles, adults 18 years and over.

Minimum Stay A 2-night minimum stay required at this resort with the following exceptions: A 3-night min stay is required for travel June 1-June 14, 2017. A 5-night min stay is required for travel August 5, 2017 to September 29, 2017 and Dec 26-Dec 29, 2017.

Nude Bathing The private beach is divided into two sections; one is for nude bathing. One pool is completely nude, while the other is located on the "prude" side of the hotel.

Smoking Advisory Effective July 15, 2013, Jamaica's Health Minister banned smoking in all covered public places on the island.

All hours, fees, amenities, information and services are subject to change without notice.

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Hedonism II | CheapCaribbean.com

Chefs to Watch for 2017 – Hedonism II, Negril – Food … – Jamaica Observer

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Thursday Food

highlights five more chefs who are charged with introducing visitors and locals alike to the best culinary offerings in Jamaica.

This weeks featured chefs are from Hedonism II, Negril

Davey Thomas

Lead cook, Pastafari Italian Restaurant, Hedonism II Resort

At age six, Davey Thomas would study the ingredients as his mother cooked. Then he would try and replicate her cooking to see how his compared. All that practice still did not lead him to a six-burner stove. Actually, he took what he thought was the safe road by becoming an auto mechanic. But the passion for cooking had already taken root and Thomas eventually heeded and enrolled in the Petersfield Vocational Training Centre, where he studied Food Preparation.

I love trying new flavours and taking traditional recipes and adding new stuff. I take pride in my cooking as it reflects on me as an individual; its my pride, he says. Thomas spends a lot of his time surfing the Internet for new ideas and says, No matter what area you are in, you have to have a passion for it, otherwise it makes no sense.

Thomas likes preparing anything with seafood and he continues to hone his skills by cooking at home daily.

Milton Paltie

Garde manger, Hedonism II Resort

An ice-carving genius, says Executive Chef Anthony Miller of Milton Paltie.

Paltie was 14 the first time his aunt asked him to prepare a meal. Having no idea what to cook he enlisted the help of a friend, who added thyme, escallion and butter to the pot. The final result steam fish got rave reviews. To this day his aunt has no idea that he was not the cook.

Briefly sidetracked by carpentry until that income stream slowed, he found himself at Couples Tower Isle, the result of hearing about a vacancy in the stewards department.

When he arrived with a friend the only jobs available were for cooks. Certain that they would not qualify, they got the jobs nevertheless and started in the pantry. After a few months we was awarded Cook 1 (the highest level team member). Every day I was working from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm for about two years. The financial controller asked why I was working those long hours. I told him its not what I was putting in but what I was getting back, and what I was getting back was a salary and experience, so I felt that I was the one winning.

Paltie realised that he could make this his profession after travelling to North America and seeing the respect accorded chefs.

He took certification courses through Johnson and Wales in Kitchen Management, Sanitation and Garde Manger. His true passion, he decided, was fruit, vegetable and ice carving. Its like a painter with his canvas. For me, my canvas is the ice or the produce.

A recipient of many awards, Paltie has copped: the 2002 JCDC silver medal for ice carving and fish platter

2004 Curry Festival gold medal for fruit, vegetable and ice carving

2008 Wow Festival Master Ice Carver

2015 & 2016 Taste of Jamaica gold medalist for the ice carving

2106 Taste of Jamaica silver medal, lamb platter

I think cooking chose me, he tells Thursday Food.

Rashane Reid

Harry San Japanese Restaurant, Hedonism II Resort

Twenty-one-year-old Rashane Reid says, Cooking is in my genes; my father is a chef (in Nantucket) and as a child he always had me in the kitchen. My uncles are restaurateurs and bakers, my grandmothers gizzada, grater and toto cakes were amazing and famous.

As a child I was in awe of my fathers knife skills and knew I wanted to follow suit.

My first culinary expression was a fried egg which I overcooked. I was instructed by my mother to repeat the process until I got it right. To this day I am still fascinated by how many ways a simple egg can be prepared and, also, there is nothing about an egg I cant tell you. My mother continues to be my motivator. A few years ago she had a stroke and I made a promise to always make her proud.

My driving philosophy comes from my favourite book You Can Work Your Own miracle by Napoleon Hill. It says: I am who I am, where I am, because of my daily habits.

Hedonism is Reids first full-time job. He started as a trainee and through dedication and hard work now enters competitions like Taste of Jamaica. Hedonism took me from a baby to a man, and the best part of being a chef is seeing peoples faces when they taste your food. There is a bond between the diner and the chef.

Reids favourite meal to cook is chicken back with pumpkin served with cornmeal dumplings.

Odiane Whitelock

Pastafaria Italian Restaurant, Hedonism II Resort

Odane Whitelocke remembers, as if it were yesterday, the day in 2005 when he decided he wanted to become a chef. My family members had a restaurant and I had started to work in there. I fell in love with it. That same year he enrolled at HEART Petersfield, where the love affair continued.

In 2009, in a quest to further his culinary skills, he attended George Brown College in Toronto, Canada. For me, cooking is an art and I love art. Its an area where I am very confident in my abilities and not afraid to challenge myself through competitions.

In 2015, Whitelocke placed third in the Taste of Jamaica Chef of the Year and in 2016, he placed first in the beef category with a dish he called authentic beef roulade.

Being from a family in which both parents cooked, food and cooking were always a part of his socialisation.

His favourite dish to cook is chicken and beef pasta in Alfredo sauce.

After 12 years his passion has not waned. Indeed, he is fully aware of just how much more there is to learn.

Oshane Powell, cook

Flame Chop House, Hedonism II Resort

At the age of seven Oshane Powell was cooking curried pork. Not that he intended to. But one day his stepfather, the cook in the family, had an emergency. It was left to Oshane to handle dinner. Thankfully, the pork was a hit and a chef was born.

Powell, who studied Food and Nutrition in school, nevertheless went on to work as an auto mechanic but would continue to cook at home for the family. The neighbours would always ask: Who is cooking? as the aroma wafted through the yard.

Deciding to give cooking his full attention, Powell arrived at Hedonism as a trainee and, through hard work and love of art, started fruit and vegetable carving. Using YouTube and cooking shows to practise and improve he eventually ended up cooking in the main kitchen.

In 2016, Chef Anthony Miller entered Powell in the Taste of Jamaica cooking competition. Powell copped the Junior Chef of the Year title with his chicken breast wrapped with sausage and a sweet potato tower, as well as a seafood chowder.

I love food. I am passionate about food, so I am willing to learn everything! he shares with Thursday Food

.

Originally posted here:

Chefs to Watch for 2017 - Hedonism II, Negril - Food ... - Jamaica Observer

Tears in the Club – PopMatters

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(Fade to Mind) US: 24 Feb 2017 UK: 24 Feb 2017

In the 21st century, theres an increasingly sad and desperate quality to pop culture hedonism. Oddly, this is perhaps most evident in the way that R&B has given way to club music. When former R&B producers and performers embraced dance music, you might have expected an increase in euphoria, an influx of ecstasy. Yet the digitally-enhanced uplift in the records by producers such as Flo-Rida, Pitbull and will.i.am has a strangely unconvincing quality, like a poorly photoshopped image or a drug that weve hammered so much weve become immune to its effects. Its hard not to hear these records demands that we enjoy ourselves as thin attempts to distract from a depression that they can only mask, never dissipate. A secret sadness lurks behind the 21st centurys forced smile Drake and Kanye West are both morbidly fixated on exploring the miserable hollowness at the core of super-affluent hedonism. No longer motivated by hip-hops drive to conspicuously consumethey long ago acquired anything they could have wantedDrake and West instead dissolutely cycle through easily available pleasures, feeling a combination of frustration, anger, and self-disgust, aware that something is missing, but unsure exactly what it is. Mark Fisher, The Secret Sadness of the 21st Century, Electronic Beats

Tears in the Club is a provocative title, and not only because the last few years have seen far too many actual tears in music venues from Bataclan to Pulse to Ghost Ship to BPM Mexico to a massacre in an Istanbul nightclub only a few weeks back. Clubs are supposed to be safe spaces, places where communities can form. They shelter those already feeling isolated and alienated from society by gathering their patrons together as part of a singular event. Clubs are allegiances and unions of listeners, linked to each other through common sound, but its easy to overlook kinks and vulnerabilities in this bond, the desolation, and conflict that often does not dissipate at the door.

The DJ, who up until the recent advent of the celebrity hand-waver set maintained a structural need to be integrated into the scenery of the club, may be the clubs loneliest attendant. He stands outside of the action because hes the master of controls, orchestrating fun for everyone else, but only participating in the party from the sidelines, behind the wizards curtain.

Unlike the secret sadness that the late Mark Fisher alludes to in the quote above, Kingdom, and the battalion of like-minded producers he has cultivated for his groundbreaking Fade to Mind imprint, have never hidden their malaise. Perhaps thats because their vernacular is 21st century pop, even if they ostensibly make experimental club tracks. Kingdom (aka Ezra Rubin) is no stranger to the format of slowed trap-inflected R&B/pop. He has worked wonders behind the boards of several hyper-contemporary tracks for Danity Kanes Dawn Richard (DWN) and Kelela over the past few years. Now, he has upped the ante on Tears in the Club, an immersive new conceptual experiment centered around four dour pop tracks, spaced out across the breadth of the record.

These songs are exactly the kind of gorgeously constructed, intimate, and melodically rich pop songs someone from the recent past might have thought wed be listening to in 2017. Theyre futuristic, sophisticated, catchy, and psychedelically wrought. However, theyre also deeply depressive.

The decision to focus on a canvas of future-pop/R&B may lead many to think that this represents some kind of permanent realignment for Kingdom, whose past work, while still deeply expressive, was mainly targeted towards feet rather than heartstrings. The lyric sheet doesnt exactly dissuade this theory either. Nothin featuring Syd of the Internet even goes so far as to paint this fluctuation as capitulation. My real art is amazing / Aint that a shame?, she intones, giving the false impression that perhaps this whole attempt at the pop record is half-hearted and more about staying financially afloat than charting new territory. Nothin is a deep, boozy reflection on the choice to go overground, but made from a nihilistic resolve and, ultimately, a vantage of practicality: Somethings got to give right now / So this is what it is right now / All or nothin / Nothin / Didnt work this hard for nothing / So Im gonna act up, gonna act out/ Gonna stack up, and then cash out. These cues exist elsewhere on the album too. Mostly instrumental, the transitional track Into the Fold begs to be interpreted as an invitation to the dark side, its lyrics limited simply to Come / Come / To me. Where? Into the fold, one would guess.

One might even see the trajectory of the entire album in this light. It opens with the forlorn breakup tune What Is Love, whose rhetorical question SZA answers by offering a compartmentalization: Break it down / Fuck it up / Now I see / What is love. Her tenor in this verdict is not aggressive, but anodyne, if a bit dispirited. Throughout the track amidst the slinky synths are two chants: NBA Jam style grunts on loan from Jam City and SZA herself distorted and hiccupping back it up. The latter functions as a literal placeholder (i.e., these are backup vocals) and a detached mechanized force for that compartmentalization, as if she is attempting to download somehow the data set for love. Broken through romantic misfortune, the album sets off in existential crisis, attempting to find solace in the club and finding that it cant fill voids which seem to have no bottom. The corresponding bookend to What Is Love is a Club Mix of Nothin, but one with a simple house beat rather than the abstract contraptions of Kingdoms previous EPs. That its the least interesting piece on the album seems to confirm the sellout/cash-out cycle alluded to in Nothin. Its surrender.

The easy riposte to the idea that this is a sellout album itself rather than an album tangentially about selling out is the music itself, still a little too odd for the charts even when its way too wound down for the clubs. Nothin easily rivals as the Internets Girl as one of the best things Syd has done to date, while vibrant neon jaunt Down 4 Whateva might be the best thing SZAs been involved with to date. Even better still is Breathless featuring unknown singer Shacar, an evocative performance in grimy hues, wild breadths of emotion sputtering throughoutconfidence, melancholy, pain, desire, and isolation all in the span of three minutes. It too concerns the creeping changes of success (Im not sorry because Im / Blowing up) and becoming guarded by its trappings (No weapon formed against me shall prosper / Tied up and alone I get haunted by my pride / So I can sing in front of my phone), eventually slicing open the surface to display the ache underneath. I bleed/I bleed/I bleed, Shacar sings in a sonic interpolation of Beyonces I slay / I slay / I slay from Formation. He resigns to hiding in the work, trailing off his final lines to face this suffering alone: Constantly grinding out hereyou cant see that / Im still trapped, and Im still hurting.

The energy of Breathless bleeds nicely into one of the albums six non-pop tracks, Tears in the Club. Tears in the Club is not only the track most reminiscent of Kingdoms older works, but also comes with specific sonic callbacks to one Kingdoms most well-known hits, Stalker Ha off of his 2011 Dreama EP. The pop cuts wallow in a kind of boozy attachment. SZA assumes an elegantly wasted stance on her two contributions, at first sounding wine-drunk and disoriented on What Is Love, slithering on and off the beat, and then predicting before a kind of skin-shedding hook up that Im gonna take a sip and lose my way tonight on Down 4 Whateva. Tears in the Club, comparatively, is all paranoia and dark feels, a cinematic second act of perpetual anxiety and rootlessness with its sinister piano and trap-does-70s horror film vibe.

The rest of the cuts are nothing to skip over either and lend extra weight and resonance to the songs surrounding them, making Tears in the Club an experience best listened to as a whole. Each and Every Day is almost off-puttingly centered and well-postured around a traditional beat, perhaps taking cues from Sophie in its minimalism. Its simple rhythm-based chorus cuts out melody altogether and then resumes for mantras of the words Each and Every Day while the pitched-up voice of Najee Daniels chirps ok, ok, ok. The self-betterment routine continues into the uncomplicated and swoony cut-ups of Nurtureworld which beg the listener to take me away, as the listener and producer drift together.

Although three years in the making, its increasingly hard to hear this or any album without 2017 ears. In the wake of Trumps despicable first few weeks, I found myself listening more and more to a playlist Id constructed of intensely melancholy music, realizing that Id done so because I hadnt yet given myself permission to be sad. The main takeaway I get from listening to Tears in the Club on repeat is the overwhelming feeling of you cant go home again. Somethings gotta give right now, Syd says. SZA takes this a step further saying, Ill be into you even when you aint around me / Ill be missing you even when you been around me. For every transcendent feeling of closeness in the clubs this year, therell be plenty others where one couldnt feel any more distant from whos standing right next to you. The urgency of being here now vs. the creeping sense of slowly becoming an island haunts this moment, with our interconnected sociality simultaneously culling common causes and confirming our isolationist biases.

Walking back into the club after having all thats on Kingdoms mind is like getting jolted by the nightmare trap of Tears in the Club. Its all darkness and anxiety now. Its visceral grip is as pulsatingly real as it is synthetic. The escape that the nave EDM pop that the turn of the decade offered now seems like the infamous K.C. Green strip On Fire, the flames burning around us as the nihilistic fatalism of #YOLO truly sinks in. The only way through is forward, and well need plenty of forward-thinking pop to help with that. Well need lots of songs that can help reform the bonds of community that a club can offer, and which pop can alleviate. Solidarity in suffering, a shared loneliness. We cant deny ourselves the right to be sad any more than we can deny ourselves the right to dance. Kingdoms album confronts this from a place that, if not deeply personal, at least feels so.

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Tears in the Club - PopMatters

Berlin Syndrome – The Upcoming

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Berlin Film Festival 2017: Berlin Syndrome | Review

Berlin can be such a transitional city for many people. Backpackers treat it as a destination for unbridled hedonism, the likes of which is not seen in many other cities. Even those who opt to move to the city will find that it can be a solitary place, since the typical Berlin party and tourist lifestyle is not sustainable. So many people leave Berlin once the enchantment has worn off, leaving the population of the city in a constant state of flux. Clare (Teresa Palmer) is an Australian backpacker who would dearly love to leave Berlin, if she wasnt imprisoned in the apartment of the man shes just met in the type of swirling, heedless fashion that can happen while on holiday.

Director Cate Shortland made her feature debut with 2004s Somersault, which married dreamy visuals with heftier emotive themes, and Berlin Syndrome delivers her most sure-footed work yet. Berlin is certainly not depicted as dreamy, and Director of Photography Germain McMicking has given the city a stark, austere beauty, which (fittingly) seems ominous at times.

While not quite in pursuit of unbridled hedonism, Clare is still travelling alone, with the imprudent decisions that can often occur in this situation. It was not a foolhardy decision for her to go home with Andy (Max Riemelt), since for the film to be effectively chilling, sympathy for Clare could be minimised if there was a true sense of recklessness.

And it is chilling, more so when the action shifts to her confinement. The canvas of the story is reduced, though not minimised, and there can be easy comparisons to mainstream horror (which should help the film to find a wider audience). While the outline of Clares jeopardous circumstances might seem like something that has been done a million times before, rarely has it been done so intelligently.

Oliver Johnston

Berlin Syndrome is released nationwide on 9th June 2017.

For further information about the 67th Berlin Film Festival visit here.

Read more reviews from the festival here.

Watch a clip fromBerlin Syndrome here:

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Berlin Syndrome - The Upcoming

Will the Science Community Go Rogue Against Donald Trump? – Truth-Out

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Petition Delivery and Climate Teach-In at Trump's Transition Office against the Climate Denier Cabinet, December 20, 2016. (Photo: betterDCregion)

"Please let us remember that to investigate the constitution of the universe is one of the greatest and noblest problems in nature, and it becomes still grander when directed toward another discovery."

In the age of Trump, the person writing those words has much to teach us about the impending scientific struggles of our own time.

So spoke Salviati on day two of his debate with Sagredo and Simplicio in a hypothetical discussion imagined by the great scientist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, for his book Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632.

In the Dialogue, Galileo puts forward his heretical view that the Earth and other planets revolve around the sun in opposition to the Catholic Church-sanctioned Ptolemaic system in which everything in the universe revolves around the Earth.

Galileo hoped that by adopting a conversational style for his argument, it would allow him to continue his argument about the true nature of the universe and evade the attentions of the Inquisition, which enforced Church doctrine with the force of bans, imprisonment and execution.

However, Galileo's friend, Pope Urban VIII, who had personally authorized Galileo to write the Dialogue, didn't allow sentimentality to obstruct power. Galileo was convicted of heresy and spent the rest of his days under house arrest -- the Dialogue was banned by the Inquisition, along with any other book Galileo had written or might write.

Typically portrayed as the quintessential clash between religion and science, Galileo's conflict with the Papacy was, in fact, just as rooted in material considerations of political power as it was with ideas about the nature of the solar system and our place within it.

Amid parallels to today's conflict between Donald Trump and the scientific community over funding, research, unimpeded freedom of speech and the kind of international collaboration required for effective scientific endeavor, neither situation exists solely in the realm of ideas.

***

Galileo's controversial and extended trial on charges of heresy coincided with the political and military problems faced by Pope Urban VIII.

Under pressure from what came to be known as the Thirty Years' War raging across central Europe between Catholic and Protestant armies, Urban was attempting to shore up and re-establish the might of Rome through the Inquisition, racking up massive Papal debt from increased military spending, while promoting rampant nepotism and corruption.

The analogy with the U.S. of 2017 and the political and economic situation is quite striking, as today's right wing seeks to assert its authority and impel the country politically and socially backward by launching attacks on immigrants, Native Americans, women and reproductive health, unions, and the gains of the LGBTQ, environmental and civil rights movements. These attacks have been extended across a broad swathe of society, encompassing both the arts and sciences.

After reports emerged in the first days of the Trump administration that he intended to defund the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities -- responsible for 0.01 percent of the federal budget -- Suzanne Nossel, writing in Foreign Policy, called this "an assault on the Enlightenment."

Meanwhile, with the election of Trump and his comments on climate change, scientists in charge of the Doomsday Clock moved it another 30 seconds closer to midnight. This is the closest it's been to midnight since 1953, at the height of the Cold War and following the decision by the U.S. to upgrade its nuclear arsenal with thermonuclear weaponry.

"The Trump administration needs to state clearly and unequivocally that it accepts that climate change is caused by human activity," theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss said at a press conference announcing the Doomsday Clock time change. "Policy that is sensible requires facts that are facts."

Unfortunately, fact-checking website Politifact has shown that 71 percent of Trump's public statements range from "mostly false" to "pants on fire" levels of absurdity.

***

Within hours of Trump's inauguration, rumors began to circulate that government agencies such as National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had been ordered to scrub references to climate change from their websites. There were other reports of gag orders on the Department of Agriculture and a freeze on EPA grants.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen was famously gagged during the presidency of George W. Bush, along with hundreds of others at seven different federal agencies who were ordered against using the term "global warming."

However, scientists at the EPA say Trump's mandate that any data collected by them -- including information that is of direct consequence to people's health and that of the planet -- must first undergo political vetting before being release to the public takes things much further down the road to outright censorship.

As far as gutting the EPA entirely, it's certainly not beyond possibility, considering that a key adviser to Trump and his head of transition for the EPA, Myron Ebell, called environmentalists "the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world."

One wonders if he had in mind an editorial in Nature, one of the world's leading science journals, which, under the headline "Scientists Must Fight for the Facts," described Trump's energy plan as "a product of cynicism and greed" for its adherence to talking points taken directly from the fossil-fuel industry.

As bad as our air, water and soil is today, we know before the EPA's creation under Richard Nixon in response to a wave of gigantic pro-environment marches in the 1960s and '70s, things were much worse.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

IN RESPONSE to these attacks -- and the resulting increase in stress and anxiety over job security -- scientists have called a March for Science on Earth Day, April 22, in Washington, D.C. Like the giant Women's March on Washington the day after Trump's inauguration, the science march has already spawned calls for solidarity protests in other cities across the country.

One-fifth of scientists in the U.S. are immigrants, meaning the lives of thousands of scientists and science students have already been affected by the travel ban, leaving people traumatized, but also mobilizing for the protests. A petition drawn up by academics against the anti-Muslim immigration ban, Academics Against Immigration Executive Order has garnered more than 20,000 signatures, including over 50 Nobel Laureates.

The head of the largest professional science organization in the world, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, physicist Rush Holt described the change under Trump as taking long-standing attacks against science in the U.S. to another level: "In my relatively long career I have not seen this level of concern about science...This immigration ban has serious humanitarian issues, but I bet it never occurred to them that it also has scientific implications."

But resistance from scientists is emerging from all quarters. As Republicans tried to pass a bill to sell off more public land to corporations and fossil-fuel interests, workers at the National Park Service went rogue around the country, setting up their own social media sites to combat disinformation and let the public know what was happening.

***

Predictably, the March for Science has drawn controversy for "politicizing" science, even though scientists have signed a range of open letters calling for stronger action to combat climate change, and climate scientists have already held a rally in San Francisco in December last year protesting Trump's election victory and his anti-science rhetoric.

By selecting Earth Day, the march is clearly connected to Trump's specific and highly political attacks on government bodies and scientists associated with climate change research and other environmental concerns.

Despite this, renowned Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker tweeted: "Scientists' March on Washington plan compromises its goals with anti-science PC/identity politics/hard-left rhetoric" -- apparently because the website included information about the importance of diversity and intersectionality.

Meanwhile, science writer Dr. Alex Berezow, who penned a blatantly political book about the supposed anti-science proclivities of the left, tells us he won't be on the march because it doesn't mention white men, Christians or privately-funded science research.

More seriously, Robert Young, one of the co-authors of a report on rising sea level and its impact on the coastline of North Carolina -- which drew the ire of the real estate lobby and conservative politicians, along with scathing humor from Stephen Colbert -- argued in the New York Times that the march is a bad idea:

A march by scientists, while well intentioned, will serve only to trivialize and politicize the science we care so much about, turn scientists into another group caught up in the culture wars, and further drive the wedge between scientists and a certain segment of the American electorate.

On the other side of the debate, biologist Christina Agapakis tweeted, "Is it going to be a fuck yeah science facts march or a science is political and made by humans march?"

Agapakis importantly went on to argue that not having political demands doesn't make any sense nor help achieve the goals of the scientists: "If 300 years of scientists pretending to be apolitical wasn't enough to convince someone that climate change isn't a hoax, then erasing political issues from the march isn't going to change anyone's mind either."

As far as the substance of this discussion is concerned, one immediate and obvious question would be to ask who is "politicizing" science?

Given Trump's rejection of climate change, his attacks on science, his appointment of the former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State and his intended appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the EPA -- a federal department which Pruitt spent his tenure as attorney general of Oklahoma suing over a dozen times -- if anyone is "politicizing" science, surely it's already being done by the president.

Indeed, when the editors of the thoroughly mainstream USA Today issue a statement calling for Pruitt's rejection as head of the EPA because Trump "couldn't have nominated someone more opposed to the agency's mission," you know you're involved in politics.

Although Texas Republican Congressman Lamar Smith might disagree. The inveterate climate denier and anti-science champion -- but nevertheless somehow chair of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology -- has said that listening to President Donald Trump, as opposed to the media or scientists, was likely "the only way to get the unvarnished truth."

***

To talk of a supposedly apolitical science is wrongheaded to begin with. Science has been political since its modern inception with the Scientific Revolution, which began in part with Galileo's experiments on projectile motion for the highly political purpose of launching more accurate cannonballs.

Science is as much a cultural artifact of society as art, music or fashion. Of course, science is about investigating the natural world through rationalism and empirically verified investigation, but the questions asked by scientists, what they obtain funding to investigate, and the methodology they use are all contoured and distorted by the society within which they are embedded.

We can see that contradiction with climate change research itself.

The reason we know so much about the atmosphere and climate is because climate research grew out of the military's need in the 1950s to track wind currents so it could predict where radioactive fallout would be most severe following nuclear war (which scientists working on the Manhattan Project had made possible in the first place).

In the U.S., that research gave rise to the building of the interstate highway system to facilitate military transportation and the evacuation of population centers -- which in turn generated the phenomenon of the suburbs and the growth of a culture centered around the automobile and fossil fuels.

There is a difference and a contradiction between the philosophy and method of science based in empirical evidence and rationalism and how it is practiced in a class-stratified society, by people just as subject to social prejudices and norms as anyone else.

Though some individual scientists may profess and even believe they are disinterestedly studying the way the universe works merely for the sake of it, science is part of class society. As such, it is faced with the same contradictions as any other facet of an unequal and exploitative social system.

However, because scientific explanation for the way the natural world works needs to correspond to objectively observable and experimentally verified facts and rationality, the contradictions inherent to it and the field's intrinsically political nature are often more clearly expressed than other areas of human culture.

***

As has been repeatedly shown through history, science can be used to bolster the political status quo or help tear it down.

Famed American sociologist of science Robert K. Merton argued in the 1940s that science was a collective endeavor for the civic good, in which sharing of ideas within the scientific community and the wider public was a paramount consideration.

"The communism of the scientific ethos is incompatible with the definition of technology as 'private property' in a capitalistic society," Merton wrote. "Patents proclaim exclusive rights of use, and often, nonuse." According to Merton, science would come into conflict with rulers whenever efforts were made to enforce "the centralization of institutional control."

One of the most infamous stories in the history of science is scientists' role in justifying the characterization of racial superiority of the so-called "white race" with the rise of scientific racism in the 19th century -- a precursor to Hitler's anti-Semitic policies of the 1930s.

Another example of science justifying the status quo: Social Darwinism is rooted in the idea that we are genetically predisposed to behave in greedy and selfish ways -- these human attributes are naturalized in modes that just happen to coincide with the values necessary for capitalism to survive.

And of course, it was scientists and engineers who developed atomic weapons, nerve gas, pesticides and fracking.

Conversely, a better understanding of the natural world through science also gives us wondrous things: birth control, modern medicine and vaccinations, to list only a tiny fraction of the vast contribution to socially useful knowledge and technologies we have obtained through scientific experiments and theoretical development. We are going to need to apply this knowledge and technology to avoid dangerous, human-induced climate change.

***

These examples illustrate what really irks Trump about science -- and why the March for Science in Washington is such a crucial development.

Here it's important to be clear about what Trump isn't doing. He's not saying corporations or private funding for science should be cut, only government funding of science -- particularly climate science, while carefully exempting the military. The question Trump is ultimately posing -- and what scientists and everyone else need to understand -- is this: Should there be any science in the public good?

Trump is not telling businesses to stop doing science. He wants the federal government to stop doing science in the public interest. He wants an end to fact-based discourse wherever the facts run counter to right-wing ideology.

Understanding his assault on science in this manner connects it to the wider Republican and corporate attacks on public education and health care. It is the logical endpoint of capitalism in its most unrestricted form.

As such, it is an intensely political attack that can only be successfully repelled by a similarly political response.

We want and need more funding for all branches of science in the public good and an increase in research into areas of climate change, agro-ecology, renewable energy technologies, medical research and so on. We can only justify these on the grounds of our values, values that emerge from our political orientation and desire for just social outcomes with regard to health, clean air, and unpolluted soil and water.

This is really what scientists who are genuinely opposing the "politicizing" of science -- as opposed to those with conservative politics using the complaint to oppose protest -- mean: science can furnish us with facts about the way the physical world works, but it doesn't tell us anything about what to do with those facts once we have established them.

For example, science and technology have furnished humans with the ability to hunt down and drive whales to extinction. But it tells us nothing about whether we should or not. Which is to say, science tells us nothing about what is right or wrong -- that comes down to our values and is therefore an ethical and political question.

But most people would decry such a rigid attempt at fence-sitting, particularly when people's lives and the health of the biosphere are at stake. And especially when one considers the already highly political nature of scientific research, grants and so on under capitalism. As radical educator Paolo Freire commented, "To sit on the fence in the struggle between the oppressed and the oppressor means to take the side of the oppressor, not to be neutral."

***

Though is clearly attempting something even more extreme, we can learn much about state repression of publicly funded scientific knowledge, research and communication from the behavior of the conservative administration of Canada's former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Under Harper, Canadian scientists were followed, threatened and censored, while libraries were closed and science research programs cut.

Noting that 24 percent of Canadian scientists reported being required to exclude or alter scientific information for non-science-based reasons, Robert MacDonald, a Canadian federal government scientist for three decades, commented:

That's something you would expect to hear in the 1950s from eastern Europe, not something you expect to hear from a democracy like Canada in 2013...And I think, by all indication, that's what our sisters and brothers are going to be faced with down in the United States.

The attacks, cuts and muzzling of scientists by the Harper government, particularly in any field even remotely connected to climate change, were extensive and systematic, undermining any claim to a democratic, truth-oriented administration.

Highlighting the purpose of the censorship, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations explained in the run-up to Canadian demonstrations by scientists in 2013:

In the absence of rigorous, scientific information -- and an informed public -- decision-making becomes an exercise in upholding the preferences of those in power.

In Canada today, as in most of the developed world, power has become increasingly concentrated in fewer hands -- hands which are inevitably attached to the bodies of big business and the state. And in light of Prime Minister Harper's agenda to rebrand Canada as the next energy superpower, it would seem that both the corporate interests and the state are focused on the expansion of the resource extraction industry in Canada.

In the federal capital of Ottawa, hundreds of scientists clad in lab coats carried a coffin in a funeral procession to mark the "death of scientific evidence." This and dozens of smaller marches elsewhere had an observable impact on people's perception of the Harper government.

In a lesson U.S.-based scientists should take to heart, the decline in popularity of the Harper government -- and the subsequent electoral victory of Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party, signaling a more positive, less hostile approach to science, if not a break with big business, including the energy industry -- can be traced in part to the 2013 marches by scientists.

Hence, for all the naysayers in the scientific community who want empirical evidence about the efficacy of a political protest, look no further than the Canadian experience. According to one of the organizers with the group behind the protests, Evidence for Democracy -- which is advising U.S. scientists on their march -- commented, Trump's attack on science:

absolutely echoes what we saw under George Bush in the States and what we saw under Harper, except it's so much swifter and more brazen than what we saw under Harper...But at the same time there's been a huge resistance coming out of the scientific community and that's been really heartening to see.

***

Michael Mann, one of the world's leading climate scientists, has written that "scientists are, in general, a reticent lot who would much rather spend our time in the lab, out in the field, teaching and doing research." Nevertheless, Mann went on to call for a "rebellion" against Trump, due to the severity of Trump's assault.

As Dr. Prescod-Weinsten, a cosmologist and particle physicist at the University of Washington, commented: "What history has taught us is that...[w]hen we work with extremist, racist, Islamophobic or nationalist governments, it doesn't work for science." Nor one could add, for humanity.

The assault on science must be recast and seen as entirely political. It is being made in order to further the interests of fossil fuel-based corporations. Beyond that, it is part and parcel of a larger political project to drive society back and call into question all forms of publically funded scientific, fact-based research, data gathering and dissemination in the interests of ordinary people and the public good.

Which brings us back to Galileo and what should be the purpose of scientific endeavor.

One of the other things that so angered the Inquisition was that Galileo chose to write his treatise not in Latin, the language of academia and the well to do, but in the language of common people. Galileo quite deliberately wrote his book in Italian so that it would be widely read -- before being banned, it was a best seller -- and discussed.

Galileo was doing science for the common good -- presenting a fact-based, better understanding of the world to more clearly inform people of how their world worked. As Bertolt Brecht wrote in his essay on "Writing the Truth," "The truth must be spoken with a view to the results it will produce in the sphere of action."

Scientists must be political in order to be more effective scientists, not less effective. The struggle is really about the question and need to further democratize science. That means scientists seeing themselves as "citizen scientists" -- in the mold of Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Carl Sagan or Stephen Jay Gould.

For Commoner, scientists are obligated to rebel to fulfill their mission of science in the public interest and for social good. He wrote:

The scholar's duty is toward the development of socially significant truth, which requires freedom to test the meaning of all relevant observations and views in open discussion, and openly to express concern with the goals of our society. The scholar has an obligation -- which he owes to the society that supports him -- toward such open discourse. And when, under some constraint, scholars are called upon to support a single view, then the obligation to discourse necessarily becomes an obligation to dissent. In a situation of conformity, dissent is the scholars duty to society.

If science is all about taking a critical eye toward the investigation of natural phenomenon for the betterment of humanity, then rather than seeing protest and public involvement as somehow detrimental to that project, these should be seen as at the heart of the process.

We must pose the question: What are the goals we want for society? How can we help society realize those goals? To effectively answer those questions, scientists must necessarily dissent from those in power who seek to stifle empirical research and do so by informing and involving laypeople to aid their cause.

Making the March for Science on Earth Day big and political as possible is the best way to help further that process, push back Trump's right-wing agenda and enlist more people to support science in the public good.

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Will the Science Community Go Rogue Against Donald Trump? - Truth-Out

Open letter to Shehla Rashid, from former AMU Students Union leader – DailyO

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Hello comrade,

I insist on addressing you like that - not only because you and many amazing young minds before you in JNU have been my comrades for more than two decades now - but also because the word comes from the root "camaraderie", the idea that defines student politics in general, and the strong bonds that JNU and AMU students have built for a progressive polity in particular.

Despite what has happened, those bonds must endure.

Let me, therefore, at the outset, express my deep sense of shock and disgust over a first information report (FIR) filed against you in Aligarh by the AMU Students Union, which claims you insulted Prophet Mohammad in a Facebook post - a 1000-word statement that those students, in the age of 140-word tweets and emoticonned Whatsapp conversations, were too ignorant to understand. The other possibility is they are deliberately misreading the post and claiming being hurt to "fix" you for speaking your mind.

The men in Aligarh are not used to women speaking their minds, let alone having one. With you, it becomes worse. It's not only your gender that they despise, it's your left-liberal political persuasion too. Aligarh in general has never been comfortable with liberal and progressive forces, despite being one of the major centres of progressive writers and academics in the country.

That the police complaint against you came only two days after you and other comrades from JNU, Delhi University, and Allahabad University were invited by the same AMU Students Union for a symposium on the role of student leaders in "building contemporary society" is one of the many unfortunate ironies that AMU has long been used to revel in.

In the horribly misinterpreted January 9 post on Facebook, you had attempted a more nuanced understanding of hate speech by asserting a rational minds democratic right to ask questions and raise doubts, even if they involve religious figures like Ram or Mohammad. There is difference between inquiry and incitement, you argued in that post, with considerable sensibility and success.

Zia Nomani in youthkiawaaz.com was right. The post quoted some controversial phrases like "Ram was an asshole" and "Mohammad was a paedophile" to distinguish between hate speech and "hateful" speech. Its a paradox that the ex-JNUSU vice-president Shehla was accused of hate speech in her Facebook post, which was meant to condemn it in the first place, he wrote.

However, allow me to put this controversy in some context. Far from being an isolated hounding of a Muslim woman studying in another university, it actually fits into a long trope of myopia, misogyny and mindset that defines not only AMU, but even the average Muslim man.

Student politics in Aligarh, unlike your university or most others, is ad-hoc and devoid of affiliations from the mainstream political parties. That emptying of politics from politics per se ends up creating student leaders, whose only claim to electoral positions is the most banal slogan you can ever hear in a university: "tempo high hai".

Please don't ask me what it means. I don't know either and have remained intrigued for long. But it is this singular slogan that has set the agenda and decided student elections in Aligarh for nearly a century now. It is "tempo high hai" that has created leaders from Aligarh, whatever little it has produced.

It is this political and intellectual bankruptcy that has marked student politics in AMU. In the absence of political education and atmosphere that an institution of higher education is supposed to provide, more so in a campus like Aligarh, student leaders are left to fend for themselves. Teachers either don't mentor or are too scared to do it. The administration run by former Army generals or senior bureaucrats does all it can to ensure the campus remains depoliticised.

I don't know if you have noticed, but AMU and Jamia Millia Islamia are the only two central universities in India often run by non-academics. While that trend is set to hopefully stop soon, it's appalling why nobody within the community or outside questioned and resisted it for decades.

Such administrators despise progressive politics, victimise teachers or students who dare to do it, and end up undermining the legitimate and democratic right of students to call elections or form political alliances.

What happens in such a depoliticised campus is that student leaders end up pandering to populist notions of religion, tradition or victimhood. Easy and regressive slogans take over more pressing issues like the recent University Grants Commission gazette notification you also questioned AMU about. Politics of emotion takes over politics of consequence. The FIR against you over alleged disrespect to the Prophet explains that.

"I doubt if AMUSU has any sentiments left, let alone religious!" you said in another angry Facebook post after the police case was filed. I have to agree with you on that. Moreover, religious sentiments have no place in an academic insitution.

If AMU or its student leaders claim a religious right over their campus and dictate who gets to enter it, they are failing the very idea of Aligarh and its long history of liberal and alternate politics.

As you so aptly put it in the same Facebook post: "Pehle insaan baniye, phir musalman banne ka dawa kariye." For me, as long as you are a student, insaaniyat (humanism) is all that matters.

(The author is a former president of AMU Students Union.)

Also read:My visit to Aligarh Muslim University: Anger against media growing

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Open letter to Shehla Rashid, from former AMU Students Union leader - DailyO

Indian censorship board cuts the sex and swearing out of Moonlight – Digital Spy

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It might be one of the leading Oscar contenders, but Indian audiences won't be seeing the full version of Moonlight.

Barry Jenkins's critically acclaimed coming-of-age drama follows three periods in the life of Chiron, a young, black, queer man growing up poor in Miami, and his journey has been heavily cut in India.

A document posted to Reddit shows that all swearing is out, with every instance of "bitch", "bitches", "motherf**ker" and "dick" muted, and two sex scenes have been cut entirely, including kissing between two men.

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The cuts total 53 seconds, but two minutes and 20 seconds of anti-smoking disclaimers have been added, with one appearing at the beginning and one in the middle of the movie, plus a "static message with scroll wherever smoking scene appears".

When we saw the full version of Moonlight, we described it as a "moving and visually beautiful film that speaks not only to gay or black audiences but to all of us".

A24

But will it be walking away with any awards at the Oscars on Sunday (February 26)?

Moonlight received eight nominations, including Best Picture, but was completely shut out at last week's BAFTA Film Awards, despite being nominated in four categories.

However, last night (February 19) saw it win at the Writers Guild Awards, which makes it a clear favourite to scoop Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars. And Moonlight's Mahershala Ali is widely expected to beat Lion's Dev Patel to Best Supporting Actor, despite Patel's BAFTA win.

A24

Find out if Moonlight manages to defy La La Land at the Oscars on Sunday night. Here's how you can watch it live in the UK.

Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Twitter account and you're all set.

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Indian censorship board cuts the sex and swearing out of Moonlight - Digital Spy

Stanford Wages War On Alumnus Peter Brimelow And Free Speech – VDARE.com

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It should come as no surprise that Stanford has followed the University at California, Berkeley (UCB), in suppressing free speech, and insulting a distinguished alumnus as well. Just as VDARE.coms conference was cancelled at Tenaya Lodge in Yosemite, (illegally, by the way as Tenaya Lodge is a Federal contractor and on Federal property) so did Stanford University, who once thought they were superior to UCB in academics and sports. But Stanford has been reduced to the also ran to UCBs virulent Cultural Marxism.

Stanford though thinks too much of itself. It is nothing but the obedient servant of radicals like Jesse Jackson who shut down Western Civilization studies at Stanford in 1996 and the puerile student body who recently voted not to bring back Western Civilization.

And this just inVDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelows alma mater, Stanfords Graduate School Of Business, just cancelled a debate between Brimelow and Tim Kane of the Hoover Institution to be held by the Stanford chapter of the Adam Smith Society, citing the destruction of Berkeley as the reason theyve been scared off. [VDARE.com Conference Cancellation Update: Two Rays Of Hope!, Lydia Brimelow, VDare, February 6, 2017]

This is an example of the hecklers veto, or more accurately the terrorists veto of freedom of speech. But just as the Terrorist Veto of the speech at UCB by Milo Yiannopoulos was not so much a Terrorist Veto, but a conspiracy between the terrorists and the UCB administration and the lesbian university police chief to use the threat of violence or violence that was allowed by inaction to occur to squash Milos speech, so the administrators at Stanford did the same.

But just as the UCB Police allowed the violence in Berkeley to happen, and had the resources to quash to violence quickly and effectively, so the Stanford Department of Public Safety(DPS), a private police department, an accredited and authorized law enforcement authority deputized as Santa Clara County Deputy Sheriffs, but could have easily quashed any violence or provided the necessary security, especially given the Departments bragging about their skill and abilities for presidential visits and major events at the 50,0000 capacity Stanford Stadium.

Braggart Chief Laura Wilson, Stanford DPS Suspiciously Like Another Chief of Police

So, if Stanford GSB Dean Jonathan Levin [Email him ] told the student group that Stanford could not provide security, he was lying. I know this because I worked with the Stanford DPS before, and they can get the job done. (And bring a world of hurt on rioters if necessary.) And Stanford could easily forestall any riots or violence by letting students know before hand that such activity would violate the Honor Code and result in expulsion.

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Stanford Wages War On Alumnus Peter Brimelow And Free Speech - VDARE.com

Narendra Modi to unveil 112-ft tall Shiva idol on February 24 – India … – India.com

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Chennai, Feb 18:Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil a 112-ft tall face of Lord Shiva or Adiyogi at Isha Foundation in Coimbatore on Mahashivaratri, which is on February 24. In a statement Isha Foundation said on Saturday that the face will be largest such on the planet, recognising the first yogis unparalleled contribution to humanity.

This iconic face symbolises liberation, representing the 112 ways in which one can attain the ultimate through the science of yoga, the statement said. According to the Foundation, on Mahasivaratri (February 24) Modi will light the sacred fire to commence the Maha Yoga Yagna across the world when one million people will take oath to teach a simple form of yoga to at least 100 persons in the coming year.

For the first time in the history of humanity, Adiyogi introduced the idea that the simple laws of nature are not permanent restrictions. If one is willing to strive, one can go beyond all limitations and attain liberation, moving humanity from assumed stagnation to conscious evolution, Isha Foundation founder Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev said in the statement.

Describing the significance of Adiyogi, Vasudev said: It is essential that the coming generations on this planet are seekers, not believers. As philosophies, ideology, belief systems that dont stand the test of logic and the scientific verification will naturally collapse in coming decades, you will see the longing for liberation will rise. When that longing rises, Adiyogi and the science of Yoga will become very important.

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Narendra Modi to unveil 112-ft tall Shiva idol on February 24 - India ... - India.com

Pence Reaffirms Commitment To NATO, But Says Europe Must Commit More – NPR

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Speaking at NATO headquarters Monday, Vice President Pence addressed the ousting of Michael Flynn and attempted to assuage fears that the United States might not uphold its commitments to NATO under President Trump. Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Speaking at NATO headquarters Monday, Vice President Pence addressed the ousting of Michael Flynn and attempted to assuage fears that the United States might not uphold its commitments to NATO under President Trump.

Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels Monday, Vice President Mike Pence reassured allies that America would uphold its commitments to the organization, but added that President Trump expected "real progress" among NATO allies in stepping up their defense spending.

"The world needs NATO's strength and leadership now more than ever before," Pence said, calling for "immediate and steady progress" in defense spending among member countries. NATO has set a goal that nations should spend the equivalent of 2 percent of their GDP on defense, but many don't a fact that Trump brought up repeatedly on the campaign trail.

The vice president insisted that his statements were not in conflict with the president's, adding, "The United States is expressing strong support for NATO even as we challenge NATO and challenge our allies to evolve to the new and widening challenges and further meet their responsibilities."

Pence seemed to be trying to quell fears by saying that "the United States' commitment to NATO is clear." But Trump has repeatedly criticized NATO, calling the organization "obsolete," and indicating the the U.S. might not uphold its commitment to defend fellow NATO countries if they did not pay their fair share. As NPR's Frank Langfitt reported in November, many U.S. allies were rattled by Trump's campaign rhetoric, but hopeful that it might be just that rhetoric.

Pence also addressed the resignation of Michael Flynn as national security adviser, saying he was "disappointed" to learn that he had been misled about Flynn's contact with Russia, and fully supported the decision by Trump to dismiss him.

Pence also attempted to assuage fears from the European Union another institution that Trump has also been highly critical of stating that he was acting on behalf of Trump to "express the desire of the United States to continue cooperation and partnership with the European Union." Pence met with many leaders from the EU earlier Monday morning.

These statements seem at odds with others from Trump, who last month called the EU "basically a vehicle for Germany" and praised Britain's vote to leave it. "I think Brexit is going to end up being a great thing," he told the Times of London.

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Pence Reaffirms Commitment To NATO, But Says Europe Must Commit More - NPR

NATO chief Stoltenberg: US is ‘strongly committed to NATO’ – FRANCE 24

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NATO chief Stoltenberg: US is 'strongly committed to NATO' - FRANCE 24

Russia stirs friction in Balkans as NATO keeps uneasy peace – Santa Fe New Mexican

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ZVECAN, Kosovo In the densely forested mountains along the contested frontier between Serbia and Kosovo, a patrol of U.S. soldiers under NATO command trudged through snow and mud, keeping an eye out for smugglers or anyone else trying to cross the border. Given the bloody legacy of this area, the situation is quiet now, at least up here.

It is down below, in Serbia and Kosovo, where old angers are resurfacing as the Balkan region that spawned so much suffering over the last century is again becoming dangerously restive. And once again, Russia is stoking tensions, as it seeks to exploit political fissures in an area that was once viewed as a triumph of muscular U.S. diplomacy but that now underscores the growing challenges facing NATO and the European Union.

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Original post:

Russia stirs friction in Balkans as NATO keeps uneasy peace - Santa Fe New Mexican

As Others See It: Trump, NATO could team up to put Putin on notice – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Posted on by

An editorial fromBloomberg View

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have taken a tough line against Russias many recent provocations. Other than calling for all members of the alliance to pay their fair share of the military bill, however, they have offered no real plan of action.

Russias aggressions call for a stronger response. While Mr. Mattis is right to tweak the Europeans for slipping on defense spending, the metric that is repeatedly cited committing 2 percent of GDP to the military is arbitrary. After all, Greece, which uses the army as a jobs program, makes the cutoff, while France, which has arguably the continents most capable force, spends only 1.8 percent. Members should be judged not just on what they spend but how they spend it, in terms of readiness, force projection and equipment.

The alliance could also make an adjustment to its chain of command that would get the Russians attention: giving the supreme military commander authority to act independently of the bureaucratic structure in an emergency.

While NATO and the U.S. have increased their presence in the Baltics and Poland, these forces only rotate in and out of the region. The Pentagon should draw up plans for keeping at least two armored combat brigades and their heavy artillery in the region permanently, and to rotate in more aircraft to bases there and in Bulgaria and Romania. Granted, these troops would be little more than a speed bump in the event of a full-scale Russian invasion, but they would be a barrier to the more stealthy sorts of quasi-military aggressions the Kremlin used to destabilize Ukraine, and would ease anxiety in the Baltics.

Looking further ahead, the U.S. should look deeper into the past. One of former President Ronald Reagans great successes was the so-called dual-track approach to the Soviet Unions nuclear threat. While increasing the Wests military capability against the Soviets notably, getting permission from European allies to place nuclear-tipped Pershing missiles on their soil this strategy also coaxed mutually favorable nonproliferation agreements out of the Communist leadership.

President Donald Trump could do worse than following Reagans lead. This would involve renegotiating treaties to further cut weapons levels, extend expiration dates and clear up the ambiguity over systems like Russias new cruise missile, which it reportedly deployed recently. Meanwhile, the U.S. could start discussions with Eastern European allies on a new conventional missile system along Russias Western flank.

Of course, it may be worth asking if Mr. Trump, given his kind words for Russian President Vladimir Putin, would be willing to take this more assertive approach. This is why NATO needs to carry more of the load and why Mr. Trump needs to reaffirm his commitment to an alliance that is as vital now as it was during the Cold War.

Read the rest here:

As Others See It: Trump, NATO could team up to put Putin on notice - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pence Tries To Reassure Europeans On US Support For NATO, EU – TPM

Posted on by

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EG%f}9{@N[^rL-}T1 sxZXXOO.U+u/ U>V5P501<#ezhJtJhv'$_ dsZKb?='Lax%HQ^ %' E(SLUXMShn>*%BA]kvz1o'~[W`DUhzv(h_ q4L:}Fuu>mBH hEuRJp(Q7V/Q*|s5U@# DhhF#@Gax4wU&Kk0m{M=f|cq6/&i,lu#9)k,v8Q6t+hme$khVXTKu:"vQZ GY))ZN# @)RIHvvY$~+Ra$k6.z{r{^;<}W8~_q<}'yw3eFhg p%r:F-6+=C`7KG+|[hnYf?S!ZzEPHWzrV;N+Ez)=,Z2#;;uL<:isw(R35VtB=ZQ-;N~"O-mmv`W{Y^u[: (|<@'D vb=zoSM/OZi9NHphZ. yPuW X (hYdwgdx?=hv9>NVi!9!c=0> AA~]^C"7 x^tV/AGcl3!1P9a$r0WX2TRJ]QMyM)ArzOUystvCGggj29n'&otw,ZCNZ>3ccDG,YAxb+l,QG^~U%iIz!j8Q5p.XRS@P:vpu$[% sM(FbqZe(.W8HAQd.Gai*$B(Suq+"y8rsVhA }Tn?K:+!0Lq`_yS1AN>zzV;J}K'/e+O1{{ Fw4WAJ5R^wMzOCc+AVfMQL^==-IH69{`OuM#*I+%! 2!H9.ID,ts<.-o{jn[q s$6;n/lVma4&qMIw<|xD, [AL oo"fg^~Z-YiNQ_W[L: =jeB0$5y$tyKSF3PSrI$e +QtA:2&Y`[U$z+ uzD:gc9bHt4Cw`/;V@qsj,W'WT8hAM@w.e4>{d$s$@OsLyN'iCeEHGyOU56Z,Sq$!'<9[ZxK)M *=op].'KU(U_DKycO(i:2Y9LsZbfqZ:SAT uuMF(c8<]QTGBt8^(51YJCW ,w.Q7"WU' &#/KPEc+e*Jf$;@TUzTT+fpd`_K;Sp]ZvR{`V 98f;9VQ[m$m+TA}$$PfD2.# Vdr:irgn^}LBJ9`DR=Sv[qE2%y< D3a=E6|On3EYqMy^Zi/&T4_0!G~vD6g_|o K3|^ d|GGy$(SZ Hsin2y?vCeh6KP=J*q?w[5aZ!IHGzE >BhM'I@ftKR5u27wSC&E&b:uM{>;h$EUUP;x=) +C0$PE!US`26-"g[PaKR+$zWotYna#.;*PsD<7Ou 0uw}!Ey0k+-A9h8Ij)Z8NUb+.H4k@sTIfPA`<7x96SEnH=MEG)UpI1L?*Ip$?oP[FQMvT o/8T q8KoTfjg, x0Dn.zAX~Hb X}sC}rpA+J.0It RGhw LdN9`Zc_ZVMpBf'St[|AR"_1r P=>jL!EO?>j0B5zUOVRD [:Sv*UnbZgBqhTe _$p

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Pence Tries To Reassure Europeans On US Support For NATO, EU - TPM

Last man standing: McMaster for NSA? – Foreign Policy (blog)

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Foreign Policy (blog)
Last man standing: McMaster for NSA?
Foreign Policy (blog)
I think Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster will be the next national security advisor. Like Vice Adm. Bob Harward, General David Petraeus reportedly has withdrawn over the issue of being able to bring in his own staff. And Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, the acting ...

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Last man standing: McMaster for NSA? - Foreign Policy (blog)

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WaPo: The Fourth Amendment at the border and beyond: A few …

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ABA Journal's Blawg 100 (2015-2016)

by John Wesley Hall Criminal Defense Lawyer and Search and seizure law consultant Little Rock, Arkansas Contact / The Book http://www.johnwesleyhall.com

2003-17, online since Feb. 24, 2003

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fourth Amendment cases, citations, and links

Latest Slip Opinions: U.S. Supreme Court (Home) Federal Appellate Courts Opinions First Circuit Second Circuit Third Circuit Fourth Circuit Fifth Circuit Sixth Circuit Seventh Circuit Eighth Circuit Ninth Circuit Tenth Circuit Eleventh Circuit D.C. Circuit Federal Circuit Foreign Intell.Surv.Ct. FDsys, many district courts, other federal courts, other Military Courts: C.A.A.F., Army, AF, N-M, CG State courts (and some USDC opinions)

Google Scholar Advanced Google Scholar Google search tips LexisWeb LII State Appellate Courts LexisONE free caselaw Findlaw Free Opinions To search Search and Seizure on Lexis.com $

Research Links: Supreme Court: SCOTUSBlog S. Ct. Docket Solicitor General's site SCOTUSreport Briefs online (but no amicus briefs) Oyez Project (NWU) "On the Docket"Medill S.Ct. Monitor: Law.com S.Ct. Com't'ry: Law.com

General (many free): LexisWeb Google Scholar | Google LexisOne Legal Website Directory Crimelynx Lexis.com $ Lexis.com (criminal law/ 4th Amd) $ Findlaw.com Findlaw.com (4th Amd) Westlaw.com $ F.R.Crim.P. 41 http://www.fd.org Federal Law Enforcement Training Center Resources FBI Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (2008) (pdf) DEA Agents Manual (2002) (download) DOJ Computer Search Manual (2009) (pdf) Stringrays (ACLU No. Cal.) (pdf)

Congressional Research Service: --Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012) --Overview of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (2012) --Outline of Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012) --Federal Statutes Governing Wiretapping and Electronic Eavesdropping (2012) --Federal Laws Relating to Cybersecurity: Discussion of Proposed Revisions (2012) ACLU on privacy Privacy Foundation Electronic Frontier Foundation NACDLs Domestic Drone Information Center Electronic Privacy Information Center Criminal Appeal (post-conviction) (9th Cir.) Section 1983 Blog

"If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It isn't, and they don't." Me

I still learn something new every day. Pete Townshend, The Who 50th Anniversary Tour, "The Who Live at Hyde Park" (Showtime 2015)

"I can't talk about my singing. I'm inside it. How can you describe something you're inside of?" Janis Joplin

"Love work; hate mastery over others; and avoid intimacy with the government." Shemaya, in the Thalmud

"A system of law that not only makes certain conduct criminal, but also lays down rules for the conduct of the authorities, often becomes complex in its application to individual cases, and will from time to time produce imperfect results, especially if one's attention is confined to the particular case at bar. Some criminals do go free because of the necessity of keeping government and its servants in their place. That is one of the costs of having and enforcing a Bill of Rights. This country is built on the assumption that the cost is worth paying, and that in the long run we are all both freer and safer if the Constitution is strictly enforced." Williams v. Nix, 700 F. 2d 1164, 1173 (8th Cir. 1983) (Richard Sheppard Arnold, J.), rev'd Nix v. Williams, 467 US. 431 (1984).

"The criminal goes free, if he must, but it is the law that sets him free. Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence." Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643, 659 (1961).

"Any costs the exclusionary rule are costs imposed directly by the Fourth Amendment." Yale Kamisar, 86 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 36 n. 151 (1987).

"There have been powerful hydraulic pressures throughout our history that bear heavily on the Court to water down constitutional guarantees and give the police the upper hand. That hydraulic pressure has probably never been greater than it is today." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 39 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting).

"The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property." Entick v. Carrington, 19 How.St.Tr. 1029, 1066, 95 Eng. Rep. 807 (C.P. 1765)

"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people. And so, while we are concerned here with a shabby defrauder, we must deal with his case in the context of what are really the great themes expressed by the Fourth Amendment." United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)

"The course of true law pertaining to searches and seizures, as enunciated here, has notto put it mildlyrun smooth." Chapman v. United States, 365 U.S. 610, 618 (1961) (Frankfurter, J., concurring).

"A search is a search, even if it happens to disclose nothing but the bottom of a turntable." Arizona v. Hicks, 480 U.S. 321, 325 (1987)

"For the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places. What a person knowingly exposes to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection. ... But what he seeks to preserve as private, even in an area accessible to the public, may be constitutionally protected." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 351 (1967)

Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Governments purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. United States v. Olmstead, 277 U.S. 438, 479 (1925) (Brandeis, J., dissenting)

Libertythe freedom from unwarranted intrusion by governmentis as easily lost through insistent nibbles by government officials who seek to do their jobs too well as by those whose purpose it is to oppress; the piranha can be as deadly as the shark. United States v. $124,570, 873 F.2d 1240, 1246 (9th Cir. 1989)

"You can't always get what you want / But if you try sometimes / You just might find / You get what you need." Mick Jagger & Keith Richards

"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for meand by that time there was nobody left to speak up." Martin Niemller (1945) [he served seven years in a concentration camp]

You know, most men would get discouraged by now. Fortunately for you, I am not most men! ---Pep Le Pew

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WaPo: The Fourth Amendment at the border and beyond: A few ...

Minn. Supreme Court reverses Meeker County fourth amendment case – West Central Tribune

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The case stemmed from a 2015 arrest in Grove City. CEE-VI Drug and Gang Task Force agents had an arrest warrant for Leona Rose deLottinville, then 27, of Grove City. It was alleged that she had violated court-ordered conditions of release.

With information that deLottinville was at her boyfriend's Grove City home, officers went there on March 24, 2015, where they allegedly saw deLottinville through a glass patio door.

One officer opened the unlocked door, went inside the home, and arrested deLottinville.

Marijuana and a bong were sitting in plain view on a countertop.

After deLottinville's arrest, officers obtained a search warrant for the home and allegedly found marijuana, meth, hydrocodone pills and drug paraphernalia. She was charged with two additional counts of fifth-degree drug possession, and possession of drug paraphernalia.

In Meeker County District Court, deLottinville submitted a motion to dismiss all of the charges on the grounds that police should not have been allowed to enter the home.

Judge Stephanie Beckman granted the motion, and dismissed all charges against deLottinville in August 2016. Even as a short-term guest, Beckman stated, deLottinville had an expectation of privacy in the home.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, arguing that a guest in a home does not have a right to more privacy than the homeowner.

That decision was appealed to, and upheld by, the Minnesota Supreme Court, which issued the ruling Wednesday.

Justice David L. Lillehaug authored the opinion filed with the ruling.

In the Payton v. New York ruling, he wrote, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that an arrest warrant was grounds to enter the home in which that individual lives to arrest them.

What was not determined, Lillehaug wrote, was "whether the same holds true when the subject of an arrest warrant is believed to be present in another person's home."

The U.S. Supreme Court also previously ruled that an arrest warrant for a guest in a home does not justify searching the home. In that case, a search warrant would be required.

The case ruled upon on Wednesday, then, involved a window that had not yet been defined: What are a guest's rights inside a home?

Lillehaug wrote that even though the home is traditionally where an individual has a right to privacy, police can still enter to execute an arrest warrant. That constitutional reasoning should not change when the individual is in a home other than their own, Lillehaug wrote.

"A guest should not receive any greater Fourth Amendment protection when outside her home than when inside it," he wrote.

Justice Margaret H. Chutich dissented from the ruling.

She disagreed with the Supreme Court's application of the Payton v. New York ruling in the current case.

"This unwarranted extension of Payton fails to apply later Fourth Amendment precedents," Chutich wrote, "and fails to protect the right of a host from unreasonable governmental intrusion into the sanctity of her home, a right at the 'very core' of the Fourth Amendment."

The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits unreasonable search and seizure.

In the opinion, Lillehaug had acknowledged that, with the ruling, there would be "potential for abuse." But he said that in this case, deLottinville was visible to the officer before he entered the home. There was no evidence of abuse, he said.

Chutich wrote that that potential for abuse "is not merely theoretical."

"Minnesotans would certainly be surprised to realize that the police can enter their homes at any time with nothing more than an arrest warrant for an overnight guest, or even a short-term social guest," she said.

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Minn. Supreme Court reverses Meeker County fourth amendment case - West Central Tribune

Gorsuch Could Save the Second Amendment | LifeZette – LifeZette

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When Justice Antonin Scalia passed away suddenly last year, the Supreme Court lost its premier conservative voice and defender of the Second Amendment.

Justice Scalia was a champion of individual freedoms, and adhered to a strong originalistphilosophy of interpreting the Constitution. With little room for the personal politics that many judges try to inject into court rulings, Scalia relied on the text of the document to decide cases.

After eight years of anti-gun policies from the Obama Administration an open seat on the Court is a welcome opportunity to return to the principles of the Constitution.

That is also why its good news President Trump chose Neil Gorsuch, a current federal appellate judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, as his nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Gorsuch is someone who can fill this critical void left by Justice Scalia.

Gorsuch has also followed an originalist interpretation of the Constitution during his legal career, having been appointed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals by President George W. Bush, and before that, serving in the Department of Justice.

A firm belief in adhering to the freedoms spelled out in the Constitution by our Founding Fathers has given Judge Gorsuch a steady hand, and made him a popular and approachable member of the 10th Circuit. Though he has only ruled on a few Second Amendment related cases, Gorsuch has proved himself to be a defender of gun rights.

He made his stance very clear when he wrote in one legal opinion that "the Second Amendment protects an individuals right to own firearms and may not be infringed lightly."

With the current Court almost deadlocked on gun issues, any potential cases that come before the Supreme Court this year could have a make-or-break impact on Second Amendment rights in this country. If the Court decides to hear any gun related cases this year, it is critical that there be a majority of justices on the bench who believe in the Constitutional right to bear arms.

One potential case that could come before the Supreme Court this year challenges an individuals right to carry a gun for self-defense, and requiring them to prove to the government that they have a legitimate reason for doing so.

In 2014, Peruta v. California was decided by three judges on the 9th Circuit, who ruled that San Diego Countys policy of a gun owner needing a documented "good cause" in order to obtain a concealed carry permit was in violation of the Second Amendment.

However, the victory for the Constitution was short-lived, and the ruling was appealed. All 11 judges on the 9th Circuit were called in to rehear the case, and the ruling was overturned in 2016. The California Rifle and Pistol Association has petitioned the Supreme Court to review this case, and if their request is granted, Gorsuch will be a crucial vote. No citizen should need a government approved "reason" to carry a firearm it is already expressly stated in the Constitution.

An appeal has also been filed to ask the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to District of Columbia v. Heller, which in 2008 affirmed that it is a constitutional right to keep a gun in the home for self-defense. Justice Scalia wrote the opinion for that case, which was decided in a close 5-4 decision.

If the case is accepted by the Court, the justices will be asked to rule on a persons right to carry a gun outside their home for self-defense. With the decision in Heller being so close, it is critical that the Second Amendment have another advocate on the Court.

After eight years of anti-gun policies from the Obama administration, which sought to chip away at the right to bear arms, an open seat on the Court is a welcome opportunity to return to the principles of the Constitution. Instead of special interests and judges who attempt to shape public policy through court cases, Gorsuchs originalist and textualist viewpoint provides clear guidance uninfluenced by politics.

In the statement he gave following the announcement of his nomination, Gorsuch said, "Standing here, in a house of history, and acutely aware of my own imperfections, I pledge that if I am confirmed, I will do all my powers permit to be a faithful servant to the Constitution and laws of this great country."

With all of the potential challenges to the Constitution in the coming years, Gorsuch provides a foothold on what could be a rocky path.

Tim Schmidt is the president and founder of the U.S. Concealed Carry Association,and may be contacted at Press@USCCA.com.

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Governor Bevin joins amicus brief over California Second Amendment case – WKYT

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FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) - Governor Matt Bevin has joined in filing an amicus brief over a California Second Amendment case.

The governor's office announced on Monday that Governor Bevin has joined 25 other states in the brief over Peruta v. San Diego County. The second amendment case is challenging if a California law restricting citizens' rights to carry handguns outside their homes for self-defense is constitutional.

An amicus brief is a legal document filed in court cases by non-litigants with a strong interest in the subject matter.

The 26 states in the brief say that, when it comes to regulating gun rights, California thinks that the State can do things that would be unthinkable in other areas of constitutional law.

The other states included in the brief are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

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Governor Bevin joins amicus brief over California Second Amendment case - WKYT

Rep. Eddie Lumsden says Second Amendment rights should not be treated as privileges – Rome News-Tribune

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Campus carry legislation is back, with several bills up for consideration in the House Public Safety & Homeland Security Committee this week.

Gov. Nathan Deal vetoed a measure last year that would have allowed guns on college campuses, but state Rep. Eddie Lumsden, R-Rome, said he expects these to be more acceptable.

These are some modified bills, after having conversations with the governor, he said.

Lumsden, a retired Georgia State patrol trooper, sits on the committee that will consider House Bill 280 today. He quoted the Second Amendment in explaining his support of campus carry rights.

And a lot of urban campuses are very porous, so to speak,, he added. Just because you have a gun-free zone doesnt mean its gun-free.

HB 280 would allow people with permits to carry concealed firearms on all property owned or leased by a public institution of post-secondary education. The only exemptions would be at sports facilities, student housing to include fraternity and sorority houses and on-campus preschools.

An omnibus gun permit measure, HB 292, also is on the committees agenda. It contains a number of additions and revisions to the state law, including applications for airports, schools and courthouses. Other provisions address legalities for newcomers with permits from other states and people who have been involuntarily committed.

A subcommittee Lumsden sits on also will hold hearings on two gun bills today. HB 406 deals with reciprocal permit agreements between states. HB 232, requiring gun safety training to renew a permit, appears problematic to Lumsden.

Most conservatives dont believe its wise of government to require training because this is a right, not a privilege, he said. We all believe it would be a good thing, if youre going to carry a weapon, you be trained in its use. But this gets into constitutional questions.

The Georgia General Assembly officially reconvenes Tuesday for the 21st day of its 40-day session, which is slated to run through March 31.

Lumsdens election cleanup bill, HB 42, has already passed the House and is expected to come up for a full Senate vote Wednesday. It allows elections supervisors to correct mistakes on a ballot and lets communities use federal, rather than state, run-off dates to save money on elections.

Im told the lieutenant governor wants it to move. There are applications for some upcoming run-off elections, Lumsden said.

There are 18 candidates in an April 18 special election for the 6th Congressional District, vacated when Tom Price was tapped as President Donald Trumps secretary of health and human services.

Additionally, qualifying opens Wednesday for the election to replace state Sen. Judson Hill, R-Marietta, who is among those seeking Prices seat.

Lumsden also has two insurance housekeeping bills slated to move this week. HB 174 updates the law to acknowledge claims may be paid by check or other modern methods.

Right now, it uses legal tender, which means cash money, he said. Ive never seen a claim settled with cash.

HB 262 adds stand-alone dental insurance plans to the list of insurers that may use online, rather than printed, provider directories.

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Rep. Eddie Lumsden says Second Amendment rights should not be treated as privileges - Rome News-Tribune