The Hollywood Liberal

An Officer Is Shot in Ferguson Amid Continuing Protests
Authorities in the Missouri town, where a teenager was killed in August, said the officer was still alive.

Department Of Justice Orders Ferguson Police To Stop Wearing ‘I Am Darren Wilson’ Bracelets

Ferguson police are at it again.

The post Department Of Justice Orders Ferguson Police To Stop Wearing ‘I Am Darren Wilson’ Bracelets appeared first on ThinkProgress.

State Troopers watching a protest in Ferguson, MO.

CREDIT: AP/Charlie Riedel

A Department of Justice letter sent to the Police Chief Tom Jackson of Ferguson, Missouri on Friday instructed all officers to stop wearing “I Am Darren Wilson” bracelets. Another letter issued on Tuesday ordered members of the police department to wear readable name plates, after officers were seen wearing unidentifiable tags or none at all.

Protests have not stopped in Ferguson since officer Darren Wilson shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was unarmed, in August. And in response to civil unrest, which gained steam again after Brown’s memorial was burned to the ground on Tuesday, and the use of the slogan “I Am Mike Brown,” officers were photographed wearing the bracelets supporting the officer who killed him.

The DOJ letter sent to Jackson explained that the bracelets contributed to an “us versus them” mentality and “upset and agitated” others.

In a separate letter, the DOJ also said that officers must stop violating name tag protocol by obscuring or altogether not wearing their name tags. The practice, DOJ said, “conveys a message to community members that, through anonymity, officers may seek to act with impunity.”

Ferguson police previously drew national attention for the militarization of officers, which made the town look like a war scene and resulted in the arrest and attempted censorship of journalists on the ground. And clashes between police and protestors haven’t stopped.

Although Jackson gave Brown’s parents a video apology and joined protesters in the streets this week, Darren Wilson still hasn’t been charged, raising questions about the justice system and politics in the town. Ferguson has a history of racial tension, and research shows that justice is hard to come by for victims of police brutality. For example, a Supreme Court ruling gives police legal deference to determine “reasonable” force. But protestors say civil unrest will continue until the officer is held accountable.

The post Department Of Justice Orders Ferguson Police To Stop Wearing ‘I Am Darren Wilson’ Bracelets appeared first on ThinkProgress.

3 Things Chelsea Clinton Will Have After Giving Birth That Many Women Don’t

As Clinton welcomes her new daughter Charlotte into the world, she will have access to at least three things that all women deserve to have, but that many don’t.

The post 3 Things Chelsea Clinton Will Have After Giving Birth That Many Women Don’t appeared first on ThinkProgress.

This June 23, 2014, file photo shows Chelsea Clinton as she speaks at the Colorado Museum of Nature and Science, in Denver.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Brennan Linsley

When Chelsea Clinton first announced that she was pregnant in April, she beamed at the prospect of becoming a mother. “I just hope that I will be as good a mom to my child and hopefully children as my mom was to me,” she said at the time.

Now, after giving birth to her daughter Charlotte on Friday, Clinton will have access to many tools that may make it easier for her to achieve that end. Unfortunately, these tools are not widely available to many mothers living in the United States.

Here are three things that Chelsea Clinton will likely have access to that many other mothers in the United States don’t have access to or can’t afford.

Child Care

Clinton recently quit her job as a special correspondent for NBC News, where she reportedly received a $600,000 salary for each of her three years there. While it’s not clear how much she makes in her current position at the non-profit Clinton Foundation, it’s safe to say that she and her husband Marc Mezvinsky, an investment banker, will be able to afford child care for their new daughter while both of them are at work.

For many families, though, this isn’t the case. Child care is extremely expensive, representing the biggest single expense for a household in the Northeast, Midwest, and South — more than rent, food, and some public college tuition. This can be a big problem for single or working parents, who need somewhere for their children to be while they go to their jobs.

Government assistance for families who can’t afford child care has also recently hit a decade-long low. Over the last 20 years, while other countries have significantly ramped up how much they spent on child care — from .35 percent of GDP to .47 percent on average — U.S. spending on child care has only went up from .03 percent to just .11. The U.S. almost had universal child care in the 1970s, passing both the U.S. House and Senate, but the bill was vetoed by President Nixon. The issue hasn’t gotten much play since.

Maternity Leave

Along with Clinton being able to afford child care, it’s also safe to say that the Clinton Foundation — named after her and her parents — will allow her to take a paid maternity leave if she chooses. This is a luxury that only 12 percent of American workers currently have.

In the United States, new parents — mothers or fathers — aren’t guaranteed any paid time off. Parents are guaranteed up to 12 weeks off after the arrival of a child if they have worked for a company with more than 50 employees for a certain amount of time, but that time is unpaid. The conditions set on guaranteed unpaid time off means that less than half of all workers in the United States are covered by unpaid leave when a new child arrives.

As ThinkProgress’ Bryce Covert has pointed out, our policy of no guaranteed paid time off for new parents puts us in lonely company. Out of 185 countries, only the United States, Oman, and Papua New Guinea don’t guarantee paid maternity leave. In addition, 70 countries — including Australia, Iceland, and Kenya — offer paid paternity leave, while the U.S. does not.

Skirting The ‘Motherhood Penalty’

Also because of Clinton’s authority over her own job and the amount of money she makes, she likely won’t have to deal with what’s known in America as the “motherhood penalty.” In layman’s terms, this is a sociological reference to what happens to women in the workplace after they have a child — they are seen as less competent, receive disadvantages in pay, and are given less benefits.

According to a report from the think tank Third Way — which happens to have been founded by former staffers of Bill Clinton’s administration — a woman’s wages decrease by about 4 percent for each child she has, even when things marital status, work hours, and past experience are taken into account.

This problem is magnified for women earning the lowest wages — they see their pay decrease by nearly 7 percent for each child — but actually reverses for women in the highest income levels. Those women, like Clinton, actually get a wage boost from having children. The report found that the second-highest women earners a 1.7 percent wage boost for each child they have, while those at the very top bracket get a 5.4 percent increase.

The post 3 Things Chelsea Clinton Will Have After Giving Birth That Many Women Don’t appeared first on ThinkProgress.

Obama’s Imperial About-Face on War
Michael Cohen, Boston Globe
There is perhaps no issue where the gap between the rhetoric of candidate Obama and his actions as president have been so vast. Since becoming president, Obama has not actively sought nor received new congressional authorization for employing America’s military around the world — and in the current fight with the Islamic State, he’s breaking new and dangerous ground in expanding the president’s power to wage war. To be sure, this is a disputed legal question — where you sit (on Capitol Hill or at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.) largely determines how you answer it. That…

No Justification for WH Manipulation of Pool Reports

Would Loss Crack Dems’ Keystone Stonewall?
Byron York, DC Examiner
The federal government recently began its seventh year of considering whether to approve construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Nearly all that time has passed under the administration of President Obama, who seems content never to decide the pipeline’s fate. That way, it wouldn’t be built, which would please the president’s supporters on the liberal environmental fringe, but would never be explicitly rejected, which could offend everybody else. It’s striking to see an administration stonewalling an issue with so much popular support on the other side. A Washington Post-ABC News poll in…

Eric Holder’s Rap Sheet

2 States Suspend New Guardrail Use
Transportation officials in two states said they are halting the use of a widely-installed guardrail end terminal that was the subject of an ABC News investigation while they further investigate potential safety hazards. “Our internal observations, as well as our review of available information, indicates to us the ET-Plus guardrail end treatment is not performing as intended and could pose the risk of malfunctioning,” the Missouri Department of Transportation said today, referring to a newer version guardrail end piece. “Therefore, we are taking proactive steps to correct the situation. We are immediately stopping the further use of this product on Missouri’s highway system by taking it off of our approved products list, removing it from projects currently under construction and prohibiting its use on any future projects.”

Orthodox Jews Demand Gender-Segregated Flight
An El-Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv was turned into an “11-hour nightmare” after hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jewish passengers refused to sit next to women. According to those on board the flight descended into chaos because of their demands. The flight was full with Israelis, secular, orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews — known as Haredim — flying home to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Even though the passengers had been pre-assigned seats before boarding, the ultra-Orthodox Jews refused to accept the arrangements because their beliefs required that men and women were segregated.

Explosion tears apart truck in northern Arizona
PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities are investigating an explosion of a pickup truck that was parked on farmland near a remote enclave on the Arizona-Utah state line where polygamy has been practiced openly.

Obama to host lunch, dinner for fasting Indian prime minister
The fasting Indian leader will also be invited to a State Department lunch next week

Allen West Tells Military To Disobey Commander-In-Chief

Fox News contributor Allen West, who has previously called President Obama an “Islamist” with unclear “loyalties,” is now calling on the military to ignore orders from its commander-in-chief.

The Military Times reported that the Department of Defense will expand an existing program, Military Accessions Vital to National Interest (MAVNI), to allow recruiters “to target foreign nationals with high-demand skills, mostly rare foreign language expertise or specialized health care training.” The program “is capped at 1,500 recruits per year. Officials say it’s unclear how many of those might be unlawful DACA status immigrants as opposed to others who are also eligible for military service under MAVNI, including those with legal, nonpermanent visas such as students or tourists.”

The Times noted that “the military recruits about 5,000 noncitizens each year, nearly all of them permanent U.S. residents, or so-called ‘green card’ holders. Starting in 2006, DoD began accepting some foreigners with nonpermanent visas, such as students or tourists, if they had special skills that are highly valued. After entering military service, foreigners are eligible for expedited U.S. citizenship. Since 2001, more than 92,000 foreign-born service members have become citizens while serving in uniform.”

West, a retired Army Lt. Colonel whose service ended in controversy, reacted to the news on his Facebook page by writing that “Barack Hussein Obama took out his pen and ordered our Military to enlist illegal aliens. In other words, this charlatan has allowed those who have disrespected our Constitution and are not citizens to take an oath to support and defend the very document, our rule of law, of which they are in violation.”

He added: “This is an illegal order and should not be followed by our Military.”

Energy Policy: Regional Wild Card in the Midterms?
Carl M. Cannon, RealClearPolitics
Last May, an energy conservation bill appeared to be coming to the Senate floor for a vote. Passage seemed a foregone conclusion, but that’s a risky assumption on Capitol Hill these days, especially during an election year. Despite its grandiose name, The Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act was a modest collection of sensible ideas that included tax incentives and funding designed to encourage homeowners, landlords, and those who manage commercial buildings to improve the energy efficiency of their properties. Its sponsors claimed it would generate billions of dollars in energy…

Middle-Class Squeeze: Costs Rise 32% While Wages Stagnate
Christopher Rugaber, RealClearPolitics
WASHINGTON — Three years ago, Jason Prosser was stunned to discover the cost of child care for his newborn son — so much so that he and his wife postponed having a second child. The day-care center they found near their Seattle home tops $10,000 a year. Next year, their son, now 3, can attend a Catholic preschool less than half as costly. “It’ll be nice to have enough relief next year,” Prosser said. “It’s just funny that the relief will be a private school.” He and his wife are among legions of middle-class families who are straining under the…

Wanted: Grownups
Erick Erickson, RealClearPolitics
The United States had a cold war to win against the Soviet Union. For several decades, students were taught to dive under their desks should a nuclear bomb go off. People built bomb shelters. Americans got so tired of the containment strategy, they took a gamble on a guy from California whose strategy was simple: “We win. They lose.” President Reagan did win the Cold War. His Vice President, George H. W. Bush, swept into office promising to finish what Reagan started. The Berlin Wall fell. Then a threat sparked in the Middle East. Bush stormed into Iraq, freed Kuwait and saw approval ratings…

Striking ISIL in Syria; Energy Policy as a Midterm Wild Card; Who Shot JFK?
Carl M. Cannon, RealClearPolitics
Good morning, it’s Wednesday, September 24, 2014. On this day in 1964, the Warren Commission presented its report to President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was an incomplete and hurried work, marred by fanny-covering by the FBI and rife with personal conflicts, including Earl Warren’s friendship with the Kennedy family. It was, at the same time, an extraordinary effort on the part of dedicated public servants who had nothing to gain and much to lose. The fact that their reputations and careers survived afterward is itself a testament to the gravitas of the commission members: chairman…

Pile-up on the road to Birmingham
Political pile-up on the road from Edinburgh to Glasgow, via Manchester, Birmingham and Doncaster.

VIDEO: Fallon: ‘Long drawn out campaign’
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has told the BBC’s Newsnight that the UK’s air strikes in Iraq were the start of “a long drawn out campaign”.

Chelsea Clinton Gives Birth To A Girl
Chelsea Clinton is a mom!

The daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tweeted early Saturday morning that she had given birth to a baby girl named Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky:

Marc and I are full of love, awe and gratitude as we celebrate the birth of our daughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky.

— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) September 27, 2014

This is the first grandchild for the Clintons, who have been vocal in the past about wanting grandchildren.

Both Clintons have openly discussed their first grandchild. In mid-September, Bill Clinton received a call on a phone only used by his wife and daughter during an event, and said he hoped the call wasn’t a “premature” birth announcement. A few days later, Hillary Clinton told the crowd at the annual Harkin Steak Fry she and her husband were “on constant grandchild watch.”

Clinton announced her pregnancy while speaking at the Lower Eastside Girls Club in New York City in April.