The Queen Anne Community Council, which filed a formal appeal last month seeking to stop the portion of the Housing Affordability and Livability Agenda that would make it somewhat easier for homeowners to build cottages, attached granny flats, and garage apartments, is seeking to raise $25,000 in contributions to defeat the legislation.
Technically, the community council is charging that the city violated the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) by determining that the code changes in legislation proposed by council member Mike O'Brien have no significant environmental impact. In addition to allowing one more potential detached or attached accessory unit (a DADU or an ADU) per lot, the legislation would loosen the residency requirement for homeowners to build second units, and eliminate the current parking requirement, which mandates one new parking space for each new ADU or DADU.
The council says it needs the $25,000 to pay for attorneys' fees, evidence collection, and expert witnesses to testify before the city Hearing Examiner, who rules on cases involving SEPA.
As I reported earlier this year, the city's department of neighborhoods, under director Kathy Nyland, is making efforts to reach out to those who've traditionally been excluded from the neighborhood planning process, like the renters who make up half the city, and give them a voice. Doing so will necessarily make the property owners who wrote the current neighborhood plans, and are now willing to spend thousands of dollars to prevent changes that allow more people to live in "their" neighborhoods, uncomfortable. When you're used to owning the table, being asked to make room can feel like exclusion. But for the half of the city that has never had much of a say, as well as the tens of thousands who don't even live here yet, the changes look like something else: Progress.
I'm sure Erica appreciates such uncritical support from a Republican real estate agent who wants to up zone Magnolia. If you'd start by trying for apodments on Perkins Lane maybe we could get together.
Section C.2.d of the appeal statement contains a list of elements of the environment that the appeal alleges were erroneously determined by the City to have "no impact" as a result of the non-project action. Motions to dismiss always sound "pretty scathing." That's what lawyers do; write documents that sound compelling. Notice the little caveat in the last sentence of the motion suggesting that appellants be required to provide "specific statements of error"; this is called issue clarification, and is common when appeals are filed by non-lawyers.
More to the point, Erica's spin on the politics underlying the QA appeal is nonsense. No one in the "community councils" or any other constituency ever expected to "have all the seats at the table." The fact is that through much of the 1980s and 1990s community councils and many others with an interest, including renters and POC and social justice organizations and others, actually had seats at the table *along with* City planners, developers, businesses, and land owners. Now, to the contrary, *most* of the seats at the table are occupied by interests supporting the neoliberal paradigm—City bureaucrats and elected officials, developers and their supporters, and members of the NGO community who have decided to be at the table rather than on (or under) it, no matter how paltry the benefit or who among their own constituencies is poorly served thereby.
Certainly we can each read our own biases into these narratives of Seattle's history (along with having lived it since being in Seattle, since 1972 for me), but it is absurd to make such extreme statements that are clearly inconsistent with the historical record and personal recollection (myself and everyone I've talked to about the matter for the past forty years).
The city's motion to dismiss (http://web6.seattle.gov/Examiner/case/document/6243) is pretty scathing. Among other things, it accuses the neighborhood group of failing to state any specific reason why the original determination of non-significance was incorrect, which is apparently a required portion of the appeal.
Thanks for the link, Eric!


text:
BAUAW NEWSLETTER, FRIDAY, MAY 24, 2019
Join us to Remember the
Chinese "Comfort Women"
Saturday, May 25th at 11:30am
Please attend a Memorial in honor of Grandma Wei Shaolan and Tang Genzhen who recently died in May, 2019.
"This will be the first time San Francisco has a Memorial for two Chinese "Comfort Women"," says Judge Lillian Sing, ret.
"They are like our mothers," cries Chairwoman Soon Ran Kim of Jin Duck & Kyung Sik Kim Foundation.
"We urge everyone to attend to witness the Memorial for the two courageous women who broke silence," said Dr. Jonathan Kim, CEO of Jin Duck & Kyung Sik Kim Foundation.
Lunch will follow at New Saba Restaurant at 646 Washington St., San Francisco.
"Comfort Women" Justice Coalition
www.RememberComfortWomen.org
ComfortWomenCoalition@gmail.com
Painting by Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on San Quentin's death row. www.freekevincooper.org
Decarcerate Louisiana
Declaration of Undersigned Prisoners
We, the undersigned persons, committed to the care and custody of the Louisiana Department of Corrections (LDOC), hereby submit the following declaration and petition bearing witness to inhumane conditions of solitary confinement in the N-1 building at the David Wade Corrections Center (DWCC).
Our Complaint:
We, the Undersigned Persons, declare under penalty of perjury:
1. We, the undersigned, are currently housed in the N-1 building at DWCC, 670 Bell Hill Road, Homer, LA 71040.
2. We are aware that the Constitution, under the 8th Amendment, bans cruel and unusual punishments; the Amendment also imposes duties on prison officials who must provide humane conditions of confinement and ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and must take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.
3. We are aware that Louisiana prison officials have sworn by LSA-R.S.15:828 to provide humane treatment and rehabilitation to persons committed to its care and to direct efforts to return every person in its custody to the community as promptly as practicable.
4. We are confined in a double-bunked six-by-nine foot or 54 square feet cell with another human being 22-hours-a-day and are compelled to endure the degrading experience of being in close proximity of another human being while defecating.
5. There are no educational or rehabilitation programs for the majority of prisoners confined in the N-1 building except for a selected few inmates who are soon to be released.
6. We get one hour and 30 minutes on the yard and/or gym seven days a week. Each day we walk to the kitchen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which takes about one minute to get there. We are given ten minutes to eat.
7. The daily planner for inmates confined in the N-1 building is to provide inmates one hour and 30 minutes on yard or gym; escort inmates to kitchen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to sit and eat for approximately ten minutes each meal; provide a ten minute shower for each cell every day; provide one ten minute phone call per week; confine prisoners in cell 22-hours-a-day.
8. When we are taking a shower we are threatened by guards with disciplinary reports if we are not out on time. A typical order is: "if you are not out of shower in ten minutes pack your shit and I'm sending you back to N-2, N-3, or N-4"—a more punitive form of solitary confinement.
9. When walking outside to yard, gym or kitchen, guards order us to put our hands behind our back or they'll write us up and send us back to N-2, N-3, N-4.
10. When we are sitting at the table eating, guards order us not to talk or they'll write us up and send us back to N-2, N-3, N-4. )
11. Guards are harassing us every day and are threatening to write up disciplinary reports and send us back to a more punitive cellblock (N-2, N-3, N-4) if we question any arbitrary use of authority or even voice an opinion in opposition to the status quo. Also, guards take away good time credits, phone, TV, radio, canteen, and contact visits for talking too loud or not having hands behind back or for any reason they want. We are also threatened with slave labor discipline including isolation (removing mattress from cell from 5:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M.,) strip cell (removing mattress and bedding and stationery from cell for ten to 30 days or longer), food loaf (taking one's meal for breakfast, lunch, or dinner and mixing it all together into one big mass, bake it in oven and serve it to prisoners for punishment.)
12. When prison guards write up disciplinary reports and transfer us to the more punitive restrictive solitary confinement in N-2, N-3, N-4 or N-5, guards then enforce an arbitrary rule that gives prisoners the ultimatum of sending all their books and personal property home or let the prison dispose of it.
13. Louisiana prison officials charge indigent prisoners (who earn less than four cents an hour) $3.00 for routine requests for healthcare services, $6.00 for emergency medical requests, and $2.00 for each new medical prescription. They wait until our family and friends send us money and take it to pay prisoners' medical bills.
Our concerns:
14. How much public monies are appropriated to the LDOC budget and specifically allotted to provide humane treatment and implement the rehabilitation program pursuant to LSA- R.S.15:828?
15. Why does Elayn Hunt Correctional Center located in the capitol of Louisiana have so many educational and rehabilitation programs teaching prisoners job and life skills for reentry whereas there are no such programs to engage the majority of prisoners confined in the N-1, N- 2, N-3, and N-4 solitary confinement buildings at DWCC.
16. It is customary for Louisiana prison officials and DWCC prison guards to tell inmates confined in the prison's cellblocks to wait until transfer to prison dormitory to participate in programs when in fact there are no such programs available and ready to engage the majority of the state's 34,000 prisoner population. The programs are especially needed for prisoners confined in a six-by-nine foot or 54 square feet cell with another person for 22-or-more-hours-per-day.
17. Why can't prisoners use phone and computers every day to communicate with family and peers as part of rehabilitation and staying connected to the community?
18. Why do prisoners have to be transferred miles and miles away from loved ones to remote correctional facilities when there are facilities closer to loved ones?
19. Why are prison guards allowed to treat prisoners as chattel slaves, confined in cages 22-or-more-hours-per-day, take away phone calls and visitation and canteen at will, and take away earned good time credits for any reason at all without input from family, one's peers and community?
20. Why do the outside communities allow prison guards to create hostile living environments and conditions of confinement that leaves prisoners in a state of chattel slavery, stress, anxiety, anger, rage, inner torment, despair, worry, and in a worse condition from when we first entered the prison?
21. Why do state governments and/or peers in the community allow racist or bigoted white families who reside in the rural and country parts of Louisiana to run the state's corrections system with impunity? For example, DWCC Warden Jerry Goodwin institutes racist and bigoted corrections policies and practices for the very purpose of oppression, repression, antagonizing and dehumanizing the inmates who will one day be released from prison.
22. David Wade Correctional Center Colonel Lonnie Nail, a bigot and a racist, takes his orders from Warden Jerry Goodwin, another racist and bigot. Both Goodwin and Nail influences subordinate corrections officers to act toward prisoners in a racist or bigoted manner and with an arrogant attitude. This creates a hostile living environment and debilitating conditions of confinement for both guards and prisoners and prevents rehabilitation of inmates.
23. In other industrialized democracies like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, et al, it is reported that no prisoner should be declared beyond reform or redemption without first attempting to rehabilitate them. Punitive or harsh conditions of confinement are not supported because they see the loss of freedom inherent in a prison sentence as punishment enough. One Netherlands official reported that their motto is to start with the idea of "Reintegration back into society on day one" when people are locked up. "You can't make an honest argument that how someone is treated while incarcerated doesn't affect how they behave when they get out," the official added.
24. Additionally, some Scandinavian countries have adopted open prison programs without fences or armed guards. Prisoners who prove by their conduct that they can be trusted are placed in a prison resembling a college campus more than a prison. The result is a 20 percent recidivism rate, compared to a 67 percent rate in the United States.
25. The National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) in a position statement says: "Prolonged (greater than 15 consecutive days) solitary confinement is cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, and harmful to an individual's health."
What We Believe:
26. We believe that when the greater portion of public monies goes to war and the military, this leaves little funds left for community reinvestment and human development.The people have less access to resources by which to get a better idea of human behavior and rely on higher education instead of prison to solve cultural, social, political, economic problems in the system that may put people at risk to domestic violence and crime as a way to survive and cope with shortcomings in the system.
27. We believe that investing public monies in the rehabilitation program LSA-R.S.15:828 to teach prisoners job and life skills will redeem inmates, instill morals, and make incarcerated people productive and fit for society.
28. We believe that confining inmates in cellblocks 15-or-more=hours-per-day is immoral, uncivilized, brutalizing, a waste of time and counter-productive to rehabilitation and society's goals of "promoting the general welfare" and "providing a more perfect union with justice for all."
29. We believe that corrections officers who prove by their actions that incarcerated people are nothing more than chattel slaves are bucking the laws and creating hardening criminals and these corrections officers are, therefore, a menace to society.
Our Demands:
30. We are demanding a public conversation from community activists and civil rights leaders about (1) the historic relationship between chattel slavery, the retaliatory assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the resurrection of slavery written into the 13th Amendment; (2) the historic relationship between the 13th Amendment, the backlash against Reconstruction, Peonage, Convict Leasing, and Slavery; (3) the historic relationship between the 13th Amendment, the War Against Poverty, the War on Drugs, Criminal Justice and Prison Slavery.
31. We demand that the Louisiana legislature pass the Decarcerate Louisiana Anti-Slavery and Freedom Liberation Act of 2020 into law and end prison slavery and the warehousing of incarcerated people for the very purpose of repression, oppression, and using prisoners and their families and supporters as a profit center for corporate exploitation and to generate revenue to balance the budget and stimulate the state economy.
32. We are demanding that Warden Jerry Goodwin and Colonel Lonnie Nail step down and be replaced by people are deemed excellent public servants in good standing with human rights watchdog groups and civil rights community.
33. We are demanding that the LDOC provide public monies to operate state prison dormitories and cellblocks as rehabilitation centers to teach incarcerated people job and life skills five-days-a-week from 7:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.
34. We are demanding that the LDOC release a public statement announcing that "from this day forward it will not support punitive or harsh conditions of confinement," and that "no prisoner should be declared beyond reform or redemption without first attempting to rehabilitate them."
35. We are demanding that the prison cellblocks be operated as open dormitories (made in part a health clinic and part college campus) so that incarcerated people can have enough space to walk around and socialize, participate in class studies, exercise, use telephone as the need arise. Prisoners are already punished by incarceration so there is no need to punish or further isolate them. Racism and abuse of power will not be tolerated.
36. We are demanding an end to unjust policies and practices that impose punishments and deprive incarcerated people of phone calls, visitation, canteen, good time credits, books and other personal property that pose no threat to public safety.
37. We are demanding that LDOC provide incarcerated people cellphones and computers to communicate with the public and stay connected to the community.
38. We are demanding the right to communicate with reporters to aid and assist incarcerated persons in preparing a press release to communicate to the public Decarcerate Louisiana's vision and mission statements, aims, and plans for moving forward.
39. We are demanding the right to participate in the U.S.-European Criminal Justice Innovation Project and share our complaint, concerns, and demands for a humane corrections program.
40. We are only demanding the right to enough space to create, to innovate, to excel in learning, to use scientific knowledge to improve our person and place and standing in the free world. The rule of law must support the betterment and uplifting of all humanity. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said: "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
41. We demand that the responsibility for prisoner medical care be removed from DOC wardens and place it under the management of the state's health office; increase state health officer staff to better monitor prisoner healthcare and oversee vendor contracts.
42. We have a God-given right and responsibility to resist abuse of power from the wrongdoers, to confront unjust authority and oppression, to battle for justice until we achieve our demands for liberation and freedom.
We, the undersigned, declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.
Executed on this 28th Day of January 2019.
Ronald Brooks #385964
David Johnson #84970
Freddie Williams #598701
Earl Hollins #729041
James Harris #399514
Tyrone Carter #550354
Kerry Carter #392013
Ivo Richardson #317371
Rondrikus Fulton #354313
Kentell Simmons #601717
Jayvonte Pines #470985
Deandre Miles #629008
Kenneth P. #340729
Brandon Ceaser #421453
Tyronne Ward #330964
Jermaine Atkins #448421
Charles Rodgers #320513
Steve Givens #557854
Timothy Alfred #502378
—wsimg.com, January 2019
https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/1f4bce95-7ddd-4b2d-8ee7-d8edf36f394f/downloads/Declaration_of_Undersigned_Prisoners.pdf?ver=1555809786117
New Prison and Jail Population Figures Released by U.S. Department of Justice
By yearend 2017, the United States prison population had declined by 7.3% since reaching its peak level in 2009, according to new data released by the Department of Justice. The prison population decreases are heavily influenced by a handful of states that have reduced their populations by 30% or more in recent years. However, as of yearend 2017 more than half the states were still experiencing increases in their populations or rates of decline only in the single digits.
Analysis of the new data by The Sentencing Project reveals that:
The United States remains as the world leader in its rate of incarceration, locking up its citizens at 5-10 times the rate of other industrialized nations. At the current rate of decline it will take 75 years to cut the prison population by 50%.
The population serving life sentences is now at a record high. One of every seven individuals in prison – 206,000 – is serving life.
Six states have reduced their prison populations by at least 30% over the past two decades – Alaska, Connecticut, California, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont.
The rate of women's incarceration has been rising at a faster rate than men's since the 1980s, and declines in recent years have been slower than among men.
Racial disparities in women's incarceration have changed dramatically since the start of the century. Black women were incarcerated at 6 times the rate of white women in 2000, while the 2017 figure is now 1.8 times that rate. These changes have been a function of both a declining number of black women in prison and a rising number of white women. For Hispanic women, the ratio has changed from 1.6 times that of white women in 2000 to 1.4 times in 2017.
The declines in prison and jail populations reported by the Department of Justice today are encouraging, but still fall far short of what is necessary for meaningful criminal justice reform. In order to take the next step in ending mass incarceration policymakers will need to scale back excessive sentencing for all offenses, a key factor which distinguishes the U.S. from other nations.
[Note: China's population is 1,419,147,756* as of April 26, 2019 with 1,649,804 in prison***; while the population of the USA is 328,792,291 as of April 27, 2019** with 2,121,600 in prison.***
*http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/china-population/
**https://www.census.gov/popclock/
***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate]
Plea for Medical Release for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia and Dr. Harris
Dr. Joseph Harris MD Speaks on Mumia Abu-Jamal's need for medical release. Conversation with the O.G.M.D Series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHcirzjCH-c&feature=youtu.be
Statement: Philadelphia District Attorney's Office withdraws appeal in Mumia Abu-Jamal case
PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
PHILADELPHIA (April 17th, 2019) — Today the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office withdrew its recent appeal of an opinion granting a re-hearing of some previously decided issues in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. We withdrew the appeal because the opinion we appealed has been modified consistent with our primary concern — -that ruling's effect on many other cases.
The technical issue at stake here is simply whether or not some decided issues need to be re-heard by a Pennsylvania appellate court due to one former judge's having worn two hats — -the hat of an apparently impartial appellate judge deciding Abu-Jamal's case after he earlier wore the hat of a chief prosecutor in the same case. Although the issue is technical, it is also an important cautionary tale on the systemic problems that flow from a judge's failing to recuse where there is an appearance of bias.
Justice Castille did not recuse himself before deciding appeals in the Abu-Jamal case and several others, including the Williams case. In the Williams case, the United States Supreme Court decided that Castille should have recused himself because of the role he took as a chief prosecutor in Mr. Williams's matter. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that Mr. Williams's appeal be re-heard by the Pennsylvania appeals judges, without the taint of Castille's participation.
A similar question of Castille's role exists in the Abu-Jamal case. In order to help resolve it, our Office exhaustively searched hundreds of file boxes in relation to the Mumia Abu-Jamal matter, including six previously undisclosed boxes (now turned over to the defense, as required by law). While we did not find any document establishing the same level of involvement by Castille in the Abu-Jamal case as in the Williams case, we did find (and turned over) a June, 1990 letter from then-District Attorney Castille to then-Governor Robert Casey, urging that the Governor issue death warrants, especially in cases involving people who have killed police, in order to "send a clear and dramatic message to all police killers that the death penalty actually means something." Although the letter does not mention Mr. Abu-Jamal or his case by name, at the time Justice Castille wrote to Governor Casey, there were only three cases involving people who had been convicted of killing police that were pending. One was Mr. Abu-Jamal's.
In the end, the trial-level judge considering this issue wrote an opinion that agreed with us that these indications of strong feelings on the part of Justice Castille did not rise to the level of the direct and active involvement Justice Castille took in the Williams case but went further, deciding there should be a re-hearing of Abu-Jamal's decided issues anyway, based on more general principles of judges needing to recuse to avoid the appearance of bias.
Although the judge was not required to do so, on March 27 he issued another decision that addressed the concerns we raised. The judge made clear that his opinion should not be read to mean that several hundreds of cases were disturbed — -it should be applied only to people convicted of killing police officers whose cases were in the District Attorney's Office while Castille was District Attorney (the category of cases Castille highlighted in his June 1990 letter to Casey). Given that the trial-level court has now addressed the concerns that led us to appeal in the first place, we have withdrawn the appeal.
Our decision to withdraw the appeal does not mean Mr. Abu-Jamal will be freed or get a new trial. It means that he will have the appeals that Justice Castille participated in deciding reconsidered by a new group of appellate court judges, untainted by former Chief Justice Castille participating in their decision. The trial-level judge has ordered the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office and the defense to re-submit the legal briefs done in the past (which were written under prior administrations), effectively setting the clock back to where it was in the past.
Drone vet turned activist facing 50 years for whistle-blowing
Daniel Hale, an Air Force veteran and former US intelligence analyst was arrested May 9th and charged with violating the Espionage Act. Daniel is a well-known anti-drone activist who has spoken out a number of anti-war events and conferences. He's a member of About Face: Veterans Against the War, and he's featured in the documentary "National Bird." For years, Daniel has expressed concern that he'd be targeted by the government. Learn more.
Podcast: "There were US anti-war soldiers all over the world" - Hal Muskat
"I told my command officer that I wasn't going to, I was refusing my orders [to Vietnam] … In his rage, he thought if he court-martialed me, he'd have to stay in the Army past his discharge date." While stationed in Europe, Hal Muskat refused orders to Vietnam and joined the GI Movement, resulting in two court martials. This Courage to Resist podcast was produced in collaboration with the Vietnam Full Disclosure effort of Veterans For Peace. Listen to Hal Muskat's story.
to support GI resistance
Chelsea Manning returned to jail after brief release; Faces half million dollar fine in addition to another 18 months prison
Since our last newsletter less than two weeks ago, Chelsea Manning was freed from jail when the grand jury investigating Julian Assange and WikiLeaks expired. However, a few days later, she was sent back to jail for refusing to collaborate with a new grand jury on the same subject. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga ordered Chelsea fined $500 every day she is in custody after 30 days and $1,000 every day she is in custody after 60 days -- a possible total of $502,000. Statement from Chelsea's lawyers.
Stand with Reality Winner, rally in DC
June 3, 2019 at 7pm (Monday)
Lafayette Square, Washington DC
Please join friends and supporters as we raise awareness of the persecution of this young veteran and brave truth teller. This marks two years of imprisonment of Reality for helping to expose hacking attempts on US election systems leading up to the 2016 presidential election. For more info, visit the "Stand with Reality" pages on Twitter or Facebook. Order "Stand with Reality" shirts, banners, and buttons from Left Together protest shirts.
to enable our efforts
Funds for Kevin Cooper
https://www.gofundme.com/funds-for-kevin-cooper?member=1994108
For 34 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, paper, toiletries, supplementary food, and/or phone calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
Louis Robinson Jr., 77
Recording secretary for Local 1714 of the United Auto Workers from 1999 to 2018, with the minutes from a meeting of his union's retirees' chapter.
"One mistake the international unions in the United States made was when Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers. When he did that, the unions could have brought this country to a standstill. All they had to do was shut down the truck drivers for a month, because then people would not have been able to get the goods they needed. So that was one of the mistakes they made. They didn't come together as organized labor and say: "No. We aren't going for this. Shut the country down." That's what made them weak. They let Reagan get away with what he did. A little while after that, I read an article that said labor is losing its clout, and I noticed over the years that it did. It happened. It doesn't feel good."
[On the occasion of the shut-down of the Lordstown, Ohio GM plant March 6, 2019.]
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/01/magazine/lordstown-general-motors-plant.html
Courage to Resist is working closely with our new fiscal sponsor, the Objector Church, on a couple projects that we're excited to share with you.
1) A Transgender Woman Who Was Attacked in Dallas Last Month Has Been Found Dead
By Jacey Fortin, May 19, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/us/muhlaysia-booker-shot.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=US
Muhlaysia Booker spoke at a rally in Dallas last month after she was attacked in a parking lot. On Saturday, she was found dead.CreditCreditRyan Michalesko/The Dallas Morning News
When a transgender woman was attacked in a Dallas parking lot in April, cellphone camera footage of the episode made national headlines, and the police investigated it as a possible hate crime.
A month later, on Sunday, the Dallas Police Department announced that the woman, Muhlaysia Booker, 23, had been shot and killed. The police said it had no evidence linking the killing to the earlier attack.
At a news conference, Maj. Vincent Weddington said that officers found Ms. Booker shortly before 7 a.m. on Saturday, and that her identity was confirmed on Sunday. They had been responding to a report of a shooting and found Ms. Booker "lying facedown in the street, deceased from homicidal violence," he said.
Major Weddington added that Edward Thomas, the man who was arrested after he was filmed repeatedly punching Ms. Booker last month, was no longer in police custody, but that there was no indication he was linked to the killing.
Last month's attack took place on April 12, shortly after Ms. Booker was involved in an automobile accident in the parking lot of an apartment complex.
A video of the episode showed a man the authorities identified as Mr. Thomas repeatedly punching a woman on the ground as she struggled. Other men in the crowd kicked her before a group of women helped her get away. The police said that people in the crowd shouted anti-gay slurs during the beating, and that Ms. Booker was hospitalized with a concussion and a fractured wrist.
Attacks on transgender people have been rising, according to advocacy groups. At least 26 transgender people were killed in the United States last year, most of them black transgender women, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group. The group has listed three transgender people who were killed in 2019 — not including Ms. Booker — and all were black women who were fatally shot.
Those numbers may understate the problem because local officials are not required to report such killings to any central database, and because the police sometimes release incorrect names or genders, making it difficult to know that a homicide victim was transgender.
At a news conference after she was attacked last month, Ms. Booker stood on a podium and faced a group of supporters, several of whom carried signs in support of transgender people.
"This has been a rough week for myself, the transgender community and also the city of Dallas," Ms. Booker said.
"This time, I can stand before you," she added. "Whereas in other scenarios, we are at a memorial."
2) Medical School Doesn't Teach the 'Woman's Life Is in Danger' Curriculum
I'm a doctor and I know how misguided these new anti-abortion laws are.
By Jen Gunter, May 20, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/opinion/abortion-laws.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Melissa Golden for The New York Times
Over the past few weeks, Georgia, Alabama and several other states have passed restrictive, medically illiterate abortion laws that allow the procedure if the mother's life is at risk.
I am an obstetrician and gynecologist trained to do abortions. I do not know how to translate these laws into clinical practice because often the language is preposterously vague and they include terms with no medical meaning.
In Alabama, for example, a doctor can "deliver the unborn child prematurely to avoid a serious health risk to the unborn child's mother."
The legislation does not define what constitutes a "serious" maternal medical condition nor how "serious" it must be to prompt intervention. The language about how to terminate the pregnancy is similarly problematic. Does the vague word "deliver" mean an induction of labor, or does it also apply to a surgical abortion?
Consider this untenable scenario from 1998 that sadly may become more common if these laws stand.
I was asked to perform an abortion for a very sick pregnant women in her first trimester. She had a medical condition that was deteriorating much more rapidly than expected because of her pregnancy. She was not seconds away from dying, but her medical specialists were concerned that, in the next day or two, she would be likely to develop kidney failure.
While kidney failure can be managed with dialysis, preventing that from happening is the best medical course. Not only in the short term, but saving my patient's kidneys also would prevent a cascade of medical events that could end her life prematurely in the long term. After all, life expectancy is shorter on dialysis. That's why we do renal transplants.
My patient's specialists believed that, if she were not pregnant, they might be able to avoid dialysis. Ending her pregnancy would not save her life that day, but it might next week or next month or in five years. We don't have crystal balls in medicine, so we often can't say with certainty who will deteriorate with a given medical condition or precisely when.
But that year, the Kansas legislature had passed a law banning abortions on state property, which included the medical center where I worked. But under the law, an abortion would be allowed to save the life of the pregnant woman.
So when I received a call asking whether I could help this patient, my next phone call was not to the operating room to make arrangements — instead I called the hospital's attorneys. They did not know how to interpret the law either. Unless my patient was actively dying — for example, we were running a code for a cardiac arrest — an abortion would most likely be illegal. If I did the procedure, I would be fired.
To reconcile our disagreement, the hospital's attorneys felt the only course of action was to get the opinion of the legislator who wrote the law. An attorney set up a conference call with this man so that I could plead my patient's case.
I began to explain the medical situation, how ill she was. He interrupted me after a few seconds: "Whatever you think is best, doctor."
My patient got the abortion and her health improved as a result. But I was furious. How dare some legislator applaud this monstrous law in public all the while deferring to a doctor's expertise in private.
And things could have gone very differently. If the hospital's attorney had agreed that the abortion fit the legal requirement, then I would have provided the abortion without calling the legislator. But someone could still have reported me to the police. And then who would have adjudicated whether I was in acting in line with the law? The police? The district attorney? Twelve jurors? The governor?
How would I have defended myself if I had been arrested? Medical malpractice insurance does not cover criminal prosecution.
Or what if the hospital attorneys had simply said no? I could have risked being fired. Or I could have faced a malpractice lawsuit for not intervening as was medically indicated. I would have had to endure the emotional burden of knowing I had the training to help save a patient but did not act because I was afraid of the government.
If abortion restrictions come to pass, doctors may have to start calling politicians at home to find out how a law applies to their patient or else deal with the various ways these situations can go wrong.
And what of the answers they might get when they call? I know a woman who is 21 weeks pregnant with ruptured membranes who has an intrauterine infection and medically needs an abortion. Does Gov. Kay Ellen Ivey of Alabama know this?
Women will die if laws like those passed in Georgia and Alabama are allowed to stand.
The people who write our abortion laws are living in a post-truth world.So let me share some medical truths: Abortion is sometimes medically necessary, and women will have abortions whether they are safe and legal or not. Creating legislation that suggests otherwise does not change that truth.
Jen Gunter, an obstetrician and gynecologist, is a columnist for The Cycle, which covers women's reproductive health, and appears regularly in The Times's Styles section.
3) The Economy Is Strong. So Why Do So Many Americans Still Feel at Risk?
By Jacob S. Hacker, May 21, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/opinion/trump-economy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
A Ford worker on the assembly line at a plant in Dearborn, Mich., last year. CreditCreditBill Pugliano/Getty Images
President Trump is running for re-election on the strength of the economy, and why not? The unemployment rate is lower than it's been in five decades. The stock market is booming. Overall economic growth has been steady.
There's just one problem: Voters are not particularly enthused about it. Recent polls suggest a substantial majority of Americans feel the economy is working only for "those in power."
A big reason for this disconnect is that many Americans feel insecure. They may be doing well at the moment, but they fear that, however high they are on the economic ladder, a single bad step or bad event could cause them to slip. A booming economy hasn't quieted these concerns, because insecurity remains a huge and growing problem in ways that voters and candidates instinctively get but the sunny job numbers largely hide.
Insecurity is the broad challenge that all 2020 presidential candidatesmust address — and it helps explain why Democrats are tripping over one another to present bold plans for universal health care, public retirement supplements, guaranteed jobs and a much higher minimum wage.
Even with unemployment at a 50-year low, the job market is failing to reach millions of potential workers. That's because those who aren't working or looking for work are left out of the unemployment statistics. And the number of such workers has been growing: When unemployment was last down near 3.5 percent, in 1969, virtually all men ages 25 to 54 were in the work force. Today, the proportion is below 90 percent, the result of a long-term decline in work force participation that has hit men most severely, but has recently affected women, too.
Other rich countries haven't seen this troubling fall, in part because they have policies that help workers find jobs, keep their skills up-to-date and balance work and family. Unfortunately, the United States hasn't done much on any of these fronts. It once nearly led the world in levels of work force participation; now it's toward the back of the pack.
This reversal has had many bad effects. It's reduced the incentive to bid up wages, which used to be seen as the inevitable consequence of tight labor markets. It's also made unemployment less and less useful as a measure of job security.
The basic problem is that most of the jobs offered today don't provide the guarantees that workers once expected. This transformation is obvious in "gig economy" jobs like driving for Uber. But the gig economy is still pretty small; for most Americans, the problem is that their work has been gig-ified. Corporations used to pool major economic risks within their labor forces. They did so because they could — the pressures of financial markets and global competition were less constraining. And they did so because they thought they had to if labor unions were to remain satisfied. Now those risks are mostly on workers alone.
These changes aren't unique to the United States. Yet they're uniquely consequential because of how we safeguard economic security. The United States spends more on social benefits than any affluent country besides France once you take into account tax breaks and employer-sponsored benefits. But there is a big difference: We have a system that is premised on employers providing many of the benefits that governments elsewhere provide directly.
In the mid-20th century, American corporations came to be seen as mini-welfare states, providing workers not only with job security and continuous training but also with generous health benefits and a secure retirement income. That world is gone, and it's not coming back.
In short, the implicit social contract that once bound employers, families and government has unraveled, and nothing has taken its place.
This unraveling has taken different forms in different areas. In metropolitan America, it's seen in rising income volatility and the disconnect between wages and the skyrocketing costs of housing, health care and education. In rural and small-town America, the loss of productive employment looms larger. But what I've called the "great risk shift" is more or less universal for all Americans.
Which helps explain why ideas for tackling rising insecurity have broad appeal. At a recent town hall with Bernie Sanders on Fox News, the host thought he was setting a trap by asking audience members if they'd be willing to give up their employer-sponsored insurance for Medicare — and the audience cheered.
Universal health care would go a long way toward strengthening economic security (I've advocated achieving universality through a big expansion of Medicare). Moreover, Medicare's ability to contain costs is so superior to the private sector's that a broadened Medicare program would ultimately free up enormous amounts of state and federal spending to tackle insecurity in other domains.
Equally important are new measures to help people cope with an insecure labor market. Candidates running to unseat Mr. Trump have presented a range of ideas — from the familiar (ensuring unemployment insurance reaches all workers and limiting employers' ability to classify their workers as independent contractors) to the pathbreaking (a federal system of paid family leave and a retraining and jobs guarantee to draw discouraged workers back into the labor market).
Similarly, young Americans need a system for financing college that does not leave them deeply in debt. In an age in which the returns to college are not only higher but also more variable, it makes no sense to have young adults borrowing heavily to make a risky investment. Fortunately, proposals for debt-free college and income-contingent repayment of student loans are at the top of candidates' agendas, too.
Forty years of risk-shifting won't be reversed easily or quickly. The jury-rigged system that is crumbling still has powerful defenders, and it still works tolerably well for advantaged workers. Most daunting of all, it's still far too easy to scare Americans into thinking that extending security to those historically denied it will make them worse off, rather than better protected.
In an era in which trust in the public sector has plummeted, restoring economic security will require rebuilding that trust — and increasing the capacity of our governing institutions to earn it. But if Americans' unease amid affluence tells us anything, it's that we won't fix what's ailing our economy until we rebuild our fraying social contract.
4) Pregnancy Kills. Abortion Saves Lives.
Every Pregnancy poses a "serious health risk" to the mother
"In Alabama, the overall maternal mortality ratio in 2018 was 11.9 per 100,000. Among white women, the 2018 maternal mortality ratio was 5.6; among black women, it was 27.6..."
By Warran M. Hern, May 21, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/opinion/alabama-law-abortion.html
Dr. Whitney Goldsberry, center, who practices gynecologic oncology, protesting with a group of medical professional in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, during the the March For Reproductive Freedom there on Sunday.CreditCreditMelissa Golden for The New York Times
Pregnancy is a life-threatening condition. Women die from being pregnant. We have known that for thousands of years.
They die from hemorrhage, infection, pre-eclampsia (which can lead to fatal seizures), obstructed labor, amniotic fluid embolism, thromboembolism, a ruptured uterus, retained placenta, hydatidiform mole, choriocarcinoma and many other causes that fill the obstetrics textbooks. Modern medicine can prevent and treat many, but not all, of these conditions. Some potentially fatal problems cannot be foreseen or prevented. Pregnancy always comes with some irreducible risk of death.
There are factors that put some women at higher-than-average risk of death from pregnancy: age (to be an early adolescent is more dangerous), high blood pressure, many previous pregnancies, diabetes, obesity, a history of cesarean delivery, uterine abnormalities, a scarred cervix, a placenta previa (in which the placenta covers the cervix). A placenta previa can result in sudden, catastrophic hemorrhage that is fatal, and it can require a cesarean delivery — which carries its own risks — since a normal vaginal delivery is impossible.
The measure of risk to a woman's life from pregnancy itself is called the "maternal mortality ratio." That is the number of women who die of causes related to or aggravated by pregnancy per 100,000 live births.
In Alabama, the overall maternal mortality ratio in 2018 was 11.9 per 100,000. Among white women, the 2018 maternal mortality ratio was 5.6; among black women, it was 27.6, making black women in Alabama almost five times more likely to die as a result of pregnancy than white women. For the United States overall, the maternal mortality ratio was 20.7.
By comparison, a study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology on abortion mortality from 1998 to 2010 found that for the 16.1 million abortions performed during that time, the overall death rate was 0.7 per 100,000 procedures. The death rate for early-abortion procedures — those that took place within the first eight weeks of the pregnancy — was less: 0.3 per 100,000.
Pregnancy is dangerous; abortion can be lifesaving.
Alabama's new law claims that it does not prohibit abortion if there is a "reasonable medical judgment" that the pregnancy poses a "serious health risk" to the woman. An abortion may be performed if a "reasonable medical judgment" "necessitates" that a pregnancy be terminated to "avert her death or to avert serious risk of substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function." The definition of a "major bodily function" is not given, nor is it distinguished from a minor bodily function.
But pregnancy itself poses a "serious health risk" — including the risk of dying and losing all bodily functions. A woman's life and health are at risk from the moment that a pregnancy exists in her body, whether she wants to be pregnant or not.
All of the above raises multiple important questions: Could a doctor who determines that a woman is pregnant also determine, as a consequence of that pregnancy, that a "serious health risk" exists? Could that doctor then end her pregnancy without fear of prosecution? Who decides what a "reasonable medical judgment" is or what a "major bodily function" is? What are the criteria for these judgments?
Does the Alabama legislature recognize that the effects of its new law, depending on how it is enforced, are unequal, since black women are more likely to die from pregnancy in Alabama than white women and so are more likely to benefit from the availability of safe abortion?
Surely the Alabama legislature has carefully considered all of the above in drafting this law, which affects more than 2.5 million women in that state, some of them more than others.
Or perhaps not. Maybe all of this is moot. Perhaps the goal of the Alabama law, in addition to triggering a legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, may be to discourage doctors from even practicing medicine in that state, lest they be accused of performing an illegal abortion and sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives. Perhaps the vagueness of the law and the confusion is the point. Vagueness and confusion are tools of tyranny.
The intent of the Alabama legislature and its new law is clearly to prohibit and prevent abortions from being performed. But does it?
Warren M. Hern, a physician and epidemiologist, is director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic in Boulder, Colo., where he specializes in late-abortion services. He is the author of the medical textbook "Abortion Practice," a comprehensive guide to performing safe abortions.
"It was the summer of 1950. I was five years old and my sister was three. My mom had been gone most of the day before and when she came home, she came into our room and laid down on the bottom bunk bed in the only bedroom in our small, three-room apartment in Brooklyn, New York. It was my sister's bed, so she had to slept on the top bunk with me that night. It was early morning when my dad came in and saw the blood. Then the ambulance came and took my mother away. My sister and I were crying. Our mom came home a few days later. It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out what had happened to her. It was at a meeting in support of Roe v. Wade and my mother told of her abortion. It was with a doctor and a nurse. It took place in an empty apartment on a kitchen table. There were no vacuum aspirators at the time so the doctor performed a D and C. After it was over, the nurse took my mom to a movie and made her stay there till the movie was over so she had an alibi as to where she was that day. The abortion didn't go so well. When my mother was taken to the hospital the doctors threatened not to treat her unless she told them who did this to her. She said it just happened. She didn't want to get the doctor in trouble—or herself. This is what women are up against. This is why my mother fought so hard for Roe v. Wade—she defended clinics, marched, spoke at meetings and rallies in defense of Roe v. Wade until her death on August 14, 2001. Her name was Sylvia Weinstein."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/opinion/alabama-law-abortion.html#commentsContainer&permid=100599367:100599367
5) My Rapist Apologized
I still needed an abortion.
By Michelle Alexander, May 23, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/opinion/abortion-legislation-rape.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
In 1992, more than 300,000 demonstrators marched on the Capitol in support of abortion rights.CreditCreditMark Reinstein/Corbis, via Getty Images
My 12-year-old daughter recently asked me what I think about abortion. She walked into the kitchen, poked around the refrigerator, then spun around and blurted it out: "I can't decide what I think about abortion. I want to know what you think."
My daughter is an avid consumer of the news. Unlike myself at her age, she's genuinely interested in political news — news about climate change, racial and gender justice, and the next election. As her question hung in the air between us, I knew immediately that she had read the news that our home state, Ohio, had just banned nearly all abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest. Kentucky had already done so, in a law that's since been blocked by a federal judge. Alabama would soon follow. Several other states were lining up in the queue, eager to strip women of the right to choose.
I took a deep breath. Her question took me by surprise, and yet I had been waiting for it since the day she was born. I always knew the time would come when I would have to tell my daughters the truth: I was raped. And I had an abortion. One day, you may face these challenges too.
By age 45, nearly one in four women in the United States will have had an abortion, despite a steep decline in abortion rates since 2008 that experts say is due largely to increased availability of contraceptives. The likelihood of rape is also high. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women will be raped in their lifetime. This estimate strikes me as absurdly low, given what I know about my close female friends and family members.
I did not call my mother after I was raped, but I called her immediately after I learned that I had gotten pregnant as a result. It was my first semester of law school and I was terrified that everything I had hoped for my future was suddenly unraveling before my eyes. At the time, my father was unemployed. My mother was working a minimum-wage job. Miraculously, I was at Stanford Law School with a chance to pursue my dream of being a civil rights lawyer. But now everything was falling apart. I was devastated, emotionally wrecked, not only because I had been raped but because I was pregnant with my rapist's child. I wondered aloud whether I should just quit law school and give birth to the baby that had been forced inside me.
My mother listened quietly. She then told me that she, too, had been raped at about my age. She was raped by her boss when she was 20 years old. It was her first sexual experience. As she choked back tears, she said she never wanted her own daughter to experience the same fate. I begged her to tell me what to do — should I have this baby? — but she gently refused. "This is your choice, Michelle. Thank God you have a choice."
I found it difficult to face what had occurred. Like countless women, I found a way to blame myself: Why did I drunk-dial him at midnight? Why did I say he could come to my dorm room at that hour? Why didn't I scream? He wasn't a big man; he was rather skinny — muscular, but lean. Couldn't I have fought him off? I did say no, over and over, and tried to stop him. But his hand slipped over my mouth to silence me and his forearm pressed down across my shoulders to pin me to the mattress.
I didn't call the police — not after he left my dorm room and not after I discovered I was pregnant. I never once imagined that calling the police could help my situation. It could only make things worse. I envisioned prosecutors, courtrooms and interrogations. I was trying to survive my first year of law school, worried I might fail out, wondering how I would make it through my first round of exams. The last thing I wanted was to become a court case myself. Nor did I want a baby. I had no extended family to fall back on; no one who could loan me money to help raise a child; no place to go except to my parents' rented home — a place that felt temporary, at best, given their financial insecurity and recent eviction. I did not want to give a baby away and I did not want to raise my rapist's child.
At the time, I felt terribly alone but my circumstances were far from unusual. Black women have the highest rates of abortion in the country, undoubtedly due to the severe wealth gap between black and white families — a gap that holds even among the poor. The white household living near the poverty line typically has about $18,000 in wealth — primarily due to intergenerational wealth transfers — while black households in similar economic straits typically have a median wealth near zero. Although women of all colors who are poor are far more likely than those who have greater resources to choose to end their pregnancies, the situation for black women is especially dire. Although our families often want to help, as mine certainly did, that frequently proves to be a practical impossibility. A 2014 report found that for every dollar of wealth owned by the typical white family, the median black family owns just 5 cents. Even if I wanted to give birth to my rapist's baby — which I did not — I, like so many others, could not turn to my family for help.
During my second year in law school, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case, Rust v. Sullivan, that many worried might overturn the constitutional right to abortion established by Roe v. Wade. I recall some male law students arguing that abortion bans wouldn't be so bad, so long as there were exceptions made in cases of rape. I wondered how a "rape exception" to an abortion ban could possibly help women, like me, who did not want to report a rape to the police and who could not possibly prove that a rape occurred if the man denied it. Criminal cases take months, even years, to be resolved. Would abortions be allowed based on mere allegations of rape without any proof? If not, what would a woman have to prove in a matter of days or weeks to get an abortion in the first trimester? How could she overcome the inevitable denial? What man would admit to rape knowing that he'd face a likely prison sentence?
My own situation proved to be highly unusual in one respect. The man who raped me admitted what he had done and apologized. I doubt if he would've done the same if I'd been legally required to report the rape to obtain an abortion. I know many women who've been raped; not one has called the cops.
My rapist called the day after he violated me and left an awkward message on my answering machine saying he was sorry about "what happened." He did not use the word "rape." He asked me to call him back. I did not. More messages were left in the days that followed; each time he sounded more distraught, more apologetic, more despondent.
On the day I learned I was pregnant, I finally decided to call. I wanted to punish him with the news. Look what you've done to me. I wanted him to know that his actions had consequences and this was something we'd both have to live with for the rest of our lives, no matter what I decided. When he answered the phone, he sounded relieved that I had finally called. I interrupted his efforts to apologize yet again to deliver my news. After a long silence, he asked quietly, "Are you sure it's mine?" I nearly threw the phone against the wall but instead steadied myself and told him coldly that yes, you did this.
"Oh, no," he sighed. A long pause. "Are you going to keep it? It's your choice, totally up to you."
"I know it's my choice," I replied.
An even longer pause followed. The silence stretched between us and I refused to be the one to break it. Then he said slowly: "I know you don't believe me, but I am sorry. I didn't give you a choice. I will never forgive myself for what I did."
I know many women yearn for an apology like that. Eve Ensler, the renowned feminist playwright, just published a powerful book, "The Apology," that lays out in wrenching detail what she wished her father had said to her after years of brutal violence and sexual abuse. What I experienced in my dorm room was far less horrific but I still couldn't accept his apology. I didn't even think I wanted one. I told myself that I wanted nothing from him. I refused his offer to pay for the abortion. I refused to allow him to drive me to the clinic or to care for me upon my release. I refused to allow him to believe that there was anything he could do to make up for what he had done.
And yet, years later, I realized that I was free. I no longer felt fear, anger or resentment toward the man who raped me. Without even realizing it, I had forgiven him. It's difficult to imagine that I would feel the same if he had shown me no care or concern, or if I had been forced to endure a fresh wave of trauma in our court system, or if I had been forced to give birth to a child that I did not choose.
My daughter listened to my story with wide, frightened eyes. She did not want to hear that something like this had happened to me or that it could happen to her. Eventually she asked whether I thought my rapist's apology was truly sincere. Her skepticism was well founded. After all, many abusive partners apologize over and over again for the harm they've done even as they continue to do it. I would never tell my daughter or any woman to accept an apology or to forgive a man who abuses her. Nor would I tell any woman whether she should or should not terminate a pregnancy. Those are not my choices to make.
What I did say to my daughter, as she sat perched on our kitchen stool, is that I am filled with gratitude for the women who came before us — women who fought for the right to choose, who dared to imagine that we had the right to control our bodies and who said loudly and proudly that we should not be forced to bear children against our will. Roe v. Wade is rooted in a basic understanding that women's lives matter and that we have rights, needs and interests that don't vanish when we become pregnant. Pregnancy and childbirth can be extremely difficult — emotionally and physically painful — and bringing a child into the world is an enormous responsibility. Deciding whether or not to give birth may be the most important decision a woman will ever make, potentially changing the course of her life forever — or ending it. Black women, in particular, have high mortality rates during pregnancy. In some areas of Mississippi, black and Latina women are more likelythan women in some of the poorest countries in the world to experience a pregnancy-related death. Forcing any woman to see a pregnancy to term may be risking her life as well as her physical and emotional health.
I said to my daughter, as a young woman, you will be faced with many difficult choices in your life and I cannot protect you from all that may come your way. You will have to decide for yourself what you think about abortion and everything else. I will always respect the careful decisions you make. But since you asked me, I will tell you: If we want to continue to have the rights and freedoms that were won in the generations that came before us, if we want gender and racial equality, and if we want the right to control our own bodies and destinies, we are going to have to stand up, speak out and fight for our right to choose.
6) America's Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals.
The demise of a California housing measure shows how progressives abandon progressive values in their own backyards.
By Farhad Manjoo, May 22, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/opinion/california-housing-nimby.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Homeless people sleeping on the pews in a church in San Francisco.CreditCreditJim Wilson/The New York Times
To live in California at this time is to experience every day the cryptic phrase that George W. Bush once used to describe the invasion of Iraq: "Catastrophic success." The economy here is booming, but no one feels especially good about it. When the cost of living is taken into account, billionaire-brimming California ranks as the most poverty-stricken state, with a fifth of the population struggling to get by. Since 2010, migration out of California has surged.
The basic problem is the steady collapse of livability. Across my home state, traffic and transportation is a developing-world nightmare. Child care and education seem impossible for all but the wealthiest. The problems of affordable housing and homelessness have surpassed all superlatives — what was a crisis is now an emergency that feels like a dystopian showcase of American inequality.
Just look at San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi's city. One of every 11,600 residents is a billionaire, and the annual household income necessary to buy a median-priced home now tops $320,000. Yet the streets there are a plague of garbage and needles and feces, and every morning brings fresh horror stories from a "Black Mirror" hellscape: Homeless veterans are surviving on an economy of trash from billionaires' mansions. Wealthy homeowners are crowdfunding a legal effortarguing that a proposed homeless shelter is an environmental hazard. A public-school teacher suffering from cancer is forced to pay for her own substitute.
And there is no end in sight to such crushing success. At every level of government, our representatives, nearly all of them Democrats, prove inadequate and unresponsive to the challenges at hand. Witness last week's embarrassment, when California lawmakers used a sketchy parliamentary maneuver to knife Senate Bill 50, an ambitious effort to undo restrictive local zoning rules and increase the supply of housing.
It was another chapter in a dismal saga of Nimbyist urban mismanagement that is crushing American cities. Not-in-my-backyardism is a bipartisan sentiment, but because the largest American cities are populated and run by Democrats — many in states under complete Democratic control — this sort of nakedly exclusionary urban restrictionism is a particular shame of the left.
There are many threads in the story of America's increasingly unlivable cities. One continuing tragedy is the decimation of local media and the rise of nationalized politics in its place. In America the "local" problems plaguing cities are systematically sidelined by the structure of the national media and government, in which the presidency, the Senate and the Supreme Court are all constitutionally tilted in favor of places where no one lives. (There are more than twice as many people in my midsize suburban county, Santa Clara, as there are in the entire state of North Dakota, with its two United States senators.)
That's why, aside from Elizabeth Warren — who has a plan for housing, as she has a plan for everything — Democrats on the 2020 presidential trail rarely mention their ideas for housing affordability, an issue eating American cities alive. I watched Joe Biden's campaign kick off the other day; the only house he mentioned was the White House.
Then there is the refusal on the part of wealthy progressives to live by the values they profess to support at the national level. Creating dense, economically and socially diverse urban environments ought to be a paramount goal of progressivism. Cities are the standard geographical unit of the global economy. Dense urban areas are quite literally the "real America" — the cities are where two-thirds of Americans live, and they account for almost all national economic output. Urban areas are the most environmentally friendly way we know of housing lots of people. We can't solve the climate crisis without vastly improving public transportation and increasing urban density. More than that, metropolises are good for the psyche and the soul; density fosters tolerance, diversity, creativity and progress.
Yet where progressives argue for openness and inclusion as a cudgel against President Trump, they abandon it on Nob Hill and in Beverly Hills. This explains the opposition to SB 50, which aimed to address the housing shortage in a very straightforward way: by building more housing. The bill would have erased single-family zoning in populous areas near transit locations. Areas zoned for homes housing a handful of people could have been redeveloped to include duplexes and apartment buildings that housed hundreds.
The bill had garnered support from a diverse coalition of business and advocacy groups, and its sponsor, State Senator Scott Wiener, had negotiated a series of compromises with some of its fiercest opponents. Polls showed the measure to be widely popular. For the first time, something extraordinary looked possible: California's wealthy homeowners would abandon their restrictionist attitudes and let us build some new housing.
Nope. Instead, Anthony Portantino, a Democratic state senator whose district includes the posh city of La Cañada Flintridge and who heads the appropriations committee, announced that he'd be shelving the bill until next year. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, he worried that the law would spur lots of people to move near residential bus routes, which he suggested would alter the character of enclaves like his.
And? Why is that so bad?
Reading opposition to SB 50 and other efforts at increasing density, I'm struck by an unsettling thought: What Republicans want to do with I.C.E. and border walls, wealthy progressive Democrats are doing with zoning and Nimbyism. Preserving "local character," maintaining "local control," keeping housing scarce and inaccessible — the goals of both sides are really the same: to keep people out.
"We're saying we welcome immigration, we welcome refugees, we welcome outsiders — but you've got to have a $2 million entrance fee to live here, otherwise you can use this part of a sidewalk for a tent," said Brian Hanlon, president of the pro-density group California Yimby. "That to me is not being very welcoming. It's not being very neighborly."
7) 'Frightening': Charges Against Julian Assange Alarm Press Advocates
By Michael M. Grynbaum and Marc Tracy, May 23, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/23/business/media/assange-first-amendment-wikileaks.html
Julian Assange: New federal charges against him are likely to be challenged on First Amendment grounds.
Journalists and press freedom groups reacted with alarm on Thursday after the Trump administration announced new charges against Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks leader, for publishing classified information, in a case that legal experts say takes direct aim at previously sacrosanct protections for the news media.
In indicting Mr. Assange for obtaining, accepting and disseminating classified materials, the Department of Justice opened a new front in its campaign against illegal leaks. While past cases involved government employees who provided material to journalists, the Assange indictment could amount to the pursuit of a publisher for making that material available to the public.
"It's not criminal to encourage someone to leak classified information to you as a journalist — that's called news gathering, and there are First Amendment protections for news gathering," said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a lawyer who frequently represents media organizations like CNN. "The ramifications of this are so potentially dangerous and serious for the ability of journalists to gather and disseminate information that the American people have a right to know."
Federal prosecutors under President Trump have drawn criticism for extending a crackdown on leakers that had ramped up during President Barack Obama's administration. The indictment of Mr. Assange — which related to WikiLeaks' publication of secret documents leaked by Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence analyst — struck some experts as a grave escalation.
"It is one thing to charge a government official who has sworn an oath not to disclose classified information," said Matthew Miller, who served as the Justice Department's chief spokesman under Mr. Obama's attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr. "It's another thing to charge someone outside the government who published information or solicited information, which is something that reporters do all the time."
The charges against Mr. Assange are likely to face a challenge on First Amendment grounds. And journalists' use of illegally obtained materials has been upheld in Supreme Court cases. But Mr. Miller said prosecutors had now skated to the edge of criminalizing journalistic practices.
"The Espionage Act doesn't make any distinction between journalists and nonjournalists," Mr. Miller said, referring to the law that Mr. Assange is accused of violating. "If you can charge Julian Assange under the law with publishing classified information, there is nothing under the law that prevents the Justice Department from charging a journalist."
A deeply divisive figure, Mr. Assange is in some ways an unlikely martyr for press freedoms. A crusader for radical transparency, he is faulted by many American liberals for releasing hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee at the height of the 2016 presidential race.
"The calculation by the Department of Justice is that here's someone who people don't like," Mr. Boutrous said. "There's a real element of picking the weakest of the herd, or the most unpopular figure, to try to blunt the outcry."
Justice Department officials on Thursday cited Mr. Assange's mixed reputation as they tried to reject the notion that they were interfering with the free press.
"The department takes seriously the role of journalists in our democracy, and we thank you for it," John Demers, the head of the department's National Security Division, said at a briefing with reporters. "It is not, and has never been, the department's policy to target them for reporting."
"Julian Assange is no journalist," Mr. Demers added.
Still, press advocates were quick to condemn the Justice Department on Thursday. The American Civil Liberties Union called the indictment "a direct assault on the First Amendment." The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press described it as "a dire threat."
Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard lawyer who has been a recent ally of Mr. Trump, said the case against Mr. Assange was "really the first time since the Pentagon Papers that the government has gone after publishers."
"We all think there's a difference between The New York Times and Assange from a practical point of view, but from a constitutional point of view, it's hard to find that difference," Mr. Dershowitz said. "They're both publishing classified, stolen material."
"This is analogous to if The New York Times and The Washington Post had been prosecuted after publishing the Pentagon Papers," Mr. Dershowitz added, referring to the top-secret report on Vietnam whose publication in 1971 was upheld by the Supreme Court. "It's a very, very frightening development."
But Asha Rangappa, a lawyer and former F.B.I. counterintelligence agent, said she believed that the Justice Department had made a crucial distinction between Mr. Assange's activity and the work of traditional journalists.
"He wasn't simply a passive recipient of classified information; he actively participated in the breaking of the law," Ms. Rangappa said. She added that Mr. Assange's efforts to help his source, Ms. Manning, illegally obtain documents amounted to "aiding and abetting the criminal act itself."
"That is a meaningful distinction from a bona fide news organization that truly has a public interest goal," Ms. Rangappa said.
Seymour Hersh, the investigative journalist who exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and misconduct by the C.I.A., among other revelations, wrote in an email that the move against Mr. Assange was troubling.
"Today Assange," Mr. Hersh wrote. "Tomorrow, perhaps, The New York Times and other media that published so much of the important news and information Assange provided."
Katie Benner contributed reporting.
Credit Hannah McKay/Reuters
8) Lessons From a 'California Witch Hunt'
By Jill Cowan, May 24, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/us/california-witch-hunt-tenney-communists.html
Jack Tenney and Sam Yorty, a one-time ally who would orchestrate his ouster as head of the California Un-American Activities Committee.CreditCreditUCLA Library Special Collections
In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy was the architect of a series of investigations into supposed Communist influence in the U.S. through his House Un-American Activities Committee, which cost many their livelihoods. The term "McCarthyism" has since become synonymous with unfounded fear-mongering.
What may come as more of a surprise is that McCarthy's playbook was influenced by another un-American activities committee — in California.
Recently, I spoke to Bill Mabie, who pulled together an expansive digital exhibit for the California secretary of state's office, detailing the rise of a legislator named Jack Tenney.
In December, Mr. Mabie retired from the state government, where he had most recently served as chief deputy secretary of state.
He told me he finally had more time to hunker down on one of his favorite activities: browsing the state's archives, where he'd spent the last four years stealing away on lunch breaks to research the committee.
"This was a story that wasn't in a hurry to be told," Mr. Mabie said.
What he found was, in some ways, a classic California narrative: Mr. Tenney started out as an attorney moonlighting as a musician. He wrote a hit song — "Mexicali Rose," made famous by Gene Autry — and became a leader of the American Federation of Musicians Local 47 in Hollywood. When he first ran for State Assembly, he ran as a Democrat.
But in 1939, he was beaten out as union president. What followed was a true ideological about-face, Mr. Mabie said: Mr. Tenney blamed communists for organizing his defeat and got the legislative green light to start investigating "communist infiltration" at a state agency in Los Angeles.
Katharine Hepburn was investigated as a subversive and spoke out against C.U.A.C.'s tactics. CreditCalifornia Un-American Activities Committee Records, California State Archives
Mr. Tenney and his colleagues had broad investigative power because they were "fact-finders," and not law enforcement agents. This translated into extensive surveillance that would be almost comical if it hadn't been so unsettling.
At one point, a file on Frank Sinatra included a list of questionable activities like putting on a "nationwide tour of talks against discrimination."
Investigators peppered their reports with racist and anti-Semitic language.
By 1949, public pushback against Mr. Tenney had risen and he was ousted as the committee's leader, in no small part due to the betrayal of a former ally. (You can read about the rest of Mr. Tenney's less-than-distinguished political career in Part 3 of the exhibition.)
The California committee's work would continue for decades more, keeping close ties with the early F.B.I.
Mr. Mabie said he was drawn to the story not just for the famous names — Katharine Hepburn, John Steinbeck, Ronald Reagan — but also because he viewed it as a cautionary tale.
"It shows what happens when you allow power to go unchecked," he said. "Politicians are crafty people, man — they will find a way to survive."
[See all of the state's digital history exhibits here.]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


When we first saw Snuggles she was with her owner was in the parking lot of a local shelter, about to taken inside to be put down. Her hind quarters showed loss of muscle mass, with very little ability to move about. Mostly she was just dragging herself about using her front legs. Although he swore that this had only been going on for the last week, with that amount of muscle loss we certainly knew better! We took her on the spot and got her to one of our Vets immediately for X-rays, shots (he said she'd never had any) and a complete physical.
The news got even worse from there......she was also heartworm positive. What kind of life had this little dog been suffering through? She was pretty malnourished.....skin and bones, only 9.2 lbs., and barely 3 yrs. old. On top of that, they had been using her for breeding!
We took her in to see an Orthopedic Surgeon. The Ortho Vet took more X-rays and, after a complete evaluation, determined that "Snuggles" (she lives up to her name) had suffered a "blown disc" at some time in the past (months ago, at least), and, having never received treatment, the nerve involvement may, or may not be permanent at this point.
So......off we went to a very special Specialist....a Vet whose specialty lies in acupuncture, and physical therapy. We were told that If there was any hint of improvement after the first treatment or two, there was a very good chance of recovery. So, we made the first appointment and prayed.
At the first visit the Vet went over every inch of her, moving everything to its limit to determine how bad it was. It was pretty bad..........most of her muscles were shortened from lack of use, and pretty much locked in position. This wasn't going to be easy.....!
The next thing was to try to loosen things up, so one of the techs came out and gave Snuggles her first LASER treatment. This device creates deep heat within the muscles, and helps loosen things up. By the look on her face, Snuggles seemed to be enjoying it immensely.
Now for the really interesting stuff. A dozen or so acupuncture needles were inserted deep into the muscles of her back and rear legs. Then electrical probes were attached to the needles, and a low-dose current introduced. It did not seem to be making Snuggles uncomfortable in any way, but the way the little muscles were dancing away beneath the skin was interesting to watch, to say the least!
After about 20 minutes of that we were instructed in what we would need to do as "homework" until the next appointment, 4 days later: daily range of motion exercises would be needed, preferably in water! Well, thank goodness one of our foster Moms has a spa! We were also told that we should measure Snuggles, and get a wheelchair ordered for her immediately. Apparently, the wheelchair will act as a support mechanism during rehab, and will hold her in the proper position for further muscle-building exercises. Since it takes approx. 2 weeks to build one to suit her needs, time was of the essence.
Noon Saturday we were again at the rehab facility, and our Specialist was extremely happy with Snuggle's progress! Our foster Mom had been as good as her word, and her daily workouts with Snuggles had her range of motion showing a vast improvement!
After another LASER treatment, and some stretching exercises, another round of acupuncture w/ electric current followed. What came next was very interesting, indeed. One of the Technicians came in (dressed in swim trunks) and asked us to follow her to the hydo-treatment area. What we found was a large glass-walled walk-in tank with seating at one end, and a treadmill across the bottom. The surprise was that after seating herself in the unit with Snuggles in front of her, she hit a button that began filling the tank with warm water!
Here the Tech does the "walking" motions in the hydrotherapy chamber w/ the treadmill moving beneath Snuggles.
"Snuggles" has been going to the Rehab Center every Tuesday morning, and staying there until Friday afternoon when we pick her up, bring her home, and do the required repetitions daily until going back to Rehab again the following Tuesday...grueling for all. While at the center she receives the deep heat LASER treatments, hydrotherapy, acupuncture (w/ electric current) treatments twice daily. She is also working with the Physical Therapist on a daily basis.
This Specialty Clinic has been wonderful to us...! Snuggles heartworm treatment has begun, and the cost has been donated by the Vet. Much to our surprise, and with our deepest gratitude, the Rehab Center has offered to handle her rehabilitation free of charge! And, due to your generosity, we have been able to purchase a custom-made wheelchair for "Snuggles". She has now built up enough strength she even took a step on her own this week……..unaided by the wheelchair..!! Although her recovery will take many months she is making great progress, and seems to enjoy her therapy sessions and the attention it brings her.
We thank you all so very much for your support of "Snuggles", and all of the Special Needs Bostons.
page and subsequently to the Wall Of Thanks.


If religious-themed thrillers are your thing, check out Progeny and The Solomon Key. If you like horror and suspense, then try The Demon Signet and Seagull Summer. For a straight up mystery thriller with a twist of espionage, there's A Man Overboard!
It has been months since John Carter's estranged brother, Henry, has gone missing. When last heard from, he was sailing off to Bermuda in search of an author whose books deal with the esoteric traditions of past ages.
Reluctantly, John joins Henry's old Special Forces Teammates on a trip to Bermuda, hoping to discover the truth behind Henry's disappearance. But not all is as it seems in Bermuda, and the puzzle that awaits John on the small island paradise will prove to be more sinister than anything the world has seen in a very long time.
Described as "Dan Brown meets Lost meets Left Behind," Progeny takes the reader through the heart of the Bermuda Triangle and drops them in a world where biblical legends and ancient mythologies - the similarities of which Hopkins "describes with academic dexterity" - reign terrifyingly supreme. Buckle up! Progeny is "equal parts religious thriller and action-packed roller coaster ride!"
"This is a meaty meal of thrills!" - Ryne Douglas Pearson, best-selling author of Simple Simon and screenwriter of the box-office hit, Knowing.
Instead, he'll be cast into an ocean of deceit and dark conspiracy that will place doubt upon all that he holds dear in this world, putting to the test just how much a man's love can truly endure.
Except that the ancient relic has fallen into the hands of an unsuspecting Matthew Scott, a man who wants nothing other than to stay off the grid, hiding from his former employees and the atrocious sins they had him commit.
As armies of professional killers hunt him down, and with billions of lives trapped within the evil cross-hairs of a new world order, Scott must come to terms with his destiny... while the entire world, retribution for his crimes, and the only person he has ever cared for all hang in the balance.
An action-packed thriller, THE SOLOMON KEY is steeped in occult history as well as biblical prophesy. It takes place within a future "New America" while the stage is finally set for world government.
AN ANCIENT RELIC...A SECRET BROTHERHOOD...AN INFERNAL HUNTER...AND FOUR FRIENDS ON THE BACK ROADS OF HELL.
When a flight from Canada has to make an emergency stop at a small, remote airport in the middle of the mountains, Heather, Ashley, Ian, and Marcus decide to make the drive home to Maryland rather than wait for the airplane to be repaired. The only thing on their minds is getting home in time for Christmas.
Little do they know, however, that their rental car has come with a surprise, and that just seeing another Christmas might be a miracle too big to expect.
As an ancient puzzle is constructed along their path, and a blood-thirsty demon hunts them for what he believes is his, the four friends will find themselves caught in the midst of an age-long battle between Light and Darkness, ultimately coming face to face with the dark secrets hidden deep within their own hearts.
It's that time of the year again, that row of calendar boxes that we all spend months looking forward to. Summer vacation. A chance to escape the daily grind, to relax, unwind, reconnect and get some sun.
For Jeff, those days have always been spent in Cape May, NJ, and this year is no different. At least in that respect. But a terrible surprise awaits those vacationing in Cape May County this year, as those soaking in the rays will be forced to turn their attention from tan lines and funnel cake to simply surviving the rest of the week.
The Progeny story continues as Paul, Jackson, and Hunter find themselves left behind in the wake of the solstice. The activation of the pyramid has led to some sinister changes that not even the Fallen are safe from, and as Henry's friends join the remnant of pure-blooded castaways in trying to understand their new predicament, a terrible discovery is made concerning Chadwick's doomsday theories and John's end of days theology. But can they follow their friends out of this hell in time to warn the world?
ith the winter solstice just three months away, the Pure-blooded remnants are desperate for a plan that will get them into the relocated pyramid in time. But when scouts on a reconnaissance mission into the New Territory stumble across a cave that holds some of their missing sisters, Jackson and Paul spearhead an effort to get them back—and in the process discover that a lot more than just the island's topography has changed.
Meanwhile, Hunter has returned with some added features of his own, believing that he might just have the answer to their imprisonment buried in his subconscious. But can he and Daniel meet up with the others in time? Or will the island's new (or perhaps much, much older) inhabitants prove to be just another move on a multidimensional chessboard over which the game to free Abaddon has been playing out across the ages?
An epic showdown between the forces of Light and Darkness will not only determine the fate of the island and all those trapped on it but could also set the course for all of mankind in this wild, action-packed final installment of the Progeny trilogy.


English is a language with a huge vocabulary. To make matters even more confusing, many of these words have more than one meaning. This infographic shows the top ten words with the most definitions in the dictionary, and how they are used.


What are corporate rotational programs?
Corporate rotational programs provide you with in-depth experiences, ongoing mentorship, and targeted training across a range of business areas within a company. Companies usually use these types of programs to hire interns or post-graduates and train them through rotational programs (i.e. rotating through different parts of a company) or specific, structured training programs. The goal is to recruit and develop leaders for their organization.
This event will highlight the value of the training, mentorship, and experience that rotational programs have to offer. Previous companies who attended the event include: Bloomingdale's, NBC Universal, GlaxoSmithKline, Mastercard, and many more!


text:
Q: Python List is printing duplicates and cannot index values I am reading from a huge log file and looking for particular keywords. When they are found, I need to print each line that has the found keyword. Currently my code prints duplicate lines as many as the lines found from my list. Here is my code below. This is the updated and modified full code of what I did, basically here I found that it sends the lines with the keyword error, with an end line and is a bit slow, is it possible for me to just only print the first line using indexing:
important = []
phrases = ['Error']

with open("mypath\\to\\my\\logfile.log") as file:
    line = file.readline()
    for line in file:
        for phrase in phrases:
            if phrase in line:
                important.append(line)
                pattern = 'ERROR*' or 'Warning*'
                matching = fnmatch.filter(important, pattern)
                myTeamsMessage = pymsteams.connectorcard("myTeamsWebhook")
                if len(important) != 0:
                    # Add text to the message.
                    myTeamsMessage.text(str(matching))
                    # send the message.
                    myTeamsMessage.send()
                    # print(matching)
                    break
                else:
                    # Add text to the message.
                    myTeamsMessage.text("Log has no error, proceed with deployment")
                    # send the message.
                    myTeamsMessage.send()
                break

A: updated snippet with import of fnmatch
import fnmatch
#important lines?
important = []
phrases = ['Null-Reference-Exception']

with open("logfile.log") as file:
  line = file.readline()
  for line in file:
    for phrase in phrases:
      #print("Line", line)
      #print("phrase", phrase)
      if phrase in line:
        important.append(line)
        pattern = 'ERROR*' or 'Warning*'
        #https://docs.python.org/3/library/fnmatch.html
        matching = fnmatch.filter(important, pattern)
        print(str(matching))

my example logfile contents:
WARNING: You forgot to initialize a variable on line 27
ERROR: This code broke unexpectedly Null-Reference-Exception 34
ERROR: This other code broke unexpectedly Null-Reference-Exception line 290

output with this example
['ERROR: This code broke unexpectedly Null-Reference-Exception 34\n']
['ERROR: This code broke unexpectedly Null-Reference-Exception 34\n', 'ERROR: This other code broke unexpectedly Null-Reference-Exception line 290']

Do you mean the second list in output above being the duplicate?
Your current code adds important lines and then filters any that match pattern for the print. Perhaps an if statement might do what you want? Might need more clarification if this is not what you meant.
Updated snippet (perhaps this is your intent)
import fnmatch
#important lines?
important = []
phrases = ['Null-Reference-Exception']
matches = []
with open("logfile.log") as file:
  line = file.readline()
  for line in file:
    for phrase in phrases:
      #print("Line", line)
      #print("phrase", phrase)
      if phrase in line:
        important.append(line)
        pattern = 'ERROR*' or 'Warning*'
        #https://docs.python.org/3/library/fnmatch.html
        matching = fnmatch.filter(important, pattern)
        for m in matching:
          if m not in matches:
            matches.append(m)
print(str(matches))

I used the same input as above
New Output
['ERROR: This code broke unexpectedly Null-Reference-Exception 34\n', 'ERROR: This other code broke unexpectedly Null-Reference-Exception line 290']

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


According to a new study published in the research journal PLoS ONE, conservationists need to reconsider how they're going to save the Ganges river dolphin -- one of just four extant river dolphins desperately in need of protection. Currently, conservationists rely on visual survey methods, which involve conservationists actually seeing and recording live dolphins. But the new study's lead researcher, Nadia Richman, believes there's a better way.
"Freshwater cetaceans occupy some of the most densely populated and polluted river systems in the world," Richman said. "We need to make decisions about the best way to manage these species before another becomes extinct. However, these decisions need to be based on evidence which means we need methods that can detect changes in population size in the quickest time possible and for the least cost."
Those changes, she said, can best be detected using the dolphins' intra-pod communication, in addition to traditional visual survey methods. Relying on a combined visual-acoustic survey could help conservation researchers keep track of individual dolphins as well as larger populations -- and it could eventually save the entire species.


Bradley H. Smallberg is a Certfied Public Accountant registered in the State of New York. Bradley earned his Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from Hofstra University and his Masters of Science in Taxation from Long Island University.
Bradley's experience includes extensive experience in individual, trust, partnership, corporation, estate and gift tax planning preparation, audit, review, and compilations. Bradley is also well versed in international taxation and planning.
Bradley is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants. He is also an active member of the Partnerships and LLC Committee at the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants.


Have you ever been caught without cards, coins, or props? This DOWNLOAD will show you how to perform magic using only your body. Join world re-known magician James Coats, as he shows you ways to perform magic without props.
Featuring the never before seen five person, no gimmick, no prop levitation that can be viewed from all angles, is fully inspectable, and can be performed almost anywhere and with anyone!
- Pull off your finger and show it in your other hand.
- Magnetize a spectator's fingers so they stick together.
- Switch a spectator's right and left sides.
- Make a bird appear anywhere at anytime.
- Make an angel appear on the shoulder of a spectator.
- Make a spectator's arms go through the floor.


Welcome to Westoba's Radiators business directory -- the premiere online directory for Canadian Businesses for Radiators/Automotive Radiators. Westoba provides information about key contacts in over one million Canadian companies as well as information, services and related resources.
Access the Local Canadian Business Directory featuring local Canadian Automotive Radiators companies, radiators, business and services in Nova Scotia. Search or list your Canadian company in the Westoba Canadian Business Directory.


Weight loss drug use is rising among British children, according to a new report. The problem? Many of these drugs are licensed for adult use only.
The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology reports that in the UK, around 1,300 people younger than 18 take adult weight-loss drugs every year. Statistics showed this number is a vast increase over the past decade.
More than 75 percent of the kids in this study were taking Orlistat, which is approved for kids in America, but not in the UK. On average, most of the kids stopped taking the obesity drug after three months and saw no weight loss benefits. Study author Dr. Russell Viner said the decision to stop might be due to unpleasant side effects, or the wrong dosage. He also speculated that many kids might have expected immediate results, and then quit taking the pills when they didn't see any.
The study's researchers say the drugs don't appear to be life-threatening or causing any serious harm. But they said that since youth in the UK are taking them now more than ever, research should continue.