3589-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

The money was supposed to go toward feeding the most vulnerable children in Arkansas: Kids in low-income areas who relied on after-school programs for dinner or visited community centers during the summer because they might not get to eat otherwise.

Instead, authorities say a small group deliberately defrauded the system and pocketed at least $10 million in federal funds intended to feed at-risk youths in a place with one of the highest rates of child hunger in the United States.

The scheme unfolded over about 2½ years, and officials considered it “to be the equivalent of taking food directly from children,” said Chris Givens, a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman.

At least 12 people in Arkansas have been charged with crimes including wire fraud, bribery and money laundering in an ongoing investigation of misused funds related to federal feeding programs, according to government prosecutors.

Moreover, investigators said they could trace all of the corrupt activity back to internal sources, which state officials called a troubling and “extremely disappointing” matter. Of those charged, three were employees of the Arkansas Department of Human Services, the state agency that oversees the distribution of such funds from the U.S. Agriculture Department.

The unraveling of what turned out to be a staggering level of fraud began in mid-2013, when the state DHS received what it considered a suspicious claim from Jacqueline Mills, the sponsor of meal sites in rural eastern Arkansas. The site in question was in Helena-West Helena, a small city with a low population density; the claim amount was high enough to raise a red flag.

“The amount was almost a million dollars,” said Tonya Williams, a state DHS division director. “It was just like, ‘Wait a minute — that just doesn’t seem right.’ ”

The stage agency reported it to the USDA inspector general’s office. Soon the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and other federal agencies joined the investigation.

What they found shocked the Arkansas DHS. More than a year after the investigation began, Mills was arrested on fraud and bribery charges, and so were two longtime DHS employees — Gladys King and Tonique Hatton.

“I was pretty mortified,” Williams said.

[She was the tops at ordering tows in D.C. And she was on the take.]

Investigators found that Hatton had accepted bribes — some directly, others made through payments to her relatives — in exchange for approving the maximum number of children who would be fed at Mills’s site in eastern Arkansas.

Mills, in turn, allegedly submitted inflated claims for reimbursement to the state DHS.

Because her sites had already been approved for a certain number of children, the DHS approved and paid out the claims. Authorities estimate Mills’s sites received more than $2.5 million in federal funds through the state agency.

Investigators said that in exchange for bribes, King approved other sites knowing their administrators would submit similarly inflated claims.

King had worked at the DHS since 2009 and most recently served as a special nutrition-unit program coordinator; she voluntarily left the agency in December 2013, after the investigation began. Hatton began working at the agency in 2001 and was still employed there at the time of her arrest. The DHS fired her immediately.

“It’s extremely disappointing to learn that people were reportedly cheating a program that feeds hungry children, especially in a state that has one of the highest rates of childhood hunger in the country,” then-DHS Director John Selig said in a statement released the morning of the first arrests, in 2014. “We appreciate all the work to help us root out the bad actors so other providers can continue to ensure kids have adequate food when they aren’t in school.”

Over the following year, the investigation continued to turn up sobering discoveries of fraud and bribery.

In one case, a provider named Christopher Nichols submitted a claim to open two meal sites through an organization called “A Vision for Success.” Both locations were approved by King, his aunt.

One site was discovered to be an auto repair shop in North Little Rock owned by Nichols’s uncle Anthony Waits. The other address was nonexistent.

According to authorities, Waits was married to King.

In February, DHS administrator Mark Speight told KARK News that it was not unheard of for a feeding program to be run from an auto shop.

“When you’re feeding children, you might find some places you would never think would be a feeding site,” Speight told the station. “If there were children and there was an apartment complex right next to it and it had facilities to be able to serve, it could possibly happen.”

[Ex-Commerce Dept. IT specialist accused of bribery, funneling cash through chicken restaurants]

In March, another defendant, Reuben Nims, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud. According to the Justice Department, Nims admitted he was recruited by Waits to sponsor a meal program through an organization called “Blessed Thru Success.”

Nims had one approved site in Little Rock that he claimed fed up to 300 children per day.

It was all a lie, investigators found.

“No children were ever actually fed there,” the Justice Department said after Nims’s guilty plea.

In all, 12 people have been charged. This week, Hatton became the ninth person to plead guilty to crimes surrounding theft of federal feeding-program funds.

Three defendants have pleaded not guilty; their trials begin Oct. 17.

Only one defendant has been sentenced. In March, Kattie Jordan was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison. A judge also ordered her to pay joint restitution of $3.6 million.

The defendants face a maximum of 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine for the charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The punishment for accepting bribes is up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 maximum fine.

“Regardless of these statutory penalties, we feel these are very serious crimes,” said Givens, the U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman.

[‘They’ll kill for it’: Ramen has become the black-market currency in American prisons]

It is unclear how many children in Arkansas rely on free or reduced meals outside of school, but nearly 289,000 of the state’s students (about 61 percent) qualified for free or reduced school lunches in the 2015-2016 academic year.

A 2010 Feeding America report said Arkansas had the highest level of child food insecurity in the country, at 24.4 percent.

“There’s hungry kids all over Arkansas,” Givens said. He added that it is unclear whether any children in Arkansas were not fed as a result of the fraud.

But based on USDA reimbursement rates — about $3.07 to $3.69 per lunch — the $10 million that was siphoned off from the programs in Arkansas could have meant anywhere from 2.7 million to 3.2 million meals for children, according to a USDA spokeswoman.

The stolen funds came through two USDA programs: the Summer Food Service Program, which feeds low-income children when school is out, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

The Arkansas DHS receives about $70 million per year through the programs, an official said. With the funds, the agency served nearly 35 million meals and snacks to needy Arkansans in 2015.

“All of the defendants are connected through the DHS employees in some way, although not all defendants know each other,” Givens said in an email. “Tonique Hatton began her scheme, and the others at DHS followed. It could be considered the same fraud ring, in a sense, because the fraud was made possible through the same means, that is, with the help of the DHS employees.”

One way or another, most of the defendants took advantage of a relatively basic system: In Arkansas, local sponsors who want to participate in the feeding programs must get training and then submit an application to the state DHS.

Once approved, they can provide meals to qualifying children in the community, then submit claims for reimbursement based on the number of eligible meals they serve. An approved site also appears on the state agency’s website for participants in the Arkansas Special Nutrition Program.

Until recently, a single state DHS employee could be the one approving, visiting and reimbursing sites, said Williams, the division director.

“We have restructured completely, as you can imagine,” she said.

The agency has compartmentalized duties so that no one employee is responsible for approving and reimbursing sites “from beginning to end,” Williams said.

Moreover, Williams said, she uses the findings of fraud as a cautionary tale.

“It’s just part of training now,” she said, noting that she tells DHS employees, “You do not want to be on the front page.”

“When I do new-employee orientation,” she said, “it’s like: ‘You’re going to read about it. We’re not going to hide this elephant.’ ”

Amy B Wang is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post.

Follow @amybwang

(The Washington Post)

China urges calm after North Korea 'shocks the world' with nuclear test

Greg Baker | AFP | Getty Images

China 's Xinhua news agency, the mouthpiece of Beijing , quickly urged restraint afterNorth Korea 's nuclear test on Friday.

State-run Xinhua said in a commentary that the nuclear test had "shocked the world" and was in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, as well as running counter to the goal of denuclearization on the the Korean Peninsula.

The test, which reclusive North Korea claimed was a complete success, also added uncertainty to an already delicate and complicated geopolitical security situation, Xinhua said.

"All parties including North Korea should recognize that tumult on the peninsular, war and instability in Northeast Asia will benefit nobody," the commentary added.

The nuclear test was "unwise," the news agency, which is watched closely as a proxy for the Chinese government, concluded.

China is North Korea's only ally but has become increasingly impatient with the rogue nation, going as far as supporting new U.N sanctions against North Korea earlier this year.

But China's stance is complicated by the fact that it is also concerned by South Korea's recent deal with the U.S. to host an anti-missile defense system called THAAD - something North Korea has also opposed. The Xinhua commentary noted that South Korea's deal with the U.S on THAAD had contributed to a rise in tensions in the Korean Peninsula.

In a brief statement on Friday, China's Foreign Ministry said that was firmly opposed its neighbor's latest test and strongly urged North Korea to stop taking actions that heightened tension in the region.

China would stick to its promise of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and taking part in talks to resolve the issue, the ministry said.

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My parents, brother and I were on vacation in Florida, and we were talking about Donald Trump. The idea of leaving America if a scary Republican wins has always been a joke among high-minded liberals who can just fly off and find a job in Toronto or Geneva. But for my family, the joke had taken on a more sinister tone.

It was the Muslim version of “the talk,” and it went something like this: If, God forbid, it gets worse and a President Trump encourages a climate of hatred and persecution against American Muslims, then what are our options? Trump, after all, has expressed support for registering Muslims in a database and refused to disavow Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch.

My dad was born and raised in authoritarian Egypt, later immigrating to Canada and then the United States.

To my surprise, he is still technically a Canadian citizen. We had a backup plan! As we played out the various frightening scenarios, my parents, after flirting with the idea of self-imposed exile, reached the same conclusion: This is their country too, and they would fight for it. They wouldn’t give up.

It was an inspiring thing to watch, and a reminder that it’s possible to be both fully Muslim and fully American — right-wing noise to the contrary. One 2016 survey actually found that “Muslims who say their faith is important to their identity are more likely to say being American is important to how they think of themselves.”

Still, I understand why many Americans might find Islam puzzling and foreign. There’s no contradiction in the term American Muslim; but that doesn’t mean Islam is like other monotheistic faiths. It isn’t, in part because it doesn’t lend itself as easily to modern liberalism. The more I’ve studied my own religion — its theology, history and culture — the more I’ve come to appreciate how complicated it is and how much more complicated it must be for people who are coming at it from scratch.

Contrary to what many think, there is no Christian equivalent to Koranic “inerrancy,” even among far-right evangelicals. Muslims believe the Koran is not only God’s word, but God’s actual speech — in other words, every single letter and word in the Koran comes directly from God. This seemingly semantic difference has profound implications. If the Koran is God’s speech, and God is unchanging and perfect, then so is his speech. To question the divine origin of the Koran, then, is to question God himself, and God is not easily put in a box, well away from the public sphere.

Differences between Christianity and Islam also are evident in each faith’s central figure. Unlike Jesus, who was a dissident, Muhammad was both prophet and politician. And more than just any politician, he was a state-builder as well as a head of state. Not only were the religious and political functions intertwined in the person of Muhammad, they were meant to be intertwined. To argue for the separation of religion from politics, then, is to argue against the model of the very man Muslims most admire and seek to emulate.

Islam’s outsized role in public life leads, circuitously, all the way to the “burkini” controversy. Westerners might ask themselves: Is it really that big of a deal if a few French mayors ask women to wear a “normal” swimsuit on the beach? Well, yes.

If you’re a Muslim woman who wears the hijab — covering the hair and most of the body — you can’t wear just any swimsuit. Some women, of course, are pressured or even legally mandated to wear the hijab (as in Saudi Arabia and Iran), but most choose to do so; it’s about their personal relationship with God. Regardless of whether we like it, the predominant scholarly opinion today is that wearing hijab is fard, or obligatory. Although Western feminists may argue that covering up is sexist — it can encourage the idea that women are primarily sexual objects — asking Muslim women to take off the hijab is akin to asking them to violate their connection with the creator.

There are dress codes in Judaism too, of course, but it is only a relatively small number of ultraorthodox women who observe them. The hijab, by contrast, is ubiquitous in Muslim communities, and in some Muslim countries, such as Egypt and Jordan, the majority of Muslim women cover their hair. Again, this is often a conscious choice: Many Muslims take their religion so seriously that they want to observe seemingly restrictive and pre-modern dress codes. This is the case even in Turkey, where millions of women cover their hair despite decades of secular government and forced unveiling in state institutions.

This fact gets at something deeper, which often goes unsaid because it suggests there is — or at least there may be — a clash of cultures. Islam seems, at least by Western standards, unusually assertive and uncompromising. Critics might see it as full-blown aggressiveness. But Muslims often point to these qualities as evidence of Islam’s vitality and relevance in a supposedly secular age. To put it a bit differently, this is why many Muslims like being Muslim.

Whether consciously done or not, to be unapologetically Muslim today is to, in a way, show that other futures are possible, that the end of history may in fact have more than one destination. If Islam has been — and will continue to be — resistant to secularism, then the very existence of practicing Muslims serves as a constant reminder of this historical and religious divergence.

I realize that some of my fellow American Muslims will view such arguments as inconvenient, portraying Islam in a not-so-positive light. But it is not my job to make Islam look good, and it helps no one to maintain fictions that make us feel better but don’t truly reflect the power and relevance of religion.

In the West, the common response to the challenge of theological diversity has been banal statements of religious “universality.” All too often, interfaith dialogue, however well-intentioned, is about papering over what makes us — or at least our beliefs — different. It is a tenet of our American faith that we’re all basically the same and ultimately want the same things. This is true in some ways, but not in every way.

The crisis of culture and identity — one that sees the rise of the far-right and white nativism in our own country — makes it clear that our differences and divides are real. We would all be better off acknowledging — and addressing — those differences rather than pretending they don’t exist.

The Church's stance undermines our ability to speak with authority on other moral issues.

ON 9/8/16 AT 3:49 PM

Father Krysztof Olaf Charamsa (L), who works for a Vatican office, hugs his partner Edouard during a press conference to reveal his homosexuality in Rome, Italy, October 3, 2015. North London vicar Father Andrew Foreshew-Cain says the Church of England must realize there is no longer a single theology of marriage and relationships.TIZIANA FABI/GETTY

This week the Church of England found itself in a very publicly difficult situation about sexuality—again.

At the end of August, Bishop Nicholas Chamberlain, the Bishop of Grantham, came out as the first openly gay bishop with a partner. To those of us in the LGBTI community within the Church this wasn’t a surprise; we had all known for a long time.

But it has proved to be troublesome for the Church, which had chosen to purposefully conceal his relationship (Bishop Nic has always been open, if not public, about his sexuality.) When a new bishop is appointed there is an official biography and usually it includes some personal facts to paint a human picture—of the wife or husband, the children and pets, and a few details such as their like of real ale or hill walking. Oddly, these days new bishops all seem to like hill walking.

If you look at Bishop Nic’s biography there is no reference at all to the man with whom he has shared, as he has said, a loving and faithful relationship for 30 years. We now know that the Archbishop of Canterbury knew about this and indeed had them both round for dinner; the Bishop of Lincoln knew, and indeed the press office at Church House knew—it’s just that they couldn’t bear to think that anyone else would know.

This weekend has also seen the publishing of an open letter from 14 of the married gay and lesbian clergy of the Church of England, and other some married lay people, to our bishops. We wrote to share with them the joy and happiness we have in our married lives, and in the freedom to live with our wives and husbands in public, faithful and lifelong relationships. I had been with my husband for 15 years before we could marry, and being married has made a real difference—somehow the whole relationship feels more solidly grounded and we rejoice in that discovery.

The official position is that lay people can pretty much do as they please, though the Church ensured that it is impossible for gay couples to legally marry in a Church of England parish and local clergy are banned from offering services of blessing, such as those given to Prince Charles and Camilla after their civil marriage, even if the couple haven’t been involved in a notorious divorce.

Clergy are allowed to enter civil partnerships, again without a church service afterwards, and have to promise not to have sex with each other. Bishop Nic is not in a civil partnership but has said that he is celibate and in this he is entirely compliant with the current Church rules.

There has been an attempt at a blanket stop on marriage for gay and lesbian clergy, and those who do are officially disciplined, and a ban placed on them ever getting a new post in the Church. The Church will not consider for ordination anyone who is married to someone of the same sex, no matter how good a priest they might make.

Yet quietly, clergy are getting married or converting their civil partnerships to marriage; gay ordinands in sexual relationships are getting the nod through while appearing to comply with the selection procedures; and clergy are having sex in their civil partnerships. Priests are offering services of blessing and thanksgiving to gay and lesbian couples and parishes celebrating with them. The bishops all know this, and many even collude in the dishonesty around the current position with private words of support and public obedience to the official line. One recently married priest I know of was invited into the episcopal study, handed his letter of discipline and then the bishop’s wife arrived with two gin and tonics—and as she said “congratulations,” the bishop toasted the new couple.

Frankly, it’s a mess and an embarrassing one because everyone knows it’s a mess, and at a fundamental level is making the Church, as the archbishop himself said, look “odd.” Actually, I think it’s worse—the current stance makes us look hypocritical and foolish and undermines our ability to speak with any real authority on other moral issues. While the Church continues to treat the LGBTI community in ways that cause the archbishop sleepless nights in which he is “consumed with horror” we can hardly call out others for their treatment of the poor, the widowed and the orphaned as our faith requires us to do.

The married clergy wrote to urge the bishops to recognize that this isn’t working. We asked for some honesty and that they allow parishes freedom to celebrate our relationships without fear of retribution or censure. We aren’t expecting wedding bells in our churches just yet, but we do expect to be able to say prayers, offer blessings and to rejoice in the love that brings two people together to make a commitment to each other. We know that some in the Church won’t find this acceptable; there have always been some who find change difficult. But there is no longer a single theology of marriage and relationships in the Church and it is time this was recognized.

The bishops have banged on for two years about “good disagreement” as being fundamental to the Church’s life and flourishing—it is time for that rhetoric to become reality.

Andrew Foreshew-Cain is a vicar at St Mary with All Souls, Kilburn, and St James West Hampstead, in north London.

(newsweek)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 9/9/2016 4:41:31 PM
	‘Mortified’: Inside a $10 million scheme to steal federal funds intended to feed hungry children By Amy B Wang September 8 at 1:39 PM (Steven Senne/AP) The money was supposed to go toward feeding the most vulnerable children in Arkansas: Kids in low-income areas who relied on after-school programs for dinner or visited community centers during the summer because they might not get to eat otherwise. Instead, authorities say a small group deliberately defrauded the system and pocketed at least $10 million in federal funds intended to feed at-risk youths in a place with one of the highest rates of child hunger in the United States. The scheme unfolded over about 2½ years, and officials considered it “to be the equivalent of taking food directly from children,” said Chris Givens, a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman. At least 12 people in Arkansas have been charged with crimes including wire fraud, bribery and money laundering in an ongoing investigation of misused funds related to federal feeding programs, according to government prosecutors. Moreover, investigators said they could trace all of the corrupt activity back to internal sources, which state officials called a troubling and “extremely disappointing” matter. Of those charged, three were employees of the Arkansas Department of Human Services, the state agency that oversees the distribution of such funds from the U.S. Agriculture Department. The unraveling of what turned out to be a staggering level of fraud began in mid-2013, when the state DHS received what it considered a suspicious claim from Jacqueline Mills, the sponsor of meal sites in rural eastern Arkansas. The site in question was in Helena-West Helena, a small city with a low population density; the claim amount was high enough to raise a red flag. “The amount was almost a million dollars,” said Tonya Williams, a state DHS division director. “It was just like, ‘Wait a minute — that just doesn’t seem right.’ ” The stage agency reported it to the USDA inspector general’s office. Soon the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and other federal agencies joined the investigation. What they found shocked the Arkansas DHS. More than a year after the investigation began, Mills was arrested on fraud and bribery charges, and so were two longtime DHS employees — Gladys King and Tonique Hatton. “I was pretty mortified,” Williams said. [She was the tops at ordering tows in D.C. And she was on the take.] Investigators found that Hatton had accepted bribes — some directly, others made through payments to her relatives — in exchange for approving the maximum number of children who would be fed at Mills’s site in eastern Arkansas. Mills, in turn, allegedly submitted inflated claims for reimbursement to the state DHS. Because her sites had already been approved for a certain number of children, the DHS approved and paid out the claims. Authorities estimate Mills’s sites received more than $2.5 million in federal funds through the state agency. Investigators said that in exchange for bribes, King approved other sites knowing their administrators would submit similarly inflated claims. King had worked at the DHS since 2009 and most recently served as a special nutrition-unit program coordinator; she voluntarily left the agency in December 2013, after the investigation began. Hatton began working at the agency in 2001 and was still employed there at the time of her arrest. The DHS fired her immediately. “It’s extremely disappointing to learn that people were reportedly cheating a program that feeds hungry children, especially in a state that has one of the highest rates of childhood hunger in the country,” then-DHS Director John Selig said in a statement released the morning of the first arrests, in 2014. “We appreciate all the work to help us root out the bad actors so other providers can continue to ensure kids have adequate food when they aren’t in school.” Over the following year, the investigation continued to turn up sobering discoveries of fraud and bribery. In one case, a provider named Christopher Nichols submitted a claim to open two meal sites through an organization called “A Vision for Success.” Both locations were approved by King, his aunt. One site was discovered to be an auto repair shop in North Little Rock owned by Nichols’s uncle Anthony Waits. The other address was nonexistent. According to authorities, Waits was married to King. In February, DHS administrator Mark Speight told KARK News that it was not unheard of for a feeding program to be run from an auto shop. “When you’re feeding children, you might find some places you would never think would be a feeding site,” Speight told the station. “If there were children and there was an apartment complex right next to it and it had facilities to be able to serve, it could possibly happen.” [Ex-Commerce Dept. IT specialist accused of bribery, funneling cash through chicken restaurants] In March, another defendant, Reuben Nims, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud. According to the Justice Department, Nims admitted he was recruited by Waits to sponsor a meal program through an organization called “Blessed Thru Success.” Nims had one approved site in Little Rock that he claimed fed up to 300 children per day. It was all a lie, investigators found. “No children were ever actually fed there,” the Justice Department said after Nims’s guilty plea. In all, 12 people have been charged. This week, Hatton became the ninth person to plead guilty to crimes surrounding theft of federal feeding-program funds. Three defendants have pleaded not guilty; their trials begin Oct. 17. Only one defendant has been sentenced. In March, Kattie Jordan was sentenced to more than five years in federal prison. A judge also ordered her to pay joint restitution of $3.6 million. The defendants face a maximum of 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine for the charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The punishment for accepting bribes is up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 maximum fine. “Regardless of these statutory penalties, we feel these are very serious crimes,” said Givens, the U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman. [‘They’ll kill for it’: Ramen has become the black-market currency in American prisons] It is unclear how many children in Arkansas rely on free or reduced meals outside of school, but nearly 289,000 of the state’s students (about 61 percent) qualified for free or reduced school lunches in the 2015-2016 academic year. A 2010 Feeding America report said Arkansas had the highest level of child food insecurity in the country, at 24.4 percent. “There’s hungry kids all over Arkansas,” Givens said. He added that it is unclear whether any children in Arkansas were not fed as a result of the fraud. But based on USDA reimbursement rates — about $3.07 to $3.69 per lunch — the $10 million that was siphoned off from the programs in Arkansas could have meant anywhere from 2.7 million to 3.2 million meals for children, according to a USDA spokeswoman. The stolen funds came through two USDA programs: the Summer Food Service Program, which feeds low-income children when school is out, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. The Arkansas DHS receives about $70 million per year through the programs, an official said. With the funds, the agency served nearly 35 million meals and snacks to needy Arkansans in 2015. “All of the defendants are connected through the DHS employees in some way, although not all defendants know each other,” Givens said in an email. “Tonique Hatton began her scheme, and the others at DHS followed. It could be considered the same fraud ring, in a sense, because the fraud was made possible through the same means, that is, with the help of the DHS employees.” One way or another, most of the defendants took advantage of a relatively basic system: In Arkansas, local sponsors who want to participate in the feeding programs must get training and then submit an application to the state DHS. Once approved, they can provide meals to qualifying children in the community, then submit claims for reimbursement based on the number of eligible meals they serve. An approved site also appears on the state agency’s website for participants in the Arkansas Special Nutrition Program. Until recently, a single state DHS employee could be the one approving, visiting and reimbursing sites, said Williams, the division director. “We have restructured completely, as you can imagine,” she said. The agency has compartmentalized duties so that no one employee is responsible for approving and reimbursing sites “from beginning to end,” Williams said. Moreover, Williams said, she uses the findings of fraud as a cautionary tale. “It’s just part of training now,” she said, noting that she tells DHS employees, “You do not want to be on the front page.” “When I do new-employee orientation,” she said, “it’s like: ‘You’re going to read about it. We’re not going to hide this elephant.’ ” Amy B Wang is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post. Follow @amybwang (The Washington Post)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 9/9/2016 4:59:37 PM
	Putin failed to achieve his main goal at the G20 summit Brian Whitmore, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Sep. 8, 2016, 11:13 AM Russian President Vladimir Putin sits before the start of the opening ceremony of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou. Thomson Reuters One of the most significant things about the G20 summit was something that didn't happen. Hangzhou didn't become Yalta. China didn't become Munich. But Vladimir Putin sure wanted it to. In fact, Russia's actions in and around Ukraine over the past month appear to have been, at least in part, a big psy-op in the run-up to the summit. Moscow ginned up a fake crisis in Crimea in August, accusing Ukraine of sending a team of agent saboteurs to the annexed peninsula to carry out terrorist acts. Feigning outrage, the Kremlin then abruptly pulled out of planned four-party talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Francois Hollande. And all the while, Russia moved tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine's borders and conducted menacing military exercises, sparking fears that an all-out invasion was in the cards. It was in this context that Putin pushed for a joint meeting on the sidelines of the G20 with Merkel and Hollande -- but without Poroshenko -- aimed at resolving the Ukraine conflict behind Kyiv's back. "Putin appeared to be willing to offer certain compromises on Syria, expecting the West to reciprocate on Ukraine, decreasing their support to the Kyiv government," Aleksandr Kokcharov, Russia defense analyst at IHS Jane’s 360, told Newsweek recently. It's a classic Kremlin tactic. Create a fake crisis and then offer to help resolve it on Moscow's terms. But it didn't work. Merkel and Hollande agreed only to meet Putin separately, where each pushed him to fulfill Moscow's obligations under the Minsk cease-fire. Both refused to cut any deals about Ukraine without Poroshenko's involvement. And to stress that point, the French and German leaders then met with US President Barack Obama to discuss Ukraine -- without Putin. Leaders pose for pictures during the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, September 4, 2016.REUTERS/Damir Sagolj Moreover, Hollande called for a resumption of four-party talks on Ukraine -- the so-called Normandy format -- and Putin acquiesced. "Putin is still where he was two months ago, before the recent reescalation in east Ukraine and military buildup in Crimea," Kokcharov said. So the elaborate psy-op the Kremlin launched last month, when it accused Ukraine of plotting terrorist attacks in Crimea, fell flat on its face. But while Putin may have suffered a tactical diplomatic defeat in Hangzhou, he clearly hasn't given up on his strategic goal of dominating Ukraine, even as Kyiv makes impressive strides in reforming and modernizing its once-ramshackle armed forces. "Ukraine’s military is now larger, tougher, and more ready than ever. If Putin did decide on some major military adventure now, he would get much more than he bargained for," Mark Galeotti, a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague and a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently in Vox. "The Russians know this, and their military moves are instead meant to ratchet up the political pressure on Kyiv -- and to prepare just in case some day Ukraine feels strong enough to try to take back the Donbas by force." Servicemen march during Ukraine's Independence Day military parade in central Kiev, Ukraine, August 24, 2016.Gleb Garanich/Reuters And with its military buildup, Moscow also appears to be gearing up for the long game -- a protracted, tense, and sometimes bloody standoff with Kyiv that Putin thinks he can win. As military analyst Michael Kofman, a fellow at the Kennan Institute, wrote recently in Foreign Policy, the bases Russia is constructing along Ukraine's borders look like permanent garrisons, complete with soccer fields and long-term housing. The militarization of Crimea, meanwhile, continues apace. "Russia isn’t about to escalate the war in Ukraine’s east, but it is reorienting its forces to surround and contain Ukraine for years to come in a process that has been largely overlooked," Kofman wrote. "Russia will retain escalation dominance over Ukraine for the foreseeable future. By the end of 2017, its forces will be better positioned to conduct an incursion or threaten regime change in Kyiv than they ever were in 2014." Read the original article on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Reprinted with the permission of RFE/RL, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036. Copyright 2016. Follow Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Twitter. (businessinsider.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 9/9/2016 5:45:09 PM
	China urges calm after North Korea 'shocks the world' with nuclear test September 9, 2016 Greg Baker \| AFP \| Getty Images China 's Xinhua news agency, the mouthpiece of Beijing , quickly urged restraint afterNorth Korea 's nuclear test on Friday. State-run Xinhua said in a commentary that the nuclear test had "shocked the world" and was in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, as well as running counter to the goal of denuclearization on the the Korean Peninsula. The test, which reclusive North Korea claimed was a complete success, also added uncertainty to an already delicate and complicated geopolitical security situation, Xinhua said. "All parties including North Korea should recognize that tumult on the peninsular, war and instability in Northeast Asia will benefit nobody," the commentary added. The nuclear test was "unwise," the news agency, which is watched closely as a proxy for the Chinese government, concluded. China is North Korea's only ally but has become increasingly impatient with the rogue nation, going as far as supporting new U.N sanctions against North Korea earlier this year. But China's stance is complicated by the fact that it is also concerned by South Korea's recent deal with the U.S. to host an anti-missile defense system called THAAD - something North Korea has also opposed. The Xinhua commentary noted that South Korea's deal with the U.S on THAAD had contributed to a rise in tensions in the Korean Peninsula. In a brief statement on Friday, China's Foreign Ministry said that was firmly opposed its neighbor's latest test and strongly urged North Korea to stop taking actions that heightened tension in the region. China would stick to its promise of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula and taking part in talks to resolve the issue, the ministry said. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook .
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 9/10/2016 12:45:49 AM
	Op-Ed From burkinis to the Koran: Why Islam isn't like other faiths People picket outside of the French Embassy in Athens, Greece on Aug. 30. The protest was organized as a rally against Islamophobia and to show support for French Muslim women, as well as to call for the repeal of “burkini” bans in various southern French coastal towns. (Simela Pantzartzi / EPA) Shadi Hamid SEPTEMBER 9, 2016 My parents, brother and I were on vacation in Florida, and we were talking about Donald Trump. The idea of leaving America if a scary Republican wins has always been a joke among high-minded liberals who can just fly off and find a job in Toronto or Geneva. But for my family, the joke had taken on a more sinister tone. It was the Muslim version of “the talk,” and it went something like this: If, God forbid, it gets worse and a President Trump encourages a climate of hatred and persecution against American Muslims, then what are our options? Trump, after all, has expressed support for registering Muslims in a database and refused to disavow Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese Americans, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch. My dad was born and raised in authoritarian Egypt, later immigrating to Canada and then the United States. To my surprise, he is still technically a Canadian citizen. We had a backup plan! As we played out the various frightening scenarios, my parents, after flirting with the idea of self-imposed exile, reached the same conclusion: This is their country too, and they would fight for it. They wouldn’t give up. It’s possible to be both fully Muslim and fully American — right-wing noise to the contrary. It was an inspiring thing to watch, and a reminder that it’s possible to be both fully Muslim and fully American — right-wing noise to the contrary. One 2016 survey actually found that “Muslims who say their faith is important to their identity are more likely to say being American is important to how they think of themselves.” Still, I understand why many Americans might find Islam puzzling and foreign. There’s no contradiction in the term American Muslim; but that doesn’t mean Islam is like other monotheistic faiths. It isn’t, in part because it doesn’t lend itself as easily to modern liberalism. The more I’ve studied my own religion — its theology, history and culture — the more I’ve come to appreciate how complicated it is and how much more complicated it must be for people who are coming at it from scratch. Contrary to what many think, there is no Christian equivalent to Koranic “inerrancy,” even among far-right evangelicals. Muslims believe the Koran is not only God’s word, but God’s actual speech — in other words, every single letter and word in the Koran comes directly from God. This seemingly semantic difference has profound implications. If the Koran is God’s speech, and God is unchanging and perfect, then so is his speech. To question the divine origin of the Koran, then, is to question God himself, and God is not easily put in a box, well away from the public sphere. Differences between Christianity and Islam also are evident in each faith’s central figure. Unlike Jesus, who was a dissident, Muhammad was both prophet and politician. And more than just any politician, he was a state-builder as well as a head of state. Not only were the religious and political functions intertwined in the person of Muhammad, they were meant to be intertwined. To argue for the separation of religion from politics, then, is to argue against the model of the very man Muslims most admire and seek to emulate. CAPTIONPrinting the California Voter Information Guide There's a lot to know about the upcoming election in November, and California is doing its part to keep voters informed. Islam’s outsized role in public life leads, circuitously, all the way to the “burkini” controversy. Westerners might ask themselves: Is it really that big of a deal if a few French mayors ask women to wear a “normal” swimsuit on the beach? Well, yes. If you’re a Muslim woman who wears the hijab — covering the hair and most of the body — you can’t wear just any swimsuit. Some women, of course, are pressured or even legally mandated to wear the hijab (as in Saudi Arabia and Iran), but most choose to do so; it’s about their personal relationship with God. Regardless of whether we like it, the predominant scholarly opinion today is that wearing hijab is fard, or obligatory. Although Western feminists may argue that covering up is sexist — it can encourage the idea that women are primarily sexual objects — asking Muslim women to take off the hijab is akin to asking them to violate their connection with the creator. There are dress codes in Judaism too, of course, but it is only a relatively small number of ultraorthodox women who observe them. The hijab, by contrast, is ubiquitous in Muslim communities, and in some Muslim countries, such as Egypt and Jordan, the majority of Muslim women cover their hair. Again, this is often a conscious choice: Many Muslims take their religion so seriously that they want to observe seemingly restrictive and pre-modern dress codes. This is the case even in Turkey, where millions of women cover their hair despite decades of secular government and forced unveiling in state institutions. This fact gets at something deeper, which often goes unsaid because it suggests there is — or at least there may be — a clash of cultures. Islam seems, at least by Western standards, unusually assertive and uncompromising. Critics might see it as full-blown aggressiveness. But Muslims often point to these qualities as evidence of Islam’s vitality and relevance in a supposedly secular age. To put it a bit differently, this is why many Muslims like being Muslim. Whether consciously done or not, to be unapologetically Muslim today is to, in a way, show that other futures are possible, that the end of history may in fact have more than one destination. If Islam has been — and will continue to be — resistant to secularism, then the very existence of practicing Muslims serves as a constant reminder of this historical and religious divergence. I realize that some of my fellow American Muslims will view such arguments as inconvenient, portraying Islam in a not-so-positive light. But it is not my job to make Islam look good, and it helps no one to maintain fictions that make us feel better but don’t truly reflect the power and relevance of religion. In the West, the common response to the challenge of theological diversity has been banal statements of religious “universality.” All too often, interfaith dialogue, however well-intentioned, is about papering over what makes us — or at least our beliefs — different. It is a tenet of our American faith that we’re all basically the same and ultimately want the same things. This is true in some ways, but not in every way. The crisis of culture and identity — one that sees the rise of the far-right and white nativism in our own country — makes it clear that our differences and divides are real. We would all be better off acknowledging — and addressing — those differences rather than pretending they don’t exist. Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of “Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World.” (Los Angeles Times)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 9/10/2016 10:29:26 AM
	I AM A GAY VICAR AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IS AN EMBARRASSING MESS The Church's stance undermines our ability to speak with authority on other moral issues. BY ANDREW FORESHEW-CAIN ON 9/8/16 AT 3:49 PM Father Krysztof Olaf Charamsa (L), who works for a Vatican office, hugs his partner Edouard during a press conference to reveal his homosexuality in Rome, Italy, October 3, 2015. North London vicar Father Andrew Foreshew-Cain says the Church of England must realize there is no longer a single theology of marriage and relationships.TIZIANA FABI/GETTY This week the Church of England found itself in a very publicly difficult situation about sexuality—again. At the end of August, Bishop Nicholas Chamberlain, the Bishop of Grantham, came out as the first openly gay bishop with a partner. To those of us in the LGBTI community within the Church this wasn’t a surprise; we had all known for a long time. But it has proved to be troublesome for the Church, which had chosen to purposefully conceal his relationship (Bishop Nic has always been open, if not public, about his sexuality.) When a new bishop is appointed there is an official biography and usually it includes some personal facts to paint a human picture—of the wife or husband, the children and pets, and a few details such as their like of real ale or hill walking. Oddly, these days new bishops all seem to like hill walking. If you look at Bishop Nic’s biography there is no reference at all to the man with whom he has shared, as he has said, a loving and faithful relationship for 30 years. We now know that the Archbishop of Canterbury knew about this and indeed had them both round for dinner; the Bishop of Lincoln knew, and indeed the press office at Church House knew—it’s just that they couldn’t bear to think that anyone else would know. This weekend has also seen the publishing of an open letter from 14 of the married gay and lesbian clergy of the Church of England, and other some married lay people, to our bishops. We wrote to share with them the joy and happiness we have in our married lives, and in the freedom to live with our wives and husbands in public, faithful and lifelong relationships. I had been with my husband for 15 years before we could marry, and being married has made a real difference—somehow the whole relationship feels more solidly grounded and we rejoice in that discovery. The official position is that lay people can pretty much do as they please, though the Church ensured that it is impossible for gay couples to legally marry in a Church of England parish and local clergy are banned from offering services of blessing, such as those given to Prince Charles and Camilla after their civil marriage, even if the couple haven’t been involved in a notorious divorce. Clergy are allowed to enter civil partnerships, again without a church service afterwards, and have to promise not to have sex with each other. Bishop Nic is not in a civil partnership but has said that he is celibate and in this he is entirely compliant with the current Church rules. There has been an attempt at a blanket stop on marriage for gay and lesbian clergy, and those who do are officially disciplined, and a ban placed on them ever getting a new post in the Church. The Church will not consider for ordination anyone who is married to someone of the same sex, no matter how good a priest they might make. Yet quietly, clergy are getting married or converting their civil partnerships to marriage; gay ordinands in sexual relationships are getting the nod through while appearing to comply with the selection procedures; and clergy are having sex in their civil partnerships. Priests are offering services of blessing and thanksgiving to gay and lesbian couples and parishes celebrating with them. The bishops all know this, and many even collude in the dishonesty around the current position with private words of support and public obedience to the official line. One recently married priest I know of was invited into the episcopal study, handed his letter of discipline and then the bishop’s wife arrived with two gin and tonics—and as she said “congratulations,” the bishop toasted the new couple. Frankly, it’s a mess and an embarrassing one because everyone knows it’s a mess, and at a fundamental level is making the Church, as the archbishop himself said, look “odd.” Actually, I think it’s worse—the current stance makes us look hypocritical and foolish and undermines our ability to speak with any real authority on other moral issues. While the Church continues to treat the LGBTI community in ways that cause the archbishop sleepless nights in which he is “consumed with horror” we can hardly call out others for their treatment of the poor, the widowed and the orphaned as our faith requires us to do. The married clergy wrote to urge the bishops to recognize that this isn’t working. We asked for some honesty and that they allow parishes freedom to celebrate our relationships without fear of retribution or censure. We aren’t expecting wedding bells in our churches just yet, but we do expect to be able to say prayers, offer blessings and to rejoice in the love that brings two people together to make a commitment to each other. We know that some in the Church won’t find this acceptable; there have always been some who find change difficult. But there is no longer a single theology of marriage and relationships in the Church and it is time this was recognized. The bishops have banged on for two years about “good disagreement” as being fundamental to the Church’s life and flourishing—it is time for that rhetoric to become reality. Andrew Foreshew-Cain is a vicar at St Mary with All Souls, Kilburn, and St James West Hampstead, in north London. (newsweek)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+1

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China urges calm after North Korea 'shocks the world' with nuclear test

I AM A GAY VICAR AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND IS AN EMBARRASSING MESS

The Church's stance undermines our ability to speak with authority on other moral issues.