kscarbel2

DAF Trucks introduces the new High Gear collection DAF Trucks Press Release / November 15, 2016 DAF Trucks presents a completely new High Gear clothing line, complemented by elegant accessories and gadgets for anyone with a DAF heart. All items are available to order now via the webshop of DAF at www.dafshop.com. Innovation and high quality is not just the starting point in the development of DAF trucks. It’s also the principle behind the design of the new High Gear collection. The collection includes a great range of items, from a jacket that can be worn year round, to a protective sleeve for your tablet and an elegant ladies’ watch for DAF female fans. The new clothing is characterized by subtle orange touches like the zip tags and a small badge on the sleeve. Each fashionable garment is designed for the best fit and highest quality and for a seamlessly fit into the clothing trends. The waterproof (and for the ladies, fitted) soft shell jacket is a good example: the jacket’s wool look high-tech materials, make it as weatherproof, as it is both bold and modern. Since it is a real DAF tradition to present an eye-catching children's collection, it goes without saying that DAF Trucks has developed a separate High Gear line for kids, including shirts, hoodies, a windproof jacket, a warm winter hat and a cap. Moreover, the shop offers a new, cheerful and eye catching DAF kids’ backpack, and a funky romper suit. Of course, the best-selling DAF Ride-on Truck and children's tableware set are still available. The popular watch collection has been supplemented by five new watches, for him and her. From modern sporty and beautifully classic to sturdy watch cases with a 'Construction' design. Finally, DAF has introduced a completely new design of High Gear bags and organizers: The practical travel bag, toiletry, cosmetic bag and the tablet sleeve all come in fashionable and practical water-resistant waxed canvas. .

ELDs, Trucking, and Trump Sean Kilcarr, Fleet Owner / November 15, 2016 Will the incoming Trump administration delay the still-contentious electronic logging device (ELD) mandate? That question popped up more than few times here at the TU-Automotive Connected Fleets USA being held this week in Atlanta during conversations among the participants and during panel discussions – including one moderated by yours truly. The short answer to that question in the minds of most experts is “No.” Indeed, Fred Fakkema, vice president of compliance for Zonar Systems, noted that many of leading industry trade groups – notably the American Trucking Associations (ATA) – remains very much in favor of the ELD mandate. As a result, political pressure won’t be unanimous from the industry to delay or repeal it – though don’t tell that to groups such as the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) that continue to fight the mandate despite losing a recent court battle over the measure. “We think the Trump administration is going to have a lot more things to worry about in its first 100 days than worry about ELDs,” added Chris Koszarsky, director of engineering for Garmin. However, the “longer answer” to that question is whether a delay will be needed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) so it can properly prepare itself and various safety enforcement entities to handle the flow of ELD data; including during roadside inspections. “Think about the roll out of Obamacare; that didn’t go very well,” Fakkema added. In particular, he pointed out that the “transfer mechanism” for ELD data, via Bluetooth or USB device, still hasn’t been completely finalized according to the 120 pages of guidelines for that process issued by the agency. “FMCSA still hasn’t completed the development of the web services needed for ELD data,” Fakkema pointed out. The lack of “E-logs” data transfer protocols for roadside inspections is also holding up the self-certification process for many ELD vendors, he said. “One reason there are only 10 self-certified companies on the FMCSA’s list – and why none of the ‘big names’ are on it yet – is that there are gaps in the 400 page requirement for testing them, especially in terms of how data is to be transferred at the roadside,” he said. “So we still have a lot of things going on [with the ELD rule] that need to be worked out.” Thus in many respects it remains a waiting and watching game to determine whether the technical details buried within the ELD rule create the need for a delay or not.

The former Mack Trucks was a "vertically integrated" truck manufacturer. Paccar's truck units, Kenworth and Peterbilt, have always produced "assembled trucks", purchasing most components from outside vendors. There's no comparison.

Sean Kilcarr, Fleet Owner / November 16, 2016 OEM expects this “connected truck” endeavor to help prevent the “commoditization” of its commercial vehicles and make it less vulnerable to the cyclical nature of truck sales. Andrew Dondlinger, vice president and general manager of connected services for Navistar, revealed a multi-layered effort now underway at the OEM to turn its trucks and buses into “open” telematics ecosystems starting early next year, giving its customers the ability to add an electronic logging device (ELD) plus pre- and post-vehicle inspection functionality right into its vehicles without the need to add extra electronic hardware. “Most telematics companies don’t want to be in the hardware business; hardware is a big costs and it doesn’t make money anymore,” he explained here at the TU-Automotive Connected Fleets USA conference. “They used to make money on that hardware but not anymore.” Navistar doesn’t want to be in the hardware business either, Dondlinger added, so the new “gatekeeping” telematics platform being built into its trucks is a third-party supplied system. In essence, he said Navistar is adding the equivalent of a “universal cable TV box” to its trucks – a “box” that should be able to host any type of telematics programming via any type of provider, without fleets or owner-operators needing to switch out hardware in order to switch providers. “This way, you can change telematics providers without having to rip the hardware out of all of your trucks and install new units – that’s what costs a lot of money,” Dondlinger explained. “It also allows you to consume telematics services ‘a la carte’ so you don’t have to a purchase a set ‘bundle’ that contains things you do not want.” Staying with the cable TV box analogy, he said it would be like allowing television viewers to switch between cable providers such as Comcast, Verizon, or others without the need for a new box, while ordering just the programs they want – be it only basic TV or sports packages and movie channels, while getting the opportunity to easily remove them as the need arises. “We want this device to be a ‘gatekeeper’ so all the telematics providers can play on it,” Dondlinger stressed. Currently, Navistar is prepping an ELD offering for its “gatekeeping” ecosystem for release in early 2017 as well as a pre- and post-inspection system that it will be trying out on its school bus units next year as well. “That [vehicle] inspection system is not DOT-certified yet; we’re launching it on our buses as part of the effort to get it certified,” he explained. “The reason we’re offering this is that you can automatically tell with 60% to 70% of the ‘checklist’ items if there is a problem or not. So automating that process should lead to more accuracy and more drive time for drivers.” Dondlinger added that developing this “open architecture telematics ecosystem” for Navistar’s trucks and buses is also an effort to prevent them from becoming “commodities.” He said the four “characteristics” of a commodity are: it’s a product versus a service; it’s extremely susceptible to shifts in the economy; it is highly cyclical in nature; and is extremely sensitive to supply and demand. “While commercial trucks are not commodities, the new and used truck markets are subject to the same challenging forces as commodities,” Dondlinger explained. “So we must think differently; our future vehicles will become ‘integration hubs’ as the world becomes more exponentially connected.”

Sean Kilcarr, Fleet Owner / November 16, 2016 Industry expert says Verizon’s acquisition of Telogis and Fleetmatics, combined with the ELD mandate, are “significant market events.” The “most significant market consolidation” in the history of the truck telematics industry, coupled with what’s expected to be a huge spike in demand due to the electronic logging device (ELD), are going to create “major impact” upon the truck telematics industry, according to Clem Driscoll, president of consulting firm C.J. Driscoll & Associates. Speaking here at the TU-Automotive Connected Fleets USA conference, Driscoll said that the acquisition of Telogis and Fleetmatics by Verizon Telematics this year will give Verizon a “significant distribution advantage” [near monopoly] in the U.S. in many market segments, with the Fleetmatics acquisition in particular opening up a number of overseas markets to Verizon. As a result of the $2.4 billion acquisition of Fleetmatics, Driscoll said Verizon now controls 24% of the total U.S. installed base of GPS fleet management systems and 33% of the installed base of local service, delivery, and government fleet systems. Yet will Verizon continue to operate its own internal fleet telematics division as well as the Telogis and Fleetmatics operations it has acquired as separate independent businesses or integrate them? “That is not known at this time,” Driscoll said. “But as it stands now with those acquisitions, Verizon may actually end up competing with itself in some markets.” On top of that, he said the impending ELD mandate is expected to add one million or more units to the current U.S. installed base of commercial telematics solutions – equating to a 70% increase in the number of in-cab telematics units in service in the trucking sector. “The ELD mandate is just going to have a huge impact on the telematics market,” Driscoll noted. “We’re also going to see a lot more smart phones and tablet [computers] used in this space [the trucking industry] to meet the ELD requirements.” However, he stressed that ELD demand is “limited” right now as many fleets and owner-operators ponder how to comply with the mandate – with many planning to operate without ELDs to “see what happens,” Driscoll said. Yet by mid to late 2017, demand for ELDs should spike, he noted: “Then things will become very interesting.” Other trends Driscoll noted in his presentation: The asset tracking market for containers and trailers in expected to grow 10% this year but expand by 14% to 15% in 2017 as OEMs begin introducing more “smart trailers” capable of monitoring tire pressure, braking systems, and other parameters. The overall asset monitoring market is projected to grow significantly as tracking device prices continue to decline. Autonomous vehicle development efforts by car and light truck OEMs indicate that the interaction between human drivers and autonomous systems is going to be a major “pain point” in terms of deploying more self-driving vehicles. Ford Motor Co. still plans to a deliver a high volume filly autonomous car by 2021 and not an “interim” model with semi-autonomous functions in part because it believes there are “too many risks” involved in the “hand-over” of driving responsibilities between the vehicle and the operator. For some of the same reason, Driscoll believes it is “unlikely” fully autonomous trucks will be operating on U.S. roads within the next 10 to 20 years.

Autoblog / November 16, 2016 Supercar suspension dampers in a midsize pickup truck. It ultimately is that simple, despite being a tremendously complicated engineering feat that literally required a 48-deck Powerpoint presentation and a wild-haired engineer to completely explain. The 2017 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 features the same Dynamic Suspensions Spool Valve (DSSV) damper technology as an Aston Martin One-77, Ford GT, Mercedes-AMG GT and the Red Bull F1 cars that won the constructors' championships from 2010 to 2013. It was pretty incredible when they were fitted to the 2014 Camaro Z/28, so when Chevrolet asked DSSV producer Multimatic to create spool valve dampers for a performance off-road midsize truck, there was no shortage of eyebrows raised. It would be a challenge, as one couldn't simply pop in a set of dampers from a Z/28 and expect them to do the same job in the ZR2. But, therein lies the first benefit of spool valve dampers: their adaptability. No two applications are alike since Multimatic has made it so easy for manufacturers to specify the exact damping characteristics they seek. Those characteristics can be put into numerical values, you see, which are then entered into special "SpecFinder" software. Multimatic then precisely crafts spool valves that create those exact characteristics. OK, so what the heck is a spool valve? They are small metal cylinders, roughly half the height of a C battery, with several customized ports that allow for the controlled passage of hydraulic fluid through a suspension damper. It is the precise shape of these ports, which control both suspension compression and rebound that were specified by Chevrolet and created by Multimatic. Besides customization, they are easily reproduced, have virtually no variation from part to part (a problem with typical shocks) and dramatically reduce the amount of fine-tuning engineers must do with typical dampers. Multimatic was able to run 15,000 simulations before a single part was built, and as a result, the ZR2's real-world tuning and development took a quarter of the time it normally would to sign off on a suspension. So it makes the lives of Chevrolet engineers easier, why exactly is it so great when you're actually driving the ZR2? Since those little spool valve ports can be shaped to let more or less hydraulic fluid through as the wheel travel dictates, the ZR2 will have a much greater ability to provide the firmness and control needed when driving aggressively, yet be soft enough to deliver a comfortable on-road ride over bumps. But wait, there's more! Thus far, what's been described is what you'd find in the Z/28 or an AMG GT. To produce a DSSV suspension for a performance off-road application like the ZR2, a third spool valve was added to the typical pair. Think of it as the emergency off-road back-up. When more severe suspension compression occurs, say when landing hard off-road, the third, larger damper and spool valve is put into action by the damper exceeding its usual amount of travel. Through this greater stroke, the third spool valve is still able to precisely control its dampening force. The addition of this third valve allows for what is called Position Sensitive Damping. Altogether, the Colorado ZR2's trick suspension allows a similar amount of wheel travel as more traditional damper designs, but it's capable of absorbing more energy. Specifically, there's 35-percent less load going through the truck, and occupant movement is reduced by 50 percent. That means Chevrolet didn't need to strengthen the truck as much to withstand the added demands of high-speed off-road driving, while simultaneously allowing you to drive even faster. Plus, it's a far more comfortable truck to drive on-road. By comparison, trucks with regular monotube dampers are swell at dealing with the rigors of off-road performance, but result in a comparatively punishing ride. Twin-tube dampers are essentially the opposite and both designs are inherently restricted from providing a best-of-both-worlds scenario. The ZR2's Positive Sensitive Damping apparently does just that, according to 25-year off-road racing vet Bryan Kudela, who assisted in the real-world testing. He seemed genuinely floored by the ZR2's on-road comfort as much as its performance capabilities. Now, you might be wondering why GM's already renowned magnetorheological dampers weren't used instead. Don't they do roughly the same thing? They do, however, they are far more heat sensitive, which is a serious factor in a hardcore, high-speed, off-road application. There is also much greater complexity, whereas DSSV is a mechanical solution less impacted by temperature and fluid viscosity. Which is all just a complicated way of saying the ZR2 has a supercar suspension.

No matter who the candidates of the 2016 presidential elections were, be they Joe Schmo and Jill Doe, I myself feel the Electoral College is at the very least an obsolete relic of the past, if not a mechanism preventing a transparent and accurate reflection of the voting public. Founding father Alexander Hamilton writes in “The Federalist Papers,” they created the Electoral College to ensure that a president is chosen “by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.” Simply put, they didn’t want to allow the uneducated (ignorant) commoners to select the president, because they didn’t view them as “capable”. Now fast forward to year 2016, should the thought process of 228 years ago, another time and place with different attitudes, still be in use today? The founding fathers of our country were amongst the small group of wealthy and schooled aristocracy in the thirteen English colonies that felt the uneducated commoners were unqualified to participate in government. Rather than allow the masses to direct vote, the founding fathers created the Electoral College, ensuring that a proper choice was made for president and vice-president (by the aristocracy behind the veil). The founding fathers enticed the commoners (mass population) of the English colonist to join together in a revolutionary war for independence by promising them the ability to participate in government. However they didn’t really mean it and, at that time, were quite concerned that should they gain independence, the commoners would hold them to their promises. Much to their relief, that never happened. Under the illusion that they had a say in government, the ignorant commoners for the most part fell in line and allowed the founding fathers to run the show. "Independence: The Struggle to Set America Free", by John Ferling - http://www.amazon.co...s=independence)

Yes, of course you are quite right. However, I feel that our local, state and federal authorities are all on the same team......the American team. And you see that, from Oklahoma City to 911. Inherently by the woven fabric of our government, they must and do work together.

Rudy Giuliani fought federal government to defend illegal immigrants as NYC mayor CNN / November 16, 2016 Rudy Giuliani has a long record of defending and advocating for illegal immigrants as mayor of New York City. His past positions are at odds with Trump's plan to end so-called sanctuary cities and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Giuliani is under consideration to join Trump's administration as secretary of state or attorney general. Giuliani prefers secretary of state. Either role would give Giuliani a hand in federal immigration policy. As New York City mayor, Giuliani praised the contribution illegal immigrants made to the city and went to court to protect them from being reported to the federal government. "Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented [illegal] aliens," Giuliani said at a 1994 press conference. "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented [illegal] status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair." Appearing on WABC in 2001, Giuliani said, "The city of New York, quite frankly, is quite tolerant of undocumented [illegal] immigration and this shouldn't surprise you because I've been the mayor for a long time and outspoken on this issue, even nationally, I happen to agree with that." "I think New York City should not deal with undocumented [illegal] immigrants in a harsh way. I think they make a big contribution to the life of the city and were much better off being sensible and practical about it," he continued. "And the reality is that restaurants are going to have a certain number of people who are undocumented [illegal], you know people that come here to make a living trying to help themselves and their families." In 1996, Giuliani sued the federal government over a provision in a welfare law that said any city or state employees could not be prevented from reporting someone's immigration status to the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service. Giuliani argued at the time that the provision was a direct attack on New York City's Executive Order 124, which prohibited city employees from reporting the immigration status of an illegal immigrant unless they were suspected of a crime. The court ruled against Giuliani. "For those who may not know, 'Executive Order 124' is New York City's policy regarding undocumented [illegal] immigrants," said Giuliani in an October 1996 statement. "This order was issued seven years ago by Mayor Ed Koch and then later reissued by Mayor Dinkins and then by me. 'Executive Order 124' protects undocumented [illegal] immigrants in New York City from being reported to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service while they are using City services that are crucial for their health and safety, and critical for the health and safety of the entire city. I know 'Executive Order 124' offends some people. They ask, 'Why should we pay to provide services for illegal immigrants?' The answer is it's not only to protect them, but to protect the rest of society, as well." In a speech at Harvard around the same time in 1996, Giuliani forcefully argued for the city's right to "protect the health and well being of our city" by shielding illegal immigrants from the federal government. "The Tenth Amendment provides that 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,'" said the mayor in a speech at Harvard shortly before filing suit. "One right not granted to the federal government is the right of state and local governments to provide for the health and safety of their local communities. This right is generally described as 'the police power.' When Ed Koch signed 'Executive Order 124' it was a classic example of New York City's police power being used to protect the health and well being of our city." "Most likely, the federal government will reply that controlling immigration is one of their core functions. But this is a disingenuous argument [???]," he continued. "The federal government will be forced to argue that it has to treat undocumented [illegal] immigrants unfairly in order to discourage others from coming here [???]. Attempting to control immigration by creating a disincentive for a woman to report to the police that she has been beaten up by her husband is a very weak argument. And it's a horrible position for the federal government to take."

Scavengers hurt diving industry New Straights Times / October 26, 2015 The future of recreational wreck diving appears bleak with the damage caused to shipwrecks by illegal salvage operators, who cannibalize sunken wrecks on the seabed off Pulau Tioman, Pahang. Efforts must be made to preserve the shipwrecks, which comprised warships, submarines, super tankers and freighters, in Malaysian waters, urged the diving fraternity. B&J Diving Centre Sdn Bhd managing director Zainal Rahman Karim said it was a shame that sunken ships with a historical significance were disappearing. He said the country’s underwater sites that had heritage value drew a large number of tourists, who would go on liveaboard diving cruises and day-trip explorations to such sites. “It is bad news when divers say shipwrecks in Malaysia are being blown apart. “The popularity of the sites is declining. How would the survivors feel when they hear that the ships they served on during World War 2 are being torn apart?” He said the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse Survivors Association and the next of kin of those who died in the war were concerned about the damage to the sunken ships. He said they hoped that the authorities would act swiftly to stop the further demolition of the shipwrecks. “The shipwrecks are big attractions and an icon for technical diving enthusiasts.” Zainal, better known as Ben among those in the diving community, said although the sites of the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse wrecks were referred to as “war graves”, they were not legally war graves. He said the activities of illegal salvage operators were uncovered when they looted several sunken Japanese ships off Penang and in the Straits of Malacca last year. He said the scavengers then moved their operations to the South China Sea and Java Sea off Indonesia, following reports of their activities. “If all shipwrecks with a historical significance are protected, no one can remove anything from the country’s seabed. Our concern is that the sunken ships will be removed within the next few years.” Zainal, who has more than 25 years of diving experience, said scavengers had removed the massive propellers of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales. He said each propeller blade was worth more than SG$25,000 (RM77,000). He said the salvage operators ran as syndicates and had a proper understanding of the location of each sunken ship. “The syndicates include dive crew and crane operators, who would take up any job as long as they are promised lucrative returns.” Zainal said the explosives used to blow up the sunken ships posed a threat to marine life. The director of a Singapore-based diving company, David Liu, said he had, on numerous occasions, tried to curb illegal scavenging. “I am prepared to work with the authorities to find a solution to the problem.” He said he had risked his life to preserve shipwrecks by taking divers to the site of HMS Repulse to place memorial flags. However, he was caught by Malaysian authorities during a diving trip this year and consequently, spent 29 hours in detention. Liu said British families visited the sites every year to perform simple rituals, such as laying flowers, cleaning the Union Jack flag and conducting services in memory of their loved ones, who had served as crewmen on board the ships.

American and British second world war shipwrecks in Java Sea destroyed by illegal scavenging The Guardian / November 16, 2016 Three British ships and a US submarine that sank in the Java Sea during the second world war have been destroyed by illegal scrap metal scavengers, the Guardian can reveal. The UK’s Ministry of Defence said it condemned the “unauthorised disturbance of any wreck containing human remains” and requested Indonesian authorities investigate and take “appropriate action”. The commercial salvaging of war wrecks has caused significant upset among veterans, historians and governments who want to preserve the final resting place of sailors who went down with their ships. A preliminary report from an expedition to document sunken ships, seen by the Guardian, shows that the wrecks of HMS Exeter, a 175m heavy cruiser, and destroyer HMS Encounter have been almost totally removed. Using equipment that creates a 3D map of the sea floor, the report showed that where the wreck “was once located there is a large ‘hole’ in the seabed”. A 100-meter long destroyer, HMS Electra, had also been scavenged, the report found, although a “sizeable section” of the wreck remained. The 91-meter long US submarine Perch (SS-176, an "S Boat"), whose entire crew were captured by the Japanese, had been totally removed, the report said. All four sank during operations in the Java Sea in 1942, when Japanese forces overpowered Dutch, British, American and Australian sailors. The battle was one of the costliest sea skirmishes for the allies during the war and led to the Japanese occupation of the entire Dutch East Indies. The Ministry of Defence said in a statement that the British government had contacted Indonesian authorities to express “serious concern” and request they investigate and take “appropriate action to protect the sites from any further disturbance. “Many lives were lost during this battle and we would expect that these sites are respected and left undisturbed without the express consent of the United Kingdom. “It is British Government policy that our military wrecks are offered appropriate protection and management,” it said. The news comes after the Netherlands defence ministry said this week that it had launched an investigation into the disappearance of three of its own shipwrecks, also in the Java Sea. “The desecration of a war grave is a serious offence,” it said in a statement. That announcement appears to be based on the same preliminary report, which also mapped empty space where HNLMS De Ruyter, HNLMS Java, and HNLMS Kortenaer used to be. The expedition had been sent to the Java Sea this month to take video footage of the underwater Dutch ships in advance of next year’s 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Java Sea. Some 900 Dutch sailors died in the battle, including Rear Admiral Karel Doorman, a war hero in the Netherlands. Divers were planning to put a plaque on the vessels, which were located in 2002 – only to discover that they had vanished. The story has caused outrage in the Netherlands, with De Telegraaf newspaper putting the story on the front page on Wednesday under the headline: “Mystery in the Java sea.” When the crew found the three Dutch vessels had essentially been removed, they decided to broaden the scope of the mission to examine other wrecks, the Guardian understands. The British embassy in Jakarta was informed last week. Andy Brockman, an archaeologist and researcher in maritime crime, said the UK government had not done enough to stop undersea looting. “My feeling is that the Ministry of Defence files the issue of taking active steps to protect historic Royal Navy wrecks under the heading of too difficult and too expensive,” he said. “However, I think it is becoming ever more clear that this attitude is not acceptable to the wider public, not least to veterans and their families. “This latest example of commercially driven damage to what are maritime military graves should be a spur to international action, led by the governments of Britain, Australia, the Netherlands and the USA, over two thousand of whose sailors lie in the Java sea.” In the ministry’s statement, it said that “given the vast locations of Royal Navy wrecks around the world, that there are limitations on what protection we can provide, but we will continue to work with regional governments and partners to prevent inappropriate activity on the wrecks of Royal Navy vessels. “Where we have evidence of desecration of these sites, we will take appropriate action,” it added. Exeter had a crew of around 700 men, most of whom were rescued by the Japanese to become prisoners of war. The Ministry of Defence said 54 men died when it sank. Encounter and Electra both had crews of 145 men, although they were significantly overloaded with sailors rescued from other ships sunk in the Java Sea. Eight men died on Encounter before it sank. Most of Electra’s crew are believed to have been killed. Crews posing as fishermen and using long rubber hoses to stay underwater for hours have scavenged the waters around Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, locating the wrecks and stealing parts, including steel, aluminium and brass. The potential worth of metal-built shipwrecks is estimated at hundreds of thousands of pounds. Some of the propellors, often the first items to be stolen, are made of phosphor bronze scrap metal, valued at over £2,000 per tonne. Brockman said the wrecks were the property of the flag state in which they were registered. Under the international salvage convention it is illegal to remove scrap without official permission, he added. He said: “It’s like a cottage industry, apart from the fact the illicit salvage boats are dealing with substantial wrecks. Basically they use explosives and grabs to rip things apart. You get basis steel. In a single engine room you have a lot of non-ferrous metals, copper and brass, which have a premium on the scrap metal market.” Last year the Malaysian navy spotted a vessel near the site of second world war shipwrecks and arrested 17 Vietnamese crewmen. Several other men were underwater removing parts. In a separate incident, a Vietnamese crew was caught with iron cutters and a crane. In 2014, the wrecks of the HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales and the resting place of more than 800 Royal Navy sailors off the coast of Malaysia were found to have been damaged by scavengers. And when divers found that Australia’s HMAS Perth, also sunk by the Japanese in 1942, had been salvaged, Canberra was accused of trying to keep the news secret to avoid any potential diplomatic fallout between between Australia and Indonesia. The US military has also sent several delegations to Indonesia to try to protect its wreck sites. The Ministry of Defence has been accused of not doing enough following allegations that some of the 25 ships sunk in the North Sea battle are being torn apart. There has also been extensive scavenging of both German and British vessels sunk in the first world war during the battle of Jutland. The war graves commission said on Wednesday that the wrecks were not formally designated as war graves. It said the 386 servicemen who died in the battle were commemorated on memorials in the UK. The figure includes those were rescued and who died in Japanese captivity. Brockman described the battle in the Java sea as “not much known”, and said it was a crushing defeat for British, Australian, American and Dutch forces. A squadron of ships from the four nations was hastily assembled, he said, under the command of Rear Admiral Doorman. He added: “Effectively it was a shambles. They had never trained together and their equipment was incompatible. They were basically massacred. They were trying to get back towards Ceylon in the face of the Japanese invasion. “They ran into a crack Japanese cruiser squadron which outgunned and outmatched them and was trained in night fighting. All the vessels involved were sunk in one-and-a-half days. The wrecks are spread over the whole area of the Sunda straight [between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra].” ‘I shall never forget the sight of Exeter going’ Lt Cmdr George Cooper wrote this account of HMS Exeter’s last action, which appeared in War Illustrated in 1946 For some unaccountable reason it was considered at headquarters that our best means of escape lay through the Sunda Strait to the westward, whereas the chances of doing this successfully were very remote in such enclosed waters. It would have seemed wiser to get away to the eastward towards Australia, as a chase in this direction would have drawn the enemy away from his fuelling bases, which he could not easily afford. The following morning, Sunday, March lst, 1942, at 7.30, we sighted the topmasts of two Japanese heavy cruisers and turned south until they were out of sight, when we resumed our westward course. At 9.30, we sighted them again to starboard with a large destroyer, and shortly afterwards two smaller cruisers with five destroyers appeared on the port side. We turned to the eastward with our escorting destroyers, the British Encounter and the American Pope, to put the enemy astern. For two hours we had a running fight with them. They straddled us many times but never hit us until at 11.30 one shell penetrated the boiler room. It was a shot in a million as it cut our one remaining main steam pipe. The ship just came to a stop in all departments. The main engines stopped through lack of steam. The dynamos stopped. The turrets were motionless on different bearings. The steering failed. The inside became full of smoke as escaping oil fuel in the forward boiler room burst into flames. There was nothing we could do except sink her. So the magazine valves were opened. The condenser inlets were allowed to flood the engine room, and watertight doors usually kept closed were opened. A pretty good inferno was going on down below as the fire spread. She started to list slightly to port, pouring black smoke out of her funnels. I thought she looked defiant, like a stag at bay. Men were cutting down carley floats and flotanets, casting timber adrift, turning out boats. The Japanese were starting to hit us now as the range closed in. The after superstructure caught fire and the whine of projectiles sounded like the Ride of the Valkyries. She was getting lower in the water and heeling more. The inside had been completely evacuated; no one could live down there. At the bottom of the ladder leading to the upper deck were a lot of people, all quite calm. She was very nearly stopped, and men were leaving in dribs and drabs. As they went they drifted away astern. Then I climbed over the side and jumped into the water. A little later, a destroyer closing on the starboard beam fired a torpedo. It was a good shot as it hit her right amidships. The old dear shuddered a bit. She seemed to shake herself from bow to stern. She must have had very little positive buoyancy left as she went right over to starboard until her funnels and masts were horizontal. Then, heaving herself up in a final act of defiance, she disappeared in a swirl of water, smoke and steam. I had never seen a ship sink in day time before. I had seen twelve ships sunk in a convoy in the Atlantic one wild night in October 1940. One of these I saw break in half and the two halves rear up in the air and disappear in twenty seconds. But darkness had spared me the most terrible sight for any sailor – a ship’s final lurch below the waves when the ocean floods inside and gets her down forever. So I shall never forget the sight of Exeter going. It did not seem real. We had lived in that ship for a year. We had our cabins and messdecks there, all our private belongings and treasures, mementos of home, books, photographs.I remember throwing my large Barr and Stroud binoculars on the deck before I went over the side. What a waste, I thought, yet a bagatelle compared to the loss of a fine 8-inch cruiser with a score that included the Graf Spee off the River Plate. Anyhow, we all gave her three cheers as she went. You could hear the faint cheers rippling over the water.” .

Mystery as wrecks of three Dutch WWII ships vanish from Java seabed The Guardian / November 16, 2016 An international investigation has been launched into the mysterious disappearance of three Dutch second world war shipwrecks which have vanished from the bottom of the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia. The Netherlands defence ministry has confirmed that the wrecks of two of its warships that sank in 1942 have completely gone, while large parts of a third are also missing. The wrecks were first found intact by amateur divers in 2002. But a new expedition to mark next year’s 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Java Sea discovered the ships were missing. While sonar shows the imprints of the wrecks on the ocean floor, the ships themselves are no longer there. The ministry said in a statement: “The wrecks of HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java have seemingly gone completely missing. A large piece is also missing of HNLMS Kortenaer.” All three ships sank during the Battle of the Java Sea, which turned out to be a disastrous defeat for Dutch, British, American and Australian sailors by Japanese forces in February 1942. It was one of the costliest sea battles of the war and led to the Japanese occupation of the entire Dutch East Indies. About 2,200 people died, including 900 Dutch nationals and 250 people of Indonesian Dutch origin, and the wrecks have been declared a sacred war grave. “An investigation has been launched to see what has happened to the wrecks, while the cabinet has been informed,” the defence ministry said. “The desecration of a war grave is a serious offence,” it added, suggesting the wrecks may have been illegally salvaged. The seas around Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia are a graveyard for more than 100 ships and submarines sunk during the war. For years, scavengers have surreptitiously located the wrecks and stolen parts, including steel, aluminium and brass. A recreational diving school in Malaysia told the New Straits Times last year that shipwrecks were being blown apart by with explosives by people posing as fishermen before their metal is removed. The US military found two years ago that there had been an “unauthorised disturbance of the grave site” of the USS Houston, which sank in the Battle of Sunda Strait, also in the Java Sea. It is the grave for nearly 650 sailors and marines. [What was our response???] Theo Vleugels, director of the Dutch War Graves Foundation, told the ANP news agency: “The people who died there should be left in peace.” .

.

A city mayor as an elected official has a moral obligation, if not a legal one, to uphold our nation's laws.........all of them, at all times. Any mayor who refused to support and/or ignores our nation's immigration laws should be promptly removed. Entering and existing in the United States illegally is a crime. Anyone who does so should be immediately deported, and as a penalty, prevented from ever entering again (That sends a message that we take our laws seriously). The requirement to enter a country legally, under both immigrant and non-immigrant status (visitor), is a global norm. I'm tired of the pro-amnesty people saying the illegals are in the US because of a broken immigration system. What a farce. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I have an intimate knowledge of our immigration system. It's on par with other countries in the world, it is reasonable and performs well. The problem began when select foreigners decided to illegally enter the United States.........that is the problem........not our immigration system. We need to enforce our current laws, sending a message, as Australia has, that the United States has a zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration.

CNN / November 15, 2016 Retiring Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is set to introduce a Senate bill that aims to end the Electoral College. Boxer announced in a statement on Tuesday that the bill, which she planned to introduce later Tuesday afternoon, would determine the winner of presidential elections by the outcome of the popular vote. She cited President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the Electoral College despite Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's apparent popular vote advantage. "In my lifetime, I have seen two elections where the winner of the general election did not win the popular vote," said Boxer. "The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts." The presidency is the only office where you can get more votes & still lose. It's time to end the Electoral College. — Sen. Barbara Boxer (@SenatorBoxer) November 15, 2016 "In 2012, Donald Trump tweeted, 'The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy,' " Boxer added. "I couldn't agree more. One person, one vote!" According to the election results as of Tuesday, Clinton won 61,329,657 votes and Trump won 60,530,867. This is the fifth time in history that a nominee has won the popular vote but not the Electoral College.

Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross shortlisted for top economic roles The Financial Times / November 15, 2016 Trump signals he plans to pursue pro-growth and business friendly economic policy US President-elect Donald Trump is sending another strong signal that he plans to take a pro-growth and business friendly approach to economic policy, with leading New York investors Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross on his short list for Treasury and Commerce secretary. The pair on Tuesday won the endorsement of billionaire investor and Trump backer Carl Icahn who announced after speaking with Trump that they were in the running for the top economic roles. “Both would be great choices,” Icahn said. “Both are good friends of mine but, more importantly, they are two of the smartest people I know.” Both men are pragmatists and free marketeers who would focus on ways to unleash US growth through business-friendly policies. Mnuchin, a 17-year veteran of Goldman Sachs who served as the Trump campaign’s chief fundraiser, is chairman of Dune Capital Management and Dune Entertainment Partners and a longtime business associate of Trump. The softly-spoken Ross is a private equity investor with a long history of striking deals around the world. He served as a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign and was one of the main public articulators of his trade policy. Ross said the top economic priorities for a Trump administration would be encouraging infrastructure investment, the repatriation of profits parked overseas by US multinationals and corporate tax cuts and other measures to encourage investment. Among those is a plan designed to make it easier for companies to write off capital expenditures, much as they can now write off the interest they pay on debt, though not both at the same time. “We are tying to spur more investment. The big lagging thing in our economy has been shrinkage of gross private sector investment. I think it is one of the reasons why [US] productivity gains have not been so strong [in recent years],” Ross said. Low investment and bad trade agreements were in fact the two biggest things holding back the US economy, he said. But Ross also rejected the charge that a Trump administration would herald a new era of American protectionism, saying it would be focused on negotiating smarter trade pacts with the US’s major trading partners. A Trump administration would work to narrow its trade deficit with China and other countries. But it would not do so by applying blanket tariffs on imports from any country, he said. “The U.S. is the reason why the whole world has a trade surplus. We have a $500 billion deficit which is a 3 per cent permanent reduction in the size of our economy,” Ross said. “Cutting our balance of payments deficit doesn’t mean slapping on 45 per cent tariffs on everything from China. Absolutely not.” “But here is the key issue. We should treat ourselves as the world’s biggest customer and treat nations that are selling to us as suppliers to us,” he said. “One of the great dangers for trade is that since the free trade people are so ideological they do not admit that anything was wrong on any trade agreement so they run the risk of free trade going right down the drain — [which is why] there is all this populism and protectionism.” To secure better trade deals the Trump administration would pursue a three-point plan which would call for clear cost-benefit analyses, their automatic reopening for possible adjustments after five years and a requirement that other countries implement required changes to laws and other policies at the same time as the US. Mnuchin’s past and present collegues at Goldman Sachs speak of him as a hard worker, who tends to have a tough, ruthless streak with an intense focus. He was not considered to be particularly sociable or deft at navigating relationships. “He’s not a people-person or salesman, not at all,” a former colleague recalled, adding that he appeared to have a strong free-market ethos. .

LAPD chief says department will refuse to help Donald Trump’s deportation efforts The Washington Post / November 15, 2016 Donald Trump has pledged to begin deporting millions of undocumented immigrants as soon as he takes office next year. For now, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has no plans to help him do it. “We’re going to maintain the same posture we always have,” says Beck. “We don’t make detentions or arrests based solely on status, whether that’s immigration status or any other status.” “If the federal government takes a more aggressive role on deportation, then they’ll have to do that on their own,” he continued. [We are not team players. We’re not going to help the federal government rid our nation of illegal immigrants, people inherently criminals by their action] Beck called any effort to arrest and deport people a “monumental task” and estimated that there are 500,000 undocumented residents in the city of Los Angeles alone. “This is a population we police by creating partnerships, not by targeting them because of their immigration status,” he added. If there was one location in the United States in which Trump could make the largest dent in the country’s undocumented population, it would be sprawling Los Angeles County, where citizens and noncitizens have lived side-by-side for decades. Almost a quarter of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants live in California, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. With an undocumented population of nearly 815,000, according to PPIC, Los Angeles County has more undocumented residents than any county in the state. Though estimates vary, experts calculate that more than 1.6 million illegal immigrants live in Texas, making it second only to California in the size of its undocumented population. The LAPD has spent decades avoiding a significant role in the enforcement of federal immigration policies, even as the city’s undocumented immigrant population swelled. Following a special order by then-chief Daryl Gates in 1979 that stopped officers from inquiring about someone’s immigration status, the Los Angeles Times reported, the LAPD has for decades managed to remain outside the contentious immigration debate. Beck says working with the Department of Homeland Security on deportation is not the department’s job. “I don’t intend on doing anything different,” he said. “We are not going to engage in law enforcement activities solely based on somebody’s immigration status. We are not going to work in conjunction with Homeland Security on deportation efforts. That is not our job, nor will I make it our job.” Unveiled in 1979, “Special Order No. 40” directed LAPD officers to “not initiate police action” in an effort to ascertain someone’s legal status. Officers were instructed to notify the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service after arresting someone “for multiple misdemeanor offenses, a high grade misdemeanor or a felony offense” or someone who “has been previously arrested for a similar offense.” “The Los Angeles community has become significantly more diverse during the past several years with substantial numbers of people from different ethnic and sociological backgrounds migrating to this City,” the order states. “Many aliens, whether from Latin American, African, Asian or European countries, are legal residents. Others are undocumented and are residing in the City without legal sanction.” Since Beck became police chief in November 2009, the Times reported, the department has gone even further to remove itself from playing a role in deportations. Officers no longer hand people “arrested for low-level crimes to federal agents for deportation and [have] moved away from honoring federal requests to detain inmates who might be deportable past their jail terms.” Beck says his command staff has met with community leaders and has delivered a consistent message when asked about immigration enforcement: “This is the same LAPD you had Monday, a week ago,” he said. “We have not changed because of the election on Tuesday. We have the same principles. We have the same values,” he said. “This is not going to change the way that the Los Angeles Police Department enforces the law.” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has reiterated that police would continue to enforce Special Order 40. “Our law enforcement officers and LAPD don’t go around asking people for their papers, nor should they,” he said. “That’s not the role of local law enforcement.” Though Trump has threatened to withhold federal tax dollars, mayors of U.S. cities across the country have promised to protect their [illegal immigrant] residents from deportation. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio even left open the possibility of deleting a database with the names of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants living in New York. He was joined in opposition by Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and Seattle’s Ed Murray, both of whom have pledged to resist efforts to deport their residents. “Seattle has always been a welcoming city [to illegal immigrants],” Murray said Monday, according to ABC News. “The last thing I want is for us to start turning on our neighbors.”

In a huge but downplayed policy change, the Obama administration has decided to stop trying to overthrow Assad (regime change), which inherently reopens the door to cooperation with Russia. With the argument of whether or not Assad should go out of the way, we now will have a clear common goal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Obama directs Pentagon to target al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, one of the most formidable forces fighting Assad The Washington Post / November 10, 2016 President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government. The decision to deploy more drones and intelligence assets against the militant group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra reflects Obama’s concern that it is turning parts of Syria into a new base of operations for al-Qaeda on Europe’s southern doorstep. The move underlines the extent to which Obama has come to prioritize the counter­terrorism mission in Syria over efforts to pressure President Bashar al-Assad to step aside [Major strategy change], as al-Nusra is among the most effective forces­­ battling the Syrian government. That shift is likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump has said he will be even more aggressive in going after militants than Obama, a stance that could lead to the expansion of the campaign against al-Nusra, possibly in direct cooperation with Moscow. The group now calls itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham — or Front for the Conquest of Syria — and says it has broken with al-Qaeda, an assertion discounted by U.S. officials. (This is the U.S. supported rebel group that beheaded a 12-year-old child before the world...... http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/41827-syria/?page=2) Obama’s new order gives the U.S. military’s Joint Special ­Operations Command wider authority and additional intelligence-collection re­sources to go after al-Nusra’s broader leadership, not just al-Qaeda veterans or those directly involved in external plotting. The White House and State Department led the charge within the Obama administration for prioritizing action against the group. Pentagon leaders were reluctant at first to pull resources away from the fight against ISIS. Aides say Obama grew frustrated that more wasn’t being done by the Pentagon and the intelligence community to kill al-Nusra leaders given the warnings he had received from top counter­terrorism officials about the gathering threat they posed. Obama was repeatedly told over the summer that the group was allowing al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan to create in northwest Syria the largest haven for the network since it was scattered after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Officials also warned Obama that al-Nusra could try to fill the void as its rival ISIS lost ground. Lisa Monaco, Obama’s White House homeland security and counter­terrorism adviser, said Obama’s decision “prioritized our fight against al-Qaeda in Syria, including through targeting their leaders and operatives, some of whom are legacy al-Qaeda members.” “We have made clear to all parties in Syria that we will not allow al-Qaeda to grow its capacity to attack the U.S., our allies, and our interests,” she said in a statement. “We will continue to take action to deny these terrorists any safe haven in Syria.” To support the expanded push against al-Nusra, the White House pressed the Pentagon to deploy additional armed drones and intelligence-collection assets in the airspace over northwestern Syria, an area that had been sparsely covered by the United States until now because of its proximity to advanced Russian air-defense systems and aircraft. A bitterly divided Obama administration had tried over the summer to cut a deal with Moscow on a joint U.S.-Russian air campaign against al-Nusra, in exchange for a Russian commitment to ground Syrian government warplanes and to allow more humanitarian supplies into besieged areas. But the negotiations broke down in acrimony, with Moscow accusing the United States of failing to separate al-Nusra from more moderate rebel groups and Washington accusing the Russians of war crimes in Aleppo. Armed drones controlled by JSOC stepped up operations in September, according to military officials. Drone strikes by the U.S. military under the program began in October and have so far killed at least four high-value targets, including al-Nusra’s senior external planner. The Pentagon has disclosed two of the strikes so far. One of the most significant strikes — targeting a gathering of al-Nusra leaders on Nov. 2 — has yet to be disclosed, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations. So far, Russian air-defense systems and aircraft haven’t interfered with stepped-up U.S. operations against al-Nusra. Officials attributed Moscow’s acquiescence to the limited number of U.S. aircraft involved in the missions and to Russia’s interest in letting Washington combat one of the Assad regime’s most potent enemies within the insurgency. U.S. officials said they provided notifications to the Russians before the al-Nusra strikes to avoid misunderstandings. Officials who supported the [policy] shift said the Obama administration could no longer tolerate what one of them described as “a deal with the devil,” whereby the United States largely held its fire against al-Nusra because the group was popular with Syrians in rebel-controlled areas and furthered the U.S. goal of putting military pressure on Assad. Russia had accused the United States of sheltering al-Nusra, a charge repeated Thursday in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “The president doesn’t want this group to be what inherits the country if Assad ever does fall,” a senior U.S. official said. “This cannot be the viable Syrian opposition. It’s al-Qaeda.” Officials said the administration’s hope is that more-moderate rebel factions will be able to gain ground as both the Islamic State and al-Nusra come under increased military pressure. A growing number of White House and State Department officials, however, have privately voiced doubts about the wisdom of applying U.S. military power, even covertly, to pressure Assad to step aside, particularly since Russia’s military intervention in Syria last year. Trump has voiced strong skepticism about arming Syrian rebels in the past, suggesting that U.S. intelligence agencies don’t have enough knowledge about rebel intentions to pick reliable allies. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and other Pentagon leaders initially resisted the idea of devoting more Pentagon surveillance aircraft and armed drones against al-Nusra. In White House Situation Room meetings, Carter and other top Pentagon officials argued that the military’s resources were needed to combat ISIS and that it would be difficult to operate in the airspace given Russia’s military presence, officials said. While Obama, White House national security adviser Susan E. Rice, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and special presidential envoy Brett McGurk agreed with Carter on the need to keep the focus on ISIS, they favored shifting resources to try to prevent al-Nusra from becoming a bigger threat down the road. A senior defense official said additional drone assets were assigned to the JSOC mission. Carter also made clear that the Pentagon’s goal would be to hit al-Nusra leadership targets, not take strikes to try to separate the moderate rebels from al-Nusra, officials said. “If we wake up in five years from now, and ISIS is dead but al-Qaeda in Syria has the equivalent of [the tribal areas of Pakistan] in northwest Syria, then we’ve got a problem,” a second senior U.S. official said. . . .

Immigration hardliner says Trump team preparing plans for wall, mulling Muslim registry Reuters / November 15, 2016 An architect of anti-immigration efforts who says he is advising President-elect Donald Trump said the new administration could push ahead rapidly on construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall without seeking immediate congressional approval. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview that Trump's policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries. Kobach, reportedly a key member of Trump's transition team, said he had participated in regular conference calls with about a dozen Trump immigration advisers for the past two to three months. Trump made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border a central issue of his campaign and supports “extreme vetting” of Muslims entering the United States as a national security measure. Kobach told Reuters last Friday that the immigration group had discussed drafting executive orders for the president-elect's review "so that Trump and the Department of Homeland Security hit the ground running." To implement Trump's call for "extreme vetting" of some Muslim immigrants, Kobach said the immigration policy group could recommend the reinstatement of a national registry of immigrants and visitors who enter the United States on visas from countries where extremist organizations are active. Kobach helped design the program, known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), while serving in Republican President George W. Bush's Department of Justice after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants. Under NSEERS, people from countries deemed "higher risk" were required to undergo interrogations and fingerprinting on entering the United States. Some non-citizen male U.S. residents over the age of 16 from countries with active militant threats were required to register in person at government offices and periodically check in. NSEERS was abandoned in 2011 after it was deemed redundant by the Department of Homeland Security and criticized by civil rights groups for unfairly targeting immigrants from Muslim- majority nations. Kobach said the immigration advisers were also looking at how the Homeland Security Department could move rapidly on border wall construction without approval from Congress by reappropriating existing funds in the current budget. He acknowledged "that future fiscal years will require additional appropriations." HELPED DRAFT TOUGH ARIZONA LAW Kobach has worked with allies across the United States on drafting laws and pursuing legal actions to crack down on illegal immigration. In 2010, he helped draft an Arizona law that required state and local officials to check the immigration status of individuals stopped by police. Parts of the law, which was fiercely opposed by Hispanic and civil rights groups, were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011. Kobach was also the architect of a 2013 Kansas law requiring voters to provide proof-of-citizenship documents, such as birth certificates or U.S. passports, when registering for the first time. A U.S. appeals court blocked that law after challenges from civil rights groups. .

Associated Press / November 15, 2016 A Minnesota man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to join ISIS in Syria after telling the judge: 'I am a terrorist, your honor'. Hanad Musse, 21, is one of nine friends in Minnesota's large Somali community who are being sentenced this week for conspiring to join the militant group. Earlier Tuesday, one of his co-defendants, Hamza Ahmed, received 15 years on charges connected to the plot. Before he was sentenced on Tuesday, Musse apologized for lying to his family and acknowledged that he committed a serious offense. The judge asked Musse directly whether he was a terrorist, and Musse replied: 'I am a terrorist, your honor.' Musse, Ahmed and two other men took a Greyhound bus from Minneapolis to New York in November 2014 and were stopped by federal agents as they tried to travel overseas from JFK Airport. Prosecutors said they were part of a group of friends who began inspiring and recruiting each other to join the Islamic State group in the spring of 2014. Some of their friends made it to Syria, but the nine who were prosecuted did not. Three men were sentenced Monday; two who cooperated were given lighter sentences, but another who didn't help prosecutors was sentenced to 10 years [why not deported to Somalia?]. Musse and Ahmed are among group members who pleaded guilty but did NOT cooperate with prosecutors. Four others await sentencing, including three who went to trial and were also convicted on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder outside the U.S., which carries a possible life sentence, though prosecutors are seeking sentences of 30 or 40 years. When the judge asked Musse why he didn't cooperate with the government, he replied that he felt he would have lost the support of the community. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, who has handled all of Minnesota's terror conspiracy cases, had the six defendants who pleaded guilty evaluated by a German expert on deradicalization and is taking those findings into consideration. The sentencings cap a long case that shined a light on terrorism recruitment in Minnesota, the state with the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in the U.S. The FBI has said about a dozen people have left Minnesota to join militant groups in Syria in recent years. .

26-year-old Ohio man pleads guilty to kidnapping, raping 6-year-old Mansfield News Journal / November 14, 2016 An Ashland, Ohio man admitted Monday in Ashland County Common Pleas Court that he pulled a six-year-old girl out of her bedroom and raped her in the back yard of her home last August. Brock D. Martin, 26, of 815 Union St., pleaded guilty to six felony charges as part of a plea bargain in which he also admitted to two other burglaries dating back to 2013, including one that was sex-related. Martin pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping, two counts of rape and one count of aggravated burglary, all first-degree felonies. He also pleaded guilty to single second-degree felony counts of attempted rape and burglary. As part of the agreement, the prosecution will drop one count of aggravated burglary and two counts of rape, all first-degree felonies, along with a second-degree felony attempted kidnapping count and a fifth-degree charge of drug possession. All four rape counts alleged in an 11-count grand jury indictment in September 2015 carried sexually violent predator specifications, while the aggravated burglary and kidnapping charges included sexual motivation and sexually violent predator specifications. According to Ashland County Prosecutor Christopher Tunnell, Martin was charged with an incident on Aug. 18, 2015 in which he pushed a fan out of a window of an Orange Street home on Ashland’s north side, reached in and pulled a six-year-old girl out of her bed and raped her in the back yard. He said Martin ran off into nearby woods after a resident of the home came out of the house and interrupted the incident. He later was captured by an Ashland Police Department K-9 unit. During a police interview, Martin confessed to two other, unsolved, crimes, including an Aug. 11, 2015 burglary in the 900 block of Orange Street in which a woman awoke to find him standing over her bed. Martin fled when he saw the woman’s husband come down the hallway after the husband came home from work. Martin also admitted to and was charged with an unsolved burglary on March 17, 2013 where he entered an Ashland residence around midnight and assaulted two 13-year-old girls who were having a sleepover. He attempted to drag one of the girls out of the home but fled after being caught in the act. The aggravated drug possession charge was for an incident involving Percocet. Tunnell told reporters Monday that Martin was not familiar with any of his victims. “It appears all the incidents were completely random,” he said. Martin originally pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to all counts in the indictment. However, Judge Ron Forsthoefel determined he was competent to stand trial after reviewing a competency evaluation report by the District V Forensic Diagnostic Center. During Monday’s hearing, Martin quietly answered “Yes, your honor,” as Forsthoefel asked him if he understood the charges, that he was waiving his right to a trial and most of his appeal rights and was agreeing to a sentence of life in prison without parole and to pay $3,000 in restitution for out-of-pocket victim medical expenses. The judge indicated he was ready to sentence Martin on Monday but delayed action until Dec. 19 at 9:20 a.m. after defense attorney Rolf Whitney asked for a pre-sentencing investigation into Martin’s background. Forsthoefel warned Martin that the state was not obligated to withdraw any of the charges if he changed his mind about his guilty pleas before sentencing. “You understand that if the court orders a pre-sentence investigation report it’s going to give me some information on your background, educational background, treatment and general and criminal history but it’s not going to change the impact of the written plea agreement and the likely sentence you are facing if we proceed with sentencing?” the judge asked. Martin replied that he did. One of the victim’s family members muttered that Martin was “one sick (expletive)” as she left the courtroom. Several other family members were heard to say after they met privately with Tunnell, that they were satisfied with the plea. Tunnell said the five charges that were dropped involved additional conduct that occurred in each circumstance. He also emphasized that each situation was accounted for with Martin’s guilty pleas. Tunnell did not anticipate that the pre-sentence investigation report would change any terms sentence in the plea agreement. .

55-pound teen critical after 2 years 'isolated' in Shelby County basement WVTM 13 / November 15, 2016 A 14-year-old boy weighing only 55 pounds is fighting for his life after spending much of two years locked in the basement of his Helena home with little food, water or medical care. Authorities in Shelby County announced charges against the boy's adoptive parents, and say it's one of the most horrific cases they've investigated. "It's the worst case of neglect that I have ever seen," said Helena police Chief Pete Folmar. The 14-year-old boy, whose name is not being released, is in critical condition. Authorities said he weighs less than half of what a boy his age should weigh. “Doctors noted the child was severely, chronically malnourished, dehydrated, suffering from acute respiratory distress, shock, hypothermia, hypothyroid and that he was close to death. The child remains gravely ill at this time and faces a long and difficult recovery and an uncertain prognosis," Helena police Chief Pete Folmar said. Richard and Cynthia Kelly late Monday afternoon were charged with aggravated child abuse, a Class B felony. They were moved from the Helena City Jail to the Shelby County Jail, where they were undergoing the booking process. Their bonds are set at $1 million bond each. The investigation began Sunday when Helena police were notified by hospital staff through DHR of the boy's arrival at the hospital. Authorities say his parents took him there when his condition worsened. Richard and Cynthia Kelly are accused of denying food, nourishment and medical care to the boy, who was "subjected to forced isolation for extended periods of time." Authorities say that "isolation" was disciplinary in nature. The boy was was not enrolled in Shelby County Schools, and authorities were told he was homeschooled. Neighbors said they had seen the boy mowing the lawn weekly through the summer while his dad stood on the porch and watched him. They told WVTM 13 they believed he was 8 or 9 years old because he was so small. . .

5 Utah students stabbed in boy's locker room; teen detained Associated Press / November 15, 2016 As a group of boys at a Utah high school changed Tuesday morning into gym clothes for physical education class, a straight-A student pulled out a knife in the locker room and stabbed five of his classmates, sending the injured running for their lives and covered in blood. The 16-year-old suspect with no record of disciplinary trouble also stabbed himself in the neck and was cornered by school workers until a police officer assigned to Mountain View High School got to the locker room and subdued him with a Taser shot. The five victims are all expected to survive. The two most seriously injured were in critical but stable condition. The suspect was treated and released following the attack. Police say none of the victims had done anything to hurt the suspect, and the stabbings were not racially or ethnically motivated. School district spokeswoman Kimberly Bird said the suspect was a new sophomore student who was previously homeschooled. There were no indications he was having problems or being bullied.

Trump remains direct election advocate, dislikes Electoral College Associated Press / November 15, 2016 President-elect Donald Trump once tweeted that the Electoral College is “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” But now that it has helped him to win the election, does he still believe that? “I’m not going to change my mind just because I won,” Trump said in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday. “But I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win.” Trump beat Clinton in last week’s election by amassing more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win. He won 290 to Clinton’s 228, with Michigan and New Hampshire still too close to call. But Clinton currently leads Trump in the popular vote by more than 700,000 votes (61.3 million to 60.6 million) with several million left to be counted. If her lead holds, Clinton would be the first presidential candidate since 2000 to win the popular vote while losing the White House. (In that year, Al Gore lost the Electoral College to George W. Bush.) Hillary Clinton, who was then first lady, called at the time for the college to be disbanded so that no one would ever have to doubt again whether his or her vote counted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lesley Stahl: Now, for months, you were running around saying that the system is rigged, the whole thing was rigged. You tweeted once that the Electoral College is a disaster for democracy. Donald Trump: I do. Lesley Stahl: So do you still think it’s rigged? Donald Trump: Well, I think the electoral ca-- look, I won with the Electoral College. Lesley Stahl: Exactly.But do you think-- Donald Trump: You know, it’s-- Lesley Stahl: --it’s rigged? Donald Trump: Yeah, some of the election locations are. Some of the system is. I hated-- Lesley Stahl: Even though you won you’re saying that-- Donald Trump: I hated-- well, you know, I’m not going to change my mind just because I won. But I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win. There’s a reason for doing this because it brings all the states into play. Electoral College and there’s something very good about that. But this is a different system. But I respect it. I do respect the system.