Paul Gallagher: Executive Intelligence Review Chief Editor.

Survey: More than 40 percent of bee hives died in past year

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science WriterWASHINGTON (AP) -- More than two out of five American honeybee colonies died in the past year, and surprisingly the worst die-off was in the summer, according to a federal survey.

Since April 2014, beekeepers lost 42.1 percent of their colonies, the second highest loss rate in nine years, according to an annual survey conducted by a bee partnership that includes the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"What we're seeing with this bee problem is just a loud signal that there's some bad things happening with our agro-ecosystems," said study co-author Keith Delaplane at the University of Georgia. "We just happen to notice it with the honeybee because they are so easy to count."

But it's not quite as dire as it sounds. That's because after a colony dies, beekeepers then split their surviving colonies, start new ones, and the numbers go back up again, said Delaplane and study co-author Dennis vanEngelsdorp of the University of Maryland.

What shocked the entomologists is that is the first time they've noticed bees dying more in the summer than the winter, said vanEngelsdorp said. The survey found beekeepers lost 27.4 percent of their colonies this summer. That's up from 19.8 percent the previous summer.

Seeing massive colony losses in summer is like seeing "a higher rate of flu deaths in the summer than winter," vanEngelsdorp said. "You just don't expect colonies to die at this rate in the summer."

Oklahoma, Illinois, Iowa, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Maine and Wisconsin all saw more than 60 percent of their hives die since April 2014, according to the survey.

"Most of the major commercial beekeepers get a dark panicked look in their eyes when they discuss these losses and what it means to their businesses," said Pennsylvania State University entomology professor Diana Cox-Foster. She wasn't part of the study, but praised it.

Delaplane and vanEngelsdorp said a combination of mites, poor nutrition and pesticides are to blame for the bee deaths. USDA bee scientist Jeff Pettis said last summer's large die-off included unusual queen loss and seemed worse in colonies that moved more.

Dick Rogers, chief beekeeper for pesticide-maker Bayer, said the loss figure is "not unusual at all" and said the survey shows an end result of more colonies now than before: 2.74 million hives in 2015, up from 2.64 million in 2014.

That doesn't mean bee health is improving or stable, vanEngelsdorp said. After they lose colonies, beekeepers are splitting their surviving hives to recover their losses, pushing the bees to

their limits, Delaplane said.

Obama Disapproves: 'Kids Start Going to Private Schools...Private Clubs'By Susan Jones | May 13, 2015 | 7:25 AM EDT 0Shares Facebook Twitter More

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama told a gathering at Georgetown University on Tuesday that the problem isn't racial segregation, it's wealth segregation, manifested by "elites" who "are able to live together, away from folks who are not as wealthy."

"Kids start going to private schools," he said. (Just as he did and his own kids do.)

Once upon a time, the president noted, a banker lived in "reasonable proximity" to the school janitor; the janitor's daughter may have dated the banker's son; they may have attended the same church, rotary club, and public parks -- "all the things that stitch them together...contributing to social mobility and to a sense of possibility and opportunity for all kids in that community."

But now "concentrations of wealth" have left some people less committed to investing in programs that benefit the poor:

"And what's happened in our economy is that those who are doing better and better -- more skilled, more educated, luckier, having greater advantages -- are withdrawing from sort of the commons -- kids start going to private schools; kids start working out at private clubs instead of the public parks. An anti-government ideology then disinvests from those common goods and those things that draw us together. And that, in part, contributes to the fact that there's less opportunity for our kids, all of our kids."

President Obama's two daughters attend an elite private school in Washington where tuition runs

$37,750 ("includes hot lunch," the school's website notes). His wife and children ski at Aspen, an elite resort in Colorado. President Obama frequently golfs at exclusive private clubs. And the entire family takes summer vacations in mansions in ritzy Martha's Vineyard or Hawaii.

But the president wasn't talking about himself or his family at Tuesday's Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on Overcoming Poverty.

He was talking about hedge fund managers and corporate CEOS who now earn "thousands" of times more than the people who work for them. "Now, that's not because they're bad people," Obama said. "It's just that they have been freed from a certain set of social constraints."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest, asked on Wednesday morning about Obama's remark, said the president wasn't criticizing people for sending their children to private schools. "He's suggesting that all Americans need to keep in mind that it's in our collective best interests as a country and as individual citizens for us to invest in the common good -- for us to invest and make sure that we have good, quality public schools that are available for everybody."

'Who are you mad at?'

According to the president, "What used to be racial segregation now mirrors itself in class segregation and this great sorting that's taking place. Now, that creates its own politics. Right? I mean, there's some communities where...not only do I not know poor people, I don't even know people who have trouble paying the bills at the end of the month. I just don't know those people. And so there's a less sense of investment in those children. So that's part of what's happened.

"But part of it has also been -- there's always been a strain in American politics where you've got the middle class, and the question has been, who are you mad at, if you're struggling -- if you're working, but you don't seem to be getting ahead.

"And over the last 40 years, sadly, I think there's been an effort to either make folks mad at folks at the top (Obama himself has done this), or to be mad at folks at the bottom. And I think the effort to suggest that the poor are sponges, leaches, don't want to work, are lazy, are undeserving, got traction.

"And, look, it's still being propagated," Obama continued. "I mean, I have to say that if you watch Fox News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu -- they will find folks who make me mad. I don't know where they find them. (Laughter.) They're like, 'I don't want to work, I just want a free Obama phone' (laughter) -- or whatever. And that becomes an entire narrative -- right? -- that gets worked up. And very rarely do you hear an interview of a waitress -- which is much more typical -- who's raising a couple of kids and is doing everything right but still can't pay the bills."

"And so if we're going to change how (Republicans) John Boehner and Mitch McConnell think, we're going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we're going to have to

change how the media reports on these issues and how people's impressions of what it's like to struggle in this economy looks like, and how budgets connect to that. And that's a hard process because that requires a much broader conversation than typically we have on the nightly news."

Even before he was elected president, Obama campaigned on the promise of wealth redistribution. Throughout his presidency Obama has been a champion of the middle class and an adversary of the wealthy. When he called for tax hikes on the wealthy in September 2011, he insisted it was "not class warfare," but "fairness."

In an August 2013 speech, he railed against "entrenched interests, those who benefit from an unjust status quo, (who) resisted any government efforts to give working families a fair deal."

And since 2013, he's talked repeatedly about income inequality, calling it an "issue that we have to tackle head on" by raising the minimum wage.

Exclusive: Czechs stopped potential nuclear tech purchase by Iran - sourcesUNITED NATIONS/PRAGUE | By Louis Charbonneau and Robert Muller

The Czech Republic blocked an attempted purchase by Iran this year of a large shipment of sensitive technology useable for nuclear enrichment after false documentation raised suspicions, U.N. experts and Western sources said.

The incident could add to Western concerns about whether Tehran can be trusted to adhere to a nuclear deal being negotiated with world powers under which it would curb sensitive nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief.

The negotiators are trying to reach a deal by the end of June after hammering out a preliminary agreement on April 2, with Iran committing to reduce the number of centrifuges it operates and agreeing to other long-term nuclear limitations.

Some details of the attempted purchase were described in the latest annual report of an expert panel for the United Nations Security Council's Iran sanctions committee, which has been seen by Reuters.

    The panel said that in January Iran attempted to buy compressors - which have nuclear and non-nuclear applications - made by the U.S.-owned company Howden CKD Compressors.

    A Czech state official and a Western diplomat familiar with the case confirmed to Reuters that Iran had attempted to buy the shipment from Howden CKD in the Czech Republic, and that Czech authorities had acted to block the deal.

It was not clear if any intermediaries were involved in the attempt to acquire the machinery.

There was no suggestion that Howden CKD itself was involved in any wrongdoing. Officials at Prague-based Howden declined to comment on the attempted purchase.

The U.N. panel, which monitors compliance with the U.N. sanctions regime, said there had been a "false end user" stated for the order.

"The procurer and transport company involved in the deal had provided false documentation in order to hide the origins, movement and destination of the consignment with the intention of bypassing export controls and sanctions," it added.

The report offered no further details about the attempted transaction. Iran's U.N. mission did not respond to a query about the report.

CONTRACT WORTH $61 million

The Czech state official said the party seeking the compressors had claimed the machinery was needed for a compressor station, such as the kind used to transport natural gas from one relay station to another.

The official declined to say exactly how the transaction was stopped, provide specifications of the compressors or confirm the intended purchaser. However, he made clear it was the Czech authorities who halted the deal

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the total value of the contract would have been about 1.5 billion Czech koruna ($61 million).

This was a huge amount for the company concerned, the previously named CKD Kompresory, a leading supplier of multi-stage centrifugal compressors to the oil and gas, petrochemical and other industries.

The firm was acquired by Colfax Corp. of the United States in 2013 for $69.4 million. A spokesman for Colfax declined to comment.

The United States and its Western allies say Iran continues to try to skirt international sanctions on its atomic and missile programs even while negotiating the nuclear deal.

The U.N. panel of experts also noted in its report that Britain informed it of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to blacklisted firms.

While compressors have non-nuclear applications in the oil and gas industry, they also have nuclear uses, including in centrifuge cascades. Centrifuges purify uranium gas fed into them for use as fuel in nuclear reactors or weapons, if purified to levels of around 90 percent of the fissile isotope uranium-235.

"Such compressors can be used to extract enriched uranium directly from the cascades," Olli Heinonen, former deputy director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a nuclear expert currently at Harvard University, told Reuters.

"In particular, they are useful when working with higher enrichment such as 20 percent enriched uranium," he said, adding that precise specifications of the compressors in question would be necessary to make a definitive assessment.

Iran has frozen production of 20 percent enriched uranium, a move that Western officials cite as one of the most important curbs on Iranian nuclear activities under an interim agreement in 2013.

Tehran rejects allegations by Western powers and their allies that it is seeking the capability to produce atomic weapons and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

The IAEA and the United States have said repeatedly that Tehran has adhered to the terms of the 2013 interim deal.

The Papal Notice: Christians will be Martyred

Jesus also tells his followers in the passage that “the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God. They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.”

Pope Francis told the small congregation at his Mass that something similar is going on today when some people “kill Christians in the name of God because, according to them, they are nonbelievers.”

A Christian who does not take seriously the ‘martyrial’ dimension of life has not understood the path Jesus taught us, the path of the martyrdom of daily life: the martyr’s path of defending the rights of others; the martyr’s path of defending one’s children, of fathers and mothers who defend their families; the martyr’s path of many, many sick people who suffer for love of Jesus,” he said.

“All of us have the ability to carry forward the paschal fruitfulness of this martyr’s path,” the pope said.

Police Brutality Update

This is what happens when you call the cops.You get your rights violated or you all get shot

[Rob Hustle - Verse 1]I'm sick of people getting victimized by criminal copsPsychopathic predators terrorizing neighborhood blocksEquipped with pepper spray, mace, cuffs tasers and Glocks

They like serial killers acting out subliminal thoughts

Forget what you're taught

These cops have got a license to killWitness intimidation means that they can use it at willCode of silence means that the pigs'll never let out a squealAnd if they go to court they know the judge'll make ‘em a deal

For real...

That's why they stoppin me, lockin me up and stompin meConfiscating my property, targeting my demographyMaking the poor commodities, profiting off of povertyEnforcing policies supporting prison economies

Yeah

No one makes money when the violence stopsHate and brutality's the way to make a criminal cropBlood in the gutter's how the rich butter their bread at the topThat's why this is what happens when you call the cops

Come on!

[Chorus - Bump]

[Bump - Verse 2]I'm mixed up in the system and these pigs's trying to murder meThey mace me, they tase me, they trained ‘em to hate meDegrade and detain me in chains just like slavery

Hands up, face down, left hook, right quickThrow you down, hold you down, smack you with that night stickNight shift, ridin round, see you with ya J's onYou'll get sprayed on over skittlesWord to Trayvon

All the people sayin is it's crazy down in FloridaWhat you sayin, is you playin? It's the same in CaliforniaThey gangin like they bangin and they'll hang you down in GeorgiaFrame you in the cage for what you say without a lawyer

Swarmin with no warnin, now they sortin through ya residenceStorm in with no warrant now they snortin all the evidenceYou better just, learn to dodge or box

Cuz this is what happens when you call the cops

Come on!

[Chorus - Rob Hustle]

[Rob Hustle - Verse 3]

"We got a baby in the living room"Get the grenades. Pull the pin, throw it in the crib, blow him away

"There's a homeless guy camping here"Well tell him to pack. When he gets up and starts leaving, shoot the bum in the back

"This guy rolled through a stop sign"That's drugs for sale. Get some doctors to rape him, send him a bill in the mail

"We got a black man knocking on a white woman's door"Well 10 shots point blank, he ain't gonna knock no more

Look

The problem starts at the academyNew cadets are indoctrinated with a military mentality

With them as the soldiers and us as the people they're battlingWe're either collateral damage or combat fatalities

Either way the reality's that it's not gonna stopCuz this is what happens when you call the copsTHIS is what happens when you call the copsCOME ONTHIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CALL THE COPS

Who Killed the Bikers in Waco?sus Delgado Rodriguez, 65, died of gunshot wounds of the head and trunk.

Jacob Lee Rhyne, 39, died of gunshot wounds to the neck.

Richard Vincent Kirshner, Jr., 47, died of gunshot wounds but the report did not specify where he was shot.

Richard Matthew Jordan, III, 31, died of gunshot wounds to the head.

Wayne Lee Campbell, 43, died of gunshot wounds to the head and trunk.

Daniel Raymond Boyett, 44, died of gunshot wounds to the head.

Matthew Mark Smith, 27, died of gunshot wounds to the trunk

Manuel Issac Rodriguez, 40, died of gunshot wounds but the report did not specify where he was shot. And Charles Wayne Russell, 46, died of gunshot wounds to the chest.Reporting now indicating that all deceased were killed by police gunfire.  Reporting now indicating 27 people shot by police, 8 still in hospital.   Reporting lowers weapons confiscated to less than 50, mostly pocket knives, chains (attached to wallets?), nail clippers, one padlock and firearms (CCP fired or unfired?).From the outset the police description of events at the Twin Peaks (Waco) Gang Shooting seemed oddly self-serving, super efficient/fast, and unusually specific for a mass casualty event outlined in under 3 hours.  It was *as if* they wanted to get out ahead of something.

One of the original claims, that was still maintained by officials last night, was the origin of the gang violence beginning in a restroom of the bar/grill and spilling outside.

WACO POLICE

Additionally, the police originally stated that all gang member gunfire was inside the building, and all the deceased were shot inside the restaurant.

However, a report outlining the 500 page construct of the police affidavit and arrest warrant(s) claims that all events happened outside in the parking lot:

[…] The affidavit goes on to say three or more members or associates of the Cossacks Motorcycle Club were in the parking lot of the restaurant when they confronted three or more members of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club when the Banditos arrived at the parking lot.

After the two rival groups met in the parking lot a fight broke out, the affidavit says.

“During the course of the altercation, members and associates of the Cossacks and Banditos brandished and used firearms, knives, or other unknown edged weapons, batons, clubs, brass knuckles and other weapons,:” the affidavit says.

The affidavit says the gang members fired at each other and then when police tried to stop the fight, they began firing at officers.

Waco police officers returned fire striking multiple gang members,” the affidavit says

Additionally the police went to great lengths to state the franchise owner/operator of the Twin Peaks restaurant would not cooperate with law enforcement and refused to cancel the event despite the demands of local law enforcement

WACO COPS AFTER SHOOTING

However, that too is factually disputed by the owner/operator:

[…] Late Monday afternoon the restaurant’s operators issued another statement in which they said law enforcement officials did not ask the operator or the franchisor to cancel the patio reservation on Sunday.

The event Sunday afternoon was not a Bike Night, the statement said, but instead the result of a “regular patio reservation made by a female customer who has been to the restaurant previously.”

“Based on the information to date, we also believe that the violence began outside in the area of the parking lot, and not inside our restaurant or on our patio, as has been widely reported,” the statement said.

[…] “We are in the process of gathering additional facts, and urge that people avoid rushing to judgment before those facts are fully known,” the [franchise owner] statement said. (link)

It would appear there are several contradictions with the initial -and ongoing- claims by Waco Police Spokesperson Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton. Including last night:

[…] Shots were fired inside the restaurant and bikers were shot, stabbed and beaten before the fight quickly moved outside to the parking lot, Swanton said

Just to refresh our memory, here is Swanton’s first Presser again: (this took place at approximately 3:00pm CST Sunday)

In addition, the number of uniformed police who were surrounding the building during the timeframe the bikers arrived at the event has increased from 12+ (original report) to more than

18+. And now includes the police stating the entire uniformed SWAT division, vehicles, squad cars, MRAP, and all SWAT equipment were in the parking lot directly in front of the restaurant.

[…] Eighteen uniformed Waco police officers including an assistant chief, sergeants and one rookie were standing by outside the restaurant Sunday and responded within a matter of seconds after the violence broke out between members of five rival gangs, Swanton said

So when we consider the police visibility -including their assault rifles- and overlay the affidavit claim: “three or more members or associates of the Cossacks Motorcycle Club were in the parking lot of the restaurant when they confronted three or more members of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club when the Banditos arrived at the parking lot“, you would have to think these are the stupidest gang members, or….. something else.

[…] As the officers responded, the bikers directed gunfire in their direction, police said.

“Our officers took fire and responded appropriately, returning fire,” he said.

There’s bound to be CCTV video at the restaurant/bar, that might help clear up some of the discrepancies if the video is ever made public.

However, it is worth noting the police themselves might have a vested interest in a very specific version of events, and no-one is visible yet to give any eye-witness information which might contradict that version.

It surely does seem odd that gang members would turn guns on heavily armed police who were directly in front of them, in the same parking lot, mere feet away. It also seems exceptionally fortunate that so far not a single stray bullet hit another building, vehicle or structure.

[…] Three of the dead were found in the parking lot just outside of the restaurant, four were found in front of the building and one had been dragged behind a neighboring restaurant.

Yet, …all the gang shooting was inside, right. Right

The Waco Massacre: Peaceful bikers rode into a killing field.

By Brooks Agnew

I was thinking of riding my Honda Shadow 1100 to Twin Peaks restaurant today to have some wings and enjoy the sports on TV on this gorgeous Memorial Day Weekend. The sun was shining, and the temperature was a perfect 82 degrees. I rode by the mall, with only moderate traffic and saw a couple of other bikers out doing the same thing I was doing; riding with no particular place to go.

I was riding alone and was not with any other bikers, but we always exchange the extended two-fingered peace sign as we pass one another on the roads winding through the countryside and through the cities of America.

As I made the turn onto the frontage road along the busiest shopping center in town, I noticed two police vehicles in the parking lot. One was a cruiser with black wheels and the new, aggressive paint scheme. The other was a black SUV with a light bar on top. I rolled through the parking lot in a Pavlovian state of mind, thinking about the delicious wings they serve and the beautiful and cheerful servers they have with this biker-friendly franchise.

Then I remembered Waco. A wave of trepidation swept through me. I looked around for snipers on the rooftops, and other police vehicles that might be parked nearby at the ready. I actually saw two more police cruisers, parked with their driver side doors facing eachother. Then, I looked over to the mall side of the parking lot, and I noticed an elevated portable police observation tower that had been raised up with its blacked out windows.

I never actually stopped my bike, thinking maybe Buffalo Wild Wings might be safer for bikers. I decided that this place looked too dangerous, even though I have a perfectly clean record, including no traffic citations for more than 10 years. I thought about those 9 bikers, shot in the head and neck with police assault rifles for doing nothing but the same thing I was thinking about doing; having some wings with other bikers who were out enjoying the beautiful weather. Were there scuffles at biker places where I have stopped for great food before? Sure. Nothing ever happened that was serious. Bikes and beer can sometimes get out of hand with people rolling in the gravel, but friends don’t let it last long. They all ride away and let it go like water under the bridge. After all, there are far too many 4-wheel threats out there for bikers to be fighting amongst themselves very long.

But Waco changed that for every biker in America. Every Wednesday evening, hundreds of riders come to our local Twin Peaks because they cater to our market. We are mostly working professionals, lawyers, dentists, engineers and school teachers who like to ride motorcycles as clubs or groups of friends. But this time, when 170 bikers rode to the Twin Peaks at a major shopping center in Waco, just as they have done twice a month for years, police snipers were already in position. SWAT members were geared up and ready for a killing. Even a fully equipped MRAP troop carrier was parked in the adjacent parking lot.

It turns out that the ATF claimed they had an anonymous tip that the dreaded Black Widow biker gang—you remember those scoundrels from the Clint Eastwood movie Every Which Way but Loose—was going to arrive looking for trouble. It’s too bad Clyde wasn’t around to throw those guys in the used French fry oil tank. The ATF was there with their Federal guidance to make sure that justice was swift and absolute.

No shots were fired by anyone inside the restaurant. No shots were fired by anyone at the police. When bikers decided to leave the restaurant and enter the parking lot, the police began shooting full-auto equipped M-16’s into the crowd. Patrons began diving under tables and screaming for their lives. Little waitresses dropped their trays and ran with terror in their eyes behind the chef’s counter. A twice decorated Viet Nam War veteran was shot in the head and neck, although he was a highly respected pacifist, was unarmed and not involved in any of the scuffle inside the Twin Peaks establishment. Eight more US citizens were gunned down in cold blood. More than 500 rounds were fired by police, hitting cars, buildings, and injuring other innocent bystanders who happened to look like bikers. Two shots took seven of the nine people assassinated in the parking lot; one in the neck and one in the head fired by expert police marksmen.

Within an hour, the police press statement belched lies about “criminal biker gangs,” dealing drugs and other things that never happened; not once in the 18 years bikers have been meeting peacefully at the Waco Twin Peaks restaurant. The police spokesman first mentioned hundreds of weapons confiscated, including chains that connected wallets to belt loops. Then they changed it to dozens. Then, the facts showed there were fewer than ten, and one was still holstered by a licensed concealed carry American, who had undergone an extensive background check and was found to be spotless. His bond was placed at an unreasonable $1 million. Of the 170 bikers arrested for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, less than a third had any criminal record. Three of them had drafted a new piece of legislation about biker safety, and have since been awarded by the City Counsel for safety awareness. Of course, they couldn’t be there to accept the award, because they were in jail.

To this moment, no waitresses, cooks, or patrons have been interviewed by the press. Witness intimidation is in full force making sure no one says anything about what really happened. All surveillance video has been classified and is currently being edited by law enforcement

professionals to make sure no officers are charged with murder. This was clearly a premeditated, Federal assault designed to kill first, and arrest the survivors.

It has been an infuriating eight days, and nothing has been said by the new Attorney General about unarmed citizens gunned down at a Sunday lunch in broad daylight by more than 18 armed policemen, militarized by a new Federal plan. 14 police officers have been placed on administrative leave, their lives changed forever by following orders to shoot Americans in the head. They died while screaming and waving their arms at the police to please stop shooting. There have been no protests and no demonstrations anywhere. Again, the Federal criminal perpetrators have massacred civilians in Waco, Texas. Remember the Branch Davidians burned alive on live national television by Federal troops while then attorney general Janet Reno watched the news at home? America sits idly by and says nothing as our police, sworn to protect and to serve, have been turned into cold-blooded assassins.

Meanwhile, a million bikers went to Washington DC this Memorial weekend to show support for the fallen troops who were sent to God knows where to kill other people in other countries to advance the agendas of God knows who. I ride my bike today alone. As my wheels turn, the wind blows the tears from my face while I think about all those dads, sons, mothers and daughters who died on the battlefield trying to free people oppressed by tyrannical governments. I am cold inside. I think of our own government shooting those free and innocent Americans dead on a Sunday morning in Texas. The world awaits the volumes of propaganda that will come forth about how bikers are a threat to peace and security.

I write this story from my heart, because silence is consent. The killing will stop when we have the courage to change what this president has done to our country. God has blessed America, but I am afraid He is turning is face away from what we have become. May the sleeping giant awaken before it is too late.

Paid Protestors in FergusonAt least some of the protesters who looted, rioted, burned buildings and overturned police cars in Ferguson, Missouri, last year were promised payment of up to $5,000 per month to join the protests.

However, when the Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), the successor group to the now-bankrupt St. Louis branch of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), stiffed the protesters, they launched a sit-in protest at the headquarters of MORE and created a Twitter page to demand their money, the Washington Times reports .

Former U.S. Rep. Allen B. West noted on his website, "Instead of being thankful for getting off the unemployment line for a few weeks and having a little fun protesting, the paid rioters who tore up Ferguson, MO, are protesting again.Special: Expose Finds Elite 1% Use a Secret Cancer Therapy

"First of all, can you even imagine getting paid $5,000.00 a month for running around holding a sign and burning down an occasional building? That's around $1,250.00 per week. Try making that at McDonald's or Starbucks."

The Kansas City Star estimates that the Ferguson riots, characterized as a spontaneous eruption of anger over the shooting of unarmed black criminal Michael Brown by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, cost the county $4.2 million.

Millennial Activists United (MAU) posted a letter on their website stating, "On May 14, 2015 many individuals and organizations of the protest movement that began in Ferguson, Missouri, organized a sit-in in the office of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE). The demand was simple: Cut the checks. The protesters say they are unable to pay their bills after taking time to travel to Ferguson.

"Questions have been raised as to how the movement is to sustain when white non-profits are hoarding monies collected of off (sic) black bodies? When we will (sic) hold the industry of black suffering accountable? The people of the community are fed up and the accountability begins here and now," the letter continues.Special: New Probiotic Fat Burner Takes GNC by Storm "There is an insidious strand of racism and white supremacy that exists in this movement. This money is typically in the hands of white people who oversee the types of services that the non-profit provides, while having select token black people to spearhead the conversations within and to the community."

MORE is funded by liberal billionaire George Soros, the Times notes, through his Open Society Foundations (OSF).

The OSF, the Times states, paid for activists from various protest groups to travel to Ferguson and take part in the demonstrations.

Akiba Solomon of Colorlines stated, "More than 500 of us have traveled from Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Nashville, Portland, Tucson, Washington, D.C., Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and other cities to support the people of Ferguson and help turn a local moment into a national movement," the Times noted.

"There's absolutely no doubt that part of the reason that Ferguson flared up was because protesters were being paid to be there. That makes you wonder how many are being paid in Baltimore? How many more will be paid in the future?" The Right Scoop asked.

Protesters directed much of their anger against MORE director Jeff Ordower, former Missouri head of ACORN and ACORN's Midwest operations, FrontPage Mag reports.

"The unpaid rent-a-mob operatives complain that MORE stiffed them the same way ACORN did to hired protesters throughout its 40 years of radical left-wing rabble-rousing," FrontPage Mag reports.

USAF has New Weapon Against Electronics

The Air Force has reportedly picked Lockheed Martin’s long-range Joint Air-to-Surface Missile to carry a new “superweapon’ – a pulse-generated beam weapon capable of destroying electronics and computers from miles away.

Major Gen. Thomas Masiello of the the Air Force Research Laboratory says the technology, known as CHAMP — for Counter-electronics High-powered microwave Advanced Missile Project — can destroy electronic equipment with bursts of high-power microwave energy, Flight Global reports.

The technology will be "miniaturized" to fit the Lockheed missile, Flight Global reports.

This revolutionary development in weaponry, right out of a Star Trek episode, could radically change warfare, experts say, as the new revelations may spark a new arms race for such technology.

"That’s an operational system already in our tactical air force, and that is really what will make us more operationally relevant," Masiello said at a science and technology exposition at the Pentagon earlier this month, Flight Global reports.

"Both the major commands and the combatant commands are very interested in that weapon system. It’s a non-kinetic effect."

"We're not quite up to the place where the Star Trek and Star Wars movies are, but this is definitely an advancement in technology to be able to give us an opportunity to something we couldn't do before," said lead test engineer Peter Finlay. Special: According to Foxtrot Alpha, the super-high-tech system will be a "first day of war" standoff weapon.

"The capability is real … and the technology can be available today," Masiello says, according to Foxtrot Alpha.

The Daily Mail reports that in 2012 Boeing successfully tested the weapon on a one-hour flight during which it knocked out the computers of an entire military compound. The test was over the Utah Test and Training Range, the newspaper reports.

The test was so successful even the camera recording it was disabled, the newspaper reports.

Keith Coleman, Champ program manager for Boeing's prototype arm Phantom Works, claims the technology marked "a new era in modern warfare."

"In the near future, this technology may be used to render an enemy's electronic and data systems

useless even before the first troops or aircraft arrive," he said during the initial test, the Daily Mail reports.

But there are also fears the project could trigger a strong reaction from U.S. competitors like China and Russia.

"Should the [United States] be known to have developed such a technology to the production stage, it would drive others to try to act similarly," according to Trevor Taylor of the Royal United Services Institute, the Daily Mail reports.

Money in the Mattress

NEW YORK – The unanimous Supreme Court decision in Tibble v. Edison has once again stoked ongoing fears in the financial services industry that the Obama administration might be preparing for a takeover of private retirement savings.

Some economists believe the court decision sets the ground for the administration to begin nationalizing 401(k) retirement savings plans under the banner of protecting individuals from predatory financial planners. The administration has in mind planners who recommend mutual fund investments on which they receive excessive commissions and fees, which curbs an investor’s gains during the 401(k)’s tax-deferred accumulation phase.

Yet most economists read Tibble much more narrowly. They argue that the justices’ only concern is that an objective methodology be implemented that forces financial planners to make recommendations on the basis of performance, avoiding mutual funds with high loads and fees that benefit financial planners unreasonably.

Dave Ramsey’s “Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness” is just $7.99 at the WND Superstore!

Is Obama planning to grab your 401(k)?

Economist Martin Armstrong, writing on his blog ArmstrongEconomics.com, asserted the Tibble decision “sets the stage to justify government seizure of private pension funds to protect pensioners.” He noted that 401(k) plans are part of the private pension market he estimates currently totals about $19.4 trillion.

Clearly the size of the retirement savings market is attractive to a federal government at a time when the federal deficit has increased some 80 percent in the past six years, with the federal debt now totaling more than $18 trillion.

An Investment Company Institute report published March 25 suggests the U.S. private retirement savings asset market may be even larger than Armstrong estimates. The ICI pegs total U.S. retirement assets at $24.7 trillion as of Dec. 31, 2014, with IRA assets estimated as $7.4 trillion and 401(k) assets at $4.6 trillion of that accumulated total.

The fear that the Obama administration may seek to grab private retirement assets is not entirely unjustified, as WND has reported. In 2010, the Obama administration began exploring strategies that would require hundreds of billions of dollars in programs such as 401(k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts, IRAs, to invest in U.S. Treasury bonds. The aim would be to lock in secured maturity values while providing the federal government a means of funding the $1.5 trillion a year needed to keep the government operating under the federal budget deficit estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.

In 2012, WND reported that in its annual budget proposal, the Obama administration endorsed “Automatic IRAs,” a plan introduced into Congress by Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass, and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. According to the plan, private companies would be automatically enrolled in government-mandated IRAs, forcing those businesses to contribute on behalf of their employees a “default amount” equal to 3 percent of an employee’s pay, unless the employee specifically opts out of the plan.

Earlier this year, WND reported the concern expressed by Rush Limbaugh that Obama intends to extract money from private retirement accounts. He cited the White House’s proposed fiscal year 2016 budget as proof Democrats have a plan to tax retirement accounts as a means of funding the administration’s ever-expanding social welfare, including services for the estimated 5-6 million illegal immigrants given “deferred deportation” under Obama’s executive actions.

Supreme Court disciplines financial planners

Columnist Chuck Jaffe, writing in MarketWatch.com, said the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Tibble is a simple idea that impacts all retirement savers.

“Workers should have access to the best fee structures available for their retirement plan,” he said. “The company providing or overseeing the plan has a responsibility to employees to make sure that the investments – and most importantly the fee structure on the plan – is the best available.”

Narrowly viewed, the Supreme Court decided in favor of the beneficiaries of a 401(k) savings plan established by Edison, a California-based utility. The company in 2007 sued the financial counselors who offered six, higher-priced, retail-class mutual funds offered as investments, when materially identical lower-priced, institution-class mutual funds were available to larger investors.

The litigation did not challenge any of the other roughly 40 mutual fund options offered to Edison employees.

The decision carefully argued that by offering only the higher priced version of the six mutual funds in contention, the plan advisers had breached a fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA.

“Under trust law, a trustee has a continuing duty to monitor trust investments and remove imprudent ones. This continuing duty exists separate and apart from the trustee’s duty to exercise

prudence in selecting investments at the outset,” wrote Justice Stephen Breyer, who delivered the opinion for the unanimous Supreme Court.

The case is also noteworthy in that the Supreme Court extended the responsibility of 401(k) financial planners beyond the six-year limitation applied to employers and plan representatives under ERISA. The fiduciaries of the Edison 401(k) plan had picked some of the retail-class mutual fund investment options in 1999, and the case was filed in 2007, more than six years after the mutual funds in question had been selected.

Jaffe’s response to Tibble was generally positive.

“Plan sponsors now have an ongoing responsibility to monitor a plan and to make sure that if something better comes along – an improved fee structure, lower-cost alternatives and more – the plan keeps up with the times,” he wrote. “Workers now can more easily sue employers whose plans are not managed with the employee’s best interest placed first.”

Jaffe also properly noted that while the Supreme Court decision focused on mutual fund commission issues, the decision also impacted fund performance issues.

“The case focused on fee structures rather than investment performance, but there’s a good chance it will force plan managers to make sure they aren’t hanging on to below-average options for too long, forcing regular upgrades to the options offered to workers based on what has been working recently,” Jaffe wrote.

He noted that the issues of how rigorously and frequently plan options must be reviewed were remanded to lower federal courts for resolution.

Jaffe also pointed out that while a mutual fund with a sales charge of 0.25 percent of total assets may seem indistinguishable to the non-professional from a materially identical mutual fund with a sales charge of 0.50 percent, the difference in investment performance results over time can be considerable.

Jaffe’s main concern is not that the Tibble decision is a prelude to an Obama administration takeover of the 401(k) business under an argument that the government can best ensure the retirement saver is not cheated by an unscrupulous investment adviser. His concern is that forcing employers to place in 401(k) investments the best performing funds available may make offering the plans unprofitable to employers and investment planners.

“There’s a tipping point where the costs of offering a plan to everyone outweighs the benefits the small-business owner gets for themselves,” Jaffe cautioned. “This ruling likely pushes that point to where a lot of small-company operators don’t give workers any retirement plan.”

By deciding the case in favor of the plaintiffs, even though the case was filed after the six-year ERISA statute of limitations, several commentators also concluded the Supreme Court has made it easier for 401(k) retirement savers to sue plan fiduciaries. They warn some employers may decide the 401(k) business has become too risky to justify offering plans to their employees,

while some financial planners currently advising 401(k) plans may decide to get out of that particular business.

Other commentators were concerned the Supreme Court decision could result in a consolidation, particularly of the popular index fund industry, with loads and fees converging to the lowest possible level, in a race to the bottom that may make the offering of index mutual funds unprofitable for all but the largest providers.

In the final analysis, the Tibble decision is almost certain to require all who offer 401(k) plans, including employers, independent financial planners and financial institutions, to develop reliable, computer-driven, statistical-based decision analyses. They will need to demonstrate to regulators and jurists alike that the mutual funds they offer can be justified on the basis of performance alone, without any consideration given to compensation earned by fiduciaries and plan sponsors

Agenda 21 Update

No agency or department of the state shall implement programs of, expend any sum for, be a member of, receive funding from, contract for services from, or give financial or other forms of aid to the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), and its derivatives, in furtherance of the United Nations program known as Agenda 21.

If you have no idea how this legislation seeps through the gaskets of liberty, look around.

VMT tax. This is a new tax that levies a tax against you for the miles you drive your vehicle. Look for different rates based on the vehicle’s weight. I thought we were already paying that tax when we buy gasoline. Oh yeah. They already spent the next 50 years of those taxes. They need another one.

Use of flower pots. A man is losing his paid for home to Agenda 21, who placed a lien on his home for displaying an American flag from a short pole in a flower pot on his porch. The law says that flower pots can only be used for plants.

The DHS Standing Army. All geared up with no place to go, so they bust your door down serving warrants for unpaid sales tax, black market electronics, and copyright violations such as storing music or movies on a hard drive.

Tap off: Water costs money. If you don’t pay your water bill, the utility company will turn your water off. The UN, through Agenda 21, says that turning the water off is a violation of human rights. So, the American taxpayer must pay the water bill of those who do not pay their water bill.

Why are some American cities thriving, growing in population, investment, and incomes, while others are in decline with shrinking populations, crumbling buildings, and businesses fleeing? People and capital don’t stay where they are poorly treated. This is made exponentially worse

when the lust for political longevity by “public servants,” is tempted to put their cup into the flow of cash from the winepress that extracts money from those who are actually working for a living.

Probably the most widespread threat to a city’s continuing success is redistributive taxation. Accumulated wealth in the hands of business people and professionals is a tempting target for politicians who figure they’ll gain far more votes than they’ll lose by imposing high property taxes. The wealthy owners will have no choice but to pay and the increased revenues can be used for projects and programs most of the voters like and which also help to buy favor with important interest groups.

One of America’s most notorious practitioners of that strategy was Boston’s mayor Michael Curley. The masses adored this “man of the people” who kept increasing property taxes on the rich, but few could see the slow-motion decline of the city his redistributive policies brought about. High taxes repelled new investment and even maintenance of the existing capital. The city’s population began to fall, as did the median income. Curley’s political success came at the price of setting his city on a downward economic spiral.

Boston kept sinking until Massachusetts voters enacted a property tax limitation measure (called Proposition 2.5) in 1980. The measure had been frantically opposed by the governing elite, city and state, because they were certain that tax limits would “starve” the city. But instead of starving Boston, Prop 2.5 breathed new life into it. Ambitious people and investment quickly returned.

Boston’s revival didn’t occur because politicians had solved any of the usual problems that are blamed for urban decay: racism, poor education, crime and so on. All that had changed was a tax limitation measure that kept Boston from strangling itself with high taxes.

Is that a unique case? No – the same scenario has played out in quite a few other cities and San Francisco is a good example. “Progressive” politicians there had played the same redistributive game that Curley had in Boston, with the same predictable results. By the 1970s, San Francisco was a dysfunctional (mainly due to militant unions that kept striking for higher pay, which the politicians gave them through higher taxes) and decaying city.

But in 1978 California voters passed Howard Jarvis’ tax limitation amendment (Proposition 13). California liberals declared that it would be utterly ruinous. Voters didn’t listen to them and passed it anyway. Almost immediately, capital began flowing back into San Francisco and other cities in the state. “Prop. 13 increased the return on investments and protected them against further Robin Hood raids.” As with Boston, San Francisco’s revival had nothing to do with the discovery of “solutions” to any of the presumed causes of urban decay.

Baltimore serves as an instructive case for precisely the opposite reason. It’s a city where there has never been a reduction in taxes. For decades, city leaders have placed their bets on big, splashy government-led projects to revive it, but those “investments” have been failures.

One great example of this is the Charles Center development: “Upon its completion in the early 1960s, press coverage was adulatory and opinion leaders praised those behind the thirty-three-acre project for their good intentions, brilliant vision, bold artistic sense, and deft political touch.” Over the decades, city officials kept pouring money into similar “renaissance” projects, but “few noticed that (the Charles Center) is actually a failure both within its borders and beyond them.”

Due to the high-tax, government-centered philosophy that has held sway in Baltimore (and the state of Maryland), most of the city is decaying. Instead of encouraging small capital investments that really would radiate jobs and prosperity, city officials have tried to use big government as a catalyst, and failed. Baltimore’s unhappy experience is a perfect example of what happens when politicians use the plight of the poor to extract cash from other cities, and then rob the coffer to make themselves and their crony friends rich.

Redistributive taxation isn’t the only way that cities turn against the sources of prosperity. Another is to embrace the union movement, whose short-sighted actions siphon away a large portion of the return to invested capital and thereby set in motion counter-moves that will slowly de-capitalize a city to the detriment of nearly everyone.

Detroit is, of course, the prime example. Once the most technologically advanced and wealthy cities in the world, it grew at a dazzling pace from 1900 to 1950, by which time it was the nation’s fourth largest city, boasting a median family income second only to Chicago. A true boom town, the good wages available in its many industries attracted people of all races.

During Detroit’s fabulous growth, unions represented no more than ten percent of the workers in the city’s many factories — a strong refutation to the frequently made claim that unions created America’s middle class. But that was in the days when unions were treated no differently from other voluntary organizations under the law. That changed with the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935 (upheld against constitutional challenge by the Supreme Court in 1937).

The United Auto Workers promptly used their muscle to organize General Motors and Chrysler in 1937. Ford held out until 1941, but also succumbed to unionization. Henry was a staunch supporter of Adolf Hitler and received the highest civilian honor in person from the Fuhrer. Collective bargaining now seemed to be an easy way for workers to get higher wages and it spread rapidly. They routinely held these manufacturers hostage, claiming that a good portion of the profits made by the company did not belong to the shareholders who took the risk of investment, but to the worker that produced the automobile. The unions built the careers of politicians, who in turn passed laws that allowed for States to act as ATM’s for the unions.

The long-run effect of the alliance between unions and politicians was similar to high tax rates. Investors stopped putting money where the returns were expropriated. Between 1947 and 1958, manufacturing employment fell by 40 percent; Detroit went into a tailspin from which it has never recovered. Detroit is a burned out hull of a city, with contractors hanging on by their fingernails in the outlying areas. Auto plants are built everywhere, except Detroit.

Governor Scott Walker was the victim of massive attacks and millions of dollars in union smear campaigns, even recalling him after his election, all because he allowed the Wisconsin worker to choose whether he wanted to join the union or not. He also stopped the State from collecting the union dues, giving the responsibility back to the worker to write that dues check each month. He argues that they mainly work as a signal to businesses that they will find a welcoming climate. States that allow compulsory unionism hurt their cities’ ability to compete for investment by sending the opposite signal. Wisconsin now has a budget surplus, lower taxes, and lower unemployment. Scott Walker won his election three times in 4 years.

By themselves, right to work laws don’t change things much. They can’t forbid unionization, but only allow workers who dare to tell the union brass, “I won’t pay you any dues money,” to keep their jobs. That doesn’t save companies any money and costs the unions only a little at the margin. All a right to work law does is to signal that public policy is not dominated by the redistributionists, but that is a very important signal.

Speaking of signals, a bad one that cities can send is that they are willing to use eminent domain to seize property from homeowners and small businesses to entice big companies. Every city fights their residents for property. They don’t want to sell it, or they ask too much money for it, when the city needs it, so they just take it by force. When cities play that game, “The mere threat of such takings will have a chilling effect on private owners’ plans to upgrade residences and businesses in areas targeted for ‘rescue’ or ‘upgrade’ by planners.” Also, eminent domain-based development tends to misallocate capital because it distorts price signals and substitutes the tastes of the planners for those of market participants. Usually, you can find an adjacent property that is owned by a member of city council that will be hugely improved by a new industrial park or 4-way interchange next to it.

BRICS Update

Infrastructure plans involve long maturation projects that discourage the private sector, especially in the case of less developed countries. Adding to these woes, the share of resources from multilateral banks is small and almost inconsequential.

Furthermore, these banks also limit the investment portfolios of countries due to guarantee requirements, and do not have adequate instruments to leverage projects that encourage private sector participation.

The multilateral banks’ investment portfolios often follow policy criteria that tend to overlook critical infrastructure projects, the ones that could make a real impact on billions of citizens.

This is where the need for an alternative ratings agency comes into play. You know how this works. The Beacon’s score is a fictitious number that allows banks to turn down your loan for a car. No one knows how the Beacon score is derived. Likewise, the strength of a lender cannot be judged so easily. The borrower may be weak, but the project being financed in extremely valuable. They would rather lend to a crappy project with a strong borrower. Hence, a program

But two critical issues must first be considered.

For one, the New Development Bank must strictly adhere to the principles of good governance of development banks if it is to be sustainable in the long run. Rigorous analysis of the cost and benefits of the development projects must be carried out before finances are awarded.

The BRICS bank must guarantee a positive rate of return of its lending portfolio. This new bank must strive to operate not only with government resources, but also try and garner private resources.

Leaders of the BRICS nations met with South American leaders at the 6th BRICS Summit in Brasília on 17 July 2014 [PPIO]

Secondly, the BRICS Bank must not only operate in countries with investment grades but also inevitably in countries that receive low to high grades for political and commercial risk

These countries have difficulty obtaining financing because they cannot offer the amount of guarantees the private sector or even the existing multilateral agencies demand.

Moreover, and this needs repeating, ‘outsiders’ may deem some ‘national’ development projects as ‘unimportant’.

But it is these projects that could generate positive externalities that will improve the prospects for the development of a country or a specific region in the medium and long run.

A positive externality is an often unforeseen or unintended benefit, accompanying a process.

(The OECD definition says “a positive externality or external economy may arise from the construction of a road which opens a new area for housing, commercial development, tourism, etc”.)

Other methods of evaluation

Currently, the world’s three big credit ratings agencies Moody’s, Fitch and S&P, which together account for a 90 per cent share of the ratings market, rule the roost.

Although the 2008 financial crisis has indeed reinforced the growing list of people unhappy with these three primary western credit rating agencies, it is not our aim to criticize the way they evaluate countries.

We do acknowledge that the criteria used by the big three agencies can answer the way some sectors/institutions evaluate a state’s economic “health”.

Nonetheless, other methodologies of evaluation can and must consider new indicators and aspects.

This assumes criticality when the main priority is to guarantee the financing of infrastructure and sustainable projects in developing countries.

The Asian Development Bank also estimates that in the next decade Asian countries will need $8 trillion in infrastructure investments to maintain current economic growth rates.

The driving motive to propose an alternative ratings agency is, therefore, to make sure that the NDB (BRICS bank) will conciliate the two issues raised above.

A new agency made up of specialists with deep understanding of the modus operandi of BRICS and developing countries – with the aim to rate infrastructure and sustainable projects – can contribute to the inclusion of projects that generate “positive externalities”.

But a warning must be noted here: The criteria used by the new BRICS ratings agency must be well documented and transparent in order to garner technical support for the project financing of the NDB.

Here, of course, we are assuming that the BRICS Bank will not rely only on government financial resources forever.

The emphasis on the role of new alternative ratings agencies is linked to the financing of developing countries which are usually outside the portfolio of the private sector and sometimes the multilateral agencies.

Proposals to create a BRICS independent ratings agency must go beyond this motivation.

In this case, the ratings agency will not just rate BRICS and the rest of the world but incorporate new indicators and aspects; these are crucial for a new multipolar world.

A ratings agency must be independent to be reliable. A ratings agency controlled by the BRICS governments will face difficulties in proving its independence.

At the same time, it is not yet clear that Russia and China want a totally private ratings agency. We have to wait and watch what direction the BRICS rating agency will follow.

The NSA Countdown

Washington (AFP) - CIA chief John Brennan warned Sunday that allowing vital surveillance programs to lapse could increase terror threats, as the US Senate scrambled to renew the controversial provisions hours before their expiration.

With key counterterrorism programs under threat of suspension at midnight Sunday, the top intelligence official made a final pitch for Senate action, arguing that the bulk data collection of telephone records of millions of Americans unconnected to terrorism has not abused civil liberties and only serves to safeguard citizens.

"This is something that we can't afford to do right now," Brennan said of allowing the counterterrorism provisions to expire at midnight Sunday.

"Because if you look at the horrific terrorist attacks and violence being perpetrated around the globe, we need to keep our country safe, and our oceans are not keeping us safe the way they did century ago," he said on CBS talk show "Face the Nation."

Brennan added that groups like Islamic State have followed the developments "very carefully" and are "looking for the seams to operate."

The House has already passed a reform bill, the USA Freedom Act, that would end the telephone data dragnet by the National Security Agency and require a court order for the NSA to access specific records from the data retained by telecommunications companies.

If no action is taken by the Senate Sunday, authorities will be forced to shut down the bulk collection program and two other provisions, which allow roving wiretaps of terror suspects and the tracking of lone-wolf suspects.

View gallery

CIA chief John Brennan argued that the bulk data collection of telephone records of millions of Amer …

A senior administration official said switches would be turned off for the bulk collection servers beginning at 3:59 pm (1959 GMT) Sunday, and any collection after midnight would be deemed illegal, without congressional authorization.

"I do believe we have the votes" to pass the Freedom Act, Republican Senator Mike Lee, who supports ending NSA metadata collection, told CNN's State of the Union.

"At this point I think the question is not about whether we will get it passed, but when."

Senator Rand Paul, a Republican 2016 presidential candidate adamantly opposed to reauthorizing the surveillance, is threatening to use his parliamentary prerogative to delay votes on the reform bill or an extension of the original USA Patriot Act.

That could force the counterterrorism provisions to lapse until Wednesday, and possibly later.

Senator Rand Paul, a Republican 2016 presidential candidate, is adamantly opposed to reauthorizing t …

Brennan did not mention Paul by name, but he expressed exasperation over the politicization of important programs which he insisted "have not been abused" by US authorities.

"Unfortunately I think there is a little too much political grandstanding and crusading for ideological causes that have really fuelled the debate on this issue," he said.

The Senate meanwhile convened at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT) with the fate of the provisions hanging in the balance.

Top Senate Democrat Harry Reid blasted Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for opposing the painstakingly crafted compromise reform legislation that overwhelmingly passed the House, but having no viable plan that would keep crucial provisions from expiring.

"That's why we're here, staring down the barrel of yet another unnecessary manufactured crisis that threatens our national security," Reid said on the Senate floor.

Senator Patrick Leahy, a senior Democrat who co-authored the Freedom Act, piled on, saying the Senate was facing a crises of McConnell's making.

"We should pass it tonight," Leahy said of the reform bill. "But don't duck behind not doing anything and pretend that's a solution."

McConnell stood at odds with House Speaker John Boehner, who warned how Al-Qaeda and IS could benefit if counterterror tools lapsed and urged the Senate to pass the Freedom Act.

"Anyone who is satisfied with letting this critical intelligence capability go dark isn't taking the terrorist threat seriously," Boehner said Sunday.

Independent Senator Angus King said it was important to halt the government storage of metadata, leaving it instead with telecommunications companies.

But he said the Freedom Act should be improved so that it compels companies to hold data for a long period of time.

"There should be some reasonable requirement for holding the data if, indeed, you think the program has value, and I do," King told CNN.

Fatal police shootings in 2015 approaching 400 nationwide

In an alley in Denver, police gunned down a 17-year-old girl joyriding in a stolen car. In the backwoods of North Carolina, police opened fire on a gun-wielding moonshiner. And in a high-rise apartment in Birmingham, Ala., police shot an elderly man after his son asked them to make sure he was okay. Douglas Harris, 77, answered the door with a gun.

The three are among at least 385 people shot and killed by police nationwide during the first five months of this year, more than two a day, according to a Washington Post analysis. That is more than twice the rate of fatal police shootings tallied by the federal government over the past decade, a count that officials concede is incomplete.

“These shootings are grossly underreported,” said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief and president of the Washington-based Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to

improving law enforcement. “We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don’t begin to accurately track this information.”

A national debate is raging about police use of deadly force, especially against minorities. To understand why and how often these shootings occur, The Washington Post is compiling a database of every fatal shooting by police in 2015, as well as of every officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty. The Post looked exclusively at shootings, not killings by other means, such as stun guns and deaths in police custody.

Using interviews, police reports, local news accounts and other sources, The Post tracked more than a dozen details about each killing through Friday, including the victim’s race, whether the person was armed and the circumstances that led to the fatal encounter. The result is an unprecedented examination of these shootings, many of which began as minor incidents and suddenly escalated into violence.

Among The Post’s findings:

●About half the victims were white, half minority. But the demographics shifted sharply among the unarmed victims, two-thirds of whom were black or Hispanic. Overall, blacks were killed at three times the rate of whites or other minorities when adjusting by the population of the census tracts where the shootings occurred.

●The vast majority of victims — more than 80 percent — were armed with potentially lethal objects, primarily guns, but also knives, machetes, revving vehicles and, in one case, a nail gun.

●Forty-nine people had no weapon, while the guns wielded by 13 others turned out to be toys. In all, 16 percent were either carrying a toy or were unarmed.

●The dead ranged in age from 16 to 83. Eight were children younger than 18, including Jessie Hernandez, 17, who was shot three times by Denver police officers as she and a carload of friends allegedly tried to run them down.

The Post analysis also sheds light on the situations that most commonly gave rise to fatal shootings. About half of the time, police were responding to people seeking help with domestic disturbances and other complex social situations: A homeless person behaving erratically. A boyfriend threatening violence. A son trying to kill himself.

The other half of shootings involved non-domestic crimes, such as robberies, or the routine duties that occupy patrol officers, such as serving warrants.

Nicholas T. Thomas, a 23-year-old black man, was killed in March when police in Smyrna, Ga., tried to serve him with a warrant for failing to pay $170 in felony probation fees. Thomas fled the Goodyear tire shop where he worked as a mechanic, and police shot into his car.

Although race was a dividing line, those who died by police gunfire often had much in common. Most were poor and had a history of run-ins with law enforcement over mostly small-time crimes, sometimes because they were emotionally troubled.

Both things were true of Daniel Elrod, a 39-year-old white man. Elrod had been arrested at least 16 times over the past 15 years; he was taken into protective custody twice last year because Omaha police feared he might hurt himself.

On the day he died in February, Elrod robbed a Family Dollar store. Police said he ran when officers arrived, jumping on top of a BMW in the parking lot and yelling, “Shoot me, shoot me.” Elrod, who was unarmed, was shot three times as he made a “mid-air leap” to clear a barbed-wire fence, according to police records.

Dozens of other people also died while fleeing from police, The Post analysis shows, including a significant proportion — 20 percent — of those who were unarmed. Running is such a provocative act that police experts say there is a name for the injury officers inflict on suspects afterward: a “foot tax.”

Police are authorized to use deadly force only when they fear for their lives or the lives of others. So far, just three of the 385 fatal shootings have resulted in an officer being charged with a crime — less than 1 percent.

The low rate mirrors the findings of a Post investigation in April that found that of thousands of fatal police shootings over the past decade, only 54 had produced criminal charges. Typically, those cases involved layers of damning evidence challenging the officer’s account. Of the cases resolved, most officers were cleared or acquitted.

In all three 2015 cases in which charges were filed, videos emerged showing the officers shooting a suspect during or after a foot chase:

●In South Carolina, police officer Michael Slager was charged with murder in the death of Walter Scott, a 50-year-old black man, who ran after a traffic stop. Slager’s attorney declined to comment.

●In Oklahoma, reserve deputy Robert Bates was charged with second-degree manslaughter 10 days after he killed Eric Harris, a 44-year-old black man. Bates’s attorney, Clark Brewster, characterized the shooting as a “legitimate accident,” noting that Bates mistakenly grabbed his gun instead of his Taser.

●And in Pennsylvania, officer Lisa Mearkle was charged with criminal homicide six weeks after she shot and killed David Kassick, a 59-year-old white man, who refused to pull over for a traffic stop. Her attorney did not return calls for comment.

In many other cases, police agencies have determined that the shootings were justified. But many law enforcement leaders are calling for greater scrutiny.

After nearly a year of protests against police brutality and with a White House task force report calling for reforms, a dozen current and former police chiefs and other criminal justice officials said police must begin to accept responsibility for the carnage. They argue that a large number of the killings examined by The Post could be blamed on poor policing.

“We have to get beyond what is legal and start focusing on what is preventable. Most are preventable,” said Ronald L. Davis, a former police chief who heads the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services.

Police “need to stop chasing down suspects, hopping fences and landing on top of someone with a gun,” Davis said. “When they do that, they have no choice but to shoot.”

As a start, criminologists say the federal government should systematically analyze police shootings. Currently, the FBI struggles to gather the most basic data. Reporting is voluntary, and since 2011, less than 3 percent of the nation’s 18,000 state and local police agencies have reported fatal shootings by their officers to the FBI. As a result, FBI records over the past decade show only about 400 police shootings a year — an average of 1.1 deaths per day.

According to The Post’s analysis, the daily death toll so far for 2015 is close to 2.6. At that pace, police will have shot and killed nearly 1,000 people by the end of the year.

“We have to understand the phenomena behind these fatal encounters,” Bueermann said. “There is a compelling social need for this, but a lack of political will to make it happen.”

For the vast majority of departments, a fatal shooting is a rare event. Only 306 agencies have recorded one so far this year, and most had only one, the Post analysis shows.

However, 19 state and local departments were involved in at least three fatal shootings. Los Angeles police lead the nation with eight. The latest occurred May 5, when Brendon Glenn, a 29-year-old homeless black man, was shot after an altercation outside a Venice bar.

Oklahoma City police have killed four people, including an 83-year-old white man wielding a machete.

“We want to do the most we can to keep from taking someone’s life, even under the worst circumstances,” said Oklahoma City Police Chief William Citty. “There are just going to be some shootings that are unavoidable.”

In Bakersfield, Calif., all three of the department’s killings occurred in a span of 10 days in March. The most recent involved Adrian Hernandez, a 22-year-old Hispanic man accused of raping his roommate, dousing her with flammable liquid and setting fire to their home.

After a manhunt, police cornered Hernandez, who jumped out of his car holding a BB gun. Police opened fire, and some Bakersfield residents say they are glad the officers did.

“I’m relieved he can’t come back here, to be honest with you,” said Brian Haver, who lives next door to the house Hernandez torched. “If he came out holding a gun, what were they supposed to do?”

Although law enforcement officials say many shootings are preventable, that is not always true. In dozens of cases, officers rushed into volatile situations and saved lives. Examples of police heroism abound.

In Tempe, Ariz., police rescued a 25-year-old woman who had been stabbed and tied up and was screaming for help. Her boyfriend, Matthew Metz, a 26-year-old white man, also stabbed an officer before he was shot and killed, according to police records.

In San Antonio, a patrol officer heard gunshots and rushed to the parking lot of Dad’s Karaoke bar to find a man shooting into the crowd. Richard Castilleja, a 29-year-old Latino, had hit two men and was still unloading his weapon when he was shot and killed, according to police records.

And in Los Angeles County, a Hawthorne police officer working overtime was credited with saving the life of a 12-year-old boy after a frantic woman in a gray Mercedes pulled alongside the officer and said three men in a white Cadillac were following her and her son.

Seconds later, the Cadillac roared up. Robert Washington, a 37-year-old black man, jumped out and began shooting into the woman’s car.

“He had two revolvers and started shooting both of them with no words spoken. He shot and killed the mom, and then he started shooting at the kid,” said Eddie Aguirre, a Los Angeles County homicide detective investigating the case.

“The deputy got out of his patrol car and started shooting,” Aguirre said. “He saved the boy’s life.”

In about half the shootings, police were responding to non-domestic criminal situations, with robberies and traffic infractions ranking among the most common offenses. Nearly half of blacks and other minorities were killed under such circumstances. So were about a third of whites.

In North Carolina, a police officer searching for clues in a hit-and-run case approached a green and white mobile home owned by Lester Brown, a 58-year-old white man. On the front porch, the officer spotted an illegal liquor still. He called for backup, and drug agents soon arrived with a search warrant.

View Graphic People shot to death by police and how they were allegedly armed

Officers knocked on the door and asked Brown to secure his dog. Instead, Brown dashed upstairs and grabbed a Soviet SKS rifle, according to police reports.

Neighbor Joe Guffey Jr. told a local TV reporter that he was sitting at home with his dogs when the shooting started: “Pow, pow, pow, pow.” Brown was hit seven times and pronounced dead at the scene.

While Brown allegedly stood his ground, many others involved in criminal activity chose to flee when confronted by police. Kassick, for example, attracted Mearkle’s attention because he had expired vehicle inspection stickers. On the day he died, Kassick was on felony probation for drunken driving and had drugs in his system, police and autopsy reports show.

After failing to pull over, Kassick drove to his sister’s house in Hummelstown, Pa., jumped out of the car and ran. Mearkle repeatedly struck Kassick with a stun gun and then shot him twice in the back while he was face-down in the snow.

Jimmy Ray Robinson, a.k.a. the “Honey Bun Bandit,” allegedly robbed five convenience stores in Central Texas, grabbing some of the sticky pastries along the way. Robinson, a 51-year-old black man, fled when he spotted Waco police officers staking out his home.

Robinson sped off in reverse in a green Ford Explorer. It got stuck in the mud, and four Waco officers opened fire.

“They think they can outrun the officers. They don’t realize how dangerous it is,” said Samuel Lee Reid, executive director of the Atlanta Citizen Review Board, which investigates police shootings and recently launched a “Don’t Run” campaign. “The panic sets in,” and “all they can think is that they don’t want to get caught and go back to jail.”

The most troubling cases began with a cry for help.

About half the shootings occurred after family members, neighbors or strangers sought help from police because someone was suicidal, behaving erratically or threatening violence.

Take Shane Watkins, a 39-year-old white man, who died in his mother’s driveway in Moulton, Ala.

Watkins had never been violent, and family members were not afraid for their safety when they called Lawrence County sheriff’s deputies in March. But Watkins, who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, was off his medication. Days earlier, he had declared himself the “god of the fifth element” and demanded whiskey and beer so he could “cleanse the earth with it,” said his sister, Yvonne Cote.

Then he started threatening to shoot himself and his dog, Slayer. His mother called Cote, who called 911. Cote got back on the phone with her mother, who watched Watkins walk onto the driveway holding a box cutter to his chest. A patrol car pulled up, and Cote heard her mother yell: “Don’t shoot! He doesn’t have a gun!”

“Then I heard the gunshots,” Cote said.

Lawrence County sheriff’s officials declined to comment and have refused to release documents related to the case.

“There are so many unanswered questions,” she said. “All he had was a box cutter. Wasn’t there some other way for them to handle this?”

Catherine Daniels called police for the same reason. “I wanted to get my son help,” she said. Instead, officers Peter Ehrlich and Eddo Trimino fired their stun guns after Hall hit them with the metal end of the broomstick, according to investigative documents.

“Please don’t hurt my child,” Daniels pleaded, in a scene captured by a camera mounted on the dash of one of the patrol cars.

“Get on the f---ing ground or you’re dead!” Trimino shouted. Then he fired five shots.

Police spokesman Mike Wright declined to comment on the case. Daniels said no one from the city has contacted her. “I haven’t received anything. No apology, nothing.”

But hours after her son was killed, Daniels said, officers investigating the shooting dropped off a six-pack of Coca-Cola.

“I regret calling them,” Daniels said. “They took my son’s life.”

Ted Mellnik, John Muyskens and Amy Brittain contributed to this report.

About this article

As part of an ongoing examination of police accountability, The Washington Post has attempted to track every fatal shooting by law enforcement nationwide since January, as well as the number of officers who were fatally shot in the line of duty.

The Post compiled the data using news reports, police records, open sources on the Internet and other original reporting. Several organizations, including Killed by Police and Fatal Encounters, have been collecting information about people who die during encounters with police.

The Post documented only those incidents in which a police officer, while on duty, shot and killed a civilian. Cases in which officers were shot to death were also tabulated.

To comprehensively examine the issue, a database was compiled with information about each incident, including the deceased’s age, race, gender, location and general circumstances. The Post also noted whether police reported that the person was armed and, if so, with what type of weapon.

The FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention log fatal police shootings, but the data the two federal agencies gather is incomplete. The Post analyzed a decade of FBI and CDC records as part of the study.

To examine racial and economic patterns, The Post identified the location of every fatal shooting and compared it with the composition of the surrounding census tract.