text:
 Domestic violence awareness improving - Navajo Times

DV programs: Awareness improving, action lagging

By Shondiin Silversmith and Cindy Yurth
Navajo Times

CHINLE and SHIPROCK, Oct. 17, 2013

Text size: A A A

(Times photo — Cindy Yurth)

Lorena Hallwood, executive director of Amá dóó Alchini Bighan in Chinle, places a “silent witness” at ADABI as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. “Silent witnesses” are plywood cutouts representing people who have died as a result of domestic violence.

Amá dóó Alchini Bighan in Chinle is out of purple ribbons.

It's Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and everybody wants to show where they stand.

That's a good thing.

But it's easy to pin on a purple ribbon.

How well do we on the Navajo Nation support our shamefully few domestic violence programs the other 11 months of the year?

To find out, the Navajo Times checked in on ADABI, Todenasshai Shelter Home in Kayenta, and Home for Women and Children in Shiprock.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so the staff of five and eight volunteers over at Ama doo Alchini Bighan are busy making purple ribbons to give away, hosting events and crafting displays.

DV conference takes a traditional tack

It's also ADABI Director Lorena Halwood's most frustrating month of the year.

Oct. 1 is the start of the Navajo Nation's fiscal year and should be the month ADABI receives the federal pass-through grant from the tribe that comprises its main source of funding.

But it never, ever is.

"I've been here 16 years, and every year it's the same story," Halwood complained.

"You would think they'd have it together by now."

The story is this: By April or May, Halwood turns in all the information the tribe needs to write the proposal.

By mid-summer, when she has not heard anything, she calls the Division of Social Services.

"I say, 'What can we do to help move the process along?'" she said.

She's told the grant is in the SAS process, the elaborate desk-hopping signature approval system it seems every piece of paper on the Navajo Nation must go through.

"After that, it goes to DOJ (Department of Justice)," Halwood said. "I have no idea why. What do they have to do with it?"

According to Halwood, the grant generally sits at DOJ for weeks or months.

It finally comes through the following April or May, an entire year after she has initiated the paperwork.

In the meantime, she is often forced to furlough her staff.

"Then, when we finally get it, we have five months to spend it all," she said. "They don't give us the same amount of leeway they give themselves."

When people ask Halwood if ADABI needs more money, she says "Sure."

But, she said, she'd gladly settle for the program being able to get its hands on the money it already has coming.

Fortunately, ADABI won a $25,000 grant from Mary Kay Cosmetics this year and has some other private funding that will help tide it over.

Local businesses have stepped forward to help fund the awareness events, and the family of Navajo Nation Police Sgt.

Darrell Curley, who was killed responding to a domestic violence incident in 2011, gave a donation plus two big boxes of plastic bags filled with baby blankets, baby clothes and toiletries, into each of which is tucked a moving letter explaining that the donation is in honor of a family member who became a casualty of DV.

As for the Navajo Nation government, "Speaker Naize and President Shelly are very supportive," she said, but the Council could do more.

"I'd like to see them all wear purple to a session one day," she said.

"I'd like to see them talk about domestic violence not just this month, but all year round."

Based on comments she's heard and read, Halwood wonders just how educated the Council members are on the Navajo Nation's domestic violence programs.

"I wonder," she mused, "if they even know how many shelters we have" - two; ADABI doesn't have a shelter, just a network of volunteer safe houses - "and where they're located" -- Shiprock and Kayenta.

Speaking of which, Halwood said there's a drastic need for more.

"There's nothing in Window Rock," she said.

"Ganado: nothing. Even Tuba City: nothing there."

So the three existing programs spread themselves thin.

Halwood was recently asked to give a talk all the way in Leupp, more than two hours from Chinle, and she did.

"We will do our best to help out wherever we're asked," she promised.

In return, she'd like some help from the community.

At the moment, ADABI could use coloring books, crayons, games, kiddie videos - "anything to distract the children," she said.

Diapers and children's clothes are always in demand, as "most families leave with just the clothes on their back."

Her big dream: a playground so the children can stay occupied and get some exercise while their moms are conferring with counselors.

On the plus side, the program has racked up eight "wonderful" volunteers, some of whom originally came to ADABI as victims.

"We have an excellent partnership with both law enforcement and the hospital," Halwood said, noting that police officers at the Chinle station have taken domestic violence response training and the Chinle Comprehensive Health Facility has trained seven nurses as "SANEs" (sexual assault nurse examiners).

"I'll stand behind our officers," Halwood said.

In fact, ADABI is throwing them a breakfast on the 22nd.

DNA has promised ADABI an on-site attorney, something that will save a lot of staff time driving clients to legal appointments.

Both the Navajo Nation Violence Against Families Act and the federal Violence Against Women Act passed in the last two years, although Halwood doesn't think the latter will have too many repercussions on the Navajo Nation, as its new tribal provisions mostly deal with bringing non-Native perpetrators to justice in Native courts.

"We just don't see that many women with non-Native partners here," she said, "although that could change in the next generation."

The act also has not been funded.

"Congress likes to pass bills," Halwood said, "but without any money behind them, they don't do us much good."

Has domestic violence changed in the last 16 years? Unfortunately yes, Halwood said.

"When I started, the question was always, 'Was he drinking?'" Halwood recalled. "Now it's often meth, cocaine -- the harder drugs."

Fists used to be the weapon of choice for abusers.

"Now we're starting to see axes, baseball bats ... We had a woman come in whose husband had knocked out all her teeth with a two-by-four," Halwood said.

As for sexual abuse, "the victims are getting younger," Halwood said, and so are the perps.

"Parents, your junior high kids are dating," she revealed.

"If you don't believe me, go down to the junior high and hang out at lunch hour."

One development that may be a good thing in disguise is an increase in the number of men seeking ADABI's services.

While it could be that more men are being abused, Halwood thinks it's more likely more men are feeling comfortable about coming forward.

"Last year we had 58 male victims," she said, "compared to maybe one 10 years ago."

It takes guts for a six-foot-two male, like the one who recently showed up at ADABI, to admit he's being abused by a woman, Halwood said.

The men are not always being physically abused; it's more likely to be emotional or financial.

For instance, Halwood said, one man arrived with his barely dressed children in tow, saying his wife had cleaned out the bank account and left.

"Those kids didn't even have Pampers," Halwood said.

What does the future hold for ADABI? Halwood is too focused on the present - namely the government shutdown - to think very far ahead.

"The government is shut down," she said, "but domestic violence isn't shut down.

In fact, it's already getting worse with so many people on furlough."

Information: www.adabi.org

Home for Women and Children

In Navajo tradition, women are the heart of the home, but what happens when a woman can't go home because of abuse or she's too scared to? What then?

They can go to the Home for Women and Children in Shiprock, one of only two domestic violence shelters available across the whole Navajo Nation.

It has been serving as a non-profit organization since 1975.

"We're a one-stop shop," said Executive Director Gloria Champion.

The services offered by the home are residential care, crisis intervention, advocacy, legal advocate, education, cultural sensitivity, child advocacy, Navajo healthy marriage, offender program, networking and collaboration, sexual assault recovery, grandparent foster program, victim support, staff development and community education.

"The Home for Women and Children is committed to providing shelter, advocacy, mentoring and education for families affected by domestic violence and sexual assault through a comprehensive family wellness center, community wellness and involvement and to identify resources to enhance growth and development," reads the home's mission statement.

"Home for Women and Children is committed to provide these services utilizing traditional Dine teachings of K'e and Ho'zho."

"We're trying to serve people who are underserved," Champion said, adding that Home for Women and Children is the only shelter that is capable of serving 8 to 12 victims and 25 kids on the Navajo Nation.

Families with up to six children may stay for a maximum of three months.

Everyone in the home is provided with three meals a day and two snacks.

The shelter is open 24/7 and the administration is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Champion said, adding that victims will walk up to the gate at 3 a.m. or 3 p.m. and the shelter will take them in.

They even provide transportation for families.

Champion said they will go in and pick up families if needed, and not many shelters do that.

"We have our detractors and some of those folks are people that have been mad at us because their partner was here, thinking that we were taking them away from them," Champion said, but "Home for Women and Children's intention is to provide support that will provide healing for both the victim and the offender, because we offer a 52-week program for offenders that will help the family and children heal."

"We also offer a family support program called Family Roots and Wings to support the parents and youth to live a unified family and life," Champion added.

One would think with the amount of good coming from a domestic violence shelter, funding would not be a big issue, but right now Champion said that is their biggest concern.

Champion said the shelter received money from family violence prevention funds from Washington that is passed through the Social Services Division of the Navajo Nation for the past 14 years, but at the beginning of October the tribe informed her she wouldn't be receiving that grant.

The grant was supposed to start in October.

"I don't know what we're going to do," Champion said, adding that the amount they would be looking to lose is $160,000 according to their grant last year, but Champion added the amount use to equal as much as $300,000 but have gotten smaller each year.

"That's a critical grant for us to just do our basic services," Champion said adding that she went in front of the Health, Education and Human Services Committee Thursday of last week to ask for funds to keep the doors open.

Champion said she was informed that the decision would be left up to the Council, and she would need to present in front of them, which she will be doing today at 10 a.m.

The Council decides whether they get to keep the program going, Champion added.

"We have a bigger population that we are serving then ever before at a time when our funds have just been cut," Champion said.

Champion said she can't express how critical it is for them to keep supporting because Home for Women and Children is about "keeping victims and children safe from domestic violence and keeping offenders educated to heal so that they can have good family."

Alongside her funding challenges Champion has had with her program, she has also been dealing with the fact that she hasn't been able to move them into five newly constructed shelters.

Construction for the shelters that started over 10 years ago to provide more housing for domestic violence victims was halted by the Navajo Nation after about "four years of good construction," Champion said.

The buildings were 80 percent complete in 2006, when the Navajo Nation Department of Justice reviewed the contract and decided the project hadn't been properly put out to bid.

With the help of attorney James Zion, the Home appealed the matter all the way to the Navajo Nation Supreme Court, and lost.

Champion said at the time of its construction, the new complex could have been completed for $1.4 million, but now it would take the tribe at least $5 to $6 million dollars to complete.

But Champion added that the original contractor, Robert Nelson from RJN Nelson Construction, who owns the project, is willing to complete it when funding is available.

After being abandoned for seven years, the building will need to be brought up to date, and Nelson said he is willing to make it state-of-the-art.

Because his late wife had lived on the reservation and was concerned about domestic violence, Nelson had given the Home a break on the cost as a memorial to her.

The five beautiful hogan-shaped buildings now have weeds growing alongside them, graffiti covering parts of the fencing and a heavy-duty chain and padlock put in place to keep people out when they should be welcoming victims in.

The shelter would have housed up to 28 victims and 168 children, plus there was extra room in case more people came in, Champion said.

The design was created with Navajo culture in mind, Champion added, because the community all came together to plan its construction.

"It was built with the principles of k'e and ho'zho, kinship and harmony," Champion added.

Champion said it hurts to look at those building because she can't get to them, even though she has a 75-year lease on them.

More information: www.homeforwomenandchildren.com.

Tohdenasshai Shelter Home

An interview couldn't be scheduled by press time with the Kayenta home's director, Elsie Smallcanyon, but an employee said that, like the Shiprock facility, Tohdenasshai is still waiting to move into its new building although it was completed 10 years ago.

"We've had different problems with the construction, including a water breakage," she said.

The shelter has eight beds at its present facility; the new building should triple that capacity.

Like the other two domestic violence programs, Tohdenasshai is still waiting on the tribe for its main grant, the employee confirmed.

Information: (928) 697-3635.

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Home Video Review: "The Secret in Their Eyes" | NBC Chicago
Movie Reviews, TV Reviews, and Recaps
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Home Video Review: "The Secret in Their Eyes"

    A 25-year-old mystery drags an investigator out of retirement and rekindles a long-dormant romance in the Argentinean movie that earlier this year won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. (Published Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2010)

    “The Secret in Their Eyes” (“El Secreto De Sus Ojos”) is a remarkably well-crafted whodunit spanning 25 years that drills deep into the nature of memory and longing.

    The film, which won the Oscar earlier this year for Best Foreign Language Film, stars Ricardo Darin as Benjamin Esposito, a federal investigator in Buenos Aires assigned to look into the savage rape and murder of a beautiful newlywed.

    The story, set against the backdrop of the Peronistas’ Dirty War that terrorized Argentinians in the mid 1970s, is told in a series of flashbacks as Esposito tries to recall precisely how the events unfolded for a novel he’s writing about the case. The whole exercise rekindles long-buried feelings for his former supervisor, Irene Menendez Hastings (Soledad Villamil).

    At the heart of “The Secret” are three men who deal with their deep desire for a woman in very different ways, none of them healthy.  Along the way are meditations on the nature of memory, the relative merits of looking forward vs. looking back and how pettiness can hamstring justice.

    Considering how sad, tragic and bleak the film is at times, it’s surprisingly funny, with much of the humor provided by Esposito’s friend and colleague Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella), a hopeless drunk with a keen sense of humanity. Sandoval possesses a self-awareness that allows him to remain a valuable sidekick, and Francella does a nice job of keeping his dignity intact.

    Darin’s long face and sad eyes perfectly convey the fatigue, stress and longing that gnaw at him seemingly every day. He also wields a flair for wit, profanity and rage that make him a force to be reckoned with. And hats off to the make-up department that made the quarter-century of aging that Esposito goes through look totally believable.

    Director Juan José Campanella, who also adapted the screenplay from Eduardo Sacheri’s novel “The Question in Their Eyes,” moves his camera artfully throughout the film. His long, fast-paced tracking shots through the courthouse hallways are impressive, as is his eye for setting his camera far back from the action, at low angles or shooting off-center to move your eyes around the screen and take in all the action.

    Campanella’s screenplay is as strong as his direction. The film opens with Esposito making several false starts at his own version of events; it’s a clever form of foreshadowing that simultaneously talks about how difficult it can be to get into a memory or story. By turns funny, tragic, scary and shocking, even coming in at 129 minutes, there’s barely a scrap of fat on this tale. The narrative is constantly evolving, making a steady march toward its startling conclusion. That said, the very end of the film feels a bit false, but it's not egregious enough to take the shine of the film.

    “The Secret in Their Eyes” is a taut murder mystery cum romance that cuts no corners as it moves seamlessly back and forth across 25 years in an effort to unearth the truth behind a horrible crime and the whereabouts of a monster.

    "The Secret in Their Eyes" is now available on Blu-ray and DVD


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'Saturday Night Live' Plays the Trump Card | NBC Connecticut

'Saturday Night Live' Plays the Trump Card

Donald Trump’s controversial turn on “Saturday Night Live” marks the biggest test yet of a presidential run that started as a joke and has grown into something far more difficult to label.

    Dana Carvey, while appearing on "The Tonight Show" last week, offered a "Saturday Night Live"-worthy Donald Trump impression – and a Johnny Carson-worthy assessment of the White House wannabe.

    “I’m not saying I want Donald Trump to be president – but I never want to live in a world where Donald Trump isn’t running for president," Carvey told Jimmy Fallon. "My quality of life has gone way up.”

    The line, funny and insightful, captured the paradoxical nature of Trump's strange place in the increasingly melded pop and political cultures. The developer with an ego as big as his real estate portfolio and hair as overblown as his rhetoric provides an easy – and seemingly willing – target for comedians. Yet he until recently stood atop the GOP presidential polls – a product, perhaps, of his self-created persona as an outsider who tells some people what they want to hear and puts on a show that’s amusing to some and vile to others.

    The former "Celebrity Apprentice" star's entertainment and political careers are set to collide this weekend when he hosts "SNL," setting the stage for the biggest test yet of a presidential run that started as a joke and has grown into something far more difficult to label.

    Trump's far from the first office seeker to appear on TV's longest-running, skit-driven platform for political satire. From President Gerald Ford's taped segment during the 1976 election cycle to 2008 cameos by Barack Obama, John McCain and Sarah Palin to Hillary Clinton's recent turn as an earthy bartender named Val, an "SNL" spot has proved a rite of passage for candidates, offering a way to display a sense of humor.

    But much of the lead-up to Trump's second "SNL" gig (he last hosted in 2004) smacks more of the furor that engulfed the 1990 appearance of Andrew Dice Clay. The comic's misogyny-laced act spurred then-cast member Nora Dunn and musical guest Sinead O'Connor to boycott the show.

    'Tonight Show': 'Tensions' with Short and Martin

    [NATL] 'Tonight Show': 'Tensions' with Martin Short and Steve Martin
    "Tonight Show" Jimmy Fallon and Martin Short show clips from their short-lived '90s soap opera, 'Tensions,' and things get really tense.
    (Published Friday, Nov. 6, 2015)

    Clay’s defenders have said he was playing an offensive, loudmouthed character. Sometimes, it seems like Trump is doing the same – and producing similar polarized reactions. Latino groups have called on NBC, which fired Trump from "The Celebrity Apprentice," to sack him from "SNL," saying venom he's spewed at Mexican immigrants is being unjustly rewarded with a major forum beyond the traditional campaign trail.

    There’s little doubt that Trump loves the spotlight and is willing to say whatever he thinks necessary to stay in its glare. But, as Carvey essentially put it, Trump is worth a few laughs – until he isn't.

    Jere Hester is Director of News Products and Projects at the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. He is also the author of "Raising a Beatle Baby: How John, Paul, George and Ringo Helped us Come Together as a Family." Follow him on Twitter.


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Image: Winvian
Opened late last year in Litchfield, Conn., Winvian can set you back close to $2,000 a night. At that price, you get to stay in one of 18 cottages designed by 15 different architects, each inspired by a Connecticut theme, such as the helicopter (Sikorsky builds them in Stratford, Conn.), beaver lodge, camping cottage, and secret society, a reference to Yale’s Skull and Bones.
updated 8/16/2007 4:11:20 PM ET 2007-08-16T20:11:20

Tired of staying at posh Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton hotels? Looking for accommodations that are wonderful but slightly wacky?

You’re in luck, whether you’re visiting New England, Paris or the wilds of Costa Rica or Turkey: Each has an over-the-top hotel offering accommodations that will no doubt exceed your wildest dreams.

Settings range from the bucolic to the exotic: Among the former are the Pitcher Inn and Winvian, luxury hotels in Vermont and Connecticut developed by the same Merrill Lynch executive; guest rooms in each are unique, such as a cottage at Winvian built around a 56-foot-long decommissioned Coast Guard helicopter.

Unusual hotels in more exotic destinations include the Ngong House, outside of Nairobi, Kenya; this overlooks the Ngong Hills in the outskirts of the city, and offers accommodations in luxuriously-furnished treehouses. Then there’s the Al Maha Desert Resort and Spa, built 45 minutes outside of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, in a 225-square-kilometer desert conservation reserve inhabited by rheem gazelle, scimitar-horned and Arabian oryx, and Arabian fox.

Those who prefer vacationing in the mountains will no doubt enjoy the Anatolian Houses, a suite hotel built in five adjoining volcanic caves in Turkey’s Cappadocia region.

Other hotels have an aquatic theme: Jules’ Undersea Lodge — named after Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and located in Key Largo, Fla. — is an underwater hotel in a lagoon that is accessible only by scuba-diving. The ICEHOTEL in Swedish Lapland is newly constructed each winter from 30,000 tons of snow and 10,000 tons of crystal-clear ice from the Torne River.

You’ll also find ice at Paris’ Kube Hotel in the city’s 18th arrondissement. Its reception desk occupies a large, transparent cube — reminiscent not only of ice, but also of I.M. Pei’s pyramids at the Louvre — in the courtyard of a 19th century building. The hotel also houses France’s first ice bar, made up of 22 tons of ice and sponsored by Grey Goose vodka. Water is also important at Baron Island, one of four volcanic islands off the southern Spanish Mediterranean coast; this is a 220-acre nature reserve whose accommodations include a 1950’s watchtower designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

If beachfront accommodations are your thing, you might enjoy the Tree House Lodge on Punta Uva beach on the Caribbean Sea, in Costa Rica’s Gandoca-Manzanillo Wildlife Refuge. The tree house has two guest rooms and a bathroom with a shower built around a 100-year-old, living sangrillo tree.

Image: Ngong House
Ngong House
Located on ten acres in the outskirts of Nairobi near the coffee farm of Karen Blixen, author of “Out of Africa,” the Ngong House is run by a former Belgian diplomat. Accommodations are in treehouses, a private cottage and log cabin; elevated 15 feet off the ground, the treehouses offer gorgeous views of the bush and Ngong Hills.
Says Jody Bear, a high-end travel agent at Bear and Bear Travel in New York, unusual hotels like these are perfect for seasoned travelers who “have been around and want to experience something new and different. Sometimes you’re bored going to the same type of hotels. If people are experimental or risk-takers, they want to tell their friends about their trips, how novel they were, what they experienced.”

“If someone is into aviation, or was in a war, or is a helicopter pilot and has a lot of money, Winvian would really appeal to them; it’s kitschy,” she added.

Betsy Donley, a travel agent who specializes in luxury adventure travel at Camelback Odyssey Travel in Phoenix, finds that exotic hotels often appeal to younger travelers, “who are looking for off-the-wall kinds of experiences that take them to really unusual places.”

Image: Costa Rica Tree House Lodge
Costa Rica Tree House Lodge
The Costa Rica Tree House Lodge is built of sustainable hardwoods taken from trees that fell in the rainforest; the treehouse has two rooms that sleep up to six. Views of the rainforest surround guests, who also have access to a 300-meter private beachfront. Surfing and white-water rafting are available.
One of her clients, Linda Stafford, a retired dental hygienist from Greenville, Mich., had a memorable stay at the Ngong House a while ago after being out in the bush on safari. “I had a treehouse to myself, it was like going from the ridiculous to the sublime,” she said. “The décor was classy rustic, a lot of wood and a big stained-glass window in the kitchenette, and the food was fantastic. We ate out on the lawn, under a beautiful tree, at a long table.”

Besides the “keeping up with the Joneses” aspect of staying at unusual properties like these, experts say a visit to them can even provide spiritual benefits.

Anne Morgan Scully, president of McCabe World Travel in McLean, Va., has stayed at Turkey’s Anatolian Houses and found the experience “incredible.”

“You see stars like you’ve never seen them before. You’re out in an extraordinary land, and also look at the heavens differently. It’s very unique. You won’t have an opportunity to do that anywhere else,” she said.

Staying at an exotic hotel can be “about fulfilling dreams, making your trip exciting,” suggests Bear. “You don’t want the routine, for that you can stay at home. If you want something memorable and exciting, these hotels can fit the bill.”

Check out these unusual properties — found everywhere from New England to Nairobi—for a trip that you won’t soon forget.

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'The Rachel Maddow Show' for Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Read the transcript to the Wednesday show

April 9, 2014

Guests: John Wisniewski, Tom Vilsack

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC ANCHOR: Out of New Jersey. Since the scandal first
came to light, five Christie administration appointees or staffers have
stepped down or been fired in relation to this scandal. Two of those
people, the governor`s former deputy chief of staff and his former campaign
manager, they have been fighting an effort by the state legislature to
investigate the bridge scandal, the closure of access lanes under the
George Washington Bridge back in September.

Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Stepien had both invoked their Fifth Amendment
rights and said that they would not hand over documents to the
investigation for fear of incriminating themselves.

Well, today just after 4:00 p.m. a Superior Court judge in New Jersey
agreed with Bill Stepien and Bridget Anne Kelly and said, in fact, they do
not have to comply with the subpoenas from the legislature. They do not
have to hand over any documents. The judge ruled that their Fifth
Amendment claims, basically, were legitimate, because it is reasonable, she
said, for them to fear that they may face criminal prosecution related to
their roles in the bridge lane closures.

The judge in her ruling today said they could, feasibly, be criminally
liable under New Jersey`s official misconduct law. And according to the
judge, quote, "It is reasonable for Mr. Stepien and Miss Kelly to fear that
they currently face the hazard of prosecution in the federal investigation
into these matters."

And that is the whole basis of invoking your Fifth Amendment rights, right?
Pleading the Fifth. Right? If there is a reasonable likelihood that you
could be criminally charged and prosecuted for something that you did, the
government can`t force you to say things or hand over things that will
incriminate you.

So, on the one hand, this is really good news today for Bridget Anne Kelly
and for Chris Christie`s former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, because
they do not have to hand over their BlackBerrys and hand over all their e-
mail records and their text messages to this investigation by the
legislature. On the other hand, the judge says that the reason they don`t
have to do that is because federal prosecutors might be coming after them.

So imagine this sort of feels like a bit of a mixed blessing.

Now the other really important part of this ruling today, which we knew the
committee was waiting to hear about with bated breath. The other part of
this ruling today is the question of whether or not the committee can offer
people immunity from prosecution in exchange for them testifying.

David Wildstein, the man who shut down the bridge lanes, you`ll remember
that he pled the Fifth to the committee. He refused to answer questions,
and his lawyer said, if the committee was willing to grant him immunity,
Mr. Wildstein would tell all he knew. Bridget Kelly, who worked in
Governor Christie`s office when she sent the "Time for some traffic
problems in Ft. Lee" e-mail, her Fifth Amendment claims not to have to turn
over documents, those claims were, today, upheld by this judge.

But for the last month, Bridget Kelly`s lawyer has been hinting, and then
just explicitly saying that she, too, would be willing to tell all she knew
if the legislature was willing to give her immunity.

Well, that committee and the legislature has maintained either that it
didn`t think it could grant immunity or that it was pretty sure that it
couldn`t grant immunity. But this was settled today. This was the other
issue that this Superior Court judge in New Jersey today ruled on. And the
judge said, in very clear terms, yes, this committee and the legislature
can give people immunity. And if the legislature gives people immunity,
then presumably, they can also compel all the testimony and all the
documents that they want from those people who they have immunized.

But they`ve got to think twice before they do that, right? Because the
legislature may really want to give Bridget Kelly, David Wildstein, Bill
Stepien, any of these people may want to give these people immunity in
order to get their documents and get their testimony. But according to
this judge`s ruling today, if they get immunity, that immunity applies to
all subsequent potential prosecutions on these issues in any venue.

And that means that it includes the federal criminal inquiry underway at
the U.S. attorney`s office in New Jersey. It means that the federal
prosecutors in New Jersey could never, for example, prosecute Bridget Anne
Kelly or David Wildstein or Bill Stepien or anybody else who the
legislature decided to immunize.

Quoting from the judge`s ruling today, "Thus, in these cases, the committee
may compel the production of the requested documents by promising immunity
to Mr. Stepien and Miss Kelly. Protecting them from the future use of any
incriminating evidence that they may produce. If the committee chooses
this route, Mr. Stepien and Miss Kelly would have to comply with the
subpoenas in their entirety to avoid being held in contempt. Mr. Stepien
and Miss Kelly would then be immunized from the use of any produced
evidence that is incriminating in any subsequent prosecution, including any
prosecution resulting from the ongoing federal grand jury investigation."

So this is kind of a moment of truth, right? Is it worth it for the
legislature to do this? Is it worth it for the legislature to get all
these folks to testify and turn over their documents, to force them to, if
the price of doing that is that those folks can never be held accountable
in what may end up being a federal criminal case.

I mean, in not so many words, the judge ruled today that the legislature in
New Jersey can keep investigating this thing if they want to, but if they
want to, it`s going to be at the expense of the federal prosecutor`s

This is not the way it was supposed to go in New Jersey, according to the
people running these investigations. We`ve got the chairman of the
investigation in the legislature here in just a moment to react to this
judge`s ruling today and to tell us if this basically means, game over for
his investigation.

But, remember how this came to be in the first place. Right? When the
Christie administration took office, shortly thereafter, there was a huge
toll hike that was floated and then ultimately announced from the Port
Authority. And by huge toll, I mean like crazy huge. It would have $114
to drive a truck like this across the George Washington Bridge. That would
be the toll.

Later, reporting emerged detailing some real political shenanigans around
the toll hike decision and the whole process around the toll hike getting
sort of rigged, maybe sort of faked in a way that was designed to
apparently make New Jersey governor Chris Christie look good in the

So the New Jersey legislature was looking into that scandal last year.
That`s how they got subpoena power in the first place, for their
transportation committee, in order to look into that other unrelated
scandal at the port authority. And in the course of looking into that
other unrelated scandal, this strange thing happened with the access lanes
on to the George Washington bridge.

What happened on that bridge was a consequential thing. It gridlocked that
town for days on end including school buses and first responders. The Port
Authority had clearly done it on purpose. The Port Authority`s immediate
explanation for why they`ve done this traffic study idea, it seemed from
the very beginning, from the very first reporting on traffic lanes being
shutdown. It was called bogus by the executive director of the agency.
That seemed pretty clear that there was weird going on there.

So the committee have these subpoena powers already and they use the
subpoena powers they already had from that previous investigation into the
Port Authority to compel a few people involved in this bridge issue to hand
over documents about what happened. That is how this whole thing happen.
That is how the whole thing blew up.

Ryan Lizza wrote about it at great length for the "New Yorker" this week.
How on the night of December 26th, the night after Christmas, Assemblyman
John Wisniewski from New Jersey was alone in his office at home poring over
these hundreds of pages of documents that had been turned over to his
committee from the Port Authority and he is the one who found that e-mail,
late at night, on the 26th, alone in his office, the one that said, "Time
for some traffic problems in Fort Lee." That e-mail from Governor
Christie`s deputy chief of staff. And he saw the response from the man
inside the Port Authority, "Got it."

The legislature and its investigation is how anybody learned that what
happened here wasn`t just some traffic screw-up. It was actually a
scandal. And it was one that went all the way to the governor`s office.
There never would have been federal prosecutors looking into this matter in
the first place had the investigation in the legislature not turned up
these documents, this evidence trail that led right into the office of New
Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

And when the legislature released some of those documents that John
Wisniewski had been personally poring over on December 26th, when they
released the first 22 pages of documents and the story blew up and people
including Bridget Kelly started getting fired in Trenton, and the governor
finally stopped mocking people for covering this story and finally started
apologizing for it instead, well, then the legislature constituted a new
committee, a bipartisan committee from both the Senate and the House and
they hired a pro chief counsel to try to make sure they did it right, to
liaise with federal prosecutors, to make sure that a federal criminal
inquiry on these matters and the legislature`s investigation, they could
both go on at the same time without stepping on each other`s toes.

But now apparently they have been stepping on each other`s toes. John
Wisniewski, the guy heading up the legislature`s investigation he has been
defending the existence of that investigation and the importance of that
investigation ever since the investigatory committee was first formed
including yesterday in Trenton.

STATE REP. JOHN WISNIEWSKI (D), NEW JERSEY: Let me remind committee
members that our investigation had its genesis in an examination of the
Port Authority, its lack of transparency and accountability. It is only
because of the meticulous work that was patiently done that we followed the
evidence that led us into the governor`s office.

Having arrived there, it would be a disservice to ourselves and to the
people of the state if we did not pursue this investigation to its

MADDOW: Can they still do that? Did this judge`s ruling today in New
Jersey, telling two top Chris Christie staffers that they can continue to
refuse to hand over documents to that investigation? Did this judge`s
ruling today basically neuter the legislature`s ongoing investigation? If
so, will the legislature appeal? And if so, will they prevail?

Joining us now is Assemblyman John Wisniewski. He`s the co-chair of the
investigations committee into the George Washington Bridge lane closures
and the New Jersey state legislature.

Mr. Chairman, thanks for being with us tonight on what I`m sure is a very
busy evening.

WISNIEWSKI: Rachel, thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

MADDOW: What was your reaction to Judge Jacobson`s ruling this evening?
I`m sure you were hoping that Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Stepien would
have been compelled by the judge to hand over the documents you had
requested. What`s your reaction to her saying no to that?

WISNIEWSKI: Well, it`s not the decision that we had anticipated. Clearly,
we felt very comfortable in the advice that our counsel had given us and
the arguments that were made.

Judge Jacobson wrote a very thorough hundred-page ruling that very narrowly
construed the rights of the legislature to seek documents through
compulsion when witnesses such as Bridget Kelly or Mr. Stepien fear federal
prosecution. And so while this is something that we would prefer not to
have happened, it by no means signals any change or interruption in the

MADDOW: She suggested pretty explicitly that you could, in fact, compel
both testimony and the production of documents from these witnesses, who
are invoking their Fifth Amendment rights, that you could get them to
testify and give you everything you wanted, provided that you gave them
immunity. Whether or not you could give them immunity felt like an open
question before this ruling. What`s your reaction to that?

WISNIEWSKI: Well, I think what our opinion was before this ruling was that
while there is the statutory authority for the committee to give immunity,
I think it was an open question by those who would receive it, whether they
would be comfortable in just simply having a grant of immunity from the
legislature, and not also want to see some kind of affirmative sign from
federal authorities, that they would also grant immunity.

What we have to look at now is whether it makes sense for the committee to
consider that. And if we do take that step whether they will honor that
immunity grant or whether they would look towards federal authorities to
see whether the federal authorities essentially give that grant of immunity
a thumbs up.

I think we`re not at that juncture yet. We still have to examine all of
the words in Judge Jacobson`s decision. We have to consider all of our
options. We`re going to be meeting with our counsel and our staff over the
next day or two, to make those decisions. But I think it`s important to
understand, and I`ve said this all along, that this is an important issue,
but it is not a dispositive issue.

The investigative work of this committee can continue, notwithstanding
Judge Jacobson`s ruling. Obviously, two important individuals with regard
to the subpoena we had issued are now set back a step, but the judge did
say that the subpoena was overbroad, so clearly opens up the opportunity to
perhaps redraw that subpoena.

As you pointed out, there`s the opportunity for immunity. There`s also the
possibility of an appeal. And we still have documents we continue to
receive from individuals who continue to comply. And there`s also, now
we`ve talked about at the last committee meeting, about bringing people in
actually for testimony.

MADDOW: In terms of that issue of whether you might appeal, do you have a
personal opinion on that, or are you going to wait to talk to your
committee members about that?

WISNIEWSKI: I think we have to wade through the decisions. Obviously, we
have to see whether there`s an appealable issue, whether there`s an error
in law. The judge did a very good job in crafting her opinion. It was a
very narrowly construed opinion. I don`t want to give an opinion right now
as to whether or not we have grounds to appeal. That`s something we`re
going to examine.

But whether or not we appeal, whether or not we consider the issue of
immunity with Kelly and Stepien still gives us plenty of opportunity to
continue the investigation. There are a number of individuals that the
committee would like to bring before it for oral testimony. Because we now
have a foundation of thousands of pages of documents in which we can ask
significant questions of some of the individuals who watched this happen.

They may not have been the people who orchestrated it. They may not even
have been the people who authorized it, but they were the people who were
involved in watching the meetings take place, the conversations take place,
and that, too, would be very instructive for the committee.

MADDOW: If you are going to move toward taking all testimony from some of
those folks, what do you think the time frame would be on that? Is that
something that you`d expect to happen within the next few days or weeks?

WISNIEWSKI: I think we would start that process in May. Right now, the
legislature is on a -- what we call a budget break and so the budget
committee is working very hard on crafting a budget. But when we come back
into session in May, I think it`s an opportunity for the committee to start
bringing individuals in, one by one, to start asking substantive questions
about who knew what when, and to really develop the body of information
even further.

And fundamentally, Rachel, what we need to know beyond the fact that
Bridget Kelly sent this e-mail, is we still don`t know why she sent it. I
mean, the Gibson report tries to create this image of a woman scorned,
which is absolute hogwash. We know that there`s some motivating factor, we
don`t know what it is, we need to get to it.

MADDOW: John Wisniewski, co-chair of the investigation in the New Jersey
legislature into the Chris Christie administration and the bridge lane
scandal. Thank you for clearing this up tonight and helping us understand
it, sir. Thank you.

WISNIEWSKI: Rachel, thank you very much.

MADDOW: It`s interesting, this will be reported in the next 24 hours as
sort of a -- you know, sort of a devastating blow to the committee`s
investigation. This will be -- this will be closing up the legislative
investigation that told us all we knew about Christiegate so far or
bridgegate so far. From talking to John Wisniewski there, it seems like if
they`re about to move on to taking testimony from witnesses at the
legislature, it does not sound like they are closing up shop.

All right. There is one more development actually to bring you in this
story tonight. Some reporting earlier this week suggested that a second
federal prosecutor`s office had become involved in this case. That in
addition to the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, the office of the U.S.
attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, had also become involved in
investigating part of this scandal, the part that relates to the port
authority, and specifically to its recently resigned chairman, David
Samson, who has a lot of alleged conflicts of interest hanging over from
his time as Port Authority chair.

Well, the Port Authority has offices in Manhattan. Several weeks ago,
there was news of a subpoena going to the Port Authority from that second
U.S. attorney`s office in Manhattan, so this did not seem like totally
implausible news. But I can now report, we have now learned, conclusively
here at MSNBC, that the U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York
is not currently involved in investigating David Samson.

Doesn`t mean they won`t ever be involved in investigating David Samson or
any other aspect of this scandal, but they are not now investigating him.
So this case is all in the hands of the U.S. attorney in New Jersey right
now, Paul Fishman. More so than we ever knew before, and more so than we
knew even at the beginning of the day today.

Watch this space.

MADDOW: The name of the governor of Ohio is John Kasich. He`s been there
since he got elected in 2010, and he`s not that popular. If you ask
Ohioans whether they like their governor, 42 percent of them do say they
like him, but 30 percent say their opinion of him is unfavorable.

Now, obviously, he`s doing better than some folks with numbers like that,
but he`s not in great shape for a guy who has to run for re-election this
year. One of the ways you can tell he`s not in great shape is that in that
same poll, this incumbent governor, John Kasich, is leading his Democratic
challenger by only five points.

And that is despite the fact that freaking 70 percent of Ohio voters don`t
even know who his Democratic challenger is. They don`t know who the person
is who`s running against John Kasich. Seventy percent of people in Ohio
have no freaking idea who Ed Fitzgerald is. They do not know enough about
him, they say, to form an opinion on him. But even so, this guy no one has
heard of is polling within five points of this serving governor.

Imagine how it might go in Ohio if people actually figured out who this guy
is and they decided that they liked him.

Ohio`s always a big national battleground state in every election,
obviously. In the 2012 election, you might remember that John Kasich and
Ohio Republicans tried very hard to cut early voting so people, in
particular, could not vote early in the -- vote early in the presidential
election on the weekend before Election Day. That`s a very popular time
for people to vote early in Ohio, particularly minority voters and other
Democratic constituencies. And the Kasich folks and the Republicans in
Ohio tried to get rid of it.

Well, the Ohio Reelection Campaign sued the state of Ohio to try to make
them not cut those early voting days. And the Reelection Campaign was
successful in their lawsuit. They blocked Ohio Republicans from cutting
the last weekend of early voting.

And in Ohio, in the 2012 election, turnout was strong, both in general and
for early voting, including on that weekend before the election that they
had to fight for. And in the end, President Obama won Ohio by two points,
and that was the tipping point. That was the state that put him over the
top to win the whole country and to win four more years in office.

However, since that 2012 election, John Kasich and State House Republicans
are still in charge of the Ohio state government and they have been going
hammer and tongs to make it harder to vote in Ohio ever since they lost
that big one in 2012. First, they voted to reduce the number of voting
machines that counties have at their voting sites. Then if you get forced
to cast a provisional ballot, they made it harder for your provision ballot
to get counted.

Then John Kasich signed a Republican bill cutting a total of six days out
of the early voting period. He also cut what they called the golden week
in Ohio, which is a week during early voting when you can register to vote
and vote on the same day. Then the Republican secretary of state announced
there would be no early voting anymore on the Sunday before Election Day,
or, indeed, on any Sundays before Election Day, so much for the fight that
the Obama campaign had won back in 2012.

The Republican secretary of state also announced that there would no longer
be any early voting in Ohio on weeknights, so no early voting after work
hours. Then they passed another new law that bans Ohio counties from
sending out absentee ballots. The new law says only the secretary of
state, only Republican John Husted, can send out absentee ballots around
the state, and he only has to do that if he wants to do it, and if the
legislature appropriates specific money for him to do it.

Counties have always done that in the past, but the new law bans the
counties from doing that anymore. And apparently, that was the last straw
for old Ed Fitzgerald. He is the Democrat who has almost no statewide name
recognition in Ohio, even though he`s trying to run against John Kasich.
He is also, though, the county executive for the most populous county in
Ohio, for Cuyahoga County.

And Ed Fitzgerald first announced that he was going to sue the state over
all these cutbacks that the Republicans have instituted against voting
rights in the state over the last year and a half. And then, beyond that,
he went the civil disobedience route, sort of. He had the county council,
in his county, in Cuyahoga County, vote for a local measure that he wrote,
which said the county wouldn`t comply with this new law banning them from
sending out absentee ballots.

The county voted on this measure that he wrote, that said, regardless of
this new law that John Kasich signed, Cuyahoga County was going to keep
sending out those absentee ballot applications just like they always had.
And that`s where it got really interesting, because the Republicans in the
Ohio legislature decided to retaliate against him. They introduced
legislation a few days ago that would punish any county in Ohio that sent
out absentee ballot applications.

It would withhold 10 percent of all state money from that county if any
county did what Ed Fitzgerald said he was going to do in Cuyahoga County
was sending out those ballots just like they always have. In response, Ed
Fitzgerald said, oh, yes? He called a press conference saying that
Cuyahoga would not back down, would not change its plan, would not be
intimidated. Then he wrote to the U.S. attorney in Ohio and to the
attorney general of the United States, saying, please investigate the
attacks on voting rights here in Ohio by the Republicans in state
government. This is unconscionable what they`re doing and what they are
now threatening us with.

And you know what? The Republicans in Ohio blinked. They backed down.
They pulled their bill that would have punished the counties by taking that
money away. And Governor John Kasich and the Republican secretary of state
both said, yes, OK, Republicans in the legislature probably shouldn`t do
that. We won`t go ahead with this bill.

And so, Cuyahoga County, your county executive apparently just saved one
part of your voting rights, by fighting really hard for it. And if you`re
just learning this about him, because of this fight that he picked and he
won with Republicans in the state capital, and if you like that he picked
that fight and that he won it for you, then he would probably also like you
to remember, now and at least for the rest of this year, that his name is
Ed Fitzgerald and he is a Democrat and he is running for governor against
John Kasich.

And that is the story of name recognition the earned way.

MADDOW: The governor of South Carolina, in 1802, published this book, "A
View of South Carolina as Respects Her Natural and Civil Concerns." One of
the natural concerns the governor wrote about are these fossils that were
dug up in 1725 by a group of slaves outside of Charleston, South Carolina.
He describes these fossils as the grinders of an elephant.

Turns out those grinders were the very first fossils found in North
America, and they did not belong to an elephant, they belonged to a mighty,
mighty woolly mammoth. And that has new, eye-popping relevance to some
news out of South Carolina tonight that you probably will not believe, but
I swear it is true. And that story is coming up. Stay with us.

stopped at Zingerman`s, which is the --

Which is the right thing to do when you`re in Ann Arbor. I stopped for two
reasons. The first is, the Reuben is killer.

So I ordered like the small, and it didn`t look that small. So I gave half
to Valerie Jarrett, who`s traveling with us, and then after I finished the
half, I wanted the half back. But it was --

It was too late. It was too late. All she had left was the pickle.

So I took the pickle.

MADDOW: That was President Obama speaking last week in Michigan, having a
really good time, apparently. That was the day after the House Republicans
introduced the newest version of the Paul Ryan budget. And the president
was not only delighted about that, he was very, very eager to talk about it
that day that he was in such a good mood.

OBAMA: If this all sounds familiar, it should be familiar, because it was
their economic plan in the 2012 campaign. It was their economic plan in
2010. It`s like that movie, "Groundhog Day."

Except it`s not funny.

If they tried --

If they tried to sell this sandwich at Zingerman`s, they`d have to call it
the stink burger, or the meanwich.

MADDOW: He`s like, did somebody really put that in my teleprompter? A
mean burger, a stink burger, a meanwich. President Obama, and all the
Democrats, frankly, loved running against the Paul Ryan budget in 2012,
even before Mitt Romney delighted the Democrats by choosing the actual Paul
Ryan to be his running mate for that election, Democrats, even before then,
were already running against Paul Ryan`s budget for the 2012 elections.

And since Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan did not win the 2012 elections, and
therefore Paul Ryan kept his seat in Congress on the House Budget
Committee, he is still, now, year after year, introducing new versions of
what Democrats have long reveled in calling some version of a meanwich.

Among other things, like it always does, Mr. Ryan`s budget would cut taxes
for millionaires, it would cut food stamps by over $100 billion over the
next decade. That`s why Democrats look forward to Paul Ryan`s budget every
year. It`s not just that they dislike it as policy. They think it is a
political nightmare for Republicans. That it makes Republicans who vote
for it look very bad. And that`s why Democrats enjoy it when he enrolls it
out every year.

Here`s thing, though. The overall point of the stink burger and meanwich
speech that President Obama gave last week in Michigan, it was not to just
make fun of the Paul Ryan budget and to try to make Republicans embarrassed
to vote for it. The overall point of that speech was to make the case for
raising the minimum wage.

That minimum wage speech in Michigan was on Wednesday, then a few days
later, on Monday of this week, he was back again before another young
audience, this time at a high school in Maryland, again talking about that
same suspect, talking about the minimum wage. And in a remarkable bit of
timing, after the president gave that Maryland speech, praising Maryland
Democrats and the Maryland Democratic governor, Martin O`Malley, for trying
to raise the minimum wage in that state.

After the president encouraged him to keep at it and in his words give
Maryland a raise, in a remarkable bit of timing, as the motorcade was
rolling out of Maryland after that presidential speech, the Maryland
legislature did, in fact, do exactly what he was telling them to do. They
did pass that raise.

And so they are going up to $10.10 an hour over the next four years. The
first rise will happen in eight months and then the rest will happen after

Maryland`s the second state to have raised its minimum wage in recent
weeks. Connecticut also raised their minimum wage to $10.10 three weeks
ago. Lawmakers in Hawaii and Minnesota and Massachusetts are right now
hammering out the final details for raising the minimum wage for their
states. Those arguments are all but done in those three states. And this
is all just in the last month.

There is movement on this issue. And, yes, these are all blue states. At
least bluish states. Connecticut, Maryland, Hawaii, Minnesota,
Massachusetts. But as Republicans in these states are not going along with
what Democrats are doing in this effort, and as Republicans in Washington
are not going along with what Democrats are doing for this effort,
federally either, while Republicans in Washington are voting to cut food
stamps instead, turns out that one great way to actually cut what we spend
on food stamps, one way to cut food stamps that Democrats would
enthusiastically agree to, would be to raise the minimum wage.

Because these two policies are related. Democrats want to raise the
minimum wage, Republicans want to cut food stamps. Turns out that doing
one accomplishes the other. And it makes sense, right? I mean, people
getting paid poverty wages qualify for food stamps because they`re getting
poverty wages. If you raise the amount that they`re getting paid, they get
paid more and they no longer have to get food stamps in order to get by.

The Center for American Progress studied the net impact of raising the
federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, to what Connecticut and Maryland
just adopted and to what the president and congressional Democrats say they
want for the whole country. They calculated that raising the minimum wage
to $10.10 an hour would cut spending on food stamps by nearly $50 billion
over the next decade, because we wouldn`t have as many poor people in this
country so they wouldn`t have to get food stamps.

$50 billion over the next decade you could save. And yes, in the Paul Ryan
budget Republicans want to cut way more than that out of food stamps. But
here is basically a way for them to get half the way there. And every
Democrat in the country would be on board with it. And no one from either
side of the aisle would ever have a reason to call it a stink burger or a
meanwich or to use that policy to beat up on each other ever again.

Is that too easy? Of course that`s too easy.

Joining us now for the interview is the man who heads the federal cabinet
level agency, in which the food stamp program and a lot more resides. He`s
been our nation`s secretary of agriculture in both terms of the Obama
administration, Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Thank you for being here.

TOM VILSACK, U.S. SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE: Rachel, it`s good to be with

MADDOW: What do you make of this emerging argument that if we did raise
the minimum wage, that there would be less spending on food stamps? Does
that seem right to you?

VILSACK: Absolutely. When you raise the minimum wage, you raise wages for
28 million Americans. About 50 percent of those Americans make less than
$35,000 a year. A substantial percentage of those folks live in rural
communities that I care deeply about. You raise those wages, you are
absolutely going to move people out of the need for SNAP or as much SNAP as
they`ve been currently receiving, the food stamps.

So absolutely, it`s going to save $46 billion, as the American Center for
Progress indicated. It is a no-brainer and it is the right thing to do.
You know, the purchasing power of the minimum wage has been diminished
considerably over my lifetime. To the point now where every single year,
we lose a percent to a percent and a half of purchasing power. That`s 250
bucks for each family.

If you don`t raise the minimum wage this year and do it next year, they
will have lost $250 of purchasing power this year. That`s a month`s full
of groceries for many families.

MADDOW: In terms of food stamps and its role in the overall debate in
Washington, one of the reasons I wanted to talk about Paul Ryan introducing
a similar version, at least, of his same budget every year and that
becoming the Republican template, is because he aims really squarely at
food stamps, as if food stamps is a scandal.

And obviously, that budget doesn`t pass. I mean, Republicans always vote
for it, but then it never becomes law, as long as -- as long as Democrats
have some control. But has he succeeded by being so insistent about it, in
moving the debate to the right about food stamps? Is the defense of food
stamps getting wobblier as the Republican attack on it is so sustained for
so many years?

VILSACK: No, I don`t think so, because the recent farm bill, there was a
conversation about potentially reducing food stamps by $40 billion. That
didn`t go anywhere and it ended up being a very small reduction and many
governors around the country are figuring out ways to even avoid that

So I don`t think it`s particularly successful and here`s why it`s not
successful. Sixty-six percent of people receiving food stamps are one of
three types of individual. You`re either a child, a person with a
disability, or a senior citizen. Add the 7 percent that are veterans, and
you have nearly three quarters of the people receiving food stamps, not any
politician is going to want to cut support for children, for senior
citizens, for people with disabilities and very veterans.

And then when you realized that 42 percent of food stamp recipient families
are earning some kind of wage, that only 8 percent of all food stamp
recipients are receiving cash welfare, this is really about the working
poor. That`s why raising the minimum wage will help move people out of
SNAP and out of dependence on that food assistance program.

MADDOW: Right. That --

VILSACK: It`s the right thing to do.

MADDOW: The argument about that connection between those two policies
wouldn`t make sense if everybody getting food stamps was employed. It`s
about people being employed but at low wages.

Let me also ask you about another sort of deadlock standoff in Washington
that you`re right in the middle of, and that is immigration. The
agriculture industry, farming industry, uses more labor by people who are
here illegally, people who are here without working illegally, without
documents, than any other industry in the country.

How does the agriculture business and farmers as an interest group, how do
they factor into this debate?

VILSACK: They are very much for comprehensive immigration reform. There
has been an historic agreement those represent workers through the farm
workers` union and agro business to advance the need for comprehensive
immigration reform.

Look, you want to talk about a no-brainer? How many people on the
Republican side of the aisle want to reduce the deficit? This will reduce
the deficit by $800 billion over 20 years. How many folks want to shore up
Social Security? This will actually extend the life of Social Security
immigration reform.

How many people want to secure the border? How many people want to make
sure that we fully realize all of our potential from agriculture? Today,
people are not growing what they`re capable of growing, not harvesting what
they`re capable of harvesting, because they simply don`t have enough hands
to do the work.

Immigration reform is one of the top priorities for Farm Bureau, for the
National Farmers Union, for many of the -- Western Growers Association. A
lot of these commodity groups realize, it is absolutely essential we get
this done.

MADDOW: And it`s -- from the outside, we just think of -- we think of the
farming community, rural interest more broadly, but farming industry and
agriculture business as being such a Republican key constituency, but their
views on this issue are something that the Republicans felt very
comfortable ignoring.

VILSACK: Not just the farm -- not just those folks, but also the
evangelical church leaders understand that there is a biblical
responsibility from their perspective to take care of folks who are in
need. And they see this as a moral issue. So it`s an economic issue, it`s
a deficit reduction issue, it`s an agricultural potential issue, and it`s a
moral issue.

MADDOW: Secretary of Agricultural, Tom Vilsack, thank you very much for
being here tonight. It`s always really nice to see you. Thank you.

VILSACK: Good to see you.

MADDOW: Thanks.

All right. We`ll be right back. Stay with us.

MADDOW: OK. This is an amazing story. Washington, D.C. is divided into
quadrants, from the U.S. capitol dome at the center point, the city streets
are divided into southwest, northwest, northeast, and southeast. And in
southeast Washington, D.C. on the corner of 1st Street and F Street
Southeast, someone found a fossil.

January of 1898 they think it was the potential ancestor of the
tyrannosaurus. And apparently it also has some skeletal relation to a
dinosaur that`s called the Acrocanthosaurus. But they did find it right in
the heart of Washington, D.C. And now if you go to that street corner in
southeast Washington you will see the street sign there that bears the name
of that dinosaur. Unfortunately what they named it is the Capitalsaurus,
and so the residents of First and F Streets Southeast have both the honor
of living in a place where really important dinosaur was found but also the
embarrassment of living on Capitalsaurus court.

But the Capitalsaurus is the official fossil of the District of Columbia.
And lots of U.S. states have official fossils. Wisconsin has this creepy
four millimeter long trilobite, West Virginia has the Jefferson`s ground
sloth. In South Dakota it`s sort of terrifying Triceratops from the
Cretaceous period.

Out of the 50 U.S. states. Forty-three states plus D.C. have designated
official state fossils. But not the great state of -- South Carolina.
This past January, an 8-year-old girl from South Carolina names Olivia
McConnell. She was at a restaurant in South Carolina with her dad. She
was looking at a menu that featured all of the state`s official symbols,
the state spider, and the state plaid, and the state fish striped bass.
Good choice.

It was this big long list of all the state symbols. The state migratory
marine mammal is the northern white whale. The state heritage horses, the
Carolina Marsh Tacky, the official state beverage is milk. The official
state hospitality beverage is tea. But Olivia looking at this menu, of all
these symbols, she noticed that there was no official state fossil. And
so, this science interested 8-year-old, Olivia McConnell decided to write a
letter to her state lawmakers asking them to sponsor a bill to make the
Woolie Mammoth, the official state fossil of South Carolina.

And she came up with three reasons for that. Number, Woolie mammoth`s
teeth were drug up by saves in a south Carolina swamp in 1725. Number two,
all but seven states have an official state fossil. So why shouldn`t South
Carolina? And number three. Clothing Olivia, quote, "Fossils tell us
about our past. Yes, Olivia, that is true. Well done. Well, Olivia,
signed her letter. Please work on this for me. Your friend, Olivia.

And both of those South Carolina lawmakers did work on it for her. They
introduced a bill on her behalf in the South Carolina legislature to in
fact make it the Woolie Mammoth South Carolina`s official fossil. The bill
passed in the House overwhelmingly. It passed 94-2 then it moved over to
the Senate. And in the Senate things went horribly awry.

One Republican senator decided that the state fossil bill was offensive to
him. And so Senator Kevin Bryant proposed amending the bill to make the
state fossil bill not so much about fossils telling us about our past but
more about fossils telling us about Senator Kevin Bryant. The official
bill basically just said Woolie mammoth will be our official state fossil.
Senator Bryant proposed amending the bill by adding to it. Three versus
straight from the book of Genesis in the bibl.

So the law would say to Woolie mammoth. They`ll be our official state
fossil and also quote, "And God said let the earth bring forth the living
creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth
after his kind and it was so and God made the beast of the earth after his
kind and everything that creep upon the earth after his kind and God saw
that it was good and god saw everything that he had made it was good, and
the evening, and the morning, were that sixth day.

So the Woolie Mammoth is our state fossil. And also in terms of where the
Woolie Mammoth comes from well, that was day 6 when God created the Woolie
mammoth along with the creeping things in the "Beast of the Earth."

And the book of Genesis does tell the story like that. And Senator Kevin
Bryant and many other people believe that that is not an allegory, but the
literal truth of the creation of animal life on this planet. And it is
everybody`s right to believe whatever they want to. But this is also state
law. And the local paper of the state. Sort of delicately note that the
Woollie mammoth want extinct about 10,000 years ago.

So if you l believe that the book of genesis is literally true and not an
allegory and the earth is only 6.000 years old, then you do not believe in
the woolly mammoth. You do not believe what was dug up in that South
Carolina swamp in the 1700s was actually 10,000-year-old thing. Because
you don`t believe that there are any 10,000-year-old things. You don`t
believe in fossils. And, if you`ve don`t believe that fossils are real
things, then what on earth are you doing writing the state law about
establishing the official fossil of your state?

I mean there are people who believe the earth its flat. And that`s
awesome. More power to you. But you would not hire a person who believed
that to captain your sailing vessel for an around the world trip. The dude
was like be flipping a flip turn at the end of the world, right? But this
is the flip turn at the end of the world, state legislature, that Olivia
has to work with because this is her home state.

The original amendment adding those three verses from the book of Genesis,
that amendment did get pulled out of the bill on a procedural technicality.
The senator who wanted didn`t give up. He revised his language so the bill
would instead read as follows. Quote, "The Colombian mammoth which was
created on the sixth day with the other beasts of the field is designated
as official state fossil of South Carolina. And must officially be
referred to as the Columbian mammoth which was created on the sixth day
with the beasts of the field.

And that is what passed the South Carolina Senate. This science interested
third grader wanted her state to have its own official a fossil. And what
she ended up with was South Carolina Legislators on their behalf, trying to
enshrine in the state law that the Woolie Mammo, MNNPO, Thai What`s
created by God on the sixth day of the week when god created the world
along with the other B`s of the field. At least 4,000 years earlier than
any of this could feasibly have happened. Aren`t you glad you got involved
in politics. When this whole thing started apparently Olivia wanted to
grow up to be scientist. Please, Jesus. Let the sloth Carolina
legislature and her experience with them, not have robbed her of that
desire. We pray.

MADDOW: Programming note, this show will not be seen on Friday night.
This coming Friday night so that we can bring you something that we are
very, very, very proud of. On Friday night we`re going to be air our
documentary that`s called "WHY WE DID IT."

You may have heard about Liz Cheney a few days ago snarked to that, Rand
Paul gets his talking points on war from Rachel Maddow. Hope you will
watch it. "WHY WE DID IT." Airing right here this Friday night at 9:00
Eastern. I very much hope that you`ll watch it. This is something that we
worked on for a very long time. And very proud to be associated with it.
Now it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL. Have a great

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updated 7/3/2014 11:48:32 AM ET 2014-07-03T15:48:32

One day after British authorities announced an investigation into a Facebook study that aimed to manipulate the emotions of 700,000 users, the company’s second-in-command, Sheryl Sandberg, offered a measured apology for the controversial experiment.

“It was poorly communicated,” Sandberg said, speaking in New Delhi on her Lean In campaign. “And for that communication we apologize. We never meant to upset you.”

While Sandberg notably failed to apologize for the experiment itself, Facebook will now likely have to answer to British regulators, who are currently probing whether any British citizens were involved in the study, and whether the anonymity of the pool was maintained, reports USA Today.

Related: Tell Us: Will Facebook's Unethical User Experiment Make You Quit?

The U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is working in conjunction with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner -- where Facebook’s European outfit is headquartered, Bloomberg reports.

“It’s clear that people were upset by this study and we take responsibility for it,” Facebook said in a statement to “We want to do better in the future and are improving our process based on this feedback. The study was done with appropriate protections for people’s information and we are happy to answer any questions regulators may have.”

Conducted in 2012, the experiment sought to address “the common worry that seeing friends post positive content leads to people feeling negative or left out,” explained its author, Adam Kramer. Unbeknownst to 700,000 users, the company tweaked feeds to emphasize positive or negative content, ultimately leading to widespread outcry when the study was published last weekend.

Related: Here's Why Your Envy-Inducing Facebook Feed Is All Just a Big Fat Lie (Video)

Copyright © 2013, Inc.

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text: 02047cam a22002417 4500001000600000003000500006005001700011008004100028100002400069245010900093260006600202490004100268500001900309520109400328530006101422538007201483538003601555700002301591710004201614830007601656856003701732856003601769w3534NBER20170523211739.0170523s1990 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aRotemberg, Julio J.10aCyclical Markupsh[electronic resource]:bTheories and Evidence /cJulio J. Rotemberg, Michael Woodford. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc1990.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w3534 aDecember 1990.3 aIf changes in aggregate demand were an important source of macroeconomic fluctuations, real wages would be countercyclical unless markups of price over marginal cost were themselves countercyclical. We thus examine three theories of markup variation at cyclical frequencies. The first assumes only that the elasticity of demand is a function of the level of output. In the second, firma face a tradeoff between exploiting their existing customers and attracting new customers. Markups then depend also on rates of return and future sales expectations; a high rate of return or expectations of low sales growth lead firms to assign a lower value to future revenues from new customers. Firma thus raise prices and markups. In the third theory, markups are chosen to ensure that no one deviates from an (implicitly) collusive understanding. Increases in rates of return or pessimistic expectations then lead firms to be less concerned with future punishments so that markups fall. Aggregate post-war data from the U.S. are moat consistent with the predictions of the implicit collusion model. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web.1 aWoodford, Michael.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w3534.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w353441uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w3534


text:
Tag Archives: CPR

NBVFRC Member Saves Co-Worker

September 23rd, 2015 — Kevin Ege, an active volunteer with our station was able to use his EMT skills at his full time job. Kevin’s coworkers at Akamai Technologies in Reston, alerted him to a medical emergency involving one of their own.

As Kevin’s training went to work he grabbed the newly purchased Automated External Defibrillator (AED). He assessed his coworker and determined he wasn’t breathing and had no pulse. Kevin directed employees to begin CPR while he setup the AED. Employees were unable to alert 9-1-1 for some time due to a problem with the phone system.

After delivering a shock to his Co-worker another employee was able to reach 9-1-1 on his cell phone. By the time the ambulance had arrived, Kevin and his fellow employees succeeded in their efforts and their coworker was alert and breathing on his own, and was able to return to work on the 14th.

Read more:

Lucas CPR Device

Last week NBVFRC received our first Lucas CPR device as one of the seven that was obtained in a grant by Fauquier County. Over the weekend and the last couple days members have been getting hands-on training to familiarize themselves with the devices so they are ready to use them if the need arises. These devices will greatly help our crews on the calls involving CPR by reducing the stress and exertion our providers experience. Also, these devices help provide consistent, quality compression in a manner that is safe for everyone involved. We are excited to have this excellent piece of equipment now to help serve and protect our community.


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Intel Xeon Server Processor E5645 2.40GHZ L3 12MB LGA1366 Socket

Intel Xeon Server Processor E5645 2.40GHZ L3 12MB LGA1366 Socket
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Intel Xeon processor 5600 series automatically regulates power consumption and intelligently adjusts server performance according to application demand, maximizing both energy cost savings and performance.

The secret to this surprising combination is Intel's new 32nm microarchitecture. Featuring Intel Intelligent Power Technology, it reduces energy cost over single core servers by automatically shifting the CPU and memory into the lowest available power state, while Intel Turbo Boost Technology intelligently adjusts performance to application needs.

Quick Specs:
Process Technology 32 nm
Clock Speed 2.40 GHz
Processor Socket Socket B LGA-1366
L2 Cache 1.50 MB
L3 Cache 12 MB
Width 1.7"
Depth 1.8"
Processor Core Hexa-core (6 Core)
64-bit Processing Yes
Thermal Design Power 80 W
Processor Manufacturer Intel
QuickPath Interconnect 5.86 GT/s
Overclocking Speed 2.67 GHz

Specifications [ Edit | History ]

General Information
     Brand Name: Intel
     Manufacturer: Intel Corporation
     Manufacturer Part Number: BX80614E5645
     Manufacturer Website Address:
     Product Line: Xeon DP
     Product Model: E5645
     Product Name: Xeon DP Hexa-core E5645 2.4GHz Processor
     Product Series: 5600
     Product Type: Processor
     Platform Supported: PC
Physical Characteristics
     Depth: 1.8" (45 mm)
     Width: 1.7" (42.5 mm)
Power Description
     Thermal Design Power: 80 W
Technical Information
     64-bit Processing: Yes
     Bus Speed: 2933 MHz
     Clock Speed: 2.40 GHz
     L1 Cache: 384 KB
     L2 Cache: 1.50 MB
     L3 Cache: 12 MB
     Overclocking Speed: 2.67 GHz
     Process Technology: 32 nm
     Processor Core: Hexa-core (6 Core)
     Processor Manufacturer: Intel
     Processor Socket: Socket B LGA-1366
     Processor Technology: Extended Memory 64 Technology
Virtualization Technology
Trusted Execution Technology
Enhanced SpeedStep Technology
Hyper-Threading Technology
Turbo Boost Technology
Demand Based Switching
     QuickPath Interconnect: 5.86 GT/s

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VIR Match Information

Virginia Indoor Regional (VIR) IDPA Championship

Registration has closed!

This match is unique in that it is a 10 stage match held entirely indoors. The VIR is the equivalent of a day/night match with 5 stages in some light and 5 stages with no light! A hand-held flashlight is required. This is an IDPA sanctioned match and all IDPA rules will apply. No handgun or magazine mounted lights or lasers will be permitted. A concealment garment is required.

No jacketed hollow-point, steel core, or Wolf brand ammunition allowed.

This year, squading will be accomplished in 4-hour time slots, with ten person squads. Slot/squad confirmation will be by e-mail only.

Shooters must arrive 45 minutes before their chosen time slot! Shooters who are not present for the safety briefing 30 minutes before their scheduled shooting time will NOT be allowed to shoot and will forfeit their entry fee and any door prizes.

Drawings this year include a Glock G19 and a Tanfoglio Pavona; both are in 9 mm.

Round count: 154

Match fee: $115 (includes match t-shirt)

Online registration is available by clicking on this link.