https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009707259085 https://ello.co/biffburroughs http://biffburroghs.blogspot.com/ http://poxyrants.blogspot.com/ http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-obama-hostage-policy-20150623-story.htmlelatives who try to pay ransom to free a family member being held hostage by terrorists will no longer face the threat of prosecution under a new policy from the Obama administration that seeks to streamline U.S. rescue efforts after several high-profile deaths.. President Obama plans to announce the new policy Wednesday as part of a broader set of guidelines on hostage crises, the result of a lengthy policy review. The overall goal is to coordinate the wide-ranging resources of the federal government to try to secure the return of American hostages, officials said. The review is also an effort to deal more humanely with the panic-stricken families of abducted Americans, whose complaints about U.S. government handling of their cases have beset the Obama administration during a painful year that has seen notorious cases of abduction, threats and videotaped killings. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/24/us/post-trial-disclosure-brings-mistrial-in-vanderbilt-rape-case.html A Tennessee judge on Tuesday upended one of the country’s highest profile cases of campus sexual assault and declared a mistrial in the proceedings against two former Vanderbilt University football players who were convicted in January of aggravated rape. The decision, announced in Nashville about five months after a jury quickly returned guilty verdicts against the former players, Cory Batey and Brandon Vandenburg, stemmed from a post-trial disclosure: that the jury foreman, Todd Easter, had not told lawyers during jury selection that he had been the victim of sexual crimes as a teenager. Mr. Easter’s lawyer has publicly identified him in interviews. http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article25369786.html Grass Valley police seek to find a 4-year-old girl who was reported missing and possibly endangered Tuesday. An alert was issued by the California Highway Patrol for Khia Harwood. She is believed to be in the company of her father, 30-year-old Brian Torrez-Harwood. The girl was reported missing about 2:20 p.m. Cpl. Colin Nelson of the Grass Valley Police Department said police issued the alert because of comments Torrez-Harwood made that led to concern about his mental state. Nelson said Torrez-Harwood and the girl’s mother had recently separated and he may be distraught due possible change in custody. Nelson said the situation is not considered an abduction and Torrez-Harwood is not wanted for a crime. The intent is to find and talk to him, not to arrest him, Nelson said. Khia Harwood is described as 3 feet tall, weighing 38 pounds, with long, curly brown hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a pink, one-piece outfit with white flowers on it and black sandals. Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article25369786.html#storylink=cpy Torrez-Harwood was last seen driving a 2007 gray Cadillac with California license plate number 6ACD628. Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of the father and daughter is asked to call the Grass Valley Police Department at (530) 265-7880. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/06/fast-track-passes-tpp-now-nearly-certain-pass-too Next up is a standalone Trade Adjustment bill, which Democrats killed the first time around because it was linked to fast track, which meant that voting no killed fast track. This time around, however, Democrats will presumably go ahead and vote for it since voting no will no longer stop fast track. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have both promised to bring it up for a vote and to do their best to whip enough Republican votes for it to pass. If it doesn't, Democrats will be furious at having been conned, and might take this out by voting no on TPP itself when it comes to the floor. This gives Boehner and McConnell plenty of motivation to get it passed, and I think they will. This still doesn't guarantee that TPP itself will have smooth sailing. However, it takes only a simple majority to pass, so there would have to be quite a few defections to kill it. Still, there's time. Once the full text finally becomes public, I expect a full-court press from anti-TPP forces in both parties. I'd give it a 90 percent chance of passage at this point, but there's still a glimmer of hope for opponents.

• published: 24 Jun 2015
• views: 1