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“Adapt” to stress with these five adaptogenic herbs

by Janine Acero

People, especially women, have resorted to various kinds of products and services to reduce stress. Stress, (and anxiety in extension) after all, can lead to a plethora of diseases such as asthma, depression, gastrointestinal problems, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. The newest solution to fighting off that perpetual exhaustion and boosting your energy levels is in the form of herbal plants called adaptogens that you can add to your favorite drinks, or eat like snacks.

A Russian pharmacologist studied the herbs that Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic doctors had been using to alleviate stress and enhance energy for countless of years. These herbs were labelled as “adaptogens,” and there are now around 20 plants that are considered to be part of these stress-busting plants. Today, these adaptogens are popular additives to food and drinks and are key ingredients in supplements that help reduce stress, boost energy levels, and even increase libido.

Here are the top five adaptogens to try:

1. Rhodiola – This evergreen perennial loves the cold; you can find it in the mountainous regions of Europe and Asia and at high altitudes in the Arctic. Rhodiola gives you more energy by helping your cells use oxygen more efficiently; therefore it can cure headaches, fatigue, anemia, infections, anxiety, stress-induced depression and even impotence. It can also improve resistance to altitude sickness and increase overall physical performance.

According to GP and nutritionist Dr. Sarah Brewer: “Rhodiola is one of the most effective adaptogens for relieving stress and anxiety, and is also energizing. I take it myself to prevent burnout during busy times. I like the fact that this herbal medicine is regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to ensure pharmaceutical quality.”

2. Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera)  – This is a plant that belongs to the Solanaceae family (nightshades), also known as Indian ginseng. It is a staple in Ayurvedic medicine, and is used for combating stress, fatigue, and lack of energy. It is also known to boost concentration.

Nutritional therapist Henrietta Norton has this to say about ashwagandha: “Research has shown it can reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol by an average of 27.9 percent, and causes a lowering of depression and anxiety scores of more than 70 per cent over eight weeks. It would be difficult to find any other nutrient to have that dramatic an effect.”

3. Jujube (Ziziphus jujuba) – Sometimes called jujuba, this small, deciduous shrub has thorny branches that usually grow between five and 12 meters. Thought to be native to Asia, this has been used in different cuisines or eaten as a snack. The fruits of the Jujube (also called Chinese red dates) can be candied, pickled, smoked or made into tea or wine.

“Jujube are energizing, taste great and are a good source of antioxidant polyphenols and soluble fibre. Clinical trials suggest jujube may improve cholesterol levels, sleep and reduce constipation. As a snack, they’re better than a bag of crisps, but you would have to eat them every day for a sustained benefit,” said Dr. Brewer.

4. Tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) – This aromatic perennial plant is widely used in Thai cuisine and its dried leaves can be used as insect repellent. It goes by several names such as thulasi, Thai holy basil or simply holy basil. It is dubbed the “elixir of life” and is sacred to Hindus. Purple tulsi enhances mental clarity and relieves stress-related irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). According to Dr. Brewer, it is “used to improve glucose control, lower blood pressure and relieve anxiety.”

5. Maca (Lepidium meyenii) – The roots of this herbaceous biennial can be cooked as vegetable similar to radishes and turnips, or it can be dried to make maca flour. It improves semen quality and remedies symptoms of menopause.

Rhian Stephenson who is a celebrity fitness trainer, nutritionist and naturopathic doctor said: “There’s a real buzz around adaptogens, but they’re not hippy dippy ingredients. They are quite heavily researched, with studies showing how and why they work to reduce stress hormones in your body.”

Besides the ones listed, there are also lesser-known herbs that fight off stress and anxiety.

The Art of the Border: Searching for Kikito

A French artist’s colossal installation on Mexico’s side of the border may make the invisible visible, but other subjects carry a sharper critical edge and pose deeper questions

by David Bacon
First person

(This article originally ran at Capital & Main, an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.)

For almost an hour, Laura, Moises, and I drove through the dusty neighborhoods of Tecate, looking for Kikito. Tecate is a small border city in the dry hills of Baja California. It’s famous for a huge brewery, although today most workers find jobs in local maquiladoras.

When we asked for directions, a couple of people had heard of Kikito, but couldn’t tell us where he was. Most didn’t know who we were talking about.

We figured that if we kept driving along the border fence, we’d find him. In these neighborhoods, the second stories of large comfortable homes, mostly built in the 1940s and 1950s, rise above adobe walls enclosing their courtyards. But unlike downtown, with its colorful bustle, there was no street life on the hot streets here, hardly anyone on the sidewalk.

Finally, we passed the one man who could surely tell us how to find Kikito—the cable guy. He even volunteered to lead us in his van part of the way. Using his directions, we bumped along a dirt road next to the border fence, up and down a couple of hills where the city fades into scrubland. Then we found Kikito.

He was much larger than I’d imagined.

Kikito is an enormous photograph of a 1-year-old child, pasted onto plywood sheets. The assemblage is mounted on a huge, complex metal scaffold, 65 feet high, much like what painters erect to embrace the buildings they work on. Kikito’s scaffolding, however, doesn’t embrace anything. Instead, it pushes the enormous photograph toward, and above, the border wall’s severe vertical iron bars.

The structure is so big that to bring the photo into position, part of the hillside had to be excavated, and a hole dug deep into the ravine at the bottom.  A few walled houses in the distance line the rim of the hill above.

I felt like Dorothy going behind the curtain, when she suddenly confronts the Wizard as he manically pulls levers to present his fierce, disembodied face to the audience out in front.  Like the Wizard’s, you can only see Kikito’s visage the right way from the other side of the curtain – in this case, the metal fence separating Tecate from the U.S.  

Viewed from the U.S. side, Kikito becomes an enormous black and white toddler, his chubby hands appearing to grip the top of the border-wall as he seems to look over it, into the mysterious United States.  He has a slight smile.

If we’d been on the U.S. side, driving east from San Diego, we could have followed the directions Kikito’s creator, the French artist JR, posted on his website.  There you can even see JR’s photograph of two U.S. Border Patrol agents staring at the baby.  Apparently they often help visitors find the right spot.

We now have 20,000 Border Patrol agents, whose parked vans dot the desert all along the border wall from California to Texas, as they wait to grab someone trying to cross. Helping visitors find Kikito must provide a welcome break in the tedium of watching and waiting, and sweating in vans on shadeless hills, where the temperature climbs to 105 degrees and above.

It’s obvious that Kikito’s audience is located in the United States. “The piece is best viewed from the U.S. side of the border,” JR’s website explains. In fact, the optical effect can only be seen from that side—Mexicans standing in Tecate, where it’s actually located, can’t see it the right way. JR says Kikito is looking “playfully,” but then admits, “Kikito and his family cannot cross the border to see the artwork from the ideal vantage point.”

I took a photo of Laura on a nearby hummock, just to give an idea of the structure’s immense scale. She seems diminutive next to it. In her classes at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) in Tijuana, and in her books and research about the migration of Mexico’s indigenous people to Baja California and eventually to the United States, Laura Velasco is hardly dispassionate. She advocates for migrants, and has no love for the wall and its unsubtle messages of “Keep Out!” and “Stay in Mexico!”

That’s one reason she liked Kikito. “He shows us to be human beings,” she said, looking up at his half smile. “That’s a good message for people in the U.S. And he does it without shouting, just by being who he is.” If people in Mexico can’t see him properly, she thinks, they’re not the ones who need to get the message anyway.

How to stop Google and Facebook from becoming even more powerful

by Barry Lynn and Matt Stoller

On Tuesday, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told the general counsels of Facebook and Google: “Your power sometimes scares me.” The problem, Kennedy said, is that the corporations know too much about us, and too little about themselves.

Kennedy illustrated his fears with two rhetorical questions. “If the CEO came to you … and said I want to know everything we can find out about Senator Graham … You could do that, couldn’t you?” On the other hand, Kennedy said: “You don’t have the ability to know who every one of [your] advertisers is, do you?”

This seeming paradox points to a fundamental problem that Facebook and Google cannot solve on their own; these institutions are designed to gather vast amounts of information about every American, but they are not built to manage that information in the interest of those individuals or the public as a whole, such as by preventing Russian hackers from targeting propaganda at specific voters.

It will take time to figure out how to ensure Google, Facebook and the other giant platform monopolists truly serve the political and commercial interests of the American people. The good news is that there’s a simple way to at least slow the rate at which the problem is getting worse. Don’t allow these dominant platforms to buy other companies.

If it’s clear that Facebook and Google can’t manage what they already control, why let those corporations own more? America’s antitrust enforcers can impose such a rule almost immediately.

For one thing, there is no doubt these corporations qualify for antitrust regulation. Facebook, for instance, has 77 percent of mobile social networking traffic in the United States, with just over half of all American adults using Facebook every day.

Nearly all new online advertising spending goes to just Facebook and Google, and those two companies refer over half of all traffic to news websites. In all, Facebook has some 2 billion users around the world.

For another, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have all the authority they need under existing law. Indeed, the FTC itself partially created the “fake news” problem by failing to use its existing authority to block previous acquisitions by these platforms such as Facebook’s purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram.

Had those companies been allowed to grow and compete with Facebook, we would today see less power and control concentrated in that one corporation. The history of the platform monopolies themselves provides ample evidence of the power that comes from buying other people’s technologies.

One of the myths of the tech platforms is that they are innovative actors who invent new ways of doing things. They really aren’t. They are conglomerates.

Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in a project financed by a National Science Foundation grant, created a way to rank web pages that allowed them to build a very good search engine. They then used cash earned or raised off this early success to buy most of the rest of Google’s key products, including YouTube, Android, Deep Mind, Waze and Doubleclick. At a certain point a few years ago, Google was buying roughly one company a week.

Another lesson of history is that temporary restrictions on how these corporations can use their newly acquired technologies don’t solve the fundamental problem. Seven years ago, Google paid $700m for a company called ITA that provides software for the travel industry. The Department of Justice approved the deal on the condition that Google keep access to the software open to other businesses for at least five years. This year, Google closed that access. As Ted Benson, a former Googler, put it: “That’s an entire ecosystem of airfare startups executed with the stroke of a pen.”

These corporations already enjoy vast advantages over any potential rivals. In the case of Facebook, those advantages verge on being blatantly unfair. In 2013, Facebook bought a mobile data analytics company called “Onavo”. As a recent article in the Wall Street Journal made clear, Onavo allows Facebook to observe the online behavior of internet users, providing Facebook executives with an “unusually detailed look at what users collectively do on their phones.”

Facebook, in essence, gets to see which products are doing well and what features within those products users especially appreciate. It can then use this information to target fast-growing rivals with potentially fatal copycat techniques, and attempt to buy out these competitors.

A few weeks ago, Facebook bought a three-month old social networking company called TBH, which was growing quickly among teenagers. It’s not clear why Facebook bought the company. But it is clear this acquisition will only further entrench Facebook’s monopoly position in social media and expand its power over all competitors.

For this reason, we at the Open Market Institute recently called on the FTC to put a hold on all future mergers and acquisitions by Facebook – and potentially Google and Amazon. Such a ban on mergers would leave many big problems answered. It would not fix the Facebook and Google’s duopoly over online advertising, nor would it prevent foreign actors from using the company’s network to manipulate American voters.

But such a ban would help provide the American people with the time we need to figure out how to ensure these immensely powerful monopolies no longer threaten our most fundamental civic, artistic, economic and political freedoms.

(Barry Lynn is the Executive Director of the Open Markets Institute. Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Open Markets Institute).

JFK: FBI concerned of growing Latino political power

by Russell Contreras
AP wire services

A memo included in recently released John F. Kennedy documents shows that the FBI was concerned about the growing political power of Latinos, historians say.
Among the thousands of documents released last week was a memo from an FBI informant who kept watch on a Dallas chapter of the G.I. Forum — a moderate group of Mexican American veterans who spoke out against discrimination.

According to the 1963 document, the informant closely followed a chapter meeting where members expressed concern about the revival of a similar organization, the League of United Latin American Citizens.

The G.I. Forum members feared a public fight with LULAC over membership might make both groups powerless, and members discussed ways to keep tabs on LULAC leadership.

The informant reported that G.I. Forum members didn’t want to dabble in politics and felt “racial discrimination is lessening to the point where they receive no complaints from victims,” the memo said.

President Donald Trump has ordered the release of all records related to the Kennedy assassination, and they are expected to be made public on a rolling basis during the coming weeks. He also directed agencies to take another look at redactions and withhold information only in the rarest of circumstances. It’s unclear why this memo was among the classified government documents released last month by the National Archives.

Historians say the memo gave a glimpse into the FBI’s concern about the growing political power of Latinos in Texas, New Mexico, California and Illinois and may also show the FBI was working to create tensions among the Latino civil rights groups.

“We know that the FBI was monitoring LULAC in the 1940s and 1950s. But this appears to show they were more worried about all of the groups’ growing influence,” said Emilio Zamora, a University of Texas history professor. “Even though these groups were moderate, the FBI was worried because they were Mexican. In their eyes, they could become radicalized at any time.”

Jose Angel Gutierrez, a political science professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, said the memo was evidence that the federal government actively sought to divide Latino civil rights groups to thwart efforts to fight discrimination.

Some historians also believe the FBI feared the G.I. Forum might protest Kennedy’s motorcade in Dallas over civil rights.

The G.I. Forum became a force after its founder, Hector P. Garcia, drew national attention for protesting a Texas funeral director’s decision to not hold a service in the chapel for a Mexican-American soldier killed in World War II.

The documents show the agency was monitoring the civil rights groups just weeks before Kennedy visited with one of the Hispanic organizations
Kennedy spoke at a LULAC gala in Houston the night before his Nov. 22, 1963, assassination. Historians believe that was the first time a sitting president acknowledged the Latino vote.

Hispanics voted overwhelmingly for Kennedy in 1960. Robert Kennedy, the president’s brother, would attribute the election victory in part to the support among Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans.

(Associated Press writer Russell Contreras is a member of the AP’s race and ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontrerashttp://twitter.com/russcontreras)

Puerto Rican Shorts, A Benefit For Puerto Rico Sunday at The Roxie Theater in SF

In collaboration with Puerto Rico’s Rincón International Film Festival, the largest film festival in Puerto Rico, RoxCine and Cine+Mas SF present Puerto Rican short films November 19th at 4:30PM. All proceeds will go to support hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico, via donation to Alianza Somos Una Voz / We Are One Voice.

The lineup includes the following short films.

Volcados – 8 min. (Animation)
Director: Paola Melendez Roca
“A Puerto Rican animation about a Chupacabra’s relentless attempts at making a friend.

Teorias de la Cigüeña – 13 min. (Drama)
Director: Javier Enrique Perez
“When an eight year old boy asks his mom, ‘Where do babies come from?’, he is forced to embark on an adventure to reverse a spell he placed himself.”

No hay Sistema – 7 min. (Comedy)
Director: Susana Matos
“In Puerto Rico, waiting in line to change your name can become chaotic if the clerk’s shift is about to end.”

Luna Vieja – 11 min. (Drama – TIFF)
Director: Raisa Bonnet
Director Raisa Bonnet’s naturalistic short, sketches an almost wordless tale of the relationship between a young girl and her grandmother.

Miedo a las Aturas – 4 min. (Comedy)
Director: H.J. Leonard
Tommy is a young adult who after dreaming for a whole week with a harassing, sinister and, cute being, he visits a psychologist seeking for answers to his dreams. For his surprise, the remedy is worst than the cure.

Así de grandes son las ideas – 5 min. (Animation)
Director: José Enrique Rivera
An old man of the future, equipped with the benefits of evolution, somehow survives the extinction of all living beings.

La Carta – 7 min. (Drama)
Director: Angel Soto
“An unusually common love story about a boy’s search for inspiration to write a love letter.”

Por Feo – 7 min. (Comedy)
Director: Susana Matos
Winner of the 48 Hour Film Project – San Juan. The ugliest brother in the family at last finds someone to confront for his perceived ugliness.

Chula – 17 min. (Action Adventure)
Director: Victoria E. Soberal
“There’s a wedding in the coastal farm town of Camuy, Puerto Rico! On the way, Fredo, the best man, becomes distracted with what could be devastating consequences. The race is on for Fredo to fix his problem and attend the wedding before it starts.”

Cine+Mas SF showcases film from the Americas at Bay Area theaters year-round with a spotlight film festival every September. For tickets to this benefit, go to Roxie.com.

Exhibition of Mechanical Sculptures returns to the Exploratorium

Compiled by the El Reportero’s staff

This year’s show features nearly 30 automata, 3 artists in residence, and workshops teaching visitors to build their own automata

On November 16, the Exploratorium’s returning winter exhibition, Curious Contraptions, will open to the public. The collection of automata features the work of eleven artists from around the world and gives visitors a chance to interact firsthand with charming and often hilarious mechanical objects brought to life by intricate arrangements of handmade cams, cranks, and other simple mechanisms.

“I’m so excited about this year’s show,” says Nicole Minor, who curates the seasonal Curious Contraptions exhibition.

The Exploratorium is open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Every Thursday, the museum reopens from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. for adults only. For more about how to get here, visit exploratorium.edu/directions. For tickets and pricing information, visit exploratorium.edu/tickets.

Annual fundraising event honoring excellence in the art of film

SFFILM has announced the date and venue for SFFILM Awards Night (formerly the Film Society Awards Night), its annual fund-raising celebration that pays tribute to filmmaking achievement. The historic 60th anniversary edition of this glamorous event and awards presentation will take place on Tuesday night December 5 at the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts, 39 Mesa Street, Suite 110, The Presidio, San Francisco.

JUNTOS Collective joins the Global #GivingTuesday Movement

JUNTOS Collective will participate in it’s second annual  #GivingTuesday, hosting Voices: An Evening of Untold Stories. This event, open to the general public, will honor JUNTOS supporters, and invite new faces to hear stories and share dances from past program participants. The event will include drinks and small bites, performance shorts, guest speakers and unique raffle prizes. 

JUNTOS Collective, a non-profit organization enabling free contemporary dance workshops and performances in underserved communities of Guatemala, Mexico and Nicaragua, joined #GivingTuesday last year, inspired by the generosity, collaboration and philanthropy that the movement encouraged. The organization was able to successfully raise the funds to sponsor 3 trips abroad during this global day of giving. 

One of the many stories supported by this fundraiser, involves the journey of Megan Stricker, a JUNTOS Alumni who had the opportunity to live and teach dance in Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca this past summer. Megan taught dance to a community of Mixe people for four weeks, one of Mexico’s oldest indigenous cultures.
On Dec. 2 at The Golden Stateroom. Tickets to Voices: An Evening of Untold Stories can be purchased in advance at http://bit.ly/JUNTOSvoices.

Haiti included for the first time in the Oscars

by the El Reportero’s news service

The incipient Haitian film industry began to emerge, after the announcement today of the first entry of this Caribbean nation to the Oscars, with the film ‘’Ayiti Mon Amour’’, by director Guetty Felin.

The production exposes the portrait of a post-earthquake nation that cries its more than 220,000 dead, but rises from the rubble. It is nominated in the category of best foreign film.

Felin, is a filmmaker born in Haiti, and raised between the Caribbean nation and New York, traveled to Port-au-Prince on an emergency plane 10 days after the disaster of 2010, and tried to remember in the film each of the scenes encountered when disembarking, ‘Images that will stay with me throughout the practice of my film career,’ the author stated.

Seven years later, ‘Ayiti Mon Amour’ marks not only the emergence of a new distinctive voice in Haitian cinema, but also a milestone in the country’s cultural recovery, as the first narrative film filmed locally and directed by a woman.

Taking advantage of her previous work, Felin infuses the realities of today’s Haiti, the shortage of power and water, the threats of climate change, with a lyricism that plays its mystical side.

First Artists Confirm Attendance at Latin Grammy Gala

Singers Luis Fonsi, Juanes, Mon Laferte, Maluma, and Resident confirmed their attendance at the 18th annual Latin Grammy Awards, which will take place on November 16 in Las Vegas, USA.

J Balvin, Bad Bunny, Flor de Toloache, Natalia Lafourcade, and Sofía Reyes are also among the first artists to perform at the event to be celebrated at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

During the ceremony is also expected the performance of Spanish Alejandro Sanz, Steve Aoki, Alessia Cara, Logic and French Montana, announced Latin Recording Academy in a statement.

This year the nominations are headed by Puerto Rican René Pérez Joglar, Resident of Calle 13, with nine, followed by Mexican Maluma with 7, and Colombian Shakira with six mentions.

Others who opt for the golden gramophone in the 48 categories of the contest are the Spanish Joaquín Sabina and David Bisbal; Mexicans Lila Downs and Alejandro Fernández; Colombian Juanes and Venezuelan Franco de Vita.

Trump taps lawyer known for his crackdown of key civil rights

Kenneth Marcus’ recent career has been largely focused on litigation targeting Palestine solidarity activists on U.S. college campuses, as well as on attempts to eradicate criticism of the Israeli state in educational institutions nationwide

by Whitney Webb

Laws preventing American citizens from choosing to boycott the nation of Israel have been cropping up across the country, most recently in Wisconsin and Maryland.

Apparently eager to take advantage of the legal push to criminalize dissent targeting the Israeli government, the Trump administration has decided to appoint Kenneth Marcus to a key post in the Department of Education.

Marcus, if confirmed by the Senate, will become the department’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, serving under Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Marcus previously served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Education at the Office for Civil Rights and then as Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights under former President George W. Bush.

Marcus’ nomination has raised concerns given that, as president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, he has consistently lobbied the sub-department he may soon lead to essentially ban the Boycott-Divest-Sanctions (BDS) movement – a movement that seeks to advocate for Palestinian rights by refusing to economically support Israel until it complies with international law.

Though he has been hailed as a “Jewish advocate” by several media outlets, Marcus’ career since leaving his last government post has been largely focused on litigation targeting Palestine solidarity activists on U.S. college campuses, as well as on attempts to eradicate criticism of the Israeli state in educational institutions nationwide. Indeed, Marcus once boasted in a letter to supporters of the Brandeis center that his efforts had succeeded in instilling “fear” into BDS activists.

Marcus has consistently argued that allowing criticisms of Israel to be voiced on U.S. college campuses and at other educational institutions is a “violation of the civil rights of Jewish students.” He noted, in a 2013 piece for the Jerusalem Post, that pursuing claims before the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) – the office to which he has now been nominated — is the means by which BDS could be shut down nationwide.

He himself has attempted to do so on numerous occasions, drawing accusations that he has sought to “weaponize” Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Though Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in federal fund-assisted organizations, Marcus has attempted to equate activism against criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism in the numerous Title VI complaints he has brought against Palestinian solidarity activists on college campuses nationwide. Marcus’ firm has brought complaints against college students for a variety of reasons, including the formation of a Students for Justice in Palestine chapter as well as the hosting of guest speakers who support BDS.

“[Marcus] has approached the civil rights division of the DOE as a vehicle to suppress free speech based on nothing more than political disagreement,” Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute, told Mondoweiss.

However, as Marcus himself noted, the results of his efforts have thus far been “disappointing,” as every complaint he and his firm filed were dismissed outright by the OCR, which failed to find evidence of actual anti-Semitism — suggesting that Marcus’ concerns were instead related to political disagreement. Indeed, Marcus’ legal complaints have nearly universally claimed that alleged anti-Semitism is the driving force behind Palestinian solidarity activism, thus equating criticism of the Israeli government with discrimination against Jewish students. This argument, of course, fails to account for the many Jews who criticize Zionism and Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Also of concern is what Marcus’ appointment could potentially mean for free speech on U.S. college campuses and at other educational institutions. Several of his numerous Title VI complaints brought in front of the OCR were dismissed due to constitutional concerns, specifically First Amendment rights. However, if installed in a key position at the OCR, Marcus would be a safe bet to override such concerns and use the office’s enforcement capabilities to sue or withhold funding from schools that fail to comply with Marcus’ singular view of what constitutes anti-Semitism.

“Marcus has no business enforcing civil rights laws when he has explicitly used such laws to chill the speech activities and violate the civil rights of Arab, Muslim, Jewish, and other students who advocate for Palestinian rights,” said Dima Khalidi, director of Palestine Legal, in a statement. “His appointment will only further the white supremacist and anti-Muslim agenda of the Trump administration.”

(Stories published in our commentary section are chosen based on the interest of our readers. They are republished from a number of sources, and are not produced by El Reportero. The views expressed in these articles are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect El Reportero’s editorial policy).

Selling out the US to the megabanks

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

I am sharing this interesting article about banking, on how our nation is being sold out to the big banks. Written by Ellen Brown, it exposes what most of us never thought about, of why those small banks who used to give us more personalized services, are disappearing, and the consequences of to our lives and freedoms.

by Ellen Brown
Global Research

Crushing regulations are driving small banks to sell out to the megabanks, a consolidation process that appears to be intentional. Publicly-owned banks can help avoid that trend and keep credit flowing in local economies.

At his confirmation hearing in January 2017, Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin said,
“regulation is killing community banks.”

If the process is not reversed, he warned, we could “end up in a world where we have four big banks in this country.” That would be bad for both jobs and the economy.
“I think that we all appreciate the engine of growth is with small and medium-sized businesses,” said Mnuchin. “We’re losing the ability for small and medium-sized banks to make good loans to small and medium-sized businesses in the community, where they understand those credit risks better than anybody else.”

The number of US banks with assets under $100 million dropped from 13,000 in 1995 to under 1,900 in 2014. The regulatory burden imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act exacerbated this trend, with community banks losing market share at double the rate during the four years after 2010 as in the four years before. But the number had already dropped to only 2,625 in 2010. What happened between 1995 and 2010?

Six weeks after September 11, 2001, the 1,100 page Patriot Act was dropped on congressional legislators, who were required to vote on it the next day. The Patriot Act added provisions to the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act that not only expanded the federal government’s wiretapping and surveillance powers but outlawed the funding of terrorism, imposing greater scrutiny on banks and stiff criminal penalties for non-compliance. Banks must now collect and verify customer-provided information, check names of customers against lists of known or suspected terrorists, determine risk levels posed by customers, and report suspicious persons, organizations and transactions. One small banker complained that banks have been turned into spies secretly reporting to the federal government. If they fail to comply, they can face stiff enforcement actions, whether or not actual money-laundering crimes are alleged.

In 2010, one small New Jersey bank pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act and was fined $5 million for failure to file suspicious-activity and cash-transaction reports. The bank was acquired a few months later by another bank. Another small New Jersey bank was ordered to shut down a large international wire transfer business because of deficiencies in monitoring for suspicious transactions. It closed its doors after it was hit with $8 million in fines over its inadequate monitoring policies.

Complying with the new rules demands a level of technical expertise not available to ordinary mortals, requiring the hiring of yet more specialized staff and buying more anti-laundering software. Small banks cannot afford the risk of massive fines or the added staff needed to avoid them, and that burden is getting worse. In February 2017, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a new rule that would add a new category requiring the flagging of suspicious “cyberevents.” According to an April 2017 article in American Banker:

[T]he “cyberevent” category requires institutions to detect and report all varieties of digital mischief, whether directed at a customer’s account or at the bank itself.

. . .Under a worst-case scenario, a bank’s failure to detect a suspicious attachment or a phishing attack could theoretically result in criminal prosecution, massive fines and additional oversight.

One large bank estimated that the proposed change with the new cyberevent reporting requirement would cost it an additional $9.6 million every year.

Besides the cost of hiring an army of compliance officers to deal with a thousand pages of regulations, banks have been hit with increased capital requirements imposed by the Financial Stability Board under Basel III, eliminating the smaller banks’ profit margins. They have little recourse but to sell to the larger banks, which have large compliance departments and can skirt the capital requirements by parking assets in off-balance-sheet vehicles.

In a September 2014 article titled “The FDIC’s New Capital Rules and Their Expected Impact on Community Banks,” Richard Morris and Monica Reyes Grajales noted that “a full discussion of the rules would resemble an advanced course in calculus,” and that the regulators have ignored protests that the rules would have a devastating impact on community banks. Why? The authors suggested that the rules reflect “the new vision of bank regulation – that there should be bigger and fewer banks in the industry.”
That means bank consolidation is an intended result of the punishing rules.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, sponsor of the Financial CHOICE Act downsizing Dodd-Frank, concurs. In a speech in July 2015, he said:

Since the passage of Dodd-Frank, the big banks are bigger and the small banks are fewer. But because Washington can control a handful of big established firms much easier than many small and zealous competitors, this is likely an intended consequence of the Act. Dodd-Frank concentrates greater assets in fewer institutions. It codifies into law ‘Too Big to Fail’ . . . .

Dodd-Frank institutionalizes “too big to fail” by authorizing the biggest banks to “bail in” or confiscate their creditors’ money in the event of insolvency. The legislation ostensibly reining in the too-big-to-fail banks has just made them bigger. Wall Street lobbyists were well known to have their fingerprints all over Dodd-Frank. IT WILL CONTINUE ON NEXT WEEK EDITION.

7 home remedies to get rid of cysts

by Cooper

Women mostly face uterine fibroids and cysts, particularly during childbearing years. Generally these conditions don’t cause discomfort, although for some women, hormonal fluctuations can cause significant pain and bloating. Fibroids, which are also known as myomas, are benign non cancerous tumors that grow on the uterine wall. Ovarian cysts, including polycystic ovary syndrome, are fluid-filled cysts that appear in the ovaries and are fairly common.

7 Home Remedies to Get Rid of Cysts & Fibroids Naturally

Ginger

Ginger root is very effective to reduce the pain and increase blood circulation. You can prepare tea by adding some fresh ginger roots in a glass of boiling water. Strain the tea and drink it many a times in a day. Ginger root also helps reduce inflammation in ovaries and uterus.

Olive Oil

One of the natural cures for fibroids is olive oil. It is known for blocking estrogen. You are required to take one tablespoon of olive oil with some lemon juice on an empty stomach in the morning. You can also prepare olive tea by brewing olive leaves that help boost the immune system.

Epsom Salt Bath

An Epsom salt bath will also greatly help reduce pain and other symptoms associated with ovarian cysts. The high magnesium sulfate content in Epsom salt works as a muscle relaxant that in turn eases pain.

Lemon Juice

One of the other natural remedies for the treatment of fibroids is, lemon juice. Add two teaspoons of lemon juice and one teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water. Stir the solution well and drink it. To reduce the symptoms of fibroids, drink this solution on a regular basis.

Beetroot

Beetroot contains a compound known as betacyanin that boosts the liver’s ability to clear toxins out of your system. Plus, the alkaline nature of beetroot helps balance the acidity in your body. This in turn reduces the severity of many symptoms of ovarian cysts.

Flaxseed

Flaxseed helps balance the proportion of estrogen to progesterone in your body. This will help reduce the cysts. Plus, flaxseeds are rich in fiber that helps the body eliminate harmful toxins, cholesterol and other waste products processed by the liver.

Folk Remedy against Cysts and Fibroids

Ingredients:

10.5 oz / 300 g leaves of houseleek
17.5 oz / 500 g honey

Method of preparation:
Chop the leaves of the houseleek and add the honey. Leave thus for 2-3 days, until they are well soaked.

Use:

You should consume this remedy first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach, and you should not eat anything in the next 2 hours as well.
This remedy is extremely beneficial for stimulating your metabolism and cleansing your body of toxins, which makes it really effective especially during the winter months. (Natural News).

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