Collector turns love of 'Star Wars' into business

WINONA, Minn. -- The inspiration behind Brian Semling's 20-year-old Fountain City, Wisconsin, business came at an unlikely time — during a visit to a friend's house to watch "Return of the Jedi."

Fifteen years old at the time, he hadn't seen the movie since it came out in theaters nearly a decade earlier. He loved it.

After they watched, he recalled looking over his friend's extensive Masters of the Universe toy collection. As they did, Semling began to question where all of his Star Wars toys went — and soon remembered the answer.

He'd sold them all at a garage sale at age 10.

He wanted to get some back. He began to collect, seeking a connection with those childhood memories.

"I'd forgotten how cool I thought it was, and how much fun I'd had with the toys when I was a kid," he told the Winona Daily News (http://bit.ly/VT12QR ). "It's funny — if I hadn't given away those toys, I may not have become so interested in collecting."

It was a good thing he did.

Semling, 37, doesn't play with toys much anymore.

In the 20-plus years that followed his realization, he has transformed his collecting hobby into a successful family business — Brian's Toys — which sells new and vintage toys and collectibles to buyers in more than 100 countries around the world.

He brought in $5 million in sales in the last year alone, and is now planning for a future where selling toys may only be a small portion of what he does.

But he started small.

About a year-and-a-half after he started collecting as a junior in high school, he decided to start a mail-order business out of his parents' basement and garage.

A natural extension of his collecting hobby, he saw it a chance to make a bit of extra cash for college.

Soon he discovered a potential to make real money.

He took out ads in collector magazines, exhibited at toy shows. With help from his parents, Norm and Betsy, and brother, Joe, he'd spend entire weekends as a teen buying, selling and trading and staying up until the early morning pricing toys and staying up with the books.

The summer after his freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he was faced with a dilemma. He was hesitant to take more time away from the business, yet he wasn't ready to leave MIT.

So he headed back to school, flying home Thursdays to spend the weekend running the business. In a matter of weeks, he realized couldn't do both. In October 1996 he transferred to Winona State University, and committed fully to growing and developing the business.

"I worked hard at it, and it grew through that hard work," Semling said. "I thought, how much more could it grow if I worked at it full-time?"

It paid off.

In the years since Semling's return to Winona, the business has continued to expand.

In staff — he now has about 20 people working for him, many of whom are WSU students or graduates.

In size— the main office is now on the estate of Semling's great-grandparents, Joseph and Elizabeth, just off of state Highway 35 in Fountain City. Semling also utilizes two other warehouses in Winona, as well as space in the Winona Occupational Rehabilitation Center for warehousing and fulfillment.

And in merchandise — The business has grown and diversified, now selling a wide range of toys from the likes of Hasbro, Mattel, LEGO, Play-Doh. Ten years ago, Star Wars accounted for 90 percent of sales; now it has fallen to about 30 percent.

Semling still has his own personal toy collection, and he still gets excited when he sees a particularly rare item come in through the warehouse. Like the 1978 Darth Vader action figure sealed in its original packaging that brought in $30,000 last year — the most expensive vintage toy he has sold so far.

But these days, Semling is more focused on preparing business for the future.

His team is working on a mobile app, scheduled for release in August, which will allow collectors to generate an inventory list by simply scanning the bar codes on original toy packaging. He's also revamping his website.

While the business is now almost completely about selling toys, he envisions a future where that will shift as he turns his attention to other online services and applications.

Yet, the core aspects of the business haven't changed. It's still a family affair — his parents, now retired, assist part-time. His wife, Carina, helps with payroll. Even his two young children — Sonja, 7, and Erik, 4 — are happy to help out here and there. They both say they want to work with their dad when they grow up.

Semling said he's careful not to push them in that direction, but the fact that he works with toys certainly doesn't hurt the sell, he admitted.

His goal, he said, is simple:

"To build a business of lasting value while having fun along the way."

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Online:

Brian's Toys: http://bit.ly/1ostS17

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Information from: Winona Daily News, http://bit.ly/1lYUlDQ

An AP Member Exchange Feature shared by Winona Daily News

Families host present-free birthday parties

GREENWOOD, Ind. -- The youngster didn't unwrap a pile of trinkets and dolls for her birthday.

Instead, guests at Kathleene Thomas' birthday party brought canned food to donate to the Interchurch Food Pantry.

At a party for a 5-year-old in Greenwood, parents asked guests not to spend money on action figures and toy cars. Instead, donations to a college savings account for the boy would be most appreciated.

Families across the nation and across the county are hosting present-free birthday parties.

Some parents say their child has too much stuff and they are tired of throwing away or donating toys that have been played with once or left in the package.

Other parents want their children to see that a birthday is for more than receiving gifts and that money spent on a birthday gift could be better used elsewhere.

"We were getting gifts that were played with a few days and then it was at the bottom of the toy box," Emily Cornpropst told the Daily Journal (http://bit.ly/1lTwEPT).

So, the Greenwood resident decided she would do something different for her son Dallas' fifth birthday party.

Guests were asked to join Dallas at an indoor trampoline park. Instead of buying him a gift, they were asked to make a contribution to his college savings account.

Their friends and family gave about $250, which the boy's parents matched.

Everyone won, she said.

They plan to make it a tradition for Dallas' 10th and 15th birthday parties.

Asking for a contribution to a college savings account allowed relatives to show love to their child through a gift, she said.

"More than saying 'no gifts please,' (friends and families) want to show love to this child," Cornpropst said. "We are more about the memories, too."

Hosting gift-free birthday parties is becoming a philanthropic trend, some families said.

April Thomas has had gift-free birthday parties for years for her daughter, Kathleene.

Grandparents purchase gifts for the Waverly resident, but friends and other relatives are asked to make a donation to the charity of Kathleene's choice.

Friends have brought canned goods to a Scooby-Doo themed birthday party to be donated to the Interchurch Food Pantry in Franklin and Mount Pleasant Christian Church's food bank. Pet supplies have been stacked alongside the cake, to be donated to the Humane Society of Johnson County.

Going present-free was easy, Thomas said.

"It was just an overload of toys. We had to scale back," she said.

Getting others to accept a present-free decree can be harder, families said.

Julia Dahl, a sophomore at Center Grove High School, gave up gifts for Christmas two years ago and will do the same for her 16th birthday later this summer.

She asked for cash, so she could donate it to diabetes research.

Most family members complied, but not all were happy at first, Dahl said.

"At first the reaction wasn't the best," she said. "Relatives told me that they wanted to buy a gift and see my reaction."

A classmate gave up birthday gifts and used her money to buy Bibles, which she gave to people in Indianapolis.

Remembering the joy she had when she gave up Christmas gifts and the idea from her friend has Dahl looking forward to her birthday party in August when she will forgo presents.

"Listening to my friend do that, I realized how amazing it was," Dahl said.

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Information from: Daily Journal, http://bit.ly/1iTzNzl

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Daily Journal.

SupplierPay and QuickPay: Strengthening America's Small Businesses

Today, President Obama announced the creation of SupplierPay, a new partnership with the private sector that will strengthen America's small businesses by increasing their working capital. He's also renewing the QuickPay initiative for federal small business subcontractors, which the President launched in 2011.

If you're scratching your head and asking yourself, "What does that mean, exactly?" — don't worry. We'll do our best to break it down for you.

Why do we need to strengthen small businesses?

Small businesses are vital to our nation's economy. Not only do they employ half of America's workers, but they create almost two out of every three new American jobs, and they're often the source of great innovation.

The Great Recession disproportionately affected small businesses, as they lost 40 percent more jobs than the rest of the private sector combined. Although they're still creating most of our new jobs, 66 percent of small businesses say that they find it "difficult to raise new business financing," according to a recent Pepperdine and D&B study.

What's more, it often takes too long for small businesses to get paid for their products and services. Estimates show that the average small business invoice goes unpaid for almost two months, and "past due" payments are increasing. This causes small businesses to spend unnecessary funds in order to cover the cash flow issues caused by late payments — funds that could be spent on growing their businesses and creating new jobs instead.

read more

Florida Ruling Is A Primer On Redistricting Chicanery

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hide captionFlorida Republican state Sen. Rene Garcia examines a map of proposed changes in congressional districts in January 2012.

Chris O'Meara/AP

Florida Republican state Sen. Rene Garcia examines a map of proposed changes in congressional districts in January 2012.

Chris O'Meara/AP

If you have some time over the weekend or need a break from the endless LeBron James coverage, you could peruse the highly readable opinion by a Florida judge who invalidated some of the redistricting efforts by the state's Republican legislature.

Leon County Circuit Judge Terry Lewis found compelling evidence of chicanery in how the lines of two Florida congressional districts were redrawn — the 5th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Corrine Brown, and the 10th District by Rep. Daniel Webster, a Republican.

The decision wasn't a complete loss for the GOP-led legislature: Lewis ruled that the plaintiffs failed to prove that several other districts violated the state constitution.

What makes Lewis' opinion such fun reading for students of politics is his highlighting of how political operatives sought to leave no fingerprints of their efforts to influence the redistricting maps. This isn't the judge's first brush with political controversy: He is among the Florida judges who heard cases in the epic Bush v. Gore presidential election fight of 2000.

One technique Lewis discusses was how Republican political consultants, told that they wouldn't "have a seat at the redistricting table" by GOP lawmakers and aides, still managed to get what they wanted. They did it by using the old Astroturf technique of sending in front groups.

"What is clear to me from the evidence," Lewis wrote, "is that this group of Republican political consultants or operatives did conspire to manipulate and influence the redistricting process. They did this by writing scripts for and organizing groups of people to advocate the adoption of certain components or characteristics in the map, and by submitting maps and partial maps through the public process, all with the intention of obtaining enacted maps for the State House and Senate and for Congress that would favor the Republican Party."

The judge does say, however, he found no evidence that the lawmakers and aides were in cahoots with the consultants.

Because this case involves congressional redistricting, Lewis gets into the minutiae of political map-making. For instance, he notes that the map for the "bizarrely shaped" 5th District violates state law by, among other things, narrowing so much at one point that only state Highway 17 lies within it.

He also found that the 2012 redistricting used line-drawing contortions to join two African-American areas in creating the new district, even though that particular area didn't meet federal and state requirements for doing so. Lewis concluded that this "was done with the intent of benefiting the Republican Party" since it presumably made other areas more favorable to Republican candidates.

The case is far from over; it's expected that the Florida Supreme Court will weigh in at some point, then the federal courts.

Future, Amal dialogue to ease tensions

BEIRUT: The Future Movement and the Amal Movement have begun a dialogue designed to defuse Sunni-Shiite tensions and resolve some key political issues that have threatened to paralyze the role of Parliament and the Cabinet, a ministerial source said.

The ongoing dialogue was launched recently between top aides of Speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the Amal Movement, and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, leader of the Future Movement.

Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil, a political aide to Berri, has held two meetings with Nader Hariri, head of Saad Hariri’s office, to discuss a wide range of key domestic political issues, including deep divisions between the March 8 and March 14 camps over the presidential election deadlock and the role of Parliament and the Cabinet during the vacuum in the country’s top Christian post.

The results of the Khalil-Hariri talks have led to a breakthrough over the payment of civil servants’ salaries and the long-running crisis over the public sector’s salary scale bill, eventually setting the stage for a Parliament session next week to act on these two issues, the source said.

The presidential vacuum, now in its second month, has crippled Parliament’s role. March 14 MPs have attended Parliament sessions to elect a president, but boycotted other sessions on the grounds that Parliament should not legislate while the presidency seat remained vacant.

Similarly, March 8 lawmakers, while they support holding legislative sessions even amid the presidential void, have boycotted sessions to elect a president before an agreement is reached with their March 14 rivals on a consensus candidate.

“The two sides [Amal and Future Movements] have agreed on the need to defuse Sunni-Shiite tensions in Lebanon and to protect the country from any violent fallout from the turmoil in Syria and Iraq,” the source told The Daily Star.

Khalil, who is currently locked in a row with the March 14 coalition over the legalization of extra-budgetary spending – an issue that threatens the payment of civil servants at the end of this month – discussed this matter with Hariri along with the thorny issue of the public sector’s salary scale bill.

“The talks between the two sides have led to a breakthrough whereby a Parliament session will be held next week to endorse draft laws on extra-budgetary spending and the public sector’s wage hike bill,” the source said.

The Cabinet failed Thursday to resolve the thorny issues of Lebanese University’s contract professors and extra-budgetary spending, leaving the fate of the state-run LU and salaries of civil servants hanging in the balance.

Information Minister Ramzi Joreige said Cabinet action on the issue of employing LU’s contract professors as full timers was postponed until next week’s session amid lingering differences among ministers.

Khalil and Hariri also discussed the vacuum in the presidency seat and Parliament’s repeated failures to choose a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-year term ended on May 25.

“However, Khalil and Hariri did not touch in their talks on the possibility of a new extension of Parliament’s mandate,” the source said.

After failing to agree on a new electoral law, lawmakers last year extended Parliament’s mandate by 17 months.

With no solution in sight to the presidential election crisis, there are growing fears that the deadlock could lead to another extension of Parliament’s term which expires in November.

Judge seeks death penalty for Eid, four others

BEIRUT/TRIPOLI: Military Investigative Judge Riad Abu Ghaida requested the death penalty Friday for the fugitive Rifaat Ali Eid, head of the Arab Democratic Party’s politburo, and five fighters from Jabal Mohsen, Tripoli.

Judicial sources declined to name the other four suspects, all of whom are in custody, but added that three are considered militia leaders.

The five stand accused of killing, participating in clashes with Jabal Mohsen’s rival area, Bab al-Tabbaneh, terrorist acts, terrorizing the public, and destroying property.

Eid has been missing since earlier this year and is rumored to have fled the country through Syria after authorities sought to investigate links between the ADP and the bombing of two Tripoli mosques.

News of the indictment followed protests this week from local residents in the largely Alawite Jabal Mohsen and the predominantly Sunni Bab al-Tabbaneh, both of whom claim to have been unfairly targeted by a government crackdown on fighters in the northern city.

Security forces backed by armored vehicles deployed heavily in the northern city of Tripoli Friday, setting up checkpoints, and checking identities in the search for wanted suspects, as the Army raided Tripoli’s Government Hospital arresting one suspect, security sources said.

They said a suspect, only identified by his initials, was apprehended at the hospital, while a security check on papers and vehicles was conducted at road blocks erected in different parts of the city in search for others.

Earlier Friday, tensions ran high as residents in Jabal Mohsen blocked a road connecting their neighborhood to Bab al-Tabbaneh, demanding the release of detainees held for involvement in clashes.

Some 85 people gathered, calling on security and judicial authorities to release 60 detainees who were apprehended during the Army-led crackdown in the restive city.

The protest came a day after residents in the Bab al-Tabbaneh carried out a similar protest, blocking roads leading to the Abu Ali roundabout with rocks, trash cans and tires.

Three hunger-striking inmates from Roumieh prison were taken to hospital Thursday, as their supporters used tents, garbage bins and trucks to blockade roads at the Abu Ali roundabout and on the Maaloula-Minyeh route, threatening to escalate their action if detainees held over alleged involvement in the Tripoli clashes this year were not released.

This week, residents blocked several roads in north Lebanon following news that the health of a militia leader in Roumieh prison had deteriorated. Ziad Allouki, a former militia commander in Bab al-Tabbaneh, was transferred to Hayat Hospital after suffering fatigue.

Bab al-Tabbaneh residents have protested what they said were the arbitrary detentions targeting the Sunni community, saying security forces are discriminating against and treating them differently than their Alawite neighbors in Jabal Mohsen.

The Army, along with security forces, launched on April 1 a security plan to restore law and order to the city. The plan resulted in the arrest of dozens of gunmen and militia commanders from Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, and put an end to deadly clashes between the two.

Ten-day countdown to controversial rent law ruling

BEIRUT: Landlords and tenants are waiting with bated breath as the Constitutional Council takes the next 10 days to review a controversial new law that would abolish rent control.

Dozens of landlords gathered outside the Council Friday as lawyers representing tenants’ interests arrived to submit a fresh challenge to the law, which is set to go into effect in six months after being republished in the Official Gazette last month. Tensions ran high, with a scuffle breaking out between one of the lawyers and a landlord after the two exchanged verbal insults.

The law in its current form would raise rents over six years to 5 percent of the market value of the home, which would be determined by court-approved appraisers. After nine years, landlords would be free to evict longtime tenants, even if they are paying the adjusted rent. The law also calls for the establishment of a special fund to subsidize the rent of those who qualify as poor, although they, too, could be evicted after 12 years.

The law has proven deeply divisive, with some landlords claiming they do not make enough off rent to pay for building maintenance, let alone to live off of. On the other hand, tenants and activists say lifting rent control would result in the displacement of thousands of families, mostly in the Beirut area, rending the very social fabric of the capital.

Patrick Rizkallah, a member of the Landlords Committee, said Friday’s protest was against the lawmakers who signed the challenge.

“There are 16,000 buildings at risk of collapse and their signatures will force such a collapse,” he told reporters at the protest.

But tenants fear the new law will put them out on the street.

Retiree Ohanes Balangian has been renting his home in Rmeil, which he shares with his wife, for 50 years. The 75-year-old said fixed rent was particularly important in Lebanon, where the social safety net is almost nonexistent.

“[In other countries] they have rights, they have pensions, they have health coverage, while we have nothing,” he said, adding that the new law would affect many elderly people.

Balangian’s lack of faith in the state colors his view of the rent law as well. He added that he does not believe the special fund for the poor will materialize due to the government’s poor track record.

“Everyone knows the government’s coffers are empty; the teachers have been protesting for two years and they are still in the street,” the rentee said.

“They already passed a lease law and it was never implemented.”

Friday’s challenge was signed by 10 lawmakers and filed just hours before the noon deadline.

The MPs include Walid Sukkarieh, Nawaf Moussawi, Qassem Hashem, Hagop Pakradounian, Nadim Gemayel, Fadi Habr, Elie Marouni and Ziad Aswad, as well as an unnamed Hezbollah MP and one other lawmaker.

The Constitutional Council now has 10 days to review the constitutionality of the new law and deliver its ruling.

A similar objection was filed in May by former President Michel Sleiman and 10 MPs, some of whom have since withdrawn their support for the tenants’ challenge. MPs Dory Chamoun and Marwan Fares both declined to sign the second petition.

The Council ruled that the law was invalid due to its premature publication the first time, and Sleiman’s objection was never examined.

U.S. signs water MOU as Moqbel warns of crisis

BEIRUT: The United States Embassy signed a Memorandum of Understanding with four regional water establishments Friday, as the ministerial committee following up on the looming water crisis announced plans to draft an action plan to tackle shortages.

Access to water was singled out as a top priority for Americans and Lebanese by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale, during the signing ceremony held at embassy headquarters in Awkar. The MOU will formalize U.S. cooperation with water establishments in the Bekaa Valley, north and south Lebanon, Beirut and Mount Lebanon.

“With the dry winter we had in Lebanon this year, we’ve seen shortages, authorities have asked us to conserve, and there are fears the taps could dry out,” Hale said.

The MOU, signed by the United States Agency for International Development, defines a framework for cooperation between the USAID-funded Water Infrastructure Support and Enhancement program – a $26.2 million grant provided by USAID to enhance Lebanon’s water resource management – and each of the water establishments to improve overall financial and managerial performance.

The ministerial committee tasked with following up on Lebanon’s looming water crisis will draft an action plan within a week that will include short- and long-term solutions to address shortages, Defense Minister Samir Moqbel said Friday.

“The ministers agreed to ... propose it to the committee and then to Cabinet so that the government can make appropriate decisions,” Moqbel told reporters after the end of the committee meeting he chaired.

Moqbel said the country was in need of technical solutions to face the crisis.

“Water shortage is now an inevitable crisis that requires fast and technical solutions to prevent the dangerous repercussions on citizens,” the defense minister said.

Chaired by MP Mohammad Qabbani, several parliamentary committees met earlier this week to discuss the water crisis and announced proposals to address the issue.

The proposals call for restrictions on water use – including a moratorium on irrigation for seasonal crops, in exchange for compensation to farmers – and a ban on washing cars and sidewalks and watering lawns, under threat of fine.

They also called for patching up existing infrastructure in order to prevent leaks and lifting VAT on the importation of water. They called for exploring the possibility of importing water from Turkey by sea using huge fabric balloons called Spragg Bags.

During the ministerial committee meeting that was attended by the environment, public works and industry ministers, Qabbani gave a detailed presentation about the committee’s recommendations.

Moqbel said the ministers also agreed that future solutions should focus on constructing dams and lakes as well as organizing awareness campaigns to limit water consumption.

Meanwhile, Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk spelled out the severity of the shortfall.

“The shortage ... is around 400 million cubic meters,” he told a local magazine. “We are only able to adopt water rationing policies for domestic and industry use.”

Lebanese scientist finds consciousness switch

BEIRUT: When MohammadKoubeissi readied his epileptic patient for a routine exam, he did not know he was about to discover the on-off switch for consciousness.

As the director of George Washington University’s Epilepsy Center zapped a region called the “claustrum” deep in the patient’s brain with a mild electric current, a blank stare took hold of her eyes.

She stopped talking and making new memories.

What Koubeissi had apparently discovered was a key – a switch that turned his patient’s consciousness on or off.

“This is a phenomenon that is unique,” Koubeissi said. “We have not seen a single spot in the brain that, when stimulated, can result in all those things together – unresponsiveness, blank stares, inability to form memories, and so forth.”

The results, and their conclusions, were published in the journal Epilepsy and Behavior.

Koubeissi’s patient had been suffering from epilepsy. After failing to respond to medication, he had recommended surgery.

Before epilepsy patients are subjected to surgery, doctors place electrodes in their scalp to try and identify the focal point of the seizures, or in the brain to identify the origin of the seizures and to map the patient’s brain, in order to avoid removing portions of it that are responsible for functions like movement and speech.

The mapping can be done by stimulating the electrodes inside the brain with electrical charges. For instance, if a patient’s hand moves when a particular electrode is stimulated, doctors can deduce that that region of the brain is involved in movement.

When the electrode near the region known as the claustrum was stimulated and the patient froze, Koubeissi initially thought the electric charge had caused “aphasia” – turning off the language processing portion of the brain. But he could not explain why it had also turned off memory formation and movement.

“I went home and kept thinking about it all the time,” he said.

Then an epiphany. Scientists had for years hypothesized that the claustrum, a region deep inside the brain, was inextricably linked to consciousness. It was a sort of orchestra conductor – connected to all the crucial networks that control things like speech, memory, motor movement, visual and audio processing, emotions, among others. Koubeissi began connecting the dots, realizing he’d found the key that could turn off all these networks.

He repeated the procedure the next day, and 10 times out of 10, it happened again.

To prove that he had not simply turned off her language processing ability, Koubeissi asked her to repeat a word several times. Midway through the process, he stimulated the claustrum. Her words became confused and slurred, eventually trailing off, rather than abruptly halting.

To show that her memory and ability to follow commands were also impaired, he would ask her to repeat words after him. After repeating the first two words, he stimulated the claustrum. She stopped repeating words after him, and did not realize that he had uttered those words at all.

“The finding suggests that this is a spot connected with the majority, if not all, of the networks that process consciousness,” he said.

Koubeissi likens it to a well-lit, ornamented Christmas tree.

“What we found was the electric plug that’s connected to all these light bulbs,” he said. “When we unplugged that, the whole tree ceased to function.”

He also calls it the “maestro” coordinating the work of the body’s major neural networks.

The study has its limitations, since it has been conducted on a single patient.

But if Koubeissi’s conclusion that the claustrum is indeed this focal point for consciousness is verified, it could have major implications.

The find could be used in an attempt to revive coma patients in a vegetative state, in the study of epilepsy treatment, or to gain a greater understanding of mental illnesses like schizophrenia.

And it could also open doors to questions of a more philosophical bent, such as whether animals, or even man-made machines, can be considered conscious.

But the results of the research are also a sign that there is much yet to be discovered around us, if only we keep an open mind, he said.

“Fascinating phenomena are not infrequent in medical practice and scientific research,” Koubeissi said. “What we have to do is keep our eyes opened.”

Koubeissi’s research focuses on finding novel treatments and surgeries for epilepsy, and he said his research will continue in that field.

It dates back to his time at the American University of Beirut, where the Lebanese doctor from the city began studying mathematics while also delving into pre-medicine courses.

The turning point was a course in animal physiology that explained how behaviors are often linked to biological processes. He studied, for instance, the singing of canaries and how it affects hormones and mating behavior in the bird.

“When I discovered that studying the biology can actually explain a lot of our behavior, that was an extremely intriguing, fascinating area for me,” he said.

He would go on to join the AUB medical school, where he decided he wanted to be a neurologist, specifically one who treats epilepsy, because of its potential to offer great insights into the functioning of the brain.

After graduating from medical school, Koubeissi spent a year conducting epilepsy research at AUB, before moving to New York University for clinical training. After graduating in 2004, he joined Johns Hopkins University and later Case Western Reserve University, before arriving at George Washington University.

Koubeissi’s advice for burgeoning university students is to seek out what entices them.

“If you have a passion, pursue it,” he said. “Don’t ask where it’s going to take you or whether it’s going to be eventually rewarding or not.”

“If you pursue your passion, whether it’s in art or science, you will have a much better chance at answering chronic questions and at being happy on a day-to-day basis, which I think must be the ultimate goal of everyone,” he added.

Lebanese scientist finds consciousness switch

BEIRUT: When MohammadKoubeissi readied his epileptic patient for a routine exam, he did not know he was about to discover the on-off switch for consciousness.

As the director of George Washington University’s Epilepsy Center zapped a region called the “claustrum” deep in the patient’s brain with a mild electric current, a blank stare took hold of her eyes.

She stopped talking and making new memories.

What Koubeissi had apparently discovered was a key – a switch that turned his patient’s consciousness on or off.

“This is a phenomenon that is unique,” Koubeissi said. “We have not seen a single spot in the brain that, when stimulated, can result in all those things together – unresponsiveness, blank stares, inability to form memories, and so forth.”

The results, and their conclusions, were published in the journal Epilepsy and Behavior.

Koubeissi’s patient had been suffering from epilepsy. After failing to respond to medication, he had recommended surgery.

Before epilepsy patients are subjected to surgery, doctors place electrodes in their scalp to try and identify the focal point of the seizures, or in the brain to identify the origin of the seizures and to map the patient’s brain, in order to avoid removing portions of it that are responsible for functions like movement and speech.

The mapping can be done by stimulating the electrodes inside the brain with electrical charges. For instance, if a patient’s hand moves when a particular electrode is stimulated, doctors can deduce that that region of the brain is involved in movement.

When the electrode near the region known as the claustrum was stimulated and the patient froze, Koubeissi initially thought the electric charge had caused “aphasia” – turning off the language processing portion of the brain. But he could not explain why it had also turned off memory formation and movement.

“I went home and kept thinking about it all the time,” he said.

Then an epiphany. Scientists had for years hypothesized that the claustrum, a region deep inside the brain, was inextricably linked to consciousness. It was a sort of orchestra conductor – connected to all the crucial networks that control things like speech, memory, motor movement, visual and audio processing, emotions, among others. Koubeissi began connecting the dots, realizing he’d found the key that could turn off all these networks.

He repeated the procedure the next day, and 10 times out of 10, it happened again.

To prove that he had not simply turned off her language processing ability, Koubeissi asked her to repeat a word several times. Midway through the process, he stimulated the claustrum. Her words became confused and slurred, eventually trailing off, rather than abruptly halting.

To show that her memory and ability to follow commands were also impaired, he would ask her to repeat words after him. After repeating the first two words, he stimulated the claustrum. She stopped repeating words after him, and did not realize that he had uttered those words at all.

“The finding suggests that this is a spot connected with the majority, if not all, of the networks that process consciousness,” he said.

Koubeissi likens it to a well-lit, ornamented Christmas tree.

“What we found was the electric plug that’s connected to all these light bulbs,” he said. “When we unplugged that, the whole tree ceased to function.”

He also calls it the “maestro” coordinating the work of the body’s major neural networks.

The study has its limitations, since it has been conducted on a single patient.

But if Koubeissi’s conclusion that the claustrum is indeed this focal point for consciousness is verified, it could have major implications.

The find could be used in an attempt to revive coma patients in a vegetative state, in the study of epilepsy treatment, or to gain a greater understanding of mental illnesses like schizophrenia.

And it could also open doors to questions of a more philosophical bent, such as whether animals, or even man-made machines, can be considered conscious.

But the results of the research are also a sign that there is much yet to be discovered around us, if only we keep an open mind, he said.

“Fascinating phenomena are not infrequent in medical practice and scientific research,” Koubeissi said. “What we have to do is keep our eyes opened.”

Koubeissi’s research focuses on finding novel treatments and surgeries for epilepsy, and he said his research will continue in that field.

It dates back to his time at the American University of Beirut, where the Lebanese doctor from the city began studying mathematics while also delving into pre-medicine courses.

The turning point was a course in animal physiology that explained how behaviors are often linked to biological processes. He studied, for instance, the singing of canaries and how it affects hormones and mating behavior in the bird.

“When I discovered that studying the biology can actually explain a lot of our behavior, that was an extremely intriguing, fascinating area for me,” he said.

He would go on to join the AUB medical school, where he decided he wanted to be a neurologist, specifically one who treats epilepsy, because of its potential to offer great insights into the functioning of the brain.

After graduating from medical school, Koubeissi spent a year conducting epilepsy research at AUB, before moving to New York University for clinical training. After graduating in 2004, he joined Johns Hopkins University and later Case Western Reserve University, before arriving at George Washington University.

Koubeissi’s advice for burgeoning university students is to seek out what entices them.

“If you have a passion, pursue it,” he said. “Don’t ask where it’s going to take you or whether it’s going to be eventually rewarding or not.”

“If you pursue your passion, whether it’s in art or science, you will have a much better chance at answering chronic questions and at being happy on a day-to-day basis, which I think must be the ultimate goal of everyone,” he added.

House GOP Plows Forward With Plans To Sue Obama

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hide captionHouse Speaker John Boehner at a Capitol Hill news conference on June 25. Boehner said Wednesday the Republican-controlled House will file a lawsuit accusing President Obama of failing to carry out laws passed by Congress.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

House Speaker John Boehner at a Capitol Hill news conference on June 25. Boehner said Wednesday the Republican-controlled House will file a lawsuit accusing President Obama of failing to carry out laws passed by Congress.

J. Scott Applewhite/AP

House Republicans are pushing ahead with a plan to sue President Obama, accusing him of trying to sidestep Congress and make his own laws.

But the president is also using the suit, which is considered a long-shot in legal terms, to score political points.

House Speaker John Boehner says the lawsuit will focus on the administration's decision to postpone the requirement in the Affordable Care Act that large employers provide health insurance for their workers.

But the White House describes the suit as a "taxpayer-funded political stunt," and the president used it as a convenient punch line this week during a boisterous campaign-style rally in Austin, Texas.

There he told a friendly crowd that Republicans are upset with him just for doing his job.

"I've got a better idea: Do something," Obama said. "If you're mad at me for helping people on my own, let's team up. Let's pass some bills."

Obama complains that Republican lawmakers, especially in the House, have blocked action that many Americans support, such as immigration reform and a higher minimum wage.

"They are common sense things. They are not that radical," he said. "We know it's what should be doing. And what drives me nuts – and I know it drives you nuts – is that Washington isn't doing it."

In the face of congressional stalemates, Obama says he'll continue to exercise his executive powers whenever possible. He's already ordered federal contractors to pay their workers a higher minimum wage. And two years ago, his administration granted temporary legal status to young people who had been brought to the country illegally as children.

But Boehner says that in doing so, the president has over-stepped his authority, which is why the Republican-led Rules Committee will meet next week to consider green-lighting the lawsuit.

"This isn't about me suing the president. It's not about Republicans versus Democrats," Boehner said. "This is about the legislative branch being disadvantaged by the executive branch."

Obama suggests the complaints are driven by party politics, and that while he'll often highlight executive orders to show he's not hamstrung by Congress, he's actually issued fewer than any president since Grover Cleveland.

"Republicans didn't seem to mind when President Bush took more executive actions than I did," he told supporters at the rally. "Maybe it's just me they don't like. I don't know."

But Boehner counters it's not the number of executive orders that matters.

"Every president does executive orders; most of them, though, do them within the law," he said. "What we're talking about here are places where the president is basically rewriting law to make it fit his own needs."

The Supreme Court has already found that Obama went too far in some cases this year, striking down some of his recess appointments, and a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires most employers to provide insurance coverage for birth control.

In their lawsuit, however, Republicans have chosen to focus on a part of the health care law that's not being enforced: The administration decided last year to put off the requirement that large employers provide health insurance.

Republicans are thus fighting the decision to suspend a requirement that they didn't like in the first place.

In Texas this week, Obama said he's interested in solving problems, not staging photo-ops. But the picture developing in Washington remains one of a deeply divided government.

Newspaper Editor, Activist John Seigenthaler Dies At 86

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hide captionNashville Tennessean Editor John Seigenthaler testifies at a Senate Commerce Subcommittee hearing in Washington in 1969. Seigenthaler died Friday at 86.

Bob Daugherty/AP

Nashville Tennessean Editor John Seigenthaler testifies at a Senate Commerce Subcommittee hearing in Washington in 1969. Seigenthaler died Friday at 86.

Bob Daugherty/AP

John Seigenthaler, the legendary journalist who edited The Tennessean, was instrumental in shaping the editorial page of USA Today and worked as an assistant to Robert Kennedy, has died at 86.

A statement from his son, broadcast journalist John Seigenthaler Jr., said his father died "peacefully at home," where he was recovering after a recent medical treatment.

NPR's David Folkenflik says Seigenthaler was known as a crusader against corruption and for civil rights.

The Tennessean reports:

"As a reporter for The Tennessean, Seigenthaler once saved a suicidal man's life on a bridge over the Cumberland River — a bridge eventually named after him. As the newspaper's longtime editor, he led coverage of the civil rights movement when most Southern newspapers, including the rival Nashville Banner, ignored the growing resistance to racial segregation in the South.

"Seigenthaler also exposed corruption in the Teamsters union, grave deficiencies in the state's mental health system and illicit activities of the Ku Klux Klan in Tennessee. And he inspired several generations of journalists to greatness."

"His friendship with the Kennedys, established in the late '50s, led to a job as a top aide to Robert Kennedy at the Justice Department for more than a year," David says. "Seigenthaler was beaten in 1961 while trying to ensure protesters riding integrated buses made it safely through segregated states in the Deep South."

"I never saw anything in my life. Never will ever again to compare with the violence on that parking lot at that Greyhound station," Seigenthaler told the AP in an interview in January about the incident.

In 1962, he returned to The Tennessean as editor, but he took a leave of absence in 1968 to help Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. After Kennedy's assassination, he returned to the newspaper again.

According to the AP:

"In the 1980s, he became the first editorial director as the Gannett Co. launched USA Today. He held the post for almost a decade. Gannett also owns The Tennessean.

"[After he] retired from The Tennessean in 1991, Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt. The mission of the center — an independent affiliate of the Arlington, Va.-based Freedom Forum — is to create national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment issues.

"In July 2002, Vanderbilt named the First Amendment Center's building The John Seigenthaler Center. And in August 2001, the university created a scholarship for minority students in Seigenthaler's name after he gave Vanderbilt $2 million."

Week In Politics: Israel And Immigration

Audio for this story from All Things Considered will be available at approximately 7:00 p.m. ET.

Regular political commentators, E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times, discuss the conflict in the Gaza Strip and President Obama's request of emergency immigration funds.

A Day in the Life: Austin

President Obama capped off a three-day road trip with a visit to Austin, Texas, where he sat down for coffee with a letter writer, delivered a speech on the economy, and grabbed lunch at a local BBQ joint.

Relive the President's day in Austin right here. (And, if you want to write the President yourself, you can always do that here.)

In the morning, the President grabbed coffee with Kinsey Button, who wrote him a few months ago.

Kinsey Button is a student at the University of Texas at Austin. She wrote the President talking about her family's struggles, after both of her parents lost their jobs.

Kinsey said she's always been passionate about politics and engaging with this country's most important issues -- but after the government shutdown last year, she wrote in her letter that she felt like Washington wasn't listening.

She's inspired by POTUS efforts to fight for middle class families/wants to join the fight RT @tess46: @PressSec what did she write about?”

— Josh Earnest (@PressSec) July 10, 2014

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Taif is an umbrella of stability: Jumblatt

BEIRUT: Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt reiterated his commitment to the Taif Accord at an award ceremony where he was honored with the annual President Elias Hrawi award in Yazreh Friday.

"The era of President Elias Hrawi was the [era] of the Taif agreement and we have agreed to apply it despite its impurities," he said, adding that “it has formed a protective umbrella over the stability of security in spite of our criticisms," he said in reference to the 1989 agreement which ended the Lebanese Civil War.

Jumblatt said a new president should be elected and called on parties to reconsider the Baabda Declaration, which distances Lebanon from the Syria crisis, in order “to protect it from drowning.”

"It is unavoidable that those involved in Syria will withdraw sooner or later to spare Lebanon [more] negative repercussions” he added.

Jumblatt called on parties “not to forget that we have agreed on keeping the resistance’s arsenal until the liberation of occupied territories, which happened in 2000,” referring to the withdrawal of the Israeli army from south Lebanon.

“The reign of President Hrawi was exacerbated by war and we all became heroes for the respective purpose we served, and we moved to political action... the greatest decision was uniting the Lebanese Army after confiscating the arms of the militias,” he said.

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Uber opens its doors to Beirut passengers

BEIRUT: Instead of hailing a service taxi on the street or calling a local cab company, Beirutis can now ping a driver for a quick ride with the launch of the Uber app in Lebanon Friday.

Based in San Francisco, Uber is a transportation network covering cities in more than 40 countries, connecting passengers to roaming drivers.

Users push a button on the mobile app that links them up with drivers in the area through an in-app map. Payment is made through a credit or debit card linked to users' Uber accounts, with an additional option of splitting the cost of the trip between passengers directly on the app.

A suited-up chauffeur driving a luxury car will open the doors for passengers and drive them to select destinations in the city.

Uber is offering special summer prices in Beirut until Aug. 31. As a part of the startup’s promotion package, the “UberLovesBeirut” promo code will give passengers their first ride for free, up to $20.

MTV’s “Min El Ekhir” host Pierre Rabbat was one of the first users of the app, ordering a car early Friday morning.

The season two winner of “Dancing with the Stars,” Daniella Rahme, followed suit, booking her first Uber ride from Saifi Village.

Uber can be downloaded via the App Store on iOS and Android.

With available in-app profiles of both drivers and passengers, the chauffeur will have access to information concerning the passenger’s home as well as their favorite hangouts.

Passengers and drivers may also rate each other based on their experience.

Still in testing phase, Uber is working on getting more drivers on the road, so users may experience limited availability.

The service is available in five other cities in the Middle East, launching in 2013 in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Jeddah, Doha and Riyadh.

Uber made its 2009 debut in the United States, catapulting to instant success for providing citizens with transportation services that are less expensive than metered taxi cabs and available all hours of the day.

Judge seeks death penalty for Eid, 4 others

BEIRUT: Military Investigative Judge Riad Abu Ghaida requested the death penalty Friday for the fugitive Rifaat Eid, head of the Arab Democratic Party's politburo, and five fighters from Jabal Mohsen, Tripoli.

Judicial sources declined the name the other four suspects, all of whom are in custody, but added that three are considered militia leaders.

The five stand accused of killing, participating in clashes with Jabal Mohsen's rival neighborhood, Bab al-Tabbaneh, terrorist acts, terrorizing the public, and destroying public and private property.

Eid has been missing since earlier this year and is rumored to have fled the country through Syria after authorities sought to investigate links between the ADP and the bombing of two Tripoli mosques.

News of the indictment follows on the heels of protests from local residents in the largely-Alawite Jabal Mohsen and the predominantly-Sunni Bab al-Tabbaneh, both of whom claim to have been unfairly targeted by a government crackdown on fighters in the northern city. Several prisoners from Bab al-Tabbaneh, including an influential militia leader, have been transferred to hospital after launching hunger strikes.

Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabbaneh have engaged in around 20 rounds of fighting linked to the war in Syria, where the ADP enjoys strong ties with the regime.

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Natural gas boom’s future may be in China

WASHINGTON -- China is expected to double its demand for natural gas in the next five years, representing an irresistible market for Western companies attempting to export America’s energy bonanza as well as to exploit China’s own vast reserves.

Chinese cities are choking in smog, and its government is intent on moving the country away from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas, said Anne-Sophie Corbeau, a senior gas analyst for the International Energy Agency.

“This is becoming priority number one,” Corbeau said Tuesday, as she presented the agency’s forecast at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Western energy companies are hoping to cash in by sending American natural gas overseas. BP last month signed a $20 billion deal to send liquefied natural gas in tankers to China starting in 2019, with much of the supply expected to come from a proposed export plant in Freeport, Texas, awaiting federal approval.

Numerous other companies are also hoping to ship American natural gas overseas. But U.S. natural gas exports are controversial, and Australia and Russia have a head start in helping fill the lucrative Chinese market.

China recently signed a $400 billion deal to buy natural gas from Russia’s Gazprom, and Australia has seven high-priced facilities under construction for the liquefaction and export of natural gas in tankers.

“There is, despite all the talk, only one single project in the U.S. under construction,” Corbeau said.

The International Energy Agency expects the global liquefied natural gas market to grow by 40 percent in the next five years, with half of all new exports coming from Australia. North America is expected to account for about 8 percent of the global trade in that time.

There’s a backlash against the growing push to send American natural gas overseas. Some manufacturers argue it could have the potential to raise U.S. energy costs. Environmental groups say it would encourage more fracking, in which water and chemicals are pumped into shale rock to release natural gas, resulting in more planet-warming gases.

Opponents of the proposed Cove Point export facility in Maryland are staging a protest in Washington this weekend, saying the facility “could incentivize a dramatic expansion of fracking activities.”

Natural gas produces half as much carbon dioxide as coal when used to make electricity. But a new Department of Energy report suggests that the greenhouse gas benefit could be offset by the methane leakage and energy needed to drill for natural gas in the United States and then ship it in tankers to China.

In addition to importing natural gas, China is aggressively seeking to drill its own energy reserves. The IEA forecasts that half of China’s new natural gas demand will be met through the country’s resources.

China has large natural gas reserves in shale rock, but it has struggled with efforts at fracking to harvest it.

FTS International, a major fracking service provider based in Fort Worth, Texas, last month announced that it signed a 15-year joint venture with the Chinese state-owned company Sinopec, the first such collaboration of its kind aimed at developing Chinese shale.

A major question is whether China can draw on U.S. technological efforts to reduce the enormous amount of water needed for fracking, said Jane Nakano, a fellow in the energy and natural security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

International Energy Agency natural gas specialist Corbeau said it’s an open question whether China is able to successfully use fracking to harvest its shale gas.

“It’s really a question of faith. Are they going to achieve the same miracle as the U.S.? We’ll see,” she said.

First retail marijuana store in Bellingham, Wash. opens

BELLINGHAM — Hundreds of customers were on hand - along with TV stations and a food truck - as Top Shelf Cannabis opened Tuesday, July 8, the first store in Bellingham to legally sell recreational marijuana.

Employees opened the doors at Top Shelf, 3863 Hannegan Road in Henifin Plaza, a little after 8 a.m. Cale Holdsworth, 29, of Abilene, Kansas was first in line. He and his girlfriend were in town for a grandfather's 84th birthday and family reunion.

"We expected larger crowds. We thought there would be campers and revelers," said Holdsworth, who said he is an advocate of legalization and the responsible use of marijuana. "It's a momentous occasion."

His girlfriend, 24-year-old Sarah Gorton, also of Abilene, was happy to be among the first in line.

"This is completely new to me," she said. "I've never been in a shop where I can buy my favorite thing."

The couple bought two grams of a strain called OG's Pearl, which retails for $19.82 ($26.50 with taxes included) for a two-gram package. They planned to try out their purchase at home and said they know it's illegal to carry it across state lines.

Read more here

SEC and California school district settle dispute

WASHINGTON -- The sprawling Kings Canyon Unified School District on Tuesday settled federal charges that it had misled investors during a 2010 bond offering.

Without admitting or denying the Securities and Exchange Commission’s allegations, officials with the district located southeast of Fresno, Calif., agreed to adopt new training and written policies, among other changes. They also pledged not to repeat the mistake.

Though the settlement does not include a financial penalty, it does break new ground. It is the first to be resolved under a new SEC initiative that targets materially inaccurate statements in municipal bond offering documents.

“The integrity of the municipal securities market requires that issuers carefully comply with all of their disclosure obligations,” Andrew J. Ceresney, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a statement.

Regulators determined that during the 2010 bond offering, the California school district told investors it had complied with its prior disclosure obligations. The statement was inaccurate, the SEC says, because the school district had previously failed to submit some required disclosures.

School district officials say any error was inadvertent.

“It was an oversight,” school board Trustee Timothy Heinrichs said Tuesday. “When we noticed we had overlooked the requirement, we corrected it right away.”

Other school district officials could not be immediately reached.

The Kings Canyon district spans some 600 square miles and serves almost 10,000 students in towns including Orange Cove and Reedley. Like other school districts and public agencies, it issues bonds to fund construction, renovation and other work.

The settlement came under the SEC’s Municipalities Continuing Disclosure Cooperation Initiative, under which regulators recommend standardized settlement terms for bond issuers and underwriters who self-report problems.

LeeAnn Ghazil Gaunt, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit, said she was “pleased that Kings Canyon has taken advantage of the program,” which ends in September. Vulnerable municipalities and districts that don’t use the voluntary program run the risk of fines or other stiff penalties.

“It provides issuers who were already under investigation the opportunity to accept the standard terms and resolve their enforcement matters in a fair and efficient manner,” Gaunt said.

The school district’s alleged violation was quite technical, and spelled out in a six-page order made public Tuesday. Between December 2006 and December 2007, the district issued three bond offerings, totaling over $30 million. As part of those bond offerings, the district was obliged to annually disclose certain financial information, operating data and event notices.

Between 2008 and 2010, the SEC says Kings Canyon “failed to comply with its contractual undertakings by failing to submit some of the required disclosures.” Nonetheless, the SEC says, the district as part of a $6.8 million bond offering in November 2010 “affirmatively stated in public bond offering documents that it had not failed” to meet prior disclosure requirements.

Kings Canyon “should have known this statement was untrue,” the SEC says.

Under the settlement, the school district has six months to prepare new written policies and training concerning disclosure requirements. The district will also have to disclose the new settlement as part of any future bond offering.

IRS in ‘bunker mentality’ as interest groups, media join Congress in seeking information

By Kevin G. Hall McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Congress isn’t alone in trying to wrest answers out of the embattled Internal Revenue Service. The courts, public-interest groups and the media are all struggling with uneven transparency and cooperation from the agency.

News that the IRS cannot produce long-sought emails is rekindling complaints that the agency has been slow to make public both policy documents regarding the special scrutiny of conservative groups and the emails of IRS decision-makers involved at the time.

Lawmakers are furious that the IRS failed to publicly disclose earlier that the woman at the center of the scandal, Lois Lerner, lost emails when her computer hard drive crashed in 2009.

That was news, too, for those involved in a lawsuit to force the release of Lerner’s emails. A federal judge Thursday will hear from the IRS as to why the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia was not immediately informed about potentially missing emails.

The conservative organization Judicial Watch sued the IRS in May 2013 for access to Lerner’s emails, but it only learned of the missing emails after IRS Commissioner John Koskinen appeared before Congress last month.

“They’ve never once communicated to the court that that’s the case,” said Chris Farrell, research director for the group. “You have an ongoing lawsuit and no notification, that’s not generally how it’s done.”

The IRS has been ham-handed at best ever since the scandal erupted in May 2013. Anticipating an inspector general’s report, Lerner took a planted question at a legal conference so she could admit the agency had inappropriately targeted conservatives. Later, before Congress, she refused to answer any questions from lawmakers, citing her constitutional protection against self-incrimination.

As Congress more aggressively sought answers, the IRS simply stopped responding to media questions and information requests from public-interest groups.

“I think they are in a greater bunker mentality as this (scandal) progresses,” said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “I don’t see the ‘new broom sweeping it clean’ . . . approach. I see just the opposite.”

She added that “all too often we have to file lawsuits in order to get anything in response to our requests.”

Judicial Watch’s suit against the IRS was filed under the Freedom of Information Act. Under the law, public-interest groups and the media can seek non-public information from the government.

On his first day in office in 2009, President Barack Obama called on federal agencies to “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure” when dealing with FOIA requests. But at the IRS and elsewhere in government, little has changed.

In fact, analysts say, it’s become harder to get information as agencies such as the IRS hide behind a widening array of exemptions written into the Freedom of Information Act.

“This has nothing to do with party politics. This is a systemic trend that’s been happening in this country for 30 or 40 years,” said David Cuillien, interim director of the School of Journalism at the University of Arizona. “It’s the professionalization of PR and message control. It’s infiltrated the bureaucracy and the president can’t stop it.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., recently introduced a bill to force greater disclosure and simplify the FOIA process; he was joined by Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn. Cuillien welcomed the bipartisan proposal but wasn’t hopeful.

“About every 10 years, we put a little duct tape on FOIA . . . but there are just so many forces against it. It’s like building a sandcastle on the beach,” he said. “It’s been whittled to pieces over the years. I frankly think we have to scrap it and start over.”

McClatchy filed a FOIA request with the IRS on June 13, 2013, seeking all email communication over a four-year period between members of Congress and the IRS Exempt Organizations Division, headed by Lerner.

A separate request sought email traffic between that IRS division and members of Congress who sit on committees with jurisdiction over the IRS.

More than a year later, the only IRS responses have been requests for more time. The latest came May 1, when tax law specialist Robert Thomas asked for “additional time to collect, process and review such responsive documents.” The agency, he said, would contact McClatchy by Aug. 1 if more time were needed.

Many of the emails sought by McClatchy have been made public on a smaller scale through the FOIA requests of others, some of them obtained and published by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

CREW obtained through the FOIA process emails showing then-Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., now the U.S. ambassador to China, leaning on the IRS to ensure that political groups weren’t funneling money illegally into campaigns. Baucus made no reference to conservatives or liberals in the Sept. 28, 2010, letter.

Weeks later, the top Republican on his committee, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, wrote to then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, a Republican appointee. The letter was signed also by then-Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

“We are worried that the sole purpose of any such effort is to chill the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights and intimidate Americans,” the pair said, more than two years before that became the narrative of the IRS scandal.

IRS emails also are an issue in November congressional campaigns. Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown is demanding that incumbent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., release all emails sent to the IRS during the period of Lerner’s lost email. One of her emails pressuring the IRS over groups abusing their tax-exempt status had been made public through the FOIA process.

Brown has not been forthcoming himself.

Brown campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Guyton never followed up on a McClatchy request for Brown’s emails to the IRS when he was a senator representing Massachusetts.

IRS secrecy extends beyond the Lerner scandal.

McClatchy in March filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents relating to more than 200 cases investigated by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration on a different pattern of apparent wrongdoing by IRS employees.

The inspector general’s FOIA office sought months of delays. At one point, specialist Monica Fyre took the unusual step of asking where McClatchy learned of these IRS investigations.

On June 13, the inspector general’s FOIA office sent a letter denying McClatchy’s request for disclosure. It cited three exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act, including one that allows the agency to keep private information about taxpayers or information collected about them. McClatchy was asking for information about IRS employees, not taxpayers.

The inspector general’s FOIA office also cited another provision protecting the privacy of IRS employees, even though McClatchy asked that employee names be blacked out precisely in order to protect privacy, and instead sought to look at patterns of behavior in the agency.

“That’s absolutely outrageous,” said Weismann, the general counsel for CREW

This sort of information is routinely made public by other agencies.

“Agencies continue to overuse the FOIA’s exemptions, and all too often we have to file lawsuits in order to get anything in response to our requests,” said Weismann of CREW. “Thus, in many cases, the promise of transparency is unfulfilled.”

That’s a point the group Open the Government had made repeatedly, including before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March. The group is calling for a number of steps to strengthen and make more independent the FOIA offices of various agencies.

“It is something a presidential memo is not fixing,” Amy Bennett, the group’s assistant director, told McClatchy. “If you are going to put the president’s directives and words into practice, it’s going to take more oversight from someone in the government. There is no real enforcement agency.”

Amid abundant propane supply, calls come for strategic reserve

By Kevin G. Hall McClatchy Newspapers

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. -- America is awash in propane, a byproduct of booming oil and natural gas production. Yet getting it to markets at home and abroad is proving challenging and controversial.

Long a niche in the energy sector, propane today is sexy. Record exports and supply disruptions this past winter have refocused attention on propane, after prices went through the roof for consumers, businesses and farmers alike.

Congress and the Obama administration are studying a possible strategic propane reserve, to function like the ones for crude oil and home heating oil. Efforts to create additional private-sector propane storage have met with local and state-level resistance.

“If they could do it with heating oil they could certainly do it with propane,” said Andrew Heaney, the CEO of Propane.pro, a national online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers of residential propane. “This is a vital fuel type, and there is a real danger of having another shortage. . . . It just makes sense to put some kind of buffer into the system. It’s just common sense. It’s an insurance policy against disaster.”

Roughly 50 million homes use propane for winter heating, water heaters, stoves and other appliances. Far from being a winter product used just in homes across the Midwest or New England states, propane has numerous farm and commercial uses. California, Florida, Illinois and North Carolina are among the largest users of propane.

America’s ongoing energy boom has meant a rapid rise in propane production, too. Propane is a hydrocarbon byproduct of the cleaning process in natural gas production and of petroleum refining.

Because of its ready availability and a growing global demand for it, drillers in places as varied as Texas, North Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania are increasingly producing liquified petroleum gases, namely propane and butane.

In fact, the supply of LPG now exceeds the American demand for it. Companies are racing to export the excess to Latin America, Europe and Asia. New export terminals are planned for places as distinct as Beaumont, Texas, and Longview, Wash.

The Energy Information Administration projected last year that LPG exports would rise from about 100,000 barrels per day in 2011 to half a million barrels per day by 2017. U.S. exports hit a record 302,000 bpd last year, well on the way.

By contrast, U.S. demand for propane broke records last November at over 1.8 million barrels per day, powered by demand for propane to dry a record corn crop. Another record or near-record crop is projected for 2014.

Despite the boom, homeowners across the nation either couldn’t get propane last winter or paid through the nose for it. Facing a national supply crisis in February, federal regulators intervened, ordering pipeline operators to give priority to propane shipments to markets where some residents were literally freezing to death.

The winter crisis prompted a May 1 Senate hearing, triggered Energy Department studies and sparked calls for everything from banning exports to creating a strategic reserve like the kinds that have been in place since 1974 and 2000, respectively, for petroleum and home heating oil.

“The macro situation is that there are still no restrictions on export of propane, no controls on export of propane. The government has no idea how much propane there is in the country until it’s too late,” Heaney said, arguing for a strategic reserve. “What we saw last winter was an absolute disaster. The public is no less exposed at this point than it was at the beginning of last winter!”

A propane reserve could be created in existing storage hubs such as Conway, Kan., or Mont Belvieu, Texas. Alternately, the federal government could request proposals to pay private companies with existing storage to keep a certain percentage as a buffer, purchasing propane in summer periods when the price is lower.

“The real culprit is storage,” said Joe Rose, the president of the Propane Gas Association of New England, arguing that whether it’s through the government or the private sector, more propane must be set aside over the lower-use summer months to assure sufficient supplies during the winter.

Steve Ahrens agrees. The executive director of the Missouri Propane Gas Association, he’d like to see more storage as a buffer and closer oversight of supplies and pricing after last year’s polar vortex and harsh winter.

“We certainly felt it was a natural disaster, like a hurricane or tornado, and that people should not be profit-taking,” said Ahrens, whose state uses propane on farms and to heat 1 in 10 homes.

He added, “If you put a dollar amount on all the pain and suffering . . . last year, you might be able to support some sort of government purchase of propane through the summer to build those inventories.”

Inventories in the Midwest were lower than last year's averages for much of this springtime, keeping prices elevated. Storage has now slightly passed last summer's levels, suggesting some relief, but the buildup before winter will be key to next winter’s prices. Low storage levels will likely mean high prices for consumers and businesses alike, said Ahrens.

“That’s how markets allocate a scarce resource,” he said.

Except that propane isn’t scarce. It’s being produced and exported in record amounts.

That might explain why the Obama administration is mum on the idea of a strategic reserve for propane. The U.S. Department of Energy declined to make anyone available to discuss the matter.

At the Senate hearing in May, the agency’s director of energy policy testified that the crude and home heating reserves were created when energy supplies were scarce, which is not the case with propane.

“Reserves are certainly something we will be looking at,” Melanie Kenderdine said in noncommittal testimony.

An alternative to a strategic reserve is simply more private-sector storage, perhaps in the Finger Lakes region of southern New York. In the town of Watkins Glen, Crestwood Midstream Energy has tried for several years to open a propane storage operation in salt caverns that were used for decades to store natural gas.

The facility, which overlooks the pristine Seneca Lake and its gliding sailboats, would have a storage capacity of 2.1 million barrels. That’s about half of what had been stored there. The project has cleared all federal hurdles but remains under study by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

“The balancing benefits of our Finger Lakes storage project will extend far beyond New York and the neighboring New England and mid-Atlantic markets,” said Bill Gautreaux, the president of liquid gases for Crestwood Midstream Partners LP.

Pointing to supply strains last winter that prompted deliveries from across the Canadian border and a faraway propane-storage hub in Apex, N.C., he said diverted supplies meant higher prices elsewhere.

“Our Finger Lakes storage facility, had it been operational, would have dramatically reduced the winter demand for propane stored in these facilities, which would have benefited propane consumers in the Midwest and Southeast regions,” Gautreaux said.

After years of state delay, the Schuyler County Legislature passed a resolution June 9 that calls on the department to make a decision on the project.

“This is an ongoing project,” Peter Constantakes, a Department of Environmental Conservation spokesman, said in declining to make experts available.

Many locals oppose the storage project because of its proximity to the 38-mile glacial Seneca Lake, a major tourist draw.

“I’m just worried about pollution into the lake. People from all over come here,” said Lorraine Selkirk, a chiropractor. “If they could find somewhere else I’d be OK with it.”

Politicians are hedging their bets. They want the jobs and tax revenues that the storage project would bring but are mindful that residents worry about soiling a treasure.

“The biggest frustration for all sides is how long it’s taken for a decision to be made,” said Philip Palmesano, the area’s state assemblyman, who was interviewed in the state capital of Albany. “Quite frankly, I think it’s sitting until after the elections” in November.

It’s a similar story in Newington, N.H., where a local port terminal operator, Sea-3, seeks to expand its Shattuck Way terminal to handle more propane. After more than half a year of discussion, local planners approved the expansion May 19 but now face appeals.

Pan Am Railways, a regional railroad that serves the port, has pledged to upgrade its line as the volumes of propane grow. The Sea-3 terminal used to bring in propane on barges from Europe, but now it hopes to bring it in by rail, where it will be offloaded for distribution across New England states by truck.

“Propane is something that’s definitely increased,” said Cynthia Scarano, Pan Am’s executive vice president, who said that twice-a-week shipments might grow to six. “As far as shipping it by rail, more of it is coming from within the country now.”