By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
TPP/TTIP/TISA
“The Obama administration is fighting back against an anti-free trade mood on the 2016 campaign trail, arguing that the United States’ credibility and prestige in Asia is at stake in the debate over a Pacific Rim trade deal that the president has made a top priority in his final year” [WaPo]. Wait, I thought TPP was a trade deal?
2016
Policy
“U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday requested a formal Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into four financial firms, asking the agency to evaluate whether they violated securities laws in an effort to thwart a federal initiative aimed at protecting investors” [Business Insider].
In her letter to SEC Chairwoman Mary Jo White, Warren notes that as part of their pushback against the proposed rule, financial firms have filed official comment letters with the Department of Labor registering their opposition to the proposal, and asserting that it would harm their business. But the Massachusetts Democrat argues that the statements of opposition in some firms’ letters conflict with other statements in which they downplay the effect of the rule on their enterprises. She notes that securities laws generally prohibit corporate officials from making false or misleading statements about their business prospects.
The four firms are Jackson National Life Insurance Company, Lincoln National, Prudential Financial, and Transamerica Corporation.
“This is the story of the billionaire real estate magnate’s light-on-policy, largely unprincipled campaign. This is the story that accounts of his abortion punishment flip-flop should tell” [WaPo]. Dunno that light-on-policy is unappealing to many voters; quite possibly the reverse, given what the policy wonks have done to us over the last 40 years or so.
And then there’s this:
Clinton knocks Sanders: Americans can’t "hold out for the perfect"https://t.co/4L1HsLGVEp pic.twitter.com/TmlRdXgxtw
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) March 30, 2016
Managing expectations down…
The Voters
“Five demographic arguments for Bernie Sanders” [Carl Beijer]. Must-read post, gives the lie to the “Sanders supporters are all white men” talking point (“#BernieBros”). Based on Reuters polling:
The story here is clear: one can only call Clinton an advocate of the powerless by ignoring women, Hispanics and other non-black voters of color, ~30% of black Americans, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and other non-straights, the young, and the poor. The narrative being aggressively advanced by writers like Tomasky and Goldberg – that Sanders is the candidate of privilege – can only be made by a stunning degree of demographic gerrymandering that ignores the dramatic sea changes in preference that have taken place since the beginning of the campaign.
In other words, Sanders is running an excellent campaign.
“Looking to close out the contest against rival Bernie Sanders, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is stepping up her outreach to the voters who vaulted her to a dominant position in the race for delegates: African-Americans” [Wall Street Journal, “Hillary Clinton Boosts Outreach to African-Americans in Bid to Nail Down Nomination”]. Dance with the the one that brung ya, but see above.
Money
An unofficial but pro-Clinton site, “displays Hillary Clinton’s events, but anyone representing Hillary for America, including Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and other politicians and celebrities appearing on her behalf” [Hillary Speeches]. Oddly, or not, all the events are fundraisers.
Priorities! (And it’s fundraisers all the way down; this was the best screen capture I could do.)
The Trail
Quinnipiac national: Trump 56%, followed by Ted Cruz at 20% and John Kasich at 19%. Clinton 54%, Sanders 42% [Quinnipiac].
Wisconsin: “[Clinton’s] horrible track record on transparency raises serious concerns for open government under a Clinton administration — so serious we believe they may disqualify her from public office. We hope Wisconsin voters give this issue the consideration it deserves when they go to the polls on Tuesday” [Journal Sentinel]. Inspired, it seems, by the WaPo summary on Clinton’s email hairball we looked at here.
Wisconsin: “Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton by about four points, up three points from February. Since the Democrats allocate their delegates proportionally, Wisconsin is one of a whole lot of states where Sanders needs a giant win to eat into Hillary Clinton’s lead, but apparently won’t get it” [WaPo].
“Hillary Clinton’s entourage — four big black cars plus her top aide Huma Abedin — was spotted outside Bergdorf Goodman on Wednesday morning waiting as the presidential hopeful got her $600 haircut” [New York Post]. Clinton tops the list for expensive trims by politicians — Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Charles Crist — although to be fair, it’s more expensive for a woman to get a haircut than a man. Four big black cars?
“What’s Really Going On Inside Trump’s Political Operation?” [GQ]. Interview with a very plausible-sounding Roger Stone.
“What this is about is clear to all — an unstable Republican coalition, the disruptive candidacy of Donald Trump and an alarmed GOP “establishment” that has proved (not surprisingly) to be powerless or helpless in the face of unfolding events. Where it ends is anybody’s guess. The party that champions free markets is now hostage to the volatile political markets of 2016 and to the disparate consumers who in one way or another identify with the GOP brand” [Dan Balz, WaPo]. “Words and pledges are cheap right now, tossed about by candidates and party officials with little conviction or lasting meaning. Events are in control, and everyone knows it. Cleveland is still months away, as the campaign grows ever more strange.”
“Readers React Enough Donald Trump already. Why doesn’t Bernie Sanders get more coverage?” [Los Angeles Times].
Stats Watch
Chicago PMI, March 2016: “Expansion is March’s score for the often volatile Chicago PMI which surged 6 full points to a higher-than-expected 53.6” [Econoday]. “Most anecdotal indications on the month of March have been positive including this report which tracks both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors of the Chicago economy.”
Jobless Claims, week of March 26, 2016: “Jobless claims did rise in the latest week but remain at or near all-time lows” [Econoday]. “There are no special factors in today’s report, one that confirms ongoing strength in the labor market heading into tomorrow’s monthly employment report.”
Challenger Job-Cut Report, March 2016: “[R]oughly in the middle of trend and isn’t offering any unusual signals for tomorrow’s employment report” [Econoday]. And: “Of the 184,920 job cuts announced in the first quarter, 50,053, or 27 percent, were directly attributed to falling oil prices. … However, the retail sector has also tallied significant gains in job cuts.” [Econintersect].
Gallup Good Jobs Rate, March 2016: “The Gallup Good Jobs (GGJ) rate was 44.4 percent in March. This was down slightly from the February rate (44.6 percent) but higher than the rate in any March since Gallup began measuring it in 2010” [Econoday]. Love the baseline….
Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, March 27: “Most consumer confidence measures have been holding at respectable levels but the consumer comfort index did move noticeably lower” [Econoday]. “Watch whether the dip is confirmed or not in tomorrow’s consumer sentiment report.”
Shipping: “The deceleration in the rail rolling averages began one year ago, and now rail movements are being compared against weaker 2015 data. There were port labor issues one year ago which affected intermodal movements – which skew the results both positively and negatively (this week again negatively as it is being compared to the shipping surge at the end of the strike)” [Econintersect].
Honey for the Bears: “The crisis engulfing the global steel industry is so severe that one of China’s top producers has warned a new Ice Age has set in as mills confront overcapacity and rising competition that threaten their survival” [Bloomberg].
Fodder for the Bulls: “Gold’s been on such a tear, even the bulls got left behind.” [Bloomberg].
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 74, Greed (previous close: 70, Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 66 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Mar 31 at 11:23am.
Health Care
“In 2010, CBO estimated Obamacare exchanges would enroll 21 million people in 2016, increasing to 24 million in 2019. This month, CBO estimates Obamacare’s exchanges will enroll only 13 million people this year, and 20 million in 2019” [Forbes]. Whoops.
“Numbers too good to be true? Or: Thanks, Obama!?” (with charts) [Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science]. Hospital readmission rates down.
Black Injustice Tipping Point
“So many Southern food traditions are shared by both races. Most Southerners, black and white, revere fried chicken, pursue pork barbecue and exalt their grandmothers’ garden vegetables. So why is there such a fundamental difference between two styles of one basic bread?” Cornbread: Sweet, or not? [Charlotte News Observer].
Our Famously Free Press
“ELLE on Earth” [Observer]. “How a leading women’s magazine ruined a once-in-a-lifetime interview with fashion legend Rei Kawakubo.” A fun example of Manhattan fashionista bile.
Water
“In this study, we integrate a large ensemble of scenarios—internally consistent across economics, emissions, climate, and population—to develop a risk portfolio of water stress over a large portion of Asia that includes China, India, and Mainland Southeast Asia in a future with unconstrained emissions” [PLOS One]. “There is strong evidence to suggest that, in the absence of autonomous adaptation or societal response, a much larger portion of the region’s population will live in water-stressed regions in the near future.”
“Sierra snowpack shows improvement, but not enough to declare California’s drought over” [Los Angeles Times].
“NOAA announced in October 2015 that the third global bleaching event had begun, with reefs from the Florida Keys to Fiji suffering widespread damage over the past year. In February, NOAA scientists announced that the bleaching event was the longest on record. The event is a result of widespread ocean warming related to long-term climate change as well as regional warmings triggered by El Niño, which began in early 2015” [Weather Underground].
Gaia
“Can a Living Creature Be as Big as a Galaxy?” [Nautilus]. No, and why.
“Antarctica has the potential to contribute more than a metre of sea-level rise by 2100 and more than 15 metres by 2500, if emissions continue unabated” [Nature]. And: “New York City is nearly 400 years old; in the worst-case scenario conjured by the research, its chances of surviving another 400 years in anything like its present form would appear to be remote. Miami, New Orleans, London, Venice, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Sydney, Australia, are all just as vulnerable as New York, or more so” [New York Times]. I’m guessing this isn’t priced in, anywhere.
Guillotine Watch
“Said Gutseriev, 28, and his bride, Khadija Uzhakhova, 20, wed on Saturday at Safisa Restaurant in Moscow. Stunning photos and videos show the wedding band (aka Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias and Sting), the flower-filled hall and the bride’s opulent beaded gown — which, altogether, is speculated to cost over a billion dollars” [ABC]. Photos of wretched excess.
Class Warfare
“The Chicago Teachers Union is going on strike tomorrow” [Jacobin]. “this time they have joined other unions and community groups in calling for a citywide “general strike” on April 1, demanding not just a strong contract but new, “progressive” sources of revenue — taxing the city’s financial district, for example, and ending the state’s flat income tax — to fund public goods and services throughout Chicago and Illinois.”
“America’s infrastructure is so bad the self-driving cars can’t even find the lanes on the road” [Reuters]. Wow, the rest of America isn’t like Sunnyvale Mountain View! Which is where Google, whose main “campus” is located in Sunnyvale, has been testing its car:
Shoddy infrastructure has become a roadblock to the development of self-driving cars, vexing engineers and adding time and cost. Poor markings and uneven signage on the 3 million miles of paved roads in the United States are forcing automakers to develop more sophisticated sensors and maps to compensate, industry executives say.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently called the mundane issue of faded lane markings “crazy,” complaining they confused his semi-autonomous cars.
An estimated 65 percent of U.S. roads are in poor condition, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, with the transportation infrastructure system rated 12th in the World Economic Forum’s 2014-2015 global competitiveness report.
Tesla, Volvo, Mercedes, Audi
and others are fielding vehicles that can drive on highways, change lanes and park without human help. But they are easily flummoxed by faded lane markers, damaged or noncompliant signs or lights, and the many quirks of a roadway infrastructure managed by thousands of state and local bureaucracies.
Clue stick, Silicon Valley squillionaire bubble dwellers: Out here in America, “faded lane markers, damaged or noncompliant signs or lights” are normal, and part of the reason for that is the systemic defunding of public goods, such defunding being very much supported, on ideological grounds, by you.
“What Happened When Venture Capitalists Took Over the Golden State Warriors” [New York Times]. Mostly hagiography, except for this one sentence: “As with Jordan and the Bulls, a strong case can be made that Curry, not the ownership group, provides the point of difference.” So…
Good round-up of Silicon Valley subcontracting [WaPo]. “[The subcontracting] trend isn’t unique to Silicon Valley, Benner says. But tech companies pioneered and modeled the systems needed to monitor and coordinate external service providers, allowing them to focus on their core competencies — and scale up or down quickly with a minimum of HR hassle, which is inherent to running a start-up.” So when you hear that word, “start-up,” don’t think good jobs, except for a very few. Think crapified jobs for the precariat. Think the same when you hear “innovation.”
“What the chart shows, among other things, is that since the early 1990s corporations have, with occasional cyclical interruptions, been gobbling up an ever-larger slice of the economic pie. Since the late 1990s people have (at least I have) been wondering how long this can go on” [Bloomberg]. Stein’s Law…
News of the Wired
Rap Genius and annotations [New York Magazine].
“Social networks and promotions should be valued by their entire downstream cascade” [Buzzfeed]. Important!
“Before I started playing Guess the Correlation, I didn’t expect to spend an hour of my Easter weekend obsessing over an 8-bit video game” [The Atlantic]. “Players see a stream of scatter plots—common graphs that visualize the relationship between two things, whether temperature and ice-cream sales, or body weight and heart disease risk, or number of time spent on this infernal game and number of friends you have. Your job is to eyeball the plots and estimate a number called R, which measures how correlated the two things are.” Sounds like fun! Readers?
Readers, I still need to fix my fershuggeneh contact form! Hopefully noting that fact publicly will serve a lash and a spur to my endeavors. (Meanwhile, thanks to readers, who already have my email address, who sent in images of plants!)
See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And here’s today’s plant (pq):
Narcissus. Hopeful signs everywhere!
Readers, thanks, and Thursdays’s continued reminder: Water Cooler is self-supporting; NC fundraising does not cover it. Your tips ultimately determine my level of effort (which, with the 2016 election, is considerable). So please consider tipping regularly. Thank you!
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Wisconsin: “Bernie Sanders leads Hillary Clinton by about four points, up three points from February. Since the Democrats allocate their delegates proportionally, Wisconsin is one of a whole lot of states where Sanders needs a giant win to eat into Hillary Clinton’s lead, but apparently won’t get it” [WaPo].
Nate Silver was pushing this expectations management as well.
It’s important to remember here that Clinton was once ahead by 53 points in Wisconsin (last October). Now Sanders is up by four points. Also Hillary Clinton has apparently stopped campaigning in WI and has withdrawn staffers to relocate them to other states.
It is also important to remember that Bernie Sanders is ahead of the delegate count where Obama was at this same point. Another thing that adjusts that expectation game down a lot.
I also like the article that was linked here at NC the other day that shows he has been winning this primary since March 1st. The author has been checking the trends, demographics and the results and one of his items that shows this is the failure of the polls to actually get Sanders numbers correct. He has either won by a much larger percentage than was predicted and when he lost it was much closer than where Nate and his fellow number crunchers have put him since that day.
I think of it this way, Sanders is a closer, because when voters get to see and hear him before they vote by and large they vote for him. And from now on that is the norm, NOT like in much of the early contests where people voted weeks before the actual primary date long before Sanders could campaign in their state. .
The Sanders movement should certainly keep at it through the end of the delegate count on the convention floor. This would allow all the members of the movement to see how big a movement they have. Also, they could begin forming interlinked cross-networks among themselves to render their movement durable and persistent and effective over time.
Hopefully they will give their movement a “longer term” name than Sanders Movement also. Something like The Newer Deal Movement or some such thing.
I’d say the legacy of an immensely popular, two-term President Sanders will have some lasting brand cache. You think the DNC is ready burn down the party with a superdelegate coup and give rise to a new third party just to watch Hillary get smashed by Trump? I don’t. Sanders has finally turned the corner and is catching fire. His message is leaking out past the media filters and people are starting to realize he could actually win. Perception is everything when it comes to vote preference. Sanders has Clinton exactly where he wants her.
You don’t? I do. The DLC Clintonite Obamacrats are working for the OverClass loadfull of Richie Richs who can make them rich. They aren’t going to burn down all their prospective personal revenue streams after leaving office merely to win an election.
I think they’re in such a bubble they wouldn’t even see themselves as “burning down the party.”
Don’t know whether this has been posted downthread, but here goes:
Hillary’s support among non-whites collapsing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/hillary-clintons-support-_b_9579544.html
Hillary camp sound more and more desperate as days go by. The “tone” comment is not what confident winners would say to their opponent.
Yeah, she needs to lose that guy, like, yesterday. Have you seen this one?
https://indypendent.org/2016/03/28/clinton-aide-takes-swing-brooklyn-bernieand-misses
THAT should go over really well in Brooklyn, anyway./s
If you really listen to this video, it shows the Desperation of Clinton’s staffer to come up with “reasons” she won’t debate Sanders. “Bernie is pulling stunts. Bernie is doing polls. Bernie’s Tone. Bernie’s Negative TV Ads, blah blah” (and they still have not named even one Ad as an example). Hellery is terrified of having to go on TV to answer unscripted questions.
Video: Clinton spokeswoman on why they said no to NY debate (2:50)
youtu.be/rK-Jitqe75k
Tell me again why I can’t “hold out for the perfect.” I not only can but I will vote completely Republican the rest of my life if HRC gets the nomination. Now, try to tell me I can’t do that.
You can do what you want. But I don’t know why you think Repub party is any different from the Dems. They are two Neoliberal wings of the same Corporatist Party. Unless you are a multi-millonaire, both parties are out to screw you.
Would there be a difference between a neo-liberal screwmaster President Clinton as against a Thousand Year Reign of Christ Dominionist President Cruz?
Something to think about. The calculation for Clinton v Cruz may be different than for Clinton v Trump.
good point. if it were something easy, like cthulhu vs clinton, i’d go for the horror from beyond space (cthulhu) , but cruz, damn that would be tough.
I regret to say that for me it is not even tough. If its Cruz v. Clinton, I’m voting for Clinton.
Trump v Clinton would be more interesting and more painful. What to do, what to do . . .
Hey EndOfTheWorld
You cannot “hold out for the perfect”.
Unless it’s a question of our haircut. Then we can and should pay $600 and drive 4 black cars to the salon. That’s when we hold out for perfect.
Capisce?
I clearly didn’t hold out for the perfect when I married Bill and look how well that’s worked …..
– Hillary to her best friend in private
Assuming her best friend might be Huma a/k/a Mrs Carlos Danger…
BFF: You’re one to complain!
Strange (perhaps) how these sociopaths/psychopaths seem to congregate and support each other.
There is no perfect…except for saviors.
Everyone is selfish…to some degree.
We can only manage the best we could with imperfect.
How much imperfect? How to balance one imperfect with another one?
That’s one of the mysteries of life.
This whole “Huma” relationship is one Bernie has magnanimously declined to comment on but one which the repugs are not likely to avoid commenting on. She was getting a lot of good healthy paychecks from different sources at the same time, apparently.
Evidently she’s quite talented in some (ahem) areas.
you can do what you want, but surely voting for Jill Stein would be the more reasonable course of action.
The new PPP poll shows Sanders up by 6 points:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/WisconsinPrimaryPoll33116.pdf
“A new Public Policy Polling survey in Wisconsin, conducted on behalf of VoteVets
Action Fund, finds Bernie Sanders as the favorite in the state’s Democratic primary.
Sanders leads Hillary Clinton 49-43, with 8% of voters still undecided. Clinton leads
among actual Democratic voters in the state, 50-42. But Sanders has an overwhelming
advantage with independents at 62/31, and that gives him the overall advantage in this
open primary. Sanders is strong with voters under 45 (a 65/28 lead), those who identify
as ‘very liberal’ (59/37), and men (56/39). The only group Clinton has a substantial lead
with is seniors, at 63/30. “
Which only proves that Democrats need to stop drinking the koolaid and actually look at Clinton, her policies, and the results of her husband’s policies. Mind you, I wonder if that ‘actual Democratic voters number will hold now that she has pretty much put the state in her rear view mirror since she cannot win it.
I always challenge Hillary supporters to cite a POLICY reason to vote for Hillary over Bernie. I’m yet to hear a convincing answer. It’s always vague abstractions like “she’s electable” (as if) or “she’s a fighter”…
Didn’t she say something about care-givers? That they’d be given money or something?
That would be a good start (policy-wise).
I’d like him to break 10. Just for the perception.
It sickens me to see polls showing the majority of my age group (I’m a divorced female age 64), in favor of Hellary. Its sad proof wisdom does not necessarily “come with age”.
I can only assume many are on anti-depressant drugs & living in la-la land, or they’re so comfortable in their retirement with their fat pensions they refuse to see beyond the courtyard of their condo to witness what’s happening in the rest of the nation.
Then again, many of them voted early, before they even knew who Bernie Sanders was. Now that the nation is learning, would they change their vote if they could?
I’m beginning to believe that if the Dem party continues to support Hellary, in the election of 2020 (provided neither HRC or Trump has gotten our nation blown to bits), there may still be two parties, but it’ll be the Republican & Independent parties, with the Dems having met their demise.
IMO, this “super-delegate” stuff is CRAP. Totally rigged for the elites, empowering them to ignore the citizens.
Yes, we desperately need a change in our politics!
Sidenote: I suspect that if that bird had landed on Hellary’s podium she would’ve called in an air strike.
If it had landed on Trump’s, he’d either have smashed it with his fist, or ordered it deported.
Just my thoughts…
I’m a Bernie guy all the way, but all this talk about Team Hillary being “desperate” is silly. She retains a healthy delegate lead and Bernie’s beginning to run out of states to catch up (though his recent performances have been impressive enough to keep him in the game). He’s still very much a longshot, and I doubt the Hillary camp is all that worried.
An indictment, though…
Yeah right.. I said they sound increasingly desperate, including Hillary herself. There is ample evidence of this, including her latest stunt where she is actually criticizing Sanders for not being part of the Trump media circus!!
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/clinton-uses-trump-s-abortion-comments-hit-sanders-n548691
Only a desperate person would clutch at straws like that.
I agree, Hillary’s really reaching there. One of these days she might actually tell us what she stands FOR.
Hellery is desperate to keep Bernie off the air waves and out of the media. That’s all this refusal to debate is about. When people get exposed to Bernie, they find him likable and trustworthy — Two character traits Hellery cannot buy apparently.
Llewelyn,
Well put. Totally agree! Things even she can’t buy. Ha! *huge smile*
I rather she be complacent.
“Take it ease. How about taking the whole month of April off and vacationing in spring time Ukraine?”
“Hillary, this one is in the one bag. No second 2008. You’re home free. Relax.”
The threat of subpoena and indictment is the source of the palpable edge of desperation coming off the Clinton campaign I think. More so than the delegate count. She knows very well–better than anyone–how potentially exposed she is and needs this thing *sewn up* before she is called in for an interview or, Cthulu forbid, indicted. She may be able to stall and deny and plow through an investigation all the way to the White House as long as she’s the only Democratic player, but as long as Bernie’s fighting and making a credible show her position is far more vulnerable. She needs–her team needs–Bernie out of the way when the interviews and indictments begin, the timing of it all is critical. She’s in a *much* stronger position to fight and deal with any investigation or indictment as the nominee than as a mere candidate. She and her team must be incredibly annoyed not to already be in that stronger position while not knowing when the hammer might come down.
You’re right on all the objective facts. But it certainly does seem like Sanders has gotten inside their heads.
I wonder how exactly the money exchange takes place between HRC and Nate Silver. Does it go to a Cayman Islands account? Or does he just receive a sack of hundred dollar bills? Or maybe it’s legal—is it legal for her campaign to pay a pollster to try to spin things for her? Not that anybody pays attention to him anyway, after his proclamation that HRC had a 99% chance to win Michigan.
oulafuckingla
http://www.theplaidzebra.com/22-year-old-hunter-s-thompson-tells-meaning-life/
“We’re Going to War” – Oliver Stone Opines on the Dangerous Extremism of Neocon Hillary Clinton
Oliver Stone has penned a powerful and emotional takedown of Hillary Clinton focusing on her insane neocon foreign policy chops in a piece published in the Huffington Post titled, Why I’m for Bernie Sanders.
What follows are just a few paragraphs, I suggest reading the entire thing:
We’re going to war — either hybrid in nature to break the Russian state back to its 1990s subordination, or a hot war (which will destroy our country). Our citizens should know this, but they don’t because our media is dumbed down in its “Pravda”-like support for our “respectable,” highly aggressive government. We are being led, as C. Wright Mills said in the 1950s, by a government full of “crackpot realists: in the name of realism they’ve constructed a paranoid reality all their own.” Our media has credited Hillary Clinton with wonderful foreign policy experience, unlike Trump, without really noting the results of her power-mongering. She’s comparable to Bill Clinton’s choice of Cold War crackpot Madeleine Albright as one of the worst Secretary of States we’ve had since … Condi Rice? Albright boasted, “If we have to use force it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.”
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/03/31/were-going-to-war-oliver-stone-opines-on-the-dangerous-extremism-of-neocon-hillary-clinton/
I wish it wasn’t Stone who has noticed and pointed out that Clinton was ‘one of the worst Secretary of States we’ve had” even if it is only since Condileeza Rice. (Personally I put them on a par – both were god awful.)
I do hope this will spur a few conversations where more a than a few people realize that possibly the only good thing to come out of Clinton’s term is that it probably made Obama a bit more regime change adverse.
Jeffrey Sachs today on Morning Joe:
http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/sachs-clinton-lead-agent-of-every-war-we-re-in-655746115714 (Sachs is introduced at 0:43)
He called Hillary ” the lead agent of every war that we’re in and the kind of wars that have created more and more chaos…it’s a very, very dangerous and bad record…she’s made us less safe…it was one of the poor performances of a modern Secretary of State.”
Barry is lucky – when it was not the Republicans’ fault, it was due to Hillary.
Hmm. I know there’s a hell mouth in SunnyDale. I wonder whether there’s one in SunnyVale, also?
Buffy the vampire squid slayer for veep?
That’s just silly that they are going to rely on that. How are these cars going to work if it snows?
I love stories like this, in which robot can’t even manage with great difficulty to do what any human being can with ease. The proposed solution is always “transform the world to suit the needs of the robot” and not to recognize the limitations of technology.
It’s the world’s fault for being inefficient.
There was a great link here last week, I think, when the Google data center beat the human Go master that observed that with just 50,000 times the wattage of the human player, Google won!
Daleks can’t climb stairs.
I smell a “public-private” partnership coming on.
The “public” can build google some new roads to make their autonomous cars work.
Shovel-ready stimulus. Like the WPA. We can borrow the money.
That’s why we desperately need self-flying cars
Just imagine how many robot jobs will be created to make those self-flying cars.
Millions.
and robot pets are so tidy, our parks would be so pleasant.
Sorry. “Sunnyvale” is just so… California, I guess I mentally filed it next to “Mountain View.”
Bernie Sanders’ lawyer compares Arizona primary to Florida’s 2000 fiasco
Interesting article on sweet v. non-sweet cornbread. I’m white and my mom was from a working class family in Arkansas. We never had sweet cornbread. Always just yellow cornmeal, eggs, buttermilk, baking soda, and bacon grease, all baked up in a black skillet, which is still the way I make it.
But I’ve known plenty of white people who like it sweet, so don’t know what to make of the article.
What I find strange is that cornbread of any type isn’t much eaten here in my present residence of Iowa–the big corn state. Never eaten much in New Orleans either–too French and too “urbane” for country food to overwhelm local traditions.
I enjoy both kinds. I found the article funny because I cheat for the sweet cornbread. I use a box of Jiffy yellow cake mix and combine it with a Jiffy cornbread. It makes a sweet cornbread that tastes like the kind you’d find at a Boston Market.
Then again I didn’t grow up on a farm(white woman here), I grew up in the suburbs of NY. Heck, I don’t even remember having cornbread until I was grown.
In my experience, white people tend to eat unsweetened cornbread more as an integral part of a meal (with chili, gluten free biscuits and gravy, etc) whereas black people tend to eat sweetened cornbread in place of where white people often have a fresh baguette or Italian bread. In other words: I have never seen a white family eat cornbread with pasta. Pro tip: it’s delicious.
Just saw this. David Shuster says HC to be interviewed by Comey in days. Thoughts?
Well, despite the headline, the article doesn’t say that Comey himself would be conducting the interview. That imho would be unprecedented.
Most criminal defense attorneys would tell their client not to be interviewed. Nothing to be gained and if she lies she could get charged for that as well as any underlying charge. But obviously she can’t refuse.
She might just be imperious enough to think she can bluff her way through this. But I don’t think FBI agents are going to settle for the kinds of wiggle room BS answers she gives to the press on any and all subjects.
Saw that link too. But the author Joe Concha is extrapolating far beyond what Shuster actually wrote in the quoted paragraphs.
Then Drudge picks it up and headlines that Comey will “personally interview” Clinton. OMG111!!!!
Highly unlikely. Agency heads delegate such tasks to staffers, so they can review the results and decide how to proceed.
Comey’s no more going to interview Hillary than he’s gonna roll up his sleeves and wash the dishes in the FBI canteen.
Drudge is microdosing again. Maybe this election will take him out, along with the political establishment.
otoh holder had a little heart to heart with jaime dimon, iirc. but that was off the record.
Mortgages For Expensive Health Care? Some Experts Think It Can Work.
The world has gone mad.
Big Pharma Expansion Adds Malpractice & Manipulation(Video)
When Big Pharma [official site] appeared last year, Alec approved but pointed out it perhaps went a little easy on a severely dodgy target. Today’s announced expansion, Marketing And Malpractice, looks like it might add a few more teeth to the management satire. With your drug developed, you now need to ensure doctors think it’s the right one for their patients. “Take them to dinner, buy them some drinks, maybe a new set of golf clubs? It’s no biggie! Everyone does it.”
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/03/31/big-pharma-expansion-malpractice-manipulation/
If anything they can SELL IT!
What? You don’t think it’s thoughtful that if you die during treatment that the 10 year 9% interest loan you took out for treatment ,that your insurance that you pay for monthly doesn’t cover because PROFIT, gets forgiven?
We’re exceptionally American. Yay!
Deductible loans — I should have guessed that this would become a thing. This is how they’ll deal with the unaffordable deductible argument against mandated private health insurance: you can just get a deductible loan from your bank! Undoubtedly gov’t guaranteed and non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, so that they can be packaged into securities and sold into your 401k with a AAA rating.
It’s almost like they want to bring on a rebellion….
No, no, no we’re all going to cheer because Wall Street is graciously sharing with us working class schmoes and we’ll earn an extra buck every time some little kid gets leukemia. in that miraculous 401K(so much more PROFITABLE than Social Security.)
No more bake sales now you just take out the equivalent of a car loan or put it on a Care Credit card.
We have some despicably greedy people in this country.
oh good, health care mortgage derivatives.
In a world that brought you Dead Peasant insurance…
If your illness is more likely to be life-threatening, is your interest rate higher to compensate the lender for default risk? Does this mean they’re literally squeezing blood from the sick? Is it possible to imagine a less morally questionable line of business? Sadly yes.
Might your employer take out a life insurance policy on you when they find out you have cancer, then wink at your insurer to make sure your claims are denied? Or might your deductible-loan lender take out the policy, to hedge against the chance you don’t survive to pay off your loan? Why do we even have to ask these questions? The scum elite have built an economy that explicitly favors sociopathy. We already have hospice CEOs ordering employees to kill patients. I dread to discover whatever comes next.
These will be great for municipal pensions. Once we get those puppies securitised up with a AAA bow on top. Maybe a few hedges for vampire squids who have run out of places to park their ZIRP loot. What could possibly go wrong?
Hey did I mention how awesome this will be for showing how compassionate Team Blue is? What’s the matter with those mean repubs who don’t wanna subsidise granny’s bypass loan? And then here come the BernieBros to take away the stellar progress we’ve made with the ADA (Affordable Debt Act).
I’ve seen this movie, it always ends with repo men coming for your liver.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist and Harvard oncologist have a proposal to get highly effective but prohibitively expensive drugs into consumers’ hands: health care installment loans.
. . .
“Isn’t this why we have health insurance?” asked Mark Rukavina, a Boston-based health care consultant whose work has focused on affordability and medical debt. “Insurance used to protect people from financial ruin for these unpredictable, costly occurrences. Now, with large deductibles, we’ve got coverage for preventive care but not for treatment.”
. . .
Their proposal calls for the loans to be financed by a pool of investors who would buy bonds and equities issued by an organization that makes the loans to consumers.
. . .
Are sick patients good loan prospects? Lenders might want to assess not only loan applicants’ creditworthiness but also their health to determine whether the applicant is likely to live long enough to pay it off.
. . .
“It’s helped people, but it’s also driven prices higher,” he said. From a drug company’s perspective, “It just means that more people can afford this drug, so we can charge more for it.”
Every heartbeat is worth a couple of bucks to the creative class. Supply, demand, production costs and scale, profit levels and simple humanity and morality are thrown out the window, and a subprime medical patient is placed in the crosshairs, to be examined and evaluated by “investors” on the odds of getting principle back plus interest.
It would not surprise me if they were hard at work figuring out what precisely causes the conditions requiring these expensive drugs, and since greed is good, trying to increase the pool of victims.
From the bright lights at MIT and Harvaaard. Principles my ass.
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Ha! That made me laugh out loud!
It’s like the parasites aren’t content with sucking the soft tissues dry. Now they’re chewing up the bones and the cartilage.
http://tomsmith.bandcamp.com/track/a-george-carlin-song
change “send” to “sold” or “hocked” and the place names to bank names, and we’ve got a new song.
Note to blogger: list of four firms named by Elizabeth Warren that follows article description and qoute is separated by an inserted different article and link.
Thanks, fixed.
Bill Clinton Is the Keynote Speaker for the Health Insurance Lobby Bash in Nashville
Bernie needs to get more granular and bring up connections/corruption like this! He needs to repeat her quote above in which Hellery admits Bernie is perfect and let voters know how perfection interferes with her power connections. Bernie need to tell his revolutionaroies what progressives he needs elected to congress (like Fetterman).
Yeah, but Bernie is forever pulling his punches. He’s a gentleman, he wont bite. Or is it because he voted with the Dems 98% of the time and attacking them would be like attacking himself.
Anyways, the whole thing is just an exquisitely choreographed fixed game. So, enjoy the show and dont bogart the popcorn.
Since many Congressional votes are non-controversial or procedural, we would expect him to vote with the Democrats most of the time. But aside from that, I’ve never seen any hard evidence for the 98% number. I think somebody made it up, and people have been copying that person ever since.
I don’t even know what it means to “vote with the democrats” 98% of the time. Democrats don’t always vote together. Does that mean he voted with at least 1 other Dem 98% of the time or what?
“98% of the time.”
And now he’s running for President on single payer, tuition-free college, and a $15 minimum wage, with a fundraising model involving no corporate contributions.
What’s your point?
In 2015. Terrible optics, but not as terrible as they would have been in 2016.
Clinton email hairball on fire?
Maybe. Or else Comey and Lynch have reached an impasse over whether cornbread is supposed to have sugar in it or not (a subject about which Obama doesn’t even have an opinion).
From a Time article:
Twenty years later, the Clintons’ criminal modus operandi hasn’t changed a jot: destroying documents in 1995; deleting emails in 2015.
If Comey takes them down, it will be more epic than David slaying Goliath.
Comey lacked the necessities to take Clinton down twenty years ago handed maybe an equally damning set of facts on a platter, what’s to make one believe he has them now?
Thanks. Institutionally, the FBI has relative autonomy (partly due to the dossiers they keep), and so I’ve been looking for independent drivers Comey might have.
This is interesting–anyone know if this is the usual FBI investigation interview practice? In any case it eliminates the possibility of perjury charges:
That cornbread article! One just don’t know where to begin or what to say about it.
Speaking as the by-product of many generations of Southerners, I have to say that sweet cornbread really is an abomination in the sight of God. Apparently there are those who would disagree. I can’t imagine why, so they must be wrong. It has been made without sugar since Adam was a baby and I see no tolerable reason to change it now.
Real cornbread is made with white corn meal, chopped up fried bacon, Vidalia onions sauteed in bacon grease, NO sugar and baked in my Grandmother’s iron skillet with an iron lid. It just seems so obvious. I don’t see why this is even an issue that someone would spend perfectly good time writing an article about……….Just don’t tell my Wife I said so. :)
LOL. You beat me to the comments section. I was going to remark that my default has always been to make cornbread with sugar (I’m a midwesterner by birth), but my southern husband thinks “sweet” cornbread is an abomination (we are both white, fwiw).
But then again, nippersdad also thinks the combination of peanut butter and chocolate is an abomination, so you may choose to take his food judgments with a grain of salt (or sugar).
I don’t know how race got introduced into it. My white Texas family would all agree that sugar in cornbread is an abomination, to the point that cornbread with sugar in it will simply not be eaten. Which for some of us who have moved to other parts of the country means, tragically, giving up on cornbread entirely unless we make our own from scratch, because all the restaurant/store-bought “cornbread” has sugar in it.
Personally, it’s not so much an abomination. It’s simply not cornbread. It’s a cornmeal muffin or cornmeal cake. There is nothing like savory cornbread.
I was just teasing my Wife about her (abominable) cornbread. I knew she would see that. I agree with you, though. The sweet stuff always ends up getting fed to the birds and mine just makes me a little fatter. :)
So the French have been arguing with Brussels for a decade to keep their definitions: in France, if it has sugar in it, it’s not bread, its pastry;)
Like bread vs. “brioche”?
Where I live no sugar (maybe tbsp) in the corn bread, but cheddar cheese and diced green chili locally grown. Think I got that recipe from mom.
No sugar, absolutely not. If they want cake, then let them eat cake, not cornbread. Oh, I am white and I live in Canada, but my father was born in Chelsea, MI, home of Jiffy. But really, bacon, not sugar.
I can eat cornbread either way and enjoy it if it’s made properly. My cornbread has one TBSP honey or molasses, and 1 TBSP sugar & it is delicious.
When self driving cars can follow the hand signals boarding a Washington state ferry…
Can they following the orders of traffic-directing cops?
What about little boys dressed as traffic-directing cops?
Can they see cyclists?
Industry journals are filled with papers on algorithms for sensing and identifying pedestrians and cyclists, but cyclists have always been extremely difficult to handle because they (or I should say we) often vary between pedestrian and vehicle-like behavior. Google filed for some patent for identifying cyclist hand signals and made some headlines, but they have to assume that cyclists aren’t going to signal in some (or maybe even most) cases.
I checked the full list of April “Hillary Events” at her website: other than a couple of Organizing Events (whatever they are), every event is a fundraiser. Every event! Bernie is holding free events for thousands and Hillary will only speak with you if you pony up at least $500-$1000 dollars. (There are a few $100 tickets to events with Chelsea Clinton, but why would anyone want to listen to Chelsea Clinton?)
Is Hillary afraid that low turnout at her events will be compared to the huge crowds at Bernie’s events? Is she physically unable to cope with the rigors of campaigning? Or does she already know that the fix is in, and, no matter how well Bernie does, he will never be allowed to receive the nomination? This is the first election I can remember where a presidential candidate doesn’t campaign for votes, but only for contributions.
That’s exactly what Citizens United was supposed to do! It’s just turning out, being bought isn’t nearly as easy as it used to be.
I hope she is busy with her interior decorator for her new house.
Does anybody have any wide angle shots of Clinton rallies? Or are they all tight-focus?
Hillary is usually surrounded by microphones, while Bernie is surrounded by people.
Remember Bill Clinton’s first term? When Air Force tied up LAX traffic because the Prez needed a designer haircut? Remember how well that went over? And how Ross Perot weighed in and said that his haircuts were all of ten dollars?
Do you remember Perot’s hair?
Re: Clinton’s $600 dollar haircuts at BG vs. Bernies $15 dollars at Supercuts says it all. I’m sure that qualifies as a campaign expense. That’s about the cost of a seat at one of her fundraisers.
Bernie has raised almost $41M so far this month and is trying to break last months record of 43M by midnight tonight. That’s a lot of haircuts.
That’s why she’s having so many fundraisers — to keep up the hair!
$1200 a pop for a trim and color starts to add up.
At $600, I’d expect a much more flattering style than that. She’s being taken in by both her stylist and her wardrobe consultant; neither of them is doing her any favors with the “look” they’ve given her.
It’s working for Kim Jong-un.
Nailed it!
Still laughing!
It depends…on what they had to work with in the beginning.
Maybe these working guys and gals (even at $600 per cut) have done miracles.
To be fair to Clinton I doubt she is just getting her hair cut. A good coloring job cost over $100 over 8 years ago when I got mine done professionally. I suspect she gets the works, a color, cut and style and I suspect she’s not getting it done at a neighborhood salon.
Bernie’s Supercuts is cheaper than ours. I recently sent the baby to get his hair cut with a $20 it was over $15 without the tip(he just gave her the $20 since I’ve taught my kids to tip well.)
Sanders needs to highlight the issue of terrorist supporting governments–Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, etc.–donating tens of millions to the Clinton Foundation while former Sec. of State Hillary authorized hundreds of billions in arms sales to these dictators. http://www.ibtimes.com/clinton-foundation-donors-got-weapons-deals-hillary-clintons-state-department-1934187
In leaked memos, Hillary criticized Saudi Arabia and Qatar for failing to fight terrorism. Yet in 2011, her office calls good news the $29 Billion F-15 contract awarded to Boeing. Oh, and did I mention Boeing’s $900,000 donation to the Foundation along with speaking gigs personally netting Bill millions from these foreign governments.
The corruption is so massive and the Clintons’ scandals keeping piling up so that people seem to lose notice of yesterday’s news. But how can anyone support a candidate whose family raked in tens of millions from foreign governments and businesses while approving massive increases in arms sales to those same governments.
The mainstream media’s refusal to hold Hillary and Bill’s feet to the fire on this issue alone is disgraceful and telling.
RE: the TPP
I’m not willing to sacrifice the country’s sovereignty or become a corporate serf on the altar of the Obama administration’s “credibility and prestige”.
Obama must be talking to the other goldfish in his fishbowl as opposed to, say, voters. Since when should we care about “credibility and prestige in Asia”? We care about jobs and not bankrupting ourselves for college and healthcare. Obama: the Left never called his bluff on surveillance, drones or cronyism. He still thinks optics matter more than substance. Something tells me his successor will not be as lucky.
Clinton lives in the same echo chamber. If she is the successor, she will ignore any remonstrance from the Left, and then blame voters for not turning out in the midterms to support more of her cronies.
If Sanders is the successor, there likely won’t be the need for bluff-calling.
Qatar World Cup venue workers still being exploited: Amnesty International report [SMH]
It seems that the bad publicity last year had zero effect on the situation.
Qatar: where `The beatings will continue until the morale improves’ is not just a slogan, but the way of life.
Looks like Musk and his counterparts at Google, etc. have been Double-Dutched themselves. Don’t want to pay taxes but are confounded by why infrastructure is failing.
Exactly. And remember these are this century’s Masters of the Universe.
The Cars are flummoxed? So are the humans!hics.
We don’t need artificial intelligence. We need some real intelligence; coupled with a set of ethics.
I wonder where in the political spectrum I can find that combination?
Clinton knocks Sanders: Americans can’t “hold out for the perfect” … Her campaign is the first in my 65 years that seems solely based on the proposition that Americans can’t have nice things and Mommie has to be in charge or things will be even worse. Has no one on her campaign sussed out how pathetic, uninspiring and soul destroying this is?
Hillary’s “message”, such as it is, is certainly pathetic, uninspiring and soul-destroying. Unfortunately, that description also seems to apply to 55% or so of Democratic primary voters. :(
The patheticity seems to be working for her on the campaign trail. Crappy candidates only win when crappy voters elect them.
“Give me half a loaf of bread, and if I wind up with an eighth, oh thank you so much.” Ideological austerity.
Well the Democrats, lords of rhetoric as they are, used basically the same pitch for Gore and Kerry.
Well that’s slightly unfair to Gore who had a real if bland message (pay down the debt, everyone enjoyed the boom of the last 8 years). Kerry ran as far as I can tell simply on the message that he wasn’t GWB.
If that was Gore’s message it was the wrong one. The “enjoyment of the boom of the last 8 years” had nothing to do with their “paying down the debt.” That “message” has become an enduring Democrat party shibboleth, however. It needs to die. Democrats need to stop trying to be the “real” conservatives.
I’m not trying to determine what the message was, just pointing out how bad the Dems are at even putting a message out.
If nothing else, Obama should have been a huge wakeup call that people are desperate for a message and still the best the Dems can do is “at least we’re not Republicans”. It’s grotesque. It would be really hilarious how pathetic they were if we didn’t have to live in their country.
Now just a damn minute, Hillary. Does “in order to form a more perfect union” strike a familiar note? Google it…we’ve been holding out since 1796.
Her campaign is the first in my 65 years that seems solely based on the proposition that Americans can’t have nice things and Mommie has to be in charge or things will be even worse.
The American elite’s whole game plan revolves around managing expectations downward – no steady employment, universal health care, affordable education, etc. Get used to it. Clinton and her supporters have openly and repeatedly accused Sanders of promising voters a pony for even talking about such things. In the future life for those who aren’t in the charmed 1% circle is going to become (even more) nasty, brutish, and short. That’s just the way things have to be and there’s no sense in indulging in pie in the sky fantasies in which ordinary people inhabit a world which is something other than a dystopian nightmare. That’s just creating unrealistic expectations that can only lead to bitter disappointment, which would be cruel.
Has no one on her campaign sussed out how pathetic, uninspiring and soul destroying this is?
They don’t care. They’ve got theirs. Their souls are doing just fine, thanks.
Besides, they must be doing something right because Clinton is on track to win the nomination. Even if by some miracle Sanders can get close enough in pledged delegates to call it a tie they can reasonably expect the superdelegates to pull out a win for them. That’s what superdelegates are for, after all.
Sanders and the Sanders people can certainly stick together and make their movement persistent and long-lasting and poly-cross-organized in depth. They can work on this and that both politically and extra-politically.
They can do their own version of what the evangelicals and proto-Tea people did. They can work and conquer-and-hold and build toward a series of “We want the whole loaf! Or no bread for anyone!” pitched confrontations.
There was an article not long ago explaining that the purpose of neoliberalism and the Democratic party is to manage our decline (presumably into serfdom).
Gaius Publius, here. I should have linked to it, but I thought I wouldn’t have to. “Settled law,” as it were.
Notice the all the stuff on the internet about tiny houses and how cool they are? Yes millenials, you can someday own a home, but it’s only going to be 700 square feet.
I realize the smaller is better in many ways, but this is still an example of lowering expectations.
I honestly don’t understand why the black voters support HRC. Makes no sense. Bernie was working for civil rights when Hillary was a Goldwater girl.
The culture of abuse that undergirds so many of our social relations.
Stockholm syndrome applies to governments just like bank robbers.
Would love to hear from those voters who voted for Hillary in the south.
Seems like they are all the silent type.
We hardly come cross any of them commenting here.
Could use the diversity.
I am sure they had their the customer-is-always-right reasons.
There was a good reddit post I read about it. They really appreciated the Clintons talking to them and hearing their concerns even if after the results were not so good. Bill playing the Sax on TV was a big deal, gave them legitimacy. Also, they are general pro-crime bill even as it demolished their communities. At the time the drug war was even worse than just locking up every able bodied male the police could get their hands on.
That’s what I recall from it.
It would be great to hear people who were there.
Without it, my guess (probably wrong) is that when you feared for the safety of your family, you would be grateful your kids are alive today (in a community that has been demolished).
That’s just my speculation.
Double ditto.
I recently heard a commenter say, provocatively to my sheltered mind, that blacks were pro-incarceration after the ‘crack epidemic’ To protect themselves, the have-it-togethers in the black community regarded ‘criminals’ as an external threat… namely to their children.
They felt draconian enforcement would protect their kids from the drug problems and gangsterism.
A truely sad story.
Identity politics.
I’m African American, so I guess I’ll say why AA’s overwhelmingly support Clinton. It’s complicated and simple all at once: Familiarity and fear.
Familiarity with the Clinton’s. They are the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders, while having history in the Civil Rights movement…was an unknown quantity. The Clintons locked up the Black Misleadership Class, by offering them a seat at the table (with little to no power to go with it).
Fear of Republicans. The Republican Party successfully branded themselves as being totally racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, and homophobic. Fear of Republicans is very powerful.
Also, the Democrats have the AA community locked into a slumlord dilemma. The Democrats have voted for a Crime Bill, Welfare Reform, and job killing trade deals. Sure, there might be some in the community who will raise hell…but the Black Misleadership Class steps in, claims that things could have been worse, and any dissent is met with: “Where else are you gonna go?”
Great post. This is changing, though. Sanders is beating her with black voters in Wisconsin by 11 points. He tied her with black voters under 40 in Michigan. Nationally, her lead with black voters has shrunk to 9℅, and they are tied among all non-white voters under 50.
In other words, the fear dynamic you describe is (understandably) strongest among older black voters with memories of Jim Crow, especially in the South. It is weakest among those under 40, including in parts of the South, but especially in the North.
One also wonders whether disemployed black industrial exworkers in Great Lakestan and Rust Beltistan know exACTly who destroyed their thingmaking jobs just as thoroughly as the thingmaking jobs of their fellow disemployed white co-exworkers. At what point might they vote their vengeance?
“Four big black cars?”
As a former first lady who’s running for president I bet at least 2 maybe 3 of them are secret service protection.
Take them away and lets see if Bill will pay the ransom? A certain Danny DeVito/ Bette Midler movie comes to mind.
We’ll at least we know HRC knows how to stretch a buck. Good messaging.
Interesting Roger Stone. Trump on the first ballot or Paul Ryan on the fourth? Perhaps lefties need to consider whether the country would really be better off with a President Cruz or President Ryan should Hillary’s bid suddenly collapse after the nomination–always a possibility. In his latest Justin Raimondo discusses what’s good about Trump’s stated foreign policy views. And btw re the nuclear question upthread, Trump is in favor of reducing nuclear arms.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/03/29/the-trump-challenge/
The nuclear question.
The act of having the arsenal itself is a threat (to someone, to the world).
You’re threatening others.
To say you will use them – that’s tautological…well, to me anyway.
Pardon the profiligancy, but part of our nuclear dente’ with the Russians was the promise not to develop weapons in space.
So much for that. Right now the military is the only US agency with space capabilities. Sorry NASA.
I recall ‘Space Cowboys’ by Clint Eastwood, a perhaps unwilling conservative hero. I sincerely hope those mini-shuttles are used to re-orbit all the nuclear-pile recon satellites in orbit.
Maybe I’m reading the news too closely, but my reading is that we threatened the Russians with our kinetic energy weapons ‘up there’ in sevestapol (russian naval HQ?) three-ish years ago. You might remember it as when CNN revealed ‘russian dash-cam footage.’
With space weapon superiority, the implications to intra-national war are communications & conventional dominance. Given this capability, by the US alone, comes perhaps the elimination of the officially-sanctioned nuclear threat… the big red button. To me, nuclear stalemate is a reality, aside from the existential, fundamentalist threat.
The US airforce brands itself as Air, Space, and Cyberspace &Skylab’s use as a military imager is declassified now, or at least publically aknowledged. The only barrier to understanding of these issues is ignorance and belief in a sci-fi future.
Trump’s foreign policy views are an accurate reflection of the old Reform Party’s platform. Trump was their 2000 presidential nominee until in-fighting and dysfunction ripped the party apart.
Whether he actually wants to be president is a good question.
I don’t agree with this part of the article where Raimondo is pontificating about the Syrian Civil War.
What this clash between rebel groups reveals, besides the fragmented nature of the Syrian Civil War, is that neither the Islamist-FSA rebel alliance supported by the CIA or the SDF/YPG supported by the Pentagon are proxies under American control. The only proxies the US has in Syria are the special forces embedded with SDF, or operating independently of, and maybe the foreign volunteers.
One of the better articles i have seen about this wage discrimination action:
http://espn.go.com/espnw/sports/article/15102506/women-national-team-files-wage-discrimination-action-vs-us-soccer-federation
It, however, does fail to mention that for “friendly” games the men are paid win or lose (and they tend more often to loose), while the women are only paid for wins.
Google is headquartered in Mountain View, not Sunnyvale.
I’ll attribute this to Google’s functional ubiquity and not to any right-coastal provincialism on your part.
True fact: the easiest place to get lost with Google Maps is the parking lot of the GooglePlex.
The Soviets didn’t want to have good maps (they knew the Germans would use them).
Perhaps there is a reason you would get lost there.
Well, perhaps they really wanted to keep me from finding Sunny Bowl (a truly excellent and cheap nearby Korean noodle shop) so they could keep it for themselves – only everyone knows that Googlers only eat in the Google cafeteria.
Yuge #BernieintheBronx rally now.
Regarding the fading lane marks – I think Elon could give back his subsidies for developing his electric race cars and we could fix that.
“Wait, I thought TPP was a trade deal?”
It’s always a strategic mistake to casually accept the disposition of your opponent. A Sino-American war in the South China Sea will always end with the nukes flying. Colonel Larry Wilkerson admitted that publicly because neither a naval or aerial campaign are capable of inflicting a decisive defeat on the enemy.
Isn’t it great how well informed and knowledgeable our political leaders are about war?
The NPR here in MA announced the hillary fundraiser… the election here is already over, so we know she isn’t here for the voters…
They said actor Forrest Whittaker would be in attendance.
Two days ago they did a triumphal story on GE moving it’s headquarters from Conneticut to Boston.
looks like mr. whittaker is going to get an even bigger surprise than in “the crying game”.
those people in the photo with ms. clinton don’t look like investment bankers. so ¿why are they wearing signs that say “fighting for us”?
It reads: Frightening to us! You have to look closer.
Who here actually knows what the Chicago teachers contract includes??
Strike?
Give me a break. Find a different pursuit. Chicago residents picking up the CTU tab would line up for those jobs in a heartbeat.
More unicorn p*rn:
Report Shows Theranos Testing Plagued by Problems
Since they were redacted, they were medically irrelevant, amirite?
File under Healthcare Guillotine Watch.
Another phony valuation! As I keep asking: How big is the global bezzle?
Another another:
A $700 Juice Box for the Kitchen That Caught Silicon Valley’s Eye
Sounds legit.
More money than sense is the most charitable explanation.
As the puffery for self-driving cars that can’t cope with normal roads shows.
The same eternal question for this faction of the ruling class as for DC’s: Stupid and/or evil?
How much of that device could be replaced by an on-off switch, one wonders? Cameras and Internet links serve the
creepy stalker boyfriendvendor, not the user, “contamination” fears notwithstanding.Well, if you are rite, imagine if they were employment-related drug screens.