By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Readers, I was fighting connectivity problems, so I’m going to put up what I have now, and add in the 2016 section in a bit. So please come back!
2016
Policy
“The only way toward an economy that works for all of America and not simply for the powerful and privileged is by way of a democracy that’s responsive to all of America, and not only the powerful and privileged. And the only means of achieving a democracy that’s responsive to all of America is by reducing the power of the moneyed interests. This is what Bernie Sanders’s “political revolution” is all about” [Robert Reich]. “This is not ‘single-issue’ politics. It is essential to the politics we must create in America.”
“California and New York’s bold $15 minimum wage proposals are exactly what we need” [Economic Policy Institute]. “The fact that these proposals are outside the bounds of recent experience does not automatically make them ill-conceived. Moving beyond the timidity of most recent minimum wage hikes is exactly what is needed if we are to undo decades of falling wages and deteriorating living standards for the lowest-paid third of America’s workforce.” Hillary doesn’t support the $15 minimum wage. But she’ll gladly pose for a photo op when it’s passed.
The Voters
“I’ve been astounded by the reaction of some of my Democratic friends, nearly all in their 50s, 60s, and 70s who seem to have given up on even considering we can have a positive, liberal future for our country” [LA Progressive]. “They have bought into the ‘it can’t be done’ meme driven by the current leadership of the Democratic Party.” It’s especially weird, because in 2008, young people really did get their parents to vote for Obama. Why not now?
“Edging toward an earthquake election” [Democracy Corps]. Despite the name, this is from Carville and Greenberg, Democratic strategists.
“Emails Shed New Light on Bill Clinton’s Super Tuesday Stop in New Bedford” [Boston Magazine]. Clinton’s not without experience on the trail. He had to have known his presence would be disruptive to voting.
Money
“Did Sanders Lie About Clinton’s Oil Money? NPR Factchecker Can’t Be Bothered to Check” [Common Dreams]. I hadn’t focused on the interchange between Clinton and her interlocutor:
The activist, Eva Resnick-Day, says: “Thank you for tackling climate change. Will you act on your words and reject future fossil fuel money in your campaign?” To which Clinton responds:
I do not have—I have money from people who work for fossil fuel companies. I’m so sick. I’m so sick of the Sanders’ campaign lying about me. I’m sick of it.
Notice that Clinton’s answer is not responsive! Resnick-Day asks about future contributions, and Clinton responds about past contributions. Nor does Clinton agree to “act on her words” (or disagree about what those words might have been.
“Clinton wasn’t specific about the alleged lie she was [“so sick of”], and her campaign didn’t give a specific answer when we asked” [Politifact].
“A Washington Post fact-checker [not an oxymoron?] was critical of Sanders’ assertions, noting that both campaigns have received money from oil and gas industry employees, and that Clinton has benefitted from lobbyists who work for those industries — but that those lobbyists have multiple clients, so it’s inaccurate to cast their fundraising efforts as money “given” by fossil fuel interests” [FOX Q13].
Confronted with that fact-check, Sanders didn’t back down Sunday.
“Let the voters decide whether paid lobbyists who represent the fossil fuel industry, 43 of them, gave maximum contributions to the Clinton campaign and whether or not these same people are out in some cases are out in some cases bundling, trying to bring in even more money,” Sanders told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.”
And then there’s this:
Clinton: Young people "dont do their own research"….
Pew research: Millennials are the most educated generation in US history#OccupyCNN
— Hamza Mussé (@hamzamusse) April 4, 2016
Actually, Eva Resnick-Day sounds quite well-researched to me.
“Asked this week on MSNBC if he would begin fundraising for other Democrats, Sanders said ‘we’ll see,’ adding that he’s focused on winning the Democratic nomination” [Bloomberg]. This “loyal Democrat”… frame… Apparently, debate scheduler extraordinarire and payday loan-lovin’ Debbie Wasserman Schultz is the epitome of a loyal Democrat! Is the idea that one can be a loyal Democrat and at the same time not be a small-d democrat?
“A database is also maintained on the website of The Berniecrats Network that lists politicians that have said they endorse Bernie Sanders or support Bernie Sanders’ political revolution. On that database, individuals who have been added within the last week are highlighted in green. Bernie Sanders’ supporters are using this color-coding as a tool to quickly spot newcomers, thank them on social media, support their campaigns, and often even donate to their fundraising efforts. This database includes memes, video endorsements, websites and links to the individuals’ Twitter accounts” [Inquisitor]. I’m inclined to say good, since I’d rather see Canova drub Wasserman Schultz, but I still think an independent organization outside the Democratic Party is crucial.
Clinton: “‘If the Court doesn’t overturn Citizens United, I will fight for a constitutional amendment to limit the influence of money in elections,’ she said. ‘It is dangerous to our country and poisonous to our politics” [The Nation]. First, Democrats “fight for” all the time. It never comes to anything. Second, if Clinton were serious about the influence of money in politics, she’d already be raising clean money the way Sanders does.
Wisconsin
“Though Sanders holds an edge of about five points over Clinton in recent polls, all bets may be off due to the swirling confusion around the new ID requirements affecting all the races, according to Molly McGrath, national campaign coordinator for VoteRiders. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there that we’re trying to address; 300,000 people don’t have the IDs they need to vote, and a significant portion of them don’t know about the new requirement,” says McGrath, whose organization has been driving voters who need assistance to DMVs across Wisconsin” [US News]. Funny how what establishment Republicans do so often helps establishment Democrats. This is a ginormous wildcard, and may account for the relative silence of both candidates on expectations. The other ginormous wildcard would be what the non-Democratic regular Occupiers, who fought Walker so hard with no help from the national Democrats at all, are doing. Can they get people to the polls?
“The Emerson College Polling Society survey showed the Vermont senator with 51% support, compared with 43% for Clinton, although a RealClearPolitics average of the latest polling showed a closer race, with Sanders edging Clinton 48%-45%” [New York Daily News].
“A Sanders win in Wisconsin would launch another round of tough stories for Hillary Clinton and her campaign. But for Team Clinton to truly be in trouble — and for the Democratic alarm bell to sound off — Sanders has to beat her in New York in two weeks” (because of proportional delegates) [NBC].
“Despite following each other around the country for months, neither campaign has come as close to the other as will be the case on Monday evening, when the 19,000-capacity BMO Harris Bradley Center fills up with Sanders supporters and Trump followers pack out the 4,000 seat Milwaukee Theater across the street” [Guardian]. Funny how the size of the venue is inversely proportional to the media coverage….
New York
“Residente: ‘Hillary Clinton Does Not Deserve My Vote'” [Latino Rebels].
Without giving you exact numbers, I can tell you the U.S. gets more out of Puerto Rico economically than Puerto Rico receives from the U.S. We are currently living an unprecedented economic crisis and have the highest rates of poverty and unemployment of any other place in the U.S., yet the U.S. does not even allow us to restructure our debt…. I support Bernie Sanders because he has been the only candidate with logical proposals and has expressed support with my country’s debt relief. He did not come up to support us now, in the middle of an election cycle to win votes, but he spoke out from the moment the economic crisis began.
The Trail
“Behind #BernieMadeMeWhite” (with charts) [Jacobin]. “Sanders has now made up so much ground that he’s running neck-and-neck with Clinton among nonwhite registered Democrats younger than fifty.” And:
Finding these voting blocs inconvenient to its preferred framing, the media has largely ignored them. Instead of articles about the young female, black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian American, and Arab Americans who back Sanders, we get a deluge of articles about the horrifying paleness of Sanders’s base.
We get absolute silence about Clinton’s especially strong backing from rich white Democrats over thirty.
“Kashkari takes on Wall Street from farm-rich Fed region” [Reuters]. Kashkari’s head is as bald as Cory Booker’s. And Kashkari has run for office before. He’s a “fresh face,” but unseasoned at the national level. Maybe Paul Ryan’s Veep? Especially given that he’s from Goldman?
“Michelle Alexander Breaks Down Why Hillary Clinton is Bad for Black America” (video) [Shine]. And an intense comments section.
Well, this is ugly:
Trump poses for a picture like this at most campaign stops. pic.twitter.com/s8pg40Zvnn
— JeffSharlet (@JeffSharlet) April 4, 2016
“How ancient horse-dung bacteria is helping us locate where Hannibal crossed the Alps” [Raw Story]. I’ll just file this here, since I said I’d only update 2016.
Stats Watch
Factory Orders, February 2016: “Factory orders fell 1.7 percent in February, more than reversing what was a strong January which, however, is revised 4 tenths lower to a gain of 1.2 percent” [Econoday]. “The February report makes for uncomfortable reading with orders for core capital goods falling 2.5 percent and pointing to continuing trouble for business investment. Other readings include a sharp 0.7 percent fall for total shipments, a 0.3 percent fall for unfilled orders, and a 0.4 percent fall for inventories though the latter is actually a positive given the decline in shipments and keeps the inventory-to-shipments ratio at 1.37.” Ugh: “Another bad one, on the heels of very weak auto sales. And even though inventories are now falling, shipments and sales are falling just as fast, keeping the inventory to shipments and sales ratios at elevated levels” [Mosler Economics]. But: “US Census says manufacturing new orders declined. Our analysis says sales improved and is now in expansion” [Econintersect]. “Part of the reason for the poor growth is that the data is not inflation adjusted (deflation is occuring in this sector) – however, all the gains this month are wiped away as deflation lessened. Civilian and defence aircraft was the major tailwind – and most of the data was soft.”
“The bottom line is that there are different kinds of business cycles that display different patterns. You can’t show that one type is signaling expansion and conclude that risk is minimal. I don’t put any effort myself into forecasting, and I have no idea how likely a recession is in 2016” [Econospeak]. In response to Ritholtz.
Labor Market Conditions Index, March 2016: “Employment has been strong, especially the participation rate, but isn’t being reflected in the Federal Reserve’s labor market conditions index which came in at minus 2.1 in March vs a downwardly revised 2.5 percent decline in February” [Econoday]. “The index, experimental in nature, is a broad composite of 19 separate indicators and is rarely cited by policy makers.”
Gallup US Consumer Spending Measure, March 2016: “Americans’ daily self-reports of spending increased $5 to an average of $89 in March” [Econoday]. “For each of the past six years, the spending average for March has been a rough bellwether for that year’s spending.”
“Google’s Alphabet Transition Has Been Tougher Than A-B-C” [Wired].
“The market for tech IPOs hasn’t been this awful since the Great Recession” [Quartz]. What? That guy with the $700 juicer’s doing fine!
“Pullbacks, delays, ad fraud: The story of Facebook’s ‘$500 million’ LiveRail acquisition” [Business Insider].
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 75, Extreme Greed (previous close: 77, Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 64 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Apr 4 at 1:31pm. Well, we just kicked over into Extreme Greed. So I suppose that’s good.
Dear Old Blighty
“Murder in Mayfair” [London Review of Books].
“Revealed: what can happen when a Named Person reports on your children” [Scotsman]. Yikes!
Corruption
“An Africa first! Liberia outsources entire education system to a private American firm. Why all should pay attention” [Mail and Guardian]. Somebody should ask @deray about this.
“The empty charter school dream: “Togetherness” sides with smug hipster parents and falls apart” [Salon]. I always file charters under Corruption.
“Syracuse Mayor Miner correct to demand answers about SU arena, some say” [Post-Standard]. I always file “public” stadiums under Corruption.
Militia Watch
“Armed hate group met at Texas mosque protest by gun-toting worshipers” [Raw Story]. I believe Reagan got control passed in California when the Black Panthers did something similar.
Police State Watch
Cops took more stuff from people than burglars did last year https://t.co/u8NhOEKwY7 pic.twitter.com/VHW2NPrczf
— Micah Lee (@micahflee) April 4, 2016
Guillotine Watch
“This is not fine dining as I once knew it, and that’s O.K. That’s what date night is for. But my daughter got her first lesson in how to behave at a fancy restaurant. And I got to finish a delicious meal while it was still warm, toddler in tow” [New York Times]. And only $74 per adult!
Imperial Collapse Watch
“U.S. Special Operations forces are using rifle sights that are supposed to help shooters accurately hit their targets but instead have a defect, acknowledged by the manufacturer, that potentially endangers the lives of service members in combat, according to court records and military officials” [WaPo]. How is this even possible?
Class Warfare
“The Cities on the Sunny Side of the American Economy” [New York Times]. Times flogging this narrative hard.
“Child slavery: Rich Brits buying children who survived the Nepalese earthquake for £5,000” [International Business Times].
“The Cult of the Professional Class” [Counterpunch].
Perhaps the worst aspect of the orthodoxy is that we cannot truly speak to that fact that humanity is no longer facing the downfall of a single nation or the destruction of a single empire, but the decimation of an entire planetary ecosystem. If we do not challenge the cabal of political and social power in America and around the world, it will likely be the death knell for us all.
Debbie Downer…
News of the Wired
“Google’s parent company is deliberately disabling some of its customers’ old smart-home devices” [Business Insider].
“LSD could make you smarter, happier and healthier. Should we all try it?” [WaPo]. Not the brown stuff!
“How Walking in Nature Prevents Depression” [CityLab]. 2015, but still true today!
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 (Kokuanani):
More hopeful signs!
Readers, I have taken away Bullwinkle! Thanks for your support! Again, however, Water Cooler depends on regular contributions to exist, and I would not wish to imply that your help was not welcome today, or indeed any other day.
If you enjoy Water Cooler, please consider tipping and click the hat. Water Cooler would not exist without your support.
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Chicago in $4.9M deal to settle police abuse suit after man dragged from cell
$5 million here, $5 million there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
It’s a good thing that Chicago has a fortress balance sheet. Oh, wait …
Here’s a modest suggestion: give the CPD a fixed pot of money each year to pay for wages, overtime, benefits and legal settlements. Let peer pressure work its magic.
That’s actually a great idea!
What makes police, unlike other public servants, so problematic with even non-violent victims?
For example, FDA inspectors have to deal with crook pharmaceutical plant managers or angry meat plant owners, but they don’t seem to act this way.
FDA inspectors have to deal with crook pharmaceutical plant managers or angry meat plant owners, but they don’t seem to act this way.
Federal agents, with all their own issues, in general are much more disciplined when it comes to rules of engagement with weapons and handling of perps.
Some obvious notable exceptions when political appointees are making calls ( File under Janet Reno).
One of my pals that was a frmr fed did time as a FDA agent on narcotic taskforce interdiction, and was veeery leery of being on joint task forces w/ the CPD which tend to be very laissez-faire when it came to inventorying evidence when they can get away with it. When a fed was present, great animosity. A nasty business.
She said the CPD are the most corrupt PD she ever worked with, full stop. Think a twist on Serpico, but not an issue of internal PD ethics -they were all corrupt or at least compliant.
Not a ringing endorsement, but one of the bad news /good news thingies.
Very disillusioning
But how could it not improve
How could it possibly improve? Only if it is “violently” improved by overwhelming force from outside and above.
I am a cynical optimist, but it will take an ex-politicized DOJ
So I’ll throw in a little CPD story here…
Late 90’s I move back to Chicago area and while enjoying a beer at The Cubbie Bear (across from Wrigley) see some old High School friends. One asks me what I think he’s doing now and I jokingly respond ‘Time’, Ha ha, Nope, he’s a Chicago Police Officer.
So a couple of years later I see him at another bar and he’s telling me how excited it gets his girlfriend when he wears his new riot gear and they screw around. He received the new riot gear because one of the big meetings WTO or whichever was scheduled for Chicago and he would be handling the protestors.
The best (or worst) part was when he noted that he likes to walk past the seated protestors and secretly spray his Pepper Spray sideways and behind him at the Motherf#%#rs, his words. Accompanied with a physical motion showing his stealth spraying motion. I was gonna ask him if he could tell me which rights the 1st Amendment protects, but thought why bother.
We can file this under 2016 when Lambert finishes today’s WC:
Neighbor has a Bernie sign up. Stopped yesterday to find out where the family got it. Turns out wifey is a member of a local multi-city Bernie group. They ask for a $10 donation for a sign. Emailed her back saying that I could afford more than $10, how about $100, and (facetiously) would that buy me influence with the campaign? Here’s the reply I got from the group leader when he put me on their email list:
Jess —
Welcome to our group. Glad to add you to the list. We could use your name, telephone and zip code even more than your massive and influential campaign contributions, because then we can continue to hit you up endlessly.
I have a feeling Bernie would appreciate this guy’s style. I sure do. Certainly not the kind of thing you’d get from anyone affiliated with the Hellary campaign.
I’ve donated about $300 to the Sanders campaign. I’m angling for an ambassadorship. ; )
LOL.
my neighbor told me she has given several hundred dollars, more than once–everything she’s got. and has never done anything like it before. she’s probably at a lower middle-barely-middle income level. and she’s from wisconsin…
I know a woman who says she is skipping meals to donate continuously–a minimum wage earner. I myself have given up beer money, and I am retired on disability. Whooda thunk we could out-raise the G-S Queen?
Skipping meals is bad for her health. Surely if Bernie knew about that he would tell her that her health and her meals come first.
Is there a way she could eat so cheaply but healthily that she could stay fed and healthy and still contribute what she wants? Maybe there is.
http://www.worldcat.org/title/healthy-peasant-gourmet-how-to-enjoy-and-thrive-on-a-pennies-a-day-diet-based-on-whole-seed-grain/oclc/9560172
and:
http://www.survivalplus.com/foods/toc.htm
the link just above links to some of Kurt Saxon’s most favorite very cheap but very good survival food articles.
She may be one of those who can “afford to skip a meal”. After all, the Buddhist monks eat one meal a day. It sounds like a great diet idea, if you need good incentive not to overeat. But, great ideas! That’s basically the way I eat now, grow sprouts, eat beans and rice with miso and tofu. Learning to make my own tofu now too. Very affordable.
My buddy bill is up to 700 I think, I’m up to 400, he’s expecting Rome, I’ll settle for Malta. Funny I had to get my Bernie hat from a third party, his site doesn’t have them. Go Bernie!
Thinking emails… If Obama obstructs (department of) justice, what next? Maybe repug committees will forbear issuing their own subpoenas? Or not. Imagine the next four years if hildebeast wins.
I’ve only donated $50 but I want Bermuda…lol
I’m obviously going to have to up my contributions if I want that tasty cabinet post.
All I want is sweetheart terms on healthcare
loans.2016 is now up. Sorry for the delay!
I worked with the Sanders campaign staffers in the run up to the CO caucus and was impressed with the people I interacted with. Smart, engaged types who didn’t feel the least bit “professional campaign staffer” to me.
Interestingly I still get hit up to help with phone banking / etc. in other states, and in fact there are still in-person volunteering / organizing meetings in Colorado, weeks after the caucus.
That’s really impressive.
Now put a little toy bird on your Bernie sign.
“Reagan got control passed in California when the Black Panthers did something similar.”
Mulford Act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act
California Republicans, with support from the NRA, suddenly became interested in gun control, once the Panthers availed themselves of their 2nd amendment rights.
“The tragic heroes in Shakespeare and other classic works, who are doomed to die in the end but are always better for the knowledge and experience gained, are no more. What message is sent when heroes magically overcome obstacles instead of learning lessons about themselves and their world?
The Cult of the Professional Class
Wow. It’s interesting that Fiction Writing programs began to flower, however briefly, around the time this trend was taking hold. Oh well. We can’t choose the times we live in.
I guess if you have a fondness for telling the truth you should be prepared for long silences after you say stuff! Bummer!
I think people are learning that the Democratic Party, like the Republican party, is beyond redemption.
That knowledge may prove to be gainful.
Is it? Are we sure? Or is that a premature judgement?
If Sanders could win the nomination and then the election, wouldn’t he and his movement be in a position to begin purging and burning the DLC Clintonite Obamacrat filth from out of the party?
Wouldn’t a President Sanders movement be in a position to undermine and destroy every dirty little Clintonite in its every next election and keep getting Clintonite Sh*tocrats defeated until the DemParty was decontaminated and disinfected to a “Red Gingrich” Party for-real?
He would. Whether that’s possible, I don’t know. One of the many reasons I define victory as an independent, standalone, permanent, policy-driven organization.
Hope springs eternal.
Our only hope:
http://andy2016.com/
I’m not sure if Andy is a joke or not, but he’s awesome either way. Time travel!
Just so I understand, our brains are broken and LSD “fixes” them?
No, according to the researchers it doesn’t “fix them” it makes them better. Who doesn’t want a “better” personality, after all? However, also according to the researchers there is a big if in there. If you are unfortunately genetically prone towards a psychological problems tripping without medical supervision could have consequences(just ask the guy who had to be dosed with an anti psychotic following a bad trip during a study.)
What could go wrong with decreasing blood flow and electrical impulses to the frontal cortex over time repeatedly? *shakes head* I’ll pass. I might need those brain cells someday.
At least the person had the good sense to mention that when these drugs are used outside a tightly controlled setting they can cause major problems. The major take away I get from these studies is the use of LSD is UNPREDICTABLE and can result in a positive experience for some but when things go bad they can also make the term bad experience seem like an under exaggeration.
“I might need those brain cells someday.” You’ll think differently once you have a mortgage on them. Might as well burn them up before the collection agency removes them.
“this won’t hurt a bit. promise”
“If you like your brain cells, you can keep them. As long as you make the payments.”
doesn’t LSD also mess with your mitochondria or something, some kind of risk for birth defects? i seem to remember hearing this around 1968.
I think that was debunked but I don’t have a link. I think it was a scare tactic more than anything else. But again, no links.
That is total bullshit.
I have a sibling who is one of those people who dropped acid and never returned. Evidence suggests that for those with vulnerable brains, acid will break their brains. I agree.
I knew a guy like that. Except with him it was alcohol.
They say zen meditation also does that, and leaves the practitioner still feeling he/she is in charge (not compelled or addicted).
What? Are you suggesting that people actually work to improve character flaws instead of looking for some magic instant solution? Blasphemy!
how are we supposed to monetize zen meditation
you are forgetting that you need a “special mantra” that only the Maharishi can provide. ;-)
in exchange of course for a month’s wages…
“OOOOOOMMMMMILLLIONNNNNNNSSSSS”
What are you? A hippie? No magic pill? WORK (as in meditate) to arrive at a solution? Commie! BigPharma ain’t gonna like that.
Actually, yes, just about any kind of meditation will be beneficial for *most* people and possibly accomplish what this is saying controlled use of LSD will do. But it takes the will to do it routinely. Not as easy and instant karma as popping a tab.
Maybe they should check with Brian Wilson to see how effective the use of LSD is for mental illness – or just in general for wellness. He might have some salient insights.
I am not suggesting that mentally unstable people avail themselves of LSD or any other drug except in a controlled clinical setting but whatever Wilson now thinks of his drug use back in the day, the most likely explanation is that he was undergoing symptoms of psychosis before drug abuse occurred ( and the subsequent abuse was of long duration and included copious amounts of harder drugs) and that the drugs, cigarettes and other overindulgences were simply a desperate attempt at self- medication for a psychosis that was already developing with classical timing and symptoms. If the Love and Mercy biopic is accurate, he began hearing voices before the drug abuse occurred.
However, Richard Alpert ( Ram Dass) and other researchers had come to the conclusion by that time that certain people with mental illness or tendencies in that direction should not take LSD. This was well known at the time, just as today many prescription drugs are contraindicated for certain conditions. ( Eg ironically, certain anti-depressants can increase suicidal thoughts in some patients)
To suggest otherwise could force one to take the positive results we see now and the anecdotal reports of psychosis treatment at children’s mental hospitals in the 1960s and the successful alcohol treatments and prisoner recidivism treatments in the US and Canada in the 1960s and to present “well ask these people how they feel”( pretty much uniformly positive) as some sort of argument for LSD use. Each viewpoint has to be looked at carefully and test results ( and the set and setting of how the drugs were administered) have to be verified to the extent possible before LSD use of individuals can be evaluated. However, research should continue as there is much we do not know.
LSD was marketed as a psychiatric medicine in the 50’s until banned, do an image search for Delsyn. There must be copious amounts of information, but buried as the hippie surge damned the drug henceforth.
For a lot of people, occasional use of psychedelics is I am convinced very good for their mental health. It might even be for a majority. But like for almost any powerful therapeutic, there are potential contraindications and side effects as downsides. The term “acid casualty” wasn’t coined from thin air. I would reckon that the average person who takes psychedelics once or twice a year is more sane, by some definition of sane I would find sane, than your average schlub.
Raw Story reporting on intimidating 2nd Amendment open carry protesters being intimidated by equally openly armed Nation of Islam members could lead to an escalation of violence and may give new meaning to the term, “Black Helicopters”, if ya know what I mean!! Memo to young turk white power 2nd Amendment types, look up Nation of Islam on Wikipedia and other sites BEFORE you show up armed to try and intimidate them. In particular, see Fruit of Islam.
I am sincerely trying to pass my remaining time on this mortal coil without seeing US cities turn into Syrian-like heaps of rubble and endless militia conflict. Apparently, the anti-Islam armed protesters backed off, out numbered, out gunned and over policed at the site by the exact opposite of handkerchief headed Negroes and space cadet hippies. Further proof of the validity of the geopolitical balance of power theory concerning the Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD, deterrent to nuclear war from equally armed and opposing camps.
Yves, the Eotech sight has been known to shift zero in extreme temperature conditions, it’s not the only mechanical or electronic device that behaves differently at 40 below zero.
The problem lies in the fact that the manufacturer did their best to hide the problem for years after discovering it.
They are offering refunds to anyone who purchased these sights.
The real revolution in firearms effectiveness in this century has been in the sights, from red dots to night vision and simple magnifiers, the sights on a modern battle rifle frequently cost 3-4X as much as the rifle and are worth every penny due to their effectiveness.
If you want to see where this tech is going “Tracking Point” has some systems that read like 70’s Sci Fi, still expensive and somewhat fragile but that’s the nature of these advances.
Actually, I’m not Yves, I’m Lambert!
” The problem lies in the fact that the manufacturer did their best to hide the problem for years after discovering it.”
Well, who tested the sights against the spec?
Yeah, well, has anyone seen the BOTH of you, Yves and Lambert in the same room at the same time? HMMMM?
i saw both of them, but lambert looked just like yves. or vice versa. HMMMM.
Ah Yes! The Old False Flag Switcheroo Gambit!! I did not see that one coming : )
That wasn’t us. It was crisis actors. Whoops! Did I say that?
“Advances,” my patoot. Re the electronically enhanced sights, too bad, and how do the defects threaten our troops? Is it an unarmored-Hummer “You go to war with the sights you have, not the sights you would like to have” kind of thing, or do the sights have Li-Po batteries that explode and burn the heads off the shooters? Or cause the rounds to boomerang back and turn the heads of the shooters into those we-just-love-the-image pink mists?
Basic problem in the whole design is “what is the mission?” Pretty clear, by inspection, that it is unregulated “development” of this-might-kill-other-people-even-better-if-it-works-as-planned technology, equaling enormous wealth transfer to pointy-headed lethality specialists who are immune to the havoc they wreak on the ordinary-person political economy, here and among “the enemy.”
I speak as a Vietnam vet and have to ask why the hell, time and again, are US imperial troops of “special” and ordinary type sent to strange places to kill people, demolish cities and villages, be sent out on patrols to draw fire and activate IEDs and booby traps, take casualties that then become the “casus belli” for “kill squads,” sexually abuse “wogs” and their fellow troops, foster every kind of corruption, increase the field yield of both opium and now nuclear weapons, constantly reinforce the destabilization of government and governance structures that might give half a chance of a settling out and settling down of the differences and antipathies that our great weapons supply chains and the “warriors” that get fielded just have to foster cuz that’s their preference and career path, the litany is a whole lot longer? All these serious snipers and forward-observer types with their laser designators, backed with this whole howling monstrosity that keeps coming up with ever more lethal weapons including whole ranges of weaponology that sure look to be taking the species in the direction of a Skynet-Terminator future, performing a “mission” that anyone would recognize as valid when tested against national, let alone species, survival? Each little increment of “advance” in the war toys — where does that get the stern serious square-jawed Oorah! types in the great sweep of (mostly military) history?
When was the last time “we” “won a war?” The military does not even try to define “victory” or “success” in their own DoD dictionary and papers. Even by the broke-dick down-defined notions of “success” that the War Department and our Neos peddle, there ain’t a “victory” to be seen except for critters like General Atomic and KBR and Lockheed “We never forget who we are working for” Martin…
Does the F-35 as an electronic device “behave differently at 40 below?” Do any of the “high tech” weapons do what the “advance promoters” say they will? How about the many “game changers,” like the Abrams tanks of which a few were sent to I recall it was Anbar Province with the hoo-haw that Now We Were Really Going to Kick Some Taliban A$$!. How about the great XM-25 “game changer ‘if it works as advertised’ computerized shoulder-fired grenade launcher? http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/xm25-a-weapons-game-changer/4/
How many times does the great drama of GIs signing up, swearing that oath about the Constitution, going to exotic countries, meeting new people and killing them, followed by coming home in bad or worse condition themselves, in the realization of the futility and arrogance of the whole exercise, have to play out? Or is this the only axis of behavior that we forking humans can manage to “advance” along?
“What’s the mission, Sir?” Oh, I know, it’s all tied up with Duty Honor Country and something about FreedomDemocracy.com LLC… Oh, and using our Bad People and weapons to kill their Bad People and weapons, because of that totally unexamined but tacitly understood archtype, “THE ENEMY!”
Please forgive the howl — I know there are all kinds of devotees of the great military out there who just have to start the day with “Defence Insider” and “Jane’s” and the other rah-rah military and mil-tech and “Security” and “policy” sources, and get off on all these “advances.” Without having to define any kind of goal or end point other than just More of the Same until there ain’t no more of us…http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m174/moman22/gahanwilson.jpg See, e.g., Syria, Iraq, Notagainistan, Yemen… It apparently is just the nature of the beast, the human beast.
Great howl. Thanks
You took the words right out of my mind.
The Panama Papers Could Lead to Capitalism’s Great Crisis
http://time.com/4280864/panama-papers-capitalism/
“To me, this is one of the key issues at work in the U.S. presidential election. Voters know at a gut level that our system of global capitalism is working mainly for the 1 %, not the 99 %. That’s a large part of why both Sanders and Trump have done well, because they tap into that truth, albeit in different ways. The Panama Papers illuminate a key aspect of why the system isn’t working–because globalization has allowed the capital and assets of the 1 % (be they individuals or corporations) to travel freely, while those of the 99 % cannot.”
Here’s hoping there’s some truth to the headline.
Not if none of the malefactors are from the US.
But why would they be? We’re “exceptional”!
The other shoe has yet to drop, apparently:
https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/716771686482202625?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
http://www.mintpressnews.com/public-slams-mainstream-media-putin-focus-panama-papers-leak/215307/ here is an article on the MSM distorting the reality of Putin’s involvement.
Soros is trying to pin the Syrian refugee situation on Putin? Seriously? What is wrong with these people? Last I heard, it was not Russia that decided to destabilize Syria. Who does he think is going to believe that?
Just about any US citizen?? Really how many US citizens really understand what’s going on with Syria – and how much Team USA is responsible for the mess? And how much Putin has done to make things somewhat better?
Really really easy to make Putin look like the devil who “caused” the refugee crisis. I’d bet heaps of US citizens will buy it, esp if Rush bellows it and Fox & Friends blather about it, plus get Anderson Cooper on the line, and we’re good to go!
Perhaps US-based Richie-Rich operators thought the only way to get richer is to release disabling material on foreign-based Richie-Rich operators in hopes that some of their power and money will become “loose” power and money and therefor up-for-grabs by the US-based operators who got all these papers released.
That’s just a theory. But if it is correct, perhaps all the now-outed foreign operators might be working on how to get revenge on all the un-outed US operators by outing them in return.
I expect that will change at least before the week’s end. Could the following numbers be correct?
“The world has over 80 tax havens. Panama is just one of them.
Organisations working on tax havens, like the Tax Justice Network, estimate there are over 80 tax havens in the world. The total quantum of money tucked away in these, a 2010 report by the Network estimates, is somewhere between $21 trillion and $32 trillion.
To put that in perspective, the World Bank estimated the Gross World Product – adding up the GDPs of all countries – at about $62.2 trillion that year”
http://scroll.in/article/806161/explainer-why-panamapapers-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg
One of the nice things about Unaoil is that it was about bribery — outright corruption between parties.
The whole tax haven thing feels a lot more nebulous to me.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a smartphone that was made to be repairable…by you? Oh, there is:
http://www.fairphone.com/2015/11/18/guest-blog-ifixit-on-fairphone-2-the-first-truly-smart-smartphone/
Someday, this will be available on this side of the pond too. Maybe then I’ll consider upgrading the Blackberry knock-off.
They should be running cyanogenmod on it. Also looks like it’s GSM only, which makes sense, but no CDMA means no Sprint or Verizon.
I could be mistaken, but ever since the acquisition of the iPhone, Verizon has slowly but surely begun to move towards GSM, in that their LTE service uses sim cards. On a somewhat side tangent, Sprint is the only carrier where you can’t use voice and data at the same time.
And cars and appliances that all are made to be easily repaired.
Those exist. They’re called “vintage.”
Everybody dumps things like TVs and cellphones before they break anyway. And it’s the cable companies and internet service providers that make most of the money. No incentive to make stuff last longer.
Yikes, €529.38….
I wish there were a Nokia-level dumb phone that was also fair….
Revenge of the Supremes. Evenwel…blowback onto the Republican party by their own conservative jurists has begun…unani…wow…full throttle assault by the court…they must be pissed at congress for not voting (up or down) for # 9…
Interesting how Barry Ritholtz’s post about [no] recession provoked so much comment. From his Sunday morning links:
All of the principals at Ritholtz’s firm are active bloggers. (Illiterates need not apply.) One change imposed by ‘going pro’ is that they all shut down comments on their blogs last year.
Understandably, policing comments is an administrative burden for busy people. But also, Ritholtz’s comments had attracted some chain-posting pests who were abusing the platform.
Meanwhile, all publicity is good publicity when your goal is AUM.
Democracy Now has an interview with EVA RESNICK-DAY today.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/4/meet_the_greenpeace_activist_who_confronted
Her interview with Rosario Dawson about Bernie Sanders was excellent, too.
You should read the comments on that NYT “Sunny Side” article. People in Denver are not impressed by the NYT’s definition of “great economy”: skyrocketing housing prices, a ballooning and unaddressed homelessness crisis, and an uptick in smug under-30s dragging their coastal-standard-of-living money into a traditionally affordable market.
Still impressed that they managed to include a quote about how everything actually good about the Denver Metro Area is voter-driven: public transportation improvements, open space offsets, and arts districts were all paid for by tax increases.
I loved your magazine as a child. Thanks for the memories!
Regarding Denver, I’m reminded of an old Greg Brown tune: Boomtown
Here come the artists with their intense faces,
With their need for money and quiet spaces.
They leave New York, they leave L.A..
Here they are – who knows how long they’ll stay –
It’s a Boomtown
[Chorus:]
Got another Boomtown
And it’ll boom
Just as long as boom has room.
Here come the tourists with their blank stares,
With their fanny packs – they are penny millionaires.
Something interesting happened here long time ago.
Now where people used to live their lives the restless
come and go. Boomtown…
[Chorus]
The rich build sensitive houses and pass their sh*t around.
For the rest of us, it’s trailers on the outskirts of town.
We carry them their coffee, wash their shiny cars,
Hear all about how lucky we are
To be living in a boomtown
[Chorus]
The guy from California moves in and relaxes.
The natives have to move – they cannot pay the taxes.
Santa Fe has had it. Sedona has, too.
Maybe you’ll be lucky – maybe your town will be the new…
Boomtown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxd3_UN-ld0
I’m more reminded of Utah Phillips’s “New Colorado State Song”. I can’t turn up a recording, but the lyrics are here:
http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=117769
I have a Greg Brown album with that song on it! I love his sense of humor. I first heard him performing on “Prairie Home Companion” way back when. Thanks for the memory.
love you diptherio!
Reminds me of a South Park episode where some resident gets the bright idea that South Park needs a Whole Foods Company. To lure it, a neighborhood south of downtown South Park gets renovated into “SoDoSoPa”. As you can guess, it doesn’t end too well.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Robert Reich has finally connected the dots and realized what Political Economy means. Took him long enough, but his statement above is both so obvious and so subversive that whatever screw-ups he’s fostered and supported in the past, his current heroism (because when you are a person like him at the top of your profession, saying to your peers that they have no clothes on takes enormous guts) must be lauded.
Alright James, I’ll try to read it with an unbiased mind :-)
So long as we don’t let our agreement with what he’s saying now shade over into hero-worship and arguments from authority, which both seem to be common American characteristics.
Regarding the Inquisitor article, ignore the link to the interactive map provided by Sanders Democrats dot org. I have no idea where they are obtaining their information, but any group that lists Tammy Duckworth in Illinois as a progressive, or someone who is supporting Bernie’s ideas, is smoking something. Tammy Duckworth is a long-time protegee of Rahm Emanuel, ever since the days when he was heading up the DCC.
Some of you may remember when Rahm spent $3 million of DCC money on carpetbagger Tammy in order to overwhelm Christine Cegelis, a true progressive, in the primary. Of course, Tammy lost in the general, but later obtained a congressional seat in a totally different district. Now she’s back, trying to take the senate seat away from Mark Kirk, although the two may as well be policy Siamese twins. So be very wary of the names that come up on the interactive map.
The berniecrats.net site seems like a better resource then.
Also, I wish I knew about Duckworth before the primary, she was saying all the right things (although she is a Hillary super delegate, but I sort of chalk that up to political survival, and her district went for Clinton too so it’s probably proper that she does).
Quick edit: the berniecrats.net site shows my own state rep who has endorsed Sanders, while sandersdemocrats.org only shows two politicians running for the Federal level. So yeah, much better.
Thanks very much!
Adding — I was more interested in the fact that Sanders supporters were “supporting Democrats.” But in their own way, and if those Democrats were supporting Sanders.
“Though Sanders holds an edge of about five points over Clinton in recent polls, all bets may be off due to the swirling confusion around the new ID requirements affecting all the races, according to Molly McGrath, national campaign coordinator for VoteRiders. “There’s a lot of misinformation out there that we’re trying to address; 300,000 people don’t have the IDs they need to vote, and a significant portion of them don’t know about the new requirement,” says McGrath, whose organization has been driving voters who need assistance to DMVs across Wisconsin” [US News]. Funny how what establishment Republicans do so often helps establishment Democrats. This is a ginormous wildcard, and may account for the relative silence of both candidates on expectations. The other ginormous wildcard would be what the non-Democratic regular Occupiers, who fought Walker so hard with no help from the national Democrats at all, are doing. Can they get people to the polls?
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/4/voter_id_nightmare_up_to_300
First Arizona probably tomorrow Wisconsin total corruption and blocking of the vote… wonder how it will all end up. And this isn’t even November yet….
Let hope massive turnout tomorrow in Wisconsin. And I hope it isn’t snowing up in Wisconsin as it is snowing where I am right now…
WHY ARE THE CAMPAIGNS SO AFRAID TO QUESTION THE CORRUPTION OF THE ELECTORAL SYSTEM which is so apparent in so many states? It’s clear that this country does not have one person one vote… what is everyone so afraid of saying?
Just to make things more interesting, the state of Wisconsin computer system shut down on Friday for three hours, halting absentee voting and the issuance of voter ID cards statewide. Nice huh?
http://wbay.com/2016/04/01/server-failure-cuts-clerks-from-wisconsin-voter-system/
I think your comment was just delayed. I actually appreciate it when people keep us up to date on what’s happening in Wisconsin. There’s a lot of fire there, and if voters are disenfranchised like they were in Arizona, we may get quite a reaction.
That’s awful. As I keep saying, it’s funny how the benefits of the screw-ups seem to go only in one direction…
Funny ha ha? Or the other kind?
Data of nearly 50 million Turks allegedly leaked online
That will leave a mark.
“U.S. Special Operations forces are using rifle sights that are supposed to help shooters accurately hit their targets but instead have a defect, acknowledged by the manufacturer, that potentially endangers the lives of service members in combat, according to court records and military officials” [WaPo]. How is this even possible?
“Just remember, troop. Your equipment was built by the lowest bidder.”
Been there, heard that, though it’s amazing what some of those bids must bee like.
Wisconsin primary: On Friday, with people swarming DMV offices to get their Republican mandated voter ID cards the statewide computer system went down for three hours. The outage also stopped absentee voting statewide. Just a coincidence or practice for the November election?
http://wbay.com/2016/04/01/server-failure-cuts-clerks-from-wisconsin-voter-system/
The statewide computer system is controlled by the Department of Administration, which is run by a deep Scott Walker crony.
Naturally, they extended registration. Right?
Yes, let’s hope Wisconsin isn’t another voting rights travesty like Arizona:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XN3BjkZbA-o
One of the great quotes of all time. “Who’s to blame? I think the voters for standing in line.” Amazing!
Regarding Democrats always “fighting for,” never winning, it’s revolting to see the panicky reaction of Democrats whenever they are in a position to actually win something. The furious backpedalling that ensues. Recall Obama during the fiscal cliff and the extension of the Bush tax cuts. Obama couldn’t unload the high cards fast enough. And as usual he pulled defeat out of the jaws of victory. I’m sure it was a great relief for him.
“IMPeachment just HAD to be taken off the table !!!”………remember that one ……I won’t EVER forget Nancy’s betrayal regarding that about-face maneuver!
one more…”EMBRACE THE SUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!”
f#ck off Nancy…you slippery, unctuous lamprey
vent off
Dream of Pelosification:
Every suck has a silver lining!
Two comments eaten by moderation, pointing out that the statewide Wisconsin computer system went down on Friday for three hours, halting the issuance of ID cards and absentee voting. I won’t bother trying to post the link again.
Thank you for your persistence.
seconded
Both are now up. If you want instant moderation, you need to write a check to pay for the human to cover the site 24/7 in real time. The PayPay button is to your right. (The alternative is to have a comments section that’s full of spam. Presumably that’s not your preference.)
Lambert, your point did not go unnoticed. At least by me.
I’m in my 60’s & have lived rural much of my life. I quit subscribing to TV over 15(?) yrs ago as I became disgusted with MSM & the majority of what’s deemed “entertainment”. No daily paper, either, living rural, even if I’d chosen to read one.
I now gather much of my news from this site, with links in stories that enable & encourage me to research further. I love NC!
I feel guilty each time I comment & see the tip jar beneath it but on my very meager income I’ve only been able to eek out, at most, $3 a week–which I have been contributing directly to Bernie’s campaign.
Once this election is over I will begin sending money to support this site–depending on who gets in office, of course. If my SS is cut I won’t even have internet, as I’ll literally be living in my car. (I was a victim of HAMP, losing my beloved home of 20 yrs–along with the future income I’d planned to supplement my SS from by already securing approval for a B&B for fishermen I’d planned & remodeled for). Four yrs later I’m still forced to live in a place that doesn’t even have a septic system–no flush toilet!, as that’s all I can afford. I couldn’t even afford to remain in the state I so loved & had spent more than the second half of my life in.
Yes, if I still have even have this below-standard roof over my head following elections, I will definitely contribute. You certainly deserve it, for all you & Yves do. Thank you!
“Put the oxygen mask over your own nose and throat first….” And I’m sorry about your home, the bastards.
As regards ‘Sunny Side’, I think there could be a political motive for the Times to flog the narrative. Both the Sanders and Trump campaigns are running on platforms that focus on the difficult economic times so many Americans face today. These campaigns continue to gain support from the electorate and we know that’s not wanted by TPTB. By highlighting the economic “boom” oases scattered around the country, articles such as ‘Sunny Side’ send a message that “things are great and if they’re not you’re in the wrong place that’s all”. Happy Days Are Here Again. Right.
The whole line of attack is disingenuous.
By law, Sanders cannot share the donations he has been given with other candidates. If he wanted to do something like that, he would have to start a PAC. But he is against PACs, so if he did this he would open himself up to attack that he was flipping on PACs, or that he was “like the rest of them” after all.
It’s more about finding something to attack him with than anything else. The people making the accusations don’t really care about raising money for DNC candidates.
Of course he could start a 33 state fundraising compact that used a loophole in campaign finance law to allow rich donors to give unlimited amounts to his campaign through state level fundraisers, under the guise of fundraising for the state parties. Then no one would be questioning his loyalty.
The Times cites Orlando as a success story? Many of our jobs are low income service section jobs. (We have a number of call centers in addition to the support staff for all the major theme parks and convention venues.) Housing is snapped up by cash buyers. For affordable housing, the metro area sprawls ever further outward in every direction.
I still see plenty of sick strip malls with vacant storefronts. The downtown Orlando night scene died sometime in Fall 2013 and I haven’t seen it recover. Quite a few popular places folded since then. There are no shortage of luxury vehicles, so clearly there are people here doing quite well, but success here is most definitely unequally distributed.
History Repeats Itself – Liberian youth (Education) sold on the block to American. Missing link.
http://mgafrica.com/article/2016-03-31-liberia-plans-to-outsource-its-entire-education-system-to-a-private-company-why-this-is-a-very-big-deal-and-africa-should-pay-attention
Perhaps I missed the comment, but apparently anything African (lacking violence?) doesn’t garner much interest from the readership. Kind of sad. The firm is run by Libtard billionaire Pierre Omidyar, but claims to have investment from Bill Gates. One wonders if the group is going to seed even anti-social behavior/think in a nation already striven with tribalism and religious divisions.
Thanks for the link, I was actually looking for it. ;)
Link fixed, thanks.
http://www.avclub.com/article/donald-trump-tweets-amateur-campaign-ad-narrated-p-234794
Oh hey, something in my wheelhouse. The character voiced by Martin Sheen is an openly anti-alien racist whose solution to the threat of galaxy purging sapient machines is to kidnap humans and modify them with stolen machine tech, as part of a long-term plan to take control of the sapient machines rather than destroy them. It…doesn’t work, and in the end he was being subtly controlled by those he sought to control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p2ro6Nu1GA
I especially love how the amateur Trump ad includes a line about ‘humanity being under attack’. Only Americans are human, apparently.
“The Cult of the Professional” seems to imply that it is simply orthodoxy which is responsible for the influence of the Professional class.
But their influence depends on so much more. As John Michael Greer has pointed out it is partially the professional class in the private sector which has benefited from the destruction of what he calls the American wage class And it is also the role of this same professional class in the national public sector(especially in our 2 major political parties) and public national bureaucratic institutions which has also accumulated significant public power and income– taking genuine democratization–off the table, for fear of exposing their own often parasitic role.
The professional class, in both its public and private sector manifestations, has a vested interest in maintaining its managerial control–through proposing various limited “rational techniques” to profound political and economic problems.
Dearborn Heights, Mich. is going in with FEMA on a $2.8 million grant to buy out homes near/on Ecorse Creek that flood during hard rains. I don’t think that’ll scale. http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2016/03/30/dearborn-heights-28-million-fema-flooding-grant/82443124/
The “older voters” were responsive to their childrens’ pressure to vote for Obamahope and Obamachange then . . . so why not now?
Because after Obama’s savage betrayal and utter doublecross of everything he lured these voters into thinking he supported, he has destroyed all thoughts of hope that lingered anywhere in their brains. This destruction of hope was a key part of Obama’s mission. Mission accomplished so far as those immune-to-hope older voters are concerned.
So hopeful voters will have to soldier on without the hope-deprived. They will also need to learn the value of long term grudges and deep rooted hatred. They will have to learn to employ that hatred against the Clintonite Obamazoid Nixocratic Party and all its members and agents.
” With a head full of plans and a heart full of hate, we can make things happen”.
” A thousand points of hate.”
etc.
Whenever I see a photo of ANY of these traitorous scum, I immediately avert my eyes, as I can no longer stand the sight of them…and I believe in my heart that millions of US citizens fell the same way.. The scum are all naked…and not in a good way!
While I agree with you, that Obama’s effect, and possibly mission, was to destroy hope, I have to wonder if there are not additional explanations. For instance, I don’t remember Obama taking on the establishment of the Democratic party, which makes Sanders’s message more negative than Obama’s was.
I think it has more to do with American Life becoming generally more Hardscrabble in the last 8 years. It’s very “Old Foggies out for themselves and screw the Young Folks” now. I got mine, now get off my grass! Maybe it’s a direct result of the threats to Social Security and Medicare that they experienced in the last 8 years under the hands of the last unfamiliar Democrat they trusted. Or maybe they’re afraid, like I am, that their pensions won’t be there when they need them (CalPERS). Although, why anyone trust Clinton I don’t know. Once burned Twice Shy? It really doesn’t make any sense and it seems that Clinton bots won’t even give a thoughtful consideration to Sanders. It all seems very, very fear-driven. (By design)
I’m a 52 yo professional single white female who would have never achieved success without a hand up from my trailer-dwelling childhood in Central Florida. As an engineering student I benefited greatly from affirmative action, low-cost Stafford loans, federal Pell grants and scholarships that are no longer available. But I tend to ramble LOL
Not especially weird. “”No one ever steps in the same river twice…”
If you buy the “party line” that President Obama is a liberal or progressive whose FDR-like inclinations were blunted by obstructionist Republicans, it makes perfect sense.
Clinton is, in essence, saying “We understand how disappointed you all were that things didn’t turn out the way you expected with the Obama administration with all that ‘hope and change’ so this time ’round let’s make sure our expectations are aligned with ‘reality.’” The Obama administration, promising “Yes, we can,” “proved” that, well, no, we can’t.
It’s nonsense, of course, but it’s essentially Clinton exploiting exactly the wrong premises about and the wrong lessons from the Obama administration.
I like this answer better than mine
Clinton bumper sticker:
“No Hope: No Change”
“No Hope: No Shame”
Hillary 2016! /sarc
The one I’ve seen online is this one:
but, honestly, I like either of those more.
And, speaking of no shame, as alluded to above:
“Clinton joins Gov. Cuomo to celebrate $15 minimum wage victory, but Sanders says she’s jumping on the bandwagon” [Daily News here]
“One dissenter in the convention center crowd held up a Sanders campaign sign and yelled “Fight for $15 is Bernie’s!” as she [the dissenter, presumably, not Clinton] was ejected by security.”
About Google-Nest remote-killing its aquired companies smart-home devices: anyone who was stupid enough to buy smart home devices deserves whatever happens to them.
And anyone who is stupid enough to buy a Google device of any sort deserves whatever will happen to them too.
Just as anyone who is stupid enough and mean enough to collaborate with Uber in any way whatsoever deserves whatever happens to them too.
At some point, smart people are going to have to evolve a culture of resistance and rejection to excessive digital toys, crapola, and digital teddy-bears.
Hear, hear!
Imagine a world where I could go any hardware store and buy a thermostat for $20 bucks that will work for years with the occasional battery change!
Science fiction stuff!
Home automation is awesome because you can give your home orders and it’ll follow them. Power! (So can hackers.) Smart TVs are awesome because you can play from a mind-boggling set of siloes of audiovisual content and skip commercials! Power! (Well, when you’re allowed to, anyway, and it’s mostly mainstream twaddle.) Uber is awesome because you can push a button and go anywhere. Power! (Well, when you’re not delayed by a ride-along on a murder spree.) SUVs are awesome because they let you use deadly force to assert your way through slow queues and fast intersections. Power! (If you can afford it, and if they fit your city’s streets.)
What are all those things buying them? The simulacrum of power, the same power that the very vendors of those things are taking away from them on the other end in order to satisfy their need to be conspicuous. They wouldn’t need smart thermostats if they didn’t work an obscene schedule. They wouldn’t need Uber with solid public transportation. They wouldn’t need SUVs if they weren’t reproducing above replacement (or, unlikely, hauling large objects around on a daily basis). As a response to the costs of status, the simple response of complexifying one’s consumption seems a reasonable tactic. As a response to the evils of the simple response of consumption, consumption is not even sort of an answer.
Too bad about all that e-waste, though. I hope some clever person resists the urge to buy $5 Raspberry Pi Zero boards and instead develops some way to make the condemned devices run standalone, or at least do something useful without home base.
I’m sure @deray would be fascinated that people would jump to the conclusion that outsourcing an entire country’s education system is a bad thing.
He’s pretty level-headed. That said, I’ve never understood why “Watch whiteness work” only applies to media coverage of cops whacking black people, and never applies to neoliberal schemes to destroy public goods. Paging Upton Sinclair?
Great live coverage of Wisconsin with Bernie Sanders, John Nichols on RT USA right now. (Repeats later tonight.)
https://www.rt.com/on-air/
> “Armed hate group met at Texas mosque protest by gun-toting worshipers”
Seems like only a matter of time until this begins to regularly result in serious violence.
The history of America is one of nothing but “serious violence.” Ask all them Red Injuns and so many more here at home and all over the planet– oh wait, you can’t, they’re dead. Here’s an “official source” on the topic: https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/abstractdb/AbstractDBDetails.aspx?id=69028
Interesting piece on PBS this evening on the Coal Mine Wars in West “By God” Virginia, all that Mother Jones stuff, indictments for “treason against the state of West Virginia,” no sanctions for the murderous thugs that suppressed the “largest insurrection in the US since the Civil War.” and the closing comment by one of the miners crushed by private armies of the mine owners and the US Army, “Sometimes I don’t even think I am a citizen of my own country.” http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/introduction/minewars-introduction/ Also interesting is the paucity of reference information on the topic in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_coal_wars Almost like one is discouraged from “going there…”
Another comment in there, too, something like “We knew we couldn’t win, but it was a real liberating feeling to respond to that sense of duty to resist, Just to resist them.”
But we have to hang on tight to our idiot bland image of ourselves, our exceptional selves…
Wikipedia questions??? Oh come on…It’s not like one would need to question someone raised in huntsville…
Ich nicht spreken gutten Deutsche, und sie ?
A-O A-O, it’s off to verken vie go…
la la la la la la lah lah,
A-O, A-O…
A-O, A-O…
What Bernie said about Panama in 2011:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrsI0Sw2hq8&feature=youtu.be
The gloves are off!
I hope this gets included in Links for April 5:
“Fortunately, we were able to move a major New York City rally… to the night before,” the Sanders campaign released in a pithy statement. “We hope the debate will be worth the inconvenience for thousands of New Yorkers who were planning to attend our rally on Thursday but will have to change their schedules to accommodate Secretary Clinton’s jam-packed, high-dollar, coast-to-coast schedule of fundraisers all over the country.” – from the Guardian live feed.