What’s happening to the fireflies? TreeHugger (resilc). Oh I loved fireflies! When we lived in West Virginia and the panhandle of Maryland (before I was six years old), it was so exciting to see how many would come out in our back yards.
Social Media App Usage Across the Globe Digital Vision (Chuck L)
Go Inside an Industrial Plant That Sucks Carbon Dioxide Straight Out of the Air MIT Technology Review (David L)
Oracle Whistleblower Suit Raises Questions Over Cloud Accounting Slashdot (Dan K)
China?
US Seeks “Total Ban” on Chinese Steel: Alarm Bells Ring Over “Nuclear” Option Michael Shedlock. EM flags this reader comment:
‘Of course, the article has nary a word on workers. Not a word on what happens once China corners the steel market. You still think China will “dump” steel into the US once they put all US firms out of business? You really think manufacturers using steel will pass along the (bulk of) savings to consumers rather than pocketing (for shareholders)?
China warned on hostile business climate Financial Times
The World’s Most Extreme Speculative Mania Unravels in China Bloomberg (EM)
Brexit?
DON’T FORGET — LAST DAY TO REGISTER TO VOTE IN UK REFERENDUM Politico
EU-Poland Drama: Sanctions against Poland? Defend Democracy
Syraqistan
How to Understand ISIS New York Review of Books (resilc)
The Latest Attempt to Whitewash the Saudi-Led Coalition’s Crimes in Yemen American Conservative (resilc)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Researchers hack the Mitsubishi Outlander SUV, shut off alarm remotely Help Net Security (Chuck L)
Mark Zuckerberg’s password was ‘dadada’. What hope do the rest of us have? Telegraph (Bill B)
Imperial Collapse Watch
America Excels in Business of Death Consortium News (RR)
Clinton E-Mail Tar Baby
State Department Blocks Release Of Hillary Clinton-Era TPP Emails Until After The Election International Business Times
Clinton emails on trade deal held until after election CNN amplifies IBT.
Donald Trump Campaign Demands State Department Release Hillary Clinton’s Trade-Related Emails David Sirota, International Business Times. MS: “Trump is back on message.” We’ll see if this is just some signal in the noise or the beginning of a shift in tactics.
Did Clinton’s Emails Expose CIA Agents? Consortium News (Teejay)
2016
Just to lift your spirits, Berners… John Laurits (martha r). Be sure to vote if you are in a primary state, and urge any friends and family members to do so. And if you are in CA, be SURE to vote early. You can anticipate vote suppression, in the form of long lines, in expected to be Bernie-friendly polling stations.
The Media is Lying to You – Hillary Clinton is Not the Democratic Presidential Nominee JEFF KURZON
DEMOCRAT FOR U.S. CONGRESS (NY-7) (Jeff E)Hillary Clinton Has Clinched Democratic Nomination, Survey Reports New York Times. Lambert was ripshit over this and he considers himself to be a battle-hardened political commentator. Jeff W:
This “news story” is so unbelievably, mindbogglingly wrong on so many different levels—the most obvious being its timing on the eve of the California primary—that it is difficult to express them all. Who, exactly, is in charge of the New York Times or the AP? Joseph Goebbels?
As cynical as I am about the mainstream media, I could not have imagined that it would sink this low.
I was so pissed I made a donation to Sanders.
Consider participating in the CA phonebank to get voters out, link here. Even an hour would be a BIG help.
Lambert also suggested writing or calling AP to complain, contact details here, and aletheia123 provided her letter as a point of departure.
If you have supported Sanders, I suggest you also consider making a donation, either ASAP or right after Sanders makes his statement after the CA vote is called, to show you support him continuing no matter what. The size of your donation is not as important as the act of making a donation to back his plan to keep fighting till the end.
AP count: Clinton has delegates to win Democratic nomination Associated Press. Dan K: “This is the original from AP. Comments are lively.”
In San Francisco, Berniecrats lash out at press for calling nomination for Clinton Washington Post (martha r)
Sanders Campaign Statement Kevin C.
Why Does Sanders Do Better Than Clinton Against Trump? NBC (MS)
Who gives to Bernie Sanders? Los Angeles Times. Adrien: “You can click on the map and get into the nitty gritty of zipcodes even in Manhattan or any other place of the nation. I could see that my zip code gave a lot! made me proud of my neighbors. I never gave as much to any politician in my life…”
New York Times Reporter Asks Sanders If He Is Sexist Due To His Opposing Hillary Clinton Jonathan Turley. Ready your barf bag.
My Role With the Democratic Platform Drafting Committee James Zogby, LobeLog. More important that anodyne headline indicates.
Will Hillary Clinton Get Favored Treatment? Consortiumnews (Chuck L)
“HERE IT IS: THE DIVINE GRACE’S TAKE ON THIS GOTDAMNED ELECTION” Divine Grace, Facebook. From late May, but as martha r points out, “Better than most of what’s been published on the primaries since they began.”
Did Bernie Sanders Hand Trump the Election? Vanity Fair. Resilc: “Excuses coming already?”
The Trump Campaign Is in Full Nuclear Meltdown Mode Vanity Fair. Not showing up in the polls. Resilc: “Don’t they wish. He is THE protest vote against the same ole shit.” Trump has gotten as far as he has with no ground game whatsoever. He presumably does need to build a good one pretty pronto, at least in swing states. How many days prior to the election does that have to be in place, and in how many states? What throws off the time-tested rules is the ginormous amount of free media Trump receives, but how far can he push that model? BTW, I’ve privately made the same point Stiglitz make re delegation; Trump made his distaste for and distrust of deep organizations clear in a New York Times Sunday Magazine story a few weeks ago, which contained a little sketch of what more orthodox campaign organization for Trump might look like. It showed four Trump loyalist reporting to Trump, but they two layers below them all were assigned names that indicated that they were wastes of money, not competent, or outright saboteurs. How can he run a large bureaucracy when he clearly hates them? So again, I keep wondering whether Trump is subconsciously trying to punt the election, since he cannot really want the job, but he keeps winding up with “Springtime for Hitler”esque results.
More Democracy in action: HERE IS THE AD RUNNING IN THE SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA CRAIGSLIST FOR ANTI-TRUMP PROTESTERS. Sic Semper Tyrannis. Chuck L: “It would be very interesting to learn where this money is coming from.”
Which ‘La Raza’? Trump comments cause confusion over group’s role Reuters
Trump faces tough time over trade talk Financial Times
Oregon derailment likely to reignite oil-by-rail safety concerns Reuters (EM)
Why Trump lawyers won’t ask Trump University judge to step aside Alison Frankel, Reuters
Trump Orders Surrogates to Intensify Criticism of Judge and Journalists Bloomberg. Note he overruled his minders.
US pays more for cancer drugs Financial Times
A steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action’: Dad defends Stanford sex offender Washington Post (Dan K)
Janet Yellen Speech Indicates Fed Will Rethink Interest-Rate Plans New York Times. Quelle surprise!
Wells Fargo launches 3% down payment mortgage CNBC (Jon M)
Guillotine Watch
Hillary Clinton wore a $12,495 Armani jacket during a speech about inequality CNBC
Class Warfare
GE Considers Scrapping the Annual Raise Bloomberg (Chuck L)
Inside an Amazon Warehouse, the Relentless Need to “Make Rate” Gwaker (resilc)
This Is What Goes Into Your Cheap T-Shirt Nation (resilc)
Traffic-weary homeowners and Waze are at war, again. Guess who’s winning? Washington Post (Chuck L)
Why women are uber annoyed in Saudi BBC (Chuck L)
Antidote du jour (Kittie Wilson via Lawrence R):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
344 comments
Comments are closed.
Yeah, the AP / NYT calling the clincher for Clinton today, of all days, really feels like short-circuiting the democratic process to me. They couldn’t wait 18 hours? It is either i) unscrupulous and a blithe breach of civic ethics, or ii) nefarious and corrupt.
It’s being the news instead of reporting it. No doubt the Clinton’s have promised the AP prime seating at the daily press briefing.
You know, it’s funny. Way back when, we all laughed when the GOP ranted about the Lincoln bedroom, but where are we now? Just like the GOP said, the Clinton’s will sell anything not attached to a rock and half the stuff that is. And whatever they are selling (arms contracts, Hillary?), chances are it belongs to someone else.
The GOP of course recognized this in the Clintons so quickly because they’re crooks themselves. Still, over the years I’ve learned not to dismiss out of hand so many of the GOP’s rants. Too often I’ve found that they are not wrong, but rather merely poorly expressed.
It’s being the news instead of reporting it.
Well said.
In similar vein, many used to dismiss R-party whingeing that “90 percent of the press are Democrats.”
But now we know that they are institutional Clinton-Obama Democrats, just as biased against unvetted insurgents like Bernie as they are against R-party reptiles.
That’s absolutely critical: they are not for the D-party, they are for Clinton. This has nothing to do with being “liberal” (although the constant Rightwing drumbeat that Hillary is Rosa Luxemburg Redux obfuscates the fact).
If they wanted the Democrats to win, they should have switched allegiance to Sanders three months ago, because chances are he’d beat Trump and chances are even better that Clinton will lose to him.
Question: could the elite media barons know something about the future that we don’t? I mean, they must want Clinton (to the extent of ignoring and lampooning her opposition mercilessly) for some reason.
With the incestuous relationship of the media and corporate America and Obama’s DoJ, what would an active DoJ find?
Don’t forget, this is a form of gambling. Money and resources have already been devoted to Hillary. Plenty of people refuse to wall away from a bad Investment. Hillary versus Jeb is an obvious bet on Hillary especially If you believe the Clinton were successful politicians and great political leaders instead of psychopaths who oversaw the end of he 50+ years of a Democratic Congress.
People vote for their friends. It makes them feel important.
It’s almost like the Bush/Gore election debacle all over again. However, Bush, unlike Clinton, did not screw supporters within his own party. With this destructive action, Hillary Clinton has stooped to a new low, and in doing so, has proven the illegitimacy of elections in America.
The Bush family, along with the Clinton family, have redefined the USA. It is no longer a collective of states oriented towards the American people. It is now United Sham Artists where the American Dream has been surpassed by the ‘POTUS WIFE OF POTUS’ dream. The US is now a country governed by family dictatorships for American interests. Just as the Bush family buys up and privatizes natural fresh-water sources abroad (Paraguay), Hillary Clinton fracks the American soil upon which so many Americans struggle to toil. The American peoples’ interests have been abandoned by Families Bush and Clinton. Just like Flint. Now that’s American values for you.
Clinton IS the Democratic Party. More precisely, Clinton IS a perfect representative of the Hamilton Project/ Goldman-Sachs/ Obamacratic Party Elites who make up the Inner Party. The CFP MSM serve that Clintocratic-Pelosi-Bidenoid-Steny HoYo elite.
Ire is misdirected. If you read whats being reported, a bunch of undeclared superdelegates just declared for Clinton. Apparently. Funny enough I have yet to see any names, so I guess that the Brave Sir Superdelegate ran away, ran away…. But that is how the story is generated, and I guess it would be remiss of the AP not to play along with the compaign given they did such a good job to figure out how to mimimize the potential damage of a Cali loss.
You are really not on top of this. “Declaring” is not a binding contractual commitment. Nothing is final until the July convention. This is calling an election before the votes were cast.
If Clinton or Huma were indicted, or Clinton had a ugly deposition or declared the 5th, a lot could change. And AP surveyed them, so this is not a formal declaration. Lordie.
It’s being the news instead of reporting it.
The brazen disregard of anything even close to a semblance of journalistic ethics is, perhaps, the most astonishing aspect of it.
If everything is so “clear”, so “in the bag” why did they not just patiently wait out the process? Why piss of millions of voters?
That is is what I would like to ask top DNC/MSM officials now.
Sometimes you have to show the peasants who’s boss.
Nothing like ramming a war down our throats (at taxpayer expense) or a massive unprecedented bailout of the banking industry (at taxpayer expense). But single payer health care or free public college (at taxpayer expense)? That would be dangerrrrrrous….
“Here’s your next President whether you vote for her or not.”
what’s great about this is that for the first time ever, a good number of people are no longer being fooled. they have copped to the reality that the official media of their country is owned.
the great majority are still in denial about it and cannot believe our great country would stoop so low. or simply don’t care (yet).
but now that some are aware, the more this kind of thing happens, the more the truth will spread. this is great progress.
it’s renewed my recognition that the most important fact i can persuade my “liberal” friends to take seriously is that they are being duped. this is not an easy discussion to have. but i must keep quietly persisting with it with everyone i know and not give up.
“If everything is so “clear”, so “in the bag” why did they not just patiently wait out the process? Why piss of millions of voters?”
Makes you think it may not be ‘so in the bag’, maybe they see California up for grabs. Another suppression tactic for voter turnout. No matter it’s ugly and anything but conciliatory toward the Sanders faction. The old saw about ‘ the left not having anywhere else to go’ may be put to test.
Corporate Media Attempts Clinton Coup d’Etat On Eve of Super Tuesday Elections
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 7, 2016
Common Dreams wrote that “both the AP and NBC News were accused of journalistic malpractice by ignoring the explicit instructions of the DNC about how delegates should be counted and for declaring Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee on Monday.”
The Twitter page of the Associated Press and those of Sanders’ support groups were immediately filled with outraged voters, with many Tweets like the one above from Mathew Rodriquez, suggesting that corporate media had simply decided to skip free elections and crown their queen. Laureen Fagan @laureenfagan Tweeted: “That’s not journalism @AP. The day this naked emperor was plain for all to see was inevitably coming. That day has arrived.”
NBC, which did its part to amplify the story, will be the target of a protest rally beginning at 5 p.m. this evening at its headquarters at 45 Rockefeller Plaza. The protest is being promoted on Facebook and is in retaliation for NBC “suppressing the vote” and setting “a false narrative that the race is over even though superdelegates don’t actually vote until the convention.”
Senator Sanders has repeatedly said that this election is about ending establishment politics. It’s now crystal clear that establishment corporate media has been the wind beneath the wings of establishment politics.
–>>Maybe it’s time for the public to start exercising what little free choice they still have and start cancelling subscriptions.<—-
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/06/corporate-media-attempts-clinton-coup-detat-on-eve-of-super-tuesday/
Many thanks to Cliff Arnebeck, Bob Fritrakis, Richard Charnin, Bev Harris, Lee Camp, Tim Robbins, Mark Crispin Miller, Beth Clarkson, Greg Palast, Robert F Kennedy, Jr., Jonathan Simon, Lynn Landes and so many others, so decent in the service of truth, justice and democracy. Love, love, love them.
via: Lee Camp twitter @LeeCamp Watch this!!! MSM to be sued as accessories to fraud as well…
Election Attorney Cliff Arnebeck filed a RICO law suit yesterday:
TrustVoteDotOrg Lawsuit June 6 – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IAJ5fAm3Cs
Meanwhile last night the NYT, Time, Ap and other media are reporting that Hillary has “clinched” the nomination. They, having jumped the shark, want to tell you how she did it. We could better tell them how she did it. Now they can tell a judge how they did it.
Today Election Attorney Cliff Arnebeck filed a strong RICO suit against the media for being complicit in election fraud, along with those voting machine companies. He has kept the FBI informed, has a judge, has those exit polls indicating which precincts had fraudulent results and has the code in the machines that was diluting Bernie’s voters shares.
Today is a great day. Today is the beginning of getting our democracy back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBlQZyTF_LY
10000 singing Beethoven – Ode an die Freude _ Ode to Joy
And, thanks to Naked Capitalism for all the sharing in links and in comments of important information to help us all create a better future together. Thank you.
There was a flurry of stories in the mainstream media yesterday suggesting that Obama is ready to stump for Clinton and can be expected to endorse her this week. Obviously this announcement is a part of the organized campaign to make today’s primaries irrelevant.
Given what we know about Obama, I think it is also fair to infer that he feels that the email issue and any other scandals can be managed. He is much too risk averse vis-a-vis his own interests to stick his neck out for the sake of HC if he wasn’t sure that things could be made to go away.
He has been making things go away for years now. Looking forward not back has been his mantra from the beginning. He should know, however, that nothing ever really goes away. Just ask Tony Blair.
O’s smarmy little spiel about not putting a thumb on the scales at the Justice Department notwithstanding, just the past few weeks we have been seeing stories about how they interceded on behalf of Clinton to prevent video recordings of her aides testimony, to prevent the disclosure of FOIA e-mails until after the election and refused to look into electoral fraud. Just because he can make them go away now is no guarantee of future results. People are still talking about the gap in Nixon’s tapes, and his Administration bodes well for being even more controversial.
His legacy is toast, unless he can get one of the usual suspects to pardon, or overlook, his indiscretions. I’ll bet he spends a lot of time campaigning for her; his future depends upon it.
Obama’s legacy is toast anyway. Cultists scatter with the death of a leader, Obama won’t be in office, and chatter about Hillary running in 2016 has gone on since the first term. Even Democrats were tired of defending the guy and jumped on the first boat off of Obama island.
BHO’s legacy will be no legacy, or at least no invested positive contribution to our society that I can put a finger on.
Relations with Cuba? Thats adds up to a gimmick consisting of a vacation on the public tab and a signature. Even this will be have corporatized strings attached. What else?
The physical metaphor of the man and his legacy?
Put a hunk of this in a glass case in his LieBarry
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel
Aerogel is a synthetic porous ultralight material derived from a gel, in which the liquid component of the gel has been replaced with a gas.
The only legacy he’s really interested in is one he can pass on to his children. Like a house on the Vineyard.
‘Who, exactly, is in charge of the New York Times or the AP? Joseph Goebbels?’
Nope. Billionaire and rabid Hillary supporter Haim Saban, Chairman and CEO of Univision. Saban’s lieutenant Isaac Lee, Chief News and Digital Officer of Univision, is on the board of directors of AP. Board members are listed on page 16:
Michael Golden, Vice Chairman of the Hillary-endorsing New York Times, also is on the AP board.
As is Terry Kroeger, President and CEO of BH [as in “Berkshire Hathaway”] Media in Omaha, owned by billionaire Warren Buffett.
Any questions?
Haim Saban: “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel.”
Saban is Hillary’s top backer:
Oo-ooh that smell … cantcha smell that smell?
Hence the name Univision. The name elegantly captures the intent.
It’s filmed with a colonoscope.
Very nice, Jim! High five!
But surely you don’t mean to impugn the independence and integrity of the unbiased and professional press or cast doubt upon the performance of its sacred responsibilities in a system of checks and balances in the good old and wholly exceptional U S and A?
Didn’t think so.
“Lambert also suggested writing or calling AP to complain, contact details here, and aletheia123 provided her letter as a point of departure.”
hat tip/thank you to Paul Tioxon, whose comment provided the bulk of my letter.
Glenn Greenwald sums it up pretty nicely over at The Intercept this morning,
Indeed.
Everyone keeps talking about corruption and vote suppression. Of course it is all of this.
But it is more.
It is minimizing the crime before it happens. (Again)
When votes are stolen today, ballots are lost, computers add votes to Clinton totals and take them away from Bernie, voter lists are purged…the meme has already been established:
None of it matters because it was already over. Yesterday. Get over it.
And once you’ve declared someone the “winner” you can’t go back–just like Bush in 2000, anyone else fighting the meme is just a “whiner” or a “sore loser” and needs to get a life because as BHO would tell us…we need to move forward, not look to the past.
Thanks for posting!
I almost feel like the AP wanted to do this because of Tweetys inadvertent slip of the tongue on MSNBC. They got called out, so they orchestrated this little story to make the news.
Warren Buffet told a WaPo reporter two years ago that “Hillary’s going to run. She’s going to announce as late as possible.Hillary is going to win.I will bet money on it.” It’s on YouTube.
I go with nefarious and corrupt.
To me, it came across like some dumb reporter that was overly excited to have a women nominee; thinks of Bernie and Hillary as two flavors of ice cream and jumped the gun. Then was totally surprised at the reaction.
I highly doubt HRC paid $12,495 for that Armani jacket. She most likely got it as a gift in exchange for sundry public assets, so everything’s hunky-dory then.
Jewelry maybe, but clothes are too personal. It would either have to come from Armani and why would a high end clothes maker with tons of brand recognition need to curry favor with her, or a retail store, and why should they give good away to a clearly rich customer?
And she’s made shopping trips to Bergdorf, much to the consternation of the locals, since the whole Secret Service fracas tied up traffic (as in she’s an important enough customer she could readily get a store shopper to bring her stuff at her hotel).
The father of one of my neighbours does business with Chinese firms occasionally. One meeting recently, his contact with a firm near Shanghai bought along one of the ‘investors’. This man was described by the father as “obviously Triad, tattoos, jewelry, and a leather jacket.” The father was tasked on one of the days of the visit to chaperone the two Chinamen around Atlanta. At one point, the father was admiring a set of golf clubs. “You like that? I get it for you,” the ‘investor’ said. The father said he had to do some fast talking, through the other Chinese, who had to interpret, to get himself out of owing a favour to a Shanghai Triad man. The father had to watch his step carefully afterward. The giving of gifts is a traditional way of cementing relationships. Who knows? That Armani jacket could mean that an American factory will soon be relocating to China. In other words, in the world of political gift giving, nothing is personal and private.
H Clintons’ White House motto, assuming she gets there, will be: “Quid Pro Quo.”
“chinamen”? those of us on this site who are of similar mind about economic and political thinking may not share your instincts about who’s in the in-group
Should have asked the investor for a ‘kesi’ silk robe with five-clawed dragons weaved into it.
Only emperors could wear something like that.
XXLT?
Dude, Chinamen is not the preferred nomenclature.
There are very few Han Chinese living in or around Hattiesburg Mississippi. Most of those so deigning to grace our shores reside in the ‘University Quarter.’ Town and Gown is a noticeable social phenomenon about these parts, so, ones’ ability to be corrected about nomenclature by the persons being spoken about is minimal.
So far, luckily for me, no School of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists has opened in our fair state.
DONNY, YOU DO NOT FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!
+ for high deflection cinematographic reference, but China and man does narrow down the field in context–as opposed to the ubiquitous Asian?
These aren’t guys that built the railroads here. They peed on America’s rug.
really tied the room together
Nancy Reagan, IIRC, was known for taking gifts from clothing designers. It was a way to get their stuff into the public eye. They do still have to pay taxes on the gifts, though, and that is where she got into trouble. Like Al Capone, it is not the greater sin that brings them down.
But how many people really want to dress like Hillary Clinton? It is only marketing if there is a market. Perhaps there is a whole set of Democratic women who have the money to buy that jacket AND want to look like Clinton, but I very much doubt it. Whatever else you want to say about Nancy Reagan, she had been a customer of those designers for years AND there were a whole lot of Republican women who did look to her as a fashion icon and wanted to emulate her style. Same with Michelle Obama – her appearance in a dress is probably second only to Princess Kate in selling a style out. I don’t remember a time when Clinton wearing something was shown to spike the sales.
I will disagree with Yves on one point. The jewelers LEND jewelry, they don’t give it except maybe costume jewelry manufacturers. I’m pretty sure that even if the directors of Harry Winston want her to win the Presidency they are NOT lending her jewelry. And I doubt Hillary is interested in wearing a mass produced brooch on that Armani jacket no matter how well done.
But how many people really want to dress like Hillary Clinton?
North Korean fashionistas?
Pat
What a mean thing to say.
Even if it is true.
Um, no. Reagan was never a customer. Designers provide high profile personalities like Nancy Reagan free clothes to wear for the publicity. “Nancy Reagan at the Blahblahblah Benefit Auction is seen wearing a Pravda* Suit” she was pissed when she arrived at the White House and found out she had to start paying for her clothes. Oh, the humanity!
*Pravda dresses all of the biggest names doncha know. ;)
Michelle Obama is NOT setting any fashion trends. Most women I know are glad they don’t have the shoulders of a male football linebacker.
1. Nancy Reagan was a First Lady and complimented regularly in the press for her fashion acumen. Hillary is not.
2. Armani has ginormous brand recognition. They don’t need Hillary. They’ve been a famous brand to the high income cohort since the 1980s.
3. Nancy Reagan was petite and clothes looked good on her. No clothes look good on Hillary at her current size.
I defer to the New Yorker who knows about such things. Just saying, it has been done before, and however unattractive she may be in wearing this stuff she does move in the circles of people who could afford such expensive clothing. She is already a walking billboard for many things, why not couturier clothing?
She is also in a position to affect their sweatshop operations, so there may be motivations other than free advertising?
Jackie O she isn’t. If i were a designer comping out apparel in the hopes of setting a trend, I think HRC is an unintuitive choice.
If setting a style trend is like creating a self sustaining nuclear reaction, i would think HRC is the equivelent of pouring a dump truck of Boron on it.
Hillary Victory Fund American Express!
My first thought was that $12,495 doesn’t go as far as it used to. But then I have never purchased a garment that required acres of fabric.
And calling that thing a “jacket?” My mom would have called it a “gunny sack.” (Or maybe several gunny sacks.)
From Wiki:
A gunny sack holds approximately 100 lb (45 kg) of potatoes. Even though gunny sacks are no longer used for that purpose, among Idaho farmers the common measurement unit of potatoes is still the “sack.”
No mention of the saying “sack o’ shit” although if the “sack” fits……..
Forgive me. I’m feeling a bit peevish this morning.
Sack of Woe
Sack of Jawea
“Lying sack o’ shit” would be the complete correct phrase !
I too am a little peevish on this California election day!
Many years ago I had the privilege of getting an up close look at a very expensive Mugler jacket and at that also expensive alterations from the Bergdorf house tailors. It was a thing of beauty, from the fabric to the underlying structure and the gorgeous hand work on it. And if I hadn’t know what the alterations were I would never have known they had been made. It was worth the money, there were many hours of skilled labor spent making it and a few spent altering it to fit perfectly. It was also worth it because it was flattering to the person who was going to wear it, and they would wear it for years.
While that jacket may have had beautiful fabric, they paid a lot of money for something that was a terrible tweed pattern for camera (still and video) AND no more had enough labor in it to remotely justify that price tag. But even if the jacket was spun by hand by the most skilled weavers in the world, it would not have been worth it because as you say it made her look like she was wearing an ugly sack.
And how the hell is that supposed to make Clinton more relatable?
With Hillary it’s not the clothes’ design that’s the problem (imo), it’s that the clothes look like they are wearing her, instead of the other way around.
Of course, my not voting for her has nothing to do with what she wears and everything to do with her neoliberlism.
Around here when someone is trying to sell you a load of bull, the saying goes:
“They’re trying to stuff 100 pounds of s*** into a 50 pound bag.”
…which is kinda what she looks like to me in her Chairman Mao outfits…
I was reading in the AP that Hillary had not just taken the Dem nomination, but had also just won the general election. No need to vote. Congrats to her.
I for one, welcome our new Overlord.
Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Thank you three for the humor.
I just heard that an AP survey shows she’ll be open to supporting VP Warner for POTUS in 2024 if he puts Chelsea on his VP shortlist.
Could be slightly premature.
That’s all folks!
I have decided that if Chelsea ever runs I am personally running against her. Screw that.
Oliphant cartoon from the 2008 race:
http://www.gocomics.com/patoliphant/2008/06/04
ha! thx for the much-needed chuckle
ain’t democracy grand?
Bernie is absolutely correct in saying the superdelegates have not yet voted and they can vote for anybody, technically. Except they are not actually flesh and blood people with free will but merely rubber-stamp robots who are paid off (probably in cash) for being an HRC delegate. Pathetic. I’ll never vote for another democrat as long as I live.
Where do you think all that ClintonCash was headed? It was one thing for the superdelegates to say they supported Clinton back before Bernie was better known. But what we are seeing now is a die hard support that only comes from the crazies and people who have been bought off.
If you can’t buy integrity at twice the going price, what is this world coming to?
I used to live in California. The whole time I was there, there was never a national election that hadn’t already been called by the time most Californians voted.
Back in the day I pointed this out to my relatives who were eligible to vote there. They would rush out of work to make it to the polls and assiduously avoid the news before casting their ballots, so as to avoid spoilers– like a sport fan who taped the match and doesn’t want to hear the score before getting home to see the recorded VHS. These relatives informed me that this was an important part of the democratic process, and it is this democratic process that separates us from those poor schmoes in countries that aren’t “free”.
I explain this to people here outside the US (eg, here we vote on Sundays, mandatory voting, all polls close at the same time, and nobody’s vote is essentially useless due to electoral college chicanery), and none of these non-free people can grasp the US’ complex ‘democratic system’ where the population of the largest state have no say in who wins the presidency. Thus it is a truism: we uncivilised brutes in the unfree world will never understand “Democracy”.
I assume the record registration numbers there are due to the fact that for the first time CA had the chance to have their votes actually matter– so it was generous of AP/MSNBC/NYT to disabuse them of that democratic fantasy.
Eh…I’ll tack on my tale of voter woes here.
CA voter, registered NPP back in February, got a mail-in ballot – I was told by numerous Bernie supporters that I had to bring that ballot into the polling station and exchange for a Democratic ballot. So, I go to my assigned precinct today (early – 8 AM PDT), my name wasn’t on the list (but my wife’s name was), even though I had my registration card that listed the polling station as my assigned station. I exchanged my ballot for the Democratic ballot, but I had to put it in a Provisional envelope. The poll worker assured me my vote “will be counted, don’t worry.”
I called the Election Board and they gave some mumbo jumbo excuse. I tweeted to @BernieSanders and @yvessmith. Feeling pretty disenfranchised.
Democrat ballot…
Just say’in
Point taken. In my frustration I mistyped.
My wife is registered NPP and the poll workers told her that she would have to vote a provisional democratic ballot. I pointed out that the registrar of voters for San Diego county voter instructions clearly states:
“No Party Preference or Nonpartisan voters are not registered with a political party and may either vote a nonpartisan ballot, which has no presidential or county central committee contest, or they may request a Democratic, American Independent or Libertarian Party ballot. All these parties allow Nonpartisan to participate in their presidential primary elections”
…then they gave her Democratic ballot!
Just saw a tweet now mentioning need to get both the provisional ballot and envelope. Thank you for reporting to the Sanders campaign. This is all so frustrating.
correction – tweet said Dem get ballot/envelope of course.
Just give her the damned Oval Office. She has nothing else to live for. That said,I will be disappointed (to say the least), if a viable third party is not formed after this election! We can’t hold off on this anymore – irrespective of whether Elizabeth Warren is VP or not.
Warren as VP is very unlikely.
1. Because she is a senator from a state with a repub. governor, which could risk dem control of the senate.
2. Because as another NE intellectual white woman she does not give the identity politics value-added the dems would be looking for.
3. Lastly, from a foily perspective, I think whoever would be put in the HRC VP slot would be the candidate the DNC wants to sub in for HRC in the event that she is indicted/removed. The DNC would need a procedural excuse to block Sanders from claiming a right to be the replacement nominee, and it would be much easier to slip in HRC’s VP candidate than someone out of nowhere. In this case the DNC does not want to risk a President Warren, since she is too hostile to their paymasters.
I don’t know if she will be indicted/removed, but she’s likely to be impeached by the House and tried by the Senate.
Clinton and the Democrats are the political walking dead even if they win this election. She will have no legitimacy with the Congress and if anyone thought republican opposition was bad during the Obama administration, they will see even more obstruction under a Clinton administration. Nothing will pass the house.
With Trump imploding – HRC’s bound to get a big victory margin. That gives her legitimacy. It may be a relative legitimacy, considering poll turnouts, but nevertheless…
Ah, Trump is finally imploding wonder what the rest of 2015 will have in store.
The authoritarian mindset is too strong in the GOP. They will follow their leader through thick and thin, and Trump won the contest again st the GOP establishment. He’s the leader of the 61 million Romney voters. Romney was a deranged psychopath. If they will vote for Romney, they will vote for Trump.
I agree, but I diverge from opinion around here in believing that 90+% of Obama voters will do the same and vote for Clinton. The grooves in American politics are worn deep, and the idea of jumping ship and going over to “the other side” is not very palatable for most people. This has been the pattern since 1996, with historically close popular votes and a roughly evenly divided electorate. I don’t see it changing yet.
90% means we are counting votes. Obama’s margins weren’t that good in relevant states, and there was a major registration effort a day an immediate betrayal. The Clintons were never well liked judging from previous results. 90% is optimistic.
The other issue is broken promises. The Democratic victory in 2012 was largely dependent on how great Obama’s second term and ACA would be. In 2008, perceived promises had not been broken. Obama and the Democrats made new promises in 2012, and well. ..
I’ve been around Democratic campaigns, and I can assure you the average Obama volunteer made bizarre promises in 2012. Those promises to reform were broken, and now the distrusted wife of a guy who had less than 50% in his reelection and destroyed our cities is the candidate.
-What is Hillary doing about Healthcare?
-She has a plan.
-We’ve heard that before.
My neighbor said this would happen. The last Democrat lied.
-um, Hillary cares about children.
1996, marked by low turnout, occurred in the wake of the shut down and Gingrich being on TV. Could Clinton have survived a more put together GOP House leader?
There have been some noises from the Sanders campaign just in the past week that he may be open to a third party run with Jill Stein of the Green Party. She or another Green notable would take the VP slot. This would be his way of running as an independent.
This is of interest because it would probably keep Hillary out of the Oval Office by Sanders claiming the voters who won’t vote for Hillary even with a gun to their head, voters who know she is a far bigger threat to this world than Trump, even. Voters who know she will need less than a year to start a war with Russia that we all lose.
Whether Sanders running as an independent or Green would put Trump in the Presidency or put Sanders there is wide open to speculation at this point. I would not advise anyone to discount how very much most of the electorate already know who they won’t vote for, ever, which will leave a great many of them considering Sanders because he’s not a psychopath.
Nothing about the Sanders movement is compatible with backing Hillary Clinton no matter what sweet things the Democratic platform says or she promises. Those things mean absolutely nothing, and Bernie knows this.
I hope that the noises are not just noise. A Bernie/Jill ticket would put the Green Party on the map again as well as beginning the lengthy task of loosening the duopoly’s grip on American politics. It would allow people an option out of the politics of fear and lesser evilism.
But Bernie has been adamant that he will support the party nominee.
Romney was a deranged psychopath.
And in terms of electability that differentiated him how?
BTW was or is?
Trump has been shooting his mouth off recklessly. But we do not have any proof that this has hurt him in the polls. Until we see erosion, it is premature to say he is “imploding”. Recall that when he criticized W over 9/11, that was supposed to be fatal and it wasn’t.
I’d really like to know what Obama is thinking right now. He stood in the shadows and let Clinton(s), DWS, Shumer and all of the toads manipulate the nominating process. Now, [assuming Clinton is able to snatch the nomination], he gets to go out on the road and campaign for her? With a straight face?
All any Dems can do is talk about how horrid Trump is/would be. They have to steer very clear of any “issues” relating to Hillary. [It’s interesting that among MY friends who have not supported Sanders, their arguments are limited to “he can’t win” and “we must prevent Trump.”
Nice “legacy” you almost had there, Obama. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.
Recently I tried to explain to someone that Trump is unfit for office is not a winning campaign strategy when he can throw the claim right back at her and has more than just campaign speeches to cite. And that when the choice is between highly disliked candidate 1 vs highly disliked candidate 2, passionate support of the ones who do like you is more likely to get them out to vote than making your opponent the boogie man.
IOW, by not giving the voters a reason to vote FOR her, Hillary Clinton is guaranteeing she is going to lose an election between her and Trump.
The “unfit for office” criticism was powerfully effective in ending Ronald Reagan’s presidency after two terms in office.
The recent messaging from Team Blue is that they are none to confident in the HRC candidacy (with good reason). My point is regardless of whether or not she is indicted, the DNC are certainly looking for subs, and her VP candidate would be #1 on the list to replace her. This makes Warren highly unlikely.
I don’t think that Elizabeth would be content in the VP spot. She is too alpha.
Hillary would never bring on board a VP that was smarter than she thinks she is and especially another woman….
Disheveled Marsupial…. more than likely shopping for a strap-on… VP…
Preferably someone from a ‘swing’ state?
Clinton, “Hmm, which VP pick would likely piss off the Bernie Sander’s supporters the most? Let me think.”
She will do what she always does–pick someone who will be supremely loyal and will echo her every thought.
Is it time to bring Lieberman out of the mothballs? Maybe Zell Miller, to shore up her Southern firewall?
Rahm, DWS, Jamie Dimon, Krugthulu, Bill, Hank Paulson, Lance Armstrong, Bibi Netanyahoo, The Ghost of Heinrich Himmler… so many great options there.
Bibi as the VP?
First Consort is already occupied, so VP is the next best thing.
“The ghost of Heinrich Himmler”
But Trump is the reincarnation of Hitler! All the bluedogs say so, so we know it must be true./s
Poll of the superdelegates says Clinton is ahead, so she is declared the nominee.
Polls of the electorate have said Trump is ahead of Clinton in the general election, is Trump declared the presumptive president elect?
A silver lining to the media manipulation: if Hillary loses the CA primary, the wind in the sails of her triumphalism goes out of the news cycle, at least for awhile. Imho, a declaration of Hillary as the nomninee after a CA loss would have been better in terms of news management–“yeah, we lost the primary, but look, we were declared the nominee in spite of it.”
But they plan to prevent that CA win. My concern is that the early announcement was to give better air cover for the efforts to steal the CA election (“Oh, of course Bernie did less well than expected. All his voters stayed home once they got the memo.”).
That would be pretty bold. (“Oh, of course Bernie did less well than expected. All his voters stayed home once we tampered with the election.”).
We saw this press action in Kentucky.
This stuff has always gone on, its just gotten worse. Palast has been following this since the Pleistocene when I was in college, as Yves recently posted:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/greg-palast-on-how-the-new-york-and-us-elections-are-being-stolen.html
Well – this sorta news could work in the reverse direction too! This could probably dampen HRC turnout as well (you know with victory assured and all!). That said, it’s been amazing how many close contests went her way! Wish Bernie had been more aggressive in challenging those results…
NPR’s take was the opposite. That H’s voters would stay home and Sanders would turn out in greater numbers. They are trying to soften the CA momentum. Much of this mornings news was about how a Sanders rally was dealing with losing the nomination.
Yes this is my thought as well. Sanders change voters are probably more motivates that Hillary’s same-old-same-old.
But. Hillary will probably win (as in, has already won) the early voting, especially vote-by-mail, which tends to be older and straight-ticket party-line voters. VBM and EV ballot casts are reported, and then linked to supporters, so the campaigns can have some idea of how they’ve done there (and concentrate on people who haven’t voted yet for GOTV).
So if Hillary’s campaign thought she had enough of a margin in EV/VBM, they might decide that the national picture matters more to their strategy at this point.
I think that is exactly what’s going on here, Yves.
And it bodes poorly for the general, especially given the fact that the “supreme” court is one “judge” short, and an “issue” as weighty as 2000’s “pregnant chads” may not be sufficient to bring her “home.”
The hysteria is building on msnbs for “something” to be done about Trump, without specifics. I’m getting the feeling that they are suggesting he be replaced as the nominee at the convention, due to his undermining of the “integrity” of the “american judicial system” with his criticism of the judge. (A feat eric holder and lanny breuer apparently never accomplished.)
I’m reminded of barack obama’s election to the senate in 2004, which resulted in his improbable, meteoric rise to the presidency. Jack Ryan, his charismatic republican opponent and overwhelming favorite, was removed from contention due to the “mysterious” revelation of salacious, sexual details from his “sealed” divorce proceedings. Ryan was replaced with Alan Keyes, who was not even a resident of Illinois, and obama won in a landslide.
Just sayin’. Kayfabe makes for strange bedfellows.
I don’t know about Illinois, but I am aware of a former office holder who always made those potential Cheney replacement lists and GOP 2008 nomination lists who I heard would never run for President because his opponents would be able to afford to buy off his ex wife and get the details of their divorce. Other events have convinced me the rumors about this elected are likely true. It’s possible the rumors were known to the press and enough politicos that it was only a matter of time.
Seven might have simply released the records herself.
You get points for the Star Trek reference!
I’ve read some great articles on here about the DNC doing whatever it can to secure Hillary the nomination but can’t remember which ones were which. Can anyone send me a link to an article that gives a really good overview on everything they’ve done? It’s for an friend that’s a Hillary supporter.
Actually, Yves, I think if there’s overwhelming turnout the Clinton machine simply cannot suppress, that argument works instead for Clinton. “Well, we lost California but the news of clinching the nomination broke before the polls opened. Unfortunately, it looks as though our people stayed home. Oh well.” They can take that message to the convention if Bernie tries picking off super delegates. “Nothing to see here, move along.”
Good observation!
Precisely what I was thinking. This makes the CA results meaningless whether HRC wins or loses there. And if she loses, she just says “my voters realise I already won the nomination so didn’t vote”.
My only hope now is that Bernie is pissed off enough to go third party himself, or team up with the Greens.
Obama may do his best to stifle the DOJ investigation, but he can’t prevent a rogue FBI agent from leaking any criminal referral documents. That’s the one last unexploded bomb for Hillary.
-ACA
-general election voters seeing Hillary’s record
-debates with Trump
-the Clinton Slush fund stories
There are major problems in Clinton land.
Speech transcripts can be leaked as well. Many unexploded bombs pavel.
oh, hadn’t thought of that, but that is appallingly plausible.
I’m sure vote suppression in California is part of the strategy (personally, I think it will do the opposite), but I also see it as part of a full-court press that has been occurring over the past week. Consider: State isn’t going to release Hillary trade emails until after the election, propaganda press going into overdrive with articles about how Obama can’t wait to campaign for Hillary plus the NYT reporter asking Bernie if he’s sexist for running against Hillary, rigging of voting in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, polls show Trump gaining ground or surpassing Hillary in states that were supposed to be “safe” or at least “in play.”
As usual, the Democrat party has misread all the information this election season. The party elders are convinced that Third Way is the only way. If the poll information on the NBC site is an accurate reflection of public perception, there is no way Hillary can win the nomination. When 40% of both Trump voters and Bernie voters actively hate Clinton, those voters are not going to change their minds. The Dems are still trying to blame the voters for all their own failures, but the polls tell a different story.
+1
They stopped counting the votes in PR with 69% reporting. Yesterday there was a story that the poll workers took a day off because they’d been up all night.
http://edition.cnn.com/election/primaries/states/pr/Dem
Hey, how come s/he didn’t ask Hillary if she is anti-semitic for running against Bernie?
+++
I left a comment about my CA voting experience. Gobbled by moderation?
It is there now
Yves, I cannot thank you enough for all you do, but on this day, we really, really do need a place to vent and to begin to organized even more to combat our lack of power in this so called democracy.
Your website gives us hope so that united we can find multiple ways to take back our country.
Peoples perceptions are malliable. Telegraphing a “victory” Softens expectations for when the results of the fix are in
Like shelling the target before invading, wont eliminate the opposition but certainly demoralizes them.
” Trump overruled his minders.” Good for him. And he will continue to overrule his minders. That’s why he’ll win the election. All political advisors (aka minders) are useless fear-driven parasites who always recommend backing down and apologizing. John Kerry would have beaten the despicable W if Kerry had simply had no political advisors.
House Democratic leader Pelosi backs Clinton for president
Shocking, I know.
However, the Speaker’s name is Ryan,
and he hasn’t said anything about impeachment being off the table.
If the GOP impeached Bill for lying to a jury,
they will surely impeach Hillary for sending CIA officers’ names in the clear.
Of course they will. And this time I will join them.
Supposed to only impeach a prez for crimes committed while prez, and not while SoS. But I’m confident the repugs will think of some way to impeach. They love impeaching.
According to noted UMichigan center/linebacker and constitutional scholar Gerald Ford,
Going out on a limb, I’m guessing that the House GOP will be able to find something in Clinton’s FBI file meeting their high standards. Giving new meaning to `inevitability’.
Gerry Ford is correct. “High crimes and misdemeanors” has no meaning except what the House wants it to have.
Why, there was talk of impeaching Andrew Jackson for eating peas off his Bowie knife, right in front of the French Ambassador!
So…the agenda here is the “reverse Nixon impeachment” in which HIllary loses the presidency by impeachment, her VP tries to run in the next election and the R’s get another 40 years of chief executive?
…oooh! Talk about the deep finesse!
On the other hand, thinking several elections ahead is typical of the Kochs.
the agenda here is taking back the democratic party from the con artists, neocons and neoliberals that have been running it, and the country, into the ground. they use both parties as vehicles, the democrats lately being more useful as the more effective evil. the kochs are considering supporting clinton over trump. there is a reason why they would even entertain the idea. it is not because she is a progressive. voting for this third way bullshit has never worked, it just got the con artists, neocons and neoliberals elected as democrats instead of republicans.
I have a different take. The repubs will publically accept Hillary as a neo con kindred spirit which is what she is.
And she’ll make any grand bargain necessary to make the Clinton Foundation/private server investigations go away.
But the establishment’s ability to govern a ‘disenchanted’ population will continue to deteriorate and the public is war weary so even with requiring women to register for draft (dressed up as equality) they won’t have patriotic enthusiam fueling the many conflicts on drawing board and hiring private contractors for the dirty work will mean drastic cuts for entitlements further infuriating the public…..
What a mess…..
In addition to drastic cuts for entitlements I should add even more severe austerity. I live in Arizona, a Koch ALEC labratory where public education and the commons are being decimated so businesses can use publically funded infrastructure (crumbling as it is) without paying for it and other perks.
Our Arizona Game and Fish is run by the Safari Club so the governor still found over one million in the budget for thier agenda….fighting the feds on endangered species etc.
The corporate/private interest giveaways are breathtaking.
Just sayin…..a Hillary election will effectively represent a merging of what remains of the 2 parties who are consumed with global domination and anything will be bargained away toward that end….it’s all up for grabs as the virus consumes it’s host, the predator consumes seed corn.
I agree with your take. The sins congress would condemn HRC for are the very ones they themselves want to be condoned. A private server to avoid FOIA requests? Great, we hate FOIA. A private foundation for laundering money? Brilliant count us in. A Benghazi base for funnelling arms to our everywhere war? Sign us up!
Sure they’ll run the perfunctory kayfabe to get Grand Bargains to the policies both HRC and the repubs wanted anyway, and HRC’s reputation is sealed as a pragmatic fighter who always tries to think about attempting to fight for you, and did her darndest against those mean ol’ repubs. It’s a win-win.
After the success of being the party of no (remember dumb minority leaders Mitch McConnell and Boehner), the GOP will suddenly embrace Clinton despite attacking the Clinton non stop for 25 years. The GOP voters will clamor for blood.
The GOP id is dedicated to despising anyone not in the tribe. They Democrats are the enemy tribe. There are no fellow travelers in their world.
+1
If it were still Boehner and McConnell, I might buy it. But it is Ryan, and he has even less control over his compatriots than Boehner did. Think about the people who have been the major movers behind Benghazi, they aren’t going to let up because she won. And despite the rosy projections that Trump loses them the House, that ain’t going to happen. I put it in the same category of fantasy that has Clinton coasting to a win because demographics!
McConnell is majority leader, and Boehner chose when to leave his role as Speaker, not voters. The GOP has done rather well with their strategy which was going to implode at any second according to very Democrat since they announced it November 2008. Boehner might not have had control over his members, but Pelosi isn’t a risk of ever becoming Speaker again and largely serving as a footnote.
The senate controls whether the impeachment ends in conviction. They have little or no say over whether the House impeaches the President. McConnell whether or not he is majority leader (and that might change) is impotent in this. It is all about the Speaker. And Boehner actually had some control over the inmates, I don’t think the same of Ryan. The rabid anti-Clintonites are not going to give his opinion a moment’s thought. And that includes on passing their agenda. See Obama even with Boehner. As bad as his administration was on the corporate destruction of the good front it would have been much worse if the ‘tea party’ pubbies had played along and taken what he was offering them. They didn’t. Obstructionism was our friend before and will be again.
But, impeachment is our friend…
No, impeachment can be for any official high crimes and misdemeanors whatever office was held when committed.
Useful now, but isn’t that vulnerable to being misused – misdemeanors, and no statute of limitations?
Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding. The difficulty of bringing impeachment proceedings is a substitute for statutes of limitations.
The President is a national figure. The President has to be very unpopular to be Impeached. It’s not a danger.
That wasn’t true in the case of Bill Clinton. His approval ratings were in the 50 – 60% range through most of the impeachment saga.
Uh, where exactly does it say that you can only be impeached for your actions as President?
That’s a made up Democrat talking point.
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. The Constitution, Article I, Section 3: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.
I don’t see a statute of limitations or anything that says it needs to be for something that occurs while holding the office of President.
Why would the Rs impeach a Republican? Makes no sense. We are all one party now.
A+
Republocrat unity is even more important now that the rabble are getting rambunctious.
Fundraising and to continue to try a fool the rubes into believing we are still a democracy instead of a banana republic.
There’s two reasons right there.
Hillary might agree with the GOP and be a crypto fascist herself, but fascism is still tribal. Why did the Nazis invade Poland? The Polish government was basically fascist by then. If 43 didn’t have to steal the election to win in 2000, we would have treason trials for Democrats after 9/11. The GOP base despises most Democrats as a nebulous other.
Why would a GOP Congress impeach a President Clinton? A functioning President Clinton is worth trillions of dollars to the OverClass. An impeached President Clinton is worth much less money to the OverClass. The OverClass will use every lever of power and every instrument of torture it has to prevent the GOP Congress from impeaching their diamond-studded platinum-golden President Obama 2.0.
So Labour was sexist in opposing Margaret Thatcher.
Just a little lesson that seems to have escaped the “feminist” Hillary Clinton and her supporters, not to mention the entire media establishment. Feminism is not about electing the first female President. It is about not judging candidates based on their sex. From this vantage point, Clinton, who couldn’t stop pulling the “sex” card, was clearly not the feminist candidate in the Democratic primaries.
+1
The woman card is a deflection for blind tribal loyalty and often not voting down ticket. Many of Hillary supporters can’t articulate why they are even democrats and hate to be exposed as ignoramuses. Hillary’s gender is impossible to argue with and serves as a non sequitur.
The arguments in 2007 between ardently pro Clinton and Obama supporters always descended into semis and racist rants because they simply didn’t have anything to say.
I got to thinking last night what a pyrrhic victory it will be for Clinton if/when the Trump reality show caves in on itself and she runs unopposed to an easy GE. Probably headed towards all time record low turnout.
So maybe her victorious campaign will go into the record books with a major asterisk – nobody bothered with showing up to vote for her.
++
Just one of many reasons she is not the feminist candidate.
What IS a feminist, any more? But a schmear of a label? Is feminism being able to join the Imperial Army, get combat training or become a SEAL or Ranger, go to exotic foreign places, encounter interesting people, AND KILL THEM? Equal opportunity to be the ripoff CEO of some supranational corporation? Ascend into a major policy-driving position and engage in destabilization and demolition of distant places? Equal pay? Does that last one call out equal pay, FAIR pay, for everyone up and down the economic scale? For American and Vietnamese workers?
When I was a callow angry recently discharged Vietnam vet, engaged in anti-war and pro-constitution protesting, the take on feminism was that feminists would bring feminine virtues of gentleness, honor, decency, truthfulness, comity and such into the main structures of the political economy. Really?
Just like Barack Obama, although he might have been justified because of Hillary’s overt racism in running against him.
A theory that explains everything explains nothing.
Thus, if everything is sexism, then nothing is.
If everything is racism, then nothing is.
Are we over-using or abusing those terms?
On the other hand, there are people who are sexists and racists, but they know better not to mouth it. And they can go on being what they are.
Polls here in Sonoma County open in 2 hours and I will be in line when they do.
“Clinton wins Nomination” is the headline and all over the news as of yesterday evening and it pissed me off.
On reflection I think it more likely to benefit Sanders than Clinton.
Clintonistas are smug, at least the ones I have met and they may well decide to do something more important than wasting their time at the polls.
Sanders voters tend to be engaged and informed, they may well be even more motivated to show up and vote.
I am.
Human nature. This move seemed calculated to piss people in California off, not to mention New Jersey and all of the other primaries left to be decided. I’d be willing to bet this will backfire, and if he does better than his polling (as he has been doing) he could do very well today.
Warm wishes to our California and NJ comrades, who may yet be serving as America’s last-ditch defense against the ghastly scourge of Clintonism 2.0.
This outrage will not stand.
Hi Tom, I agree with you on all points. The Sanders campaign office in Petaluma has been buzzing like a beehive for weeks. Don’t see that kind of excitement around here very often. Sonoma and Mendocino counties at least are not going to feel very charitable towards Her Ordained Highness. People will accept being outvoted, but the feeling of having been cheated will not fade anytime soon.
Easy peasy voting this morning in Los Angeles county. Independent (no party preference) with a crossover Dem ballot. No line, no wait, no problems, paper ballot (but machine counted so if there’s funniness anywhere it’s there).
The original plan was to call it for Hillary after the NJ polls had closed. I guess the think now that NJ is in doubt and she is going to be berned in CA. Pretty brazen, journolist type of deal.
NPR’s coverage this morning triumphant. Extended interview with Hillary supporting governor of New Mexico, not even bothering with a response from a Bernie supporter. They have the lid on tight.
Did they ask the governor of New Mexico how he thought the people of New Mexico felt about their votes not mattering?
I didn’t notice that question in the interview but honestly tuned out on his triumphal blather pretty quickly.
May I add an addendum to that unasked question: “how he though the people of New Mexico felt about their votes not mattering because of a truckload of insiders who the party itself says don’t count until July jawing about their vote. I mean it isn’t as if the super voters can change their mind in the next month or so because someone comes in with a better bribe.
May I suggest a lifetime boycott of NPR donations? Next time fundraising rolls around maybe call them up and explain that their Hillary bias cost them money.
And perhaps redirect the savings to Democracy Now or The Real News Network.
Yes!
To Democracy Now! but NOT to Free Speech TV. They have been pushing the Clinton/Dems need to unite meme through the Stephanie Miller and Thom Hartmann program this entire election cycle. Disgusting. Link TV has been much better.
Yup, no more support for WGBH here in Boston for me. Local Folk radio and college stations WUMB and WERS will be the benificiary from now on. Dumped my Sunday Boston Globe as well a few months back. I hate to see NPR down the path it’s taking but the $$$ is comng from the corporate side these days and it shows.
The “why”, though, is conspicuously absent–why take what only a decade ago would have been unimaginable risks with their credibility for Hillary Clinton? I can’t believe that the media are all so collectively delusional that they are pushing her down the national throat because they think she is a closet Leftist. And they can’t be doing it for the Democratic Party, because the Democratic Party’s best hope in November is clearly Sanders. Something is happening behind the scenes that we don’t know about.
Maybe because they are not left or liberal, they are neoliberal and establishment.
Nice Polite Republicans, as the saying goes.
Yes. Somebody really big, with deeper pockets than many countries, is behind this. And it is pushing an international agenda, this isn’t about only the US. Who could be this big? GS? Illumnati? Space aliens?
But James is right, something is happening behind the scenes and I would love it if he were the historian who gets to unravel the mystery.
Remember the politico piece about Senior Democrats trying to convince Sanders supporters to support Hillary. This isnt exactly the brightest generation.
I expect they fed a story about a few super delegates to the lap dog media in expectation of curbing Sanders turnout today. It’s a poor plan, but they never really grasped voter anger. Democrats still expect Trump support to implode despite GOP behavior all these years.
James– I think you’re over-complicating a simple issue. The media are the credentialed class. Sanders represents a threat to their class in a way that previous candidates did not: Romney, McCain, Bush… they all represented the same class as those running the media, just with a different colour jersey. Even billionaire Trump looks controllable in spite of his occasional populist tilts, and will still mean business as usual for the PTB.
Sanders is different because he represents a challenge to their power, so he is the real enemy who must be stopped. Therefore the media are throwing the kitchen sink at him, even at the risk of making blatant fools of themselves.
Yep. And put together the shared hate and fear of socialism by both neoliberals like DeLong and the top 20% in the Black Misleadership class, and you have a parsimonious explanation for a good deal of the smears by the Clinton campaign (#BernieBros, and so forth).
“Nato troops begin huge military exercise in Poland”
An example of word inflation. 31,000 is not “huge”. I’d go with large….
Considering the possible consequences of provoking Russia by jamming nato in its face, 1 “troop” is probably too “huge.”
Indeed. Just as one Russian missile set up in Cuba in 1962 was one too many.
Right now, NATO is allowing America to set up anti-ballistic missile batteries right on the Russian border. Setting up artillery within range of downtown Kaliningrad. The cover story for these anti-ICBM missile batteries is that they there are to protect Western Europe from Iranian missiles.
And it is all purposeless. The anti-ballistic missiles are not explosive — they are kinetic weapons which take down incoming missiles by smashing into them at incredibly high speed. This is only possible because once a ballistic missile leaves its silo in Iran (Russia), its trajectory can be tracked and predicted, so the kinetic missile can pretty easily manage to be in the same place as the incoming missile.
So what have the Russians done to make these missile batteries purposeless? The SS-27 — a cruise missile with three vectorable rocket engines, and a big collection of independently targetable nuclear warheads. Or, one very big warhead, Russian sized, something capable of converting Paris into a deep hole in the ground. An SS-27 can be launched from a flatbed truck, from within a standard shipping container, or off a submarine or surface vessel.
The thing is, the SS-27 is unstoppable. It travels somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 mph, a few feet off the waves or off the ground, and it can be independently steered once launched. It jinks around, zigs and zags, all over the place. There is no means of intercepting it by kinetic or other means. Oh, and Russia has given SS-27 nuclear cruise missiles to Iran, so that neither Israel nor America will use one of Obama’s new generation of small yield “usable” nukes to take out Tehran.
The SS-27 can hit any spot on the globe, can fly over the North Pole to Oklahoma, or over the South Pole to Detroit. If it sounds like the doomsday weapon from Dr. Strangelove, you’re paying attention. There are no survivors after this, other than some Washington insiders and all of the Victoria’s Secret models, hiding in a bunker 500 feet underground somewhere in West Virginia.
John F. Kennedy wasn’t kidding in 1962 when he told Kruschev that if the Russian missiles were not removed from Cuba right now, they would be preemptively destroyed. Putin has just told NATO and the United States the same thing about the missiles in Poland and Bulgaria and Hungary. Russia will take them out if they are not taken out of there. He’s not kidding, any more than JFK was.
“The thing is, the SS-27 is unstoppable. It travels somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 mph, a few feet off the waves or off the ground, and it can be independently steered once launched. It jinks around, zigs and zags, all over the place.” — wildly off the mark. Cruise missiles (and all terrain-hugging devices) are strictly subsonic creatures. At the Mach 10-15 hypersonic speeds you claim, do you have any idea how hot the leading-edge surfaces would get in low-altitude-dense air? Instant-melting hot, that’s how hot. Not to mention the massive drag that would result from continually generating a powerful shock wave. And “jinking, zigging and zagging”, in sea-level air, at hypersonic speeds? Dream on. You failed to provide a supporting link, for obvious reasons … Wikipedia is your friend. Which is not to say the Russian ICBM (not cruise missile) code-named SS-27 is not a formidable weapon, but can we please keep the “Hollywood physics” out of the discussions?
it’s one of the largest war games ever. i’ll accept huge.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bomb!
Bill apparently thinks anything he can do to keep the Narrative of US Exceptionalism on track just has to be done. US won WW II, A-bombing saved lives, all that stuff… Annd of course our grand military can only “win” its own war games by cheating: let us remember the formerly biggest war game, Millenium Challenge 2002, proving the Brobdingnagian klutziness and idiocy of the World’s Most Expensive Military Thing, where a retired Marine general, playing the Muslims, figured out, pretty easy, how to asymmetrically send the US fleet to the bottom of the Gulf. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/21/usa.julianborger
And of course the Fokkers from Brussels, the NATO whiz kids, and the Brits, almost killed us all (once again) in the Thatcher realm/era. Sorry about the string cite, there are so many episodes and personas with the power to really fokk things up it is hard to separate them out for analysis: http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/5-cold-war-close-calls Particular attention directed to Able Archer 1983, but all of them ought to give the willies to anyone who gives a shit about the survival of the species and most life on this planet. And other sources count fifteen (15) episodes and events that could have loosed the missiles from their launchers and “gravity bombs” from the surviving billion-a-plane bombers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJwwurU-HqM
Let us recall that there’s a reason that reasoning people have re-set their Doomsday Clock ahead to a metaphorical three (3) minutes to midnight:
The iconic Doomsday Clock, considered a metaphor for the dangers faced by the world, was pushed ahead by two minutes over concerns about worsening climate change and the world’s failure to reduce nuclear weapons, a trans-Atlantic group of prominent scientists announced.
Every year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists analyzes international threats, particularly nuclear arsenals and climate change, and decides where the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock should rest. The closer it is to midnight, the closer the world is to doom.
The last time the clock moved was in 2012 when the Board set the minute hand at 11:55 p.m. over concerns about the state of nuclear arsenals around the world. It also was concerned about the Fukushima nuclear meltdown and the outbreak of H5N1 flu. It hasn’t moved this much since 2007, when the Board warned that “the world stands on the brink of a second nuclear age.” It also cited climate change which it called “a dire challenge to humanity.”
Those two issues again took center stage as the Board announced it would bump the clock two minutes ahead, to 11:57 p.m.
“Today, unchecked climate change and a nuclear arms race resulting from modernization of huge arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity,” Kennette Benedict, executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, told reporters. “And world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of leadership endanger every person on Earth.” http://www.cbsnews.com/news/doomsday-clock-moves-two-minutes-closer-to-midnight/
Um, no it’s not. Look up the size of the Reforger exercises.
As an aside here’s an amusing quote from an article on the first one:
“The first REFORGER, which the Russians denounced as a ‘*major military provocation,” began on 6 January 1969.”
Also check out “Foal Eagle”. The one in 2000 was huge.
Ooh, turn the discussion to parallel divergent picayune issues. The basic problem is that those who play the Great Game, with the lives of us mopes as counters and pawns and tokens and sources of wealth to fund their forking games, have their fun. And we mopes are the ones to pay the piper. Good-oh on the big bad Rough Men who have built this marvelous tower of Threat and Fear and imminent destruction. Maybe, possibly, one has some first-hand knowledge of lots of pieces of the Game play, wearing the colors of the imperium?
Military exercises these days are 5/6 simulated. so 31,000 is yuge, or as ABC called it, “massive”.
Bernie Sanders Campaign Manager Goes After Chris Matthews’ Wife to His Face
Matthews confronted Jeff Weaver over the fact that Sanders has yet to release his tax returns. Weaver said, “We should perhaps follow the example of yourself when your wife was running for Congress.”
Hoo boy.
Matthews muttered “Oh here we go” as Weaver said that Kathleen Matthews––who mounted an ultimately unsuccessful congressional bid this year––never released their tax returns.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-campaign-manager-goes-after-chris-matthews-wife-to-his-face/
Jeff Weaver is really cool—-for a political advisor. The presstitutes always trot out the lily-livered “insult” that he used to be a comic book dealer. What’s wrong with dealing comic books? Doesn’t result in massive death and destruction, like the absurd wars the lame stream media whores like Chris Matthews invariably slavishly support.
Chris Matthews television appearances should always be preceeded by the clip of him describing the thrill Shrub sent up his leg.
I always pictured that as ‘pee running down’ his leg………..like an excitable dog!
You might want to read the link. Matthews gets off on pageantry displays of power.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2006/04/27/mission-accomplished-a-look-back-at-the-medias/135513
I don’t need to read the link. I watched Mathews in real time, fawning as he was, all over the codpiece in chief……..Mathews is a compliant syncophant for the status quo…….
…….so what’s your point??
You were giving him too much credit, comparing him to a dog peeing excitedly. Matthews and Gordon Liddy discussed the President’s accentuating his groin area. Freud would have a field day with Hardball.
Ok……point taken ……..He’s lower on the evolutionary scale than a dog ……..perhaps a Sewer Rat would have been a more apt description….
To me, neither looked good.
“We already released one,” would be better.
“How about other years?”
I imagine it could gone a little better (though not much) like that.
“This is Hardball, Chris.”
*mic drop*
re: EU-Poland: Sanctions Against Poland?
I found this passage interesting:
Alain Lamassoure, a member of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, told Politico Europe that the EU’s €14 billion in subsidies to the Polish economy could be the ‘trump card’ the bloc can use to get Warsaw back into line. Another diplomat told the newspaper that it would be “very easy” for Brussels to conduct a “very deep scrutiny of the way the funds are asked for and used.
Can we infer from this that the EU already suspects irregularities in the way monies from Brussels are disbursed? That the EU will continue to overlook that if the new government falls in line and supports the rule of law?
I suspect EU-Polish politics are not going to be a hot topic today. But in connection with Englehardt’s musings about the rise of the right in Europe discussed in yesterday’s links, anyone interested will find an excellent detailed discussion about the rise of the right in Poland by Poland’s Iron Consensus at Jacobin. As you might expect, the failures of neoliberalism are a large part of the story.
Is EU structural support to Poland is misallocated?
Does a fish fart in water?
“Did Clinton’s Emails Expose CIA Agents?”
To me this is not that clear. It would depend on a number of things. Was her email actually hacked? (This would have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.) If her email was hacked then she did expose CIA agents. If no, then you need to look at who saw each email. If all where authorized to see that kind of information then I’d say this is a very weak issue to stand on. If some where not authorized to see these kind of information then she did expose CIA agents.
Bottom line here is that those redactions could have been made to prevent us, the public from seeing those names as we are not authorized to see them. So if the State Department had disclosed them when they released the emails then the State Department would have violated the law.
I think the straight forward charge is gross negligence. She allowed over 2,000 sensitive national security documents (marked or unmarked makes no difference) to be stored in the wrong place. She sent over 100 of them herself. No intent needed.
Pardon, but the “gross negligence” in handling of secret materials is the minor charge. If that is all that was involved, a Presidential pardon would almost make sense.
It is public corruption, possibly to the extent of prosecuting all three Clintons under RICO statutes, that the FBI is really after. She sold her office to anyone with the money to buy it. This is the root crime, from which came the crimes of setting up a secret server, and mishandling and deleting government documents, some of them Top Secret or SAP.
If she exposed foreign or CIA agents, the foolish woman neither knew nor cared. She was making bank, and that was all that has ever mattered to her.
And therein lies the rub of the 30,000 some odd emails Hillary’s “legal team” decided to withhold from the State department, later scrubbing them from the server before turning it over to the FBI. (According to HRC, these only contained cookie recipes and Pilates routines – go figure).
Still, some report in the media the FBI still managed to get a hold of them. Is that legal? Dunno. Does it matter? Err, likely so, HRC withheld them claiming attorney-client privilege. Do they contain all the nasty details sufficient to convict if admissible? One can only hope —
Re: State Department Blocks Release Of Hillary Clinton-Era TPP Emails Until After The Election
Could this be the Unified Theory of Clinton Scandals? This one ties together everything – those emails have to be bad, for Obama to do something this blatantly shady.
Do they have to list a legitimate excuse or reason under FOIA laws?
Does FOIA mandate a time period in which requests must be fulfilled? If not, the government can continue to slow-roll this one, while technically being in compliance.
The story says State originally promised release in April. I suppose the could explain that they’re having a hard time redacting all those passages and even finding some of the emails. It will be interesting to see how the MSM airbrushes this one.
My emails for your birth certificate???
The early Clinton winning announcement is probably a diversionary tactic to inflame so that reporting of voter suppression and other fraudulent tactics mainly in California and NJ by the Clinton machine are drowned out.
Hehe. Considering Hillary’s “win” I feel a lot more of you will be moving in Trump’s direction now. That was my very first thought when I saw this “news” last night. These people are determined to burn the system down and they’re completely oblivious about it. Though I’m sympathetic with your anger I’m rather amused by the whole thing myself, being ruled by a bunch of suicidal lemmings who labor under the delusion that they’re God’s gift to humanity.
Lots can happen in the seven weeks between now and when the superdelegates actually vote.
Remember: with the Clintons, there’s always another scandal pending.
After July 25th, then folks can consider the bountiful choices offered to them by a two-party system. :-)
One doesn’t burn down the two party system by voting for a candidate who belongs to one of the dominant two parties. One must vote for a third party candidate to do that.
However, Hillary hasn’t won the nomination yet, despite the proclamations from the AP and the NY Times.
To those who want to burn down the two party system, they must vote a 3rd party candidate, and so, Hillary can have the nomination already?
I’m still hoping that one of the two dominant parties will nominate a good candidate. If that happens, there’ll be no need to burn down the two party system (yet). We’ll know more tomorrow, but nothing will be certain until late July.
Perhaps burning down the Clinton Dynasty and thereby burning down the Clinton Dynasty’s captive political party might advance the cause of burning down the Two Party System?
Regarding fireflies:
Habitat loss. Habitat loss. Habitat loss. Say it with me.
Thousands upon millions of hectares of arable land are used by US citizens to grow carpets of grass. These are not habitats that any insect can thrive in.
You want to save the bees, the trees, the little critters? Stop insisting on homogeneous lawns that are really status symbols hearkening back to an age where the landed could say, “Look at how I can waste my land on unproductive enterprise, instead of gardening like a peasant.”
It enrages me that we can’t see the forest for the fucking grass.
Lawns really suck, any way you look at it. So much noise from lawn mowers. Only in America.
Seriously! I cannot stand having my windows open because then all I hear is a constant drone of “RAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRAAARRRRAAARR”
Not to mention that:
* You rarely see anyone using them to play, lay, have fun on
* Yet they pay tons of money, often, for someone else to keep up with them. Or engage in said MMMmmmRRRmmmmmmRRR!
* When asked, people have no idea why they do it. This is why I think it’s fundamentally a class identity marker. You must do it because it’s done, the way you must not make fart jokes in the presence of someone higher on a hierarchy than you
Are there no kids in your neighborhood? Lawns hereabouts are in heavy use.
I’m the ONLY resident on our block who doesn’t have a lawn…or a mower….
I’m the ‘freak’ who’s ALWAYS GARDENING ……
If I had to run a mower, I’d never notice the hummers flittering amoungst all the flowering perennials in our yard…….I’d never notice all the bumble bees and other pollinators doing their thing for themselves (and our) benefit……
Our somnambulant culture needs to wake up, and realize that they are apart of Nature, not above it……
I have a scruffy looking lawn and use a push mower that my wife thankfully bought a few years ago. Not sure why, but in the past few years I decided not to put any chemicals on my lawn. Just feels like I’d be dumping poison on the grass. If I need to, I can throw compost out on the lawn to bump up the nitrogen content.
I have no grass around my house, just natural moss and forest. It requires no upkeep. I have fireflies.
I agree with you on ‘lawn fascism’…
Keep up the good fight! We have open land that we are making into a “food forest” of perennial beds. It’s amazing to watch the critters emerging out of those unkempt areas. We like to go outside at night with a flashlight with red cellophane over it to see what kind of weird creatures creep around when we’re asleep.
The enclosure movement that led to the landed gentry having huge “lawns” was a direct response to the comparatively high returns that wool returned. They were very productive, economically, for those who had them. The money made from those enterprises are largely responsible for the (comparatively) wild lands left in Britain (a movement popularized by people like Capability Brown) as not all of it was necessary to raise sheep.
Not to say that the small holders who are emulating them now have a similar excuse, but were it not for many of the large landholders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries consistently promoting the concept of “nature as a force for good”, the movement which gave us Central Park and Yosemite, we would be a lot worse off than we are now.
Any place I can read about this? I’ve read about the Charter of the Forests, it’s always been interesting to me. Is this something covered in The World Turned Upside Down?
Is Craigslist a good place to buy a used sheep, or should I go with eBay?
Does it matter what the sheep was used for?
This is interesting. There’s a new spin on this going on in some parts of the country – building the Mcmansion almost to the end of the lot lines, to ascribe to oneself landed gentry status without the land. Either way the fireflies disappear. And apparently light pollution is also taking away our ability to see stars at night. I wonder if we’re supposed to be revering our landed gentry instead of stars and fireflies.
My highschool psych teacher, the aptly named Mr. Wise, has been on a mission for some years to replace every inch of the lawn surrounding his home with lawn furniture (with a preponderance of swinging benches), fish ponds (cleverly made by cutting old hot-tubs in half, vertically, setting the top half in to the ground and lining it with black plastic), and foot-paths connecting it all. It’s been a while since I stopped in to check on his progress…probably about time I stopped by and let the goldfish nibble my toes.
Ummm….dependent on the part of the country you live in, lawns serve as a boundary keeping the wilderness out of your home. And by wilderness, I mean fleas, ticks, roaches, rodents, snakes, mosquitos, wasps, bees, yellow jackets, ants, spiders, scorpions and on and on and on. If you give the wilderness even half a chance, they will take over your house. And that is not good for the health or wellbeing of yourself or your family or your pets or your neighbors.
I know we all idealize Nature but it isn’t particular benign. if you give it half a chance, it will eat you alive. So when you see a lawn east of the plains, stay calm, don’t just assume it is a vanity project designed to enrage you.
I think you’re being pedantic. There’s a world of difference between maintaining an impossible standard of tapis vert and keeping scorpions from creeping into bed with you at night.
One method involves a machete and elbow grease. The other involves dousing with chemicals in order to get the desired outcome for the purposes of your HOA, county rules, and middle class lifestyle. I’ll let you figure out which one is more harmful and vain.
I am not trying to be pedantic. I am just stating there are very valid reasons for having a boundary, such as a lawn, between you and the wild. A house is the same thing-a boundary between you and raw nature. The funny thing is many of those little wild creatures also prefer a safe refuge putting distance between themselves and nature. Your house will serve nicely.
Lawns do nothing to keep said creatures out of one’s space ……. unless you wish to live in a bubble !! Your statement sounds rather phobic to me ……no offense…
Yes, actually they do help substantially. A tended lawn reduces the environmental habitat necessary for many of these creatures. Of course, it is impossible to keep them out 100 percent but it certainly reduces the numbers
I actually have a very small camp deep in the woods without a lawn, you step out the door and you are in deep woods, and a place surrounded on all sides by substantial woods but with a lawn. There are times you can’t step out of the camp because of mosquitos. Always have to check for ticks. Spiders everywhere. I could go on because there is everything out there. Yet a place surrounded by woods but with even 20 yards of yard, those problems are minimized. I know from a number of years of personal experience the difference in having and not having a lawn. I am not just blowing smoke out my ass like some. So you can believe whatever you want but I know.
And btw, I don’t have fear or phobias of these creatures or I couldn’t live in either of those places. And many of them, I find fascinating but I just don’t need them in my living, eating and sleeping spaces.
Ok… thanks for your reply. I can relate to some extent, as I’ve pulled more than a few ticks’ off of my clothing and skin (shudders!!) over the years, and have been spider bitten, as well as stung by wasps….and occasionally by my honey bees (my fault, not theirs)….but still, I much prefer the cloak of color, texture, and greenery my yard affords, than any turf could……
+1
While it may come as a shock to a lot of people reading this thread, the family that built my house (in 1906) used to sweep the lawn and whitewash the trees to keep the snakes from getting into the house. They failed to keep the snakes out, but did a wonderful job of eroding our topsoil. When we were doing some work on the electrical lines and had to take off the clapboards we found a lot of snake skeletons. Probably mostly rat snakes.
The snakes followed the rats and the chickens that were used to keep down the termite populations. We still have snakes, rats and mice getting into the walls and attics here. Last year one of our dogs was blinded by a copperhead. And, then, there are the armadilloes living in the crawl space and the bats in the attics.
Not to mention the Deer, the coyotes, the rabbits, the raccoons, the foxes, the feral cats, the hawks …..and, once, a bobcat. One hears about bears in the Northern suburbs of Atlanta all the time. There are a lot of critters out there, and most of them cannot abide a lawn because there is simply no cover.
They cannot know it if they have not lived it.
Defensible space is one thing (I live in the Mountains, so I’m well aware), but cities and suburbs filled with water-hungry grass is something else entirely. That’s obviously what’s being discussed. Don’t get your panties in a knot about it.
No that isn’t what he obviously stated. This statement strongly suggests country: “You want to save the bees, the trees, the little critters? Stop insisting on homogeneous lawns that are really status symbols hearkening back to an age where the landed could say, “Look at how I can waste my land on unproductive enterprise, instead of gardening like a peasant.”
And I suspect many people may not consider the situational difference between cities, suburbs, towns, and country living. So the other side needed to be presented.
Panties??? Since when did men start wearing panties in the mountains? When I spent time in the mountains, long johns was all that was necessary for men.
uhhhh….um..Lumberjacks??**
** Python reference :’)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaRd4d8hOY
Hehe, very appropriate.
It is really easy to get the idea of suburbs taking up some kind of limited space, but I live sixty miles outside of Atlanta in a place that is still considered a bedroom community. I, myself, made the commute into town for over a decade. The “suburbs” of Atlanta take up a huge percentage of North Georgia at this point. There is nothing obvious about it; here, anyway, there really isn’t a demarcation between suburbs and country.
++++
If possible, use existing caves, instead of clearing more space to erect additional artificial abodes. Leave Nature alone.
Agreed, lawns generally suck. On the other hand, so do sweeping statements.
For instance, if I didn’t mow my “lawn” it would grow 3 feet tall. Not only would it be an eye sore, but it would have a very real, negative economic impact on my neighbors’ property values. No, I’m not in an HOA. And I don’t water or fertilize the lawn. It’s mostly weeds but I try to keep it under control.
The soil here at almost 47 degrees north latitude on the shore of Lake Superior are about 85% sand. Growing anything is quite the challenge. Aside from the very brief growing season, there’s the animals and poor sun exposures too due to the many trees and houses in town.
So, while some feel comfortable judging people for not completely transforming all residential space into edible landscapes or wild fields, some of us have more choices than others and that should be acknowledged and respected.
The aesthetic argument gets brought up quite often. You have to ask yourself where you derive your aesthetic judgments from.
Why are tall “weeds” (a pejorative by any measure) an eyesore? In your area, there’s goldenrod growing 3 feet tall. In the fall it will have brilliant stalks and will reseed itself. Or how about mullein, which has an enormous flower stalk that can be used medicinally?
These weeds, many of which are quite useful for a number of purposes, are gorgeous. It’s the barren wastelands of bermuda grass which are the repugnant invasives, to me.
Don’t forget the megatons of ‘weed n feed’, fertilizers, insecticides, and fungicides that the public has been encouraged to apply, through the wonders of chemistry & advertising, to make their turf photogenic and pristine, allll to the detriment of other living things……
I removed my front lawn and put in a garden. Out back I leave a section of lawn for my 3 pet chickens. I let it grow long because the ladybugs breed in it. If you cut it in the spring, no ladybugs, so I wait until later in May to do the initial weed whack and then it’s kept under control with a push mower.
Out front where it’s invaded the hellstrip, I pull or cover with straw. The easiest solution to tall grass is taller plants. Add blueberries, artichokes, poppies etc and you don’t notice the grass.
How about adding a bee house? We can’t have bees because of city codes but have added a couple of bee houses. Plus, if you leave some ground alone, you provide nesting habit for bumbles.
Many people have lawns because they wouldn’t know where to get started.
Yes, one of the pleasures of spring and early summer.
I cut my grass. The dude has a point that when you don’t cut your grass there are more bugs of all kinds. Joel Salatin wrote some books about how we could theoretically use our land much more productively, but until that time comes I guess I will cut my grass—otherwise my townspeople will give me dirty looks and I might have to pay a fine.
Perhaps drought in the West – from the Continental Divide west anyway – will force a reckoning.
Living in God’s backyard (the Midwest, or Great Plains to those folks in Ohio and Indiana who think otherwise), all our @#$%ing lawn fertilizer and pesticide/herbicide residue sluices right down the Missouri and Mississippi River basins to continue the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico and most fresh water between here and there.
Water wars are coming to suburbia ere long; Flint MI is just a tiny preview of what’s in store for us.
When I was a child several decades ago we lived in a conventional suburb with tree and shrub studded lawns all around the neighborhood. Yet there were lots of fireflies in firefly season. If the fireflies are just lately declining in all the lawn-y suburban neighborhoods where they used to be common a few decades ago, then it isn’t the lawns which are killing them.
When I was a child several decades ago we lived in a conventional suburb with tree and shrub studded lawns all around the neighborhood. Yet there were lots of fireflies in firefly season. If the fireflies are just lately declining in all the lawn-y suburban neighborhoods where they used to be common a few decades ago, then it isn’t the lawns which are killing them.
I only clicked once. So why did it show up twice?
I can’t decide if this is a case of the media wanting a Clinton v. Trump contest, the media wanting another shot at a chance to bring down a Clinton presidency, the insiders protecting their turf, or the Clintons determined not to let anything get in the way of their latest path to absolute power.
Maybe all of the above.
None of these reasons justify the way the process is being manipulated and corrupted; what I haven’t been able to figure out is how to make it stop. I can’t even figure out if it’s possible to stop it. My hunch is that, rather than address the real source of electoral corruption and voter suppression, there will just be more attempts to make it harder for people to vote so as to ensure that whatever party is in power stays in power, or whatever party is in power is removed from it.
I’ve already had a couple of go-rounds with the news director of one of our local stations on the difference between pledged and unpledged delegates, and been told that it’s too hard and it takes too much precious air time to explain it to the viewers, so they just do whatever MSNBC has decided to do – and besides, this is how most of the media is handling it, so what’s my problem?
Other than the fact that it’s wrong? Silly me, I always thought being wrong was the best reason not to keep doing things like this.
It is my sincere hope that millions of Sanders supporters in all of the states voting today will double down on their efforts to get to the polls, and that Clinton supporters will stay home in the mistaken understanding that she’s got it in the bag and their votes are not needed.
I don’t even have words to adequately describe how unconscionable all of this is.
The only way to “make it stop” is to not let it work.
No one EVER stops doing what’s working, they just do it more and harder until they get what they want.
Anyone who says they could NEVER vote for Trump because he’s a very bad man needs to keep that in mind.
All you need are two words: Democratic Party.
And always remember the one word not to be found in the Constitution: Democracy.
You should be mad at yourself (as I used to be) for playing along under false pretense.
Unless the media oppose the interests of their OverClass owners and masters, the media most certainly do not want to bring down THIS Clinton. THIS Clinton is potentially worth several trillion dollars to the OverClass, so why would the OverClass’s pet media wish to bring her down?
Hillary has an inscribed copy of Thatcher’s biography.
Was it signed before or after the Iron B—h went to be with her Master below?
Bound in the skin of a voter most likely.
The cheap t-shirt article has a major flaw: When was the last time you saw a “cheap” t-shirt at the Gap or H&M?
Affordability was what was used to give cover to this issue in the early days. It was always obvious that the intention was to turn a blind eye on these practices throughout the supply chain regardless of price.
I mean, what do we think conditions are like in the factory where the fabric for Clinton’s 12,000 jacket was made?
The AP is billing this a “scoop,” which probably gives them too much credit. And agency. Methinks they got thirty-odd unexpected phone calls from delegates yesterday morning.
As angry as I was last night, the Sanders-as-Sexist link made me laugh out loud. Identity politics are the Dark Side of the Force…
I still have the daydream of a Clinton indictment and a Biden-Warren ticket, but take comfort in the prospect of a generation of heartbroken Sanders kids forming a permanent negative impression of the Democratic Party.
But time does heal. Boomer Liberals seemed to take forever to get over the McGovern fiasco. But they did.
And now they are become Nixon.
Why would Biden be a day dream? The guy is a pig. He’s simply Hillary without the celebrity. The best thing Obama ever did was get that troll out of the Senate.
Funny how there are never any claims from this group about sexism when the candidate is Carly Fiorina or Michelle Bachmann. Amazing how then it is a substantive disagreement over qualifications and ideas.
Or how these same people backed someone other than Donna Edwards and ignore Zephyr Teachout.
Claiming sexism and misogyny is one of the Hillary camps most beloved weapons. It has been since it was a winner in her first Senate election. But it is going to increasingly backfire on them in this election. Their claims against Sanders are manure. But it is Trump who is going kayfabe it. This is a group who does not learn. He is not the candidate they were looking for.
You have a point. I wonder if Bernie held his fire out of fear of this, or if he’s just the lovable grump we all want him to be, or both.
I’ve seen the two campaign messages put as:
Clinton: “Women! Women! Women!”
vs
Trump: “America! America! America!”
A lot of people don’t want to consider (or at least admit) that Trump’s attacks on (some) women might actually help him with males in ALL demographic groups, not just the loathsome Americans of European descent (who are probably the least chauvinist of the lot – though I know suggesting this is heresy). And it may not hurt him with women as much as might be expected.
This may tie-in with the so-called “Latino Vote” in ways that I’ve not seen discussed. Because what is called machismo exists in the cultures conquered by the Iberians. And so far Trump has shown himself not so much anti-Latino as anti-Mexican. There is a difference – though a lot of people want to pretend otherwise.
Politicos, pundits, activists, academics, and Subaru liberals tend to say “Latino” when the mean Mexican or Chicano. And when they hear “Mexican” they think “Latino.” For political purposes they push this stereotyping good and hard. And I think they think that Americans of Cuban and Puerto Rican heritage share this tendency. But my experience is that actually existing Americans from these backgrounds tend not to lump themselves together in this way. Often with extreme prejudice.
Here is a test you can perform on your own: try to engage someone with Cuban ancestry on all their shared affinities with Mexicans and get back to us with what happens.
Trump has very clearly targeted Mexicans and Mexico in his campaign – no question about it. But whether or not this is going to affect the “Latino Vote” in California is one thing.
In Florida, it may turn out to be quite another.
Does Trump appreciate this? I think only he could answer that question. But I have seen liberals and progressives underestimate too many “dumb” candidates who went on to enjoy two-term administrations and long Congressional careers to be wary of misplaced certainty.
Michelle Bachmann is pretty hot, but Carly Fiorina doesn’t raise any thoughts of sex at all. The only thoughts I get about Carly is she’s a psycho-accountant that wants to blow up the other side of the world, but not this side. That may turn on some Rs, but not me.
But then after Michelle starts talking, the initial tingly feeling abruptly stops and I start thinking, “That would be like hopping in the sack with Paul Ryan in drag.” Then I realize she’s another psycho-accountant that wants to blow up the other side of the world, but not this side.
“Go Inside an Industrial Plant That Sucks Carbon Dioxide Straight Out of the Air ”
It would be useful to have the enthalpy calculations for the two processes. There have been a few similar wet scrubber catalytic tower technologies launched in the recent past, but the nature of the material behavior made their energy requirements uneconomic at scale
That’s what I was thinking. It would have to be collocated with a geothermal or big solar plant to make this remotely viable.
It would have to be nuclear or hydro, if not coal/natural gas plants. For the former, it would remove a low carbon electric supply which would have to be replaced by a high carbon supply for other users as no new hydro or nuclear is coming on line, and both will see cuts in the near future. If coal/natural gas, then it’s use would be to reduce the carbon foot-print. In both cases then it’s effectiveness is going to be determined (1) by the enthalpy calculations and (2) by the material behavior issues which Optimander expands upon below.
Currently PV Solar can’t provide the “quality” that any massive process industry plant would require and thermal solar technology is still tiny and is still a long term question. Geothermal also is too tiny and too troublesome in most locations(water quality), to have the scale make any dent in either atmospheric C02, nor provide the scale so that could the fuel could secure reasonable market position. I expect the fuel won’t be an exact analog of an existing fuel (even swapping natural gas for propane requires retrofits at the consumer scale and affects the effectiveness of industrial users pollution abatement schemes. Hence the supply has to be regular and competitive enough to convince customers to make the switch).
Yes, a mass and energy balance. Of course you would never get that in an article like this. Many missing unit operations… How to keep the cooling tower media from fouling out, Spray dryer/filter press or flashdryer, pressure swing adsorption for O2 generation( dont want N2 in the kiln exhaust), where/how is the H2 produced, the whole gas to liquid fuel scheme…for that matter, all the rawmatl feedstock .. Energy balance to put them at the plant gate..
Without more informatuon the $100/ton we are safe to assume is optimistic
This article on C02 sequestration is much more interesting because it begins to discuss some of the down sides of a proposed process.
Some of the things the article doesn’t mention are” What tests are they using to determine if the CO2 incorporated into the basalt may cause structural issues in the integrity of the basalt? or with the mobility of other mineral/chemicals into the injected water, and where this water and associated minerals/chemicals will migrate? Still, it does give a more fair picture of what’s going on.
One other interesting point about the article is it points out that those credits for C02 sequestration that the fracking and traditional oil extraction are getting for injection into oil bearing sandstone are nearly worthless, as the C02 migrates back out of the injection sites.
Apologies to the wholly objective editorial management of AP, but it is simply wrong on the facts. A poll is not a pledge, and what AP and the networks are reporting is a poll, nothing more. And that leaves aside the apparent ethical fugue state AP must be in to declare Clinton da winnuh the night before the not insignificant primaries for actual pledged delegates in Jersey, California, and elsewhere.
But the Clinton campaign’s counting coup is not only wrong, it is a mistake. Clinton, with her media elves for company, could have lain low and graciously waited for the convention to haul in her drift net of supers. She’d still be the nominee. This premature anointing of the chosen one can only severely piss off Sanders voters, now and in the general. It is so impolitic that an enquiring mind might wonder if it’s an effort to lock down the nomination Scalia-style—ahead of anything “casting a cloud upon what [s]he claims to be the legitimacy of [her] election.”
A month is a long time. If Clinton goes on slip, slip, slipping against Trump, the delegate declarations of eternal love may not be worth the paper they’re not written on. This ham-handed stab at an aura of inevitability won’t carry her over the threshold. For that the Clintons may need a Bush-size catapult bigger than the AP. I only wonder what their ace in the hole, Mr. Marketing Campaign of 2008, has on his Christmas list.
Back to the Times: It sat on the illegal NSA surveillance story ahead of Nov 2004 rather than influence the election by, like, reporting news? But a tendentious piece from a wire service saying Clinton’s won based on a survey of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately lobbyists, fixers, and hacks the night before crucial primaries that might weaken Clinton’s grasp on a nomination? No problem. It plays it loud and large. The media used to hide its scale-callused thumbs. Not anymore. In terms of journalistic ethics this is tantamount to Citizens United, a study in undue influence.
It looks like nothing so much as a way to win the news cycle on the day of the primary. If the story stifles Sanders turnout, good, and if Sanders wins, the spin is already in play that It is moot because Clinton is the nominee, get used to it. A win either way.
Which opens another possibility: Internal Clinton campaign polling may show that Sanders could squeak by in Cali if the tricksters fail to suppress the vote. This full-throated Long Live the Queen may be a way to steal Bernie’s thunder. Like, yeah, great job, you won Cali, but I’m still the nominee. It’s yet another resistance-is-futile attempt to make voting seem pointless. If that’s how it is, it resembles the Nevada convention fight, too much for too little. It’s like, step aside Pyrrhus, there’s a new strategist in town.
‘This ham-handed stab at an aura of inevitability won’t carry her over the threshold.’
I firmly believe this to be true.
Yesterday was “peak Hillary.” Her victory roses are already browning at the edges in today’s hot sun.
Meanwhile, where is “Bill”? Probably sailing to Catalina with some bimbos, in a boat named “Monkey Business.”
those are black roses…lying at her feet.
It’s one thing to be dragged over the finish-line, but they are trying to drag Hillary up to the starting line for the general election. From her on out, she is on her own.
The electoral map already looks ugly for her.
I can’t help but wonder if the super delegates might be having second thoughts. If they let this go to convention – the delegates might abandon her on mass.
Wasn’t there a Roman Emperor who was assassinated by his own counsel?
Dewey defeats Truman.
Udall wins Wisconsin
More like thirty pieces of silver…
Talk me down.
I never expected Bernie to win the nomination but, rather than being encouraged by his success, with each day that passes, as I see more establishment propaganda masquerading as news and more evidence of election fraud, I am increasingly worried that nothing can change. We have:
(1) Corruption at every level of government, with the exception of very few individuals. Look at the net worth of those in Congress, and it’s obvious that almost all are owned by special interests.
(2) Concomitant and resultant lack of balance of power of executive, legislative and judiciary, which is similarly paid for, either by funding influencing elections of judges or indirectly by funding of President and Congress involved in Supreme Ct appointments. No checks and balances, total power. Since they are all bought by the wealthy and the corporations (incl. finance, MIC, health care, energy), no hope of escaping the special favors for special interests, the revolving door, and legislation that only increases their stranglehold.
(3) Lawlessness at the highest levels, from passing on war crimes, to not prosecuting criminals in finance, to slap-on-the wrist punishment for types like Petraeus in contrast to that for the lesser down, and what I believe will be either a pardon for Hillary from Obama or the suppression of evidence of the Clinton Foundation pay-to play, or both. Constitution and the law suspended to protect those at the top.
(4) Militarized police force and suspension of the right to peaceful protest and assembly (look at how OWS was treated).
(5) Almost no honest and critical reporting, except for blogs such as NC and many of NC’s links, and blackout of what is inconvenient for TPTB, such as Bernie’s campaign. More people getting news from Facebook, increasing control by TPTB of what they read.
(6) Net neutrality precarious. I think that if a third party or true progressive movement within the Democratic party is blacked out by the MSM, but gaining enough traction through the Internet to threaten TPTB, the result will be that sites like this will need to pay higher prices for higher speeds, so blogs like NC will not be able to afford the cost and will be slowed to death. Plus, our communication is monitored by TPTB.
(7) If an honest candidate manages to squeak through, fallback is rigged elections.
If Trump wins the election, he won’t turn the country around. He can maybe hold off the TPP for a time (if it has not already been passed) and not initiate more wars (granted, those two things alone are better than the alternative with HRC), but I don’t see the extensive, interconnected, and overwhelming power structure changing. Even with Bernie, It would take many years and many elections to replace the Congress with decent officials working for the public instead of for personal enrichment, all the time battling factors above, which would intensify in response to a populist threat. Is that even possible, or are we too far gone? Can an effective third party be established, or the Democratic party reformed from within, given the obstacles?
I am going to go vote in my local primary. Maybe I will find some encouraging responses when I check back later today. I am feeling rather hopeless right now.
All I can say is so are many of us, so you are not crazy and you are not alone.
I’ve been thinking, and can only surmise that TPTB see the USA as hanging on to its hegemony by its fingernails, and feel that if “we” don’t knock our potential opponents out now, we never will have the relative strength to do it again. To preserve American hegemony, they need Clinton to win; Sanders is unlikely to play ball, and Trump isn’t an insider enough to be trusted to get with and stay with the program (he very well might, but they don’t want to leave it to chance).
This scenario would explain a great deal.
Hear hear.
Also explains our irrational drive to restart the Cold War, and contain both Russia and China from becoming the economic and military equals they can become.
Hillary called Iraq a business opportunity. Best business opportunity this country ever had was the original Cold War. “Please, sir, may I have another?”
I see things very differently. Maybe this sounds crazy, but all those things you wrote above have been true for years. Nothing new here.
Now we see the AP’s call, Pelosi’s endorsement, some potential voter suppression in CA, we get to see the thuggishness on full display, as Lambert writes, “they are who we thought they were”. It gives me cause for OPTIMISM that they’ve got to resort to this kind of ham-fisted stuff to ‘keep order’ as it were. Trump keeps saying whacky stuff and yet still the polls are fairly close.
Neoliberalism/Neo-conservative policies RELENTLESSLY create their own opposition as the ‘losers’ from these policies grow in numbers. More and more messy propaganda is required to try to hold back the opposition.
Trump went down to SC and openly insulted GW Bush’s atrocious record in a debate and GAINED support for doing it!!! Think about that one and take heart. This was UNTHINKABLE 4 years ago, even less than a year ago!
Right now, Bernie supporters are being radicalized as we write. Being steamrolled out of the party will do that. Yes, he’s 74 and a spent force for the next election, but Kashama Sawant is waiting in the wings and she’s already winning the fight for $15 in WA state. She can run on her ability to “get things done”. If she doesn’t win, someone even more radical will pop up. This is what it means to relentlessly create the opposition.
Corporate Dems may win this one, but don’t worry, we’re playing the long game. HRC will preside over a badly fractured Dem party and a Republican one that will smell weakness from day one. Clinton will probably try to start a war that everyone opposes from the start and her poll ratings will dive and impeachment proceeding will begin shortly thereafter.
Take heart and pass the popcorn, things are just starting to get interesting!!!
+1
That is an interesting story about the Oracle accounting for fraud. I mean cloud services.
I can’t help thinking a lot of bean counters at IBM and Microsoft are reading about this lawsuit with some messy pants. Of course, as my husband observed, “When Enron collapsed its accountants and managers weren’t raptured from the earth. They’re almost all still out there”
Yep, and I imagine the only one that’s having trouble finding work is the one who blew the whistle.
Real Clear Politics has a new poll with Trump only down 7 points in CT. Yes, that’s right, he’s not that far off in Connecticut!!! How’s that for a meltdown?
Oh, Sanders wins by 19 points but who’s paying attention?
I do hope Trump makes some noise on this TPP hidden emails thing. This sounds juicy. I struggle to understand how Trump’s the crazy one when Clinton wants to give away national sovereignty with all these new trade treaties.
Looking over the comments section here, it seems there’s a widespread feeling that the general election would essentially be a circus ending with an electoral rout of Trump.
My two cents: I disagree. I certainly think the Clinton/Trump GE would be a circus, but even with all the demographic challenges he’d face, it’s far from a done deal. Clinton is a bad campaigner, and worse, Trump would have the pick of the litter in terms of picking a cemetery’s worth of skeleton’s in the Clinton closet to attack. Being in the political business as long as the Clintons, it’s safe to say that whatever happens to be the issue of the day between the formal nomination and the election, Trump would be able to make direct attacks on Clinton — not even personal attacks, necessarily, but issue-oriented attacks that sting Clinton directly. Business, the safety net, trade, military spending,, environmentalism… whatever the issue, Clinton has been on record about it at some point, and has almost certainly been on the wrong side of it. Trump need only rise to the challenge of slinging the mud, and I’m sure he’ll find attacks that start to stick.
The race would certainly be the Democrat’s to lose, but Clinton is the one candidate who could pull that rabbit out of the electoral hat. In 2008, I was certain she was the only candidate that the Democrats could run and risk a loss. The catastrophe of the W presidency was apparent for all to see, and the Republicans certainly earned being swept out of office… but even under those ideal conditions, I’m not sure Hillary could’ve pulled it off. She brings too much baggage to the table — and curiously, she seems blind to the fact that the Republican smear job against her from the 90s healthcare debate managed to stick in the minds of a lot of right-leaning voters from that period, even to this day.
It’s not even necessarily a smear job if it’s true:
That would be the same Donna Shalala who now heads the Clinton Foundation. And the same Judge Lamberth who’s in charge of one of the Judicial Watch FOIA suits, in which Lamberth ordered depositions in response to “bad faith” by the State Dept.
Clinton scandals never die. They just roll on like the mighty Mississippi.
Clinton scandals never die. They just roll on like the mighty Mississippi.
Ol’ Ma Clinton, that ol’ Ma Clinton
She must know somethin’, but don’t say nothin’
She just keeps rollin’, she keeps bank rollin’ along
..Clinton is a bad campaigner, and worse, Trump would have the pick of the litter in terms of picking a cemetery’s worth of skeleton’s in the Clinton closet to attack…
As G. P. pointed out a couple days ago, HRC will never be able to get in front of the serial attacks by Trump, as they pile up her responses wont matter, except for the poorly articulated ones that will linger.
If Trump is strategic, he wont even have to dip into the well for personal attacks, plenty of legitimate and outrageous moral/legal/policy choices to choose from.
Trumps equivalent of rolling thunder
Trump’s serial attacks will be like Ali’s flurry of jabs.
Learn from the Greatest.
You need to look at the electoral college map, not demographics. In the Quinnipiac poll last month, Trump was close to even with Hillary in 3 of 6 swing states. If he wins those, plus NC, he wins the Presidency. He even has a good shot at NY state. He plays well upstate and in Long Island.
last night I learned of this watching Rachel Maddow. First
thing I talked to some friends, next came here where I knew I would find others similarly outraged, and made a comment.
only just know did I read the original AP article. Two observations: the AP article though absolutely making not breaking news, is way more measured than the full-screen pic of Clinton with a check as nominee next to her name they kept flashing on the teevee.
And the comments over there are horrific: a bunch of Trumpeters talking about how far left Obama and Clinton are and how important it is to defeat her. Lots of talk about the 2nd Amendment and SC.
Not that I will vote for her, but scary…
Sovereign wealth funds throw funding lifeline to tech ventures
A dead unicorn bounce. As they say on the Street, when Joe Sixpack shows up, the party’s over.
wow. nothing but hate and echo chamber here right now. I will check back after the elections. Whew….
I remember when there was analysis…commentary…
Good luck to everyone.
did you make substantive comments back then?
Heh heh. My thoughts, as well, whenever I see a mystery name tut-tutting.
Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding. The difficulty of bringing impeachment proceedings is a substitute for statutes of limitations.
What on earth are you responding to? Do you see the word “impeachment” anywhere in this thread?
article on alleged commodities bubble in China says ” they traded enough cotton in a single day last month to make one pair of jeans for everyone on Earth”
my piece on oil trading in the US, which has been cited in articles on oilprice and yahoo finance, showed that daily oil trading for of just one oil contract on NYMEX was more than 100 times the amount of oil we produce daily:
http://focusonfracking.blogspot.com/2016/01/new-low-oil-prices-and-how-theyre-set.html
(ie, the specutlative commodities casino is everywhere)
Bloomberg editorial board bravely comes out in favor of more commercialization of national parks:
There was also a time when the park service could rely on a government appropriation that was sufficient for maintaining the parks. Wonder where all the money went.
But in fairness to Bloomberg, the editorial could just as well have been written by any New Democrat.
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-07/a-little-commercialism-can-help-national-parks
First, let’s try naming rights, before letting in fast food restaurants.
We can live with the New Silk Road Park formerly known as the Yosemite N.P., or the Great Flying Pigeon Bicycle National Monument.
I’ll just leave this here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-07/how-citigroup-trader-mark-tsesarsky-turned-toxic-assets-into-gold
Related to 3% down mortgages, perchance?
Is it time for Big Short II yet?
$hillary morganatic coronation…Lucky 4 me I have triple citizenship…
oh wait…cuba and greece…
lordie…
oh well, back to the coal mines…and onto countercoup 2018…at least $hillary or trumpette will only be one term regents….
I used to complain that one needn’t watch Fox news to hear what the mount Rush more crowd was thinking, because MSNBC, (which meant ALL the news programs on that channel, since they all cover the exact same thing), gave Limbaugh more media attention than Fox. Likewise, you complain about the MSM’s gajillion dollars worth of free coverage, but his name is referenced in your list no less than 15 times, which reminds me of a quip I heard about six months ago concerning a little contest yo could play with yourself. To whit, See how long it takes after any two people get together and start talking before they mention the “T” word. (The last time I got together with the person I told this to, it was about an hour before she did so, which is way over the average of 11 minutes).
Hahaha…wow, remember how Rush would destroy the GOP with his anti-Clinton screeds in 1993? Those were the days…
Stanford afluenza rapist appealing his 90 days of house arrest…it does not get any stranger…taxpayer money being used to defend this misogyny…dear valarie jarrett..why dont we start by yanking dads security clearance.. Otherwise you are facilitating this carnival…
It sounds like the dad is a first rate narcissist..(Didn’t even bother to think of the steep price this girl will pay for YEARS.)Is it any wonder Jr. didn’t bother thinking about the trust he was destroying for this young woman by forcing himself on her?
If Sanders is sexist for opposing Clinton, doesn’t that make Clinton antisemitic for opposing Sanders?
+2
Yes.
+ infinity
BUT, it would’ve been spun by bought and paid for corporate media as:
SANDERS CALLS HILLARY AN ANTI-SEMITE
…with all the attendant anger and vitriol shot back at Bernie, and then:
This would lead the $hill to rush in to the arms of Bibi and cause her to announce that January 21st, 2017 we will be attacking Iran to prove to everyone she just loves the Jews.
See how the Hillaroids can spin ANYthing? Literally A-N-Y-thing when you have the help of the media.
US total ban on Chinese Steel.
I would also suggest a total ban on Chinese billionaires.
Yes, they will bring money to invest, to generate jobs here, but only if they have not looted the Chinese 99%.
http://peterturchin.com/blog/2016/03/22/the-new-caliphate-what-should-be-done-about-the-islamic-state-part-i/
Peter Turchin has written about ISIS using some of the same concepts as in the NY review of books mentions. He also predicted a rise of a Caliphate as a response to the Iraq invasion in his 2005 book.
About US Steel Corporation, which has been through such difficult and interesting times: Here is the corporate explication of its history, fascinating stuff:
https://www.ussteel.com/uss/portal/home/aboutus/history/!ut/p/b1/vZTJkqJAEIafpR_ApqCK7YiyFvtSiFwIWUSwBW1UhKcfe2ZiYi7dfRkn85QRf8QXf_4ZSaVUQqXd9tbU20vTd9u3jznlMo0wDNJt3hW0mAeG57FcYAaMJkBqTSXehhFXgzFqSrzDPlrqxAijXT83dW3m51i-LpKuHyG5rMJd6GRVpPBQdstxUex1Fery0ReJqNJ6t1f2AVlO6_GiYlOsD-DAuyXfXgxf6FCfSMjo9OCsJFJaL5KSJC7k_BJ35h7tEXtizK5hmXged1ojiPVWSNVV6cTuVTnfYyI779tmoC8WjtWMvd76Yiewqj75Ly8Pk5vPTYKY_W4HmEqvw_A6FsdXVoCQo2JvA5cfK1GUIMMRGDgzSYe5CPxCzU01uG1zF9SRjydy3t7moq9wn1ay3QbZW3GsbKxYKwIulxO3qEap4nLhfhhPR0lq17njBFaty1OUZh13PMG3lVz3uEIXTITBakXJcydSmu9N4a2tAR5EZ2Bz3DiE4axib7diheTOzO-p7MI5bV09lrS3Nf9-lSZsntn-hdo8_PIZspdqbKEg1DErAgOykWhoiBEEQEVUAlAWttPJmA9z0PKBYRMaRwq40wqg7dmKHXJgbHFFO8qBpgFtOoowOQpDO5YP7DL3yviRtCTdG3lafgPU4NOBusc9gNgIY02HQHgW8M8JucSigcEynizZCLgR_2ygAHzlARRWNKOxNJLQ_3bIPgloAqT9ypCzIDBkM9RcEj0y_PfANZV-9Qh-_okvBS78LQCflAQoR–PFXU63iz25uz-7tBYSD8A5W1bJA!!/dl4/d5/L2dBISEvZ0FBIS9nQSEh/
What the executives think of the nations and locales they feed off of:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/us-business/us-steel-canada-threatens-to-shut-operations-if-court-rejects-request/article26429507/
How it works, this is a repeat I think: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-offshore-outsourcing-of-american-jobs-a-greater-threat-than-terrorism/18725
And what employees think of the corp:
http://www.indeed.com/cmp/United-States-Steel/reviews
Wiki on the company:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Steel
I was once married to the daughter of a chief PR flack for the company. I guess that is “disclosure?” Interesting to be the only environmentalist in the building when in her parents’ company at the many business functions and parties…
A joke: Former chair of US Steel David Roderick, who presided over a lot of the shrinking of US Steel’s business and its conversion to an “energy company” with the CASH purchase of Marathon Oil (where did all that CASH come from, hmmm?), and various tricks to escape liability for pensions and environmental insults and breach of promises cross his heart not to shut down the polluting mills that provided JAWBs and fed communities in exchange for evasion of taxes and waivers of permitting mandates for discharges and emissions and safety stuff, died and of course was sent to Hell. A few days later, Satan calls God and says “I know this guy Roderick deserves to be down here, but you have to give me a break and take him up.” “Why is that?” asks God. Satan bleats “Because that bastard has been shutting down all my furnaces!”
If he has any sense, President Trump will use his 60 day window for overruling a potential ITC decision in favor of US Steel, by negotiating some concessions from China … then calling off the nuclear option.
A total ban on Chinese steel imports would escalate quickly into a full-fledged trade (and possibly shooting) war.
If that happens, the US economy would plummet into recession like a pin-pricked balloon … and I would be short selling stocks till my fingers bleed.
I don’t know the solution here but there is a big problem that goes beyond economics. IIRC China has added in the last 5 years more capacity than total existing capacity in North America and Europe combined. It wasn’t added because of global demand; it was added because all Chinese capacity is lower cost than the lowest cost capacity in Europe or NA. “Dumping” doesn’t really get at the heart of the problem.
Mish and his ilk see no problem with this because to them cost/price is all. But it isn’t all.
FWIW, I don’t agree that a total ban “would escalate quickly into a full-fledged trade (and possibly shooting) war.” In fact, I would guess it would get the Chinese to make some concessions pretty quickly. The Chinese authorities have much more to lose from a trade war with us than we do. Plus, there is no one in authority on our side who would favor a trade war. So even if the ITC ruled in favor of US Steel, I’m quite sure the message coming from the Oministration to the Chinese would be “don’t worry – this is a one-off.”
The U.S. already clamped swingeing anti-dumping duties on Chinese steel.
A total import ban hinges on a claim that Chinese hackers stole some know-how from US Steel in 2014. That’s far-fetched. Both Asia and Europe advanced their steelmaking know-how far beyond the U.S. decades ago, just as they did with high-speed trains.
To be more specific about Chinese retaliation, they would let the yuan slide — more than making up for lost U.S. sales by unleashing a fresh wave of global deflation.
Schumer would yap like an enraged poodle, but it would be too late: world economy gone over the waterfall.
If we want to start Depression II, this would be a promising way to go about it. And Trump is just flaky enough to let it happen in 2017, when the ITC decision is rendered (O will be outta there).
Really dumb headline on the Zuckerberg piece in the Telegraph. Just because Zuckerberg thought of a clever way to get people to give up their personal info so he could monetize it does not make him any kind of expert on security. In fact even a quick review of Facebook’s history suggests he knows little or nothing about the subject.
o Re. Go Inside an Industrial Plant That Sucks Carbon Dioxide Straight Out of the Air | MIT Technology Review (David L) — So go climb a tree? Excellent suggestion!
o Re. State Department Blocks Release Of Hillary Clinton-Era TPP Emails Until After The Election | International Business Times — Invoking Nancy Pelosi’s hortatory Obamacara speech, “We have to pass this bill [elect our next neoliberal president] to see what’s in it!”
o Re. GE Considers Scrapping the Annual Raise Bloomberg — Except for the C-suiters, naturally.
https://youtu.be/kI-un8rHP14
What difference in brain structure can predict behavior that is either liberal or conservative? And in part, where do our political convictions come from: rational deliberation, or biological determinism and how much of both? Psychiatrist Gail Saltz discusses results from recent brain scan vs. behavior research.
Can’t post to the pharma corruption article for some reason, either that or links to Fortune and WND are being blocked for some reason. Kind of a shame because both had excellent articles on the corruption between the Clinton Foundation and pharma.