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Dear patient readers,
A bit behind on links due to fundraiser stuff (and it is going well so far)! Will have a few more by 7:30, particularly on international topics.
Kumbuka the Gorilla is recaptured at London Zoo BBC (J-LS). Very handsome!
Lonely Shanghai seniors now have to buy something if they want to cruise all day in Ikea’s cafeteria Quartz (resilc)
America’s cheese glut is really getting out of hand Vox (resilc). This is despite my foodie relatives, who eat up and down market, observing that cheese is on just about everything in restaurants in recent years.
43 million gallons of milk have been dumped so far this year TreeHugger (resilc)
Female geoscientists get worse recommendation letters than men do ars technica (Chuck L)
Facebook has repeatedly trended fake news since firing its human editors Washington Post (Chuck L)
AI’s blind spot: garbage in, garbage out Boing Boing (resilc)
Thailand Succession
Brexit
Tusk warns UK: ‘No compromises’ in Brexit talks Politico: “‘The only real alternative to a hard Brexit, is no Brexit.'” What we’ve been saying before “hard Brexit” was a term of art. EU leaders, from Merkel on down, made clear from the very day after the vote that if the UK rejected the free movement of people, it would not have access to the single market. It is astonishing how many times they’ve had to say this to begin to penetrate the UK’s fantasies.
Walloon revolt against Canada deal torpedoes EU trade policy Politico. This is huge. The Canadian deal was seen as easy-peasy compared to any Brexit deal. And BTW that took seven years to negotiate before the approval phase began.
Deeply troubled by blockage of #CETA trade agreement by Belgian regional govt. #EU in true crisis if this cannot be solved urgently.
— John Clancy (@EUJohnClancy) October 13, 2016
Transgender rights: France scraps sterilisation in status law BBC. Wow, I never knew this had been a plan. The one trans-sexual I was friendly with, in Oz, chose to go to Thailand and have the the procedure done. She seemed very happy to have done that. Takes a lot of conviction.
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
George Orwell never dreamed of advertising as invasive as Yahoo’s proposal ars technica (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/yahoo-wants-to-patent-billboards-that-spy-on-the-public-for-targeted-ads/)
How a Facial Recognition Mismatch Can Ruin Your Life Intercept (Brian C). I saw a startup in this area some years back with bleeding-edge tech. It made me really leery. Just the way they conceptualized the problem struck me as too easy to generate false positives (as in the way they look for points on the face to anchor measurements could be distorted by lighting. That’s confirmed more recently by the way mere makeup can defeat facial recognition systems).
Ukraine/Russia
Russia Shifts Focus From Oil To Agriculture OilPrice. Russia was always more diversified economically than widely assumed.
Syraqistan
Alleged “Attack” On U.S. Ships To Justify Continued War On Yemen Moon of Alabama
Times Finally Realizes: Netanyahu Doesn’t Care What Obama Thinks LobeLog (resilc)
Imperial Collapse Watch
The End of Interventionism Boston Review. Did they not get the memo from the Clinton campaign?
How Hillary Clinton and U.S. officials bungled nation-building in Afghanistan Slate (resilc)
Clinton E-mail Tar Baby
2016
It’s Official: This Election Is Driving Americans Nuts Bloomberg
Clinton vs. Trump: a Zero-Sum Game Counterpunch
Clinton Leads by 4 Points in North Carolina, Trails Trump by 1 in Ohio: WSJ/NBC News/Marist Poll Wall Street Journal
Donald Trump claims he is victim of establishment conspiracy Financial Times
How Julian Assange Turned WikiLeaks Into Trump’s Best Friend Bloomberg. As the Japanese say, “Teki no teki ga watashi no mikata de ata (Clive helpfully provided: 敵の 敵が 私の味方であった): “Enemy of enemy is friend.” (proper Japanese speakers can improve my transliteration in comments).
Republican fundraiser Georgette Mosbacher: Trump is a ‘decent man’ Financial Times. Mosbacher is seen as a class act among Republicans, but he’d need a small army of female endorsers to even begin to dent the barrage of accusations in the press in the last few days. Actually, even that would fail. The ONLY thing that could begin to turn this around and this is na ga happen, is if some women who knew the Trump accusers personally said their accounts were revisionist history: yes, he had gotten physical with them but the accuser had told them she liked it or at least wasn’t bothered by the encounter shortly after it occurred.
Independents Approved of Trump Threatening to Jail HRC New York Magazine (resilc)
Michelle Obama takes the fight to Donald Trump Politico. This appears to have been a very effective salvo.
Former Sanders Supporter Aims To Get More African-Americans To Vote Republican CBS (resilc)
How a President Hillary Clinton will handle a hostile Congress Financial Times
Donald Trump’s Legacy Could Live On After the Election Atlantic
Hillary Clinton And Corporate Media Shamefully ‘Stronger Together’ Mediaite (Phil U)
7 Awesomely Random Food Tips from the WikiLeaks Dump Mother Jones. Frosty Zoom: “Mother Jones, RIP”
How airline executives and Democratic power players have made flying even more miserable ProPublica (resilc)
Liberal groups urge Schumer to reject Bayh for Banking gavel The Hill
New Obama diversity plan welcomed by minorities in national security McClatchy (Chuck L). Movies and TV depict Langley as WASPY…
Journalist Amy Goodman to Turn Herself in to North Dakota Authorities Democracy Now! (Glenn F)
Wells Fargo’s new CEO previously denied that the bank’s sales culture had any problems Boing Boing
Wells Fargo Profit Slides as Bank Battles to Restore Reputation Wall Street Journal. Um the settlement was IIRC Sept 9 and the outrage didn’t really start till a week later. There can’t have been enough account cancellation to have an impact that quarter (and the body of the story does say that). The impact will show up in future quarters. But I wonder if they used this quarter to add to loss reserves (which dampens reported profits) to release them later. Wells has been one of the biggest gamers on this front. Paging Chris Whalen…
Elizabeth Warren urges Barack Obama to fire SEC chief Mary Jo White Financial Times. If Obama told her he’d lost confidence in her, she’d certainly go (but what happens if the agency were reduced to three commissioners?). Interesting that Warren is trying to forestall MJW from going into lame duck mode. But this also looks to reflect of Dem confidence in a Clinton win. Warren is sending a big message to Clinton that MJW is not to be held over any longer than minimally necessary and Warren will go after anyone who is not considerably more bloody-minded.
Where Will All the Money Go When All Three Market Bubbles Pop? Charles Hugh Smith (Richard R)
In Defense of the 800 Pound Gorilla of the Public Pension World Tony Butka, CityWatch
Class Warfare
Outsourced IT workers ask Feinstein for help, get form letter in return ComputerWorld
Dangerous idiots: how the liberal media elite failed working-class Americans Guardian (Joe H)
Millennials Are Not Lazier Than Boomers RealClearScience (Phil U). I don’t see how anyone can think that. One, young people are always more energetic than older people. Two, everything is massively more time compressed than 30 years ago. Three, people are expected to work all the time unless they are in a blue collar job. Four, juggling multiple jobs is extra work even if it doesn’t show up in pay and way many more young people have to do that than older people did (except in chronically marginal economies like Maine).
Independent contractors for Uber and Airbnb live in just a few cities Slate
What a Pizza Delivery Driver Sees Atlantic (resilc). One of our former tech people was a top Pizza Hut delivery person and got a scholarship. Her nickname was Krash. Derived from the opening sequence in Snow Crash, I assume.
Antitode du jour. MGL: “Contented kitty in Colmar, France”
And a bonus antidote:
Changing of the guard#freedom pic.twitter.com/aPhWRfr8Tv
— Michael Keyes (@michaelkeyes) October 14, 2016
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
302 comments
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America’s cheese glut is really getting out of hand
I remember first really taking notice of the pervasiveness of cheese about 15 years ago when Ball Park Frank released their individually wrapped, microwaveable hot dogs stuffed with cheese balls that would melt into the “meat”. GROSS.
That combined with my lifelong struggle of ordering hamburger’s, as people seem to have redefined “hamburger” as what they used to call a “cheeseburger”. Maybe it’s me. I can only stand milk if it is with ice. Warm dairy is…. shudder (unless it is cooked like pizza cheese, etc…)
I wonder if in the US production of cheese (specifically, low quality processed cheese) has become a method of storing excess milk – in the EU and NZ, they mostly turn surplus milk into powder products. US Dairy Council figures would suggest this is the case. A friend of mine did research on baby milk formula in China and most of it comes from Europe and NZ, very little from the US (in contrast to other milk products including cheese). I wonder if this reflects consumer preference or a deliberate supply chain strategy.
There does seem to be a tradition in the US of food producers producing surpluses first, and then use marketing to find someone to buy it. As a European, I noticed the preponderance of cheap overprocessed cheese nearly everywhere in the US, while reasonable quality ‘proper’ cheese seemed (to me) hard to find outside prosperous neighbourhood shops. Even something as straightforward as a takeaway pizza has far more cheese in the US than its European equivalent. The contrast is also obvious when comparing a typical dairy cooler section in average supermarkets in most European countries (the Netherlands excepted – they love processed stuff) and the US.
Dunno if you visited Wisconsin, but the state motto is “eat cheese or die.”
i think wisconsin made margerine illegal back in the day.
I remember that as a kid, when one bought margarine, it came as a WHITE slab in a plastic package, with a little packet of yellow dye inside. You had to massage the packet to distribute the dye throughout, so the resulting “product” would be yellow. A reminder to all consumers just how revolting margarine was; would drive them to buy butter instead.
This tale reveals how Truly Old I am.
Oh god, margarine, food of the devil.
I had the misfortune of growing up in the 1970’s in a household where my father had a serious heart attack. As he couldn’t bear to watch us eat butter we were therefore all condemned to cover our bread and potatoes with a particular brand of margarine my mother had been convinced to buy by the adverts.
My first introduction to the cynicism of capitalism came when a food poisoning outbreak caused a recall of margarine. It turned out that the brand we ate, along with two other major brands, and several supermarket own brands, were withdrawn – they all came from the same factory in Scotland.
The good thing was that it finally persuaded my mother to return to proper Irish butter, to all our great relief. And now we know that was almost certainly healthier.
I still remember the cramps in my five-year-old hands from this, especially when my mother brought home more than one package from the market. I’d let it warm up a bit on the kitchen table first, as it was impossible to knead when it was still cold. Still, it was fascinating to watch the little orange capsule become pale yellow “butter” as it mixed with what had at first looked exactly like the Crisco that our chicken was fried in, and there was also the pride that came from being a valued part of a mysterious adult process.
The way my father tells it, it wasn’t illegal, but they weren’t allowed to sell it colored yellow to look like butter. There was a separate dye packet you had to open and work into the white blob of margarine.
I went to camp near Grand Rapids, Michigan with the daughter of the inventor. They lived in a mansion. Trying to recall her name. Started with a “P”. Peters, I think. It was invented during WWII.
My wife recalls that it was her job to mix the yellow dye into the white margarine, which she did by repeatedly throwing the package against a wall …until … one time it broke open and splatter all over the kitchen.
It still is. Wis. Stat. 97.18 regulates the sale of oleomargarine in the great State of Wisconsin in part by the threat of imprisonment to dairy-substitute scofflaws.
The statute bans “[t]he serving of colored oleomargarine or margarine at a public eating place as a substitute for table butter…unless it is ordered by the customer.” It also may not be served at any state facility unless directed by a physician and ordered by the Superintendent for the health of a specific student or inmate.
Violation of section 97.18 can result in a jail term of up to 3 months, 6 months for repeat offenders.
“whaddya in for?”
“margarine.”
“guards i need protective custody!”
h/t arlo guthrie
That was more brilliant than what most of us believed back in the day!
Wasn’t it the case when margarine was first introduced Kansas (Kentucky?) passed a law requiring it to be dyed blue in order to put people off buying it?
Incidentally, cheese with everything epidemic going strong here in UK as well.
“Come smell our dairy air”
Hey, they don’t call us Cheeseheads for nothing!
I’m one of those people who thinks virtually everything is better with cheese, yet I prefer my hamburgers cheeseless.
Better yet with beef!
And cheese, bleucheese. Trying to think of the last one i’ve had?
Probably last year here , pub at brewery: http://twobrothersbrewing.com/restaurants/tap-house/
Great spot for a weekend lunch and beer interlude, right on the Southern tangent line of Fermilab’s Tevatron (inactive since 2011 so you don’t run the risk of being hit in the face with an errant proton).
Beef isn’t needed for a burger. I often get them with a patty made from soy or black beans.
I agree about bleu cheese. Umami heaven!
Too bad the Soylent burgers were making people sick.
There are other soy brands out there. And there are also alternatives that are a mish-mash of various vegetables and mushrooms
That must be why Obama is pushing TPP so hard. All that excess cheese! Time to lower the trade deficit!
Joking aside, one of the key drivers of TPP, etc., is to overcome consumer resistance around the world to US Dairy, with all its free added hormones. A key element of those Pacts is that origin labelling will in many cases no longer be acceptable.
Interesting. I did not know dairy was specifically involved. It is so ridiculous that these million dollar companies would rather force their product other people that know better than to buy something pumped full of harmful trash instead of making a better product.
Innovation! Don’t like the game? Flip the board!
Many dairy products (even store brands) are labeled as coming from non-rbST treated cows. It’s not that difficult to find. Apparently the dairy industry has responded to consumer demand for less hormones in food, even if the meat industry hasn’t.
You can’t remove the natural hormones from dairy, the ones designed to bring a calf from 200 lbs to a ton.
Perhaps our diet, based on wheat, meat, and dairy, is what has many of us looking like cows.
I read recently that eating cheese has an endorphin effect IIRC similar to that produced by drugs. I’ve been dairy-free for a long time and have noticed over the years that when discussing not consuming dairy products it’s inevitable I’ll hear “I could never give up cheese;” or that cheese-eaters defend eating it despite the evidence I provide in a similar way to drunks defending drinking alcohol, so a light went on when I read this news.
Food for thought.
I’m 54 years old, don’t smoke, drink only in moderation, still fit into most of my size 4-6 wardrobe, and my doctor pronounces me in excellent health, so I’m not going to give up my cheese “vice”, either. I don’t think my cheese habit impairs my ability to drive, so if I do get some kind of “rush” from it (which, aside from the similar pleasure I get from eating other foods I enjoy the taste of, I haven’t noticed) it’s really no one’s business but my own. I don’t see why you feel the need to put anyone in the position of needing to “defend” his or her eating (or drinking) habits that do not have a direct impact on you.
To be clear, I’m not a veganazi, people can eat what they want AFAIC. It’s just an observation.
Yes, indeed, seems that milk has an opiate-like effect. Casomorphins, to be precise. Paper from the NIH here, less official popular treatment at a vegan site here.
Do you mean that origin labelling will actually be forBIDDen? By TPP law? If that fact is really a fact and could be viralized to all the various publics involved, it might embiggen popular opposition to TPP and etc.
There is plenty out there on the issue – this is a relatively level headed article as an example.
This has been a much bigger issue in Europe and Japan, presumably because there are few countries with worse environmental and health protections on food than the US. Its European and Japanese consumers who really fear American beef and grain products.
Whoops. Some sudden “Regime Change”(tm) must be coming round to Belgium, How ever will we survive without access to yellow lead paint for road marking?
Hail Wallonia!
A Grateful Mankind turns its face to you.
PolutoniumKun,
Chinese consumers do not trust American consumer products, specifically anything that goes inside the body. Rightly so. Specifically, there was a scandal from P&G where they added carcinogens to their Chinese version of a popular cosmetics line: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB115913591230672513 . The fallout from that set back American consumer goods in China at least 30 years.
On the contrary, Australia and NZ are seen as “clean and green,” and therefore Chinese tourists visit these destinations, load up on vitamins and baby powder, and take it back to sell to friends in China. There’s also a massive network of resellers. Take a look at the ASX listed Blackmores which has soared in recent years as Chinese took a liking to it. American vitamins are not desired at all, due to the lax / non-existent regulation of supplement manufacturers in the US as opposed to the high standards and strict regimes in Aus/NZ.
American companies just can’t get out of their short term thinking. They love contaminating products with harmful ingredients if it means another penny to the bottom line. Fortunately Chinese consumers are smart and perceive this.
Australia signed a free-trade agreement with China last year, which will allow more food and health products to flow into China. It even allows Australian hospitals to open up in China. America, meanwhile, is going on about starting a trade war.
This is why I am skeptical whenever US consumer firms talk about massive expansion into China. Almost all of them, especially tech, have failed. Americans have poor diplomatic and cultural perception skills, by and large, and expect to be able to brute force their way into China. It doesn’t work.
its true that Chinese consumers have a low opinion of many American products (iPhones notwithstanding), especially in food. I’ve sent many a package of baby milk formula and creams from Ireland to friends in China. This is of course related to the many scandals in China around baby food and other products (they don’t even trust branded products there, so many are counterfeit).
But one of the key aims of the various ‘free trade’ pacts is to remove consumer information, including the origin of foods. There is no doubt that big Ag in the US is behind this – people can’t avoid US dairy if they don’t know where its from.
remember those continual loudspeaker announcements at HKG warning of the penalties for taking too much baby formula back to the mainland?
The Chinese pay unbelievable prices to fly fresh milk in from New Zealand daily to give to their kids. New Zealand has been converting more land to dairy farming trying to keep up.
When I lived in Ukraine, it was Byelorussian products.
In the best Ukrainian traditions, there was a thriving cottage industry in pirating Byelorussian products, specifically, selling toxic Ukrainian crap as the genuine article.
Wow, what an absolutely ridiculous comment. You’re wrong on so many levels.
First, this site and others like zerohedge greatly overestimate the crapification of America vs. the rest of the world. Crapification, also known as (globalized) mass production, is essentially the path of every industry of the 21st century. So to call Americans having ‘poor diplomatic and cultural perception skills’ doesn’t make sense: we are the dominant culture of the last century. Everyone is or has copied our model of mass production and consumerism.
Secondly, if you seriously think that the Chinese distrust American made goods, you should see how they view their own goods: they are terrified of them. Every time I travel to Hong Kong & Shenzen, about 5 or 6 times a year, I send a crate of baby formula and other food goods to my Chinese friends.
The Australia and NZ craze is simply because these countries have decently regulated products and they are 10x closer to mainland China than the US. You need to use more common sense. High end products, like cosmetics, are going to be imported from France and other countries no matter what country you’re in. America was never even known for cosmetics. In addition, the US owns a lot of factories in China, so ‘US’ goods made for Chinese consumers…are MADE IN CHINA!
I would also be wary to say that any country has better goods simply because you believe (erroneously) that American companies are all about the bottom line: ALL companies are about the bottom line (save a few very very high end ones). For example, German cars made today are complete pieces of shit. Why? Because your VW or BMW, though it is ‘German made’ is really made and assembled in Mexico or the US. And believe me when I say that German cars have just as many Chinese components as American cars.
You must be under 40,and you are abjectly misrepresenting our position.
When we refer to “crapification,” it is of goods and services over time in the US and presumably other advanced economies. We aren’t and have NEVER referred to the consumer experience of US consumers v. China.
You can see this at every level. A few of many examples:
I’ve always taken ‘crapification’ to be even broader. To include, for example, the decline in the treatment of workers, the decline in political discourse, etc.
Adding to the list of crapification:
1. Roads:-I-75 from Detroit, Mi to Knoxville, TN (I make a twice yearly trip to the Smoky Mountains) in 2015, out of about 521 miles there were almost 100 miles of orange barrels. Just a week ago the number of orange barrels was about half that. However the section through Toledo, OH is still horrendous where speeds vary between 2 and 40 mph. Also a 20 mile stretch of pavement on the northbound side 50 miles north of Knoxville has weird gashes every 80 feet (one/sec) that are bad enough to make one try to steer around them. On-ramps all up and down the same route are often too short so as to motivate truckers to stay in the center of three lanes whenever possible so as to avoid slow downs waiting for traffic to get up to speed. The section of the same route just north of the Michigan-Ohio border is so uneven that it’s impossible to believe it underwent extensive repairs less than 10 years ago. The list of very bad conditions on I-75 is endless. The same is true of other major arteries that reached epic proportions during the winter of 2013-14. Several people I know lost tires and front ends with damage totalling around $700. Crapifcation of roads? A never ending story and getting worse each decade as far as I can tell.
2. Home computers: As long as one stays with a few applications like word processing, simple spreadsheets and internet browsing, usually (!) everything is fine. But throw photo processing into the mix and one skates out onto thin ice very quickly. Add audio processing (sampled sounds) and it’s a wrap. As of today I have already started my computer twice. New equipment (less than three years old) all the way around on Windows 7. Oh, and if I weary of composing music and decide to edit a few photos? Best to close everything down, let the memory banks clear out and start the machine again and open only the photo editing stuff; close that down and restart to go into music editing software. Crapofication writ large. Just ten years ago and I could do it all on an older main board. Granted, looking like a malicious hacker got ahold of my machines privates but no one I have hired has been able to find anything. Besides, why should I have to be a computer security expert? I’ve studied on it and do all of the best advised practices. But then come to find out our loverly NSA wanted that back door and got it. Crapofication writ large. I’m not the only one in this situation as a perusal of many web sites devoted to the problem will tell you.
3. Small appliances and electronic devices: Each requires its own proprietary power cord and here’s a short list-scanner, hand held GPS, electronic keyboard, USB port, portable hard drive, router, modem, two cell phones, rechargeable battery charger, two Canon cameras (! each with its own battery and accompanying charger that do not mix and match), notebook. One end of each of these children’s plugs fits into the standard wall socket -identical- the other business end? each have their own organic shape. I lost track of several of these and had to give up on the orphaned child. Seems like a minor issue until you look under my desk and wonder where the cords go. I need an associate’s degree in electrical engineering to deal with it-which I don’t have. Fortunately, two devices are USB powered (keyboard) and Firewire powered (audio interface). My point is that the lack of standards here is deliberate and allows manufacturers (like Canon) to rip off the consumer. Want to move up into the world of professional cameras? ok then, you won’t mind paying 180 pieces of flint for a power cord now will you? After all you shelled out 4k $ for the lens and camera. Crapofication.
The Canon issue is really separate but it snugs in so well I threw it in there.
American farmers use a hormone to boost production of milk which is illegal in China (and most of the industrialized world). I have seen Kraft cheese slices on sale in China, but I suspect they source the small amount of milk in that chemical product from outside USA.
This shows how silly it can get in China, as Chinese dairy farmers dope their milk with water and then use protein analogs, etc to get their numbers right. Hence the melamine poisoning fiasco.
All that surplus and yet there are still reports of food banks worried about not having enough protein to offer clients. Is this a production problem or a distribution problem?
Speaking of which, there’s the matter of dumping all that milk. Here’s something from a 2014 report from a network of foodbanks:
http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/news-and-updates/press-room/press-releases/feeding-america-food-banks-have-crucial-need-for-more-milk.html
How much would it actually cost the government to have surplus milk converted to shelf-stable box milk to go to food banks and school-related nutrition programs? How much does it spend now on medical problems linked to poor nutrition? And irrespective of cost, why are we throwing away food when people are hungry?
Why not just give foodstamps to everyone?
That might improve access, but maldistribution is still wasteful and environmentally harmful.
I must confess I didn’t notice this before last Christmas when I started eating more cheese to implement a high fat low carb diet to lose some weight. When I tasted the Wensleydale & Cranberry cheese at Costco I realized I had found a diamond for only $7lb. Looked it up on the internet & learned that it is a British heritage cheese. Just this last week, it was back at Costco.
The only version sold here is the version with sugared cranberries, but you know, we Americans need sugar in everything. I would prefer a non-sugar version but that is available only on the internet shipped from England. Guess this won’t last past the glut, but I am doing what I can to register my “like.”
Other than Costco, I don’t see a drop in cheese prices here for real cheese, as opposed to the low-fat stuff. Sad they don’t give more to the poor. I consider it much healthier than the high-carb foods given to the poor like breakfast cereal and bread.
What Hillary’s biggest backer — Saim Haban of Univision — wants from her:
The Clinton Foundation — making magic happen!
The last I looked on opensecrets, Saban was the 5th highest contributor. Do you know if that has changed?
Of course he denies any wants…. “I just want to be Haim Saban.” Well that is an admission of guilt is it not?
This is the reference I had in mind:
Rankings differ depending on the scope and number of years examined. Here, the WaPo is including the illustrious William the Impeached in the total.
I swear I wrote back here but I must have closed out the tab before submitting.
…As soon as I came back and re-read your message I got what you intended immediately. I was in election mode.
A new record in crassness is set in Manhattan:
You too can have wealthy “neighbuhs” with lots of gold chains round their neck and their top shirt buttons undone.
Are you sure that wasn’t some sort of art installation by Jeff Koons? A Bubbles statue hidden in a corner somewhere would have fit right in….
The Atlantic notes Trump’s legacy could live on after the election. Yes, if he loses, there’s no reason for him to be a “good loser.” He’ll be a constant critic of HRC if they let him have any press time, and they always do. And not just him. Hill is not well-liked. in fact, she is well-hated.
Hill would be a lot better off losing.
Perhaps she would, but we wouldn’t.
Who exactly are you presuming to speak for?
humanity
humanity in general doesn’t want a war between russia and the us, so no.
humanity doesn’t want Rudy Giuliani in charge of anything…so…yes
And Hillary’s legacy after losing? Not a good loser as well?
Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but HRC doesn’t really have a whole lot of energy. Nor is she the least bit entertaining. Trump calling in whenever he wants is good for ratings. If HRC loses, after all the cheating and media coercion, nobody will want to listen to what she has to say. They don’t now.
Re: The Yemen.
I haven’t watched much news the past couple of days, so I may stand corrected on this, but it does seem to me remarkable that the US has, in firing Tomahawks into Houthi areas in the Yemen, effectively declared war on that country, and yet it has barely raised a squeak in the MSM.
Whether or not the attack on the US Mason was real, accidental, or a false flag, it certainly played right into Saudi Arabias hands. The US is now engaged there. This can’t end well.
It’s tempting to joke that Peace Laureate 0bama is desperately trying to burnish his unbroken record of military quagmire and failure.
But it seems more likely that as in 1930s expansionist Japan, the military intelligence complex drives the policy. 0bama just signs the papers they hand him to “make it all legal.”
One can live in other Third World countries than the US which aren’t at war all the time.
I was wondering if Obama authorised those strikes or whether there is now so little political control over the military that it was decided at a regional level.
I’m not sure – thinking of the 1930’s Japanese example – which is more worrying. A lot of people assume the military is more pragmatic about the use of force than politicians, but I think there is plenty of evidence that there are the same sort of militarist cliques within the US military and State department establishment as there were in the Japanese Army in the 1930’s. Its not unthinkable that the US could be driven to a major conflict without politicians ever being in the decision loop. Another lovely Obama legacy.
The Kwantung Army was super aggressive in Manchuria, where, in the 50s, a major oil field was discovered.
They even set up a puppet state, Manchuko with the Last Emperor – that’s a familiar technique to servants of many empires.
Got their asses kicked though when they tried to expand into territory claimed by the Soviet Union. It’s the main reason Japan decided to attack south and fight the U.S. instead.
He’s busy with his golf. No worries about Hillary being a figurehead however. Lotsa plans….
Her plans will be those of the banking cabal and its agenda for global totalitarian control. We definitely will get WWIII in some form; the bigger the better. Think about it. The global economy is heading for the ultimate crash. If it happens on Hillary’s watch, the Dems will never recover for decades. Thus the ultimate distraction of WAR. Plus war is just so so beneficial to the 1%.
Modern Leadership is the art of *not* signing anything, never end up on tape, and never say anything that has a defined meaning to anyone.
Then, when the shinola hits the fan, one can claim with absolute sincerity that whatever went down “… was the actions of a few misguided individuals … “, “… I could not possibly imagine ….”, “… there have been several failings …. ”
With Obama, though. Benefit of doubt: I kind of get the impression that he is somehow trying to hold the rabid tiger back, signing for the smaller, and the 3’rd party atrocities, putting his foot down on “red lines” where serious US military efforts could be sucked in. I think Obama is maybe trapped between several factions, not all of them entirely rational*, and is trying to avoid disaster as best he may, at least on his watch.
I also get the impression that Trump is desperately trying to lose. I wonder what made him change his mind, given he must know that there will be biblical revenge coming from the Clintons once Hillary is installed in the White House.
*)
In my darker moments, I imagine that there is more than one well funded, well connected, globalized, faction who actually interpret apocalyptic scripture as a ritual that will in summon God.
According to their logic, If one somehow manage to create all of the “signs” of the “end of days”, they can get to meet God directly without having to wait in Purgatory. Now that their “best by” date is well in the past, their brains are fogging up, the joints becoming creaky, they are getting more desperate to see Heaven without going through hell first, which is perhaps why “Russia must pay a price” over Syria.
ISIS is certainly apocalyptic, they openly plan to be defeated in dabiq only to win later in Istanbul through divine intervention.
http://www.inquisitr.com/3558853/isis-preps-for-end-of-the-world-at-dabiq-ancient-prophecy-foretells-end-times-as-us-troops-close-on-ancient-town/
http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/dabiq-islamic-state-wants-battle-end-days#
He’s doing the best he can against overwhelming odds in this game of 11 dimensional chess!
Immanentizing the Eschaton.
I thought that was the Trilateral Commission’s job?
Evidence be damned – we had to ‘do something’. And speaking of ‘doing something’, Obama is, according to reports in the media, ‘mulling over’ the various options for using military force against Syria.
Syria is a member of the UN. Attacks on Syria would be a blatant act of war. We have been using proxies against Syria for some time but the media and official Washington are clamoring that this is not enough!
We have not declared war on Syria as of yet and I doubt we will since that might require at least some discussion in congress. When we threatened to bomb Syria back in 2013, there was a discussion and the people said ‘no’ both here and in the UK. No doubt a lesson was learned, and they won’t let us get involved this time. After all, how many Americans would agree that overthrowing Assad and putting the Russians in their place are worth the risk of nuclear war?
I would like to add that, according to reports, the cautious option for escalation in Syria is providing more and better weapons to the jihadis aka the rebels. Obama apparently is not enthusiastic about providing weapons that could be used to bring down civilian airliners.
And why is that? Because he believes that our proxies would use them to do so.
So we are arming the kinds of freedom fighters who we suspect would use them against civilian airliners if they had the opportunity.
The people making decisions on these matters are deranged.
Fire fighters fight fire, Freedom fighters fight freedom. Easy. Nobody can claim that they didn’t know.
I wish that just ONCE someone would ask Obama what our objective is in Syria. Make him state it: we want their secular, democratically-elected leader to go and we are supporting al-Qaeda rebels to try and make that happen.
Obama: “but he’s killing people!”
Follow up question: “So if al-Qaeda was in San Diego killing people and trying to overthrow the US government, you would approve Chinese troops assisting them?”
Obama: “Gotta run, got a 2PM tee time!”
The neocons in Britain are flailing about, looking for “something” to be done in Syria. New foreign secretary Boris Jonson is following the playbook, just as his predecessor Phillip Hammond. They’ve even released a pop song about Putin: Party Like A Russian.
I really don’t think Robbie Williams is a Boris Johnson stooge…. that’s just a silly song with a lot of clever rhyme.
And the response to Johnson’s suggestion we Brits protest outside Russia’s UK embassy against their actions in Syria? You’ll like this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boris-johnson-russian-embassy-protest-syria-bombing-aleppo-one-person-a7359356.html
Thank you windsock, that made my day.
I believe a side benefit (to the US) of these “attacks” on a US ship by a country attempting to defend itself (if they even happened) is that US propaganda organs can shut down voices who were beginning to call out their hypocrisy.
Before this I had noticed the start of an increase in stories about what the suadis were doing in Yemen with US support, especially after the funeral bombing, now that can be shut out of the mainstream again and the US can continue aiding crimes against humanity, because the people of Yemen can be portrayed as active antagonists (“they attacked us”). Instead of a people trying to fend off indiscriminate murder, from a belligerent SA with the support of the US.
Now the narrative is they are evil rebels, and SA and the US can blow them to bits without looking like complete hypocrites about Syria.
That was my thinking when reading the link.
You are somewhat wrong, the Gray Lady rushed to offer a justification for the attack. You see, the Houthis believed their lying eyes and attacked innocent old Uncle Sam. Here is b’s take down: http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/10/nyt-finds-hidden-hand-in-war-on-yemen.html
Alleged “Attack” On U.S. Ships To Justify Continued War On Yemen — Moon of Alabama
It’s certainly not clear why the US should be involved in Yemen at all, especially without a proper discussion with Congress. I kind of miss the constitution sometimes.
That said, the tone of this M of A piece, like other recent posts on Syria, feels like that of Russia Today and then some. I’m not convinced this is anyone in or from Alabama. A Russian intel service seems just as likely. Read with eyes open.
Lol, Um… b is German and mentions it often, the Alabama is not in reference to the geographic origins of the blog. “Read with eyes open”.
Is he an Ossi or a Wessi?
Lol, your eyes are wide open in the sand. B is a German. Anyone that reads his site knows that he is German.
Moonofalabama is one of the best blogs on Syria and Yemen on the net. B is routinely ahead of the news cycle and he has sources that give him accurate information.
Jinx
Thanks folks for the clarification. I have found him fascinating on Syria, so I hope the German thing is real and not a cover. After all, in a digital world anyone can claim anything. Which of you has met him in person? So I still say, eyes open (even if, like me, you read too much too fast not to miss things).
are you from alabama? keeping my eyes open.
No, but I grew up in a nearby place sharing much of its culture and so have a feel for the aroma!
since he’s german your sniffer may be off.
“Moon of Alabama — where barflies get together” was founded by the mysterious blogger Billmon. For the title, note the verse by Brecht on the upper right of the site. Bernhard from Hamburg has taken it over. Billmon now has his own all-tweet site, subtitled “Free Thinking in a Dirty Glass.”
Both B and b show more perspicacity than most.
“After all, in a digital world anyone can claim anything”. Indeed. (reflexivity not your strong suit?)
Fun fact: “Moon of Alabama” is a song by Elizabeth Hauptmann, with music by Kurt Weill, for Bertolt Brecht’s 1927 play Little Mahagonny! Here’s a stirring rendition by Lotte Lenya: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-5ata4jDyk
Re: Computerworld, “Outsourced IT workers ask Feinstein for help, get form letter in return”. This is pretty much par for the course. Our representatives (not singling out CA here) don’t bother to listen to their constituents. A university system, which graduates many in engineering and computer science, effectively shuns its own product and brings in cheap imports.
If anyone is aware of organizations that focus on addressing this – please follow up.
Unfortunately the US tech workers who powered the tech boom at the turn of the century failed — no, refused — to organize. It was “every man for himself” with a good measure of libertarian and objectivist fantasy mixed in. The result was predictable: when first outsourcing, sourced with cheap H1B labor, and later offshoring, swept up so many jobs, American tech workers found themselves in worse shape than their industrial worker neighbors had been. Another problem was, and still is, that organizing a workplace, especially the kind of virtual ones that make up a lot of the tech sector, is itself labor intensive, it requires time, money and lots of dedicated hands. Finally there’s the reality of rank corruption and self-dealing in existing labor organizations, who with a few notable exceptions have carried the neoliberal’s water for over two generations.
They continue to spurn organizing too, especially amongst software engineers (who feel they are more elite than mere “IT workers”), who are enjoying riding the VC-funded boom. Sure, their wages are high now, but as we well know, there is a cycle to these things, and soon enough they will face the same fate. But perusing recent threads on HackerNews, they turn their noses up at the thought of organizing themselves; of course, they are enjoying high demand right now, jumping job to job easily, but things will change and it will be too late for them to organize.
Incubator-owned Hacker News would be a career-limiting place to exhibit such a sentiment, lest one find themselves without a place to land after the next
pushjump.Sure they say there aren’t qualified workers to get more HB visas. My friend can’t find a job except as a contractor. They send him all over-US, Canada, even Poland. Engineering degree.
Hey like Hillary’s open borders.
m
Methinks that it’s time for the contractors to start organizing.
The tech Co I work for has opened a fairly large office in Halifax, Nova Scotia of all places. Why? Because the province gives real, tangible tax benefits to companies who hire new computer science grads from the local universities.
So far it’s working out well for us.
How’s it working out for the Province of Nova Scotia, those tax breaks that are real and tangible?
But then as long as something is “so far working out well ” for just exactly who is “us”?
Lots of US burgs do similar “deals” that on average, far as I know, are just another glissade further down the slippery slope of neoliberal corruption. But hey! Make hay while the sun shines, and keep growing Code and Tech! What could possibly go wrong?
There’s the Programmers Guild, but they don’t seem to be very active.
http://www.programmersguild.org/
This part of their web site is severely out of date:
http://www.programmersguild.org/h1b.asp
I’m afraid I can’t think of any other organizations that might be specifically focused on fighting H-1B abuses. General immigration groups such as Numbers USA, the Center for Immigration Studies, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform do work on many aspects of immigration, including H-1B and L-1 visas.
Hillary’s Iwo Jima moment:
This is how the Clintons’ beef with the Putin originated: http://exiledonline.com/old-exile/vault/gallery/covers/91l.jpg.
This guy consistently does the best pro-bernie anti-hillary political cartoons. One of my favorites to follow on twitter.
https://twitter.com/SilERabbit/status/786392619723075584
No raunchy gay porn though… shucks.
RE: Facebook has repeatedly trended fake news since firing its human editors: WaPo
Let me guess – all the phony stories were from the Washington Post?
I was thinking the same thing. WaPo should know all about fake news stories– they have been purveying fake news for some time now.
RE: Facebook has repeatedly trended fake news since firing its human editors: WaPo
Yeah, that’s funny because WaPo does it on purpose.
AI taking the place of humans: just as dumb but less malice.
Are you so sure (given trillions of lines of code), about the malice part?
The eagles’ nest cam is really nice.
Awesome!
Yep, what great way to start the day. Thanks for this.
I think that’s the eagle cam from Washington DC. http://www.dceaglecam.org I watched it all last winter/spring, from the eggs to hatching to the young birds leaving the nest.
I’m hoping they’ll start rebuilding their nest in Jan for new 2017 babies.
I read an article about the people who run those cams sometimes turning them off because people send them death threats. Apparently nature isn’t as kindly and fuzzy as Disney teaches our populace. Sometimes the baby birds push each other out of the nest or stomp each other and steal each other’s food, and the parent birds let them. Drives the people watching nuts — sometimes they drive out to the nests and try to “rescue” them. The people who run the cams learned never to give the birds names.
Neocon neoliberal libertarian Symbol of Our Great Empire (and numerous others, Napoleon loved em , the Third Reich too…) Predator, scavenger, steals other birds’ food, but ingrained in the imperial subjects’ psyches and imagery as “Success and Virtue ™”…
I offer the pigeon as a more fitting selection…
Don’t forget the eagle in St. John’s Revelations. But really, they’re just bigger, more pompous magpies, you say.
Magpies will mob a common enemy, like a cat (or eagle) — they compete with each other but know when it’s time to cooperate… stupid humans, Imperial style, not so much…
This is off topic, but I’ve been trying to think why we haven’t had a female president yet. I think Hillary must have worked to ensure there wasn’t a viable option. I can easily see her using her perch as flotus to cut down any possible competitors. I don’t know the ambitions of the female senators and governors but I can picture her going to all lengths to make them feel like they had no chance. I think that the only reason she supported Obama in 2008 after she lost was because McCain nominated Palin for VP and she didn’t want to be seen building on that legacy, or worse not get her prise if McCain croaked. After all she had that line about all Obama has is a speech…
I think electing Hillary pretty much kills the chances that we will have another woman in the Oval Office anytime soon; just as I think Obamacare has killed or mortally wounded the chances of ever getting single-payer, I think Hillary will have the same effect on women-as-president. Instead of “this is what happens when you let the government get involved in the health system,” it will be ” this is what happens when you elect a woman president.”
It won’t matter that it isn’t her gender that will be responsible for all her either incrementally cowardly initiatives, or her grossly over-reactionary, neo-liberal, ass-backwards ones, nor will her gender be responsible for the non-stop investigations and inquiries. Her gender isn’t why she has terrible judgment or terminal entitlement issues – it’s just who she is and it’s going to inform everything she does.
It infuriates me that people are going to take all their anger at Trump’s rank misogyny, and vote for her just to get some sort of revenge, and it is shutting out the very legitimate questions that should be coming out of all of these e-mails being dumped at the 11th hour. And I don’t think we’ve seen the last of this – I think there’s more and worse coming on both Clinton and Trump, so I figure by the time we go to the polls, we will have to swim through a turbulent sea of raw, stinking sewage to get there.
After the utter shitshow of the last debate, I can’t even imagine how bad the final one will be – it’s hard for me to see them even being able to be in the same room (but you know the media is drooling over this).
I want a do-over.
In my very large family and I am likely the only one not voting for her heinous. Many people are afraid of what she will do, and they feel they can sort of predict it. Otoh, they believe DJT is totally unpredictable and are terrified should he win. I don’t agree, but that how it is. I understand it. I disagree but I see their point and cannot argue that won’t be worse b/c frankly I do not know. He is very juvenile, not well informed, an ego maniac and unpredictable. Hillary has most of those traits also, but is more predictable.
No worries. Most people’s votes don’t count anyway.
I’m still crossing my fingers that a semi plows through the stage at the next debate taking them both out and as many of their entourage and pathetic media pundits as possible too.
Ah yes. Perhaps we could get a Kaine/Pence joint and several co-administration instead.
The moment of glee would be worth it. And any time before nov 8th a case could be made for convincing the electors to pick Sanders.
Hillary Clinton may well be the women’s Clarence Thomas, an identity “appointment” to an important office who will do what the controlling elite want.
In this case, the DNC, rather than George H. W. Bush, decided Clinton was the “best person for the job”.
While I have seen Clinton referred to as a “well-connected mediocrity”, I don’t believe this captures the full range of the damage I expect her to do once in office
And once in office Clinton will probably talk about the need to “respect the office of the Presidency”, not realizing that many citizens respect the Presidency, but not her.
Distant echoes in the night, “I’m the only President you’ve got…”
What angers me is that Hillary will likely declare she has a MANDATE, and it will be for her foreign policy theatrics which will never have been discussed in the campaign.
NEW RULE: You cannot declare a mandate for something you didn’t cover in your campaign.
She can declare all she wants.
But ya know what? She’ll quickly find herself in the same position that George W. Bush found himself back in ’05.
Guy thought he had political capital to spend, and, oops, he didn’t. Recall that his attempt to privatize Social Security went nowhere. And this was several months before Katrina was brewing in the Atlantic.
he got the war he wanted done, maybe that was more important to him. i’m afraid she might, too.
I’m afraid she might get that AND her cuts to Social Security and even further cuts to Medicare.
Sadly, war and entitlement cuts are bipartisan in this one party country.
Will voters in swing states save the world and give peace a chance?
“Kids, sorry, we failed to stop her in 2016. We didn’t want to vote against Clinton.
Filed under ‘There’s a Special Place in Hell…’:
http://nypost.com/2016/10/13/clinton-camp-tried-to-muzzle-pain-in-the-ass-zephyr-teachout/
“A top adviser to Hillary Clinton was so eager to stop Zephyr Teachout from being a “pain in the ass” by stumping for Bernie Sanders in New York that she had the Clinton team reach out to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand to muzzle the lefty firebrand, according to hacked e-mails posted by WikiLeaks.
“I need Zephyr to not be a pain in the ass to Hillary. Do you think she would endorse Bernie?” Neera Tandon, a policy adviser to Clinton, asked an upstate Democratic official in a March 4 e-mail.
Campaign manager Robby Mook made calls to urge Gillibrand to shut Teachout up. A March 5 e-mail from Mook said Gillibrand would keep her from being “too vocal.”
And how lovely of them to treat her so well after she stayed relatively neutral.
I may get disagreement on this, but the Green Party will only become viable when it can attract and successfully support candidates like Teachout. It’s beyond obvious the neoliberal democrats will never yield and genuine progressives are an existential threat to them. And it is sad and disappointing that the few progressives who remain in the party – like Nina Turner – are co-opted and then marginalized and yet still believe, beyond all evidence and all hope, that they can change this party from within.
…no. The reason we haven’t had a female President yet is that the US is super sexist. This is not, um, difficult.
I don’t buy this in the way you depict this.
The sexism barrier isn’t the one I suspect you are driving at.
It is conservatism in American about family. Politicians are expected to be married and have kids. I know supposedly liberal people who have told me flat out they would not vote for someone who didn’t have a family.
America, thanks to the early onset of neoliberalism, is very poor in child care for working mothers. The very well off working female professionals can have hot and cold running nannies. Anyone below that, fuggedabout it. Those professionals tend to be in high paid carriers, like the high end of finance and the law. Public service jobs don’t pay well.
So if you want to be a “good” mother, you need to take time off from your career. That’s a big setback in any field.
Agreed. However, there were at least a dozen female senators and/or governors who were already established enough to make a plausible run for it. Shirley Chisholm clearly didn’t think she would win but she put herself out there. Then no serious contenders, that I can think of anyways. I’m sure there were some that could have made a plausible run for it but after 1992 we definitely didn’t even have any try… I bet a certain flotus was making sure she’d be the one in the history books.
I buy the neoliberalism argument, but if you want to argue that it’s because of conservatism about families, you have to make the case that family conservatism is more entrenched in the US than it is in Chile (Bachelet), India (I. Gandhi, Patil), Philipines (Aquí No, Macapagal-Arroyo), Ireland (Robinson, McAleese), South Korea (Park’s daughter)… all of which are fairly conservative societies that could give US ‘family values’ a run for their money.
Its worth pointing out that most of the Asian examples were the daughters/husbands of very powerful families. As such, they were part of an ‘extended’ family in this sense – the notion of the independent nuclear family unit would not be as strong there as in the US (I would suggest that the US is something of an outlier in its focus on the nuclear family as the core of society). The Irish presidency is almost purely ceremonial and there is a tradition of it being held by minorities (most presidents have been protestant in a 95% catholic country).
The criteria for being US president is really quite unusual in world terms. The fact that even being a catholic was seen as disqualifying up to the election of Kennedy, and that there have been no Jewish presidents and almost no possibility of an atheist president is pretty unusual – there would be numerous examples throughout the rest of the world of various minorities becoming leaders.
I’ve always suspected from the unusual deference Americans show the role that there is a deep hankering for a King, and the President will do – nothing else quite explains why there is such a hang up about the symbolism of the Presidents race, religion, gender, etc. I can’t think of any other diverse country where this is a ‘thing’.
Totally agree about the US being more suited to a monarch, especially now as the militaristic pageantry has kicked into full Franco mode.
Also, the big example I was thinking of was Bachelet in highly conservative Chile– also a leader’s daughter. Aung San Suu Kyi, Megawati Sarkanoputri: more daughters. So why haven’t any US presidents’ daughters gotten in on the nepotism?
Give Chelsea time! To be followed by Princess Malia and Princess Sasha.
Husband isn’t nepotistic enough?
I think you’re bang on about that king stuff. We are a nation of stunted children looking for a parent.
IIRC the Founders thought that a purely political prime minister-like president would be too weak, so they deliberately invested the office with some ceremonial functions as well. Guess they didn’t forsee the Imperial Presidency thing…
So the USA is more sexist than Brazil, Argentina, UK, and India (all of these countries have had women presidents)?
I really don’t think that’s the case.
Michael, I know you have to have a religious narrative to give your life purpose, but pull your head out of your bourgeois bubble and stop trying to be Proud and Special ’cause neither you nor me nor anyone else is any more special than anyone else.
Norwegians joke about the Law of Jante, but man is it ever time.
Obligatory on the gorilla story. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2O91T6ZeW0
2PM Water Cooler is of them so-called gigs now?
Just kidding.
‘Gigged’ ……. to be thrown into an ever hotter pan !!
Not kidding.
Gigging used to refer to fishing for eels by stabbing at them with various implements, so visualize that you are Neptune and your trident has wriggling eels, frogs and other marine life. That seems like a reasonable description for how so many in the gig economy feel.
Which is why it should be called the Frig Economy. Because it keeps frigging us over.
Well …yeah !!
Also frogs
Actually….with just-in-time scheduling and 24 hour operations, not to mention the need to hold two or three jobs just to stay broke, I’d say this isn’t actually true. Nowadays, everybody is expected to work all the time (although what that looks like varies)…just sayin’
I’ve seen blue collar jobs be a COMPLETE nightmare in being expected to work all the time (and true blue collar work not just service economy). Whereas white collar jobs can sometimes be just over 40 hours. There is truth to the better you are paid oftentimes the better you are treated! Including sometimes being able to have a little bit of a life outside of work.
So no I’m not remotely convinced the blue collar world is better. Sometimes blue collar jobs legally qualify for overtime pay of course, but the law is often being broken.
Greer pointed to the difference between the salary class and the wage class as a simple matter of whether one should be paid more or less to encourage more output.
My favorite story that isn’t getting much press coverage (wonder why):
https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-decries-wild-west-media-landscape-214642552.html
So we need to censor the press, but we won’t call it that……
I also wonder what press outlets he wants to “not censor”….
Errr, can you explain to me what is so controversial with this comment that it needs to be moderated?
Moderation is run by an algorithm, don’t take it personal. No one actually understands how it makes decisions.
Links don’t help.
Every now and then sacrifice a live chicken to the Internet gods.
It helps
Thanks, both of you. I’m fairly new here and I do accept that I am a guest and Naked Capitalism can delete anything they want – it IS their site – I was just curious as I am learning the “rules”….
HilLIARy lies some more:
This is Exhibit A in the impeachment charges. Also useful for the subsequent indictment.
For someone aspiring to the most powerful position in the history of the world, Hillary sure seems to have a lot of memory problems. Maybe those rumours of Parkinson’s are true.
http://www.human-memory.net/disorders_parkinsons.html
Doesn’t she and her team realise how inept and obvious this repeated “I don’t recall” will sound? But they have always been more concerned with legal escapology than their credibility, I guess.
Nah, she doesn’t have Parkinson’s disease. She’s just an inveterate liar.
Yes. Some of the emails DIRECTLY disprove these claims.
But with FBI protection, one can lie under oath without consequence in responding to an interrogatory.
“No reasonable prosecutor …” etc
Those would be the emails that “the Russians edited” in an attempt to “influence” the outcome of the american “election.”
Heard on msnbs, spoken by a “reporter” named April Ryan during a discussion of the damaging information found in podesta’s emails–“Yes, but how much of that is Russian?”
End of “discussion.”
It will always and forever by the Rooskies fault!
‘Oh !! …… What’s this RED button thingy for ?
…. I’m gonna press it n see what happens …..’
That red button is to connect to the secure and vetted 3 am pizza delivery place…vinny vidivici’s…
Is there anyone who doesn’t think that one of the first orders of business of the new Congress will be impeachment?
I think someone with such severe memory problems has no business being president, but I guess this is a preview of how she and her people intend to deal with this – stonewall, stall and dissemble. Just as Trump likes to pretend that he didn’t say things we’ve all seen and heard him say, I guess Clinton is just going to pretend those e-mails don’t contradict her claims.
I’d ask “how stupid do they think we are?” but I think we already know the answer.
I’m already looking for an “Impeach Clinton” bumper sticker, but I will also go with “Impeach Trump” if the unanticipated happens. Executive impotence and gridlock are what the country needs given the current choice of fearless leaders.
One of my favorite yard signs in my town of Collingswood, NJ has nice, professionally executed graphics, and on casual inspection it would appear to be just another anodyne campaign sign. But then, you notice the text…
Hillary for Jail – 2016
And it is placed right at a stop light, so its effectiveness is duly enhanced. I don’t mind getting stopped at a red light, because it always makes me laugh.
I don’t think one of the first orders of business of the new Congress will be impeachment.
I think the first orders of business if Hillary wins will be to dismantle social security, dismantle medicare, increase corporate welfare, institute business tax cuts, and pass the TPP with concessions-in-name-only. Any conflict between Hillary and Congress will be kayfabe, since they will be aligned on many bad policy areas.
I just don’t see how she’ll face impeachment ….. when virtually all the Neocons, Wall Street, and some top GOP folk are swinging ‘with her’ ……!
I mean Come On … it’s just one big happy UniParty anyway you look !!
Red vs Blue …… ? …. yeah …. right !
There’s more that unites the two parties than divides them.
Michelle Obama takes the fight to Donald Trump Politico.
Michelle Obama hugging George Bush is one of those brain images that has been planted in my head. Much like FDR sitting down smoking a cigarette or Washington standing in the boat crossing the Delaware or Porky Pig saying “That’s all folks”
Yea it’s personal alright. Personal like your hubby firing drones like a Bond villain anywhere he DEEMS fit.
Personal like a hometown banker kicking people out of their homes. Personal like paying outlandish amounts for healthcare insurance and medication. Personal like kowtowing to every corporation and donor that comes along so he can look out for them.
Sorry honey, you might be outraged and rightly so from Trump’s comments but there is a lot more going on with your better half’s policies that are affecting a lot more individuals. You can throw young and old and males into that mix too. Please don’t take offense that I called you honey. I just do that sometimes when I can’t remember a woman or a girl’s name or have not been introduced. I don’t want you to take it personally if you should see this.
FLOTUS says she is “shaken to the core” by Trump’s sexual words and (alleged) deeds. I wonder what the reports of the Saudi genocide in Yemen do to her? Or the stoning to death of women? She seems (along with many other Democrats) very selective in her outrage.
but not by this??
I interviewed her twice, believe she told the truth. NBC Should Release Full Juanita Broaddrick Intvw https://shar.es/1E6xdK
https://twitter.com/Peggynoonannyc/status/786733371527495680
Michael Isikoff: NBC Should Release Full Juanita Broaddrick Interview
The reporter that first learned about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky said on Thursday that NBC is sitting on the full tape of its initial interview with Bill Clinton rape accuser Juanita Broaddrick and should release it before the election.
Michael Isikoff, who was a leading reporter during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, said in a Thursday discussion that NBC should release a 17-year-old tape of an interview that it conducted with Broaddrick. Broaddrick has long claimed that the interview that NBC aired edited out her claim that Hillary Clinton was involved in quashing Broaddrick’s rape claims.
“NBC has the full tape of the original Lisa Myers interview,” Isikoff said during an online discussion on Sidewire.com. “NBC ought to check its archive and run the full interview. (AS long as they’re now culling their archives!)”
Isikoff worked as a national correspondent for NBC from 2010 to 2014. He says that NBC reporter Lisa Myers has confirmed Broaddrick’s claim that NBC edited out references that could have been damaging to Hillary Clinton.
“Folks have made much of the fact that her claim about the conversation she had with Hillary wasn’t in the interview that run,” Isikoff said.
“Broaddrick said it got cut out; Lisa Myers has since agreed Broaddrick said this then—and NBC chose to cut it out.”
NBC has never released an unedited version of its interview with Broaddrick.
Both NBC and the Washington Post “closely vetted” Broaddrick’s claims at the time and chose to run with stories on her claims, Isikoff said.
He added that it was “amazing to watch” Democrats that he saw defend Bill Clinton against his accusers now jump to embrace women accusing Trump.
“It’s amazing to watch how D’s who attacked those women are now embracing the Trump accusers, while the Rs who believed them attack them,” Isikoff said.
Earlier this year, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell said that Broaddrick’s claims had been “discredited.” The network stealthily deleted the line after it was threatened with legal action by Broaddrick’s son
http://freebeacon.com/politics/michael-isikoff-nbc-release/
This is truly the Casablanca Campaign.
Shocked, people are by the gambling that has been going on all around them for decades. (And probably still is)
There is not a doubt in my mind that someone with the kinds of personal ambitions Clinton had/has would feel so threatened that she would lash out at her husband’s accusers. Or that she would deny doing so.
And while I don’t necessarily think Hillary is responsible and/or accountable for what her husband did or was alleged to have done (although there is that element of if they had an arrangement or she decided to turn a blind eye to it, she was at least enabling it), it’s one more thing that speaks to her character – or lack of it – as well as her judgment.
I am not someone who believes people can so silo their personal traits and foibles from their professional lives that one has nothing to do with the other. People who find it convenient to lie or break the rules or treat people badly in one arena are probably likely to do the same in others.
Hillary Clinton has shown time and again that what’s important to her is herself, and she will do whatever she has to to achieve her goals, regardless of who it hurts or what the laws/rules are; it’s a trait she shares with her husband – the two of them together, back in the WH, with the added corruption of the Foundation, and the complicity of the media, is just a bridge too far.
Apart from the alleged Bill Clinton “rapes” e.g. Broaddrick and others, in what feminist world is it correct for the President of the US to solicit oral sex from a 20 y.o. intern and commit sodomy in the Oval Office, and then deny it publicly for 6 months?
If Trump did that in his CEO office he should have been fired immediately. Oh, but for the Hillbots and Billbots “it was just lying about sex”.
I browsed through the Judicial Watch deposition response. This is a reminder of what 4 years of a Clinton administration is going to sound like:
Judicial Watch Releases New Hillary Clinton Email Answers Given under Oath
Bullshit, memory loss, duplicity, lack of awareness at best for standard recordkeeping obligations…
It’s just more of the same hypocrisy on steroids for the Democratic Party and it’s supporters. They are all horrified by Trump’s words( they were crude and not right) but Lewinsky was pulled through the mud, psychologically damaged, feared for her life and left the country BUT that’s in the past and not relevant for Bill and HRC…..GARBAGE..through and through…and so called progressive HRC’s supporters wear their misdeeds like a badge of honor…..truly pathetic.
None of this would have mattered if they didn’t derail Sanders.
Michelle Obama “shaken to her core”.
No.
I say we show her what real “shaken to the core” is: make her put her kids to bed at night in a country where one of her husband’s drone bombs may blow them to bloody bits while they are sleeping. I bet she would be “shaken to her core” by that.
She’s “for women” but apparently not “for” the hundreds of thousands of them that got killed in her husband’s wars (after 8 years, yes these wars are his).
Thank you, OTPBD Hal. 1000++++
I caught part of her speech yesterday on National Propaganda Radio saying how she was afraid that the US would lose its moral high ground by having a man who sexually assaulted women as President. First, we’ve already had one in Clinton. Second, her husband supporting the jihadis or raining those hellfire missiles down on innocent civilians hasn’t degraded our moral standing – are you serious?
In her own way Michelle is as puffed up as her husband. Virtue signalling is all they do–arguably all the Dems do.
The “moral high ground” bit was really something. Especially since it was delivered in the Jim-and-Tammy-Faye-Baker style which both she and her husband have recently adopted.
Always be preachin’, even when you’re preachin’ to the choir.
I was just informed that this was the finest speech of this entire campaign by the ladies at the View. They are shocked, just shocked that people do not realize how bad this is. (Not to mention a moment to lecture Third Party voters). OH, and these idiots think he is going to disappear if he loses.
If Michelle Obama is truly shocked by Trump and his talk and his attitude she has had a sheltered life. If the ladies of the View think this is the worst thing said or done in the course of the Campaign they are beyond shallow.
And frankly, if I thought for a moment that any of these outraged women would be screaming to high heaven about how Bill Clinton shouldn’t be anywhere near the White House even as the spouse if some of his private conversations were posted somewhere (and no you cannot convince me for a moment that he talks about women with anymore respect than Trump does among the boys) I might have more respect for this stand. I don’t. Similar to the whole support the women theme that is totally dependent on whether it is a woman they like.
Partisan dependent outrage annoys the hell out of me.
Trump being unfit for office does not make Clinton fit for it.
All of my liberal friends were moved to tears by her performance, if FB status updates are any guide. They are ready to go on a jihad against anyone who dares not vote Clinton. I must watch my back lest someone attacks me with the cheese knife at the weekend gathering.
Yesterday I just stayed quiet while people around me went on and on about Trump, Trump, Trump.
But a finance guy actually said no one knows how this election is going to go, but either way it is going to make changes. Funny that that Wall Street denizen was one of the few people I encountered who was not being lulled into some sort of we’re righteous and things are fine as long as the braggart doesn’t get in paradise.
I’m getting the same kind of blather in my Facebook feed. It’s making me want to cast 10 votes for Jill Stein.
Uh, yeah. I know that I can’t do that. But, hey, all I can do is dream and scheme. Because I don’t have enough money and influence to buy the election.
Behold the next democrat presidential candidate, when hillary finally passes the baton. (Or passes on.) Female, black and a consummate performer–an unassailable combination.
My guess is she’ll be invited for tea with the ladies of The View regularly over the next several years to evangelize about the wonderfulness of the second clinton presidency. In the glowing, sing-song cadence that only she can conjure up to make reality go away.
Possibly. I’m betting they have decided to have Michelle head the Charity that makes the Clinton’s look like pikers. It plays to her strengths, will be very lucrative and end up being far less work in the long run than having to find an open office to start building her bonafides.
If she ends up running for office somewhere in two years, I’ll bow to your predictive excellence.
I wonder how shaken to the core Michelle was when she helped design a patient dumping scheme while on the payroll of the UChicago Medical Center. No doubt many of the low income patients that she helped dump were women.
I wonder how shaken she was when a wounded black teen died in front of UCMC emergency room after he was turned away.
I wonder how shaken she was while UChicago Police planted moles among community groups protesting the university’s refusal to open a trauma center, something that was badly needed. How shaken was she when UCPD then proceeded to arrest these protesters, and physically assaulted a number of them despite the fact that no one engaged in violent behavior (except the UCPD itself). Most of the protesters were people of color.
Michelle Obama is an effing hypocrite.
Thanks, OIFVet, for bringing these things to light.
Oh, I almost forgot. How shaken to the core was Michelle upon finding out that Valerie Jarrett is a slumlord who profited from the Section 8 program? Google Grove Parc, a slum (thankfully demolished since) that stood only 2-3 blocks from the UChicago Medical Center. A slum which allowed Valerie Jarrett to profit off the backs of her residents, most of whom were single mothers and black. Not very shaken, apparently, since Valerie is still the Obama’s BFF.
Thanks, this was all news to me. Will have to bone up on all this. I’m sure I’ll be able to find a use for it down the line.
The Chicago Maroon, UChicago’s student paper, has exceptional coverage on the Trauma Center protests, and is the best source about that issue IMO. I have linked to their coverage from time to time here.
When I heard that “shaken to the core” statement, I immediately thought of all the people her husband has killed by drones – women, children and babies – how many lives have been destroyed by him. Both the Obamas have very strange priorities in their lives – such utter hypocrites, all of them.
Their hypocrisies are too numerous to count. When I saw her hugging Dubya, my first thought was “She is giving aid and comfort to another war criminal,” her illustrious Nobel Peace laureate being in the war criminal fraternity himself. True to form, my liberal friends who years ago would puke at the mere sight of Dubya, went on to gush about Michelle. The 0bamas and the rest of the hypocrites are what they are because we have become a nation dominated by brain-dead, well-edumacated enablers.
“Trump being unfit for office does not make Clinton fit for it.”
Great point. I’ll steal this. Thanks!
Michelle Obama has probably the most respect of any one involved in politics these days. Because of that, she really should be careful about how much of that moral high ground she puts up for sale to the Clintons. In politics, there is always that maxim: “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
Once again, “we must save the women” meme is trotted out with the First Lady shaken to the core speech. For the honor of our women folk, for the women and children in Afghanistan, those little girls in incubators…. We must put Hillary in the White House so our daughters and granddaughters will be safe from somebody copping a feel. Huh? Meanwhile as you rightly point out there is no moral outrage for women dying in poverty here and around the world. There is no moral outrage for those 200 wedding guests who got obliterated in Yemen of which I’m guessing half were probably female. How about the assasinated human and land rights woman activist in Honduras? From their lofty perch the people in Versailles have no perspective. None. It’s all about them. I don’t get why people find these speeches anything but narcissistic and a distraction from the real evils of war and hunger.
I “don’t recall” hearing how “shaken to the core” the eminently respectable first lady was when brock turner, the stanford swimmer and rapist of an unconscious co-ed, was recently released from jail, having served half of his whopping 6 month sentence for the crime.
As a matter of fact, I don’t recall hearing anything at all.
“Saving the women” is so much more “complex” when you have to do more than just preach about it.
I guess we’ll have to wait until an actual rapist is moving into the white house before we get some action on the subject.
Oh, wait…. “It’s just sex.”
Your observation about preaching is most apt. “Preach” is the operative word here. She and her husband always use a preachy style to talk down to the congregation (or what I referred to back in 2008 as his being the “tsk tsker in chief”. ) She tells us what to think and what we should be outraged about. I used to be instructed that I should never be “holier than thou” but don’t think she went to the same church as me. Once again she makes the case as she did in her convention speech that we are the exceptional nation and a beacon on the hill of moral superiority. We alone have shown those medieval nations how women should be treated. Huh? When the Russians were in Afghanistan there were many female doctors, lawyers, representatives. How are the women there doing now that the exceptionals are in charge?
Respectability politics?
Also my 2¢ on misogyny. It’s kind of like porn. You know it when you see it. When I am speaking to a man in close proximity at the bar and he tells a joke about a woman or a husband and wife joke and looks me in the eye and the guys around me to see if we laugh, I can see the disdain and sometimes hatred in his eyes. It’s chilling, but I have learned to try and avoid those kind of men by sitting as far away as possible. These guys have some women issues that, if they could afford it, probably should be treated in therapy. Then there are the guys who like to pat you on the back and then give you a little squeeze. Irritating, but not creepy. More lonely. Then there are a whole lot of guys in there who are gentle men who also enjoy the company of women. So nothing to see here really. I was wondering whether we should have a national day of gender switching like we did in high school when the girls dressed like boys and boys like girls. Some of us women would have to play the blowhards who bragged about their conquest, some could go around grabbing men’s buns, and some would go around fixing overflowing toilets and changing tires. And maybe most of us would talk about a new system to replace this dying idea of capitalism.
perhaps this seems OT, but I have noticed increasingly the prevalence of forms of Munchausen-by-proxy everywhere. Men ruffle, then smooth you. It’s a fascinating spectacle to sit back and watch, and everyone, male and female alike, are doing it without realizing it is a tool for control. I went to rehearse with a piano accompanist once, who also was a healer, and he purposely irritated me in the rehearsal to the point where he took me upstairs to his healing room with his potions to “make me all better”, thereby controlling our entire encounter. It woke me up sharply to this phenom, and I have been working to stay aware at all times ever since, and watch the passing show in all its fascinating manifestations.
> he took me upstairs to his healing room
That sounds like one of those “Bad Ideas” T-shirts.
Sounds like she’s warming up for her own presidential run.
味方 (mikata) is more like “ally” or “partisan” than friend. It’s pretty narrowly construed. 敵 (teki) on the other hand, is much broader than enemy. It could simply be “rival” or “opponent.” Others might disagree, but it doesn’t have as strong a connotation as “enemy” does in English.
So something like, “the rival of my rival was my ally.” BTW, why is it past tense?
On the off chance, anybody remark on the Charles Krauthammer “editorial” run on Yahoo as being from the Chicago Times.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-trump-hillary-clinton-putin-obama-perspec-1014-jm-20161013-story.html
I had to read down below the end of the piece of “journalism” to discover that it was by Mr ‘K’ who,as the attribution below even that states, ‘writes’ for the Washington Post.
Seriously sleazy weasels.
“Mr. K” has been working for WaPo for a very long time, I think since right after Mondale lost. You didn’t know he was a speechwriter for Mondale?
But in any event, what he says is important here because what he is doing is attempting to do is distort the argument about Clinton’s behavior. Trump did us all a great disservice by stating that he’d jail Clinton – what he did was allow pundits like “Mr. K” to make this look like Trump was suggesting that we jail our political enemies, which was never what the argument to hold Clinton accountable was all about. Now, we’ve lost the real argument, which is whether there are people above the laws that the rest of us must obey. Is there a separate set of laws for Clinton than those that apply to Jeffrey Sterling? or Bryan Nishimura? No one is discussing that anymore….
Based on personal experience teaching in Leipzig, Linh Dinh makes an assertion about Germany that can’t be printed in the MSM:
It isn’t American intervention that has caused SYRIAN refugees (can’t say the same about Yemen), it’s Assad and Russia: http://commondreams.org/views/2016/10/11/anti-war-movement-must-listen-voices-within-syrias-civil-war
Ya ya….you keep linking this one. The party line is already well represented by the MSM. So double demerits for being boring.
Appealing to the antiwar movement to support a war, the contemporary version of “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.” R2P is very slick like that, making war seem humanitarian and all. Because our war is better than their war, dontcha know.
And our bombs are super smart, so we don’t even need to think about the consequences because they are smart, S-M-R-T. These bombs didn’t go to Trump U.
You know, it’s kind of like when JFK authorized the use of agent orange. It was out of love that he dumped poison or chemical weapons all over Vietnam.
R2P what a disgusting pack of lies. Hilary showed her R2P Boko Haram. Eric Holder showed his R2P Wall Street. Loretta Lynch showed her R2P Hilary. Hilary showed her R2P Monsanto. Obama showed his R2P Raytheon drone missile profits. Hilary showed her R2P Saudi billionaires. Obama showed his R2P al-Qaeda in Syria.
I say we start a new kind of R2P:
R2P American workers. R2P affordable heath care. R2P our highest institutions from corruption.
That would mesh nicely with the part where the president starts on his job with his hand on the Bible and says he swears to “preserve, protect, and defend”.
Didn’t know CommonDreams had sunk so low…
I’m boycotting your links until you stop listing them with tiny urls. Tired of clicking on lew rockwell et al.
I think it were even better if links weren’t used at all. I prefer web paths written as plain text. It’s too easy to cut off part of the path or post a link descriptor which differs from the embedded path. A tiny url is altogether too obscure for my trust setting.
At least you can see the path when using the descriptor.
Agree, link shorteners should be banned.
Agree. If you have nothing to hide, your link doesn’t need shortened. The 140-character limit for which they were invented is obsolete at least twice over — first when Twitter started shortening links for themselves, and next with the lifting of the limit altogether.
Kratom battle update: the DEA pulled back! Well, at least temporarily withdrew the notice of intent to schedule. This is huge. The DEA doesn’t really have a history of backing down. The fight isn’t really over – they just punted it back to the FDA.
The DEA is withdrawing a proposal to ban another plant after the Internet gets really mad
This is fantastic news, though depressing, since the right thing to do on any of these questions is to leave people the hell alone to treat themselves as they see fit.
Though the Buzzfeed-y headline by the Post is disingenuous and strips people of agency. NPR ran a story on it. So did many major news outlets. Plus there were an enormous amount of comments made to the DEA by citizens.
Leaving people alone to treat themselves as they see fit – isn’t that sort of libertarian?
It’s precisely libertarian.
Then Haiti is paradise….
Well nancy pelosi has one hell of a talented son there…my my what a player he bee…and the little pieces of paper that are sitting on his balance sheet…kratom…mor kat…tak(e) mor(e)
Given some new info from the Podesta Wikileaks, added to the pre-Podesta evidence, it is reasonable to state that the HClinton & her agents’ (including DNC, many BigMedia) 2016 D Primary election rigging is as bad as Bush43 & his agents’ (including FL Gov Jeb Bush & Elections head Katherine Harris, R Scotus Justices) 2000 election rigging?
Is it legally/Constitutionally possible that HClinton’s D Primary election rigging could be sufficient to warrant Impeachment, if HClinton wins the Nov election? (I understand that is politically unlikely: the Ds won’t impeach Dear Leader HClinton, the Rs might but not for D Primary election rigging).
No the House will not consider this in regard to the multitude of charges they will be choosing from for their final bill of indictment against President Clinton. Mostly because, as with the obvious vote rigging that has gone on as a result of the digital vote counting instituted by the Help America Vote Act (almost as oxymoronic a title as the Affordable Care Act), this is something both sides do. Making a big deal of it will hurt them as well as her and the Dems.
The election is yet to come and the Little People can still show they are in charge.
Voting for (and voting in the one candidate with any chance of beating her) Trump is not for Trump, and thus irregardless of his personal flaws, but for the Little People ourselves, if we don’t want Hillary.
Now, if to some degree we can live with a Hillary regime, then it matters that we next weigh which of the two front runners is lesser evil.
And maybe in some ways many of us can live that.
Remember, the national political parties are private organizations and have little to no laws governing how they operate (aside from the rare “open primary” law). It is not illegal for a political party to “fix” a primary.
They can take your votes, laugh in your face, set them on fire and then pick whoever they want. Democracy be damned.
Macra launches — as forewarned at Naked Capitalism:
It’s 0bamacare all over again — roll out a giant, untested program and see what happens.
When will they ever learn?
I think I had just better be prepared to never have real health care again. I was so counting the thousand plus days to medicare. Oh, well. Thanks, Obama.
I expect to see small practitioners and others start restricting their acceptance of Medicare to avoid having to choose which regulatory pill to swallow. It has already been difficult for me to get a doc who accepts Medicare patients.
I’ve been commenting since 2008 on my experience with the growing number of doctors who won’t accept Medicare patients.
If you look carefully at the many ads now running encouraging folks to buy “supplemental Medicare policies” during Open Season, you’ll see that they note benefits apply re “any doctor who accepts Medicare.” Best to check out what that means before you jump on the train.
There are two problems with Medicare for doctors. One is the reimbursement rate but the other is the billing hassle. If you have a Medicare Advantage plan, then the provider only has to bill that insurance company. If you have Medi-Gap, or Medicare plus an employer plan as a secondary, then the doctor has to bill Medicare, get reimbursed, then bill the secondary plan. For small practices like my former GP, it’s just too much paperwork, too much time and money.
What Elizabeth Warren can Learn from Nick Kyrgios:
Jeff Bond and Andy Murray understand what US regulators refuse to see: Wells Fargo clawbacks are all well and good, but fining the rich will not change the behaviour or the culture.
Fines are quite effective when they cause real pain that is proportionate to the offense. If they’re too small, if they don’t escalate for future offenses, if they are not made proportional to the ability of the offender to pay……. then they are ineffectual.
The should be handled the way prison sentencing is handled; or at least the way sentencing is nominally supposed to be handled.
The day perps like Stumpf get hit with fines that put them in a permanent cycle of debt peonage– the way minor traffic violations do for most people– then I will say fines work. If a single mother in Ferguson can get fined down to her last $500, I see no reason not to do the same thing to our banker overlords.
Um, no. Goldman paid a $500M fine on just one of the real estate deals they sold to muppets and then bet against, which they had earned $1.5 B on. The fine was just a fully-deductible cost of doing business, no smart businessman would do otherwise. There was zero deterrent effect.
America’s best pizza delivery driver makes $0.50 over minimum wage.
She earns $0.50 above the Minnesota minimum wage. She earns $2.75 above the federal minimum wage. That’s not including tips.
The bigger scandal is that there are some people who don’t even earn more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
43 million gallons of milk dumped…
How much does it correspond in cow-flatulence?
Could Clinton have been manipulating the system so that she was the first woman President. Who knows. It is certainly possible, but as much control over everything as we have seen the Clintons have, I just have to remember they didn’t have enough to stop Obama and his backers. What I am sure of is that the Clintons have been the 800 lb gorilla whose minions have made sure that Democratic Party could never return to its roots following their destruction of it. So it is also very likely that without a huge power base no woman would get far enough up the ladder to begin to become the “most admired woman in the world” (with barely over ten percent of the vote…)
I was going to make some predictions about women and minorities as President, not to mention single payer in America. And then I realized there is such a game changer with a Clinton election in November there is no point in guessing. avoiding war with Russia, and yes China, with Clinton as President becomes nearly impossible. And what this country will look like after that, even if saner heads prevail and we avoid nuclear war, is unknown. Add to that the very few ways I see avoiding it means we end up with Kaine and Ryan running this country into disaster in another manner.
Obama may have been the campaign of faux Hope and Change, but this election is the campaign of no hope and disastrous change.
Re Brexit/ CETA. The Guardian had a piece earlier this week (link no longer there, sorry) saying that Britain’s hand is weak in Brexit negotiations, precisely because thirty-odd national and regional parliaments would have to agree to any concessions. Even if the top French/ German/ EU officials wanted to be nice to the UK, they simply wouldn’t have the wherewithal.
This widely distributed veto power is now on show, regarding the CETA link above. And it could be part of the reason the EU pooh-bahs are saying, in today’s link, that there will only be hard Brexit or no Brexit.
This is the core reason why ‘soft Brexit’ was never an option. Any deal with be complicated, and inevitably one at least of the relevant parliaments would oppose it. There is no possibility of a mitigating deal.
Just as one example, Ireland is reported to be trying to negotiate a deal whereby the Northern Ireland border would remain open, in exchange for Ireland adopting UK friendly border controls on aliens. But this deal would have to be agreed with the EU, and if there was an even a sniff of eastern Europeans being discriminated against (which is what it really means), then it will be vetoed by Poland, the Baltic States, etc. So the deal is a complete non-runner.
Contrast this to Ambrose Evans Pritchard in Wednesday’s Independent, essentially arguing that the EU will have to cut the UK some slack because the EU is not consistent with its internal rules anyway (such as the 2006 Services Directive), and because the Four Freedoms are “really just aspirational guidelines”.
“It’s not fair!” protesteth AEP in hopes of beating life into the dead soft-brexit unicorn, but since when has “fair” ever been a guiding principle for how the EU works? Ask Greece, or ask the Germans with their illegal surpluses.
‘Tis a fool who seeks logic in the chambers of the EU.
I think the EU27 will be perfectly logical in handling Brexit.
There was very little illogicality shown by anyone in the days when I negotiated in Brussels.
In Brussels negotiations Member states pursue their own self-interest as they perceive it, as they seek to do in foreign affairs more generally. It is what you would expect.Their interests may conflict with yours, though, in which case they will give you a hard time.
Given that the governments of the EU 27 consist of parties who wish to keep the EU together, there can only be two acceptable outcomes to negotiations for them: the UK decides to stay in the EU (showing that it is a waste of time to argue to leave); the UK is seen to suffer as a result of departure, discouraging people from voting for parties like the Front National.
The power is mostly with the EU 27 so they will most likely get their way.
After depressing myself, I did take advantage of the antidotes of the lovely lounging cat and the nesting eagles and went to take a look at the beautiful gorilla from the British zoo. Thanks, Yves.
EPJ: Russian Mafia Money Laundering, the Clinton Foundation and John Podesta http://bit.ly/2enIsyd
Address Designated By Podesta for Mysterious Holding Company Was That of His Daughter’s Residence http://bit.ly/2em7CgE
BREAKING Clinton Campaign Chairman Transferred Shares in Putin-Backed Energy Company to Mysterious Holding Co… http://bit.ly/2ec0WNh
From Podesta Wikileaks v.7
It is far more likely that Sid’s dog ate it. Assuming that he has a dog.
If not, then his gerbil got loose.
“High Officials Cannot Be Tried For Their Crimes” [Glomar Disclosure]
Although Lawrence Walsh was a conservative Republican in his era, today he would be on the no-fly list.
Or at least banned from the Sunday morning talk shows.
“Warren urges Barack Obama to fire SEC chief Mary Jo White”
“Sanders Just Asked President Obama to Halt the Dakota Access Pipeline”
I call this air-gapping. Warren and Sanders put an air gap between themselves and the consensus party consensus, but at the same time they also are careful to ask Lame-o-bama, not Clinton Apparent, using the air gap between election day and inauguration. I predict there will be a lot more of this.
Both Warren and Sanders have placed themselves in a precarious position where any embarrassment for Clinton – e-mails, past wars, future military ambitions, the pending market crash-o-rection – is a double embarrassment for them. Because the timing of such events is outside their control, they would have to put a lot more distance between themselves and the incoming administration immediately, yet at the same time they cannot burn their bridges in case any of these disruptive events are far out or would be safely contained, lest they’d risk the pretense of having any leverage with Clinton Elected.
If they wanted to play the long game, smartly, they would have had to find a way to support the election of “President Clinton” without supporting the “Clinton Agenda”, or they would have had to take the risk of choosing to be be outside “the circle” or provoking a public sidelining (as opposed to waiting for the safe obsolescence that will be engineered after the election).
Both Warren and Sanders face a replication of their Clinton Problem as a Party Problem: neither can hope to survive opposing the con-census without having a high profile, clear-cut pretext or actual cause to justify an open break with, neither can attempt to provoke a break as long as Clinton isn’t going to party like it’s 2003 – domestic causes will never be unambiguous enough – and without a “clean break” – to borrow a phrase – they decided they had to accept that their fate is tied to the party, which in turns has chosen to tie its own fate to Clinton.
This is the fallacy of personal pragmatism – the belief that your own agency within the political domain is maximized by remaining within the consensus and “working from within” for “reform”. The Democratic Party as an organization did not realize in 2001 – Patriot Act – and 2003 – Iraq Invasion – that the long game for 2004 or indeed 2008 was to take a principled stand and accept the cost – or decided that even electoral success was not worth the collateral damage to its sponsors. Kerry certainly was an appalling example of this, especially when viewed in contrast to Dean running an insider’s inside gamble track successful enough to require party sabotage. Obama just rode the blowback against Bush, having lucked out on having been in a political post where he could safely oppose the war without any chance of preventing it, and no prospect of facing an anti-war candidate.
Sanders and Warren are not willing to risk whatever influence they have within the apparat to discredit that same apparat. Much the same way, Mark Udall was not willing to read Daniel Jones’ torture report into the record – to compare with the way Mike Gravel had handled the Pentagon Papers. None of the “Gang of Eight” were willing to do the same with respect to the initial Bush reports to “oversight” regarding torture and illegal detention – and, as Jello Jay’s letter to himself proved, that was not an oversight.
The claim that US politics is by necessity corrupt because it undoubtedly has to be “pragmatic” is mirrored in the individual politician’s claim that his thumb in the dike is essential to maintain the checks and balances against the tide of dysfunction – and that there was absolutely no way that instead a proudly erect middle finger would, in the end, have a bigger impact than any and all machinations would ever have.
The difference between reform and revolution is the fate of the incumbents – retained or defenestrated in regardless of their responsibility for the calamity or their possible capacity to improve the aftermath, whether they were playing it safe or taking a risk. But if Senators are not even willing to risk “censure” by their “colleagues” – a compliment to any decent citizen if there ever was one – their agency is largely an illusion. The same, of course, is true for Presidents. Bush, whatever his failings, at least had the balls to pursue his reckless agenda no matter the cost not only to others, but also, possibly, to him personally. Before Bush, it was not quite clear whether an administration could openly venture far beyond what even Reagan had been willing to let happen – and get a mandate for it in 2004.
In history, Obama’s legacy will ultimately be that of a mere caretaker that polished the autopilot between the reigns of two colossal idiots that blundered their way into historical relevance.
Hear, hear.
Agreed. The endless series of limited objections, however justified, done in such a way to preserve both the illusion of reformability and the idea of a healthy, system correcting criticism is a wondrous political mirage generator. There is no criticism that the framework cannot handle. Sanders and Warren become central props in a play intended to show that there is no such thing as an impossible hope. As I’ve said before, the editors of the quarterly Salvage, who flagrantly place the goal of demolishing such hopes on their masthead, are on the money.
Just saw a clip of Bill Clinton calling for the end of the divisive politics. Bwahahahahaha.
A whole lot of people really are unaware and delusional.
The Chinese communists in 20s, 30s and 40s: “KMT corruption is bad.”
Now they are in charge, corruption is still rampant.
If Bill thinks (falsely, probably) they are winning, it’s time to end the divisive politics. In fact, they may be losing.
Then, it’s time to fight for one’s principles.
Female geoscientists get worse recommendation letters than men do
no “excellent” rating shorthand: she doesn’t “put out”, or, there is nothing else in it for me.
To be honest, I didn’t see much of that when I first started working (my first degree was in Geophysical Engineering) but what I did find was “paternalism” when I went looking for work. I couldn’t get on any exploratory crews because I was always told that the work was “dirty” and wouldn’t I be happier in a nice clean office? Needless to say, I went on to get my Masters in another scientific field….
I’ve noticed that even now, most of the geoscientist males I meet still think the Geosciences is “manly work” and women just aren’t “manly” enough to be considered equals in their club……
ugh. Women often do have a different attitude towards life and the Earth, too, and may not be so ready say, for example, that it’s OK to frack the hell out of someplace when it isn’t. Just a thought.
Where will the money go when the three bubbles pop?
True, the three bubbles are driven by low rates and the search for yield. But rates are low because the economy sucks… And the constant threat of higher rates is probably empty. Higher rates would first tank equities and initiate a real recession, in turn tanking houses and autos. Certainly junk bonds would crash, too, as they default… But what about the long bond?
We would see record low yields… And this without the EU breaking up, highly likely to fall into a recession/depression as their exports/banks crash.
The equity crash is waiting for a trigger, leverage is nervous… Could be anything at any time.
But the specific question… Equity and other prices reflect sentiment, are not cash, the money was never there so the question is nonsensical.
That Dangerous Idiots piece should be a must-read for everyone on this site, not that it will come as news.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/10/14/why_pay_attention_to_the_la_times_poll.html
This was interesting re: 2016. I didn’t realize the LA Times polls was based off the old Rand model that was on target in 2012. Perhaps there’s a big surprise coming in Nov?
I no longer put any faith in the national polls anymore. I was actually polled this year and I had to tell them Jill Stein’s name because they weren’t giving me the option of choosing her. It is no wonder she is polling so badly….
Interesting.
Their argument against the methodology, continuously asking the same group, is not relevant here, I.e. The group is not educated from one election to the next, and in fact being more accurate would encourage participants they are educated enough.
The swings during the Romney campaign are interesting, if accurate indicate he could have won if held on a different date… By the same token, consistently predicting trump is encouraging to those unhappy with the dem selection. Brexit, polls off a huge 6%, hopefully a predictor…
Hey, gals & guys, that’s right on the money: http://prospect.org/article/strange-sympathy-far-left-putin
Disagree with the whole article.
“The fact is that President Barack Obama is worthy of serious criticism for his policy in Syria—not because his administration has done too much, but because it has done too little to stop crimes against humanity. ”
So did the CIA, in partnership with Erdogan and Saudi royals do too LITTLE of the weapons smuggling that they’re so fond of under Obama’s tenure? This is publicly disclosed in major media outlets and the fact is that in 2014 and 2015 American made TOW missiles were blasting lots of Syrian tanks and it looked like the tide was turning until the Russians stepped in.
So, I think it’s worth cutting people a bit of slack if they’re sympathetic to Putin. After all, the reason Syria hasn’t turned into another Libya is because of Putin’s decision in fall of 2015.
Any article that talks about Syria and does NOT mention Al Nusra and the other jihadi rebel groups is more or less worthless.
“This points to the final, immense irony: The far-left apologists share the stage with Trump and his fellow admirers of Putin’s authoritarian regime. The extremes meet—useful idiots all.” – No, this is precisely backwards. It’s the beltway pundits and think-tanks and media talking heads who have lost their cotton-picking minds and to find more sensible voices, you’ve got to wander outside the ‘mainstream’ channels of conversation!!!
Zuckerman v. Hoffa: Can a “Pissed-off Teamster” Push Out the Incumbent?
Alert to the possibility this might be seen as nostalgic, it’s worth noting that prior to Gorbachev’s dismantling of central planning as part of perestroika, Soviet industry was not mediocre throughout, and some sectors would have been viable if offered some degree of protection from imports in during a transition period. While the “shock therapy” formulated by the Harvard mafia, led by Summers and Sachs and appealing to the yay capitalism forces grouped around Yeltsin, was certainly damaging, that catastrophe of the 90s was set up by the failure to formulate a way to protect an internal market without ceding, or appearing to cede, too much to a system of central control. Kotz and Weir’s Revolution from Above, pps. 74-91, sets this out well. Unlike the Hamptons, that TWaA is a defensible position.
https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/12803
“Posting fake craigslist ads pretending to be Trump looking for “hot” employees.”
Sorry here’e another one.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9778
HRC wants drivers licenses for illegals.
Actually that is something I agree with HRC on. I live in a rural area where many undocumented people work on the farms. I would like to have them at least pass a driver’s test before they get behind the wheel of that truck…..
To make money, they will rather have robot drivers.
The last thing is hiring demanding American drivers.
I would love to be that cat.
Re: Millennials Aren’t Lazier Than Boomers”
Of course they aren’t, and Gen X weren’t “slackers.”
The marketers are just on their usual cycle of dismissing the previously fawned over “youth generation” as they prepare their “brand-washing” for the “new and improved” youth. This is going to be called Gen Z or something like that. They’re already on about what “huslters” they are. This is the generation they are prepping to have no expectations…they plan to make them love the “gig” economy and tell them how special they are for it.
Well, you need marketing labels for them to point out how millenials are less lazy than those decrepit boomers (that have destroyed all the good jobs). How else are you supposed to keep the peasants fighting each other rather than focusing on the oligarchs? This is the first I’ve read that those old farts have changed the time continuum though.
It is not true that once you hit 35/40 that you will have full time dreary work, come home to spend the evening sleeping in a recliner and spend weekends mowing a pesticide ridden lawn, screaming at the kids to get off. The reality for vast swaths of this country is that we are all just squeaking by and all have family, friends and neighbors that live a precarious existence.
There are no differences between the generations. It is a struggle for the vast majority to house, feed, clothe ourselves and hope for a little something extra to enjoy our brief stint on the planet.
Speaking of laziness, it is not bad per se.
Only because we have been brainwashed that we are against laziness.
If one is a genius, one can be do the job even while being lazy – that’s what we look up to…one day, to be a genius so we too can be like that.
“I didn’t even study for the exam and I still aced it.”
“I am so jealous. You’re a genius.”
The other kind of laziness is idleness that overworked serfs can only dream of.
Feinstein response has been form letters for ? a decade now. I wrote to Boxer and Feinstein, it would be months and I never received anything but a form letter. It was clear the writing was never read.
I tested the response.There are sections to mark a box for subject. Write a letter regarding outsourcing but check the box for environment and you will receive a form letter on environment. Mark ‘other’ begin your letter with a hint of outsourcing but spend 80% on environment and you will receive a letter on outsourcing.
I no longer write the (s)elected oligarchs and I don’t sign petitions.
Yes of course, all they really show is they have never written their Senator before. Well I guess everyone is new to politics at some point.
There actually is a Senator up for election (getting a brand new Senator one way or other) so mostly they should focus on that. Granted the choices aren’t necessarily great, I’m not thrilled with them, but even more in the primaries after decades and decades there was a choice of Senator. If the focus isn’t there rather than writing these dinosaurs then … that is quite frankly completely pathetic! Force the candidates to take a position already.
Noone deserves to be laid off to hire H1Bs of course, but I’m not sure the solution there isn’t more trying to organize than writing the powers that be.
Requiring higher pay for H1B visa holders doesn’t do much, if their situations are more ‘precarious,’ and they are, thus, more exploitable.
It’s harder to be against, than to be for.
Similarly, it’s harder to say ‘not that many more H1B visas…just too many,’ than to say, ‘let’s pay them more.’
Ten daze that shook the world…just catching up on things…mostly killing unread email feeds…just wondering…
are trump and $hillary being played…
lets you and him fight…
db and merkelvision are off the front pages…
epipen girl and tenet were caught on a billion dollar govt billing fraud…
cfpb hits 1.3 billion payday fine only to have some minor ruling on executive supervision be turned into some media nonsense the agency itself was ruled unconstitutional…
brazil odebrecht…
“Backpage” pimping charge due to cross marketing and feed of pron type sites owned by backpage…
chinese wanda investigations…
bla-hoo caught handing off data to big flubber and then foolishly being caught having all its data in close enuf proximity and interconnected that emails were compromised…
As to goosee boy and goosee boy 2…plenty of east germans were required to have russian language skills prior to the decision to rescind german debts and give them a financial free ride after the opening of the wall in berlin…
might explain why there are diction and syntax questions on “russian” language found by some in the data…
Or…it could just be what bezos and carlos slim are paying their employeez to feed us…
Either way…$hillary will turn the federal budget into clintonedeaf found($)ation two and hand out money…taxpayer money… to every republican who gets airtime on the fixxx newz network…
Tammy knee (pad) hall reborn…
Time to make the doe nutz…
Thankfully, the conversation about sexual assault is moving on from Trump.
http://www.theestablishment.co/2016/10/11/this-is-not-a-think-piece-about-trumps-sexual-assault-comments/
Twenty some days before the election, will this be the high water mark for negative Trump news?
In the meantime, Wikileaks can always surprise…
Among unpleasant surprises, the ones that damage the most, I think, are those that emerge one or two days before the scheduled event.
Hard to imagine new lawsuits against Trump every day until Nov. 8.
I don’t know what to think about any of this. There is certainly a stark contrast between the way liberals and feminists treated Bill Clinton’s accusers, and the way they are responding to Trump’s accusers.
I think it is safe to assume Trump was handsy. There is also evidence emerging of collusion with the Clinton campaign, and such political tactics trivialize sex crimes. The Clinton campaign knew there were women willing to make the claims, but held them back until now.
That doesn’t sit right with me because it diminishes the women’s credibility (a disservice to them), and turns what should be fair game for questions about Trump’s attitude toward women into a cheap political weapon.
Yes, agree with this.
My question is what the heck was Jebbie’s team doing with their $100M war chest while he was getting run over by the Trump-train?
The Bush family has got to have plenty of connections with people who can dig up dirt. After all, they Swift-boated Kerry effectively enough in 2004.
How did David Brock and the Clintons get away with holding their fire until the perfect time to crush Trump?
Maybe the wikileaks emails will tell us.
Wikileaks can hold their fire until the perfect time as well…
They are not the only smart guys and gals in the room.
” if the UK rejected the free movement of people, it would not have access to the single market.”
Free movement of people is a defining characteristic of nations.
In terms of international trade: the theory of comparative advantage, from Pareto IIRC, depends on both labor and capital NOT moving freely. If they do, comparative advantage turns into a “race to the bottom” – and this was in the original theory, so it’s something all economists know or should. In the 19th Century, it was a reasonable assumption, but of course today “comparative advantage” is used to justify the free movement of capital – a gross lie.
As Yves has pointed out, free movement of labor between nations is part of a cheap labor policy. It’s also part of the pretense that the EU is a nation, not just an alliance. But that level of unification is highly unpopular, so not going to happen. It would mean the rich areas, like Germany, spending large sums to subsidize the poor ones, as in fact states do in the US.
So in basic economic theory, the Brexiteers have it right. The remaining question is what that’s going to cost them.
You’ve never tried to emigrate. Free movement is NOT ” a defining characteristic of nations”. That’s why the arrangement in the EU is special. Try getting a work visa in Australia or Canada or just living there for longer than 90 days.
One side note here: Ricardo’s famous “comparative advantage” paradigm says trade profits everyone. What’s seldom mentioned when it’s brought up (e.g. on the editorial page of the Wall St. Journal as it excuses yet another trade pact): It’s premised on fixed, immovable labor and capital.
o “43 million gallons of milk have been dumped so far this year | TreeHugger (resilc)” — Multiplying by 1.5 to get a full-year estimate of milk-dumpage we get 65 million gallons, which is roughly 0.3% of estimated milk production (211 billion pounds, roughly 26 billion gallons) for this year. Clearly we should aim for 0 wastage, but let’s get real about the relative amounts here.
o “Female geoscientists get worse recommendation letters than men do | ars technica (Chuck L)” — More quippy headline would be “Fault-Finding in Geosciences hiring recommendation practices”. Or, “Chauvinist male-dominated Geosciences is Not a Gneiss Field for Women.” Or, “Women in Geosciences face a rocky career path.”
o “Facebook has repeatedly trended fake news since firing its human editors | Washington Post” — Unwittingly hilarious headline from Pravda on the Potomac. Pot, meet kettle. (Though PraPo’s editorial staff may still consist of human propagandists, which gives their yellow journalism agency.)
o “Where Will All the Money Go When All Three Market Bubbles Pop? | Charles Hugh Smith” — To borrow from the title of a John K. Galbraith book, “back to whence it came”. The “whence” being ex nihilo. From nothing, back into nothing. The promises made on the assumption of said money’s persistence, on the other hand, that’s where things will get interesting.
apologies if already posted.
The Most Important WikiLeaks Revelation Isn’t About Hillary Clinton
What John Podesta’s emails from 2008 reveal about the way power works in the Democratic Party.
By David Dayen
October 14, 2016
The most important revelation in the WikiLeaks dump of John Podesta’s emails has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. The messages go all the way back to 2008, when Podesta served as co-chair of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. And a month before the election, the key staffing for that future administration was almost entirely in place, revealing that some of the most crucial decisions an administration can make occur well before a vote has been cast.
Michael Froman, who is now U.S. trade representative but at the time was an executive at Citigroup, wrote an email to Podesta on October 6, 2008, with the subject “Lists.” Froman used a Citigroup email address. He attached three documents: a list of women for top administration jobs, a list of non-white candidates, and a sample outline of 31 cabinet-level positions and who would fill them. “The lists will continue to grow,” Froman wrote to Podesta, “but these are the names to date that seem to be coming up as recommended by various sources for senior level jobs.”
The cabinet list ended up being almost entirely on the money. It correctly identified Eric Holder for the Justice Department, Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security, Robert Gates for Defense, Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff, Peter Orszag for the Office of Management and Budget, Arne Duncan for Education, Eric Shinseki for Veterans Affairs, Kathleen Sebelius for Health and Human Services, Melody Barnes for the Domestic Policy Council, and more. For the Treasury, three possibilities were on the list: Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and Timothy Geithner.
This was October 6. The election was November 4. And yet Froman, an executive at Citigroup, which would ultimately become the recipient of the largest bailout from the federal government during the financial crisis, had mapped out virtually the entire Obama cabinet, a month before votes were counted.
https://newrepublic.com/article/137798/important-wikileaks-revelation-isnt-hillary-clinton
And yet there are still some who will never admit we were sold a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I bow to those who spotted him. Although I was not a supporter (unapologetic Edwards voter), I still thought better the unknown when it came to the choice between Obama and Clinton. And it shows you how much I distrust her, that I still think we probably got the better of the two Democratic choices in 2008.
you seem to forget….sarah paylynn was a heart beat away from waving at vladimir raz/putin and the rest of our global associates…thought the flotus speech about how deeply “hurt” and “frightened” she was…well…it was…
well, this administration is on its last days, so…well…let us just say she and val jarrett when they were doing the bidding of the daley administration in the department of planning…
well…
they could not care less about the woman in the historic “black metropolis” community between the University of Chicago (where potus worked) and downtown chicago/mccormick place…she could not care less about all the white hill bills from indiana and michigan driving into chicago to work on the giant expansion and rehab at that time, while she helped direct black woman to a phony internship program designed to make sure only a few dozen per year could get thru when in fact most of the union card were obtained not from the “offical” union intership, but from sponsorships via existing smaller contractors…
when she and val jay were instructed by the daley machine to convince the folks in the historic black metropolis to approve the summary demolition and destruction of their own community, she had no problem following orders…
and when the mothers at robert taylor homes needed better lighting and security so they could actually make it home from the bus, FLOTUS could not care less how many of those black mothers ended up not just being harassed by gang members…not just touched by them…
but worse…much worse…
and when val jay decided to go along with the demo of the robert taylor homes for the benefit of the mostly white IIT college, there was no request that there be any adjustments to compensate and she could not burden herself to worry about where these broke and broken women and their children would end up…Hyde Park was a waitin…
and when folks in the community tried to have the site of Jack Johnsons Cafe d’ Champignon(champion) just have a marker…she could not be bothered when almost all white IIT said “hell no”…and the location of black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux office…
Pleeeze…was the usual response from her and val jay…
and when she and val jay hid the 750 grand allotted to rebuild the historic 8th armory (@ 35th and giles) from the progeny of Ida B. Wells (Barnett)…william barnett…and tried instead to have the building demolished to bury black history…
let’s just say I was not their favorite token white guy…
and all those mothers in syria and the ukraine and places in between…yeah…she really really feels for them…but for her…
all was well in the garden…
so these crocodile tears from madame FLOTUS…well…at least she should get a nomination for best supporting actress…
Orwell might not have dreamed of such invasive advertising, but Pohl and Kornbluth certainly did.
Phil Dick did too. He has some floating ‘reminder’ units dogging the footsteps of a character somewhere or other.
Anything hackable will be. That is a sociological version of the old military adage; “Every weapon ever invented will be used sooner or later.” That’s one reason I eschew iphones. Whenever something is tied to accessible bandwidth, assume the worst; you won’t be disappointed.