Banks ‘could be forced to keep all your money’ Daily Mash
BREAKING: New DNA Testing on 2,000-Year-Old Elongated Paracas Skulls Changes Known History Ancient Origins (Wat)
Acidic ocean could affect fish spawning BBC
EU Plans Database of Bitcoin Users With Identities and Wallet Addresses Softpedia
Brexit
PM Theresa May meets Tory MEPs over Brexit ‘red lines’ BBC. It’s disconcerting to see May use the same terminology as Tsipras and Varoufaks. Also notice the pretense (or worse, ignorance) that the EU has set down some boundary conditions.
UK faces ‘surge’ in EU migration before Brexit unless cut-off date applied, MPs warn Telegraph
After Cameron: How can you mend a broken country? Open Democracy. Includes some important facts.
Please let’s not take the monetary sledgehammer to the nut of Britain’s post Brexit economy Telegraph
Time is not on the Bank of England’s side Financial Times
The European Revolt Against the Neoliberal EU Real News Network
In reversal, Juncker backs sanctions on Spain and Portugal Politico
Are Italy’s Banks A ‘Doom-Loop’ Risk That Could Bury The Eurozone? ValueWalk. A really good overview.
China?
Moody’s: China’s shadow banking system continues to grow; leverage increases further FX Street
Is war inevitable in the South China Sea? RT (resilc)
Chinese default heightens creditor anger Financial Times
Imperial Collapse Watch
There’s No Business Like the Arms Business TomDispatch
US does 1/2 of all World’s Arms Sales, then Surprised by Global Violence Juan Cole (resilc)
Trade Traitors
In break from Trump, Paul Ryan defends NATO, trade deals US News
Clinton’s Bad Trade American Conservative (resilc)
2016
Search the DNC email database Wikileaks (furzy)
The DNC’s email scandal shows democracy is rotten and Hillary Clinton may be a crook, China’s state media says Quartz (resilc)
Two New Reports Conclude Evidence of Fraud In The 2016 Democratic Primaries Could Be Large Enough to Change Outcome Facebook (furzy). Note I have not clicked through this link to see if the studies are any good.
Leaks show DNC asked White House to reward donors with slots on boards and commissions Open Secrets (dcbloger)
The Bernie Movement Is Alive and Well in the Woods Outside of Philadelphia Vice (resilc)
Livestream one hour coverage of Sanders Supporters WALKOUT at DNC Periscope (Deontos)
RT sci_solar: 1000+ Berners walked out ‼️California is GONE‼️ UTah Gone‼️Oregon Gone‼️..& more? #DNCWalkOut 1/2 … pic.twitter.com/Ei8WUdUXdn @NoBernieNoUnity. Phil U: “Great video of empty arena after #DemExit.”
How Sanders Delegates Organized a Walkout Under Everyone’s Nose NBC. Phil U: “Yet this is the only mainstream coverage I see.”
Nina Turner, Prominent Sanders Delegate, Ejected from DNC Common Dreams (Phil U). Clinton continues hippie-punching the left even as she is losing ground to Trump. You want to get Bernie supporters to reject you, this is the way to do it.
Sanders Will Bolt the Democratic Party Washington Monthly (resilc)
A day after calling for party unity, Bernie Sanders goes back to being an independent Fusion (Kim Kaufman)
Bill Clinton backs ‘best friend’ Hillary BBC. It appears that Team Dem recognized that the most important thing that happened at the Republican convention last week from Trump’s perspective that his family humanized him, leading to a big bounce in the polls, so this appears to be a replication of that strategy.
Behind Democrats’ email leak, U.S. experts see a Russian subplot Reuters. EM: “Ah yes, ‘unnamed U.S. intelligence officials’ – a highly reliable lot there. And so quick at tracking down the perps! They knew within hours that Assad was behind the Syrian sarin gas attack, and that the dastardly, evil, sneaky, bad, wicked, naughty, evil (I know I already said ‘evil’ but it’s *so* evil it deserves repeating) Rooskies brought down MH17. We need to start listening to these people – they are after all highly credentialed experts ‘who are in agreement’!”
DNC Leak Shows Mechanics of a Slanted Campaign Reader Supported News (RR)
The Fear of Hillary’s Foreign Policy Consortiumnews (furzy)
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton Need to Win Over College-Educated White Voters Atlantic
Will Bernie’s Supporters Stay Home on Election Day? We Asked Them. Intercept. This is a lousy way to get answers. Marketing professionals and survey researchers know full well that people lie about all sorts of things to direct inquiries, like how often they have sex and how much money they make. For instance, no one ever tests a new product by asking consumers if they might buy it because 1. They will have a propensity to say yes to pleases the researcher and 2. Even if they like the product, whether they buy it in real life depends on how it fits into their budget then, whether they see it in stores, etc. And with Trump, at least in blue cities, I’ve both heard of and seen a lot of self-censorship re Trump, as in the interviewer needs to signal he hates both candidates so that the other party feels it’s OK to say, if this is true, “I do too, but [fill in blank re reason], I’m probably voting for Trump.” Clinton supporters get very aggressive with anyone who is not a true believer. But some are not shy. As resilc says, “i will crawl in to vote Trump.”
Hillary Clinton And Donald Trump Are Now Equally Unpopular FiveThirtyEight (resilc). This is deadly. A MSM reporter you heard of told me that Trump’s pollster said if the could get Hillary’s negatives as high as his, he’d win.
Julian Assange: ‘A lot more material’ coming on US elections CNN (resilc)
The Party’s Over Counterpunch (resilc)
New York City police upgrade gear after Texas, Louisiana shootings Reuters. EM: “What – no RPGs? No flamethrower-equipped armored vehicles? No laser weapons? These guys are just asking to be attacked!”
Democracy Spring Demonstration John Laurits (martha r)
Why this is the perfect time to invest in infrastructure, and why it probably won’t happen Los Angeles Times
One of New York City’s busiest subway lines to shut for 18 months Reuters. There were times when I rode the L regularly. It wasn’t running often enough to begin with. This is going to screw up a lot of people.
Fed
Fed to Stand Pat, but Statement may be More Constructive Marc Chandler
The Fed Is Preparing For Negative Rates — Here’s The Sign Everyone Missed Forbes
Fed may edge closer to rate hike CNBC. The Fed is eager to raise rates because the banks want it.
Oil Bust Endures For Big Oil As Refining Margins Deteriorate OilPrice
The problems at Deutsche Bank John Kay (vlade)
Deutsche Bank’s second-quarter net income plunges nearly 100% year-on-year CNBC (furzy)
Deutsche begins DoJ talks over mortgage probe Financial Times
Fed Prepares Action Against Goldman Sachs in Leak Case New York Times (Li)
Class Warfare
Highest-paid CEOs run worst-performing companies, research finds Independent (Dan K). Study here. Note this is not a new finding, but this study does an important job in differentiating between “summary pay” which is what is reported v. what they actually took home.
Barbarians at the Gates Craig Murray (guurst). Important.
Antidote du jour. NYCTerrerist: “The image is from The Cats-in-Residence Program, a project I’ve been working on for many years. now at Worcester Art Museum:
this ‘purr-formance piece’ features rescue cats (from Worcester Animal Rescue League) who are living in an art installation filled with cat-friendly sculpture thru. Sept 4.
We celebrate rescue kitties and want to hook up as many ‘purr-formers’ as we can with purr-manent gigs as housecats.
This is the fourth iteration of the installation by artist/curator Rhonda Lieberman, the first at a museum, and so far 61 kitties have been adopted through this piece!
If you can’t make it to Worcester, you can watch the purr-formers 24/7 on this MEOW Cam:
http://www.worcesterart.org/exhibitions/meow/cam
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
283 comments
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Still deciding if Meryl Streep’s speech was either grotesque or creepy. Perhaps I was most troubled because I like her. Dear Ms Streep…feminists don’t vote for war…feminists don’t call Henry Kissinger their friend. The identity-politics is unceasing and suffocating. As a gay male I am NOT looking forward to the first gay president if Hillary is the mold.
Thank you. The cavalcade of celebs apparently ignorant of Hell’s actual doings is too depressing.
Identity-politics crapified like everything else Can’t bear to watch it…
I couldn’t either. Watching, or even listening turned my snarky retorts up to 156+, and I had to leave the room out of concern for my blood pressure.
Once I settled in another room at the computer, I had to put on headphones so I wouldn’t HEAR the damn stuff, while my husband insisted on watching.
This particular torture is only going to continue for another two days [he’s a political nut], but it’s going to be a long four years.
Clinton’s supporters seem to know (how could they not know), but they don’t care. It’s more important to be PC, be able to sit at the table with a grieving mother, say all the right things. We all have our reasons for voting the way we vote. Tribalism and identity politics votes still count as votes.
I am also not sure about their apparently ignorance of Hillary’s doings.
I avoid running into the world’s celebrityhood and, like anyone else, unexceptionally, they are just prone to the dark side. They are what I see and they have to act otherwise to change any impression.
Your antidote is Team America.
I turned the sound off when Streep came to the podium. Brilliant artists such as Streep, Bruce Springsteen etc. really have no more insight nor awareness politically than the average low-talent schmoe. Hearing Bruce talk about politics is cringe-inducing. Not that they should not voice their opinions just that they really know no more than a random person on the street.
With few exceptions, they usually know less than the no talent hack because the celebrity can live in enclaves and are usually surrounded by sycophants.
The Democratic “sit in” stunt to ban guns for people on the unconstitutional no fly list. It was an obvious stunt meant to wow the hippies, but where was the sit in when they cut food stamps? The person who had their stamps cuts might find a sense of security in a gun depending on the neighborhood as sad as that is. The person on the street has noticed. If they saw the DNC, they’ve largely seen people who don’t know anything about where they live.
The political Kung fu ninjas who write think pieces on Veep and House of Cards know nothing about the political landscape. Why would Hollywood?
The American cult of celebrity has a long and storied history. Ironically, the dynamics that lead to Meryl Streep or Bruce Springsteen at the political podium are quite similar to the dynamics that gave Donald Trump his megaphone and popularity among his supporters.
Sow the wind…
reap the bag of wind
Agreed, he doesn’t know any more than the man on the street.
The thing is, the “man on the street” has seen plenty over the past 30-40 years.
“Born in the USA”, “The River”, “Youngstown” “Your Hometown”, “Long Walk Home”. Songs about the Rust Belt and New Jersey, that illustrate what has spread throughout the USA
And I would add that the man on the street is just as capable of being creative as any of the so-called artists who have been elevated, ‘exceptionalized’ and alienated from the rest of us little, less sensibility people, since at least the Renaissance.
And this kind of brainwashing goes in other spheres of one’s life, where, eventually, one consigns various aspects of one’s being, one’s soul to others more capable of handling it.
“Are you kidding? I am supposed to grow vegetables? That’s for ‘farmers’ to do. I am a professor, you know that?”
Last night, while flipping thru the tv channels looking for something good to watch — no such luck– I stumbled unwittingly upon the bloated corpse of war criminal Madeleine Albright addressing the convention. I let out a scream of disgust much as if I had discovered a severed finger in my breakfast burrito. The humanity!
What IS it with these celebrity folk…..??
…It’s like they all got strapped to that old Star Trek psycho/shrink therapy chair…with the dial turned to 11…….”Hillary must win..Hillary must win..I’m with herrrrrr………”
Don’t these people own some designer ‘sunglasses’ they can wear..that prove just how ‘ghoulish’ the corpulent DNC Dems really are?
The Five Points of Light? The Five-Lights Movement?
Hillary supports IP maximalism. Celebs are talking their rental streams and the pampered bubble lifestyles to which they have become accustomed.
Their essentially useless careers, and the adulation which they think they deserve for those careers, depend on the charade continuing. Celebrities are useful idiots for the status quo, a bulwark against critical thinking. There are exceptions, yet they are marginalized. Hunkerdown’s point about IP protections is important too.
“feminists don’t vote for war…feminists don’t call Henry Kissinger their friend”
Wish it were true … but it’s prolly a stereotyping error.
There’s a stripe of feminists red in tooth and claw, happy to send their sons, brothers and even sisters to die in wars of conquest.
Exactly Jim…http://mentalfloss.com/article/59287/9-female-warriors-who-made-their-mark-history
“[Nakano Takeko was] one of the only known onna-bugeisha (female samurais) in Japan’s history.”
Samurai were a social class; any woman born to a samurai family was by definition a samurai. Onna-bugeisha were quite common, but were trained to fight only if they had to, as in defending a castle while the men were away. It’s rare they actually went out as part of a field army.
Shame the Mongolian princess Khutulun didn’t show up on that list. She liked to regularly wrestle with men, with the promise of marrying anyone who beat her. No one ever did.
Not just “send their sons and brothers,” but GO THEMSELVES, to do that thing that got laid on Vietnam vets ( and others since then, as more of a sardonic joke, ha ha):
JOIN THE (US Imperial military branch of your choice), travel the world to exotic foreign destinations, meet interesting people, and KILL THEM!”
Because Equality! Because gentle loving conflict-minimizing femininity after all will pacify the world! http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/12/women-in-the-military/418680/
In the quiet of the grave, or the silent shush of scattered ashes…
The hypocrisy is strong in this species…
I’d say the most dangerous people are the older, massively insecure “feminists” like clinton and madeline albright who, despite their rhetoric, don’t really believe the premise.
In an effort to convince themselves as well as everybody else, they pick a “strong man” to emulate, and then act worse.
Going over the top, and not in a good way, is the only way to persuade their critics and themselves.
Yes, back to Lady Macbeth:
Us 70’s era feminists called those “queen bees”. Sad they haven’t all been killed off by cell phone radiation yet.
We should just direct the polite armed men in green right to our ruling class and hand them over. You want ’em for sausages, Vladimir Vladimirovich, take ’em. Please!
Thanks Jim for the correction. I should not assume all feminists are anti-war. Feminism from an academic perspective can be a big tent including Hillary’s “sensitive-to-the-travails-of-rich-white-American-women” brand of feminism.
By the way, you’re probably right that HRC is a friend of Dorothy.
But as coming out probably wouldn’t enhance her electability, nothing will be said.
‘femme fatale nosferatu’……..
Sorry marco, but we’ve already had several supposedly ‘gay’ Presidents. The real contender though is James Buchanan, president from 1857 to 1861.
See: http://www.salon.com/2012/05/14/our_real_first_gay_president/
And we have already been led by a woman president. After Woodrow had a stroke, Edith Wilson ran the country.
A similar case can be made for Nancy after Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s disease became obvious during the mid-1980s.
Actually, Joan Quigly ruled through Nancys’ “stars.” (I prefer the Disney Animatronic Reagan theory.)
As for Reagans Alzheimers being obvious, to whom? To the public, everything was fine. The best propaganda money could buy.
Personally, I was greatly relieved when I read that an astrologer was actually running the country (via Nancy). I had been afraid Pres Regan had been doing it himself! When his Alzheimers was announced, well after his retirement, I was astonished and highly amused. Y’all didn’t *know*?
Really, I didn’t know about the Alzheimers.
As to how this could happen, well, I take the position that Reagan used his acting skills to ‘play the part’ of President. He’d been ‘acting’ most of his working life, since much of politics today is acting, so old habits got him through the rough patches.
The Reagan years could be called a Regency Period.
You could make the same case for the Obama years – a Regency period for the 1 Percenters, anyway.
Eight years of relatively sane leadership (even though our pockets were being picked, infrastructure continued to crumble, polluters continued to pollute and banksters were allowed to roam free among us) will lead to a massive and myopic Obama nostalgia wave in 2017… which will line the Obamas’ collective pockets much like the Clintons’ have been lined. So yeah, Regency.
I liked Obama’s line at the democrat convention: ‘politics is not a spectator sport’. From my perspective that is all Obama ever was as president – a spectator! Doing very little and watching the circus rattle by. Almost a total waste of space. Oh! he did help Wall Street and a few banksters.
There is a passage in the book Cadillac Desert about Reagan regularly falling asleep in cabinet meetings when he was governor. My mother, who developed dementia in the last couple years of her life, would regularly “fade out” even if someone was speaking to her. My two phennings.
It was obvious during the debates when he was running for re-election. In his big summing-up, he visibly forgot where he was and went rambling off down California Hwy 1 (Big Sur, etc.) A much nicer place to be.
Was I really the only one that noticed?
Incidentally, this means that those implausible claims to “not remember” certain actions were probably true.
Speaking of the Gipper —
From March 31, 1981:
Just one of them cosmic coincidences. It’s not like the Bushes had anything to gain from Reagan’s demise. /sarc
Best bumper sticker ever, back in the day: “Give Hinckley a Second Chance”.
Hinckley has an unusual place in American history; he’s the only controlled “patsie” to be freed. Amazing what being a friend of the Bush crime family will get you. Equally astounding that a review of the day’s events has never been thoroughly analyzed. How many are aware that Reagan’s limo was purposely moved 50 yards down the street so that the President was exposed for that distance after exiting the building?
As a precedent for identity politics and presidents, that sure doesn’t look good. Buchanan is probably the crappiest president America ever had.
Well she did play Thatcher, Hillary’s role model, in a movie.
projection?
Juncker pushing to fine Spain and Portugal for deficits exceeding the Maastricht limit of 3 percent of GDP is a case of political tin ear.
Their deficit surge is a post-bubble effect: partly due to automatic stabilizers of social spending, partly because of special appropriations to clean up broken banks and such.
Choosing this fraught post-Brexit moment to punish fiscal violators puts the issue of national sovereignty in a bright spotlight.
It is basically an invitation for Iberia to take a hike. Fuera España!
This could be a “cunning plan” to promote, ‘Catalonia Libre!’
Due to the picture in the header, I took the article is a power grab by Junker and the reinforcement of the technocrats in Brussels by enforcing discipline.
This means that Merkel has lost almost all of her remaining clout and there is no constraint on Junker doing what he pleases. He is about as popular as Debbie Washerwoman Shultz.
The Brits are fortunate. They might have been compelled to sell their tridents to the Chinese if they had remained.
The first NINE pages of the print edition of this morning’s Washington Post are a paen to Hillary, complete with pics of her + Bill.
Nothing else going on in [their] world.
Sickening.
Trump has explicitly said that Bezos has a huge antitrust law problem with Amazon. I’m sure Bezos is very explicit in his instructions to the WP editor.
Woman of the year!
The political pages of the WaPo and NYT and most other MSM publications may be good for dog training, but little else.
I disagree! There’s always a need for a fresh liner to the parrot’s cage. And the garden could probably use more layers of newspapers and grass clippings.
A Trump Piñata market is opening up!
Bezos, Bezos, Bezos…
Sounds like besos (“kisses”) in Spanish … as in kissing the ass of power.
Bezos just got himself a seat on the Pentagon Advisory Board. http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/policy-budget/policy/2016/07/26/carter-defense-innovation-advisory-new-board-members/87570876/
Wow, I am so ready for the next generation of revolving doors. Maybe they’ll be revolving portals. Maybe the flexians will be paid on blockchains which exist in the multiverse. These guys are so smart that they will leapfrog today’s problems and find solutions for problems that we have yet to create. Lucky us!
They are so smart they are able to invert their solutions into problems!
the pages of the ‘NINE’
….’One b!tch to rule them all… !’
According to a pal who’s a Hawai’i delegate, Hawai’i walked out as well.
The delegate walk out was awesome, I’m particularly excited to see that the California delegates walked out being from a state that makes up such a large voting block, while the MSM may ignore it im sure state and local media won’t be, when it comes to local delegates. Was it all Bernie delegates or only ones from certain states?
I would also be interested to here what local and state media reactions are (if any).
I was disappointed in Bernie, but it is great to see in action that the movement goes on strong without him. Keep fracturing the party don’t let them circle the wagons.
There’s been some good baseball on teevee the past couple of days and this democrat love fest is too nauseating to watch. So I haven’t.
As a result, I was really pleasantly surprised to hear about this walkout this morning. It was only briefly mentioned on msnbs this a. m., and quickly dismissed as nothing.
According to msnbs, more important was the “Sarah Silverman moment,” when she told Bernie supporters that they were being “ridiculous.” Apparently this rebuke was so profound, that months of commitment to Bernie simply melted away into a calm sea of unity and support for the historic candidate that Vladimir Putin has sought to besmirch.
Who knew?
Sarah Silverman: net worth: $10,000,000.
Still a wannabe working her way up…
Chris Rock: net worth: $70,000,000.
Sarah Silverman is rich. Chris Rock is wealthy.
Vincent van Gogh, sold very little during his working life. He was a real artist. These other two you mention? How much Mammonism do they represent?
As Jalen says, “You never get what you deserve; only what you have the leverage to negotiate.”
Of the two, Rock is wealthier in non-Mammon criteria as well. Satirists have been speaking truth to power since at least 400 BC.
The world is not worse off for van Gogh not engaging with the demos. Silverman was onstage with someone who was a professional comedian before becoming a professional politician and bootlick. A walking shadow of Paul Wellstone.
all of it…….
Wasn’t Silverman a Bernie supporter for awhile? Was she herself “ridiculous” at the time?
Other thought: who the hell cares what Sarah Silverman thinks? The MSM apparently…
Sarah Silverman, my darling, some of us think YOU are the ridiculous one, as is anybody who cheers for Hill. I would have respected Bern a lot if he had simply dropped out of sight completely. Gone fishin’, or whatever he does for fun. He doesn’t owe a dime to Hill or the DNC.
Where did that ill-bred woman get the idea it was her business to pass judgment on other people’s political choices? Did she imagine she was substitute-teaching fifth grade and everyone would sit down and fold their hands when she told them to? Truly bizarre.
CBS covered it too, on their website, but did it get on the CBS boobtube main news for the veal class?
What I found interesting is that the CA stands were so empty after assigning so many votes to Clinton. How many lied? Or were those votes rigged too?
I’m sure the delegates didn’t have to be on the floor for their pledged vote to be included in the count. Between the super delegates hobnobbing with the more important folk and most of the Clinton delegates taking advantage of the free alcohol it could be the only ones interested in watching the travesty of Democracy were largely the Sanders delegates – who then walked out.
Just a thought.
I am proud to know and have worked with the organizer of the ND walkout.
Excellent. If they publish a write-up anywhere, please link to it,
Terry McAuliffe. Oops. Trying to figure out, though: bug, or feature?
Even worse. Something that clinton hates worse than Trump. The truth.
like sunlight to a vampire..
Hate it when Trump is right….
From his twitter:
“As I have been saying, Crooked Hillary will approve the job killing TPP after the election, despite her statements to the contrary: top adv”
So the NYT used the phase “…unproven speculation” regarding Russian involvement. So is the MSM pivoting towards Assange and away from Putin as DNC villian dujour?
It matters not, so long as the focus is taken off of the contents of the emails and onto the subject of who leaked them.
Don’t blame the perpetrator, blame the tattletale.
Leaking is the Clintonian Democrat’s mortal sin. The ONLY mortal sin.
Yeah but I really think this is turning into a pretty big fail on the part of Clinton, the DNC, and the establishment media.
I was speaking to family who are watching the Dem convention and would count as independents (former Republicans) and asked them what they thought. As it turns out, “more of the same.” When I asked what that meant, they responded “they continue to cheat Bernie; it is really sad.”
My guess is there is more to come. Mook was squirming in his seat when Savannah Guthrie (who carries water for the establishment like she has a gun to her head) asked him if they expected more leaks to come. If Clinton does not get a bump from the convention, and I suspect she will not, I think she is toast.
Don’t worry. Erdogan is waiting in the wings to be given the role of the boogey man of the day as he prepares his August 9th meeting with Vladimir Putin to seal the deal between their two countries. The US and NATO will be left out. Especially if Fethullah Gulen is not deported to Turkey to satisfy Erdogan’s political blood lust.
Relevant to the August 9th meeting in St. Petersburg.
Another NYT article sez
Spy Agency Consensus Grows That Russia Hacked D.N.C.
One of the authors, David Sanger, is a regular conduit for cherry-picked, worst-case scenario leaks intended to strengthen the hand of administration hawks.
Are we certain that “david sanger” is not a pseudonym for “judith miller?”
Ha! +100
Is this like the FBI “consensus” that there was nothing prosecutable in all the issues with Hillary’s treatment of classified material in using her own personal server?
Probably more so, since there does seem to be a consensus to present Russia as the new boogyman and cause of all our problems…. Also, one of many reasons being bruited about to take on Russia militarily. War, babee!
But…but…but… the 30000 deleted emails were about Chelsea’s wedding and yoga classes; surely Putin is welcome to those. /sarc
More likely the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND). They were recently cited in RT for spying on Israel and the US State Department and they are most unhappy with the NSA for its sneaky spying on German politicians, society and especially industry.
The NSA and GCHQ are accused of hoovering up a trove of German industrial technology and designs. Any intelligence service worth its salt would be right on to anything connected with the Clinton kleptocracy even if just to future proof themselves from emerging US Presidents. Any one of those agencies would be salting the code with ‘russian footprint’ insignia.
The DNC is very concerned about possible Russian influence on the U.S. presidential race. That’s their job.
Sure, as you said yesterday, it’s their priority to see who hacked some emails about whether a candidate was Jewish or atheist…but not to reveal whether the Secretary of State’s emails containing classified information that could harm our national security were hacked, and by whom.
Keep catapulting the propaganda, you’re doing great.
Venezuela’s crisis spreads to Cuba:
Cuba has about half the GDP per capita of middle-income Venezuela. Salaries in Cuba average about $20 a month. A doctor with multiple specialties can pull in an astronomical $67 a month.
Yah, see what happens when the goddam godless commie socialists are in charge? After embargo and decades of undermining of course… Never happens in democracies like Haiti and post-colonial places everywhere else, under the benevolent hands of Real Oligarchs and “He’s our guy” kleptocrats. And how well has the US mope-ery been doing in flyover land and elsewhere?
Remind me again of all the peripheral and internal actions and actors that led to Bad Times in all those places… “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”? “War is a racket”? The apotheosis and canonization of Corruption?
I wonder which polities will prove to me more durable in the face of what might be coming…
The Cuba commies have only themselves to blame for not saying “how high” when we say jump. Serves them right.
The embargo is foolish. To date, Congress has refused Obama’s call to lift it.
But the U.S. embargo is a minor factor in Cuba’s poverty. Cuba trades freely with the rest of LatAm. Cuba could import cars from Mexico to replace its 1950s Detroit iron. But it simply doesn’t have any foreign exchange to do so.
A Mexican Ford probably goes for upwards of 10,000 Cuban cigars. That’s a lotta cigars.
But Cuba also has a currency counterfeiting problem. There are fake Cuban cigars.
“Slant Drilling!” Whatever happened to all those warnings about how the sneaky commie godless Cubans were going to Slant Drill out into OUR and BP’s Gulf of Mexico and slurp up all OUR SACRED OIL? https://thespeechatimeforchoosing.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/thank-you-obama-cuba-about-to-drill-off-florida-coast-put-coastline-in-danger/
Jeebus. That sounds unsafe. Couldn’t the cap come off accidently if you drilled at a slant? Makes you wonder if those Cuban offshore drilling companies really know what they are doin?
And if the well or wells blow out, BP style, the oil released could ride the Gulf Stream all the way to Europe.
Always look on the bright side of life!
Cause and effect…the effects are undeniable, but the causes always seem like controvertible sources of contention…the power to craft AND control the narrative with cherry-picked facts, stats or fantastical fiction.
http://progresoweekly.us/cuba-notes-on-a-history-of-best-intentions/
From my POV their only sins have been autonomous aspirations and rejection of heteronomous acquiescence and dependency. If “free trade” were REAL in any conceivable way, how would the relations be without sanctions and embargoes?
The abstract “logic” of “markets”, seems to be the interaction between “supply” and “demand”. If the “supply” in any “market” can be disrupted, constrained, altered, warehoused, re-routed, in-sided etc., AND “demand” in any “market” can be manipulated, restrained, deceived, out-sided etc., then it follows that the neo-liberal projects claim, that “markets” can and should be “unfettered and free” would seem ludicrous.
“….open windows and whirring fans in lieu of air-conditioners.”
Next they may have to stop heating their pools.
The horror, the horror….
#DemExit gaining steam. After nearly 40 years as a registered democrat, last night I changed my CA voter registration from Democrat to Green. I won’t be going back.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but there is some satisfaction in the solidarity I’ve seen from so many long-term democrats voting with their feet. The corruption and hubris of the Clintons and their sycophants at the DNC will be the undoing of this party.
Good for you. I moved to West Virginia last year.
My choices in W.V. are Republican, Democrat (which is what I’ve always been in all the states I’ve lived), Libertarian, and Mountain Party.
Here’s the Mountain Party, they seem pretty green.
~
The Mountain Party is the WV affiliate of the Green Party. Some states (and DC) have local parties that became GP affiliates (Green-Rainbow Party in MA, the DC-Statehood Greens, plus the aforementioned Mountain Party).
Did the same after the CA primary and I live in CT, lol.
Did the same in California. Felt so good. Now green, although I like the Peace and Freedom party better…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_and_Freedom_Party
YESSSSSSS!!!!!!!
A scandal a day keeps the Hildabeest away. :-)
Hate to tell you but the Daily Caller is about as reliable as Alex Jones. This could be correct but I’m not buying it until I see independent verification.
Even if the story is true, my reaction is “so what”? The IRS response sounds pro forma as much as anything else: “Thank you for your concern. Your letter has been forwarded to the appropriate parties. Check back in a couple years.”
I hope I’m wrong.
You could be right. After all, what’s missing here is a criminal referral.
Our Justice Dept can root out corruption in FIFA (international soccer governing body), sniff out laundered money from Malaysia’s 1MDB, even track funds diverted from Venezuela’s PDVSA through an Andorran bank.
But when it comes to the insidious homegrown bribery and influence peddling documented in Clinton Cash, Loretta’s Lynch’s “Justice” Dept sees no evil. And Hillary has spoken of reappointing her.
You forgot Steroids…….that’s ALWAYS a good diversion to use on the plebs….
In general, when a government agency such as the FBI or the IRS say they are doing a “Clinton Investigation” what they are really doing, for the rest of the campaign, is giving Hillary an excuse to say, “Well, I’m not going to comment on ongoing litigation” and so help her avoid answering any difficult questions on the matter.
Bingo.
yea………..impartial my ass !!
to use the relevant re-phrasing from the great williambansai7………..E Pluribus Foolem !
…and from the history hole, there’s this slightly dated bit:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/irs-sends-congress-unsigned-form-letter-to-brush-off-demands-for-clinton-foundation-investigation/article/2565634
The letter (I used to draft items like this when I worked as an enforcement attorney for the US EPA — by the time the re-writes were complete, all substance was drained by the Vampires of Avoiding Career-Limiting Actions) is a model of its kind.
Oops:
One missing signature could cost the agency a billion in funding.
This is gonna leave a mark!
A scandal a day keeps the Hildabeest
awaygay.Note the ambiguity.
HRC supporters are so insistent that theirs is a moral choice.
And that’s why they hate Bernie’s supporters so much.
Try talking to them about what she did to Libya, and they’re in deep denial.
~
They are also insistent Hillary is a great candidate which is so far from reality it’s hard to deny whether the average Clinton supporter spent any time “looking closely” at candidates. The only real conclusion is they are as tribal as Palin supporters and they hate Palin supporters. Nader and now Sanders simply by running have demonstrated what Team Blue partisans are, so they really hate anyone outside the duopoly.
Every other issue aside, a mistrusted candidate can never reinvent herself. There is no magic spell Hillary can chant that will make people put aside the trust issue. Only a demonstration of contrition would work, and she hasn’t taken up Carter’s mantle.
I could not bring myself to watch any of the convention coverage last night, in particular, I could simply not stomach the sight and sound of one pathological liar driven by greed and ambition – Bill Clinton – waxing poetic and grand about the selfless humanity of someone apparently cut from the same cloth – Hillary.
I mean, really, is there anything that could possibly come out of his mouth that anyone could believe?
Although I did hear a sound-bite this morning – something about Hillary making change better than anyone he knows. My first thought was about all the “change” she made from all those speaking fees and PAC contributions, the “quid” for the “quo” as it were.
What a sad and broken mess this whole thing is.
Hillary doesn’t do humble. I saw a tv clip of her responding to Sanders’ “not qualified” statement and she sneered as though the very thought was absurd. She touts her mother’s advice to always fight back against criticism but apparently this attitude doesn’t leave a lot of space for self reflection.
Of course you could say the same of her opponent and personality wise they may be closer than HRC’s peeps care to admit. But Trump does seem to be coming from a different place. Hill is a committed neocon/neoliberal. Trump may not be humble but he does appear to be flexible.
She’s the most unbelievable actress I have ever met,” said a woman who worked on Hillary’s Senate campaign. “I remember one time at a Women’s Leadership Forum event in New York, thirty of us sat around Hillary, talking about politics. And she said, ‘You know, I love this organization, not just because we sit around and talk about politics, but because of the bonds of friendship forming around us.’ The way she said it, people were riveted by her performance. But I had gotten to know her, and I could tell she didn’t mean it. She has this unbelievable ability to be a liar. She is soulless.”
Edward Klein, The Truth About Hillary; [44]
I had Sherlock on in the background last night as I couldn’t watch the DNC travesty. There is a scene after John finds out about his wife’s past where he asks Sherlock and Mary the seemingly rhetorical angry question if everyone he has ever met is a psychopath. They respond “yes”.
I didn’t immediately realize that it was the perfect description of our current political situation. Do you have to be a psychopath to be nominated for President by a major party? Yes. Certainly looking at our Presidents it does seem to be a requirement for the office over the last couple of decades. Unfortunately none of them seem to have as much moral character as the leading psychopaths on Sherlock.
Perhaps she was projecting her own absence-of-soul essence onto Putin when she said “he has no soul”.
My favorite sport is to ask shills what exactly are her accomplishments?
I mean, she’s so great at getting things done, right?
@ sid_finster…”My accomplishments as Secretary of State? Well, I’m glad you asked. My proudest accomplishment in which I take the most pride, mostly because of the opposition it faced early on, you know. The remnants of prior situations and mindsets that were too narrowly focused in a manner whereby they may have overlooked the bigger picture and we didn’t do that. Very proud. I would say that’s a major accomplishment.”
…Claimed to be from a 2014-03-11 speech in letter to the editor by Scott Boyer. “Hillary Clinton: A killer public speaker”, Missoulian (2014-07-21). There is no record of Hillary Clinton having engaged in a public appearance on this date, nor any news account or transcript recording such a quote, according to snopesdotcom (“Stating the Oblivious”)
Re: The Dumbness of Asking People What They Think and Expecting Them to Tell you the Truth
When will they learn? Reminds me of Brexit, where everyone who was going to vote Leave lied to pollsters because if they told their true voting intentions, the nice lady who had nobbled you in the street on your way out of Waitrose might have thought you were some ghastly right-wing xenophobe who didn’t like funny brown people.
And also the same lesson (sort of) which wasn’t taken on board wit the New Coke debacle. Even if people answer, it is only a snapshot at that point in time. It doesn’t pick up on the persistence (or not) of a person’s opinions. (In New Coke, the problem was that people prefer sweeter things for a time, but longer term, food which is too sweet is actually a turn-off).
For many years in Northern Ireland pollsters always added between 2-5% (sometimes more) to the prospective vote for the DUP and Sinn Fein on the basis that on face to face polling a lot of people would claim to be voting for the more ‘moderate’ or ‘respectable’ unionist/nationalist party. If I’m not mistaken, there was always an assumption that the Conservatives would score a little higher than polling suggested for the same reason. Its a well known phenomenon of course, but I think Yves is right to suggest it might be a particularly significant bias in this US election, especially among educated voters.
My personal guess is that if Clinton fails to get a post nomination boost, and if Trump can stop saying anything stupid over the next 4 weeks, the Dems will arrange a sudden illness for Clinton and put her VP on the ticket, that seems to have been why he was chosen. No doubt part of the deal would be a pardon from Obama for anything and everything with the word ‘Clinton’ on it. Obama doesn’t seem to give a toss about anything right now except for his post presidential billion.
On my lifetime “must see” list, I’ve added the Obama Library (when opened). I just want to see for myself what they come up with. I’m thinking Shari Lewis & Lamb Chop do the Beltway. On Acid.
No doubt the wall where all the ‘valued contributors’ have their name chiselled in for posterity will make very interesting reading.
Would that be the same list that the revolution would use?
bet the Kagans are at the front of that list….
The revolution could use the very same wall….
Facebook Fails to Show Up for Seventh Tax Summons From IRS
U.S. tax officials probing 2010 rights transfer to Irish unit
Internal Revenue Service still seeking documents from Facebook
Facebook Inc. officials failed to show up after getting seven summonses from the Internal Revenue Service demanding internal corporate records on one of its offshore tax strategies, according to an IRS court filing.
U.S. authorities are examining Facebook’s federal income tax liability for the period ending Dec. 31, 2010 and are looking at whether the company understated the value of global rights for many of its intangible assets outside the U.S. and Canada that it transferred to a subsidiary in low-tax Ireland.
While Facebook has supplied some documents to the tax authority, it hasn’t provided books, records, papers and other data demanded in seven summonses, the IRS said in an amended petition filed Monday at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. These include a request to show up at an IRS office in San Jose on June 29.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-27/facebook-fails-to-show-up-for-seventh-tax-summons-from-irs
don’t try this at home?…who knew the irs was so patient.
Well, that certainly doesn’t bode well for the IRS investigation of the Clinton Foundation. What happened to the days when people feared the IRS?
There’s a “dislike” joke in there somewhere.
There’s a particularly good interview by Robert Sheer of Thomas Frank that occurred near the end of last night at the convention. [Forgive me if this link appeared previously @ NC; there are too many comments for me to re-search. And it’s well worth viewing, although audio is screwed up until about half way through.]
http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/live_from_philadelphia_thomas_frank_and_robert_scheer_on_day_2_of_the_dnc_v
I found a couple of points particularly forceful: that the Dems’ long “they’ve got nowhere else to go” attitude towards “working class whites” is what created the opportunity for Trump, and that if he doesn’t win this time, the Dems aren’t going to attempt to solve the economic problems, so it’s likely that the “next” Trump will be less crudely offensive and more likely to be successful.
I was disappointed that they didn’t recognize that the “they’ve got nowhere else to go” attitude towards the Left, [coupled, of course, with energetic hippie-punching] is likely to result in a fair number of them voting for Trump as well. Perhaps they’ve spent too much time at the convention and haven’t been reading NC or other blogs.
Edit – Sorry, I now see that Roger posted this yesterday. But again, it is worth watching.
“they’ve got nowhere else to go with energetic hippie-punching”
I think Mohamed Ali referred to it as “Rope A Dope”.
Thanks for the link. Good interview. And that led me to this from Chris Hedges: The 1 Percent’s Useful Idiots.
The comments by Scheer regarding the very significant union labor contingent at his first Democratic convention in 1956 now entirely missing, replaced by the Wall Street crowd, their presence largely unseen but very much felt, throwing ‘the’ private parties to attend was interesting.
Scheer’s observation that their wasn’t much difference between the Eisenhower Republicans and Adlai Stevenson Democrats was curious to me.
Apropos the Eisenhower-Stevenson identity, I always recall how Hitler’s Angel”, Prescott Bush went on to sire two Republican presidents while his partner in banking, Averell Harriman, merely went on to become Governor of New York and Democratic presidential candidate (with Truman’s blessing) against Stevenson.
I wonder if this is the same Harriman whose family funded (and had a seat on the Board) a part of Bethlehem Steel about 100 years ago, along with Stillman, Loeb and Kuhn?
That’s exactly where I stand…..I’ve had it with being continually condescended to by these ghouls…!!!!!!!
sooo ….I’m voting Greater Evil………..the demorats deserve it ……. good n hard !
I mean…what would Cthulhu do??
WRT Breixt
“In the aftermath of Brexit, we need to cast doubts on the presumed “rationality” of actors, commonly discussed in economic theory. With complete information, agents should, in theory, be able to make rational and informed decisions about what is in their best interests. The focus on economic trade-offs deriving from the UK’s position inside or outside the EU, during the Referendum campaign, called for a direct judgement from the part of the British citizens on such a complex and ramified issue such as that of abandoning the EU.
Leaving aside discussions on whether the media coverage enabled the voters to possess “complete information” in the first place, it is important to point out that rationality may be overruled in the context of risk societies, in which we currently live. When risks are distributed unevenly among different sectors of societies, agents’ motivation for a particular choice may not necessarily mirror the given or perceived notion of the “common good”.
Those who directly perceive or live directly the existence of these “risks”, such as disenfranchised, marginalised or impoverished sectors of British society, may have resorted, in fact, to the creation of an alternative (possibly delusional) notion of “national interest”. – Francesca Ammaturo
Skip here…. and just to put some perspective flesh on that…
The Thirteen Commandments of Neoliberalism
By Philip Mirowski.image
Neoliberals are not fundamentalists. But they approach crises with a certain logic–one that is directly relevant to comprehending neoliberalism’s unexpected strength in the current global crisis.
[4] THOU SHALT RETASK THE STATE TO THY NEEDS
A primary ambition of the neoliberal project is to redefine the shape and functions of the state, not to destroy it. Neoliberals thus maintain an uneasy and troubled alliance with their sometimes fellow-travelers, the anarchists. The contradiction with which the neoliberals constantly struggle is that a strong state can just as easily thwart their program as implement it; hence they are inclined to explore new formats of techno-managerial governance that protect their ideal market from what they perceive as unwarranted political interference. Considerable efforts have been developed to disguise or otherwise condone in rhetoric and practice the importance of the strong state that neoliberals endorse in theory.
One way to exert power in restraint of democracy is to bend the state to a market logic, pretending one can replace “citizens” with “customers.” Consequently, the neoliberals seek to restructure the state with numerous audit devices (under the sign of “accountability” or the “audit society”) or impose rationalization through introduction of the “new public management”; or, better yet, convert state services to private provision on a contractual basis. Here again our commandments touch directly upon the crisis. The financial sector was one of the major sites of the outsourcing of state supervision to quasi-private organizations, such as the Financial Industry Regulation Authority (FINRA) or the credit rating agencies such as Moody’s, Fitch, and Standard & Poor’s. Indeed, the very “privatization” of the process of securitization of mortgages, which had started out in the 1960s as a government function, has become a flash point in explanations of how the financial sector lost its way.
One of the great neoliberal flimflam operations is to mask their role in power through confusion of “marketization” of government functions with the shrinking of the state: if anything, bureaucracies become more unwieldy under neoliberal regimes. Another is to imagine all manner of methods to “shackle” the state by reducing all change to prohibitive constitutional maneuvers. In practice, “deregulation” always cashes out as “reregulation,” only under a different set of ukases.
[5] THOU SHALT REDEFINE DEMOCRACY
Neoliberals seek to transcend the intolerable contradiction of democratic rejection of the neoliberal state by treating politics as if it were a market, and promoting an economic theory of “democracy.” In its most advanced manifestation, there is no separate content of the notion of citizenship other than as customer of state services. This supports the application of neoclassical economic models to previously political topics; but it also explains why the neoliberal movement must seek to consolidate political power by operating from within the state. The abstract “rule of law” is frequently conflated with or subordinated to conformity to the neoliberal vision of an ideal market. The “night watchman” version of the state is thus comprehensively repudiated: there is no separate sphere of the market, fenced off, as it were, from the sphere of civil society. Everything is fair game for marketization.
The neoliberals generally have to bend in pretzels to deny that in their ideal state, law is a system of power and command, and is, rather, a system of neutral general rules applicable equally to all, grounded in something other than the intentional goals of some (that is, their own) group’s political will. As Raymond Plant explains, for the Rothbard anarchists, this is something like natural law; for the Buchanan-style public-choice crowd, it is contract theory; for Chicago economics, it is a world where the economy is conflated with the universe of human existence; and for Hayek, it is his own idiosyncratic notion of cultural evolution. In everyday neoliberalism, the Chicago story seems to win out. – snip
Was just having a convo with one Stephen Morris at another blog about his and fellow direct democracy ™ fanboyz [in reality rancid public choice theory]….. wheeeeeeeeee… neoliberals making it up since MPS….
He did not quite grok it when I said – Let me make this simple…. economics has nothing to do with democracy, markets are not a framework by which to evaluate democracy, democracy is not about theoretical concepts used in game theory, when in fact the vast majority of our currant problems are the result of aforementioned being applied to society by pseudo scientists…
For that I got…
It may be observed that commenter Skippy:
a) has failed to demonstrate that Skippy’s preferences or anyone else’s preferences (including in particular preferences regarding devices for the aggregation of preferences) ought to be privileged over those of other people; and
b) has failed to demonstrate any device for the aggregation of preferences that does not require the identification of privileged preferences, other than a device which privileges none at all.
Everything else follows from that.
The remainder of Skippy’s comment is a long-winded – but ultimately futile – attempt to argue around that logical problem.
Disheveled Marsupial…. and with that gem one has to countenance that 90%+ of electoids and policy pontificators are beholden to this crapola… what year is it again – ????????
That’s what you get if you start going on Fool’s Errands !
There was another blog, which I won’t dignify by linking to here, where I would, in my youth, when I still had my strength, try to offer the benefit of my infinite wisdom to, as you did there. Suffice to say, it fell on deaf ears. Now, whenever I am tempted to repeat such folly, I have a nice cup of tea and a sit down.
As your comment above mine states succinctly – the observations are just a snap shot in time – yet, these bozos treat it like empirical data to input into their theoclassical models as individual preferences which the sums of reveal reality… libertarianism as viewed through the methodological framework of Nashian game theory….
That these – guys – have so thoroughly screwed the pooch after decades and then try flimflam everyone with this direct democracy shtick is just abhorrent and the amount of people drawn to it like moths because the work democracy and freedoms is uttered is not encouraging.
Disheveled Marsupial… some even have the gall to use libertarian marxism as a vehicle or any other ism with a libertarian bolt on e.g. libertarian is just a facade for market fundamentalism…
Thanks for that!
I remember in my introductory economics class the concept of “dollar votes” – being young and naive, I was quite taken with it. Now that I am older and crankier, I understand some have more votes than others…er, uh, I mean dollars….so much for one person one vote.
The financial markets – which work so wonderfully without the intrusion of gubermint – except of course when then need trillions for bailouts.
…or to write the rules and drive the enforcement policies to favor their particular Bidness Models and Current Scams… It’s only “intrusion” when it was not ordered by the corporate beast…
We need to be careful. If they get pissed off for any reason, they may “vote with their feet”, run off, and buy someone else’s government! What would we do then?
“Sanders will bolt the Democratic Party”
Wow. Virtually every comment is infused with Dem tribalism.
They don’t seem to be aware that he isn’t the only one.
So, Sanders is finally realizing that the Democratic Party isn’t a good home for him? Yeesh. Talk about a slow learner.
I still think he should have run as an independent.
Thought the same, that he should have left months ago.
Earth to Bernie: this ain’t the Democratic party you remember, and it hasn’t been since 1992 or so. Soz and all that.
Chance he had to take. Got him #Debates, #TownHalls which help spread the #Revolution and crucially fed those surges of donations. Should have negotiated a conditional endorsement based on “free and fair” primaries. He sadly had no idea how badly he was going to get shafted.
If he had run as an independent he would just have been condemned as a spoiler, even though he probably would have won less support than he ultimately did through the primary process. And we would not have seen just how corrupt the Democratic Party is. If we had gotten nothing else out of this (and I think we got more) we have learned how worthless that system is and how much we need something else. And we have a lot of activists, many of them relatively new activists, to create it.
In the general election, he could have prevented Hillary’s wholesale rightward drift.
Sanders has done an amazing favor to all. He has demonstrated by his contrast in policy that the dems are bankrupt sinister thugs. He has demonstrated by his contrast in ethical believability that the dems candidate is a woeful sinister thug.
More than anything his campaign team and all of its followers has established a transitional pathway that has a good chance of succeeding in future elections. By declining the proposal to slip under the rigid glass ceiling of the Greens he has enabled that future transitional pathway the liberty to become a major force.
There are many things that could have been done better or presented better but the course for the future is in a mighty better trajectory now following the Bernie Sanders campaign and the creation of our revolution.
Clinton Emails Reveal Direct US Sabotage of Venezuela
Here’s one for the Haygoods to take note of, maybe? Stuff that “never happens”?
If those emails showed the U.S. printing bolivars to destabilize Venezuela’s economy, that would be a smoking gun.
But they don’t. Venezuela did that to themselves, flying in cargo planes of scrip from Europe.
The emails are about catapulting gov-sponsored propaganda, with our lying liars of Radio Marti countering their lying liars of TeleSur.
Everyone’s a liar, it seems, except for our gold-fixated libertarians.
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/12082
So j84, apparently from the article link you so kindly have provided, maybe the root causes of Venezuela’s current distress were something other and more than “flying in plane loads of Bolivars?” And would it be inaccurate to state that the US Empire and corporate interests had nothing to do with the instability and all that? Who would swallow that?
Documents Show C.I.A. Knew Of a Coup Plot in Venezuela
“BOGOTÁ, Colombia, Dec. 2 – The Central Intelligence Agency was aware that dissident military officers and opposition figures in Venezuela were planning a coup against President Hugo Chávez in 2002, newly declassified intelligence documents show. But immediately after the overthrow, the Bush administration blamed Mr. Chávez, a left-leaning populist, for his own downfall and denied knowing about the threats.
Long irritated by Mr. Chávez’s ties to Fidel Castro and his blistering anti-American attacks, the Bush administration provided the Venezuelan government in Caracas with few hard details of the looming plot, although American officials say they broadly talked to Mr. Chávez about opposition plans.
Mr. Chávez was removed from power on April 12, 2002, after 18 people died in a spate of gunfire during a huge antigovernment protest. Taken into custody by dissident military officers, Mr. Chávez was spirited out of Caracas while an interim government led by Pedro Carmona, a Caracas businessman, took power.
The new government dissolved Congress and the Supreme Court and hunted down Mr. Chávez’s ministers. But Mr. Chávez returned to power on April 14, riding the crest of a popular uprising against the coup plotters.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/03/washington/world/documents-show-cia-knew-of-a-coup-plot-in-venezuela.html
—————————————————————————
Venezuelan Opposition Announce Plans For a Peaceful Coup Against President Maduro
Maduro said: “No one is going to kick me out”
The last time Venezuelan politicians tried to topple a president, the blowback buried them. In 2002, they promoted a military putsch against socialist leader Hugo Chávez. But amid massive street protests, the coup collapsed and many of the conspirators fled the country or landed in prison.
That’s why on Tuesday, when a new generation of opposition leaders announced a campaign to dislodge Chavez’s successor, President Nicolás Maduro, they framed their plans as an exercise in people power.
Amid widespread shortages of food and medicine in Venezuela, a collapsing currency, a possible debt default, and the world’s highest inflation rate, opposition spokesman Jesús Torrealba announced a three-pronged strategy for regime change that he described as “constitutional and democratic.”
Plan A is to gather enough signatures to trigger a recall vote that would remove Maduro and open the door for new elections later this year. As a backup, opposition lawmakers will simultaneously attempt to pass a constitutional amendment to shorten Maduro’s six-year term which expires in 2019. Finally, Torrealba called on Venezuelans to take to the streets starting this weekend.
“We are calling for a nationwide mobilization to demand the resignation of Nicolás Maduro,” Torrealba told a Caracas news conference. “Change is coming and no one can stop it.”
Maduro says he isn’t budging. “No one is going to kick me out,” he declared last week.
But unlike 2002 when the socialist revolution was still young and Chávez, its founder, enjoyed widespread support, polls show that a majority of Venezuelans now want change. This time around, it’s Maduro and his cohorts who are widely viewed as the conspiring authoritarians.
Maduro, who replaced Chávez after he died of cancer in 2013, lacks his predecessor’s charisma and political skills. And in the face of the country’s worst economic crisis in modern history the president has, oddly, done almost nothing.
He has refused to scrap price and currency controls, roll back business expropriations or jettison other failed socialist policies. Instead, Maduro claims Venezuela’s problems are the result of an “economic war” being carried out against his government by a traitorous oligarchy. But analysts say there are other reasons for staying the course.
http://time.com/4252340/maduro-venezuela-opposition-recall/
—————————————————————————-
They are busy bodies, aren’t they?
“Clinton also drew fire for saying, “We’re winning!” when the Venezuelan opposition won a majority of seats in parliament in 2015 and for serving as secretary of state while the National Security Administration regularly spied on Venezuela.”
Hillary should have said, “We’re beating Putin!”, dontcha think?
The good news, I guess, is the NSA is using up bandwidth spying on other countries. We could use some centralized intelligence in this country.
Or just more bandwidth…
“The theme of challengers as “Barbarians” runs through history. We will have to put up with it for some time. The good news is, they are seriously rattled.”
Why are ‘They’ seriously rattled? ‘They’ have the deepest pockets for controlling media, policy and commerce. Could it be ‘They’re’ deep pockets are depleting? Obviously, and while they feed on each other…
“…the creative individual must be born again and again in the crucible created by the tension between opposing instincts, conflicted feelings, and contrasting ideas.”-Michael Meade
The Matt Taibi article on the DNC money laundering machine is a must read and should be sent to every Clinton supporter. It highlights in one short read everything that is wrong with Hillary and her surrogates. Clinton surrogates bragging about how she is helping state candidates while she was looting the State DNC’s for her own campaign is disgusting. Even Clooney was used as a tool parroting what he was told that most of his $353,000 per seat fundraiser was going to state candidates. And when she was caught by a savy reporter, the orchestration of a PR defense between the DNC and the Clinton campaign conclusively demonstrates how the DNC is in the bag for Hillary.
I know Clinton supporters don’t care, but if it was no big deal, why not be honest up front about what was going on? And it makes it just that much harder to swallow a victim of the fraud urging everyone to vote for her.
More on the Clinton PR machine, from St. Clair at Counterpunch this morning:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/dnc-leak-shows-mechanics-of-a-slanted-campaign-w430814
Good article. It has a minor inaccuracy about the maximum that people can donate to a campaign:
A donor can give $2700 to the primary campaign, and another $2700 to the general election campaign. I don’t think that anyone could have legally given $5400 until after Clinton won the nomination. This makes the situation even worse, since more money should have gone to the state committees.
Donors could cut the check for the full $5400 pre-nomination; campaigns are allowed to essentially stick the extra $2700 in escrow against the day that they either win the relevant nomination or fail to do so. There’s FEC guidance on it.
And in fact, at least in its early stages the Clinton campaign was making the full ask. A friend of mine was involved in setting up some of the earliest roll-out fundraising events, and she and her colleagues talked about needing to do an intervention with the campaign because they were inviting prospects to what were already high-dollar events — $2700 a head or don’t bother — and then telling people who accepted the invitations that well, actually, the event price was $5400 a head, please to be cutting both the check to max out for the primary and the check to max out for the general. Donors didn’t react well, and the campaign backed off some; but those were what the Clinton campaign thought of as modest donors. I have no doubt that they continued to ask people in the Clooney-guest category to max out for both stages at once.
Thanks for the correction. I wonder how much of that money actually remained in the escrow accounts?
Wow, the entitlement is just overwhelming. (And contempt for the donors as well).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37uh0BcvSXo
Abby Martin reports that she was illegally detained and manhandled at the DNC along with other dissidents. Remember, Trump is the facist.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/27/why-the-federal-reserve-is-rethinking-everything/
–I would add that not only have persistently near-zero rates not spurred growth in the economy they also haven’t spurred inflation. At a very deep level the conventional model of monetary policy is BROKEN.
Been lots of asset inflation. Plenty of pharma, health care, education, houses, rent, defense products, and even food inflation. Chinese inflation has stayed low. Wage inflation is low, if you do real work.
Fed policy has been ineffective at combating Chinese deflation, totally ineffective preventing a Mexico Peso devaluation (10 down to 18 to the buck), and lack of significant wage inflation for anyone that doesn’t give raises to themselves.
Almost makes you think the Fed should be re-thinking everything. Not a moment too soon either, but they may think on it a while yet. It’ll be hard to think of something they can do to fix all that up!
Yes. I would argue that is because those assets are (or at least are effectively) bought with borrowed money. Interest rates go down and asset prices go up. But consumables bought with “here and now” money have gone up in price far less… And yes, the fed should be rethinking everything because neither what they wanted (3% growth) or what they feared (runaway CPI) have happened. I would argue that the great recession was like the great depression in that they broke the old economic model.
Just to be clear, by “effectively bought with borrowed money” I mean can be used as collateral for further loans. Whether the borrowing happens before or after the purchase makes little difference in the effect that interest rates exert on prices.
Especially when there are a whole lotta people doing at the same time. Makes serial analysis of single events in serial difficult.
Reform the Consumer Fraud and Abuse Act [Cathy O’Neil]
The beauty of algorithms is that they can silicon-wash lots of bad behavior.
And if the algos can’t (legally) be audited, their owners can’t be held accountable.
RE: The Party’s Over Counterpunch (resilc)
And, if you [Bernie supporters] decide to persist in building an opposition movement, brace for a fear campaign unlike any you have seen. Its all they has left. “Fear,” Gandhi said, “is the enemy. We thought it was hate but it’s fear.”
Which is exactly what all this hysterical Trump-bashing and “the Russians are coming” crapola is about.
Feel the fear, and do it anyway.
“nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror” –FDR
How old is a person who wouldn’t remember 9/11 and the aftermath? 20, 22? The fearful will respond, but fear has been used so much no one else will care. Since the GOP is the party of fear, it vacuums most white fear based voters.
Anybody watching the “evolving presence of the I Did Not Have Sex With That Woman-In-Chief” in the incipient Hllary Rulership?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/16/hillary-clinton-presidency-bill-economy-czar
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/hillary-clinton-previews-bills-role-in-her-administration/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/05/15/hillary-clinton-reveals-the-role-bill-clinton-would-have-in-her-administration/
There appears to be a phase change or transition point in the life arcs of people who become Rulers — they reach the inflection where impunity exceeds the reach of RuleofLaw
(TM), attract a large enough shield of “supporters” to no longer even have to think about “how it looks” since the Bernaysian Fog hides all but the most peccant parts and justifies those to the mopes as “necessary” or reminds the mopery that they are designed by the Great Nature of Things to be the Fokk-ees, so kwitcherbitchin’…
” Long before Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, Louis and Judith Friedman were traveling the world, discussing environmental issues. Their advocacy came to an end Tuesday when the couple—who once gave Mikhail Gorbachev a solar-powered watch—were found dead in their Connecticut home by an attorney who dropped by for a planned appointment, reports the Hartford Courant. Police won’t say how the couple died—the official causes of death are to be released Wednesday, per Fox 61—but “evidence indicates the deaths were apparent suicides,” says a police chief. Friends say both suffered from health issues. Louis, 81, was typically housebound by knee and heart problems, while Judith, 80, had just retired from the People’s Action for Clean Energy partly over medical concerns.
The couple started speaking out about environmental issues some 25 years ago and their house in Canton—”an energy-efficient marvel,” per the Courant—was among the first in Connecticut to use solar panels. The Friedmans eventually traveled Europe and Asia advocating for environmental issues and world peace for Washington-based groups EarthKind and Promoting Enduring Peace. After the Chernobyl disaster, Louis Friedman even raised money for victims and organized tours to stress the importance of clean energy. “We’ve had many people tell us that what we do is too intense and depressing,” Louis told the New York Times in 1992. “Well, if anything, we feel invigorated.” As one friend puts it, “they set an example for all of us.” Says another: “They were awesome, they were just rocks, solid rocks. They lived what they believed. They walked their talk.” sigh, thank you friedmans…now peace.
Thanks. Heard this yesterday from our bff who lives in Canton, where we also used to live. Our private speculation is that they planned this and planned the lawyer’s visit so the lawyer would find them.
RIP Friedmans.
The new British International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, will be responsible for determining new trade rules for Brexit. Does not sound good as he has close ties to Koch Brothers ALEC organization.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/27/sovereignty-corporations-liam-fox-eu
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/oct/15/liam-fox-atlantic-bridge
Frivolously, I can’t get Warren Zevon out of my mind:
Lawyers, Guns and Money
juicy smile for sharing your Frivolousness !
Excitable Boy is such an amazing album. There was one week in high school where I never even removed the disc from my CD player.
The report that Nina Turner was thrown out of the DNC convention seems to be erroneous. She was mistreated in various ways but not thrown out.
From https://www.reddit.com/r/Kossacks_for_Sanders/comments/4ut0za/nina_turner_was_not_kicked_out_of_the_convention/:
Ben Jealous tweeted that he just called Nina and she says that the story that she was stripped of her credentials and ejected from the convention are FALSE. She will address it in the morning. He is calling on commondreams to issue a retraction.
https://twitter.com/BenJealous/status/758156625286983680
I spoke to @ninaturner. The stories that her credentials were stripped are false.
And Kara Mosley Samples has a picture of her with Nina inside the convention:
https://twitter.com/TaraLSamples/status/758130799673769985
Im going to need people to stop it w the lies that @ninaturner was kicked out the convention.
And Shaun King is also saying that the story is false:
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/758169156160221184
her credentials were NOT revoked. That’s a fabrication. She was slighted in several other ways, though.
But it seems that she was clearly mistreated which is unforgivable. We will know more in the morning
in the guardian today, steven thrasher doesn’t pull any punches in attacking the democrats. a rare sight in today’s media
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/27/hillary-clinton-general-election-bernie-sanders-campaign
Maybe part of the problem is the 99% don’t read the Guardian……..
They do, because they have “people” to search for their every mention in the press, and are remarkably thin skinned.
They have to balance their image on a huge pile of dirty cash, and that’s hard work.
“The Dems can’t offer an economic vision”. Sure they can, and they did. Michele O and others told us everything is great, America is already great, stay the course.
Sad observation; this mornings internet ‘news’ feeds are almost uniformly H Clinton panegyrics. Seriously, some of it verges on “Our Glorious Leader” messaging.
Trump could do us all a favour and hire Lambert to do a real time exegesis of H Clintons’ Thursday night “Shape of Things to Come” speech. Do it on a YouTube live feed and broken down into tweet form in a series. Could Bernie have been given a look at a rough draft of the speech and decided to bail out as fast as he could to avoid being associated with the Demon Queen?
This is probably the one convention speech I will watch in ‘real time.’
If Lambert is going to do one of his explications of political speak for H Clintons’ speech, may I suggest that we pitch in and send him a full body hazmat suit, with self contained air supply?
the BillBile did a number on Lambert last night. if Lambert were to accept this request, he would deserve every donation we can scrape together…he’ll need to convalescence some place special.
I don’t know if anyone bothered to watch Clinton’s speech last night, but I found this pretty galling (starts at 40:54).
My own transcript: “If you’re a young African-American disillusioned and afraid… we saw in Dallas how great our police officers can be—help up build a future where nobody’s afraid to walk outside, including the people that wear blue to protect our future.”
So, black people are responsible for making police feel safe?! What’s the opposite of a dog whistle? Whistling past the graveyard?
i’m going to post Hillary quotes all day (or until my netbk melts).
He ran a gas station down in St. Louis… No, Mahatma Gandhi was a great leader of the 20th century. Introducing a quotation by Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, as reported in International Herald Tribune (21 January 2004)
hey that’s what the script said! totally not her responsibility!
“Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work” -Frederick Douglas
Frederick Douglass was a badass.
Frederick Douglass vs Thomas Jefferson. Epic Rap Battles of History
Na, rilly!
Well, there are no more slaves and the contemporary saying is “Beatings will continue until morale improves.”
Confidential from an archaeologist: that ‘Ancient Origins’ website focuses on the space aliens.
I guess it’s a step up from the (deliciously metaphorical) ruling-class-as-lizard-people theories, but let’s just say this research is not peer-reviewed.
True as your comment is, the problem with that “not peer reviewed” argument is that ‘peer pressure’ pretty much stops any “serious” verification or debunking of ‘deviant’ theories. It takes long periods of time for most ‘new’ theories to gain acceptance, or to even be firmly disproved. The ‘old guard’ often hinders the investigation of new theories for various reasons, not all honourable. The history of the plate tectonics theory in geology is a prime example.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics
Somebody explain to me who made all of the things on this site, when, why, and how, and we’ll be getting somewhere. (Skip past the wild speculations on the site to the pics of installations we would struggle to build today):
http://megaliths.org/
Forget Mars………Better to send an exploratory crew to check out LV426……and put Elon on board!
You know…come to think of it….I’ll bet Buba just had an alien face hugger slip off his person……………right before doing that ‘shaky’ speachifying thing…….
Indeed, if you have liberal friends and even hint at voting for Trump for any reason, oh wow. It’s an unforgivable sin to even suggest such a thing…
If “democracy” is what we have now, nobody should be surprised if people in the rest of the world take a look, and say “no thanks, we’ll just keep our dictator”. The “lesser of two evils” strategy.
But then, US policy is to cram “democracy” (or at least be “friendly” to democracy) down everyone’s throat, using all of the diplomatic, economic and military tools in the inventory.
It works best when you can convince the rubes at home that the military is “fighting for freedom/democracy” instead of the truth, which is they are fighting to further the interests of the oligarchs/plutocrats/MNCs.
Which leads to the lie about “free markets”. In this case, picking the kind of government or social structure you want to have. If democracy is such a universal good, why do we feel the need to destroy the “competition”? Are we not confident enough in our “product” to go head to head to win hearts and minds without carpet bombing the sceptical/unconvinced?
We get to choose Trump or Clintoon……
its great to have a choice ….
“A choice, not an echo.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly
Speaking of interesting women, same flavor it would seem.
If you’re trying to cultivate a reputation as a fount of unhinged ignorance, that idiotic piece about Paracus archaeology is a really good start. “Extra-terrestrial Hypothesis” — right.
I thought it was an Onion piece.
Some of us enjoy reading the crankier theories. They can be very entertaining. For example: There’s the theory that beneath many of the world’s freshwater aquifers (used for irrigation and drinking) are older and deeper aquifers (yes, in many places that’s true) – therefore (and here’s the cranky part) there is infinite abundant water and no need to conserve. It’s a crank theory because most of that lower strata water is brackish, contains heavy metals and salt, and is unfit for any human purpose. The cranks go on and on about all the ‘fresh’ water out there. Then there are the cranks who can prove, prove I tell you, that the earth is only 5000 years old. There isn’t much science in the “proofs”, but there’s a lot of ‘science-y’ sounding argument. a=b, c=d, therefore z. Reading their papers is very entertaining.
Someone who denies global warming told me yesterday that he was enjoying the heat wave because it was the last warm summer NYC was going to have for a very long time.
(Weather is cyclical and this is all part of the cycle…)
I’ve grown to sort of enjoy it – and I particularly wanted to embrace yesterday’s prediction.
I’m pretty sure cyclical doesn’t mean what he thinks it does.
On an interesting note our “global warming” may have staved off or stave off an ice age.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-climatechange-iceage-idUSKCN0UR2G320160113
We’re going into uncharted territories as far as cycles go. I would hypothesize though that the cycle that normally heats the planet back up following an ice age(which by the way is ALSO appears to be due to naturally occuring CO2 in the environment) may make things more unpleasant than this summer if we can’t get our own CO2 production under control.
The long defunct Omni magazine was great at that – it always highlighted theories at the very fringes of science – with just enough credibility that you couldn’t dismiss them entirely. I remember one that argued that natural gas was generated by tectonic activity, so if we drilled deep enough we would find almost endless quantities. Its enjoyable to read these if you have enough knowledge to take them with the required grain of salt.
I submit to you the Time Cube: (the theory that time is cube-shaped)
http://www.theverge.com/2015/9/2/9247913/time-cube-is-gone
a Hillary twofer…as we do bring our troops home, we cannot lose sight of our very real strategic national interests in this region… I will order specialized units to engage in narrow and targeted operations against al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in the region. They will also provide security for U.S. troops and personnel and train and equip Iraqi security services to keep order and promote stability in the country, but only to the extent we believe such training is actually working. I would also consider, as I have said before, leaving some forces in the Kurdish area to protect the fragile but real democracy and relative peace and security that has developed there. Speech at the Temple for the Performing Arts in Des Moines, July 10, 2007 [8
…freedom is never granted. It is earned by each generation… in the face of tyranny, cruelty, oppression, extremism, sometimes there is only one choice. When the world looks to America, America looks to you, and you never let her down… I have never lost faith in America’s essential goodness and greatness… I have 35 years of experience, fighting for real change… the American people and our American military cannot want freedom and stability for the Iraqis more than they want it for themselves… we should have stayed focused on wiping out the Taliban and finding, killing, capturing bin Laden and his chief lieutenants… I also made a full commitment to martial American power, resources and values in the global fight against these terrorists. That begins with ensuring that America does have the world’s strongest and smartest military force. We’ve begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Al Anbar province, it’s working… We can’t be fighting the last war. We have to be preparing to fight the new war… We’ve got to be prepared to maintain the best fighting force in the world. I propose increasing the size of our Army by 80,000 soldiers, balancing the legacy systems with newer programs to help us keep our technological edge… I’m fighting for a Cold War medal for everyone who served our country during the Cold War, because you were on the front lines of battling communism. Well, now we’re on the front lines of battling terrorism, extremism, and we have to win. Our commitment to freedom, to tolerance, to economic opportunity has inspired people around the world… American values are not just about America, but they speak to the human dignity, the God-given spark that resides in each and every person across the world… We are a good and great nation. Remarks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Kansas City, Missouri, August 20, 2007 [10]
When you think about it, America is almost 250 years old and we still haven’t eliminated police and police stations in this country. So why would we expect Iraq, Afghanistan, and those other Middle East places to be any different? These foreign policy people do start making sense, when you think about it, real hard.
russian saying “There is no murder in paradise.”
usa saying “There is no corruption in the free world.”~aby
yet the russians had their citizen x’s and we got an entire system broken beyond repair
abynormal
July 27, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Thanks for that blast from the past.
“I’m fighting for a Cold War medal for everyone who served our country during the Cold War, because you were on the front lines of battling communism.”
If that’s retroactive, I’ll have two – one to add to my mediocre conduct award….
I don’t know how anyone could bear to watch that decrepit liar try to sell a woman to the public that he has personally so consistently and unabashedly disrespected and degraded for decades. Cringe-worthy hardly begins to describe the spectacle.
Having said that, I did see some clips. What I noticed was that during his characteristic gesticulating, his hands were clearly shaking. Maybe he was just nervous about the bullshit he was peddling.
Inspiring admiration and respect for a woman for whom you clearly have neither is a tough one. Even for a big “dog.”
Meant as reply to Uahsenaa above.
Delusion is running deep in Philadelphia. I’ve missed that, but I did get to see a clip of walking excrement Andrew Cuomo announcing the “votes” from NY flanked by fellow piece of manure Chuck Schumer. Oh, and a clip of Uncle Joe Biden being interviewed and saying to imaginary Bernie supporters “I know you cannot vote for Trump.”
I do find it interesting that the couple of clips I saw had little of the shaking but Bill did talk about meeting a ‘girl’. Works well with that respect thing, too.
Might simply be a nerve condition. My hand trembles a little bit all the time, even when I’m perfectly calm. Maybe he does get nervous, though; would explain why he used to always do that thing with his hands where he’d clench his fist with the thumb over the top to act like a pointer.
I mean Bill Clinton’s behavior toward women in general, not just his wife, has historically been atrocious and may still be to this day, but their marriage always struck me as a cynical political alliance, not a relationship born of mutual love and respect.
Maybe I should just regard this as Clinton/s being Clinton/s, but in the context in which the statement appears, it was just SO condescending and cruel.
Immigrants: welcome to America!
Muslims: welcome to America!
African-Americans: don’t get too uppity! (because we value cops’ lives more than we do yours)
If accompanied by shuffling, Parkinsons.
Shuckin’ and jivin’…
Prosecutors announce that all charges will be dropped against the three officers awaiting trial in the Freddie Gray case, which comes on the heels the judge in separate trials dismissed the charges against three other officers. They noted that the likely request for a bench trial with the same judge would get the same outcome.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/27/us/freddie-gray-verdict-baltimore-officers/
sickening. it just feels like, every day, the aristocrats are running over another peasant with their carriages.
and they wonder why & where the next lone wolf will enter…
cop wives should have a long talk with these judges & prosecutors
I know you are talking generally, but there are exceptions to that long talk thing. The prosecutor who made the announcement truly looked heartbroken. I’m going to cut them a break on this one, especially since they need to use public resources for these trials. If you know before starting the fix is already in, there may be little point in pursuing the course. They made the point that they would end up going before the same judge who had just thrown out the previous cases. And I’m sure there could be a case made for a judge or two where the prosecutor puts on a show trial and fatally kills their own case no matter what the judge might want similar to the Grand Juries.
True and Thanks Pat…the wives need to give a pep talk to the prosecutors.
We will never know why the prosecutors, particularly in the Rice trial that just ended, presented such a lame case and did not use any of the video or eyewitness testimony that generated the uprising in the first place. I seriously wonder which side they were on.
Hope for the future. We need more organizations like this.
National Nurses United: Trump Terrifying, But Movement Must Be Built that Speaks to Issues (Real News video)
State of the Subreddit Address and The Future of /r/SandersForPresident
Too bad aidan king succeeded. They were teeheeing about it in an anti-Sanders spot and looking to target kossacks for sanders also. I’m not a fan of reddit, but it was just a half dozen outsiders doing this and it was creepy.
Good grief…. that’s a large group. 225k. Stop talking politics!
Was Tom Friedman always this dense?
Yes.
From CounterPunch:
” Does Bill have Parkinson’s? Whole lotta shaking going on. (Marc Solomon informs me that my diagnosis is off the mark. Solomon said Clinton is suffering from a drug reaction: “They’ve had him on Thorazine to shut him the fuck up during the campaign.””
Cryptome has had a problem with Wiki for near on a decade because of monetization issues. http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak.htm
Now Wired is connecting the dots about Assange and his ” dislike” of HRC. https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost-moral-high-ground/ If true, then expect them to start their please donate plea.
Today’s Must Read:
The DNC Is One Big Corporate Bribe
Drink up—it’s on us! Then go protest the TPP to your heart’s content.
By David Dayen
July 27, 2016
https://newrepublic.com/article/135564/dnc-one-big-corporate-bribe Thanks!
look at all those happy people…wondered where they been hiding
‘signs signs everywhere a sign’: “As Politico’s Ben White reported on Monday, private equity firm Blackstone has a meet-and-greet on Thursday. Independence Blue Cross, the southeastern Pennsylvania arm of the large insurer, held a host-committee reception Tuesday; their chief executive is the finance chair of that host committee. The same day, Le Meridien hotel had a private event for Bloomberg LP, and the Logan Hotel hosted “Inspiring Women, a Luncheon Discussion.” The sponsors included Johnson & Johnson, Walgreens, AFLAC, the Financial Services Roundtable (the industry trade lobby), and New York Life. (How many people were they serving, given the number of corporations involved?)
Facebook commandeered a bar inside the Wells Fargo Center for delegates and guests. Twitter rented out an entire restaurant, bestowing attendees with free breakfast, lunch and an open bar.”
You mean that shot of the NY delegation with our governor front and center… Be prepared to see a lot of him, I fully expect him to try to convince the DNC that he is the logical Clinton successor. Lord knows he almost makes them look good, although he did realize that raising the minimum wage was going to have to happen before Hillary champion of workers and children everywhere did.
I particularly liked this section:
i can’t get a deep enough breath. also, Tweeter crashed 11% after hours trading last night while they were offering open bar…
America! America! God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
BARFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF……….. oh man …. I still feel like shit…..!
and
slippedslithered into the Wells Fargo Center“I have a million ideas. The country can’t afford them all.”
Reply to a question whether Hillary’s proposals can be implemented without increasing the national debt, October 11, 2007. [11]
Some of St. Clair’s latest notes on the convention
and last but not least
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/27/the-humiliation-game-notes-on-the-democratic-convention/
I was surprised that Lena can actually speak for any length of time without mentioning her privates. You could feel the frisson of her stifling the urge.
Who’s Anthony Weiner? Does he work for Carlos Danger?
I seriously suggest reading the election fraud reports. They’re comprehensive and damning in the extreme. It’s abundantly clear that no progressive candidates will make it past the fraud filters unless we act extremely quickly and aggressively to clean out the nests of corruption in counties across the nation. There will be no non-violent revolution. Another couple years of Clinton will guarantee violence. Food riots, if nothing else.
Neonicotinoid insecticides turn out to be powerful contraceptives for bees.
Queen bees fly out to mate with multiple male bees (they really are shameless hussies), but a third of the male bees are already dead, and the remaining ones are mostly shooting blanks.
Will Bayer stop producing and selling this insecticide, or try to come up with a Viagra for honeybees? Which is the more profitable course?
Diane Ravitch explains why has drunk the Hillary cool-aid:
Why I Will Vote for Hillary Clinton
https://dianeravitch.net/2016/07/27/why-i-will-vote-for-hillary-clinton/
“I am not happy with her qualified support for charter schools. I would like to explain to her that they are undermining the nation’s public schools, and in some cities, destroying them. I would like to explain to her that the problem is not just “for-profit charter schools.” The problem is setting up a dual publicly-funded school system, one that chooses its students and the other required to accept and enroll every student. It makes no sense.
Like me, she went to public schools. She knows how important they are to our democracy. I believe she would not knowingly sacrifice them to the entrepreneurs and privatizers who want to take them over.” [my bold for emphasis]
Despite Hillary being “super-smart,” she thinks Hillary just doesn’t understand and needs some splaining and she’ll change her neoliberal point of view.
Plus Trump is just so darn “scary” and has no “experience” in “getting things done.”
Oh, and clinton has spent her life just lovin’ on women and little children. Especially the girls. As long as billy doesn’t take a shine to them.
I don’t know if you realize this but you undermine your valid points with your nasty innuendos about Hillary’s sex life.
There’s nothing that concerns me LESS than hillary’s sex life.
I’ve no idea where you’re getting that. But, rest assured, for reasons that should be obvious, whatever hillary’s sex life entails does not interest me in the absolute slightest.
“Indian activist wins Asia’s Nobel prize for fighting manual disposal of faeces”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-scavenging-award-idUSKCN10726I?il=0
The two photos to the right of the article are of Hillary.
Actually this is an important problem:
“Disposing of faeces from dry toilets and open drains by hand to be carried on the head in baskets to disposal sites, has long been an occupation thrust upon members of the Dalit group, traditionally the lowest ranked in India’s caste system. At least 90 percent of India’s estimated one million manual scavengers are women, a hereditary occupation involving 180,000 Dalit households cleaning the more than 700,000 public and private dry latrines across the country.”
So Hillary’s breaking the glass ceiling will help womenkind in what fashion? True, it helps Hillary, but that’s it.
News Flash!
Trump Challenges Russia to Find Clinton’s Missing Emails
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-challenges-russia-to-find-clinton%E2%80%99s-missing-emails/ar-BBuXlAC?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp
hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
MSM going starkers over the Trump’s a.m. presser and “open invitation to Russia, China, whoever to hack away…”…calls for charges of “treason” from my Clinton supporter friends…man, the boy is just going all-in on this stuff…give him an open mike, no teleprompter or minders, and NOBODY can predict what he throws out there. However, FoxNews continues to doubt their lying ears, and panelists on FoxBiz as well laughing and ridiculing any suggestion that the Donald actually said that…Jesus wept.
My sense of humor may be too offbeat for MSM America, but the linked article had this interchange between Trump and our famously free thinking reporters.
“Later in the news conference, when asked if he was really urging a foreign nation to hack into the private email server of Mrs. Clinton, or at least meddle in the nation’s elections, he dismissed the question. “That’s up to the president,” Mr. Trump said, before finally saying “be quiet” to the female questioner. “Let the president talk to them.”
In other words – Have President Obama call Putin and tell Putin to stop hacking the DNC’s and Hillary’s email.
I think it’s hilarious.
Espionage? No, no, no. The emails are “missing“. Russia would just be helping find them.
Better to ask her ISP and then the NSA.
This was good.
https://youtu.be/6h3G-lMZxjo
What day is it, class?
That’s right — Fed Groundhog Day:
They’ve been doing this at every meeting since last December. Then Ms Market slaps them down, and they crawl back under their rocks.
Maybe an Italian bank crisis will provide the excuse to stand pat at the Sept. meeting.
Anyhow, something will come along. :-)
Janet is signaling September is closer to November elections – the mostest favorite time historically for the politically independent Fed to raise rates. Go short. Citadel with take the other side, with margin if you’d like.
How come the Demo convention’s interminable parade of rich people is not making me feel all inclusive and warm and all? With all the Oscar, Grammy and Peoples Choice Award type shows, aren’t there enough platforms for rich people to endlessly thank themselves?
I’m so confused.
On a lighter note, it will be fun to watch Obama pretend to be a Democrat right before an election one last time.
“Bill Clinton backs ‘best friend’ Hillary”
Hah. Sociopaths don’t have friends. In fact they literally can’t. They have acquaintances. Well, assets, really.
They deserve each other. Partners for life.
“Co-conspirators for life.”
fixed it for you …
The “perfect time for infrastructure” article begins this way:
“Why did federal infrastructure spending slow down so much? … The main problem is that federal funding for transportation has come from a fuel tax of 18.4 cents per gallon.”
[sigh!]
Scant coverage of the upcoming Rio olympics in Links, so here a quartet of NYT pieces for your perusing pleasure:
o Russians at the Rio Olympics: Who’s in, and Who’s Out?
o Who’s Really in the Fight Against Doping? It’s Clear Once Again
Clearly the U.S. simply needs to supply the IOC with some tactical nukes in order to strengthen its hand vis-a-vis the nasty Russkies!
o Keep Your Mouth Closed: Aquatic Olympians Face a Toxic Stew in Rio
Nothing a little rebranding can’t fix – for example just re-title ‘open water swimming’ to ‘cackstroking’. Oh Caca, Caca-cabana…
o Face Plants, Fire Extinguishers and Other Fails: The Olympic Torch Stumbles Toward Rio
I confess that the NYT’s reference to the torch relay having its origins in ‘the Nazi Olympics of 1936’ – not to be confused with the Berlin ones memorialized in the famous Riefenstahl doco, apparently – conjures up some interesting mental imagery as to what kinds of athletic events a ‘Nazi Olympics’ might feature. I’m picturing the classic Monty Python ‘Upper Class Twit of the Year’ sketch meets Hogan’s Heroes buffoon-Nazis, something along those lines. Thrill to the armband relay! Cheer on your favorite 100-man squad in the synchronized Sieg Heil! Be amazed by the endurance of the participants in the 50km book-burning medley!
Oh Opti….
Lamborghinis are usually reserved to luxury showrooms and supercar paddocks, but one Australian man used his for a much more menial purpose – transporting goats.
Footage of the bizarre convoy was caught by passer-by Joseph Criniti and shows as the Murciélago, which sells for over £150,000 second hand, tows a shabby livestock trailer through suburban streets.
While the goats sit contentedly amongst hay bales, the driver and passenger of the high-powered supercar look equally nonplussed by the attention they’re drawing.
Sharing the footage to his YouTube channel, Criniti commented: “Who uses a Lamborghini to tow goats around in a box trailer!! For people who say why?? I say why not!!”
Produced between 2001 and 2010, the 6.2-litre V12 Murciélago is capable of powering to 62mph in just 3.8 seconds, topping out at over 200mph.
http://www.motors.co.uk/news/general/lamborghini-tows-trailer-full-of-goats/
Did you know that Lamborghini makes tractors? This was one of the chief discoveries of a family trip to France MANY years ago: happened on an ag fair and there they were. Very classy looking tractors. I wonder if they race them?
Yeah they originally started off using ex WWII military motors sold by the US… their is a whole sorry about the wink wink deals and grudges resultant….
Re: “The Party’s Over:” This article states the reasons why, for me, “Rage Against the Machine” is still my favorite band of all time. I’ve been a registered Democrat for forty years, but I’m outta there as fast as the door can hit me in the @s$. Clintons and McAuliffe, et al have ruined the Democrat Party and it will never be the same.
And Bernie Sanders inadvertently and yet publicly disemboweled them for all to see their disgusting entrails. The entire spectacle was assisted by millions of participants and a hacker or two and a totally detestable Clinton. The future of ‘our revolution’ will be interesting.
Loved the picture of the cat. That is a Pixie Bob. I own one. They are intelligent and loyal. Trainable to walk with as well. Not a lapcat but are mini tigers. Will defend your home of all critters. It is loving but in its own way.
I also have a Bombay, pure black cat. She is a snugglebug and talkative.