Links 8/4/16

Cat and bowl. martha r: “Must see.”

Birds engage in all types of sleep in flight, but in remarkably small amounts PhysOrg (Chuck L)

Rare Amur leopards born at British zoo CNN (martha r)

Dark Ages royal palace discovered in Cornwall – in area closely linked to the legend of King Arthur Independent (martha r). Interesting historical detail.

Rio 2016: Rio de Janeiro’s air more deadly than its water, study finds Independent (Chuck L)

India is abandoning Monsanto’s GM cotton for indigenous varieties new europe (martha r)

Theranos founder’s conference invitation sparks row among scientists Financial Times. Great picture. She looks possessed.

Brexit

Eurozone shows resilience in face of Brexit vote _ unlike UK Associated Press

City of London gets first blueprint for life after Brexit Financial Times

The Worst – Or Best – Five Years Of Your Life: Staffing The “Department for Brexit” Huffington Post

Bank of England Cuts Key Rate to New Low Wall Street Journal

Euro-area output unexpectedly accelerates to highest in 6 months as #Brexit fears fade Bloomberg. “Highest in six months” when the second half usually benefits from Christmas-related production seems to mean the EU is shrugging off Brexit risk for now, and not (yet) more than that.

Draghi Thwarts Bank Funding Crisis, Western Asset’s Bellows Says Bloomberg

5 things to expect if 5Stars win Italian elections Politico

China?

China Inches Closer to Launching Credit-Default-Swap Market Wall Street Journal. Lambert: “What could go wrong?” Moi: “The West’s stealth weapon?”

Chinese company tests giant bus that drives over cars Washington Post (Chuck L)

Ukraine/Russia

Lurching Toward World War III Consortium News

ISIS’s New Chechen Warlord Daily Beast. Resilc: “Russia should be our ally, but DoD/State/CIA loves the NATO power over a gutted EU.”

Syraqistan

Justice Officials Raised Objections to Iran Cash Payment Wall Street Journal

Turkey

Russia debates Turkey Defend Democracy. Much more interesting than the title.

Kern: Kein EU-Beitritt der Türkei Die Presse. Says the obvious…Turkey was never under serious consideration as an EU member. But it’s one thing to suspect, another to have confirmation.

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Member of European Parliament wants Commission privacy probe of Tinder app Politico

Imperial Collapse Watch

The Problem with Too Much Terrorism World Policy Institute (resilc)

Clinton E-mail Tar Baby

Can Hillary Clinton give a straight answer on emails? BBC

2016

Millennial Sanders Activists Give New Energy to Southern Organizing Payday Report (martha r)

Jill Stein Smeared As Anti-Vaccine Crank Shadowproof (resilc)

After Three Decades of Neglect, Antitrust Is Back on the Democratic Platform TruthOut. Resilc is very skeptical.

Meet the General Who’s Going to War for Hillary Clinton Mother Jones

Democrats Are Still Divided on Israel, But Clinton Runs Way to the Right Foreign Policy in Focus (resilc)

Donald Trump’s top aide denies reports of campaign turmoil BBC. Key para:

Behind all these stories of political discord, however, is the simple fact that while insider establishment operatives may be looking for the exits, Republican officeholders who must eventually answer to the 13 million Trump primary voters have yet to break ranks.

Newt Gingrich: Trump Is ‘Unacceptable’ Daily Beast

Trump Taj Mahal closing after multiple bankruptcies and union strike Guardian (furzy). Note this is NOT owned by Trump but by Carl Ichan, so this is not another “Trump bankruptcy” although the media will likely depict it as one. Trump probably was getting some licensing fees for the use of his name, although they were no doubt greatly reduced in the earlier BKs.

Virginia veterans brush off furore over Trump’s ‘disrespect’ Financial Times

‘We’re spending so much less than Hillary’: Trump aide shrugs off $10 million fundraising gap as The Donald reports $80 million July haul Daily Mail.

Trump claims bumper donations despite disquiet over his conduct Financial Times

Trump’s Appeal to the Forgotten Man American Prospect. Resilc: “I drove back to NC from Vermont for a week. Zero Clintoon signs/stickers, a few Trump. None of the above?” Readers, what are you seeing?

The trust gap: Obama’s DNC speech touted a booming economy and a willingness to compromise, but both are pure fantasy Salon.

Is Iowa The Next Nigeria? Arson Suspected in Pipeline Fire OilPrice (resilc)

Black Injustice Tipping Point

Black Lives Movement Answers the Question: What Are Your Demands? Intercept Tom H: “The article links to the policy platform web site. This site is very impressive.” I had time only to glance at it, but I agree, and hope you’ll give it a good look. Note that it is also clearly intended to be a vehicle for organizing.

Reinventing the company Economist. I may be acting like a knee-jerk skeptic, but remember the dot-com era where the claim was often made that they would completely upend companies, that all sorts of things done by companies would be displaced by freelancers? This sounds like the 2.0 version of that thesis, except it’s also a not-so-hidden pitch for PE.

Technology Conquers Stock Market Bloomberg. Lambert: “Eggs in one basket.”

This is a Warning Sign for Stocks Wolf Richter

IBM: Illegally Bleeding Mortgages (…allegedly) The Register (Dan K)

Class Warfare

Former cleanup workers blame illnesses on toxic coal ash exposures Center for Public Integrity. Martha r: “From 7/20, horrible poisoning of cleanup workers that should be widely known.”

Expand Social Security, get rid of 401Ks Cathy O’Neil

Student-Loan Defaulters in a Standoff With Federal Government Wall Street Journal (martha r). Important.

OSHA Issues Landmark Citation Against “Medical Mismanagement” in Northern Florida Poultry Plant Payday Report (martha r)

Antidote du jour (martha r). This critter is in Iceland:

yak like iceland critter links

And a bonus video from martha r. See The incredible life of India’s iconic swimming elephantThe incredible life of India’s iconic swimming elephant for the story.

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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270 comments

  1. EndOfTheWorld

    “We’re spending so much less than Hillary.” Trump is gonna rely on the debates. He doesn’t like to disappoint his many fans, who will expect fireworks galore.

    1. jgordon

      I like how Trump spends almost nothing and is neck and neck with Hillary in the polls. In contrast it looks a lot like Hillary is doing her best to push a dead horse over the finish line with money. And lots of media collusion.

      1. polecat

        the dead horse is mostly comprised of maggots!

        they’re with/on HER………..

        p.s. ….Bubba’s the one in the lead, chompin on a nano cigar…

        1. EndOfTheWorld

          I guess they negotiated for the time slots of the debates. She succeeded in getting the first two opposite NFL football, but not the last one. BTW, Reince Priebus (what a name) is incensed at The Donald for not endorsing Paul Ryan. What a crybaby. Stuff like this will only help Trump—-it illustrates he is fighting the entire establishment, Republicans and Democrats.

          1. samhill

            BTW, Reince Priebus (what a name)

            If I was in the market for a high capacity minivan the Reince Priebus would be at the top of my list.

        2. rufus magister

          Hey, maggots are more then what The Donald has. Top Rethuglicans think he’s toxic, he’s had difficulty raising money, and his mouth seems to have caught up with him in the dust up over the late Capt. Khan and his plea for foreign friends to commit espionage on the DNC.

          1. Yves Smith Post author

            Huh? Read the news, or our links. The Donald’s campaign raised more money than Hillary’s. $64 million v. $63 million last month. She outraised him in total when you throw in donations to the party, his $80 v. her $90 million. She’s spending $1 million a day while he is spending a ton less, so he’s catching up to her in terms of cash in the bank. This after his gaffes and a supposedly horrible convention.

            As for the hacks, this has been deliberately and shamelessly by the media. to the point that even Glenn Greenwald, who has made it clear he hates Trump, has called the press posture towards Trump as propaganda, not journalism. And you are just repeating it.

            And it’s clear you didn’t look at the full clip of what Trump said, which the press has misrepresented. He very clearly said no one knew who hacked the DNC servers, which is what the intel services said AFTER Trump made his reamark:

            Trump then said it would be terrible if the Russians had hacked the servers. He then said, if whoever had done the hacks, and he mentioned not just Russia, but the Chinese and “someone sitting in their bed” as possible perps, that the media would reward them handsomely if they released them.

            Mr. Clapper was careful to point out that U.S. intelligence agencies haven’t reached a firm conclusion as to whether Russia or any other country was behind the recent computer breach that stole emails and other records from the Democratic National Committee.

      2. Adam Eran

        Boss Tweed: “I don’t care who people vote for as long as I can pick the candidates.”

        Extra true this election where Hillary is so awful that she must face Satan incarnate, or lose…

        Note the lack of coverage for Greens, Libertarians (really nothing different, but the silence is deafening)…

        1. Myron

          At least Johnson got a CNN town hall. No way they’re gonna throw Stein anything but a bi weekly smear article

        2. Roger Smith

          Not a complete lack. Stein is getting her own version of the Trump fake news plugs (a la the vaccine incident).

        3. jgordon

          I was reading an informative article recenently that posited that it’s at least slightly plausible that Hillary is not in fact Satan incarnate. That’s the ONLY reason I’m willing to not dismiss your comment out of hand!

      3. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        It’s a sexist (and age-ist) analogy to say Hillary needs a lot of makeup while Trump stays even, more or less, simply with his old, wrinkled self.

      4. rufus magister

        Trump gets all the free coverage, ’cause it’s good for ratings and ergo ad revenue. Isn’t that the real collusion? Versus the shared mores of “respectable” Establishment opinion. Or even the very real dangers The Donald’s “mercurial” personality and methodology, let us say, might pose.

        ‘Cause you know what the upper crust is? A bunch of crumbs held together by a lot of dough. (Attributed to Fibber McGee).

    2. Lord Koos

      Trump doesn’t need to spend, he gets millions of $ worth of free publicity on the media and on social media everyday.

  2. voteforno6

    Re: Stein & Vaccinations

    Amanda Marcotte at Salon has to be feeling neglected, after being left out of that story. I guess she’s too much of a bottom feeder to be considered an effective Clinton media surrogate.

    1. hunkerdown

      Amanda Marcotte is a second-wave feminist (neo/)liberal, in that order (note that Pandagon far predated Salon). If she can’t sell Career Woman™, there’s nothing for her to say.

      1. Oregoncharles

        But she’s ATTACKING a “career woman” – as I pointed out in Salon’s comments.

        I thought Marcotte was pretty good before she started working for Salon. Apparently they have to keep up a quota of knee-jerk Dems. She’s the worst case of Campaign Derangement Syndrome I’ve seen.

  3. crittermom

    Regarding the Antidote:
    That’s a (Scottish) Highland Cattle breed. Neighboring ranchers back in Colorado raised them, which afforded me some great photographs. The calves are especially cute!
    The beef is lean and the breed can withstand the frigid temperatures found at high elevation in the Rockies, but they’re bred elsewhere, too.
    My favorite part is just that they’re so darned cute!

    I enjoyed the elephant swimming. I’ve seen videos before of them doing so & always find it fascinating when such a massive creature is shown enjoying the ‘weightlessness’ of water. So graceful.

    1. abynormal

      Elephants in Africa have been recorded to have traveled a distance of 48 kilometers across water, as also swimming for six hours continuously. Experts believe that the elephants that live in Sri Lanka are the progeny of elephants that swam across from Southern India across the sea. What appears as the only constraint that would make an elephant seek land when swimming is hunger and thirst when in sea water.”
      zens brush stroke
      elephants bubble
      where is my favorite haiku breather…SUSAN THE OTHER ??

    2. sd

      Are you sure that’s Iceland? Most of the forests there were planted over the last 100 years as parts of its reforestation project which every summer brings out volunteers to plant seedlings. Consequently, the forests “look” planted and lack random wild seedlings and plants in the undergrowth. Perhaps it’s a typo and someone meant to write Ireland?

      Still, a beautiful antidote. Highland cattle are very sweet natured.

      1. Mike Stover

        I think you are right. Doesn’t look like any thing – either the critter or the trees – that I saw there in the ’60’s. I traveled extensively and there are more trees in that picture than there were on the whole island back then. Of course things change in 50+ years, but I would be surprised that so much change would be true.

      1. Anon

        Yes. They can swim with their mouth open, just like you can, by maintaining positive pressure in their throat. And then “snorkelling”, as noted by abynormal.

        Elephants have a highly acute sense of smell and it was the smell of ripe fruit (banana’s?) on a distant island that led a herd of them to travel 48 km in deep water to get to the food bonanza.

        Wonderful video. Thanks.

    3. polecat

      ‘My favoriite part is that they’re so darned cute!”

      I don’t know..those horns sure do look…uh…un-cute!

  4. Steve H.

    – Birds engage in all types of sleep in flight, but in remarkably small amounts

    “When the birds circled on rising air currents the hemisphere connected to the eye facing the direction of the turn was typically awake while the other was asleep, suggesting that the birds were watching where they were going”

    Wut?!

    1. MtnLife

      Most birds sleep with only one eye/half of their brain at once. Ducks sleep in a circle with their outside eyes open and do a 180 halfway through the night to change eye guard duty.

      1. abynormal

        the physicality of unconscious mindfulness
        “natural state indeed”, says the grasshopper

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Maybe our airplane designers can incorporated that feature into the next generation of self-flying planes.

  5. Otis B Driftwood

    Yep, the anti-vaxer smear is in high-gear (which must be measured relative to the actual coverage Jill Stein receives from our famously free and independent media). And then there’s the stock Nader smear. Here’s the concise rebuttal to that one (which I myself used to buy into) until I grew older and wiser:

    Don’t Fall for the Nader Myth in 2016

    Consider how much mileage this scare tactic has gotten over the past 16 years to keep progressives in line within the Democratic party and the Green party on the fringe. Now’s our chance to put both of those things to rest.

    1. Roger Smith

      In the linked Democracy Now video, Ben Jealous blamed the left for the Iraq War. What an ass.

      Thanks for the link!

      1. Vatch

        I can’t find the place where he says that she has indulged in “straight anti-vaxx pandering.” Since you used quote marks, I thought I would find that exact phrase. I can’t even find “pandering”, except in the comments.

        Stein is correct that people should try to avoid mercury — it’s toxic. Arel is correct that childhood vaccines in the U.S. no longer have the mercury preservative. However various vaccines for adults do have it. As so often happens, reality is more complex than a blogger portrays it.

        Apparently one of the bees in Arel’s bonnet is GMOs. He doesn’t have a problem with them, and he’s angry that Stein is concerned about them. I think she’s correct to have concerns. Whether or not GMOs are safe (I’m sure some are safe, which which ones?), we all ought to be able to find out whether our food contains them.

        1. nobody

          I was quoting from the update to the first post (“Sorry Clinton supporters but Jill Stein is not an anti-vaccine presidential candidate,” July 13, 2016) which contains a link to the second (“Jill Stein may not be ‘anti-vaccine’ but I am furious about her position,” July 29, 2016). It’s at the top of the post. In full:

          UPDATE: Jill Stein recently clarified her position on vaccines and it was underwhelming, to say the least. Her clarified comments were not vague, they were straight anti-vaxx pandering and while she says vaccines work, she pushes the myth that they could be dangerous. I have written and [sic] update here.”

          1. a different chris

            >she pushes the myth that they could be dangerous

            How is that a myth? An “unlikelihood”, ok, I’ll even accept (not agree with, but accept as a position) “scaremongering”… but you can’t say that all vaccines ever couldn’t possibly be dangerous.

            1. cwaltz

              For a percentage of the population they aren’t just dangerous, they’re lethal.

              The reality is that a small percentage of people die as a result of being vaccinated. It’s still encouraged because the thought process is an even larger percentage can die as a result of the diseases themselves.

              It certainly doesn’t help that at this point people don’t trust the FDA or the CDC to actually protect their interests and be honest.
              Exhibit A
              http://www.naturalnews.com/031820_vaccinations_babies.html

              1. Yves Smith Post author

                I hate to tell you, the upset about bad vaccine reactions is seriously overdone relative to the benefits. I know people who got polio. You have no idea what some of these scourges were like. Even well off parents routinely lost several children to diseases that are now unheard of.

                If you want to get upset about an FDA fail, acetaminophen is a much better target. There is no justification for it being an OTC drug when there are several other painkillers with much lower risks (aspirin, ibuprofen, naxprofen).

                Between 2001 and 2010, more than 1,500 people in the U.S. died from accidental acetaminophen overdoses, ProPublica reports.

                http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/24/tylenol-overdose_n_3976991.html

                That’s an average of 167 a year.

                By contrast, there were about 130 deaths from ALL vaccinations in 2014, when the population in the US was larger, or 78% as many.

                That’s not saying the FDA should not be more diligent. But this issue has been vastly overhypes by the crowd pushing the now throughly-debunked “vaccines cause autism” meme. And the reason it got so far? The wife was married to a guy in private equity, and they were able to raise lots of money through his connections playing on the sympathy for her severely autistic son.

                1. vlade

                  I wasn’t aware of the PE link, interesting.

                  To me the whole anti-vaccine (generic one, as opposed to specific vaccines which can be a problem, like egg-substrate vaccines given to babies w/o checking for any allergies) stuff is the “too-successul-solution” problem.

                  That is, when the solution is too successful, the bad side-effects become more visible than the problem. But removing the solution can easily bring up the original problem (see UK, where stopping pertussis vaccination in 1974 was followed by a pertussis epidemic, and more recently measles with the while MMR autism debacle. TBH, if it was US I’d think Wakefield would be sued to death by parents of people whose kids suffered some serious measles complications because their doctor didn’t vaccinate based on Wakefields dumb article spread by even dumber press)

        2. JohnnyGL

          For Stein, I’d say the Trump-rule of politics applies. Any coverage is good coverage.

          Regarding GMOs, I’ve had battles with a friend of mine. The case against them is a subtle one and can be hard to make. It involves:

          1) shifting the burden of proof on the GMO to PROVE that it is harmless, rather than proving it causes problems as there isn’t a ton of evidence, at least yet, that any GMO has caused any widespread harm. (The big, obvious, problem is that they enable the use of more pesticides. THOSE cause cancer, even the WHO is coming around on glyphosate.) I believe Yves has pointed to FDA giving the biotech/chem companies the benefit of the doubt on where to put the burden of proof on this issue. That’s a big benefit.

          2) GMOs don’t really have a ton of benefits, productivity-wise, unless you count massive profits for an handful of companies at the expense of ordinary, often poor, farmers as a big benefit. Look at Colombia and India for prime examples on this. Plenty of info on these examples around the interwebs.

          3) It can be argued that they cause tremendous harm as they involve doubling down on a failing and destructive agricultural system. Basically, we should stop trying to make mono-culture work as a system. Mark Shepard points out that every civilization that has ever relied on annual plants has eventually fallen apart. The big GMOs are wheat, soy, corn. Most other crops aren’t a big enough revenue stream to justify the cost of investing. If we move away from those crops, GMOs suddenly become a niche thing.

          4) There’s also the science-as-sociopath argument where you may be opening pandora’s box with regard to being unable to control a GMO once it starts propagating itself. Geoff Lawton made a remark about experiments to make strawberries more frost resistant by modifying some kind of bacteria that clung to the berries. I don’t know a lot of detail on this. Apparently, there were concerns that the bacteria would then wipe out existing ones and mess with rainfall patterns. Luckily, the trial was shut down. I think I read this was done in the 1980s or so. Even if the example is iffy, it’s useful to make the point about ‘unintended consequences’ and potential problems of ‘playing god’. Do you trust the regulators and companies to get this right? After all, we’ve seen them do such a great job in finance and in foreign policy, right??!?!?

          Anyway, that’s my best summary for anti-GMOs, I’m sure there’s a better one out there.

          1. PlutoniumKun

            Good post – as you say, the arguments against GMO’s are subtle and complex – I don’t know any serious anti-GMO campaigner who thinks its likely that a GMO crop is going to end up causing cancer or running amok, but that is the straw man the industry keeps bringing up. But for me the most worrying element is the manner in which they are greatly narrowing the genetic range and variety of crops – any reading of history shows that this never ends well (think the Irish potato famine).

            BTW, I don’t have the link to hand, but I believe there is evidence that the Industry has been deliberately trying to equate anti-GMO activists with fringe anti-science movements like the anti-vaxxers, climate change denialists, etc. I think any comments which seem to draw those comparisons should be viewed sceptically.

          2. a different chris

            I like your post because it is all about the issues with spreading these things around the world.

            I will happily agree to eat nothing but GMOs for the rest of my life — providing they are all grown on Mars. It’s putting the suckers out into Earth’s environment that gives us way too much credit for our level of knowledge of how everything works.

          3. samhill

            The only strong argument for GMOs is they increase food production. Just read this week that USA throws half it’s food out. I’m sure it’s equal for the rest of the developed world. We don’t need GMOs to produce more food to throw out, we need to throw out less food. Do that we could probably go all family farm and organic still feed the world and be rid of corporate agriculture.

          4. Skip Intro

            Anyone who claims GMOs are safe can immediately be dismissed as a shill or a dupe. Each GMO organism is part of a very complex web of interactions. Their safety can only be demonstrated by large-scale, long-term studies of multiple facets of their interactions with their ecosystems and with the end consumers. This must be done for each variant, and the lack of harm found for one cannot simply be translated to others. Few if any of these studies are actually done and many studies that do exist are replete with conflicts of interest. Typically independent researchers can’t even get access to the organisms or the science behind them.

        3. Oregoncharles

          Opposition to GMOs is a longstanding Green Party position. The fundamental argument depends on the precautionary principle: they really haven’t been tested for safety. Since they propagate and often cross with other crops or even weeds, the potential harms are immense.

          There were 2 cases, years ago now. The near miss involved using Klebsiella bacteria (which colonize roots) modified with yeast and termite DNA so they could convert cellulose to alcohol. Brilliant idea: biofuel from plant wastes. But the plan was to dispose of the residue as fertilizer. Also a great idea, until it turned out the Klebsiella went right on making alcohol and would poison any plant they were near. Since it’s a ubiquitous soil bacterium, the consequences could have been enormous. Unfortunately I can’t find the link I just saw, but I’ve heard this story more than once.

          Remember the problems with L-Tryptophan? It’s a common amino acid that is useful as a calming anti-depressant and sleep aid – used it that way myself. But the supplements were killing people, because they were made with a modified bacterium that also made a rather serious toxin. That was a GMO that actually did kill people. Tryptophan was off the market for years, but I’ve recently seen it again.

          The first story, especially, is a perfect example of unforeseen consequences. There always are some, and it’s best to know what they are before you commit yourself. Or the whole world.

          But the commenter below is correct: the biggest negative of GMOs is the way they prop up industrial agriculture and give Monsanto a stranglehold on the food supply. Ultimately, I suspect they’ll be very useful, but first they’ll have to be taken away from Big Bidness.

      2. marym

        Hillary Clinton Says All Kids Should Get Vaccinated—But She Wasn’t Always So Certain

        Obama’s position has evolved too.

        But in 2008—when a widespread theory linking vaccines to autism had already been debunked—Clinton wasn’t so definitive on this point. In response to a questionnaire from an autism advocacy group, she wrote, “I am committed to make investments to find the causes of autism, including possible environmental causes like vaccines…We don’t know what, if any, kind of link there is between vaccines and autism – but we should find out.”

        She also wasn’t the only prominent Democrat hedging about autism and vaccines during the 2008 election cycle: At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania that April, Barack Obama was asked about a link. “We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate,” he replied. “Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines…The science is right now inconclusive, but we have to research it.”

        Shadowproof

        …let’s reiterate: this is not about whether Stein is opposed to vaccines…..

        This is about a latent anti-democratic prejudice toward candidates who run for president outside the two-party system.

        .

      3. drb48

        Leaving aside the fact that yes, the establishment media is doing all it can to marginalize candidates of the left, I too was not pleased by Stein’s response to the question re vaccines. Given a chance to put the issue to rest by simply saying that all children should be vaccinated and that she was not in the anti-vaxxing camp, she launched into an attack on government regulation – leaving the appearance at least that she was fudging the issue. A unnecessary self-inflicted wound that she could ill afford. All too reminiscent to me of the Kucinich response re UFOs.

        1. Waldenpond

          She has put the issue to rest many times. When looking at statements in isolation, her position is manipulated. Stein discusses regulatory capture and not wanting pharma in charge of the FDA because the fact that she supports vaccines is a given.

          The pandering to anti-vaxxers comes in because she is required to put the issue to rest every time and doesn’t.

        2. Oregoncharles

          She’s responding with actual policy views. Sometimes that isn’t the most political response.

          There are a series of scandals hidden within the vaccine controversy. One is that the FDA let Big Pharma go on injecting babies with mercury for – what – 50 years? When people made a fuss, they immediately stopped, thereby admitting that they shouldn’t have been doing that all along. Apparently it did NOT cause the (in fact) epidemic of autism; do we know what it did cause?

          The worst result was that it broke parents’ faith in vaccines and even in medicine in general, and that’s the issue she’s addressing. You won’t get universal vaccination without restoring faith.

          And incidentally: we also still don’t know what’s causing the rise in autism, which has been confirmed by the CDC. It’s obviously environmental – we all could come up with likely candidates. So why don’t we know?

      4. Kurt Sperry

        The anti-Stein vaxxer smears are a work of evil genius. They are gaining traction even among those who would ordinarily be more fact conscious. “Don’t look at the crazy lady, the door to the veal p… I mean the bright neoliberal future… is right this way!” First they ignore you…

    2. Ralph Reed

      I’d been roughing it agitprop style in East Baltimore for several months, having recently relocated from New England, selling scrap aluminum cans and scavenging hors d’oeurvres from dust bins around the Inner Harbor and Fells Point, uproariously garrulous and running a gauntlet of petit bourgeois anxieties under the watchful eyes of various security interests when Nader’s results looked cooked to my mathematically prodigal glance the day after the 2000 election. By the time Bush had been declared the winner, I was running around declaiming Clarence Thomas to be a civil rights hero by preventing Al Gore’s planned eugenicist false flag. Ari Fleischer and co got wind of it, and one night when I was a disgusting mess in the alleys of Federal Hill, two men brought me into a bar, feted me with fine whiskey, expensive cigars, and the camaraderie of their pulchritudinous entourage and identified themselves as employees of Blackwater. They told me they’d just got back from Iraq proper, staging equipment and such, for the second time, and they’d be back in the early spring preparing for an invasion, that was a go regardless of who was president.

      So these magical alternative histories of US imperialism are mythical weapons that only draw attention to how historiographically illiterate, or possibly criminally complicit, their proposers are.

  6. hreik

    Here’s her response to the vaccine question from Reddit AMA 2 months ago:

    I don’t know if we have an “official” stance, but I can tell you my personal stance at this point. According to the most recent review of vaccination policies across the globe, mandatory vaccination that doesn’t allow for medical exemptions is practically unheard of. In most countries, people trust their regulatory agencies and have very high rates of vaccination through voluntary programs. In the US, however, regulatory agencies are routinely packed with corporate lobbyists and CEOs. So the foxes are guarding the chicken coop as usual in the US. So who wouldn’t be skeptical? I think dropping vaccinations rates that can and must be fixed in order to get at the vaccination issue: the widespread distrust of the medical-indsutrial complex.

    Vaccines in general have made a huge contribution to public health. Reducing or eliminating devastating diseases like small pox and polio. In Canada, where I happen to have some numbers, hundreds of annual death from measles and whooping cough were eliminated after vaccines were introduced. Still, vaccines should be treated like any medical procedure–each one needs to be tested and regulated by parties that do not have a financial interest in them. In an age when industry lobbyists and CEOs are routinely appointed to key regulatory positions through the notorious revolving door, its no wonder many Americans don’t trust the FDA to be an unbiased source of sound advice. A Monsanto lobbyists and CEO like Michael Taylor, former high-ranking DEA official, should not decide what food is safe for you to eat. Same goes for vaccines and pharmaceuticals. We need to take the corporate influence out of government so people will trust our health authorities, and the rest of the government for that matter. End the revolving door. Appoint qualified professionals without a financial interest in the product being regulated. Create public funding of elections to stop the buying of elections by corporations and the super-rich.

    For homeopathy, just because something is untested doesn’t mean it’s safe. By the same token, being “tested” and “reviewed” by agencies tied to big pharma and the chemical industry is also problematic. There’s a lot of snake-oil in this system. We need research and licensing boards that are protected from conflicts of interest. They should not be limited by arbitrary definitions of what is “natural” or not.

    Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/4ixbr5/i_am_jill_stein_green_party_candidate_for/d31ydoe

    Answer is very vague too long winded and I think there’s something off in it. Answer is simple,
    “yes, I believe in vaccinations for: Mumps, measles, whooping cough, etc unless the patient is immunocompromised, etc. There have to be exceptions and there has to be oversight and testing”… something direct and simple.

    1. Malk

      It’s vague because many of the Green Party base are looney tunes who don’t believe in stuff like vaccines. That’s why I would like a new left wing party devoid of such loons, rather than vote for the hapless Greens.

      1. Otis B Driftwood

        And the Democratic and Republican parties are bastions of sanity? Maybe you didn’t watch either of the recent conventions, or take stock of the current status of our world under their joint neocon/neoliberal rule? The banality of looniness.

        In any case, every organization must be taken on balance: and I and many other former Democrats will take the Greens because they represent, overall, my progressive values.

      2. Raven on a Coyote

        I think you miss the point or are ignoring it all together, It is not that they think the vaccines do not work, but there is a distrust in the corportization of health care. This is a modern issue. Salk did not patent they polio vaccine. Could you imagine that happening today?

      3. jrs

        Yea you’ll never have it, many of those attracted to leftism are eccentric. But there are plenty of loons on the right as well, plenty.

    2. rufus magister

      I found the non-denial “denial” quite interesting. It quotes her duplicitous response to Reddit question, but somehow thinks it’s not vaxxer.

      This article in Slate lays it out. She has various issues around science. And her economics are a little dodgy, too.

      Despite clearly understanding that vaccines are safe, Stein is pandering to her audience by telling them their worries are justified and offering fuel for those fears by painting a dark picture of a corrupt regulatory apparatus. For comparison, consider Bernie Sanders’ answer on the same life or death issue, as reported by as reported by the Daily Beast:

      “I think obviously vaccinations work. Vaccination has worked for many, many years.” He went on to note, “I am sensitive to the fact that there are some families who disagree but the difficulty is if I have a kid who is suffering from an illness who is subjected to a kid who walks into a room without vaccines that could kill that child and that’s wrong.”

      Plenty of revealing details here on the complicity of EuroGreens in austerity and imperialism as well. The German Greens were very supportive of Kiev’s Maidan Banderaists. It’s an equal opportunity critique, Dolack has some issues with Sanders too, but I think the Greens get the worst of it.

      1. hunkerdown

        Would a magazine targeted at the upper middle class (i.e. the looting professional class) not tendentiously support managerialism as a lifestyle ideal?

        If corporations are the definition of science, I’m anti-science too.

        1. rurfus magister

          Well, perhaps you’ll believe some science bloggers.

          See Jill Stein and left wing antivaccine dog whistles.

          Regular readers will recognize this as the gambit I like to call, “I’m not ‘antivaccine.’ I’m pro-safe vaccine and don’t trust the FDA and big pharma.” I will grant that Dr. Stein was a little more—shall we say?—emphatic in her concession that vaccines do good than the average antivaccinationist…. However, the rest of her word salad above could be cribbed from any number of antivaccine websites. Hell, even Andrew Wakefield concedes that vaccines do good and claims not to be “antivaccine.”… In other words, denying being antivaccine counts for nothing if you’re repeating antivaccine tropes. It’s standard practice among antivaccine activists.

          So the camo seems to work.

          Here’s another science blogger and non-pundit making these points at somewhat shorter length. Jill Stein anti vaccine message – be aware progressives.

          And there we go – vaccine denial. Long ago, I learned that when someone on the internet says “I believe in evolution (or vaccines or climate change or , but…,” everything after the “but” is all that matters.

          …[S]he’s just parroting the lies of the anti-vaccine gang. The members of the FDA advisory committee on vaccines are all academic researchers from top level medical schools and research institutions. Since all Dr. Stein wants to do is pander to the leftists who have an ignorant fear of vaccines, she decided to not use that brilliant mind to actually see the facts about them.

          Yeah, lets ignore scientists and physicians on vaccinations, and put our trust in telegenic pop-cult stars, shall we?

          The problem, we Marxists would say, is the contradiction between the public nature of production and the private appropriation of the surplus.

    3. philnc

      But that would bury what to Stein, and many others, consider an important part of the lead: the obvious captivity of the regulatory system is the root cause of the controversy, not the science of vaccines. The existence of systemic corruption is not a delusion. Of course the problem is not confined to the FDA. It also exists in the Energy Department, EPA, and as we’re all painfully familiar, Treasury. Their critique of corporate corruption in government, specifically the revolving door, is one of the Green’s most persuasive policy distinctives. It shouldn’t be suprising when they invoke it every chance they get, however clumsily.

      1. hreik

        To be sure you are correct. That issue, the corruption of the regulatory system should be part deux of the response.

        First part is straightforward support of vaccines, simple and direct and very supportive.
        Part 2 is to bring up the regulatory system and then say, “this is why people don’t believe in them, because of the corruption’, etc

        She needed to separate the 2 issues and then link them in a way that blames the ‘system’ for the lack of confidence from the populace b/c that’s the truth.

        1. MtnLife

          How can you have straightforward support for something with little to no unbiased research in an industry with a laundry list of scummy behavior such as knowingly distributing medication tainted with HIV? I’m not totally anti-vax, I’m just well aware of the limitations of the research that has been done and suspicious of the stonewalling of future independent research. I would love a smallpox vaccine but I’m no longer a first responder and therefore can’t get one. I also don’t care for the public making mountains out of mole hills. Fear of measles – seriously? Bronchitis killed more people last year than measles killed the year BEFORE the vaccine came out. Where’s the panic there? IIRC, most measles outbreaks are traced back to recently vaccinated kids anyways. The immunocompromised are not supposed to be around those who have recently had the smallpox, polio, MMR, and chicken pox vaccines because of that risk (I may have missed one or two on that list).

          Let’s look at our polio “outreach” programs. Polio is spread by infected fecal-oral transmission. The virus is live for a couple days after the injection. These outreach programs take place in areas of outdoor toilets and outdoor food preparation. The teams are then “surprised” by all the polio popping up around them and use that as an excuse to vaccinate more. I’m bewildered that these trained individuals can’t add A + B + C and find that equals bio weapon. Or maybe they can and that’s the whole point.

          1. Vatch

            Bronchitis killed more people last year than measles killed the year BEFORE the vaccine came out. Where’s the panic there?

            That’s why people get vaccinated against influenza and some forms of pneumonia. I recommend getting vaccinated from a single dose vial, since it will have less (or no) mercury preservative.

            IIRC, most measles outbreaks are traced back to recently vaccinated kids anyways.

            I would like to see some evidence for this claim about measles.

            Polio is spread by infected fecal-oral transmission. The virus is live for a couple days after the injection.

            In my humble non-professional opinion, a person’s first polio vaccine should always be the inactivated (killed) variety. After that, booster vaccinations can be the attenuated (weakened) form. If you’re worried about getting polio from another person’s waste, than you should be vaccinated, if you haven’t already been.

            1. MtnLife

              If you are worried about getting polio from someone’s waste maybe we should focus on dealing with the waste properly (which will cover a wide range of diseases) and not financially enriching big pharma. The flu shot is woefully ineffective for a variety of reasons this link has a nice collection of mainstream reports why.
              I’ve seen others (at the end of my lunch, can find more later) but here is the study of the first known measles outbreak linked to a vaccinated person. When using attenuated viruses this sort of thing will happen. As I mentioned I’m not totally anti-vax. Just very suspicious when they push blatant propaganda (casts shadow of doubt over what could be very honest reaearch) and inhibit independent research.

              1. Vatch

                Your link about measles does not confirm your claim that “most measles outbreaks are traced back to recently vaccinated kids anyways.” Your link was about a single case of a vaccinated person infecting others with measles. 4 of those people had been twice vaccinated. The abstract does not say how recently they had been vaccinated. It takes a few weeks for a vaccination to achieve full immunity.

                Most measles cases in the U.S. are caused by people who have visited a foreign country. See this:

                http://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html

                Regarding the flu vaccine: there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of strains of the flu virus. The vaccine typically covers only three strains. Naturally, if a person is exposed to a different strain, that person is more likely to become infected.

          2. Kokuanani

            Actually, the “live” polio vaccine — the one that causes transmission via feces post-inoculation — is administered ORALLY. The killed vaccine, which has almost no transmission problems, is the one administered by injection.

            However, when attempting to vaccinate a huge rural population [say, in Africa], they will almost always use the oral vaccine, because it’s easier, no needles, etc. However, I doubt the docs provide adequate warnings to parents about exercising caution around their kid’s diaper, etc.

            For that matter, few US docs issue that caution either, nor do they inform parents of the differences between the two polio vaccines.

            1. MtnLife

              My bad re: oral vs injected. Thanks for the correction. Was mid coffee and the word administered wasn’t coming to mind.
              Hard to tell them to exercise caution when their cultural mode of sanitation (or lack thereof) makes them vulnerable. It would seem that if their effort was to help the population they would go with the injection but if their purpose was something else, say an excuse for CIA operated NGOs to continue snooping around, then making sure the virus kept popping up would be a feature, not a bug.

              1. Vatch

                Yes, I agree with you that the injection is preferable, especially for a person’s first vaccination. And if there’s uncertainty about that, or questions about sanitation, they should always use the injectible form of the vaccine.

        2. MojaveWolf

          She said vaccines work and she supports them. There is no way to read her response and not see that.

          we have a real compelling need for vaccinations.

          is a direct quote. As is:

          I think there is no question that vaccines have transformed public health and have been absolutely critical in ridding us of the scourge of many diseases—small pox, polio, etc. So, vaccines are an invaluable medication.

          You cannot read her statements as antivaxx. If you just want to think she’s anti-vaccinations and don’t give a crap about reality or what she really thinks, go ahead, but no one should listen to you again on the subject.

          The people complaining “she didn’t say it just the way I want her to say it” coulda said the same thing about those quotes from Obama or HRC, except the desperate Hillaroids have no interest in doing that.No one friggin cares about the nuances of her preferred vaccine schedule or the exact approach she wants. Nor do they care about Obama or HIllary or Trumps views on that, nor could a single one of those candidates (or sitting prez) give you a detailed preferred birth to death vaccine schedule off the top of their head, nor should they.

          You want to pull crap out of context I could do that to this bit from Obama (who, also, is very clearly pro vaccination):

          “We’ve seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it’s connected to the vaccines. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.

          one can find something to cherry pick. But journalists shouldn’t be deliberating twisting what people say to libel them, and candidates shouldn’t be hiring paid trolls to do it either. This is pathetic and again confirms my preference for Trump over Hillary (and over our absolutely pathetic and worthless and traitor-to-humanity-and-all-life-on-biosphere MSM) should Stein not win it, despite his multitude of failings.

          I hope my views were expressed with sufficient clarity and directness that any Hillaroids promoting false propaganda who happen to be reading this can tell that I am calling them bald-faced liars.

        3. Banana Breakfast

          She’s not a very good public speaker and like many academics she overemphasizes the caveats to her position and goes off message a lot. I at least think her point is anything but anti-vaccination or “anti-science” despite the easily goosed temper of a Dawkinsite New Atheist.

    4. Kurt Sperry

      I liked her reply quite a lot more than your suggested one. I’m really heartened and encouraged by the rather breathlessly hysterical smear campaign being ramped up against Stein and the Greens. I’m guessing she’s getting under some very serious people’s skin and this is their “Correct the Record” putatively organic response. I smell fear, and it smells wonderful!

      1. lulu

        TPTB don’t want Dr. Stein anywhere near the 15% mark that allows participation in the debates.

        1. Kurt Sperry

          If Stein and Anderson got their respective competing messages across before tens of millions of interested voters in a debate, I’m not sure the serious people feel confidant they could manage that situation.

    5. vidimi

      people who have reservations about vaccines – not the science but the potential for the bezzle behind them – are increasingly getting treated like holocaust deniers.

    6. Plenue

      “For homeopathy, just because something is untested doesn’t mean it’s safe. By the same token, being “tested” and “reviewed” by agencies tied to big pharma and the chemical industry is also problematic.”

      How about the fact that for homeopathy to do anything it would have to literally violate the laws of physics?

      1. TheCatSaid

        The laws of physics that we know about so far, you mean? Let’s not let the physicists know they can quit their jobs, since we know all the laws of physics already!

        It’s tricky when we bump into things we can’t explain by our current understanding. Wilbert B. Smith (senior radio engineer for the Transport Canada’s Broadcast and Measurements Section in the 1950s) has some interesting things to say about this in a talk he recorded in 1958, and important technical papers he left behind. Some of the basic principles he learned are described in his book “The New Science“. He described his understanding of these areas as being at only the “Kindergarten” level–but nevertheless was able to carry out many experiments to put them to the test.

        He struggled to learn new approaches that worked and that involved principles not yet understood by mainstream science and physics.

        Tip: if you listen to the 1958 talk, just listen–the images someone has added to the audio are unrelated to Smith’s clear, grounded words. The images cause confusion and distraction, and dilute the effectiveness of what is being said.

        1. Plenue

          Fine, I’ll elaborate: homeopathy claims that diluting something in water makes it stronger. This is directly counter to how things actually work in reality, and I’m willing to bet any amount of money that that’s a law of physics that will never be disproved. Homeopaths sometimes try and justify it with some vague nonsense about water molecules mimicking the thing you put in the water, but not only do they provide exactly zero evidence for this claim, it’s rather blatantly disproven by the fact that James Randi regularly does things like attempt to OD on homeopathic sleeping pills before audiences, which by the homeopaths ‘logic’, should have killed him long ago. It hasn’t.

          Homeopathy is a pure scam sold to idiots.

  7. hemeantwell

    Russia debates Turkey Defend Democracy. Much more interesting than the title.

    Yes, very interesting, and it’s worth noting that Defend Democracy is pubbed by the Delphi Institute, of which Michael Hudson is a member. I’m surprised at how active NATO-friendly think tanks are in Russia.

  8. timbers

    “This Is a Warning Sign for Stocks” …. Since Brexit specifically (and prior to it generally) have been especially puzzled by markets almost relentlessly going up. Is the FED (and others) doing everything they can to push the markets up thru November to achieve a desired election result? The swiftness with which governments everywhere rush to help investment markets go forever up is starkly in contrast to the pressing needs of citizens that are ignored for decades.

      1. EndOfTheWorld

        Of course stocks will go down. If you knew WHEN you could make some money. But yeah, Trump is right IMHO—it’s overdue for a crash.

        1. abynormal

          credit freezing around our winter seems about right. watch for exporters demanding a bill of laden from our banks…docks go into a scurry with a big WTF.

        2. apber

          Corporate earnings reports are full of disingenuous financial engineering; no GAAP anywhere to be found. The market is being propped up by the FED so there isn’t a crash on Obama’s watch or a lie put to Hillary’s blessing of the “great recovery”. The current unemployment rate is probably over 25% (see Shadowstats.com); inflation has averaged 7-10% over the last 5 years (see the ChapwoodIndex.com) indicating that GDP, actually, has been NEGATIVE for this entire period. All transportation indices are in the tank, and retail is a disaster. So yes, a crash of historic magnitude is coming.

      2. DrBob

        It’s my understanding (based on my readings at other sites) that Donald Trump has rarely been interested in stocks throughout his career. He did buy a bunch of shares during the GFC, but sold them within a few years for a profit. Other than that one time, he’s pretty much steered clear of the stock market and focused on making money in real estate, golf courses, scamming chumps with expensive “University” courses, etc.

        That said, if it ever starts to look like Trump could plausibly win the election in November, that would certainly be a good reason to sell stocks…since a Trump presidency would likely be a disaster for the stock market, IMO. But to think that Trump possesses any special insights with respect to the stock market (or any subject other than NYC real estate or marketing in general) would be extremely naive.

        Of course he’s perfectly willing to offer his opinion about markets (and any other subject, for that matter)…but that’s because he’s a world-class bullshitter and egomaniac. As such, he clearly has no problem with offering his ill-informed opinions on a wide range of topics.

        Frankly, he’s not the only one when it comes to prognostications about the future direction of stock markets. Usually those “predictions” turn out to be little more than educated (or not-so-educated) guesses.

        1. Carolinian

          He says in the interview that he isn’t a stock guy. He also says that the reason for his stock opinion is that the market is dangerously inflated by Yellen’s free money, something a lot of people around here would likely agree with.

          And while DT is an egomanica he can be gracious at times. In last Sunday’s interview with Maureen Dowd he says that both Obama and Michelle made good speeches at the Dem Convention. That’s pretty much an example of turning the other cheek.

        2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          The disaster was baked in when they started to inflate the stock market bubble.

          In fact, the disaster is in the inflation itself, even though the pain for many (others have been feeling the pain from the start) will be felt in the popping of the bubble.

        3. Steve H.

          Stock market is a casino for those without inside information, and house always wins.

          He went straight to being the house.

        4. Myron

          Yeah what we should be paying attention to is Hillary’s cattle future recommendations — I mean what a record!

    1. carycat

      If India decides to join the TPP, Monsanto is going to have a good time suing those farmers and taking their land. On the other hand, WiPro, Cognizant, Tata and other Indian H1B body shops can sue the pants off any US schools that have the temerity to turn out STEM graduates that can fill those tech jobs. What a wonderful world for lawyers.

  9. Arizona Slim

    The Tucson sticker and yard sign report: Although Clinton has made some headway, Sanders still leads. Trump remains in third place.

    Oh, Pence campaigned here on Tuesday. Didn’t even fill the Fox Theatre, which seats 1,200.

    Last October, Sanders spoke at a Reid Park rally. 13,000 people at that one.

    1. Raven on a Coyote

      On the Pence rally, they said they had to hold it in the Fox Theater because the larger arena, the Convention Center, was having construction work. That was a lie.

      The signs I see in Tucson are all for local elections. But then again, it is still summer here in Tucson so people are still not back from their second homes. So when all those neoliberals come back I am sure we will see more Hillary signs.

      I will interject here that Tucson is one of the worst cities I have ever lived in and I am leaving at the end of the month. The separation of wealth here is just appalling.

      1. Dave

        “We buy diabetic strips” is more common than yard sale signs.

        Diabetics put a drop of blood on the strip to test insulin levels.
        Very expensive, several must be used per day, short shelf life.

        Unused and expired strips are bought and resold mostly in Mexico.

        Who says NAFTA isn’t good for trade?

        1. Raven on a Coyote

          I cannot believe you bought up the “We buy diabetic strips” signs! Was riding my bike around and one of those signs caught my eye. It seems so strange to me, but then it just dawned on me that these signs are dog whistles of their own right since these test strips are small enough for the shop lifters to steal and sell to these guys. And my assumption was proved right after a quick google search.

        2. human

          The test strips have gold plated (doesn’t oxidize) electrical contacts. Not much mind you, but, enough of them …

          An interesting piece of trivia: An ounce of gold can be hand hammered to cover about 400 square feet. This is how gold leaf use to be made. The result is only a few atoms thick and attests to golds extreme malleability.

      2. Arizona Slim

        Got that one right.

        Bernie Sanders AND Donald Trump had rallies in the Tucson Convention Center Arena.

        That was back in March. I didn’t see a single thing that required construction or repair. Matter of fact, I thought it was a pretty nice arena.

        And I agree with you on the separation of wealth. It’s as if our local 1%-ers live in a different world.

  10. Jim Haygood

    “The five biggest companies in the world by market value were all U.S. tech companies, according to Bloomberg data.”

    Going back decades, various sectors — energy, finance, technology — have achieved temporary dominance in cap-weighted indexes. Then mean reversion sets in, and they yield to other sectors.

    Strictly speaking, Amazon is classified in the GICS consumer discretionary sector, not technology. It’s the largest holding in the sector, constituting a full one-eighth weighting all by itself:

    http://www.sectorspdr.com/sectorspdr/sector/xly/holdings

    Grizzled market veterans will spot the rhyme with the Internet Bubble of the late Nineties, when tech briefly became more than 30% of the S&P 500 index. Then it crashed and burned into late 2002. Remove the tech sector, and the other eight sectors didn’t even do that badly. Small value stocks were more or less flat during 2000-2002, living in a world of their own compared to the tech carnage.

    So will Bubble III end with a mighty tech bang, just as Bubble I did? Stay tuned. When Dr Hussman goes leveraged long, it will be time to sell and sell short.

    1. abynormal

      i’ve never been able to wrap my peabrain around Priceline.
      what a paper basket of eggs…

  11. Eureka Springs

    Here in North West Arkansas the absence of bumper stickers is astonishing. Several hundred miles of traveling over the past few weeks. Most surprising not one Hillary, A few and growing in numbers quickly Trumps and a few Sanders. I’m ordering a dozen Jill’s today.

    Loved the use of the word “Demands” on the https://policy.m4bl.org/community-control/ web page. Also loved the call for “An end to the privatization of education.” I think the calls for subpeona power are a good step but nowhere near enough for the kind of transparency we the people deserve. And perhaps I missed it since I haven’t read every word but why not call for disarmement of police in general? Total elimination of internal investigations, SWAT teams, the war on drugs, debtor imprisonment too?

    1. marym

      Demilitarization of the police is in the “End the War on Black People” section of the platform, prison and the drug war in the “Invest-Divest” section.

  12. Jim Haygood

    “Justice Officials Raised Objection to Iran Cash Payment”

    … because it would violate a policy of not paying ransom for hostages. Fine.

    But where are the constitutional objections? The little matter of Article I, Sec. 9: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”

    Obviously if flying $400 million cash to Iran came as a total surprise to Congress, they didn’t appropriate those funds for that purpose.

    And where are the anti-money laundering cops? Evidently, “it’s okay when we do it.”

    Ever since Bill Clinton polluted it with the corrupt, purblind Janet Reno, the Justice Dept has been a complete joke under both Republican (“Alberto Gonzales” — har har har) and Democratic (“Eric Holder” — har har har) administrations.

    1. Divadab

      It seems to me that the$400 million was not an appropriation of funds but rather the repayment of a deposit on non-delivered merchandise. Long overdue, I might add.

      The level of cheating in the international sphere by our government in our name is bad and the consequences evident and getting worse. Who will deal with a cheater but only someone with a gun to his head. Hence the military buildup and saber-rattling……

  13. Nick H.

    Just some on-the-ground observations from Columbus, OH post-conventions.

    The urban neighborhood I live in (Clintonville) had been awash in Bernie signs and stickers for the past several months, and only now *after* the convention am I starting to see Hillary signs/stickers.

    I also own a home in the rural suburb of Sunbury about 20 miles outside of town — might as well be two different planets we’re talking about here — and there are Trump signs everywhere. Not much change in signage volume pre- and post-convention, it was a steady growth throughout the primary season.

    As a funny aside, some dude with a property just off I-71 *finally* just took down his large, wooden, hand-painted “BEN CARSON” sign.

    1. Vatch

      Perhaps that Ben Carson sign will go into storage in one of the Great Pyramids until it is needed again in 2020.

    2. Mike Mc

      Three things with bumper sticker counts:

      1) Nobody wants their vehicle keyed, or worse, because some jamoke takes offense at your bumper sticker. Plus existing road rage is bad enough without advertising your political beliefs.

      I doubt partisan Clinton voters will be attacking Trump supporters but Trump’s fans seem a little unhinged at best. Why risk a shattered windshield just because you’re “With Her”?

      2) Too soon for bumper sticker/yard sign pollution. Wait until Sept. 1st or after.

      3) Millennials – plenty of them driving, can’t think of one I know (have six of my own plus their respective pals) who would put a political bumper sticker on their car. Plenty of them not driving too.

      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        So is that why there were no Obama bumper stickers in 2008?

        -these young people may not technically be millennials being aware of vcrs, but it was a relatively large youth movement going through their late teens and early 20’s compared to other elections in 2008. “The permanent Democratic majority” talk was based on this demographic, but they loved their Obama swag. The lack of bumper stickers isn’t due to youth. It’s due to enthusiasm.
        -it’s not too soon for partisan activists. We should be seeing bumper stickers from yellow dog Dem types. The Hillary stickers, I walk to the grocery store, I’ve seen are all vehicles belonging to yellow dog democrats who would vote for Trump if if he was the Democratic nominee. I haven’t seen many.
        -McCain/Palin, Romney/Ryan…Trump isn’t a new evil.
        -http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-01-21/news/0601210055_1_tire-slashing-dirty-tricks-election-day I know different campaigns, but one of the names caught up in this mess is a fairly prominent member of the Democratic Party in Virginia and friends with Terry Mac.

  14. crittermom

    Ah, the Clinton emails…
    She wasn’t savvy enough to understand ‘classified’ or computers; she relied on others to make such crucial decisions regarding security.
    Either one should disqualify her as a future president. It was all ‘her bad’, any way she tries to slant it.

    I remain appalled that despite all of this, it’s ‘business as usual’ in this election.
    Then, of course, there’s Trump & his ideas for our world…

    With so much voter suppression, I’d like to see a reversal–where the citizens close down the voting places and refuse to vote, stating we’ll put up with Obama for another 6 months (while holding more than his feet over the fire regarding TPP), while the two candidates are replaced with some we’d WANT to vote for.

    I should think THAT could force some immediate change and get their attention.
    I’m not sure this country can honestly survive another 4 years with either of the candidates selected for us. They truly scare me.

    1. aletheia33

      i’m encouraged by lambert’s suggestion that the best outcome, given the two greater evils on offer, would be gridlock, hillary with a republican congress or trump with a democrat congress. to prevent the worst measures either president will take.

      i guess this means, depending on who’s ahead in the polls approaching november, voting for the congressional candidates in the opposite party. hard to do if it means voting for republicans to put a brake on hillary. but i can really see lambert’s point.

      it’s time for we the people to take creative, innovative, disruptive destruction into our own hands.

      1. JTMcPhee

        The Gridlock Hypothesis, it seems to me, assumes that there’s some policy distance and disparity between the nominal “opposing” fractions of the ruling bunch. Seems more likely to me that once 0Bomba is off the stage and into the personally-profitable wings, stuff like the “Grand Bargain” and TPP/TISA etc. will be clear sailing. And of course WAR! That category that like so many others hides so very much behind the strutting and saluting and It’s A Jobs Program and the Support Our Boys idiocy…

        1. NotTimothyGeithner

          I don’t know. Part of the “party of no” strategy was based on Bill being praised for “favorable economic” conditions in the 90’s and not the GOP congress. Obviously, it was the tech boom and Insane housing policy, but Washington likes to feel involved.

          Although it happened in Virginia, GOP politicos live in the commonwealth, and they saw Tim Kaine and Mark Warner claim credit for the budget reform efforts of two Republicans and one ancient Democrat and for the defense spending bonanza after 9/11 which would favor Virginia because of location not any rule or regulation. What they knew was then Governor Warner pitched the big budget plan to a few key delegates but had little if any input. The 2000 Era Virginia budget was in shambles. Did the Republicans get rewarded? No, a good by Republican standards candidate lost the governors mansion and they lost several seats in the legislature.

          The lesson they learned was voters will often reward the person at the top for the sun rising in the east. When they were down and out at the end of 2008, the Republicans wanted to make sure they didn’t give Obama any opportunity to take credit for their efforts. They would have done this to any Democrat.

          Many of these pre-Hillary Republicans saw their sugar daddy (Jeb and his family) laughed at by Republican voters at large, not just Trump voters. They need to find jobs, but as for Republicans in elected office, they won’t work with Hillary. Their voters hate the Clintons. They won’t give an inch unless it’s very clear what they are receiving.

  15. Anne

    Trump and his candidacy are sucking all of the media oxygen out of the arena – Clinton seems to have been reduced to an obligatory footnote to the media’s obsession with all-things-Trump, which mostly seems to consist of reports that she is very interested in appealing to Republicans who refuse to support Trump.

    Trump is an absolute train wreck; I am trying to picture him being at all receptive to any kind of intervention – I don’t see it.

    Where is the enthusiasm for the Clinton campaign? I’m not seeing it, which either means it isn’t there, or, the media is once again fking with us to make us think it’s not there – which may be the same thing.

    Whatever the hell is going on with these two candidates, I’m beginning to feel like every day, more and more people disengage from this madness and decide there’s no point in voting at all.

    Maybe that’s the plan.

    1. Carolinian

      One should probably take all media insider accounts of Trump disarray with a grain of salt. They hope to make reports of a Trump meltdown a self fulfilling prophecy. That said it’s always possible that Trump is ambivalent about winning…Yves’ original prediction.

      1. Anne

        Given how wrong the media have been throughout this whole sh!tshow, I don’t give a whole lot of credence to their “sources say” reports; I often suspect these kinds of reports are planted – or lobbed like hand grenades with the intent to create news where there is none.

        The “trainwreck” to which I refer is more about what Trump, himself, is saying and doing on the trail; the more I see – and I honestly try to avoid seeing/hearing him at all – the less I can believe that this is actually happening.

        What I probably fear most is that it is the winning itself that is what matters to Trump, and should he win, the reality of what day-to-day presidentin’ is all about would soon see him resign, leaving us with President Pence. That’s a scenario that would be a huge win for the GOP.

        1. Carolinian

          He’s really just following the same script from the primary. The diff now is that scrutiny is so much greater from a press that never thought he would win the primary.

          But yes he needs to pivot which he sort of did for awhile but it didn’t stick.

          That said only the MSM would see failure to endorse the looney Paul Ryan as a bad thing. Ryan wants to basically eliminate the Federal government except for the military. The Times and Post took this calmly.

        2. Vatch

          What I probably fear most is that it is the winning itself that is what matters to Trump, and should he win, the reality of what day-to-day presidentin’ is all about would soon see him resign, leaving us with President Pence.

          Interesting. That’s very similar to what Bobby Fischer did after becoming World Chess Champion in 1972. He stopped playing, and he forfeited his title to Anatoly Karpov in 1975. Later, in 1992, Fischer played a strange chess match against Boris Spassky, but that was the extent of his serious chess playing after becoming champion.

          1. Carolinian

            Bobby Fischer, Paul Morphy, both nuts or, if you will, eccentric.

            Trump’s not going to resign but he might lay down and let her win. If he does his working class devotees would be entitled to hate him forever. But then the people staying at Trump hotels and playing Trump golf are probably not working class.

            Here’s an interesting story about how the Times’ own liberal readers are starting to complain about the Trump coverage.

            It seems that the situation has got worse with the rise of Trump who endangers the Imperium’s quest for world domination by seeking to “get along” with Russia and China. Once Trump took that stance, the vitriol and vituperation became a daily feature in the Times. Indeed their columnist Timothy Egan seems to write about little else these days. Only Maureen Dowd provides occasional timid relief, daring to point out that Trump “talks to the press,” a dig at Hillary who does not. (Clinton has not had so much as a single press conference in almost a year. )

            I know that many Times readers now seek out Fox, just like the letter writer quoted above. And many also turn to [..] and the Drudge Report as well as RT and China Daily. Even when the Times reports some actual facts, it reports only selected ones (A half truth is a full lie.) or buries them in a narrative that neutralizes them.

            http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/04/new-york-times-relentlessly-biased-against-trump-reports-new-york-times/

            1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

              Of all the candidates this year, Trump endangers the Imperium’s quest the most.

              1. Vatch

                I disagree. Of the two leading candidates that is true, but I think the powers that be would be extremely upset by a third party candidate’s win.

            2. PlutoniumKun

              That’s interesting – it reminds me of the Bush years when European news websites (especially the Guardian) claimed a huge uptick in readers from the US who had tired of the kid glove treatment the Bushies got.

              I have personally stopped reading most of the US/UK press now (including the Guardian) because I simply find the relentless anti-Trump messaging to be so bad that for me it undermines any credibility in any press reporting of politics (not that I’m pro-Trump, he horrifies me, but I see no rational argument for saying he is more dangerous than Clinton). I’m sure I can’t be alone in finding it all a complete turn-off. I wonder if this will force a reassessment by the media if they find this is costing them clicks and money.

              1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

                They have actually made it easy for their readers and former readers.

                “Just put a minus sign in front of what they sign…reverse the content.”

              1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

                That reminds me of an episode from the original Star Trek series about a crippled leader who appears on TV only.

                Fortunately, we do know Ms. Clinton is healthy.

          2. HotFlash

            I’ve worked for this guy, or at least guys very much like him. If elected, he will cherry pick the bits he likes to do (meeting the Queen, golf, schmoozing, makin’ deals, etc.) and leave the rest to gophers. I am pretty sure there will be lots of people who will want to gopher for a Preznit Trump, seeing as how he doesn’t have a DC machine in place, as does the other candidate.

            Sure hope he can keep tabs on his underlings and has a good Chief of Staff. So far he seems to have done alright, but he choses his exposures and reduces risk *(eg, licensing rather that $$$ backing).

            He can do that with, say, Trump Taj Mahal (jinx name!) and when it goes down he loses some future income, that’s all. Presnitin’ is the whole ball of wax.

      2. HotFlash

        That said it’s always possible that Trump is ambivalent about winning…Yves’ original prediction.

        I’d say he’s in to win now, whatever the original plan might have been. I can see that he might have started out running as a lark, like his WWF career, but now he’s in stride and we know he hates to be seen as a loser. He’s OK being the heel, but not the loser.

        And face-to-face is is strong point. I predict he’ll have her in tears by debate #2. I am so glad I moved to Canada decades ago.

        1. PlutoniumKun

          Yes, I think Yves was probably right that Trump wasn’t really all that serious and may have played around deliberately with going out in a storm of press attention (as he loves it). But as you say, now its one on one with someone he clearly detests, I’m sure his ego will drive him to want to win. Although there may be a small part of him that would want to see as having been ‘cheated’ of a win which would allow him to continue ‘campaigning’ after November, without the responsibility of governing.

          Having said all that – I would not rule out the possibility of him actually getting a taste for governing. He is not a pure ‘politician’ or ‘salesman’ – he has run a major organisation (he does seem to have a good ability for delegation and rapid decision making) and he does, for all his seemingly endless ignorance of world affairs, have some strongly consistent views, not least his isolationist streak. I think he could be a surprise.

          1. HotFlash

            Hmm, you might be right about deciding he likes governing. That could work out not so bad, esp if he gets a clue wrt climate change. Whatever Hillary does or doesn’t abt that, the TPP (which I am convinced she will push through if O doesn’t) will tie our hands in combating it.

            It is a great loss to the country and the world that the Dems decided to hobble Bernie, but frankly, I am less worried about having Trump win than Hillary. I don’t know what he’s gonna do, but I’m pretty sure I know what she’s gonna do.

      3. TedWa

        FWIW I laughed my arse off when CNN had the headline, Trump says the party is united while the GOP is running for the exits. If he can blow up the Republican party and turn them inside out – I’m all for it. If Bernie were the nominee that’s exactly what the headlines would be but it would be the DEM’s in the headlines running for the exits.

        BTW, I loved his sarcasm when he said if Russia would find HRC missing 30k e-mails, the America press would reward them greatly hahahahahaa. The press would bury it and he knows it.
        Funny guy.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Their desperation was betrayed when that got turned into ‘working with a foreign power.’

    2. MojaveWolf

      Before you give up on the voting process entirely, let me recommend to you this wonderful twitter account I just found today, @cthulhu4america Obviously, some people are going to be unhappy with some elements of Cthulhu’s platform (the whole “end humanity” thing might be going a trifle far for some) but look at the upside:

      You want a candidate to beat Hillary & Trump? Cthulhu won’t just beat them, he/she/it will EAT them.

      Hillary is backed by GoldmanSachs, the metaphorical vampire squid. Cthulhu is backed by… Cthulhu, the thing from which the vampire squid metaphor sprang. Elder God who devours flesh and souls looks sorta like a real vampire squid vs. metaphorical vampire squid of high finance. I’m pretty sure we ALL want to see this confrontation unfold in real time on live TV or YouTube. NO. MORE. GOLDMAN. SACHS.

      With reform candidates, people always worry about coups, or blackmail, like in the old George Carlin routine where the new president gets taken into a back room and shown footage of the two Kennedy assassinations and told what their marching orders are and what the consequences will be if they try to be more than figure heads. If Cthulhu gets elected, I don’t think we gotta worry about this.

      (for those wondering how this might go down, check out Charles Stross’ “A Colder War”, tho the entity in question there probably wasn’t Cthulhu, but same family of big nasties, and if our guy wants to get a little more overtly squishy and physical with the devouring for TV purposes, more power to him! See same for regard to possible objections as to citizenship requirements)

      I’m seeing a lotta potential here . . .

      (tho still voting Stein)

  16. Holly

    I bet if someone made yard signs that said this

    OMG Hillary
    WTF Trump

    They’d could retire from the proceeds …

    1. Vatch

      And if anyone wonders whether “WTF” is family friendly or not, it’s obvious that “Why The Foolishness?” is perfectly acceptable! I’ve heard “Why The Face?”, too.

    2. Eclair

      In our south suburban Denver suburb, saw homemade ‘bumper’ sticker (actually went right across the back of the car) the other day: ‘Whitewater Criminal vs Trumpeter of Doom.’

      1. Hollyn=

        OMG too funny!

        Does anyone else feel like we watching a remake of the movie The Heathers with Hillary and her entourage of henchwomen?

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Have not seen the movie, but recently I watched “Into the Heart of the Sea,’ the story behind Moby Dick.

          Even those peaceful whales could only take so much. And so, one of them blowback.

          “You will not run your economy based on our suffering.”

    1. habenicht

      I took a quick look at these stories. Each author extrapolates quite a bit beyond Stein’s words at face value to portray her as crazy-pants.

      At face value, she is pretty clear. In her own words:” They (vaccines) should be approved by a regulatory board that people can trust. I think right now that is the problem, that people do not trust a Food and Drug Administration—or even CDC [Center for Disease Control] for that matter—where corporate influence, where, for example, Monsanto lobbyists help run the day in these agencies and are in charge of approving what food is or isn’t safe.”


      (Although to Lambert’s point above, Stein could help herself by simply resorting to some kind of “trust but verify” buzzwords. Politics ain’t beanbag! or so I have read…)

      Still, I wonder if the authors of these pieces would bat an eye if Volkswagon employees regulated emissions at the EPA? Reading their views would have one believe corporations would never cut corners to make an extra buck at the expense of the general population’s safety and conflicts of interest never result in an adverse result to society! Tsk, tsk!

  17. pretzelattack

    oh good lord. the guardian has a hard hitting piece on why trump’s small hands may sink his presidential campaign. they will probably claim it is snark if people fail to take it seriously.

  18. Nyuk nyuk nyuk

    Stein gives the blood-dripping warmonger Dems a very deft thumb in the eye.

    http://www.jill2016.com/stein_in_russia_calls_for_principled_collaboration

    This is exactly what we need, sane people people blowing off the beltway Strangeloves and inserting themselves in the process.

    Dem hacks love to deride the Greens for their organizational ineptitude, because they haven’t overcome the Dem’s illegal obstruction. Doctrinally, however, the Greens are extremely sophisticated – world class. That will give them access to a lot of international resources. Stein’s Moscow provocation is perfectly in the spirit of the Hague Agenda: “wrest peace-making away from the exclusive control of politicians and military establishments.”

    http://www.haguepeace.org/resources/HagueAgendaPeace+Justice4The21stCentury.pdf

    The only thing that would have made it better is if she posed on an anti-aircraft gun.

    1. barrisj

      Uh-oh, there’s that pro-Putin Commie RT again, offering a platform for pro-Russkie apologists…snark. BTW, one of our local public broadcast channels has been offering RT News for some years now, as part of a wide range of foreign news outlets…very amusing to watch/listen to the announcers and reporters on RT really putting the boot in to the Clinton candidacy.

  19. savedbyirony

    I live in N.E. Ohio in a suburb town of Akron. Here the yard signs are just now starting to appear, and i only see signs for Trump in yards so far, though i do see some bumper stickers for the greens appearing as well. I know people in town who will vote for Clinton but i don’t know anybody who is enthused about doing so; while i know people who are adamant in their support for Trump.

  20. voteforno6

    Re: Clinton Email Tarbaby

    She said that she relied on the “judgment of the professionals” for her email setup. This is really a damning statement from her. I can’t think of anyone who has ever worked with government IT or classified information that would think that her setup was the best solution for a senior government official. Either she is lying about getting that advice, or she has some really dumb people around her. I don’t know which one is worse.

    1. Pat

      Can I have 2 from column A and 1 from column B, please?

      She is lying AND she has some really dumb or complicit people around her. It wasn’t just the tech advice, it was the “of course this will work and no one will notice” advice that was the kicker.

    2. abynormal

      “relied on the judgement of the professionals”…typical CEO speak

      The history of the past thirty years is eloquent enough, one would think. What these sodden imbeciles never realize is that a living organism must adapt itself intelligently to its environment, or go under at the first serious change of circumstance.
      Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears

    3. DarkMatters

      I dunno, hiring really dumb people would provide plausible deniability, should the need arise, as it has. OTOH, my guess is that she’d decide it would be less trouble to con the country than have to deal with an IT system run by incompetents.

  21. Sammy Maudlin

    Student-Loan Defaulters in a Standoff With Federal Government

    “Do you think I’m going to give them one penny I’m making to pay back the loan for a job I’m never going to hold?” said Mr. Osborne, 45 years old, who studied to be a health-care worker but can’t find a job as one.

    ——-

    One can hear the cries of “deadbeat!!!” in the wind (and in the comment section of the article).

    But really, is Mr. Osbourne a “deadbeat?” He was induced to enter a loan contract with the federal government in large part by promises of future employment in particular trade. Those promises went unfulfilled. In a normal contract situation, where one side fails to live up to their end of the bargain, the other is excused from performing their contractual obligations.

    Even if the failure to find a job is Mr. Osbourne’s fault, or attributable to unforeseen circumstances, “deadbeats” in such a situation have a legal right, embedded in the Constitution and of historic (even Biblical) significance–the right to file bankruptcy and start over.

    But Mr. Osbourne can do neither. The federal government “desperately” wants him to pay back the fiat currency it created when it “loaned” him the money, and won’t let him get out of the obligation under any circumstances (except for token “refinancing” offers). Why? to prop up the accounting myth that the federal government has X amounts of accounts receivable in the student loan program (thus it remains “solvent”) and to protect certain government-favored lenders.

    The lawmakers who enacted the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (led by Joe Biden) failed to consider that they were creating a monster. By expanding the type of debt that was non-dischargeable, they were encouraging inflation in college costs and necessarily student debt that could not be paid off.

    All talk of fixing the “Main Street” economy is useless windbaggery until this issue gets effectively addressed. At the very least, no private creditor should be afforded this kind of special protection on loans that are all to easy to be pushed upon some of the most financially vulnerable members of our society.

    1. Sleepingdog

      I believe that the behavioral scientists being hired by the DOE will be able to turn this thing around.

    2. andyb

      You are very naive if you don’t understand that this “monster” was created on purpose, just like MERS was created by the TBTFs long before the housing crisis to defraud the middle class, local governments, and overseas pension funds. How can a law be passed making any debt non-dischargeable when debtor’s prisons are illegal, and were outlawed a century ago? Think about it.

    3. inode_buddha

      And yet if you actually *read* the fine print on the loan paperwork, and on the school admissions paperwork, there will be language about not guaranteeing any particular outcome. There will be lots of language about your responsibilities.

      Its a bait-n-switch — employers demanding a certain skill set without offering any guarantees that you will be employed, the gov’t backing the student loans, and the schools soaking up all the $$$ they can find, while the employers tell them they need paople with XYZ skills.

      My opinion is that employers who require specific skills should be the ones paying for them. No idea how that would be implemented tho.

      I’ve been thru all that — want to make a loan officer sweat bullets and squirm? Then insist on sitting there, reading and going thru all the fine print with them, with a hi-liter. Ask questions.

      Yes, I have done that too. Took about a day at a car dealership.

    4. Sam Adams

      The inability to discharge the student loans erode confidence in the role of government to make lives better. It encourages non-participation in normal commerce. It teaches borrowers to game a system in order to live with a sword over thier heads. A whole generation has learned to cheat in all the small ways just to live. A republiC can only survive if the basic belief is that everyone participates honestly and fairly. The increasing defaults and aggressive collections eat away at the basic norms. Student loans are a cancer and Biden – and the whole democrat establishment at the time – were instrumental in creating a disease in the body politic that will like the cancer it is kill the patient.

    5. local to oakland

      Those same bankruptcy law revisions also gave higher priority to claims for payment on derivatives over other types of claims, just in time for the financial crisis.

      Re student loans, it is shameful that it is easier to discharge tax debt in bankruptcy. They really tightened the screws on students and cosigners for student debt. At minimum the law should be rationalized between forms of debt to the federal government. Beyond that, the private student lenders should be forced to underwrite their loans by making them fully dischargeable. Even if you assume the good job at the end of the rainbow, most 18 year olds can’t imagine the actual cost of interest over principal. Financial institutions should bear some of that predictable risk and account for it ahead of time.

    6. Katniss Everdeen

      hillary is reportedly going to use some of the billion dollars she will spend on this campaign to attack Trump over Trump University.

      The claim will be that he “enticed” students with the promise of a big “payoff” as a result of their “studies” to “max out their credit cards.”

      Sounds kinda familiar. Except that “educational expenses” for Trump U. placed on a credit card ARE dischargeable in bankruptcy.

      1. Pat

        Anyone but me think this is another mistake on Clinton’s part. When you have a husband who shilled for and served on the board of another educational rip off with a candidate who doesn’t hesitate to go after your hypocrisies I don’t think this is a plan. Mind you, I’m of the belief that Clinton is only the candidate due to bullying and bribery, not competence (either in office or campaigning), so it could just be me.

        1. Katniss Everdeen

          I just don’t know how anybody’s supposed to find out about bill’s shill unless Trump gets it together enough to tell them, because the nyt sure isn’t going to mention it.

          I hope somebody prints Laureate University and $16.46 million in big letters on an index card and pins it to his lapel for the debates.

          1. Pat

            I’m hoping his debate prep includes that, not to mention a good line about bankruptcy reform because you know she is going to bring up both Trump University and his bankruptcies, until it is just reflex to respond with those little ditties.

            And I think as the media still tries to milk the Trump ratings thing while being on the stump for Clinton, the Trump people will get better and better at getting stuff like that out, even if some of it means insisting on live response interviews.

        2. EndOfTheWorld

          Somehow, the HRC campaign has complete control over the lame stream media. You’re right about the parallel sleazy university cases. There were also parallel convention speaker, gold-star cases. The republicans had an angry lady giving a speech about her son who died in Benghazi, accusing HIll of being an incompetent liar, etc. Hill said she was mistaken. Did Hill get attacked for 72 hours straight by all MSM organs available? Of course not. So if she attacks Trump on the Trump U. stuff the same syndrome will be evident. The only thing that saves Trump is more and more people ignore the MSM anyway. His best shot is the debates because the MSM can’t completely ignore them.

          1. Katniss Everdeen

            Well, there’s one thing that I hope the lame streamers KEEP reporting on–the parade of billionaires and other assorted crooks and liars who keep “abandoning their republican principles” to barnstorm for hillary.

            There are about 100 days left until the election. At some point I’d expect people to start thinking, “wait…….what?”

        3. NotTimothyGeithner

          It’s a tactic to accuse your opponent of something you do, so it becomes about them not you.

          It was insane the media discussed Sanders’ taxes when he was basically broke, doesn’t do speeches, and didn’t marry for money. Short of Sanders not taking an obvious deduction for a work related expense, there would be nothing those taxes we couldn’t predict.

      2. rich

        Trump University?…meanwhile…

        Bill Clinton Got Millions From World’s Biggest Sharia Law Education Firm.

        Former President Bill Clinton collected $5.6 million in fees from GEMS Education, a Dubai-based company that teaches Sharia Law through its network of more than 100 schools in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.

        The company’s finances strictly adhere to “Sharia Finance,” which includes giving “zakat,” a religious tax of which one-eighth of the proceeds is dedicated to funding Islamic jihad.

        The company also contributed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

        Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/03/exclusive-bill-clinton-got-millions-from-worlds-biggest-sharia-law-education-firm/#ixzz4GPMjhNkT

        Now I do not know much about sharia law but Gems rang a bell….

        Who is behind this Hurculean effort?

        The award has been created by the Varkey Foundation, the charitable arm of the GEMS education group, as a high-profile way of demonstrating the importance of teaching.

        GEMS Education is an affiliate of Blackstone, a huge private equity underwriter (PEU). Five months ago Blackstone invested in GEMS.

        Fajr Capital, Mumtalakat and Blackstone acquire significant minority stake in GEMS Education. GEMS Education, a UAE born brand founded 54 years ago, is now the world’s largest provider of K-12 private education. (Blackstone Press Release 10-15-14)

        http://peureport.blogspot.com/search?q=+GEMS+Education

        Well then I’m thinking…Blackstone…party…money….Tony James??

        Hillary Clinton Talks Tough on Shadow Banking, But Blackstone Is Celebrating at the DNC

        Blackstone, the giant Wall Street private equity firm, will hold an invitation-only reception before the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
        What’s unusual is that the host is precisely the kind of “shadow banker” that Hillary Clinton has singled out as needing more regulation in her rhetoric about getting tough on Wall Street.

        Last December, James hosted a high-dollar fundraiser for Hillary Clinton that featured Warren Buffett. He’s made six-figure donations to the Center for American Progress, known as Clinton’s White House in exile, and sits on CAP’s Board of Trustees. And he has made no secret of wanting to hold a high-level position in a future Democratic administration, perhaps even Treasury Secretary.

        https://theintercept.com/2016/07/28/hillary-clinton-talks-tough-on-shadow-banking-but-blackstone-is-celebrating-at-the-dnc/

        Maybe the voters need a re-education in conflicts of interests??

  22. Jason Boxman

    In my travels this spring through Birmingham, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Boston, Jersey City, DC, and Raleigh, I only ever saw Bernie Sanders signs and bumper stickers. I saw one Clinton sticker driving through Connecticut. (I drove to each city.) I have seen very, very few Trump signs. It was mostly Sanders. This was back in April – June though.

    1. Vince in MN

      One of my LOTE friends recently told me “I’ll hold my nose and vote for Clinton, but I will not go so far as to put up a lawn sign or bumper sticker”. This could be a reason for the current lack of such advertisements for the “liberal” candidate. However, it is early yet, and as the anti-Trump propaganda continues to get ratcheted up, perhaps they will begin to proliferate.

    2. Softie

      When I drove from North GA to Coastal GA then to Key West, FL a couple months ago, I saw mostly Trump signs in GA, more Sanders in FL but almost none for HRC.

  23. ProNewerDeal

    Stein is smeared as crazy, accused of being anti-vaccines.

    Yet BigMedia doesn’t consider ANY of HClinton’s craziness as crazy. 2 crazy points off hand, I could list many others:

    1 HClinton & her favorite for Sec Defense M Florenoy, want to regime-change the Russia-allied Assad regime in Syria, believing Assad is a bigger risk to “national security” than ISIS or Al Nusra. I’ve read conflicting reports that either HClinton believes she will also simultaneously destroy ISIS & Al-Nusra & that some magical moderate rebel faction will become the new regime, or that HClinton tacitly accepts a new ISIS regime.

    2 HClinton opposes MedicareForAll, despite the fact that blocking it kills ~45K USians per yr, per Harvard Public Health Profs’ estimates. As a side note, HClinton supports “Medicare Buy In” for the 55-64 age cohort, but “Public Option” for the 18-54 cohort, although it is crazily unclear why these would be different programs & not just “Medicare Buy In” for the 18-64 cohort.

    I think any objective assessment would place Stein as sane; & HClinton & Trump as crazy.

    1. Raven on a Coyote

      Glad to see someone else saw this as well.

      I want to know, where are all these good doctors who complain about anti-vaxxers when it comes to protesting the negative effects that Obama had on healthcare in this country when he force americans to give their money to the health insurance companies..

      I hear them complain all the time to me personally how health insurers are screwing them and the patient over but will they ever strike? No. Are they out in the streets marching? No.

      I have a chronic, genetic, health issue and have been on medicare for 15 years. In those 15 years I have seen my out of pocket expenses rise and my access to care shrink. All the while both Obama and Hillary trumpet the great success of the ACA.

      That, my friends, is crazy.

      1. Pat

        I really do not understand why Doctors are not on the front lines regarding Single Payer, or at least big on making sure that the meme that having health insurance equates to having health care. They should be destroying that one big time, even if single payer will mean price controls and regulations. It isn’t as if insurance companies are doing that anyway.

        1. Pat

          that should be that meme that having health insurance equates to having health care is contradicted.

          Oops.

        2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Price controls and self sacrifice are not covered in either the ancient or modern version of the Hippocratic oath (from Wiki):

          I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:…
          I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
          I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
          I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
          I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
          I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. Above all, I must not play at God.
          I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
          I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
          I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
          If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

          Abortion ban was covered in the ancient version.

          1. Raven on a Coyote

            I would say this includes price controls:

            I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

            But that is the problem with oaths, they provide cover for cowards.

  24. ambrit

    Here in Central Mississippi we’ve seen two or three Hillary bumper stickers from the primary campaign; nothing more recent. A good number of Trump stickers, usually, as Phyl points out to me with glee, on Redneck looking pickup trucks or ‘gated community’ style SUV’s. One lonely Green sticker on a Prius covered in Grateful Dead, Arcade Fire, and assorted similar logos. This being a “College” town, I beeped happily at a Cthulhu sticker. Almost no yard signs. One Trump and several Kasich signs, nothing for Clinton or Stein, nothing Libertarian. (Johnson does have support, but most of it is out in the “white flight” exurbs.)
    Bumper stickers in general, as in years worth of old endorsements, do break down along ostensible class lines. So called “Progressive” messages cluster on the back ends of SUV’s, and “Ecologically Minded” ultra compacts. More “Traditional” messages, as in Centre Right wing, on the backs of older sedans. Radical signage rests usually on the back bumpers of “beat up” second hand ‘rides’ and pickup trucks, especially if said truck is covered in mud, runs on knobby oversized tyres, and flies a Confederate Battle Ensign from the radio antenna. There are several who, on holidays will run all around flying the “Stars and Bars” in full sized banners, (4′ x 6′, I’m not kidding,) on wall type flagpoles anchored to the bed of their truck. All that would be needed to make this display a “technical” is the bed mounted heavy machine guns.
    Greetings from the Dregs of Dixie.

    1. Jim Haygood

      ‘pickup trucks, especially if said truck is covered in mud, runs on knobby oversized tyres, and flies a Confederate Battle Ensign from the radio antenna’

      A telling ‘Southern boho’ touch is added by wiring the number plate to the rear bumper through its top holes, so that it flaps in the wind as one motors cavalierly down the road.

      1. ambrit

        Actually, wiring the license plate to carabiners and carry several ‘plates’ to switch if the ride gets ‘hot.’
        These ‘redneck’ levies wouldn’t qualify as Cavaliers; maybe as Welsh or Scots auxiliaries. Your Southern Roundheads would show up in farm trucks, or passenger vans sporting the name of some small fundamentalist sect painted on the side.

    2. barrisj

      Almost every older Subaru wagon up here in the far PNW drives around with old Obama 2008 stickers, along with Greenie messaging and the occasional “Darwin” evolution-not-creationism stuff as well. See the same array of stickers on really old Volvos as well. “The medium is the message”, doncha know.

    3. jrs

      I’ve mostly only seen Bernie stickers as well (one had both Bernie and Hillary – ugh).

      If I wanted a Stein or other radical (ie left) sticker, I’d look for a beat up, ancient, compact car with a bunch of other stickers. You know the windows are manual roll down as is everything else, and you’ll be lucky if it has AC.

  25. pretzelattack

    if i remember, i will try to keep a running count of bumper stickers. i dont drive much per day, so the sample size may be too small, but mostly on a couple of roads with heavy traffic.

    1. ambrit

      An image activated camera with image recognition software purposed to recognize the pertinent ‘messages.’ Place that next to a main drag at a stop light. Secure device robustly!

  26. abynormal

    What Happens When Rampant Asset Inflation Ends?
    http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2016/08/what-happens-when-rampant-asset.html
    The question that few ask is: what happens to pension funds that need 7.5% annual returns to remain quasi-solvent when asset inflation turns into asset deflation, i.e. assets decline in value? Take a look at the S&P 500’s rise to the stratosphere and ponder the monumental losses that would accrue to any institution that thought asset inflation was a permanent feature of modern life:
    HatTip Charts Charlie

  27. fresno dan

    Cat and bowl. martha r: “Must see.”

    If it fits, you must acquit…
    or was it, If it fits, you must convict?
    anyway, that cat is guilty of being too cute!

    It is funny, my cat will not go into a box to save her life. But any cabinet door left open, and she is in there in a flash.

    1. Vince in MN

      Cats are generally attracted to small enclosed spaces. Wastepaper baskets are especially popular in my home.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Not that they will use it that way, but operating the property as a maternity motel can be very profitable.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Going by the headline alone, I would imagine silence can often be even more powerful, dreadful or scary than ‘nyet.’

    2. Jeremy Grimm

      Sorry — I haven’t read the article you linked to. Some of the other stuff on the cluborlov site is genuinely frightening. Russia is preparing for war. The Russian war making capability and weaponry described sounds like it could tear our military apart. The last twenty years — or more — of US military expenditures have gone toward filling pockets at defense contractors not the production of top of the line modern weapons. Just the Russian cyberwarfare capability would probably suffice to kneecap the US. I keep remembering how many Russian COBOL programmers were brought in to manage the Y-2K problem.

  28. Paddlingwithoutboats

    Anyone else having problems with those items under Class Warfare? I’ve not been able to get an active link since they were posted.

    1. ambrit

      The links are obviously set to only connect those with suitable credit scores to the ‘higher order.’ (I know I wouldn’t qualify.)

    2. Jeremy Grimm

      Copy the a location in text and paste it into a text editor. You may spot something to repair. The link [https://mathbabe.org/2016/08/03/expand-social-security-get-rid-of-401ks/] will work if you change https to http.

      I believe the problem is on the MathBabe website which maps [http://mathbabe.org/2016/08/03/expand-social-security-get-rid-of-401ks/] into the https link. Guessing further — I think the problem results from a peculiarity of the how the website transitions from the portal opening to the content pages.

      The link to [https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/07/20/19962/former-cleanup-workers-blame-illnesses-toxic-coal-ash-exposures] works in my browser (an obsolete FireFox Install) but when I tried [http://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/07/20/19962/former-cleanup-workers-blame-illnesses-toxic-coal-ash-exposures] — that also worked following a browser brief gray-out. However — just as on the MathBabe website the http was converted to https.

      I’m not a webmaster or HTML geek — so please forgive the hand-waving.

      I hope someone more knowledgeable will step in and explain what’s going on with browsers. Browser repairs following the heartbleed bug(s) seem to have been associated with changes to HTML or XML or so XXXML branching off into directions no longer supported by older browsers. Browser updates for older systems are like getting parts for a Model A. Several government sites have made changes — I can’t download pdfs from the US Patent Office any more because of some changes they made to their patent image viewer which are incompatible with my browser. The Xfinity [my present Internet provider] home website gets completely jumbled in my browser.

      Does anyone know what’s been going on? I feel like I’m being pushed into buying a newer computer so I can update my system — so I can update my browser. My older system [pre-new and improved frontend Ubuntu linux] and browser had served long and well — well except for not being updated for bug patches.

  29. rich

    Warren Buffett Made a Big Bet On an ‘In-Your-Face’ CEO Mark Donegan uses tough tactics to get results, people say. August 3, 2016

    Behind the numbers, though, something more brutal is going on. For years, Donegan has traveled the globe, sometimes bullying staff during quarterly reviews at Precision plants. Bloomberg News spoke with 15 current and former employees—some at the most senior levels of the organization—as well as half a dozen people with knowledge of how the company is run. Those who know the CEO best describe a manager who’s highly effective but at times strains basic decency.

    These people, most of whom asked that their names not be used for fear of retaliation, say they have witnessed Donegan using profanity and violent language. One heard him threaten to stab someone in the eyes with a pencil. Another says the CEO threatened to rip an employee’s arms off so he could hit the person with the bloody stumps. On more than one occasion, the people say, he has called male employees “c–ts.”

    It’s a bruising approach to management that’s at odds with Buffett’s folksy image of a billionaire who downs cans of Cherry Coke. What’s more, these people say, Donegan has a taste for luxury that’s out of sync with his new boss’s well-publicized frugality. Precision got the latest Gulfstream, even as Donegan pinched pennies from factories. While Buffett has lived in the same house since the 1950s, Donegan has spent some of his wealth on vacation homes and sports cars.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-08-03/buffett-s-bet-on-a-relentless-ceo?

    hmmm….that word decency was used recently by Buffett….oh that’s right he publicly chastised Trump….guess when his moneys on the line…ANYTHING GOES THOUGH…get on his bus for HRC… Hypocrite Runs Country?

    1. Pat

      I wonder if anyone is going to bring up the fact that when Buffett’s provided a quarter of the financing for Burger King’s merger with Tim Hortons becoming Restaurant Brands International he became a major preferred stock holder in the new company that was a tax inversion for Burger King. IOW, he largely funded an American company becoming international and getting out of a large portion of the taxes they would pay in America.

      Funny how that doesn’t quite jibe with the raise my taxes thing. But you have to understand that for all his talk about raising his taxes, most of it doesn’t mean anything considering the way that he handles his income, even if the so-called Buffett rule were enacted. But the corporations he invests in not paying taxes does.

    2. inode_buddha

      Ya know, all that somebody has to do is hit “record” on their cellphone and send the recording to the nearest Labor dept. If nothing else, it’ll get the assclowns’ attention.

  30. mitzimuffin

    I was driving north on rte 31 and 579 on my way to frenchtown nj. Just north of Pennington there was a sign:
    “Hillary for Prison.” I saw no other signs.

  31. diptherio

    Glad to see the link to the Movement for Black Lives policy demands. Note that collective ownership is front-and-center in the Economic Justice platform. Also note the demand for a job guarantee program. Should be adopted whole-hog by the DNC, donchathink?

    1. Jess

      A lifelong active Dem, I can and will vote for Trump. But Ryan? No way. No chance in hell. Ryan on the ticket, I’m going with Stein.

  32. allan

    U.S. asks Argentina to be patient with economy under Macri [Reuters]

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday urged Argentina to be patient with the pace of economic progress under President Mauricio Macri, who took office late last year promising an influx of investment that has yet to materialize.

    In his first visit to the country as America’s chief diplomat, Kerry addressed growing discontent voiced by Argentines over an economy beset by stagflation.

    Neoliberal professional courtesy. Offer void in center-left countries.

  33. DarkMatters

    Re Jill Stein:

    Before accusing Stein of being anti-science, we should first define terms. Should publications in the New England Journal of Medicine be regarded as science? Well, Marcia Angell, former editor of that publication has doubts :

    “It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. Arguably, studies where such a conflict is found should NOT be regarded as science until the conflict is resolved.”

    So whatever we’re dealing with, it’s inappropriate to wave the science flag in its defense: the conflict of interest, and corrupting incentives, merit scepticism. This is yet another manifestation of overall distrust of elite institutions we have seen in this election cycle. The fact that it impacts on public health policies in this case makes it very serious. But the wound of distrust has been self-inflicted by evidence of conflict of interest, and to castigate Jill Stein for discussing her reservations openly amounts to killing the messenger.

    1. Jeremy Grimm

      The Stein vaccinations brouhaha makes me wonder about Jill Stein’s political savvy given the present climate of the news and politics. Some stones might better wait to be turned over after the election. There are no shortage of bigger, better and less problematic issues for Jill to raise. Does she really want to spend her time talking about the FDA and the vaccinations nonsense?

      1. DarkMatters

        You have a point about the political landscape, but the issue has special significance for Stein, since drug integrity was a major motivator for her moving from medicine into politics in the first place. As you observe, the propaganda has the newsmedia convinced that anyone seeking drug reform is an anti-science wacko; the pitch is good enough that simply advocating that position becomes a political liability. Maybe she needs to drop her platform to get elected.

  34. LaRuse

    “I drove back to NC from Vermont for a week. Zero Clintoon signs/stickers, a few Trump. None of the above?” Readers, what are you seeing?

    Outside the campground in Butler County, PA, where I will be for the next 10 days is a property that has erected a 5’x8′ homemade sign that says “YOU”RE IN TRUMP COUNTRY” with their van parked next to it completely covered in Trump stickers.
    That was a disquieting sight to begin my laid back week.
    No Clinton sign sightings yet, but if I see any while I am away, I will report back.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      It was mentioned here at NC not too long ago that a lot of Trump’s supporters were dying off.

      Not wanting to see such tragedies, I hope those signs stay…so we know they are still OK.

  35. Will

    Finally seeing a few Hillary stickers in Seattle, though still not many, and there’s an occasional Trump sticker on a truck. There’s also one near where I get the bus to work in the morning in favor of GIANT METEOR 2016: JUST END IT ALREADY. A good running mate for Cthulhu, perhaps?

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Sounds like people giving up, no more ‘It’s up to us.”

      Still ‘It’s up to someone else.”

      Start with little things…eat right, buy local, etc…

  36. cwaltz

    Southwest Virginia…..I’ve seen zero signs and everyone I have spoken to with the exception of a cashier at a gas station(who fell for the Clinton as a victim meme) is voting for the orange crazy guy.

    Apparently, Hillary’s “think of the children” ad that she ran here before the primaries ended(my region of Virginia was FIRMLY Sanders) hasn’t worked with anyone I know.

    I’ve considered going to the restaurant where the regions Democrats congregate to get some sort of handle on how they are handling the undemocratic behavior of the Democrats. I’m not exactly great about sitting quietly though and I’m not anxious to lacerate my tongue with all the tongue biting I’d have to do though.

    My oldest and I had a discussion on Hillary Clinton because he felt Stein was being “mean” to her. I told him that there weren’t pretty ways to call someone who is corrupt, corrupt. I also reminded him that she holds some responsibility for the mess we have overseas. At this point, I’m resolved to make sure none of my three voting age kids fall for the Democrat LOTE crap(2/3 were Bernie and the other one just abstained from voting) and understand exactly what they are voting for if they vote for her.

    1. Lambert Strether

      When I saw the “Think of the Children” ad, I identified with the children watching the screen, as I was meant to do.

      And what I saw was one crazy person saying crazy stuff, followed by a second person whose eyes looked as crazy as a sh*t house rat’s, no matter what she was saying.

      Those poor children!!

  37. Jeremy Grimm

    The link “The Problem with Too Much Terrorism” concludes:
    “The war on terror, begun after the Sept. 11 attacks, is about to expand aggressively. I would advise planning accordingly.”

    How are we supposed to plan or prepare for an expansion of the “war on terror”?

  38. flora

    re: “Newt Gingrich: Trump Is ‘Unacceptable’ – Daily Beast”

    To recap:
    In 2012 Gingrich was a GOP pres contender bankrolled almost exclusively by billionaire Sheldon Adelson.
    This year Gingrich encouraged Adelson to support Trump.
    In May Adelson endorses Trump for pres.
    In June Gingrich thinks he has a good chance to be selected Trump’s VP, given the Adelson connection.
    In July Trump selects Pence for VP.
    In August Gingrich declares Trump ‘Unacceptable.’

  39. rich

    Bread, Circuses and… Taco Bowls

    Of the citizens of the declining Roman empire, it was said: “Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt.” So true is this of all such citizens of declining empire that every four years American presidential wannabes even promise revolution but know that the voter will ask only for more bread, circuses and… taco bowls.

    Dr. Michael Hudson joins Double Down to talk about the economic reality behind the Trump voter and about whether or not, as it is claimed, Hillary Clinton is the ‘most progressive’ candidate in Democratic history.
    http://sputniknews.com/radio_double_down/20160802/1043866518/bread-circuses-taco-bowls.html

    interest rate apartheid and HRC is the regressive candidate…the workers will vote their interests and NOT vote HRC..imagine that.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Bread and circuses – looking down from above.

      Bread, Aspirin and Social Security (to pay for shelter or property taxes) – looking from below. (Free college tuition maybe later).

  40. Oregoncharles

    Thanks very much for “Jill Stein Smeared As Anti-Vaccine Crank Shadowproof (resilc)” very helpful.

  41. kareninca

    re bumper stickers: driving around Silicon Valley to do errands (Palo Alto, Mountain View and Los Altos, mostly on El Camino and Middlefield Road) I have seen precisely one bumper sticker in the past several months. It was a Hillary sticker, on a older, dented car (very rare for around here; everyone somehow drives new cars; we just replaced our 19 y.o. Honda Civic with a new one so I guess we do too), driven by a very overweight white guy in his late 60s (I would guess). That was last month. Other than that, nada.

      1. kareninca

        It didn’t say on the sticker, but I think from this year, because of the condition of the sticker. But you’re right, it could be from earlier; it is possible.

  42. Jeremy Grimm

    Some thoughts regarding tomorrow’s meeting at the Slàinte Bar and Lounge:

    Last time I attended a meet in NYC I recall Yves getting stuck covering some of the tabs.

    Unless things have changed (not likely) — the server handling the backroom at Slàinte Bar aggregates a bill for the room which becomes a problem when time to settle up. Speaking for myself — doing basic arithmetic after a few hours drinking and discussing greatly challenged what remained of my mathematical abilities.

    However — if you go to the bartender and do a little self-service you can settle up as you go and simplify or eliminate bill division when the party moves on to another destination.

    And speaking as one whose daughter depends on the limited income she can squeeze out of her jobs in Brooklyn as a server and bar-back TIPS ARE IMPORTANT. They make a big difference.

  43. ewmayer

    This morning I resolved to not watch even a single minute of that nationalist, commercial-exploitation-fest known as the Olympics. Got some quality DVDs and books laid in. Will any fellow NCers – specifically ones who were planning on watching at least some of the coverage – take the No-lympics pledge with me?

    1. HotFlash

      ew, I solemnly affirm that I will not watch even one second of the Olympics. I can water my tomatoes, or clean my venetian blinds, or … oh, lots of more interesting and useful things.

      1. ewmayer

        I think we can grant you a special dispensation based on your friend participating and boxing’s modern-day status as a fringe sport. Are you willing to vow to watch just the boxing and to mute/look-away during the commercials? (That includes the opening/closing ceremonies … sorry, but we gotta draw the line somewhere, and those are pure pomp & flag-waving, not sport.)

        I’m still not watching, but best wishes to your friend!

        1. subgenius

          Planning to only watch her bouts, probably over iffy internet streams – I haven’t had a TV since the 90s…

          1. subgenius

            ….I should probably add…she is the least-likely boxer probably ever, coming from an essentially hippie family and looking much more like a cover girl than a boxer has any right to!

    2. petal

      I’m in. The garden, gym, and books call. So fed up with the corruption of it all. The election is enough already.

    3. vidimi

      not going to watch any unless the watering hole i happen to be at happens to broadcast some of it

  44. frijoles junior

    “Nobody for President 2016” – Bumper sticker, ~10-15 year old Ford truck, Austin, Texas, seen in traffic recently

    Plus one Bernie and one Hillary – No Trumps as far as I can tell

  45. gordon

    Aha! I’ve worked it out! Yves Smith’s remark “… it’s also a not-so-hidden pitch for PE” refers to Private Equity! At least, I think it does…

    1. Jeremy Grimm

      What is the context for your “Aha”? I scanned up and down looking for Yves remark but your comment remains cryptic.

  46. Jeremy Grimm

    The Black Lives websites and the Black Lives platform are inspiring.

    I have a little problem with tying free college, and minimum wage to their reparations plank — pull them or put them under a different rubric. I haven’t read the brief to figure out what the cultural reparations refers to. I think I would add a plank to reparations to spend money in black neighborhoods to repair the streets, repair other infrastructure, and provide seed funding for establishing food coops and urban farming coops — and things like that to rebuild communities. NO URBAN RENEWAL! though. Repair and make better what’s there already. Urban Renewal has all too often/always turned into a way for the wealthy to grab land in downtown areas and push out the poor.

    Maybe Black Lives Matter is where to look for a viable third party.

  47. Jeremy Grimm

    Too much time on my hands. I wandered over to Truth-Out and spotted this story —

    Some scientists were playing with ways to decompose crop residues to make alcohol. So they modified the genes in a bacterium, Klebsiella planticola.

    [http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37082-how-one-gmo-nearly-took-down-the-planet]
    A teaser [need to jump to the middle of the story to get to the part about this near catastrophe]:

    “Klebsiella planticola is found in the root systems of every terrestrial plant on Earth, so if the modified bacterium were released into the wild, it would threaten every single terrestrial plant on the planet.”

    And I thought Round-up Ready was bad.

  48. petal

    Hanover, NH/VT check-in: A few(literally maybe 2 or 3) more Hillary bumper stickers(most are on out of state cars-ie NY, CT). No HC yard signs or anything else. I did see a new Trump sticker on an SUV, and one for Vermin Supreme on a different one. Figuring if this is going to kick off, it will be after Labor Day, but I am also wondering if we’re at peak because there’s zero enthusiasm and people are just sick of it and disgusted. All of the Bernie car magnets are gone. I haven’t seen a single one-just stickers that are going to be practically impossible to get off. A lady on my street still has her Bernie yard sign up. No one since the shuttle bus driver has asked me about my car’s ABC homemade sign. The way it looks out there, you’d think there was no election going on at all-that it doesn’t exist. Cheers.

    1. flora

      Given the deep divisions in both parties I think lack of bumper stickers indicates personal social courtesy on the level of “at dinner parties don’t talk about money, religion or politics.”
      Too many friends could be lost. Goodness knows politics is no reason to lose friends.
      Shorter: this year, post primary bumper stickers are not a bellwether.

  49. WendyS

    About the Castle that King Arthur might have been from, have they found any coconut shells yet? They should look in the stables.

  50. RMO

    Re: The Salon article, “While Bill Clinton helped reduce welfare rolls and help people on the path to economic independence, Obama ushered in an increase in welfare spending” Unbef#*@!inglieveable. About the only thing in the article that was valid was pointing out how the official unemployment rate makes things seem rosier than they really are. The rest of it (saying Bill Clinton was able to reach compromises with the Republicans, gave us economic growth, created a budget surplus, etc. etc. – as I recall the GOP came very close to succeeding in their attempt to impeach him and his main economic achievement was coming into power as a recession ended and a bubble-boom started) seems largely written in then hopes that readers will be persuaded that if one Clinton was such a godsend to the world another one will surely deliver us to heaven on Earth.

Comments are closed.