Links 3/13/16

No wool, no Vikings Hakai Magazine (chris g)

Snowmobile ‘driven into dog-sleds’ in Alaska Iditarod race BBC

Ashley Graham: Body positivity advert starring plus-sized model ‘banned by two major US TV networks’ Independent (Chuck L). Jeez. Quite a few men prefer voluptuous women, but you’d never know that from the fashion pages or movies. Cindy Crawford was a size 12.

Fantastic psychedelic Greyhound ad from 1971 Boing Boing (resilc)

What Weather Is the Fault of Climate Change? New York Times

Don’t Post About Me on Social Media, Children Say New York Times (resilc)

Google AlphaGo Computer Beats Go Grandmaster Sky

Capitalism not always route to democracy Bangkok Post (furzy)

China?

China Weighs Letting Banks Sell Bad Debt to Investors New York Times

Chinese Economic Data Paint a Gloomy Picture Wall Street Journal

Maduro Slams US: We Never Kill Children or Bomb Hospitals teleSUR (guurst). The article does point out that there are now dueling protests in Caracas.

Refugee Crisis

Europe’s Illusory Migration Deal with Turkey Peterson Institute (resilc)

Merkel faces test in regional elections BBC

The decline of Germany’s SPD is a stark warning to Labour’s Blairites Guardian (Sid S)

Norway mass murderer Breivik sues over his human rights euronews

Syraqistan

United Nations Warns ISIS in Libya Is Growing Atlantic (resilc)

Horror of life under ISIL exposed in recaptured Syrian town of al-Shadadi euronews

What Is The US Doing In Libya Now? Libyan War the Truth (Wat)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Killing from the Conference Room New York Review of Books (resilc)

Imagine F-16s Deploying Swarms of Tiny Drones War Is Boring (resilc)

There Is Not Enough Scrutiny of America’s Wars National Interest. Resilc: “Maybe ESPN can show the losing records.”

Trade Traitors

Preview of the TPP? America Just Blocked a Massive Solar Project in India AntiMedia (Chuck L)

2016

The Geography of Trumpism New York Times. Lambert: “It turns out that the labor force partipation rate is central and we know how to fix that, unlike racism. So of the two causes, which does the identity politics driven political class fix on? That’s right, the one that cannot be solved by policy.”

The Sea Island Conspiracy Patrick J. Buchanan (Chuck L)

Trump’s Words Were Destined to Stir Violence, Critics Say New York Times

Trump Rivals Blame Him for Rally Fracas Wall Street Journal

Second white-on-black assault caught on video from horrifying Trump rally in North Carolina Raw Story (furzy)

How Bernie Sanders supporters shut down a Donald Trump rally in Chicago MSNBC

WATCH: Kansas City police unleash pepper spray on demonstrators outside another chaotic Trump rally Raw Story (furzy mouse)

Bernie Sanders won Arab Americans in Michigan. The media is wrong about why. Vox (resilc)

Ben & Jerry’s Ben Cohen laughs at Fox News’ conspiracy blaming Sanders for Trump rally violence Raw Story (furzy). Why is Raw Story calling what happened “violence”? By all accounts, the crowd was very well behaved and outbreaks were isolated.

Fox News’ Anti-Bernie Sanders Segment Goes HORRIBLY Wrong (Hilarity Ensues) YouTube (Bas)

Voting With Your Head: Against Hillary Counterpunch (Judy B)

Hillary Clinton, Stalwart Friend of World’s Worst Despots, Attacks Sanders’ Latin American Activism Common Dreams (Judy B)

Hillary: the Poison Pill Counterpunch (LI)

Groups Tied to Koch Brothers Sought to Undermine VA Hospital System Charles Pierce, Esquire (resilc)

Remote Utah Enclave Becomes New Battleground Over Reach of U.S. Control New York Times (David L)

I’m Modeling My Marriage on the Underwoods’ New York Magazine (resilc)

What New Delhi’s free clinics can teach America about fixing its broken health care system Washington Post (furzy)

Recall Push in Michigan Puts Pressure on Governor New York Times

What We Know About the Crackdown on Cliven Bundy and the Oregon Occupiers Vice (resilc)

27 Companies That Paid No Taxes Barry Ritholtz

Silicon Valley Shaken as 19 Start-Ups See their Valuations Slashed Vanity Fair

Class Warfare

Game ON: the end of the old economic system is in sight Global Guerrillas (Chuck L)

Every Job Could Be a Casualty of the Robot Revolution, Even Yours Vice (resilc)

I’m Not Evil. I’m a Landlord. New York Times. Doug:

This is a heartfelt op-ed from a landlord doing his best. Still, it is troubling that in the section of the NYTimes’ homepage called “Inside NYTimes.com” where this op-ed is featured as of 6:45 am, the excerpted sentence used to interest readers is: “I think I’m better at providing affordable housing than the government.”

Okay. Interesting. Let’s read this! And, when one does, here’s literally what is in the paragraph with that sentence:

“I think I’m better at providing affordable housing than the government. I have a tenant in his 70s who pays me $189 a month, and the government pays the remaining $351.”

So, he’s better at providing affordable housing than the government because the government subsidizes his tenant’s rent to make the apartment affordable.

The Tyranny of Tie Guy Jacobin

Why Fascism is the Wave of the Future Edward Luttwak, London Review of Books (1994, Fabius Maximus website via Gabriel U)

Antidote du jour (Telegraph via Lawrence R):

aye aye links

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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202 comments

  1. drugstoreblonde

    Grand Gulch-Cedar Mesa should be a National Park by now. I know the area very well, having grown up in Utah, and spending several weeks each summer backpacking there. The archaeological importance of these areas cannot be understated. And yet for too long, the local Mormon communities and county and state leaders have behaved just slightly less recklessly than Daesh in Palmyra. The current (and seemingly never-ending) attempts by state leaders to sue the federal government for ownership of the BLM-managed lands is making it harder and harder to achieve even the most modest of conservation goals. The only thing the Clinton Administration did that looks better and better with every passing year was designating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. I hope the Obama Administration does the same for GG-CM, and doesn’t use it cravenly as a bargaining chip.

    1. Garrett Pace

      There was a similar dilemma 50 years ago surrounding the formation of the Canyonlands NP. The temptation was to take the easy way and do what Clinton did with Grand Staircase, but you should recall the atmosphere of the Clinton decision – a month before the 1996 election – combining a cynical election pitch to environmentalists with an f-you to the red state where he came in third in 1992.

      Kennedy did the opposite with Canyonlands, going through the slog of creating a new National Park.

      Don’t mistake; you’re right it’s a good thing GS-Escalante is protected. But I much prefer that leaders actually expend political capital to achieve worthy ends and reify the goals and values of our society. That’s a lot better than a high-handed declaration imposed by the powerful with no input from the communities affected.

      And you also see it’s bearing bitter fruit in Utah 20 years later!

      1. drugstoreblonde

        Garrett, you’re absolutely right. The NM designation was half-assed–from the co-agency management, to the mess of existing mineral and grazing rights that are a renewable source of fuel for the soi-dissant Sage Brush rebels, to the disruption of established industries and local communities. In fact, I don’t think there is an occupation in Malheur without GS-Esclante.

        STILL. GS-Escalante is unlike any place on earth. My time exploring the canyons of the Escalante have made me who I am. I do hope that, someday, GS-Escalante will receive the long-term protection it deserves.

        While some of the urgency for conservation is being undone by the collapse in oil and gas prices (the news I follow from Germany seems to indicate that the Public Lands lawsuit champions also see an obstacle in the death of Anton Scalia), time is of the essence. While there is a loud contingent of Utah local and federal leaders preparing obstacles (while fashioning themselves into martyrs), tribal interests are united in their goal.

        1. Gio Bruno

          To those NC readers who, like RXBlonde, cherish the stunning landscapes of the West: Seek out “On the Loose” by Renny and Terry Russell. It’s a picture book of the West with Zen-like text that was originally published in the late ’60’s. It has now been re-published and available at Amazon.com. (Original copies can be located on Bookfinder.com.)

          Read the comments on Amazon.com about this book and you’ll recognize it’s profound ability to literally move people to a life of landscape conservation. The book has photos of Glen Canyon before it was flooded.

          This book inspired me (in the 60’s) to visit all the Western National Parks in my lifetime; mission accomplished.

  2. Steve H.

    Go champion Lee Se-dol strikes back to beat Google’s DeepMind AI for first time

    theverge.com/2016/3/13/11184328/alphago-deepmind-go-match-4-result

    1. JTMcPhee

      It’s an old story in the annals of industrialization and technology:

      https ://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xaq0t9OQOd8

      Adjust the algorithm, and applaud the last “human” triumph before we’re mastered by the machines some of us make, and “invest in…”

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      I suspect it’s s cheap AI machine with a human inside it.

      Get an expensive, real machine, with real vacuum tubes, or better, integrated circuits, and we will see.

      1. Andrew Watts

        It’s funny you say that. The AI was allegedly programmed by Go champs who rank higher than the actual person it is playing against. It’d be easy for somebody to take manual control and beat the real player.

        A degree of skepticism is warranted given the marketing hype surrounding it.

        1. Gio Bruno

          Well, the human (Lee) beat the machine in game 4. Lee said he learned from the prior games that an unconventional move might be his best move. It was. (Human intelligence–intuition– confounding AI?.)

    3. EmilianoZ

      Trump: “He only got one back when it didnt matter anymore. Lee Sedol is a choke artist. Bad!”

  3. Barmitt O'Bamney

    Re: the wonderful disruption of the Trump torchlight parade.
    Yeah, this is not good publicity for Bernie Sanders at all. It’s publicity for Donald Trump in the long run as it makes the Left alternative look dangerous and scary. In the more immediate situation, it’s a good way to help Hillary win the nomination. People applauding this kind of thing are not thinking clearly – unless they’re thinking “But it’s her turn!”

    1. sleepy

      I tend to agree with you at least in the really short term media perception–crazy leftwing street brawlers is meat for the msm. But imho if it’s Sanders v. Trump in the general I think Trump’s violent loonyness and his own rhetoric look far more extreme and nasty than whatever is pinned on Sanders supporters at Chicago. I mean, it’s part and parcel of Trump’s appeal, not Sanders’.

      As far as affecting Sanders in the primaries, I don’t think it hurts him at all. On second thought, the media–and all other candidates–continue to pound Trump as the cause of the Chicago protests, so maybe I’m wrong even on the short term.

      1. Carolinian

        Undoubtedly it does give the corporate media a hook for their ongoing and not very subtle campaign to take out Trump. Whether it will make any difference in the voting is a very big question.

        And another big question is whether Sanders is going to condemn the actions of his supporters in shutting down a rival campaign rally. You have to think Friday’s “f*ck Trump” jihadis are some of the ones being failed by our educational system as described elsewhere in NC today. The free speech clause in the Constitution was meant above all else to apply to political speech. You may not like what Trump has to say but he does have the right to say it. Someone on the web compared what happened to the “no platforms” movement in England which seeks to deny Conservatives the ability to give talks at universities. A similar trend is being seen in this country where pro Palestinian speakers have had their campus appearances cancelled because some students might find their views intimidating. Needless to say this is profoundly un-American regardless of what they may think about it in England. It looks like our education system does indeed need to bring back civics classes.

        Interestingly the Sanders people in the MSNBC story say that they will continue their disruption tactic against Trump during the general election should Sanders fail against Hillary. Tell me again who Move On is working for?

        1. Brindle

          The Kansas City Star has some good reporting on the Trump rally and protests from saturday:

          —At each end of Main Street, small numbers of protesters at times crossed the street to confront Trump supporters, leading to shouting and arguments, but nothing more.

          One of dozens of protesters emerging from the hall after being ejected was filmmaker Brian Huther of Kansas City. He had planned to get booted.

          “I really wanted to get footage of me getting kicked out,” he said. “I just yelled a little bit and they were on us pretty quick.”—

          kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article65740747.

          1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

            If Trump’s saying something nasty in his private gatherings, the smart thing is to film it quietly.

            Not to provoke and get yourself kicked out.

            If people think, and I don’t know if people do that, people might think you have nothing nasty on Trump, but just yourself getting kicked out, from a Trump private gathering.

            1. Lambert Strether

              Yep. Brian Huther seems to think of politics on the level of taking a selfie.

              “Film quietly” is exactly the right thing. Imagine if the guy who took the Romney video of Romney saying “47%” had decided to get thrown out, instead of getting the video into the right hands!

              (That’s also a far bigger mindfuck to the Trump campaign — the idea that they’re being silently filmed at all times. Disruption is a spectacle, and Trump feeds on spectacle. No spectacle in silent filming…)

          2. Dave

            “Second white-on-black assault caught on video from horrifying Trump rally…”

            What a bunch of unsubstantiated and sensationalist hogwash.

            The guy who is “assaulted” is white and is arrested by a black cop, among others. When his t-shirt slips up when he’s on the ground, you can see he’s definitely whiter than any redneck.

            BTW, from frame by frame analysis of his t-shirt, it reads

            “Dear white Amerikkka, I am “Unpologetically Black”

            with a picture of Black Panther boss Huey Newton.

            Gee, I wonder why he was singled out?

            The guy pushed the cameraman, not the arrestee.

        2. flora

          MSNBC is against both Sanders and Trump – the 2 candidates that are against the TPP and Nafta and bad trade deals. Wouldn’t surprise me if MSM and others think a great new tactic is to try and divide the anti-TPP voters. I’ll take off my foil bonnet now.

          1. Carolinian

            Put your tin foil hat back on.

            This is a false-flag. These demonstrators are flying under a false banner. They are not Sanders supporters by-and-large. This is an operation directed by supporters of Hillary Clinton, paid for by George Soros and Move-On, by David Brock at Media Matters for America, also funded by Soros, and also by the reclusive billionaire Jonathan Lewis. Now, Lewis was identified by the Miami New Times as a ‘mystery man.’ He inherited roughly a billion dollars from his father Peter Lewis … [founder of Progressive Insurance Company]. Jonathan Lewis interestingly withdrew his support of the Democratic National Committee over the immigration bill that he thought was unfair to gays. In any event, this is a Hillary Clinton operation. The idea here, very clearly, is to divide the Sanders economic voters from Trump; in other words, those voters who lost their jobs because of NAFTA and all of the other globalist international trade-deals that have screwed this country, they now realize that these voters are potentially, when Sanders is out of the race, Trump votes, and this is an effort to make Trump toxic, to disqualify him, [as a] racist, bigot, the whole thing is essentially a hoax. It’s a gambit directed, by the way, by Brock. Brock was once a friend of mine and was a comrade in the fight for freedom; but he went over to the dark side, with the Clintons, for money: big, big, big, money; and this is unfortunately his little dirty trick, Unfortunately, they have leaks within their operation, my sources are of the very best. The entire collaboration in Chicago is a Hillary Clinton operation. And, frankly, I can’t see Bernie Sanders having anything to do with it. I don’t agree with Bernie, but I respect him, and this is not his handiwork or the handiwork of his campaign.

            The speaker is Roger Stone so it could be a double reverse head fake and it was really Trump who arranged the provocateurs. Perhaps the easiest solution is for protestors to just keep their disruptions outside the hall. Aren’t they just there hoping somebody will punch them?

            http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/03/credible-account-says-clinton-behind-violent-protests-trump-rallies.html#more-54499

            1. Yves Smith Post author

              I’m reluctant to let this comment through because (not your fault) it contains so much inaccurate information.

              First, AND MOST IMPORTANT, there was no “violence,” only a very few minor scuffles that the media played up using tight camera focuses. As readers pointed out, wide angle and overhead shots showed the crowd was calm and well behaved.

              Second, Trump held the rally near an ethnically diverse campus. It was probably one of the few large spaces he could rent and no one thought it through. It was easy for students to organize to participate, and by all accounts, this was organic, organized by the students.

              And Soros is a total snob. He does not do on the ground activism and never has. He uses think tanks as his vector for influence. As readers have pointed out with some contempt, MoveOn publicized its very minor participation in the event.

              1. Carolinian

                Duly noted and I did say tin foil hat. Not trying to bring down the tone around here.

                And no argument Trump or his people chose the venue perhaps knowing there would be problems. Clearly he plays off the protestors to energize his crowds. Which might be another reason why opponents should choose not to play their role in this Kabuki theater.

        3. Kulantan

          The free speech clause in the Constitution was meant above all else to apply to political speech.

          The First Amendment only applies to the government trying to restrict speech. There is no right not to be heckled (as it would restrict the free speech of the heckler). Without the misguided attempt to invoke the Constitution your objection to the protest appears to boil down to that you think the protesters were downright rude. A concern which I will file with all the other concerns about protesters down the ages being a bit too rude.

          1. cwaltz

            The Trump supporters pearl clutching on “rudeness” is hilarious. Apparently, it’s not the least bit insulting to stereotype Mexicans as rapists or to tell Americans that Muslims(which would include a portion of Americans) hate us.

        4. Kurt Sperry

          I’ve thought about this some and I’ve come to the conclusion that going to a political event you hold strong disagreement with with the express purpose of shutting it down or disrupting it completely is an asshole move. A show of opposition is fine, but when the intent is to provoke or to silence the people gathered there for the original purpose then whatever your high minded motives, you are just being a dick. In a similar way Trump’s approach to respectful dissent at his events is probably even more dickish, but that’s no defense of being a dick oneself. Do unto others etc., it ain’t difficult moral calculus.

          1. Jess

            Yep. Protest is one thing; shutting down someone else’s opportunity to make their point is not only dickish, it’s dangerous. That game can be played both ways. Sanders supporters would be furious is Trump backers prevented Bernie from speaking.

            1. cwaltz

              I guess that depends. In this imaginary scenario is Sanders inciting people to punch people who disagree with him?

              Would the imaginary Bernie be doing this? After a Black Lives Matter activist was kicked, punched and, he said, called the N-word at a campaign event in Birmingham, Alabama, in November, Trump expressed his approval.

              Because if Bernie was encouraging people to beat the crap out of people who disagree with him and lamenting about how unfair it is that laws no longer allow people to “rough protestors up” I’d be pretty good with folks shouting him down.

          2. dale

            The violence never looks good, and in this case it is the single stone that hurts both Sanders and Trump. It’s very suspicious, I think. Do these things happen as spontaneously as they initially appear? I don’t believe that a group of guys drinking in a bar decide suddenly to crash a Trump rally, knowing as they must that they will be greeted with violence.

          3. Debra D.

            The Sanders protestors entered the UIC venue with the full knowledge and permission of the Chicago police. Police also provided a designated public place outside the venue for Sanders protestors to gather.

            The Sanders protestors purchased tickets and were seated in a specific section of the venue. Donald Trump cancelled the event claiming the Chicago Police warned him that if he appeared, it could be dangerous. The Chicago Police Department spokesperson refuted Trump’s statement.

            Did you see the now “iconic” photo of the woman wearing the Trump T-shirt giving the Nazi salute?

            The adults in the room are too GD self-righteous and pious to stand up and be counted. That’s why these young people are doing it.

            I couldn’t be more proud of these Sanders’ supporters, and they speak and act for me.

            1. Carolinian

              The woman said she was mocking the young protestors accusations of fascism. This is like a game of telephone where every new scrap information gets amplified into Germany 1932. Sometimes people see what they are looking for.

            2. Yves Smith Post author

              These were not “Sanders protestors” These were students. Stop implying an official connection. That’s an abject misrepresentation.

              1. Debra D.

                Yves, you’re correct. The people who protested at the Trump event were independent of and unaffiliated with the Sanders campaign. I used “Sanders protestors” as a shorthand, but it does give the wrong impression.

          4. cassandra

            Moral calculus? In American politics? How enchantingly quaint!

            I’m dismayed that the only relevant self-reflection on one’s asshole- or dick-ness is whether it’s an effective strategy. Consider the spectacle of John Bolton breaking into the Florida vote count office, saying “ “I’m with the Bush-Cheney team, and I’m here to stop the count.”

            http://www.thenation.com/article/john-bolton-vs-democracy

            Worked for him. I rest my case.

        5. Lambert Strether

          There’s no indication at all that the Sanders campaign organized this.

          And “Why will Candidate X not condemn…” is a very old chestnut.

          On MSNBC, I trust them as much as I trust Fox. (Saying again: Chicago, like St Louis, and for similar reasons, is super-organized. I view the perception that the Sanders campaign somehow orchestrated these events as equivalent to the old “outside agitators” meme.

          But what made Chicago different were its scale and the organization behind the effort. Hundreds of young, largely black and brown people poured in from across the city, taking over whole sections of the arena and bracing for trouble.

          “Remember the #TrumpRally wasn’t just luck. It took organizers from dozens of organizations and thousands of people to pull off. Great work,” tweeted People for Bernie, a large unofficial pro-Sanders organization founded by veterans of the Occupy movement and other lefty activists.

          On the positive side:

          1) Clinton talks a good anti-Trump game, but what does she do?

          2) Helps with the perception that Sanders is just for white people

          3) Direct action action provides “receipts,” as it were. Somehow, I don’t imagine Clinton supporters as a class being able to do this, (a) because they don’t have the self-organizing skills/networks post-Occupy, and (b) they narrowly equate politics to electoral politics.

          On the negative side:

          1) Any situation that spirals out of control, where somebody gets injured or killed, benefits:

          (a) Trump, since it will only consolidate the bond between him and his supporters (“They had it coming”)

          (b) Clinton, since it allows her to pose as the “moderate” “centrist” between the “violent” extremes of Clinton and Sanders

          2) Anything that consolidates the bond between Trump and cops could have very negative consequences down the road

          3) The 60s radicals won the culture wars and lost the political wars. The main beneficiary of the Chicago police riot in 1968 was Richard Nixon.

      2. RabidGandhi

        There was discussion in the comments on yesterday’s links that this was a false flag operation by agents provocateurs. I’m still skeptical, but the way the MSM has wholeheartedly seized on the narrative– added to the fact that it came just days after the Sea Island Versailles Summit– does give the theory some good arguments.

        The target of this whole non-drama may very well be the wishy-washy Sanders voters (mentioned by Global Misanthrope yesterday) in an attempt to make them think Sanders is some sort of Trotskiist radical (when in reality he’s somewhere to the right of Eisenhower). These are comfortable voters who can like Sanders if he has a DNC nihil obstet but who otherwise don’t want any substantial changes in the status quo, so they could be easily picked off the Sanders bandwagon. Scare them and likewise borderline Repub voters, and you might tip the scales to HRC.

        1. Debra D.

          Yes. This is exactly the uncommitted voter that the MSM is pandering too. It may work. But, one would have to be very comfortable.

        2. Yves Smith Post author

          I am getting sick of all the tinfoil hattery over this. Trump is obnoxious and looks like a proto-fascist. Students of color and students who think demonizing people of color is a bad thing joined them. Students have the time and energy to do this sort of thing and it was even logistically convenient. This is not hard to understand.

          And there were only a few minor scuffles. If there had been outside influences, you would have seem something very different.

          1. Ulysses

            “Trump is obnoxious and looks like a proto-fascist. Students of color and students who think demonizing people of color is a bad thing joined them. Students have the time and energy to do this sort of thing and it was even logistically convenient. This is not hard to understand.”

            Yep. I would be alarmed if protesters were not showing up to call out this guy– who thought it was cute to pretend he had never heard of his endorser, David Duke, and the Ku Klux Klan!

            http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/28/politics/donald-trump-white-supremacists/index.html

        3. Lambert Strether

          Bullshit. The media seizes on what it seizes on. Because they’re opportunistic doens’t mean that anybody created the opportunity, which is your argument. There is no
          “theory” here because there’s nothing falsifiable.

          Please don’t propagate “false flag” bullshit here, even if I doubt your pose of skepticism while efficiently propagating all the talking points will fool many readers.

          NOTE “some good arguments,” “may very well be,” “could be easily picked of,” “you might.”

          1. RabidGandhi

            I plead guilty as charged to not being clear.

            To be clear about my position: When the false flag charge came up in yesterday’s comments I thought it was “tinfoilhattery” as Yves says. I believe the actions were 100% peacefully organised by local groups in Chicago (not necessarily related to the Sanders campaign). Even so, I have taken part in way too many locally organised actions that get hijacked for other purposes not to be suspicious when a minuscule grouplet of violent protesters suddenly gets big media attention.

            This in no way means that the action was organised by MSNBC, the HRC campaign or the Sea Island clique, but it does mean that any large grassroots action is prone to be infiltrated.

            Sorry for being vague.

    2. tgs

      Absolutely right. Besides being wrong constitutionally, it is really bad politics. There at least some overlap between Trump and Sanders supporters. And what’s to keep Trump supporters from giving Bernie payback in the form of disrupting his rallies. So we end up with chaos for Trump and Bernie and happy days for Hillary.

      At the end of the day, these ‘protesters’ are playing right into the hands of the MSM, Hillary and the powers that be.

      1. Kulantan

        being wrong constitutionally

        The protesters aren’t the Government, therefore the First Amendment has nothing to do with any of this.

        .

        it is really bad politics. There at least some overlap between Trump and Sanders supporters

        Its not bad politics, they have different goals than the ones you are suggesting. This isn’t a group holding up Bernie banners, it was a group of people from many different movements (including Bernie and Hillary supporters) who don’t like Trump. They are as worried about whether things are good for Bernie or Hillary as much as they are concerned with standing against Trump and the Trumpeters.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Why not just let Trump (or Hillary) continue with their putting-foot-in-the-mouth talking?

          “The Reagans…AIDS…”

          If you disrupt them, they will just look better than they really are.

          “I listened to him (or her) and I knew he (she) was bad. But I am afraid others are low information and they will be fooled. I am too smart for that. People are not. I will have to silent this Siren.”

          1. Kulantan

            Why not just let Trump (or Hillary) continue with their putting-foot-in-the-mouth talking?

            Because that has eroded Trump’s support so much up until this point…

            If you disrupt them, they will just look better than they really are.

            The thinking goes that if you don’t make a stand against things then you give the impression of tacit approval. Not making a stand allows people to more easily think things like “the silent majority is with us” or “this is an acceptable outcome”.

            1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

              But people have decide on their own what to think of him, and are speaking out and voting against him.

    3. Lambert Strether

      “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake” –Napoleon

      I think the Sanders campaign — which is most distinctly not identical to all of the people who support Sanders — should do nothing to prevent internecine warfare from collapsing the Republican party, which looks like a real possibility.

      That includes not allowing themselves to be egged on by Trump, which will only allow Clinton to position herself as “moderate,” “reasonable,” “the sensible center” etc.

      I’d even avoid language like “pathological liar,” even if that does have the merit of being true.

  4. DanB

    From the E. Luttwack essay in the London R of Books: “What is new-hat about the present situation is only a matter of degree, a mere acceleration in the pace of the structural changes that accompany economic growth…” In my view this is inaccurate; economic growth is coming to an end -and that is very new indeed. And the dominant political/economy of neoliberalism is only of short-term benefit -in a highly destructive, but not at all creative manner- to the 1%.

    1. Stefan

      The Luttwak article dates from 1994. The point of presenting his article today is that it predicted the widespread growth of fascism we are seeing now, based on the high speed social dislocation of a turbocharged global economy revving up in 1994.

      1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

        The original text of Ike’s farewell speech called out the *Congressional* Military-Industrial Complex. It’s a much less abstract concept with that label, it’s not just some aloof corporation and an unassailable military, it’s the guy *you* chose to represent *your* interests.

  5. Eureka Springs

    Thanks for the link to a new to me libyanwartruth blog. We Americans are ISIS ISIL al Qaeda, whatever we want us called, writ extra large. That fact can never be repeated enough.

    Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq to name a few.. If Bushco were still in office at least some of the so-called left-ish blogs would be howling the words war crimes into the cyber abyss.

    Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, Sanders all shut that down. Because too many let them do so.

    1. Plenue

      That site makes claims and then doesn’t back them up.

      >Now for the REAL story and this bombing is confirmed. The US has been bombing with their F15 fighters, the city of Derna in the east of Libya. Derna is a port city. The US is bombing Derna to open a pathway to bring ISIS and other radical mercenaries into Libya. They have been bombing now for 7 days and have killed 4 civilians.
      >Now for the REAL story and this bombing is confirmed.
      >article contains no actual confirmation, just assertions.

  6. Tony S

    Umm… has it actually been established that it was Bernie supporters disrupting Trump’s rally? Or is this just the usual media hackery at work?

    Bernie supporters aren’t nearly that well organized. Besides, their task at hand is to get their guy nominated.

    Smells like false flag to me.

    1. sleepy

      From what it looks like afar, the demonstrators were a mixture of many types–BLM, Latino groups, and a variety of other Chicago based groups. Some of those support Sanders, but I think it’s ridiculous to try to pin this on some organized Sanders group. That’s mostly rhetoric from Trump.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        All the more urgent for Sanders to come out, deny and denounce it…like yesterday.

        1. cwaltz

          Nope and I personally am glad Sanders didn’t denounce people who came to protest the hatred that Trump promotes and put the blame squarely where it belongs, on Donald Trump.

          It’s about time someone shut down the left wing circular firing squad.

          1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

            Should he deny it, if he has no part, for those who don’t want to see this pinned on him?

    2. Llewelyn Moss

      There is a good piece by a journalist who attended a student activist rally-prep meeting (orgainized), then accompanied the students into the rally venue at front of stage.
      http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/donald-trump-chicago-protest-213728

      Their intent was to chant to disrupt Trump. It got very tense when the announcement came that Trump had canceled, and the protestors all cheered.

      Although the students were a mix of Bernie and Hellery supporters, it sounded like they were out to protest Trumps racism/xenophobia rather than wanting to promote their favored candidate. There was also a large number of protesters unaffilated with this group that gathered outside.

      1. Tony S

        So it wasn’t an organized Sanders campaign thing. Never thought it was, but our decrepit media will push any story for their own narrative purposes.

        Seeing that MoveOn was involved, this sounds like an organized attempt to drive a wedge between Sanders and Trump supporters and focus on Trump’s racist rhetoric. The more talk about racism, the less talk about trade policy (the issue that unifies Trump and Sanders’ voting blocs — and THAT kind of alliance would be a real threat to the elites).

        And Rahm gets a change of subject from HIS racism on the eve of the Illinois primary.

        Best I can do in divining an agenda here…

        1. Lambert Strether

          Remember that both Chicago and St Louis are teeming with organizers from the events in Ferguson and the resistance to the extremely unpopular Rahm. I would bet anything that a lot of the organizing was done from the bottom up by people we’ve never heard of, perhaps, er, intersecting with some Sanders activists, and Ilya Sheyman (of blessed memory) is taking credit after the fact.

          1. Jess

            You go ahead and bless his memory; I’d rather do some other things in his general direction.

          2. marym

            The organizing started with students and faculty objecting to hosting the event on the UIC campus. Here’s a link to some of the history. From my comment yesterday: According to the twitter account of @plussone, who is a reliable focal point for reporting on Chicago activism, there was organizing by elected officials, 60+ community groups, student organizers at UIC, and people spontaneously joining the protest. At one point she posted a list of 20 twitter accounts she was following to track the protest.

            Chicago activism is more than anti-Rahm and local issues, though there’s plenty of that, usually not with a specific electoral focus, and often mutually supportive across different issues. I don’t know what subset people obtained tickets and protested inside, but there were also thousands outside. If @plussone’s assessment of who participated is accurate, and she does have the pulse of the community, the focus of many of them wouldn’t necessarily have been on who is the D or R candidate, but on the nature of the Trump campaign’s appeal to divisiveness, bigotry, and threats of violence.

      2. Carolinian

        From the Washington Post account of the protests.

        Cameron Miller, 18, said he and others met twice last week at a local Dunkin’ Donuts to examine a floor plan of the pavilion, with the idea of storming the stage in unison during Trump’s speech. He said they were prepared to endure physical violence for their actions but agreed not to fight back.

        Yesterday’s version of this story quoted someone who said they planned to rush the stage and take the mike away. This is not non-violent protest as the result would obviously have been a riot with many injuries. The only reason that didn’t happen was that Trump cancelled.

        Trump does now have Secret Service protection and presumably they are the only ones at these rallies with guns. For those with short memories the George Wallace shooting is the reason charging at a candidate is a very stupid and childish tactic.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          When Trump says more hateful things, film it.

          Don’t make like look like people are not smart enough to decide, or you alone know the future.

          “If I don’t commit X, then Y will surely follow.’

          “It happened. I told you so.”

    3. Katniss Everdeen

      “Smells like false flag to me.”

      Many have been wondering for 15 years what it was going to take to get people into “the streets” to “protest.”

      But nothing did. For 15 long, destructive years. Not perpetual illegal war or the ongoing war crime of torture. Not a massively unpopular financial industry bailout or millions of illegal foreclosures. Not zero interest rates for savers and usurious interest rates for college students. Not the creeping institutional “post-racial” racism of the new Jim Crow, mass incarceration, stop and frisk, and the murder of Eric Garner in broad daylight. Not outsourcing of jobs or rampant abuse of the H-B1 visa system.

      No. What it took to FINALLY bring “violent,” protest to “the streets” was the emergence of the first presidential candidate in three decades to seriously and credibly and relentlessly challenge the power of the oligarchy. The candidate whom the elite has committed to stopping at all costs. The candidate who threatens to smash the looting operation that has effectively pulverized the middle class.

      And what is Trump’s crime? Apparently inciting “violence” by saying he wanted to “punch” a protester “in the nose.” Preaching “racism” against Hispanic and Muslim immigrants. As if we haven’t been murdering Muslim men, women and children in their beds and destroying their countries for the last 15 years and counting. Then there is Honduras.

      And it’s Trump who finally rouses them from their stupor?

      All I’m saying is that the “progressive left” should take a step back and get some perspective, lest they be manipulated yet again into doing the elite’s work for them. They want Trump out. Badly. And they’re prepared to vote hillary to get it. That should tell you something.

      Now I am a staunch Sanders supporter, but he’s getting sucked into this too. Mind the narrative.

      1. fresno dan

        I agree completely.
        I find it funny, or more accurately, evidence of conspiracy, that repubs, the party of the southern strategy, can actually put forth the proposition that trump is more racist than they are.
        As for dems – Rahm Emanuel….

      2. sd

        Some recent actions.

        The left came out in the millions worldwide to try and stop the Iraq War. Not just once, but over and over again. And each time the protests got bigger.

        Then, there was Occupy Wall Street who gained enough traction to attract a collective nationwide action organized by the government to shut down the protest.

        In far too many instances, the media barely acknowledged what happened.

      3. NoOne

        Yeah, it’s a little amazing that the “progressive left” sees a Hitler with orange hair because the Trumpster wants to stop Muslims from emigrating to the US but that same left seems perfectly OK with killing these same people as long as they are in the Middle East.

        And Bernie looks really naive getting sucked into this black hole. I expected better.

      4. aumua

        It’s been a little weird lately for me, because I find myself on the same side as the republicans and the MSM who are backing them up in their agenda to desperately, by any means, keep themselves from having to lie in the bed they THEY MADE for themselves, with Donald Trump.

        By embracing tea party wingnuts and allowing loud mouthed fox news pundits to speak for them, the republican party has lobbed the ball right into Trump’s court. And I would love to see the republicans, clowns that they are, get exactly what they deserve, which IS Donald Trump.

        However, as much as I think the GOP deserves him, I don’t think America deserves that. We cannot, unfortunately let Trump speak for us, be our spokesman, and be our president. AT least not without raising hell about it.

        And that puts me in the awkward position lately of seeming to side with the nefarious plans and manipulations of the GOP, MSM and TPTB etc to get rid of Trump. And they are indeed turning the spin up to high right now. I do certainly hope that Bernie Sanders, who has been tossed in with Trump plenty by the media, does not let himself get tossed out with the Trump.

        1. Massinissa

          Didn’t you know? If CNN doesn’t talk about it it didn’t happen. Like those protests about the Iraq war, those never happened either.

    4. afisher

      The students at the University say that they defined the call to action. And DT called them “thugs” and lazy, etc etc etc. The MSM has done little to talk of that action – so much of it should be laid at the feet of the muzzled press.

      To the right wing- all students are now “thugs”. End public education?

    5. Lambert Strether

      Bernie supporters are in fact very well organized, and not only by the campaign, but by previous efforts including Occupy, and various movements in St Louis and Chicago. (It’s also ludicrous to suggest that a campaign that’s had the success it has with active resistance from the Dem establishment and a very unfavorable media has achieved as much as it has isn’t organized. Where did the primary victories come from, if not from organization? Left under the cabbage leaves by little elves?)

      I’m not sure why it “smells” like a (bullshit) false flag operation to you, but if it does, it’s not because of your knowledge of the Sanders campaign, or campaigns generally.

  7. craazyman

    That’s pretty funny about the Tie Guy on the New Yoark subway. I never noticed that, But it’s true. Also there’s a woman next to him everytime he gets harassed, and she looks like a Skirt Woman. Skirt Woman looks white, check it out! Serious. She looks white and rich. She probably makes $500,000 per year and has an expense account that’s more than half the subway car makes each year.

    That dude who wrote the article — Jacob. He sounds like a Jew and he’s probably a communist. Wasn’t Marx a communist? I think so but I’m not sure about his brothers.. I wonder if Jacob is on Bernie’s campaign? Trying to stir up trouble like this to get people pissed off at guys who wear ties. I’ve got news for Jacob, Bernie wears a tie! No lie. Check it out. I’m not going to bellive this for a second. I bet even Jacob is just a made up name for this little propaganda

    I’m for Bernie anyway. I’m not gonnna fall for this kind of distraction. Why blame it all on tie guy? Why not blame it on Skirt Woman. Check her out. I bet she shops at Paul Stuart with that outfit she’s got on. She’s either tie guy’s wife or the dude always gets lucky on the subway, sittng next to the hot woman. Does that mean people should bust a move in her face? No.

    Also, check this out. It’s always a red person causing trouble in the pictures. What’s up with that? I’ve never seen a red man or a red woman on the subway causing trouble — usually it’s some homie with his underwear coming out of his pants — except the central Americans and they’re not all that red. Mostly their brown. Who the hell is this red person they’re talking about? Whoever took those pictures probably didn’t take them on the real subway. They just painted somebody red and then expect you to believe it.

  8. Pavel

    Yves, that link to the guy discussing socialism on Fox News and surprising the interviewer was priceless. Made my morning!

    Check out this anti-HRC video on YouTube that I stumbled on yesterday. It is absolutely scathing regarding her warmongering, and includes an excerpt from the famous anti-Goldwater ad (girl plucking petals off a flower). I’m not sure if it is an official Trump campaign product (I suspect not) but it gives a taste of possible attacks on Hillary if she gets the nomination. I wish Sanders had the guts to produce something like this himself:

    Hillary Clinton Warmonger (4 minutes)

    1. Massinissa

      The funny thing about that video is its actually mostly true, even though it sure does sound like typical fearmongering.

  9. allan

    NYS minimum wage fight: 1 think tank says $15 minimum wage means more NY jobs, 1 says layoffs

    On the one hand:

    The Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California at Berkley published a paper this week that concludes Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed $15 an hour minimum wage would cause a modest 0.04 percent increase in employment across the state by 2021.

    That contradicts warnings of widespread layoffs, business closures and consumer price hikes from some Republican politicians and business owners and organizations.

    On the other:

    The center’s conclusions contradict a study by economists Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Ben Gitis, of the American Action Forum, who predicted Cuomo’s plan would cost the state 200,000 to 588,800 jobs, with proportionately larger employment decreases in Upstate regions.

    Calling the American Action Forum a `think tank’ is like calling Ronnie and Nancy AIDS activists.

    1. drugstoreblonde

      This passage from the Luttwak essay seems particularly germane:

      And what does the moderate Left have to offer? Only more redistribution, more public assistance, and particularist concern for particular groups that can claim victim status, from the sublime peak of elderly, handicapped, black lesbians down to the merely poor.

      Thus neither the moderate Right nor the moderate Left even recognises, let alone offers any solution for, the central problem of our days: the completely unprecedented personal economic insecurity of working people, from industrial workers and white-collar clerks to medium-high managers.

    2. Daryl

      I have a rule of thumb for think tank names which is that the simpler and more helpful they sound the more evil they are. So I think I’ll just ignore what the American Action Forum has to say.

  10. Dana

    Cindy Crawford was a size 12, but that was when size 12 was the same measurements as size 2 is now. I’m much shorter than she, but I’ve got 25 year old clothes in my closet labeled size 12 that fit me just as well as my new size 2 clothes.

    Granted a current size 2 is probably still too big for top models.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        Inflation like the Silicone Valley where they implant voluptuous profit projections.

        “They don’t feel natural.”

        And then comes deflation.

        Tough to be start ups when they slash your implants like that.

      2. optimader

        that sounds like deflation but it’s really inflation

        Bullish for Terephthalic acid production -precursor for polyester.

    1. deadwrong

      That is so not true.

      I have the same size 14 clothes I wore in high school. I can still wear them and I am still a size 14, 30 years later.

      Quit the misinformation.

      As for men preferring voluptuous women: I have a friend who has been severely ill with Lyme disease for 20 years. She is sickly thin, due to her illness. Yet, she and I go out and almost always she ends up with a man interested in her. So, I beg to differ.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        Sexual attractiveness is all about self confidence. I know women who are not merely voluptuous but outright fat who have no trouble getting laid. They are flirts and make it very clear that they like men and like sex.

        1. craazyman

          this is an important topic and I can’t believe my first reply got lost.

          Are they smelly from sweating under all that fat?

          If so, they might not have it so easy. my point is this — this is the right circumstance to use Bayesian probablility without hurting your head. Get a fatso who smells good to walk up and smile at craazyboy and I bet it’ll be fun times. But if she had bad odor from bacteria colonies fermenting under her sweaty fat rolls, I doubt anything will happen but polite conversation. Unless CB has been drinking. You do a 3 way factor study.

          1. craazyboy

            no no no no. I only go for trim and not smelly. Doesn’t matter how much beer or wine I’ve had.

          2. hunkerdown

            Yves is 110% right on that sexual attraction is about self-confidence. Sexual consumerism, on the other hand, is all about product: “I couldn’t get tinder dates so I tried this one weird trick next” types looking for the magic iftaH-ya-samsan that will loose the dogs of gravity upon all maidens’ britches like unto a vintage Coppertone ad all grown up.

            Not to get too far afield here, but sink bathing and breathable undergarments are each a thing. Humans have different tastes in others’ scents, so a scent one might find dizzying in a bad way might enrapture another. And, frankly, it’s my experience that curvy women, with a need to bring more than just the body of a 10-year-old to the table, are more motivated and more interesting in and out of the sack, on average. My brick-outhouse social-democratic lady friend with a tack-sharp mind and a ready flirt has certainly had over 100 different partners (that’s experience, not pollution!) and rarely goes home disappointed. On the other hand, who’d tolerate spending time with some carbon-copy trophy wife or twentysomething emo kid on tumblr who use sex as a medium of exchange and have nothing to talk about but one or the other church of consumerism and self-absorption? Not fully listening makes the situation tolerable but is terribly disrespectful.

            But enough about the Democratic Party establishment.

            1. craazyman

              I can’t see how a fat woman could bathe in a sink. That’s like imagining an elephant sitting in your car. sometimes on the bus you see these obese women who smell, whew, really really bad. sometime they have mustaches. If you’re checking out the hot women & then you catch a whiff it kind of crashes the buzz.

              They may be self confident but it won’t matter. But that’s an extreme example, I admit.

              How heavy will most good looking guys go? I mean guys who dress well in tailored clothing and wear fine English shoes like Edward Green Beaulius or Invernesses? I think maybe 150 pounds, assuming the dude is like my size, about 180 lbs and buff. (Maybe 160 lbs after a few beers assuming she smells good and has a lot of weight in the tits and not too much in the legs and belly, the fat has to be shaped right). Of course if the dude is like 350 pounds, like a right tackle in thee NFL, then I’d say OK 200.

              1. myshkin

                c’mon cman, the camembert needs to ripen. What was it Napoleon is alleged to have written to Josephine, “I am coming home, don’t wash.”
                Of course his penis was missing so they may have had a somewhat unusual relation, or did that go missing later?

            2. Ulysses

              All of these comments make me think that perhaps this is a Russ Meyer film- fest night here at NC, and nobody told me?

              1. Skippy

                Hot damn…. we can change all the nouns in discussing sociopolitical – economic topics with Russ’s movie titles…..

                Skippy…. brilliant – !!!!!!!!

            3. Lambert Strether

              Not to sterotype, but to generalize :-)

              Parisian women are beautiful, even the zaftig ones, because they carry themselves is if they were, and dress as if they were. And hence they become so.

              Not all cultures understand this, oddly, including ours, perhaps because carriage and dress are not (directly) about consumption, but rather training and curation.

      2. myshkin

        My wife who has a passing acquaintance with the rag trade says 20-30 years ago the industrty pulled an Eddie Bernays and shifted sizes (six became equivalent to a two).
        The ploy was to flatter women into thinking they had lost weight and could now fit a size six when they had been a twelve.

    2. perpetualWAR

      I beg to differ.

      I have some of my size 14 clothes from high school that I can still wear 30 years later. I am still a size 14.

      So, not sure what “size 2” clothes you’re buying unless they are 2X?

    3. neo-realist

      From my optics, Crawford never struck me as plus sized—height weight proportionate maybe, but not plus. That being said, it great to see gorgeous plus sized female models get some exposure.

        1. hunkerdown

          Compared to the twelve-year-old girls that celebrity culture celebrates, it kinda is. Now, that’s their bubble, and this is our reality, but the bubble does exist and it endeavors to grow.

    4. Yves Smith Post author

      That is incorrect.

      My friend was backstage at a Halston show (she was Ron Perlman’s lawyer, and this was when MacAndrews & Forbes owned Revlon, which owned Halston).

      All the “frocks” as they were called, were size 0 or 2, save the wedding gown which was size 12, for Crawford.

      Someone later in the thread discussed how sized have been resized in America, but that’s for mass market clothes, like Gap and mid-market brands, like Banana Republic. And they were sized only one size up. I can wear pretty much all the clothes I bought in the 1980s (yes, I am an old Yankee, so I wear stuff to death) and I have found that in most American mid-range brands, I’m a size smaller now according to them. I was doing a study for a retailer in the early 1990s, and was told then the resizing was recent and was one size.

      BTW this has not happened with “designer” brands, since those brands are international and use European sizes.

  11. David

    PS: Isn’t it ironic (or not) that at the very moment in history when we demonstrate a limited AGI (potentially, a tsunami of technological change) the western industrial bureaucratic political system starts to implode due to an inability to deal with the globalization (economic, finance and communications) enabled by the last wave of technological change?

    No it’s not “ironic.” Its just the usual shit-ass excuse for poor neo-liberal governance. Who knows, maybe in the “next wave” of technological change anti-robot robots will be in charge and all the hacks and political apparatchiks will be “ironically” made superfluous.

  12. GlobalMisanthrope

    Quite a few men prefer voluptuous women

    Yes. Here’s to flesh! I just don’t get the appeal of women who look like prepubescent boys with breasts.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      And skinny, but kind boys, sorry, men are not too bad, for women of all types.

      Muscular men are not better at providing security, except at the end of the world, where gold has no value.

      Then, the most vicious apes survive, I guess.

      “Forget gold. Learn to be vicious and cruel.”

    2. Tertium Squid

      Look how far we’ve progressed as a society – instead of just a tiny elite, now all women can be reduced to a collection of body parts for the gratification of the male public.

      1. optimader

        now all women can be reduced to a collection of body parts for the gratification of the male public.

        Well, there is that !

      2. cwaltz

        I’d be outraged right along with you if I thought it was just a male game these days.

        One of the most recent commercials I’ve seen show a bunch of middle aged women ogling a young man out running, who it turns out is friends with one of the women’s sons. Now mind you it did suggest women should feel guilty for finding a young male person attractive(as opposed to the huge pile of geriatric males who date and marry women half their age) but it definitely was objectifying the male body.

        Personally, I don’t understand the psyche behind reducing people to body parts. It strikes me as a very stupid and dangerous way to decide whether or not you are compatible with someone. Initial attraction should be tempered with common sense. Those acting on it immediately shouldn’t be cheered on but recognized for having poor impulse control and/or problems with beverage consumption.

  13. Dr. Roberts

    I’m sure I’m reading too much into this, but when I watched a sanders rally yesterday I noticed a lot of green clothing in the back row of the people behind him. Maybe it’s a subtle allusion to the possibility that he pulls his supporters to the green party and runs as Jill Stein’s VP candidate.

    1. Chris in Paris

      Or… perhaps they are saluting the well-behaved straphangers making Tie Man comfortable during his subway ride?

      (thanks craazyman)

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      It depends on the candidate.

      In Hillary’s case, green clothing signifies, subtly of course, more donations, more money. The Main Stream Media won’t report it straight. We have to debunk it ourselves, using our God-given/Goddess-given creativity and imagination.

      1. optimader

        HA!..
        As a person w/ irish genetic stock ( and that of all my default peeps that subjugated that island over the course of history), I find that comment offense.

        Damn.. at least you reminded me to restock the fridge and get over to Costco on this rainy day to get more Guinness and Harp for the pantry…

        OT: I met the Guinness brew master at a irish bar Guinness hosted special event years ago. At least third generation or fourth generation Guinness Brewery employee at the time. I was admiring to him the cleverness of the N2 widget, and it turned out it was his dad, a brewery machinist/maintenance guy that invented it tinkering in his garage. This enabled the deployment of that wonderful beverage in cans and the resultant huge retail scaleup. I looked up the patent the next day out of curiosity, indeed it was his dad’s name. A fun one to read.

        It was the patent equivalent of Posit Note adhesive for 3M.

  14. Juneau

    Breivek and his humans rights
    It doesn’t occur to a narcissistic psychopath like him that perhaps he is being held in isolation for his own safety. What a sense of entitlement. Poster boy for someone truly lacking in conscience.

  15. Lexington

    In “The Tyranny of Tie Guy” article from Jacobin David V. Johnson links to an earlier article (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/07/revolutionizing-ethics/) he wrote from 2013 on the topic of moral sentimentalism which I think is directly relevant to the recent events in Chicago and elsewhere.

    By using “anti racism” (or whatever other formulation you prefer) as a wedge to split voters into mutually exclusive categories these protestors are destroying the possibility of building a broad coalition capable of mounting a serious challenge to entrenched interests and they’re doing so to satisfy their own ego needs to cast themselves as principled opponents of perceived Injustice. In a previous post I mentioned how the Occupy Wall Street movement was undermined in part by the fact many participants felt the need to adopt ideological postures that flattered their self-perceptions even as they compromised the movement’s broader objectives and you can see the same issues emerging here.

    To the extent the protesters are genuinely concerned about the issue of racism it would be much more constructive to open a dialogue about the intersection of race, class, priveledge and power in contemporary American society. The protestors don’t really want to advance the discussion about race however, what they want is the emotional satisfaction of feeling morally superior to those that they have identified as “the other”. In doing so they’re perpetuating the same politics of division and antagonism that they accuse their opponents of.

    In the end this is a lose-lose scenario regardless of where you stand.

  16. Ed

    One consequence of my slow but steady withdraw from mainstream media sources that I’m starting to be caught by surprise by the spring forward/ fall back time shifts. Spring forward messes schedules up more than fall back in my experience. I no longer see the reminders in the newspapers I no longer read, or the news broadcasts I no longer watch, and I haven’t set a smartphone app to remind me since I don’t have a smart phone.

    I could do a multi-paragraph rant on the subject, but after browsing I just found a site that can be used to calculate how much extra daylight/ darkness you would get where you live, depending on your normal schedule and whether the current system is kept, daylight savings time is used year round, or daylight savings time is abolished. The site is here:

    http://andywoodruff.com/blog/where-to-hate-daylight-saving-time-and-where-to-love-it/

    For example, in the Mid-Atlantic cities where I spend most of my time, the site shows that the difference between daylight saving time year round, and no daylight saving time at all, makes a difference of around 90 days where the sun rises after 7 AM. It makes a difference of around 90 days where the sun sets after 6 PM. On a normal work schedule for us peons (who don’t make these decisions), this comes down to how comfortable you are awaking and setting off for work in the dark as opposed to it being dark when you get back home.

    Note that what we are really talking about with daylight savings time all year round, or even most of the time as is the current status quo, is shifting the time zones one hour from where the railroads set them. This is a matter of personal preference, but I am a “no DST” person. I think the railroads actually did a good job with time management, I hate waking up after the sun, and I think it should be dark in the evening. However shifting twice a year is the worst of all worlds.

  17. Bill Michtom

    previous comment continued:

    When you vote for Trump you are getting the Republican establishment AND overt racism and sexism.

    Do you really think a man who wants to build a 1200-mile wall and have the country it faces pay for it is interested in realistic accomplishments? Trump is a fraud who has used illegal Polish immigrants as construction workers–Without protective equipment–on a project, has worked with the NYC mafia to build the Trump Tower and a slew of other criminal behavior.

    Read 21 Questions for Donald Trump
    I’ve covered Donald Trump for 27 years. Here are some questions for him.

    Don’t be suckered.

    1. neo-realist

      He might play out as an establishment republican if elected, but if the elites thought so, wouldn’t he be getting more support from them for his candidacy? Or is he not establishment enough for them—anti bad trade deals, pro SS, pro comprehensive health care?

      1. Ulysses

        Establishment Republican “discomfort” with Trump is mostly kayfabe. They know perfectly well that he would do nothing to hurt the interests of himself, and the other kleptocrats who employ them.

        He obviously doesn’t care anything about American workers– his line of ties is made in China!! The closest thing to a working-class friend he has ever had was John Gotti.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          I think he claims his Chinese food is all made in America.

          Rice – made in Texas, Amerika.

          Pork – cooked twice in Amerika.

          MSG – made in Amerika.

        2. TomD

          I think his argument would be that he would love to make things in America if he could afford to, and if we had “smart” trade it would make it as affordable as making things in China.

          This is a legitimate argument, not that I trust Trump to do anything.

          1. Ulysses

            So a self-described billionaire “can’t afford” to pay the U.S. minimum wage of $7.25/hr. ??!! Really??!! And you say that this is a “legitimate argument?”

            I’m guessing your idea of “smart trade” is when American workers aren’t so uppity as to expect more– than what the authoritarian, single-party communist regime of China doles out to its slave laborers.

            1. TomD

              Well he does pay thousands of people the minimum wage and more. The specific ventures where he doesn’t he would possibly be non-competitive in. I can’t say for sure. Still the argument “change the rules for everyone and I’ll be happy to follow them” is legitimate.

  18. Eric Anderson

    In regard to the “I’m Not Evil. I’m a Landlord” link:
    I read the article yesterday in the Times and was drawn to the title as well. But I interpret the quote “I think I’m better at providing affordable housing than the government. I have a tenant in his 70s who pays me $189 a month, and the government pays the remaining $351” differently. Or, maybe I’m just reading my own thoughts into the piece. But I think what the Landlord is getting at is the fact that we don’t need to be BUILDING more government managed affordable housing. There is a glut of housing out there on the private market that isn’t being taken advantage of. Rather than building more cookie cutter homogenous low income housing, we would do better to incentivize landlord’s in the private sector to develop existing properties and then subsidize the residents. Communities need heterogeneity, variety, mixtures of class, architecture, and housing options. If this isn’t what the landlord is saying … it should be.

    1. alex morfesis

      Yes he is evil and it has nothing to do with his bad klezmer playing…this rat fink has about 200 free and clear units…and writes openly about how he little he does for his properties…real estate is already govt subsidized by the illusion of depreciation…although this clown makes an art of blaming his incompetence on his tenants…
      Hires drunks and drug addicts to “mismanage” his properties…he describes it in his own writings…although it is never described as of his making…he has one percent turnover due to evictions and spends his life complaining about it…in public…in writing…a sad excuse for a human being…

      1. Jess

        The People’s Republic of Santa Monica tried that about twenty years ago and got their hand slapped by no less than the SCOTUS. Seems you cannot force someone to be in business. As long as they don’t let the property deteriorate and become an eyesore or a public health problem, as long as the person owns it he can elect not to use it.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          They can force you to spend your (money, cash) assets.

          Unless negative rates are un Constitutional.

          “You MUST spend your cash.”

  19. optimader

    RE Vikings…wool

    now what are the possibilities of taking a flock of NYC High school students out on the Atlantic coast in a eminently seaworthy but low freeboard wet boat in spring?

    I would be interested in seeing the amount of paper/committee meetings involved just to consider the idea (before it’s rejected.)

  20. Steve In Flyover

    So let me get this straight……..

    Trump repeatedly calls half the population worthless POSs, similar to Romney’s “47%” speech.

    Half the population gets pizzed, and tells him so, at which point…..

    He introduces his opponents to current US Cop-State tactics.

    Yeah, this is the guy we want in charge of the FBI, CIA, etc.

    Ha

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      The more Trump or anyone talks, the more he/she reveals about self.

      What else is in the closet?

  21. gonzomarx

    The Bernie Sanders voters who would vote for Trump over Clinton

    A Sanders-Trump switch may be far-fetched, but negative views of Hillary Clinton have some voters weighing their options in Guardian call-out
    http://tinyurl.com/jt62yos

    First I’ve see MSM talking about this.

    1. perpetualWAR

      My vote will be a write-in for Bernie if the delusional Dems think they can win nominating a psychopath.

      1. efschumacher

        My vote will be a write-in for Bernie if the delusional Dems think they can win nominating a psychopath.

        That’s my conclusion too. But what is to stop Bernie running as independent if he is gazumped out of the Dem nomination? Here’s a plausible ticket for November:

        Clinton (Dem)
        GOP Apparatchik (GOP)
        Bernie Sanders (Ind)
        Trump (Trump)

        1. craazyboy

          I can see Trump coming up with a brand name political party – The Trump Party.

          That doesn’t take too much imagination.

          Kinda like the Wig Party, except you hafta admit “Trump Party” does sound better than the “Comb Over Party”.

        2. Barmitt O'Bamney

          Bernie will stop Bernie from running as an Independent. He has already stated he will not run against Clinton if she is the nominee.


          Bernie Sanders Won’t Run As Independent

          Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders said Thursday that he won’t seek election as an independent candidate if he loses the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton.

          Sanders, an independent in the U.S. Senate who is seeking the 2016 presidency on the Democratic ticket, explained in a Q&A session with the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that he feels a responsibility to stick to the two-party system in the presidential contest.

          “If it happens that I do not win that process, would I run outside of the system?” Sanders said in the interview broadcast by C-SPAN. “No, I made the promise that I would not and I will keep that promise.

          Sanders is a person of uncommon integrity in his chosen profession. I would rather he had not closed that door, but since he has closed it and I’m sure he was aware of the many ways the Democrats may shaft his campaign, I anticipate that he will not open it later on. I would not complain about it if he did, mind you, but I strongly doubt he would. He’s just not that kind of person. Unfortunately he’s also not the kind of person who goes for the opponent’s exposed jugular vein when he needs to. The Hillatrumps have no such scruples.

          1. Mark Alexander

            I wonder if Bernie would change his mind if he won a majority of the pledged delegates, but the superdelegates went with Hillary to get her nominated. Could he take this level of betrayal? I know I couldn’t, which is why I would just write him in instead of voting for HRC in the general election.

          2. hunkerdown

            Pacta sunt servandum is the problem, not the solution. Corporations deserve no honesty from those they exploit.

          3. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

            I think it’s possible because Vermont is a small state.

            “Small is beautiful.”

            No one should represent more than 700,000 people.

      2. craazyboy

        I don’t see why any of our states would want Secretary* of State Hillary to “win”. Whenever she “wins” foreign states, ISIS moves in and takes over within a few years! Who’s want that ???

  22. Watt4Bob

    It is incredibly frustrating to see confusion and misinformation being spread on this board as concerns the events in Chicago the other night.

    I watched it unfold in real-time on Faux Noise, and I must say it was an incredible experience to hear Faux’s reporter on the ground comment over and over that the crowd was peaceful and well-mannered, all to extended overhead video confirming his experience on the ground.

    It was obvious that police were calm and had to put out next to no effort to keep the Trump supporters and protesters separated on opposite sides of the street.

    When the few people who did get too close to the opposing sides, caused some tension, they were mostly separated by police and other members of the crowd.

    All the while Faux’s live commentator on the ground kept reporting the peacefulness on the scene, Greta Van Susteren kept up a constant stream of comments that went counter to the pictures on the screen, and implored the camera team to find conflict which eventually was accomplished by one camera pulling in very tightly to frame small disturbances as if they represented the situation in general.

    We were very lucky that the production team is so enamored of helicopter shots from over head because it resulted in hours of accurate pictures of generally civil behavior on both sides.

    Trump supporters were frustrated, but did not go crazy, and the protesters, although they had some rude signs, were well behaved.

    Scenes inside the venue included remarkably few punches even though there were a lot of protesters inside and a lot of cheering/celebration when Trump canceled.

    If you didn’t watch it in real-time, then you’re really informed as to what went on.

    All the comments high-lighting violence are coming from the miss-informed, and it’s very sad to hear it coming from “our” side.

    The MSM successfully repressed coverage of every kind of dissent, the enormous anti-war rallies in the lead-up to the Irag invasion, and the protests against the G20 meetings for instance.

    Now we have commenters here inviting us to believe the follwing;

    Many have been wondering for 15 years what it was going to take to get people into “the streets” to “protest.”

    But nothing did. For 15 long, destructive years. Not perpetual illegal war or the ongoing war crime of torture. Not a massively unpopular financial industry bailout or millions of illegal foreclosures. Not zero interest rates for savers and usurious interest rates for college students. Not the creeping institutional “post-racial” racism of the new Jim Crow, mass incarceration, stop and frisk, and the murder of Eric Garner in broad daylight. Not outsourcing of jobs or rampant abuse of the H-B1 visa system.

    No. What it took to FINALLY bring “violent,” protest to “the streets” was the emergence of the first presidential candidate in three decades to seriously and credibly and relentlessly challenge the power of the oligarchy. The candidate whom the elite has committed to stopping at all costs. The candidate who threatens to smash the looting operation that has effectively pulverized the middle class.

    This is bullsh*t.

    …so is this;

    And another big question is whether Sanders is going to condemn the actions of his supporters in shutting down a rival campaign rally. You have to think Friday’s “f*ck Trump” jihadis are some of the ones being failed by our educational system as described elsewhere in NC today.

    Having witnessed the Chicago police riot in 1968, and numerous other protests over the ensuing decades, I’d say what happened the other night in Chicago was a peacefull, effective demonstration of small ‘d’ democracy in action, and the PTB can’t have that happening, so they are busy erasing the real story and building a destructive counter narrative to keep us divided.

    It’s sad to see that false narrative being echoed here.

    1. FluffytheObeseCat

      The rewrite of recent history is a bit more than that in this instance. The breast beating and gnashing of teeth by Trump supporters has been swift, their emoting has been extreme and manipulative. Particularly the meme they are pushing that a bunch of other citizens acting up constitutes an infringement of their 1st amendment rights.

      They are as peevish and high busted about opposition as ‘campus radicals’, protesting how ‘unsafe’ and violated they feel because they need face a negative comment now and then in an op-ed in the campus paper.

      1. Watt4Bob

        They are as peevish and high busted about opposition as ‘campus radicals’, protesting how ‘unsafe’ and violated they feel because they need face a negative comment now and then in an op-ed in the campus paper.

        Yes, and for the same reason, until you experience ‘real’ opposition, you’ll grasp at whatever straws you find.

        I try to be careful about generalizations, but Trump supporters, like most college kids, are pretty new to the game, so a busted lip is a big thing and an honest appraisal of blame is hard to come by.

    2. flora

      Thanks for this recap of the live reporting. The MSM makes it sound like a near riot happened.

      1. Watt4Bob

        I’m guessing that the live shots were supplied by the local Faux affiliate in Chicago, and so were hard for the national/cable network to spin, despite Greta’s herculean efforts.

        The local commentator was a real hero in this sense, he never contradicted Van Susteren, he just kept up an honest description of what was going on in front of him, and the wide-shots confirmed his reporting.

      1. Watt4Bob

        I see Trump as an opportunist.

        Hopefully, if we can dodge his election, someone will emerge, that honestly deserves the support he’s receiving.

        I think Sanders deserves that support, but Trump himself is dirtying those waters.

        1. Jim

          Watt4Bob, if you get a chance, take a look at the Lexington comment above at 12:25 P.M.

          What do you think of his perceptions about the anti-racism protesters at the recent events in Chicago?

          1. Watt4Bob

            Lexington is pointing out a perennial problem, and there’s no need to argue that point.

            That sort of description doesn’t apply to the vast majority of protesters however, and for Lexington to say that issue is “directly relevant to the recent events in Chicago” is a bit of a stretch.

            In my experience such as it is, ‘real’ organizers are always faced with the task of educating young, would be activists to understand that their egos can get in the way.

    3. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      From Brindle, at 11:46AM:

      One of dozens of protesters emerging from the hall after being ejected was filmmaker Brian Huther of Kansas City. He had planned to get booted.

      “I really wanted to get footage of me getting kicked out,” he said. “I just yelled a little bit and they were on us pretty quick.”—

      kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article65740747

      Something rotten in Kansas City?

      Was the guy hoping to be violently kicked out? Was that his purpose? Did he fail or succeed?

      1. Watt4Bob

        There’s something rotten everywhere if you’re paying attention.

        Google Brian Huther and you get “writer, performer, comedian” looks like the guy thinks he’s funny?

        The main impression I am left with is thousands of Trump people on one side of the street, and thousands of protesters on the other, separated by what looked like 50 Chicago police officers, standing calmly in the midst of what I would describe as thousands of civilized Chicagoans.

        I’m not denying there were crazies and ass*oles in those crowds, but they weren’t predominant.

    4. Debra D.

      It is sad to see this false narrative being pushed here. There were worse riots in Kentucky when Wisconsin beat Kentucky in last year’s Final Four.

  23. rich

    Why would anyone be upset when we’re all treated the same under the law??:)..especially the big stuff.

    New documents show financial crisis panel recommended Robert Rubin for DOJ investigation http://for.tn/1TXKEu9

    New documents show commission believed the former Treasury Secretary may have broken the law.

    In late 2010, in the waning months of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, the panel responsible for determining who and what caused the financial meltdown that lead to the worst recession in decades voted to refer Robert Rubin to the Department of Justice for investigation. The panel stated it believed Rubin, a former U.S. Treasury Secretary who has held top roles at Goldman Sachs GS 1.93% and later Citigroup C 3.92% , “may have violated the laws of the United States in relation to the financial crisis.” Rubin, the commission alleged, along with some other members of Citi’s top management, may have been “culpable” for misleading Citi’s investors and the market by hiding the extent of the bank’s subprime exposure, stating at one point that it was 76% lower than what it actually was.

    No government action was ever brought against Rubin. And there is no evidence that Department of Justice acted on the crisis commission’s recommendations. A source close to Rubin says the former Wall Street executive was never contacted by the Justice Department in relation to the commission’s allegations. Nonetheless, the fact that Rubin was among a relatively small group of top bankers who the crisis commission referred to the Justice Department for potential wrong-doing sheds new light on the financial crisis, and the government’s effort to pursue those who may have broken the law.

  24. DJG

    Are we still on agents provocateurs? Are we still on the idea that a protest should never disrupt? Are the people here earnestly writing about the disrupted rally / rallies also willing to go out on a limb and explain to us all about why the lunch-counter protests in the South were so darn bad for Woolworth’s and free speech and interstate commerce in grilled-cheese sandwiches? Does no one believe that in a large city there are coalitions of independent activist groups that can pull off such a big protest?

    The point of protests is to inconvenience. The point of protests is to inconvenience the powerful, to disrupt what passes for normal daily life, and even to get in the way of traffic. I recall that after Andy Thayer and Gay Liberation Net and a few other groups won their case about parade permits and restrictions on speech against Mayor Daley the Second, we used North Michigan Avenue as our parade route against the endless wars. People were loud. People danced around. People waved big signs. In a wild display of violence, someone may have dropped a candy wrapper. The chant was

    While you’re shopping
    bombs are dropping

    Agents provocateurs? Maybe from the point of view of the Cheesecake Factory.

    1. Watt4Bob

      Does no one believe that in a large city there are coalitions of independent activist groups that can pull off such a big protest?

      Not if their paychecks depend on another explanation.

      There’s another even more pathetic reason to doubt it, that is if your self-image includes a superiority complex.

      So yes, I believe that what I saw the other night, is probably a feat of organizational skill, on the part of a coalition of activist groups.

    2. neo-realist

      My feeling about “assets” disrupting things is based on a pattern of violence and disorder wherever Trump has a speech or a rally, and is not necessarily based on the actions in Chicago. Anybody familiar with the riots and disorders of the 60’s and 70’s that followed groups and leaders that sought a change in the status quo shouldn’t dismiss the possibility out of hand.

  25. EmilianoZ

    Meh, I aint very impressed with Alphago beating a go grandmaster. The real test of AI would be a computer beating Obama at 11-dimensional chess. That aint gonna happen in this century or the next.

        1. JTMcPhee

          Well. the post-Presidential Brass Ring Grab and General Looting Lottery seems to be part of his targeting regime…

    1. Jim Haygood

      As the commenters confirm, Hillary’s Refco account was a straightforward money laundering operation orchestrated by Jim Blair, outside counsel for Arkansas-based Tyson Foods. As the WaPo reported in 1994:

      New records [from the Chicago Merc] also raise the possibility that some of her profits — as much as $40,000 – came from larger trades ordered by someone else and then shifted to her account.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/stories/wwtr940527.htm

      Hillary’s moved on. So has her broker, Robert “Red” Bone of Refco’s Springdale Ark office, who passed on to that great trading pit in the sky in Sep. 2012.

      And so has Refco, which after blowing out in Oct. 2005, sold its futures business to Man Financial. There, under the tender mercies of Jon Corzine, it expired for good in 2011.

      Only one personage in this sorry saga is left standing. And she’ll be checking out of the political arena no later than this November.

      Short her to oblivion, and pyramid the trade for all you’re worth.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        I know someone who was asked by three Congressmen to review her records, the actual trades.

        All trades were executed at the best price of the day.

        “Nuff said.

        He told the Congressmen no way was this the result of her own trading activity.

        They said they’d asked two other very well recognized traders to look at the records, and both came to the same conclusion.

  26. Tolate

    Hellary is clearly the logical choice for the powers that be. The rest is all show. How convenient to have someone like Trump to make her look so sane.

  27. Debra D.

    Hopefully, these links work. If not perhaps someone can give me the instructions.

    I’m attaching two YouTube videos. The first is called Now Is The Time (Bernie 2016) which is one of independently created videos in support of Bernie Sanders campaign. This has been circulated widely on Facebook and is getting views on YouTube.
    The second is a 2-min. video by a Chicago principal about Bernie Sanders college education proposal.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JACq7Tg-J3M

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4xzFnk3oF8

  28. Jeff W

    The psychedelic Greyhound ad reminds me of the 7UP ads of the time. (Scroll down to see the groovy psychedelic ones from the late ’60s and early ’70s.) The TV commercials are even more impressive when you consider there really was no computer graphics capability at that time.

    1. hunkerdown

      In the late Sixties, there were analog computers all over the place. Likewise, there was Scanimate, which was more or less a hi-res input camera, an analog synthesizer controlling the horizontal and vertical of a hi-res vector CRT display, and an output camera and color processor pointed at the hi-res screen. Its specialty was translating, rotating and otherwise transforming video images according to the inputs from the synthesizer and compositing the results. That 7up ad just screams Scanimate demo reel and an animation team of Kraftwerk caliber.

  29. ewmayer

    “Quite a few men prefer voluptuous women” — so, just finished watching DVD set of season 4 of Homeland, which starts with Carrie Matheson and CIA wetwork specialist Peter Quinn both back home, still despondent about the events depicted at end of season 3 and not knowing what to do with themselves stateside. Quinn, for one, tries to drown his sorrows in booze and flesh – the exceedingly ample flesh of his apartment-complex resident manager, as it happens. An “only on cable” kind of plot element? I do think they could have done better in their choices of accompanying thematic music, though — something like Spinal Tap’s legendary hit Big Bottom perhaps, with its lyrics of subtle Rubenesque sexual innuendo.

      1. ewmayer

        S4 action is centered in Islamabad, specifically after the-now “drone queen” Carrie overseeing a drone strike in the tribal regions of neighboring Afghanistan which proves to be based on tainted intel, first dealing with the PR blowback and then still managing to get herself appointed the CIA station chief at the US embassy in I’bad.

        [I don’t git yer kind of fancy cable and don’t do Netflix, so every Sept. when the DVD set for the most-recent season is released I buy it as an early b-day gift for my sister, who ends up watching it multiple times, and borrow it from her in between her bouts of binge-watching.]

  30. kj1313

    Don’t have access to the original article but an interesting screed? Against the white working class from the National Review. Interesting bits of the article are summed up by the DC and Hotair.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/432569/father-f-hrer

    http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/12/national-review-writer-working-class-communities-deserve-to-die/

    http://hotair.com/archives/2016/03/13/those-white-working-class-trump-supporting-communities-deserve-to-die/

    1. Massinissa

      Haha, its as if that guy at NR wants to send all the working class white people to Auschwitz or something.

      The funny thing is, if he put all those people in Auschwitz and killed them all, im not sure the Republican Party would continue to be electorally viable, because they will have lost like a third of their core constituency. It reminds me of when Democrats kick black people around and stuff whenever they step out of line even a little bit.

  31. allan

    When life gives you lemons, you should make QE ∞.
    IMF Backs Unconventional Monetary Policies Despite Warnings From Emerging Economies

    At the conclusion of a three-day IMF event in New Delhi, the fund’s chief, Christine Lagarde, said countries should continue with unconventional monetary policies if they were accompanied by structural reforms and low inflation.

    `Accompanied by structural reforms’, not by fiscal stimulus. The beatings, stock buybacks and LBO will continue.

    1. Jim Haygood

      Where did Hillary herself actually stand on health care in 1993-94? Once again, this question intersects with Jim Blair of Tyson Foods, whose wife Diane posthumously spilled the beans:

      Hillary Clinton’s purported best friend Diane Divers Blair died of lung cancer in June 2000 at the age of 61. Her husband, Jim Blair, was a former chief counsel at Tyson Foods.

      Diane Blair kept meticulous records of her conversations with both Bill and Hillary Clinton. Jim Blair donated his wife’s papers to the University of Arkansas Special Collections library in Fayetteville.

      In the papers, it is clear that Hillary was a solid single-payer health care advocate.

      “At dinner, [Hillary] to [Bill] at length on the complexities of health care—thinks managed competition a crock; single-payer necessary; maybe add to Medicare,” Blair wrote.

      The account is at odds with public statements by the former First Lady that she never supported the single-payer option.

      In an interview with the New York Times as she ran for president in 2008, Hillary Clinton said she had never seriously considered adopting a single-payer system.

      “You know, I have thought about this, as you might guess, for 15 years and I never seriously considered a single payer system,” said Clinton in the interview.

      http://tinyurl.com/h6bhpp8

      Seriously, it depends on what the meaning of ‘seriously’ is.

  32. optimader

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ3OmlbtaMU

    The world is a complicated place. Our planet is made up of millions of networks from microscopic ecosystems to global migration. How can we ever hope to understand and predict the complexity of our mulit-networked world? New research may have the answer…

    Read the research paper here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/

    This 4k data visualisation was created by Mauro Martino, and Jianxi Gao (Northeastern University).

  33. Winston

    Autocrats in China have done more for their people than democracies in developing countries. Oh and autocrats in Vietnam provide better education than US and UK, who are basically elite favoring governments.

    Meanwhile in India, the native country of the author of that Bangkok newspaper article, they kill people to promote their democracy (do read up about riots).

    http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/wanted-for-riot-murder-jk-bjp-leader-surfaces-at-mos-pmo-house/
    Wanted for riot murder, J&K BJP leader surfaces at MoS, PMO, house
    http://policytensor.com/2013/11/21/the-great-indian-riot-machine/

    The Great Indian Riot Machine

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