Links 6/15/16

Our mini-fundraiser for Water Cooler is on! 34 donors have already invested to support Water Cooler, which provides both economic and political coverage, at a time when former Clinton Administration official Brad Delong announced, following the purge of two Sanders-supporting writers, that those deemed to be too far to the left will be “gleefully and comprehensively trash[ed]” come November. Independent funding is key to having an independent editorial point of view. Please join us and participate via Lambert’s Water Cooler Tip Jar, which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal.

Fugitive capybara captured in Toronto park 19 days after zoo escape Guardian (YY).

The Bramble Cay Melomys Is First Mammal to Go Extinct Because of Climate Change Newsweek (original study, PDF).

Cats CAN understand physics: Felines use noise cues and ‘cause and effect’ to detect hidden prey Daily Mail

Weasels Are Built for the Hunt NYT (KF)

A Lost Decade? We Should Be So Lucky Satyajit Das, Bloomberg

Why Soros’ Bearish Bet Is Hardly Far-Fetched Barron’s

Trouble Is Brewing in Nigeria’s Oil Country Foreign Policy

Valeant Hires Morgan Stanley to Sell Dermatology Assets Bloomberg

Are German Bonds Riding a Bubble? WSJ

Brexit?

She’s a Be-Leaver Pro Brexit minister taunts David Cameron with copy of The Sun as she enters Downing Street The Sun

Betting companies now say Brexit will be the favourite by the weekend Business Insider

Brexit imperils the confidence of strangers FT

Cameron’s Deceit and Lies: What He Promised, What He Delivered MishTalk

Brexit Debate in Cornwall: Anti-EU Sentiment Despite EU Subsidies Der Spiegel

Why the far right is on the rise Le Monde Diplomatique

IMF, Germany to legalize Slavery in Greece with “single minimum wage system” Keep Talking Greece

U.S. Third Fleet expands East Asia role as tensions rise with China Reuters

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

CIA Lied about Leaking to Screw David Passaro and Protect Bush and Tenet Emptywheel

Amid Controversy, Public Safety Officials Put Temporary Hold on Using Prepaid Card Readers Oklahoma Watch. Ugly: “According to ERAD’s bid for the state contract, the devices allow DPS officers to determine the amount of money loaded on to a prepaid card and to either freeze the funds or seize them by having the money deposited directly into a Department of Public Safety Account. This can be done during a traffic stop. The funds would then be subject to forfeiture actions in court.”

Under Watchful Eyes Laphams Quarterly (2015). Medieval origins of mass surveillance.

Orlando Mass Shooting

Investigators say Orlando shooter sought out Islamic State propaganda, made repeated visits to Disney sites Los Angeles (MR). Lots of detail.

A Few More Questions About The Orlando Massacre Moon of Alabama

How US Counterterrorism Funds Ended Up in the Orlando Terrorist’s Pocket DefenseOne. Article, though not headline, is useful.

My instinct Chelsea Manning, Medium

Dalai Lama to America: Don’t make same mistake after Orlando as 9/11 McClatchy

Wolf dens, not lone wolves, the norm in U.S. Islamic State plots Reuters (EM).

Fealty and Modern Terrorism Global Guerillas (CL).

‘Common Sense’: Fox Host Gretchen Carlson Supports Assault Weapons Ban Mediaite (MR).

American attitudes on refugees from the Middle East Brookings

2016

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders Meet as Their Battle Ends NYT. Sanders, Clinton, Mook, Podesta, Jane Sanders, Jeff Weaver.

Ahead of meeting with Clinton, Sanders calls for “fundamental transformation of Democratic Party” Salon

Sanders: End of Voting Does Not Mean End of Political Revolution Common Dreams

The Split TNR. “19 Reasons the Democrats Will Remain Divided–And What It Means For the Party’s Future.” So but and here are all the authors: Naomi Klein, John Judis, Rick Perlstein, Rivka Galchen, Mark Green, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Zeynep Tufekci, Johnetta Elzie, Mychal Denzel Smith, David Simon, Jill Filipovic, Theda Skocpol.

The unexpected side effect of Hillary 2016: How she transformed Democrats into “new” Republicans Salon

Bill Clinton to Rethink Clinton Foundation Role if Hillary Wins Wall Street Journal

Clinton Has 12-Point Edge Over Trump in Bloomberg National Poll Bloomberg. Johnson accounts for 9%. Stein does not appear, so the poll, and the headline, are a wee bit deceptive. It would be one of history’s little jests if Stein reprised Perot’s role in 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected with a plurality, not a majority.

Trump gains slightly on Clinton after Florida attack: Reuters/Ipsos poll Reuters

Russian hackers targeted Trump and Clinton campaigns, U.S. intelligence sources say Yahoo News. Maybe they want to know what the heck is going on as much as we do…

Evoking ‘Spirit Of 9/12′ Was Once Crass Politics, But Not For Hillary Clinton ShadowProof

Occupied Territory The New Yorker. The Republican Establishment.

The right response to Donald Trump? A media blackout. Dana Milbank, WaPo. It worked with Sanders.

What American Soldiers Are Saying About Donald Trump Vice

Is Donald Trump an Actual Fascist? Vanity Fair. No.

Class Warfare

The gig economy is neither ‘sharing’ nor ‘collaborative’ FT

The New Economy and Its Discontents: Low-Wage Workers Propose a Good Work Code for Silicon Valley Truthout

Neoliberalism Nakedly Exposed Counterpunch (Re Silc). IMF study: “Neoliberalism: Oversold?”

How to Be a Student Protester: 1968 vs. 2016 Vanity Fair (Re Silc).

Our Bodies Have So Many More Cancer-Causing Chemicals Than We Thought Mother Jones

Borges is Still Dead. (Or Is He? And Which Borges?) Literary Hub

Antidote du jour:

kangaroo

Bonus GIF:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

174 comments

  1. EndOfTheWorld

    “Is Trump a fascist? No.” I think it was on the Thom Hartman show about one or two years ago that I heard an explanation for how the definition of the word fascism has changed. Originally the key characteristics were a merging of corporations with the government, and a lot of military activity. Note that these characteristics have been prevalent for some years here in the good old USA. But (according to Hartman’s spiel) the powers that be loved to use the word to slur their enemies (and not themselves), and, being the powers that be, they owned, among other things, THE DICTIONARY COMPANIES. So they literally changed the definition of the word so they could use it more as an all-purpose slur, and not cast aspersions on corporations.

    1. JTMcPhee

      Yah, those who control the definitions, control the word… Ask any Libertarian…

      Aside, I ran across the DoD Dictionary of Military and Related Terms and Abbreviations maybe 15 years ago, looking up the usage of the word “insurgent.” The then version of JP 1-02 defined insurgency in terms of opposition to a legitimate government. Did not fit the ground troops truth of the Iraq situation, so modified first to

      Member of a political party who rebels against established leadership. See also antiterrorism; counterinsurgency; insurgency. (JP 3-07.2)Page n273 http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf

      There’s a whole raft of uniformed bureaucrats and political actors who maintain the Joint Millbabble Document, to the tune of billions of dollars. It makes for some fun reading, for the cynically inclined — seeing where word usage so beautifully limbs the truth that Hell is a bureaucracy of violence…

      And the current version, there is no defined term, “insurgent,” just “insurgency:”

      DOD) The organized use of subversion and violence to seize, nullify, or challenge political control of a region. Insurgency can also refer to the group itself.
      Source: JP 3-24. http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/dod_dictionary/index.html?zoom_query=Insurgency&zoom_sort=0&zoom_per_page=10&zoom_and=1

      Hey, guess what? By that meaning, is not the Empire/Coalition a bunch of fokking insurgency? Here, there and everywhere?

      1. TVC15

        Newspeak; like right to work states and all the propaganda we are fed continuously to be properly digested and regurgitated by the masses.

      2. fresno dan

        JTMcPhee
        June 15, 2016 at 9:53 am

        Thanks for that – good stuff….hmmmmm, I mean bad stuff.

        Alice through the looking glass:
        And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’
        ‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
        Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
        ‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
        ‘When I use a WORD,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘IT MEANS JUST WHAT I CHOOSE IT TO MEAN — neither more nor less.’
        ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
        ‘The question IS,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be MASTER — that’s all.’

        1. Dave

          “Girlfriend”, “Boyfriend”,”Fiancee”,”Lover”,”Main Squeeze”,”Gay Lover”, “Betrothed”,”Honey”, “Lesbian Girlfriend”, “Husband”, “Wife”, “Mistress”,”Roomate” and more…

          All subsumed and replaced by one word that strips away the meaning and differences of all of the above and forces them into a mandatory semantic straitjacket.

          “Partner”

          Now that’s Orwellian!

      1. Robert

        Yes, I’ve always preferred Eco’s definition. I would only add that fascism can be seen as a changing, not fixed, phenomenon and that’s why it can be difficult to define, although some aspects are almost always present. RIP Umberto.

      2. EndOfTheWorld

        The Eco article was written in 1995. Maybe the definition of the word was already changing by then. I’m thinking back to a high school class I took in the ’70’s. I remember the phrase about corporations merging with the government. If you look up “definitions of fascism” in Wikipedia it states: “What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments is a highly disputed subject that has proved complicated and contentious.” American right-winger John T. Flynn threw in the word “corporatism.”

    2. Emma

      Fascism dates back to WW1 when the Italian ‘fascismo’ was created and Mussolini founded the Partito Nazionale Fascista. If we do a ‘Washington Irving’ today, we don’t have to cross the Atlantic for the wonders of scenery as they’re definitely here in the US, aren’t they?

      So, though we had WW1 posters in Europe like ‘The German Anti-Christ’ of WW1 (http://www.agefotostock.com/age/en/Stock-Images/Rights-Managed/FAI-21467) showing a threatening Kaiser astride a wild boar riding across devastated countryside like a mad horseman of the apocalypse, we now have Donald Trumpty-Dumpty hailing his ‘Make America Great Again’ promise.

      Because “Radical Islamic Terrorists” have a stronghold on Twitter and Trumpty-Dumpty doesn’t. Nor does Trumpty-Dumpty like to share the stage with other extremists. So Trumpty-Dumpty uses a microphone in studios to shout out loud “Radical Islamic Terrorists” so they know they’ll be targeted.
      All the while “Radical Islamic Terrorists” know how to use smartphones, and not just in mosques, and they never even whisper who or what they’ll precisely target next.

      You know, if Trump wants to help us all out and make America great again, he should switch jobs. He’d make a really good Microsoft Al Chatbot. That way he can’t use human language and be an insult to the human race.

      1. aet

        Ancient fascism was – more or less – Roman veneration of the Roman State, Roman Army and Roman culture in all its aspects, a species of pagan idolatry.

        In contrast, modern fascism, as found in the 20th Century and perhaps beyond – is secretly a twisted aesthetic theory, that is, a theory of the beautiful – but wearing a political disguise, with the apparatus of the State being reduced to being only another tool in the artist’s – by which I mean, the Leader’s – kit. That’s why modern fascists are ALWAYS nattering on about “culture” and/or “cultural values”, and ALWAYS seeking to literally control both the fine arts and and all media of communications. And it also helps to explain their characteristic enthusiasm for and obsession with uniforms, formal pomp and pageantry. Their racism, with all its varied objects, is fundamentally an aesthetic objection to the style of the other, the subjects of their scorn, insult and attack. Hitler hated not only the Jewish people, but their very style.
        Modern fascism is a theory of art, and like all theories of art, tends to literally vanish along with its proponents’ individual subjectivities. Modern fascism is now and has ever been primarily about fashion, style, and art, but most unusually for a theory of art and fashion, it is a theory which explicitly embraces violence as an acceptable means to its desired aesthetic ends.
        It goes some way to explaining the typical fascist attack on artists of all kinds but those they consider as being their own – they simply don’t want the competition, and if they can use the State and its apparatus of Laws and Police to enforce their aesthetic judgments, so much the better, by their way of thinking.
        Don’t be fooled – modern fascists are NOT “politicians” – they are actually artists, and very bad artists at that – or else they would not need to use violence in order win the day for their style of doing things.
        As a corollary to this “fascism is a theory of art” theorem, modern fascism is also about as coherent and lasting as any theory of aesthetics is, once its progenitor has died. Gone with Hitler, gone with Mussolini, gone with Franco. A modern fascist would be an authoritarian who seeks to dictate the fashions of the salons and galleries using the full apparatus of state control, including violence. That’s actually kind of rare in today’s world.
        Modern authoritarians seem to have outgrown fascism – perhaps art is simply no longer that important to them? Or is it that fascism is no longer their style?

        Any way, this chain of thought was inspired by my reading a review for the book “The Pike” – see here:

        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9793219/The-Pike-Gabriele-DAnnunzio-by-Lucy-Hughes-Hallett-review.html

        …it seems that this fellow D’Annunzio was the first modern fascist.

  2. Roger Smith

    Re: The unexpected side effect of Hillary 2016

    This article starts out with a really great summary of how smug liberalism fell flat on the face of irony. It turns out that (Neo) liberalist-identity politics subscribers can be just as “dumb and stupid” Whoops!

    The article stops short however, failing to tie the Democrats problems into the larger neoliberal, techno-meritocratic web they’ve spun.

  3. abynormal

    RE: US expansion into China Seas…“How the U.S. military uses its taxpayers’ dollars to carry out deployments is its own affair,” ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular briefing. “I’m not concerned about it. What I’m concerned about is regional peace, security and stability.”

    GO is over 5k yrs of territoriality practice where Candyland (1948) speeds with minimal math skills and no reading………..AGAIN, we’re way way in over our happy heads.

  4. Tom Stone

    Trump is a “Fellow Traveler”!
    Why the DNC hacks by Russia?
    “One reason for this is to feed information to Trump”

      1. Jim Haygood

        Well, I went home with the waitress
        The way I always do
        How was I to know
        She was with the Russians, too

        — Warren Zevon, “Lawyers, Guns and Money”

      2. abynormal

        In a serious struggle there is no worse cruelty than to be magnanimous at an inopportune time. Trotsky

        HT Jimbo

      3. fresno dan

        ambrit
        June 15, 2016 at 8:36 am
        everything old is new again. I KNEW my pale blue polyester leisure suit would come back….next, “duck and cover”

        1. pretzelattack

          one word, “bellbottom jeans”. ok 2 words. might as well make it 4. “nehru jackets”.

          1. ambrit

            Chairman Mao’s “Little Red Book.”
            (I must admit that H Clinton in those ‘less than flattering’ business suit ensembles reminds me more than just a little of the ‘ol Chairman.)

      4. RW Tucker

        The difference is that now Europe is far more powerful than Russia, both in terms of population, finances, and even militarily. They simply aren’t a threat anymore.

        1. apber

          “Europe is far more powerful than Russia”

          Not true. Russia (and China) have weapons systems vastly superior to any in the West. Ask the US Navy sailors who got EMP’d in the Baltic by a Russian flyby.

        2. jgordon

          Yeah–I hate to break it to you, but the Russian weapons systems and military already outclass those of the West, including the US, by miles. This is the result of a major philosophical difference between thinking in the West and Russia: whereas Russians mainly view the military as a necessary evil required to fight and destroy her enemies, the West views the military as a convenient vehicle for enriching special interests. Check out all the war gaming the Pentagon has been doing; in every single instances America and its puppets get their asses handed to them by the Russians alone. It’s far uglier when China enters the calculations as well.

          1. vidimi

            russia is not as good at war as people here think she is. russia only wins when the enemy sends troops into russia or she has a huge demographic advantage over them. neither would be the case in a conflict against the US or europe. russia would need to attach herself to china to stand a chance.

            1. Skippy

              Disagree…

              Russia did the most hard yards to get to Germany after getting their clock almost cleaned. That said I don’t see either Russia or China moving out side their respective spheres, too easy to let others come make the first move.

            2. aab

              I don’t see how your assertion contradictions jgordon’s. I don’t have my own facts to bring to this. But jgordon’s saying Russia’s military is designed to prevent an invasion. You’re saying Russia only wins against an invasion. That sounds like you’re agreeing with him. Clinton seems to be trying to launch an invasion, which you both agree Russia will win. If she’s actually trying to launch a proxy fight in client states, it sounds like Russia will simply refuse to take the bait, which would be a win for Russia on its own terms. I realize there are the disputed client states on the border, but from my admittedly superficial understanding, it doesn’t sound like hostilities there would violate the strategic conditions you said would be necessary for Russia to win. What am I missing?

              1. jgordon

                The Russians will win against the US and its client states under any and all circumstances. Here is an example:

                http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/report-russia-defeats-nato-in-baltic-war-game-1.392103

                Search the internet carefully about war games the Pentagon has been conducting with Russia, and you will find no citations for where the US thinks it can succeed. It’s always a blowout victory for Russia. If Russia invades Europe, it will steamroll through within a matter of days and the US will be unable/unwilling to stop it. The only thing preventing that from happening is the lack of interest on Putin and Russia’s part.

  5. Eureka Springs

    Sanders: End of Voting Does Not Mean End of Political Revolution Common Dreams

    I keep reading lines like the above… Killing Sanders and a ‘movement’ at least twice in one line while pretnding it’s continuing… is such a leftish trait.

    That said… negotiating with or within the D party in a manner such as Sanders and the ‘movement’ are now (party platform, or HRC being less right, etc.) they are limiting themselves into self-veal oblivion. Perhaps they deserve double dead reenforcements per hopey no changey platitude.

    The party has already killed single payer, again… what more does a Sanderwrong need to know?

    1. human

      I stopped reading Common Dreams about ten years ago as they refused to recognize that they are part of the problem.

      1. craazyboy

        Sanders was one of those happy dreams we get sometimes. Hillary, more of a pragmatic dream that knows how to get things done. Some might say more like a “nightmare”.

        1. John Merryman

          Leading the charge.
          Into the vortex.
          It’s so much easier than trying to climb out.

          1. grizziz

            +++, good metaphor. Obama is such a piss poor war president. HRC will bet the empire to gain glory for the House of Clinton.

        2. Emma

          Look Craazyboy, as a self-proclaimed ‘feminist’, I’m sure Hillary will give back her Goldman Sachs donations upon learning Goldman Sachs uses prostitutes to win business. That’s how to get things done. That way she can instead support Jill Stein, Presidential nominee of the US Green Party, to be included in national polls and debates.
          Oh, wait…..Nah……better Hillary simply channel the prostitution funds into the Clinton Foundation. That’s more useful. Bill Clinton can purchase his own “Air F*** One” then and Hillary can really stand by to watch in style….
          You know, the only time Killary Flinton and Donald Trumpty-Dumpty tell the truth and actually do something useful for the rest of us, is when they accuse one another of lying. It’s an utter disgrace that both major parties continue to persist with these two foo-ups for POTUS.
          So much for “American values”. Do I think that other American men and women in Congress would have done a better job thus far of not turning US politics into the appalling joke it is? Yes. And I’d also have respect for those American values so often bandied about.

          1. craazyboy

            Bill will be asking Hill if he can borrow Air Force One so he can get outside of US airspace with the Georgetown High School cheerleader squad.

            Also, don’t forget, Columbian airspace is 16 years old.

            1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

              An American embassy is considered US territory, and Marines will defend it as such.

              I imagine so is Air Force One.

          2. Pavel

            Ha, Emma — I’d seen the Grauniad piece on Goldman’s use of prostitutes in Libya deals (and no doubt elsewhere) but hadn’t linked it to Hillary… great point!

    2. coboarts

      Sanders played exactly the role that commenters here predicted early on. Now he’s tying his voters up in a neat bow to hand over behind a little smoke and mirrors. Everyone just got a little taken away by wishful thinking.

      1. Int

        I thought it was comical, in a most tragic way, that so many well meaning folks thought sanders campaign would bring any meaningful change to the Democratic Party platform.

        1. jrs

          But did they? Or did they just want to get Sanders elected. Sanders is talking about the platform now, but I don’t know that that’s what his supporters were trying for. They wanted to elect him period maybe and some maybe to spread his message (not to the Dem party but to the people).

          Many a leftist says don’t bother with electoral politics, and they might be right about that, but they don’t really have much to offer either. “How about you go to a useless protest instead?” they may as well say. Well I’ve been to useless protests as much as I have cast useless votes. A few movements do have some traction, but there’s not a lot of hope out there frankly.

      2. Yves Smith

        That is nonsense. He would have quit after CA (or NY, actually) if that was the plan.

        And he is not handing over his donor list.

        I am sick of these fact-free misrepresentations.

        1. jgordon

          If that was the plan, it didn’t work out too well. Basically all of my friends were psyched about a Sanders run. Now that he’s out not a single one has any plan whatsoever to vote for Hillary. They’re either staying home, voting third party, or (less than half) voting for Trump.

      3. vidimi

        a lot most, if not all, of the berners on my facebook feed have voluntarily walked over to the $hildebeest. it’s depressing.

        1. aab

          Having left Facebook years ago, that doesn’t surprise me. Nobody I interact with on Bernie Twitter has. It’s going to take time to see how this plays out. She needs most if not all of the registered Democrat Bernie voters, of which I am one, as are many of the #NeverHillary people I interact with on Twitter. And saying you’ll vote for her on Facebook may end up being a little different than actually dragging yourself to the polls for her.

          This dynamic is why I made the decision to vote for Trump, if need be. Somebody needs to stake out an aggressively oppositional position and advocate for it. People are being shamed into voting for her through deceit, propaganda and social pressure. Counterpoint messaging needs to injected into the public discourse. Just as Hillary doesn’t care how few voters get to the polls as long as she wins power by one vote, if I can help keep just enough people from being herded over to her that she loses by one vote, I will be thrilled.

        2. jgordon

          That’s funny. A couple of Facebook “friends” defriended me because I said that I’d be voting for Trump over Hillary Bernie dropped out. I laughed.

          Nobody I know in really life is supporting for Hillary though.

      4. aab

        Chiming in behind Yves. This is nonsense. He is doing the exact opposite. Do you read any of what he is actually saying and doing, or are you relying on the New York Times (which, pro tip: is an arm of the Clinton campaign.)

        Do you really think Clinton wanted to actually have to fight all the way to California? Do you think she enjoyed having to do so much suppression and outright theft that it was made obvious to the rubes she was stealing from? She had to slink out a back door after her meeting with Bernie, while he went out the front to cheers, having refused to endorse her. Do you really think that is what she wanted out of that sit-down? She doesn’t like dealing with the little people at all. She doesn’t like to experience ANY opposition. She did not want this. He is not her sheepdog. He is not tying up his voters. He CAN’T tie up his voters, and he has continued to frame the supposed negotiation/surrender around terms that may or may not free him to evade endorsing her, but definitely signal to his supporters not to.

        It may have been wishful thinking to believe that the corporate media would be slightly less corrupt, or that state party apparatchiks wouldn’t be quite so willing to brazenly steal ballots and alienate voters. But that’s not on Sanders. With the assistance of the media, Clinton may pry away enough weak willed saps to win in November. I don’t think so, but it’s certainly possible. But millions more have been awakened to a reality most hadn’t conceived of last summer, and hardened in their resolve to resist it. Whether that results in a positive outcome for the country in the near term is also an open question. But this is not the scenario Clinton wanted to be facing at this point, and Sanders is not playing a role scripted by or for her.

        I get being cynical in the face of so much manipulation, corruption and propaganda. But logic and evidence are your friends. You don’t have to put a halo on Bernie Sanders’ head to see that he’s an authentic democratic socialist opposed to Clintonian rule. He may fail, but he’s not dancing; he’s boxing.

  6. allan

    Class Warfare: Boeing faults Machinists union for opposing Norwegian Air expansion

    Boeing on Tuesday weighed in for the first time with a definitive public statement on a hot political controversy in the aviation world — choosing to use the issue as a stick to try to beat back the Machinists union’s efforts to organize its assembly plants in South Carolina.

    A strong coalition of the biggest U.S. airlines, labor unions and politicians — mostly Democrats, including Hillary Clinton — has mounted a protracted and vociferous campaign to have the Department of Transportation block Norwegian Air International from expanding in the U.S. … fierce opposition from American, Delta and United as well as labor unions representing pilots and other airline workers — and including the International Association of Machinists (IAM) — who claim Norwegian would pay lower wages. …

    Boeing has now finally come out strongly on Norwegian’s side, though with an indirect argument.

    On an anti-union website aimed at its South Carolina workforce, the company Tuesday criticized the IAM’s opposition to Norwegian’s planned expansion. …

    So, a corporation headquartered in Chicago is threatening workers in South Carolina who want to organize, using as a club a company based in Norway but incorporated in Ireland and using Thai labor law for hiring flight crews.
    Is globalization great or what?

    1. Howard Beale IV

      Of course Boeing is fighting it-they have to deliver 787’s to Norwegian Air, and if they can’t expand, those orders go poof-which means when Boeing tries to flog those slots, they’ll get less money.

      1. Sam Adams

        I’d never take a Boeing plane constructed at its North Charleston facility. Talk about a demoralized workforce.

  7. Anon

    Re: Milbank

    I love how our wise sages in the press finally figured this out after what, a year? Given how things have played out, I don’t know how effective a blackout would’ve been given how well he played (most of) the press for fools.

      1. flora

        adding: the nut of Milbank’s blather is insisting papers make Trump spend money on ads. (omg, $55 mil we missed out on!)

      2. nippersmom

        How amusing that Milbanks considers himself and his fellow establishment hacks in the press to be journalists.

      3. Pavel

        Forgive my French, but fuck WaPo and fuck the horse they came to town on. They were neocon-evil before Bezos took over, and now neocon-evil and crony-capitalist to boot.

    1. CraaaaazyChris

      Milbank never mentions that Hillary hasn’t done an open press conference in forever (since December?). Trump is following a Steve Jobs approach of black-listing the ones he thinks step over the line. Clinton has adopted the white-list approach, giving select interviews to sympathetic soft-ballers.

  8. Gareth

    The new Clinton email excuse is born: If the Russians and others were hacking everyone’s computer systems then why is she the only one being picked on, sexism?

    1. fresno dan

      With Clinton, the goalposts keep moving.
      Shortly, Clinton hacks will state unequivocally:
      1. OK, the Russians did hack Hillary and got some yoga emails…
      2. OK, the Russians did hack Hillary and got some trivial non classified state department emails
      3. OK, the Russians did hack Hillary and got some trivial classified state department emails – everybody knows the government classifies everything – no intelligence assets were exposed.
      4. OK, the Russians did hack Hillary and got some IMPORTANT classified state department emails – – no intelligence assets were exposed.
      5. OK, the Russians did hack Hillary and got some important classified state department emails – everybody knows the government classifies everything – no American intelligence assets were exposed, MAYBE some mideast allied assets were exposed…
      6. OK, the Russians did hack Hillary and got some important classified state department emails – everybody knows the government classifies everything – some mideast allied assets were exposed, but no one DIED.
      7. OK, OK, OK ALREADY – the Russians did hack Hillary and got some important classified state department emails – everybody knows the government classifies everything – some mideast allied assets were exposed, and one died, but NO AMERICANS died
      8. OK, OK, OK ALREADY – geez!!! the Russians did hack Hillary and got some important classified state department emails – everybody knows the government classifies everything – some mideast allied assets were exposed, and more than one died, but NO AMERICANS died
      9. OK, OK, OK ALREADY – you guys are obsessed with this!!!! the Russians did hack Hillary and got some important classified state department emails – everybody knows the government classifies everything – some mideast allied assets were exposed, and more than one died, and an AMERICAN died
      10. OK, OK, OK ALREADY – you guys are obsessed with this – everybody makes mistakes – the Russians did hack Hillary and got some important classified state department emails – everybody knows the government classifies everything – some mideast allied assets were exposed, and more than one died, and more than one AMERICAN died, but they are in a combat role and that is there job – to die for their country.
      11. OK, OK, OK ALREADY – you guys are obsessed with this – everybody makes mistakes – the Russians did hack Hillary and got some important classified state department emails – everybody knows the government classifies everything – some mideast allied assets were exposed, and more than one died, and more than one AMERICAN died, but they are in a combat role and that is there job – to die for their country, and what difference does it make – its dangerous over there and they would have died one way or the other – are we gonna give up the first woman president EVER for that????

    1. PlutoniumKun

      Its a great article – but it doesn’t answer the question that always puzzles me about weasels – why didn’t they follow rats into cities? They are the best of all rat hunters, it seems so strange that they never came to help us clear out the sewers.

      1. James Levy

        Understood. I ask the same question about a fox in the neighborhood: why does he attack my chickens (had to chase him off twice screaming with stick in hand) but leave the lumbering groundhogs on my property alone?

        1. different clue

          My younger brother once told me about how a friend of his got between a groundhog and its hole and then cornered it with a shovel. Going to kill it with the shovel. The groundhog got “inside his shovel” and bit him up some. He needed 47 stitches to close up the groundhog bites. Maybe foxes know all about what groundhogs can do.

          Can a chicken do that?

        2. vidimi

          along the same lines as different clue, nature always picks the path of least resistance

  9. crittermom

    At the end of the NYT article about the meeting between Bernie & $hillary, it says that she won the DC vote yesterday with 79%.
    How is it that the morning after the voting ended they’re able to say that, yet it’s been over a week since the CA vote & millions of those have yet to be counted? Are all of yesterday’s votes counted already? (Yes, I know CA is much larger)
    Must be similar to the AP announcement. Tell it like it is, before it really is.

    I hope Bernie doesn’t believe one word $hillary said. We all know (don’t we?) that once elected she will never support any of his (our) views as they don’t benefit her monetarily.

    Screw this uniting the party as it stands today. They’ve certainly done nothing for me & doubt they ever intend to. I just can’t imagine myself voting for her.
    I’d much prefer her to be tarred & feathered & run outta the country. (And it would probably be a better style than anything I’ve seen her wear. What IS she hiding under those winter-looking suits?)

    If Bernie feels he must give his endorcement at some point (since he’s a man of his word, unlike $hillary, who reneged on her word about debating him before CA vote), I think he should give his endorsement on the same day the State Dept plans to release some of her emails.
    Nov 31st. Hmpff!

    1. L

      This is more about messaging than meaning. The NYT has never been shy about their backing of Clinton and this is just more soothing noises aimed at getting Sanders voters to “come home” as Kos snidely puts it.

      1. sd

        Always knew Kos as a douche. But it wasn’t until this election that I came to realise that all of Kos talk about electing more and better Democrats did not mean more left or liberal or progressive.

        1. Gaianne

          all of Kos talk about electing more and better Democrats did not mean electing more and better Democrats.

          There. Fixed it for you.

          –Gaianne

        2. jrs

          Well it’s a good way to blame the victim. If we are unable to elect more Democrats (for the sake of argument let’s pretend we are trying to) it can be blamed on the voter, never mind if their district is so absurdly gerrymandered as to make swinging it either way IMPOSSIBLE.

          It’s ultimately an apology for the status quo: “well you were unable to elect more and better Dems, so you deserve what you get” even if there was no easy way to get there from here.

      2. hunkerdown

        As I just saw in a comment on Salon, in some sense “‘home’ is the Green Party”. Sr. Zuñiga might want to be more careful what he asks for.

    2. John Merryman

      As a Marylander, I would like to note that Maryland was called for Hillary when less than 1% had been counted, based on polls.

      1. Anne

        I’m a Marylander as well, and one who took advantage of early voting (what a pleasant experience that was – in and out in about 10 minutes); I’d posit that the declaration of Clinton as the winner of the MD primary, with so little of the election day results in, was related to the votes cast in the early voting period.

      2. MLS

        There’s not necessarily anything nefarious here (or in any such case where they call an election with ~1% of votes in). It’s just an estimate within a margin of error, and you can get to a pretty high level of certainty with a fairly small sample (e.g. a sample of 1,000 will get you a MOE of 3%). If the gap in your sample is wider than your MOE you can with reasonable certainty call the election. It looks like there’s about 3.7 million registered voters in MD, so a sample of 1,000 ballots is just .027% of the population.

        There are errors, of course, but if the sample is properly constructed (representative of the population) the chances of them are pretty small.

  10. nycTerrierist

    “If Bernie feels he must give his endorcement at some point (since he’s a man of his word, unlike $hillary, who reneged on her word about debating him before CA vote), I think he should give his endorsement on the same day the State Dept plans to release some of her emails.
    Nov 31st. Hmpff!”

    I couldn’t agree more.
    Bernie: please don’t squandor what you and your supporters have built by caving now!
    the Democratic Party is a hollowed shell(game). Don’t save it, the way Obama saved the Republicans.
    I say good riddance to the Democratic party — unless Bernie is the nom.

    1. Arizona Slim

      If Bernie endorses Hillary, I’m done with him.

      And I’ll betcha money that his home state of VT will be too. As in, so done with him that he won’t run for re-election in 2018.

      It’ll be interesting to watch the scramble for that Senate seat.

  11. Take the Fork

    Le Monde on the New Right: well, it’s a start. But the far greater driver remains Merkel’s unilateral decision to flood Europe with refugees.

    The Europeans seem unwilling to go gently into NeoLiberalism’s Good Night… And the more recently and harshly a nation has been occupied, the more clarity its populace demonstrates on the issue.

    1. vidimi

      i would look further. what is causing the mass migration of refugees? neocon interventions, especially in syria. combine that with neolib policies gutting the economy at home and, voilà, you have a resurgent far right.

      in summary, they wouldn’t exist if things didn’t suck so bad and since things are going to keep sucking and even suck a lot worse, this is just the vanguard. i honestly don’t know how we’ll get out of this one that doesn’t involve a franz ferdinand moment.

  12. Jim Haygood

    Perhaps someone will heave a shoe today at 0zero, as the president’s Okey-Doke Dronefire Revival rocks Green Bay, and his legions of supporters roast goats and fire celebratory rounds into the air at tailgate parties in the parking lot.

    Bonafide ride
    Step aside my johnson
    Yes I could
    In the woods of Wisconsin

    — RHCP, Around the World

  13. Carolinian

    At the risk of being provocative perhaps the real question we should be asking is whether HRC is a “fascist”? After all….corporatism, check….militarism, check….belief in the exceptional virtue of the volk in the homeland, check. The biggie is of course totalitarianism, and given Hillary’s love for secrecy, desire to expand the no fly enemies list, scorn for whistle blowers and open government she’s well on her way. You could say all or most of the above also applies to Trump but some of us have a sneaking suspicion Hillary really means it.

    I’ve always had the humble opinion that Sanders made a big mistake by not making Hillary’s hawkishness the center of his campaign. We’ve been at so called war for fifteen years now. Hillary with her 9/12 yearnings wants to start the whole miserable cycle over again. The public, though, has probably had enough. One diff between Trump and Hillary seems clear: he actually cares about being popular.

    1. craazyboy

      After going thru the fascist checklist you’ve noted so far, the final fascist item is when Our Leader announces a call for Big Food to support our military. So if Hillary announces a Big Cheese DOD contract to a crowd of cheering, war painted, Green Bay Cheese Heads, then we will know for sure.

    2. RabidGandhi

      Add one major aspect to drive your point home: anti-communism. Check.

      The main point of fascism has always been to give crumbs to the masses so they won’t go red. Thus Mussolini gives us state-run unions, HRC gives us the labour misleadership class. Franco gives healthcare for some, HRC gives Obamacare Bis…. and so on.

      Fascism is not far right. It is a compromise allowed by the oligarchs to keep us from going far left. That fits HRC much better than Trump.

      1. Alex morfesis

        $hillary can not be a fascist…she goes to the david coe led fellowship…founded by that nice norwegian who founded goodwill…and in 1935, upon the advice of his good friend heinrich himmler, vereide founded what is now the fellowship…the nice smoke filled roomed crew that brings us that wonderful prayer breakfast thing with the president each year…so there is nothing to suggest she hangs out with anyone that has anything historically with any fascists…nothing at all…and did I mention the organizations incorporation was in chicago…why does not anyone ask where and what $hillary daddy was doing over the years…

      1. James Levy

        The Democrats stink but they are not a totalitarian party a la Italy, Germany, Spain or Portugal. Clinton is not going to ban the Republicans or arrest the Supreme Court or close down the Congress. That’s just a nightmare of your fevered imagination. You are enraged so you are bending a pejorative term to your ends. It’s like the people who said that George W. Bush was a fascist when what they really meant was he was a creep with evil, stupid policies. Hillary Clinton is a creep with evil, stupid, and dangerous policies. She is no more likely to be a fascist dictator than her husband was.

        Oh, prophylactically, as I pointed out twice before, Trump isn’t a fascist, either, and saying he is just makes people look ridiculous.

        1. hunkerdown

          Democratic ideology provides prescriptions for nearly any life question big or small and sells Liberalism as a package deal. Sounds totalizing, if not totalitarian.

        2. vidimi

          fascism is such a loosely defined term that i don’t want to get into the debate of who is and who isn’t fascist, but i want to point out that italy, germany, spain or portugal were never the totalitarian states the way stalin’s USSR was or modern north korea is and neither of those is called fascist. as such, totalitarianism doesn’t seem to be a necessary precondition of fascism. none of that is to say that your point about people using it as a pejorative while looking ridiculous isn’t true.

    3. begob

      We’ve been at so called war for fifteen years now. Hillary with her 9/12 yearnings wants to start the whole miserable cycle over again. The public, though, has probably had enough.

      Watched O’Reilly and Colbert discussing the Islam angle of the Orlando killings. O’Reilly all for more war, Colbert not disagreeing. The audience applauded wildly. At this point I take Colbert for a Hillary proxy.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        And Hillary taunted and goaded Sanders to go after her hawkishness.

        “He’s a one issue candidate.”

        “Oh, yeah? Let’s talk hawkish foreign policy.”

        But no. That was not his center piece.

      2. Cry Shop

        http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/

        Hillary Clinton on Monday broke from President Barack Obama in referring to the terrorist attack as “radical Islamism,” countering Donald Trump’s accusations that both she and Obama are weak on tackling terrorist threats.

    4. fresno dan

      Carolinian
      June 15, 2016 at 10:11 am

      I think your analysis is indisputable.
      AND
      “You could say all or most of the above also applies to Trump but some of us have a sneaking suspicion Hillary really means it.” AND would be much, much, much (did I say much?) more effective at it.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        You know what they say about barking and not barking…and which one is more likely to bite…

    5. Lexington

      No, Hillary is not a fascist.

      Carelessly throwing around words for rhetorical effect at best just confuses the issues and plays into the hands of the TPTB and their divide and rule tactics.

      Incidentally “corporatism” in the context of political theory doesn’t mean what you (and apparently most other NC comentors) think it means, and if militarism and belief in American Exceptionalism amounts to fascism then the majority of Americans have at least flirted with fascism since 9/11.

        1. Take the Fork

          I don’t see how you can say that. I’m afraid you’re only seeing half the picture.

          Whatever we have in the US (and most western European capitals) the ruling dispensation seems to be utterly opposed to the nationalism present in every form of European fascism I am aware of, which was based on fairly clear notions of Us/Them, rooted in supposed ethnic and racial identities going back to Greece and Rome, if not Lascaux and Altamira.

          Study the root of the word fascism and you’ll find a bunch similarly cut sticks bundled together. The point: Unity is strength.

          But what do we hear from our leaders in the Neoliberal West? Diversity is strength.

          And this is exactly why the New Right is growing in strength. The policies pursued by Neoliberals in trade, immigration, education and security are (in my view rightly) perceived as running counter to the well-being of the majority of native inhabitants. At its core the New Right argument is that European (read: White) civilization is staring into an abyss of first cultural, then political, and finally racial erasure.

          What is different about this New Right is that it is beginning to show signs of cooperating openly across borders in the interests of preserving those borders. Many of them want a European Union with the emphasis on Europa as such, not an EU committed to imposing anti-democratic, market-friendly, abstract and polymorphous notions of universal justice, tolerance and equality. Given the Europeans’ exceptional record of conflict and generally poor record of cooperation, I’m not sure they can manage this. But I expect more, not less, movement attempted movement in this direction.

          In this light, if we are to call the European New Right fascists, perhaps a better term would be neofascist. Either way, I’m not seeing a decidedly fascist regime around here.

          1. Carolinian

            Here’s hoping you will also give a scolding to the many Hillbots and web commentators who so carelessly apply the ‘f’ word to Trump. And I believe Yves is saying that we are fast approaching the classic Mussolini version of fascism…an authoritarian movement uniting corporations and government. You can look it up. Of course Hitler added his own wrinkles. Mussolini didn’t particularly hate the Jews.

            As for Hillary and the fasces, check out what she just said about 9/12. She celebrates a moment in time when the country was not diverse but united in the purpose of bombing the bejesus out of Afghanistan. War is the health of (her) state. This is very much in the spirit of fascism.

            1. Take the Fork

              Maybe Yves will respond, but in the meantime:

              “The US has most decidedly gone fascist.” No ‘approaching’ (your word) anything here – we’ve arrived. Except for the words “most” & “decidedly” the statement is most decidedly Trumpian in its declarativity.

              Conflating antisemitism with fascism is a rhetorical tic of the left. Sometimes it is simple ignorance, sometimes it is willful deceit. Mussolini was not a Nazi, and he was not always consistent on matters of race. But the gist of his rhetoric and policies is undeniable – and both were clearly in-line with the larger current of mid-century European Fascist movements.

              You, too, can look it up: start with Mussolini’s Battle for Births. Then take a peak at the racial laws his government enacted in the African colonies. Then take the easiest route: read the Wikipedia page for “Italian Fascism and Racism” especially the “Non-white races” section.

              Personally, I loathe HRC and am alarmed by Trump, but at this point I don’t think it is fair (or wise) to call either of them Fascists. It’s the Cry Wolf factor I fear. Another decade of stagnant Neoliberalism underwritten by identity politics and punctuated with repeated attacks by Islamic terrorists, and we are liable to see actually existing Fascists. At which point the postmodern Left will realize that instead of Chomsky and Zizek they should have been buffing up on Kalashnikov.

              1. Skippy

                I was under the impression that the Citi memo squared that circle and we could comfortably call it Plutocracy, with the caveat that emerging aspects of Fascism e.g. authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing, a form of Government in which the lives of people are controlled by a government w/o the sole dictator aspect.

                Disheveled Marsupial…. bemusing thought… could one have a Fascist tug of war in a Plutocracy….

          2. cwaltz

            They may say “diversity is strength” however they do not live as they preach or they’d spend less time trying to force other nations to do their bidding and more time fixing problems here.

            I also take exception to your position that the terms “American exceptionalism” hasn’t been used to ram things like a crappy health care plan down the throats of Americans instead of a nationalized system like most nations have.

            You have energy companies writing energy policy, health insurance companies writing health care policy behind closed doors and multinationals writing trade policies all of us will be affected by and that will largely benefit them behind those same closed doors. The evidence is there that we are INDEED headed towards fascism, if we aren’t already there. So no, I don’t agree with your assessment.

            1. craazyboy

              In the 21st century version, I agree we won’t get goose stepping soldiers and everyone saluting saying, “Heil Hillary”. That would be too corny and obvious.

        2. Lexington

          When did Raúl Ilargi Meijer become an authority on political ideology?

          I actually agree with Illargi’s broader point that the political establishment already embodies many of the characteristics of what he (largely mistakenly) understands but the word “fascism”, but I think misappropriating that word in the name of exploiting its emotive power is intellectually dishonest and, more to the point, ultimately counterproductive and even dangerous.

          I previously linked to this Dylan Matthews Vox piece: I asked 5 fascism experts whether Donald Trump is a fascist. Here’s what they said. Unlike Illargi the people Matthews spoke to are actual historians who have made actual and substantive contributions to the historiography of fascism. NONE of them believes Trump is a fascist, and I feel very confident in saying that opinion would also hold for Clinton.

          On the specific obsession many NC readers have with the supposed nexus between fascism and private business interests (which they mistakenly call “corporatism” – a correct explanation of this term can be found on Wikipedia. Illargi among others would benefit from reading it) Matthews comments:

          In fact, most experts think that it’s hard to identify a characteristically “fascist” economic policy. It was all secondary to other goals, notably preparation for war. “Of all the policy areas, the economic one is the one where classical historic fascist parties were most flexible,” [Robert] Paxton says. “They did what was expedient in the moment. They were defending war veterans and attacking big corporations but quickly dropped that when they discovered they needed the money. … It’s hard to link those people to any one kind of economic idea. They would do anything to make their country militarily ready for war.”

          Economic policy is not in fact central to fascist ideology, but it is central to the thinking of many people who want the emotional satisfaction of conflating neoliberalism and fascism, regardless of the violence that does to intellectual integrity. Funny, I thought it was the Republicans who are the anti intellectual know nothings who stand ever ready to allow ideology to undercut facts and reason -which apparently makes them irrational, and thus dangerous.

          I must admit that in these wild and crazy times it sometimes seems to be getting harder to tell the irrational ones apart, regardless of political label. Extremism flourishes when emotion triumphs over reason, and by hysterically throwing around rhetorical bombs like “fascist” the left is doing its part to ensure the center will not hold.

            1. Lexington

              I feel your regret is insincere.

              In any case your quarrel isn’t with me but with Griffin, Feldman, Paxton, Payne and Jennings. This isn’t my first rodeo so I’ll just cut to the chase: while I would be the last person to suggest that someone’s credentials are proof of the soundness of their position, I do think when you’re going up against that kind of firepower you want something a lot more substantial than a short (text ~ 250pp) monograph on a relatively specialized subject (Spanish-German economic relations in the 1930s) that is almost completely based on secondary sources, almost all of which are in English and Spanish rather than German. Some might question whether the author of such a text is really in a strong position to convincingly challege the consensus on Nazi ideology. And hey, if you’re willing to stand up and proclaim this THE go to work on Reich economic policy, more power to you. Like Gandhi said, first they laugh at you.

              Fundementally this isn’t a question of economic policy however – I think we all agree that Nazi Germany had one. The question is was the nature of that policy fundementally determined by Nazi ideology? The go to thinkers say no. I would be most interested in learning what specific parts of Barbieri’s text have led you to conclude that the consensus is wrong?

              1. Yves Smith

                Actually, Barbier’s book is substantially about Hjalmar Schacht stewardship of German economic policy, as president of the Reichsbank and Hitler’s Minister of Economics. It discusses how Schacht’s model and priorities played out in its economic dealings with Spain. It cites archival work, including a great deal of correspondence by Schacht and argues how some prevailing theories the German economic/political model are contradicted by Schact’s firmly held views and actions. It’s a new book and got a lot of praise from economists I know at INET who are familiar with the economic histories of that period. So your assumptions about its relevance are off.

      1. cwaltz

        You say she isn’t, however, evidence suggests she is. TPP, and her support of it, essentially tells me everything I need to know about her.

        1. Lexington

          It may tell you everything you need to know about her, but does it tell you she’s a fascist?

          Because Hitler and Mussolini were strong proponents of international trade liberalization??

          1. aab

            The TPP isn’t about international trade liberalization. It designed to give global corporations supremacy over sovereign nations and the rights of citizens within those nations. The greatest military in the human history would be used to enforce the power of these corporations, in the name of a nation, but in the service of these stateless corporations.

            That nation’s people and wealth will be used to fuel that military that benefits those corporations, justified by an ideology called “American Exceptionalism,” which supposedly gives America the right to do whatever it wants wherever it wants to whoever it wants, on the basis of America’s superior…something or other.

            Fascism.

            1. Lexington

              Ok then, I’ll rephrase my objection:

              Hitler and Mussolini were strong proponents of giving corporations supremacy over sovereign nations??

              Seriously, where did you learn your history?

  14. Amateur Socialist

    Probably the most troubling quote I saw in that Vice article:

    He’s the most Reagan-esque candidate since Reagan. He’s got strength, he’s successful, he loves America and that’s why I’m for him.

    It bothers me because he is the most Reagan-esque candidate since Reagan. Who was also laughed at. Why does HRC’s campaign remind me of Mondale in 1984?

    1. EndOfTheWorld

      Reagan did take care of the boys in the military—-I was one at the time. Pay raises, plenty of new barracks, what they used to call “quality of life” improvements, but most importantly Reagan didn’t fight any big wars, where a lot of Americans were getting killed. Not saying his foreign policy was without fault, but from the point of view of the average GI, at least he could do his time and keep his limbs intact, a very important consideration.

      1. fresno dan

        EndOfTheWorld
        June 15, 2016 at 11:02 am
        There was the Beirut Marine Barracks debacle – and to Reagan’s credit, he “cut and run” (I view cut and run as a good thing). One thing about having a repub, at least back than, is that when the repubs got us involved in some boneheaded involvement somewhere, we could “reverse advance” (see JTMcPhee June 15, 2016 at 9:53 am) without one partying screaming their heads off about cutting and running…

      2. pretzelattack

        yeah he mostly used death squads made up of allies trained at the school of the americas. the bayonet the baby tossed in the air landed on may have been supplied by the us, but not the soldier, who may have been trained by the us.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          The Reagan years were halcyon days compared to now.

          That’s not to say he wouldn’t have acted similarly to how our current and recent leaders have being doing – the world was different then. We don’t know what he would have done – we can only guess.

          1. pretzelattack

            well we pretty much know he would have followed chimpy, since so many of his officials were in the bush 2 administration. and pushing deregulation and tax cuts to the max possible, since he also did that. and not dealing with climate change, he had to be pushed just to deal with the ozone hole to the limited extent he did. and gutting environmental protection, is anybody today worse than jim watt?

            1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

              I should have been rigorous and realized I was thinking only narrowly about the surveillance state we are in today, comparing life then and now. Perhaps too much Orlando.

          2. cwaltz

            Iran Contra suggests he was more of the same. He wasn’t the start of our disasterous foreign policy but he certainly wasn’t anything special(and I say that as someone who served under his command in 1986.)

      3. James Levy

        I have no words to reply to your “I’m all right Jack” comment about a man who spent 8 years attacking the welfare state, never mentioned the word AIDS while tens of thousands died, connived with Iranian mullahs to keep out hostages in thrall long enough to see Carter out the door, almost started WWIII with his 1983 Able Archer wargames and deployment of missiles to Europe, gave us the trillion dollar Star wars boondoggle, and did as much as any man to arm and train radical Islam while turning Central America into a charnel house.

        1. polecat

          yeah…… I seem to remember his mic gaff …..”the bombing begins in 15 minutes”…followed with much laughter and veritable knee slapping!

        2. EndOfTheWorld

          The VICE article that started this coliloquy was “What American Soldiers Are Saying About Trump.” I will acknowledge Reagan was not a real cool guy, but being in the Army under him was better than being in the Army under some of the others, including Obama. I’m guessing there were more military casualties during Obama’s 8 years than during Reagan’s.

          1. cwaltz

            Reagan was an expert at running that debt up so that later we could drown responsible government in the bathtub.

            Personally, while there weren’t millions of American lives lost in war that doesn’t mean his policies didn’t kill innocent Libyans or ferment unrest in Nicaragua.

            So I guess if you consider America to exist in a vacuum and the policies that were perpetuated on other nations to not have led us to where we are today then you might consider him a good CiC. However, for someone like me(and yes I was in the Navy during his tenure) I look at his behavior in hindsight and am as appalled by his behavior as I was by SoS Clinton under Obama.

  15. Jef

    Funny (not) how little concern there is for the use of “assault weapons” being used to kill tens of thousands around the world including thousands of innocent women, children, families on a regular basis but when on is used in the US we need to ban them.

    There are literally hundreds of thousands of what could be called assault weapons in the US yet only .0001% of them kill people.

    There are dozens of other things that kill many more innocent americans but lets just focus on gunz because they are loud and scary.

    Watch Mike Moores latest “Where to invade next” (its not about our military by the way) and you can see why we find it more and more possible to kill a bunch of our own people.

    Lets ban assault weapons from everyone around the world and start treating each other with respect and dignity.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      If a weapon is to easy to use for killing people here, it’s too easy to use for killing (brown, black, yellow, white, etc) people around the world…collateral damage or not.

      If we don’t want it here for civilians to have, then, we don’t want it anywhere, even for professionals either. See collateral damage above.

      Everyone (in the world) is exceptional.

    2. Pavel

      Thank you. Let’s ban all the weapons and weapon sales. And let’s remember that it was the ostensibly “Christian” USA that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rather puts the Orlando mass murderer in a different league.

  16. Take the Fork

    Moon of Ala: “How does one guy in a club full of men manages to shoot 50+ and wound another 50+ without getting overwhelmed? He needed to change ammunition clips several times. The ideal time to attack him. Where there no three strong guys around in the club to jump him?”

    This was my first thought. But then I thought about for about three seconds: it’s 2 AM. It’s loud. It’s mostly dark. Lights are flashing. People are drunk, on drugs, maybe tired from dancing. And this guy appears to have been very familiar with the layout. Pardon the expression, but it’s a turkey shoot.

    With an hour’s practice, a 30-round clip on an AR-15 can be changed easily in about three seconds. There are numerous helpful videos on youtube if you haven’t had the benefit of formal training.

    My point: The shooter could have gotten off ninety rounds before it became clear to anyone what was happening. And I’m guessing those were hollow points. Point-blank. By now there’s a lot of people on the floor between the shooter and any “strong guys”, as well as all the people desperately clawing for an exit. How many were in the bathroom when this was going on? How many fled, or were herded in there? Its one at a time coming through a normal-sized doorway…

    I dislike the implication that there was no one “man enough” to rush the killer. It may yet turn out that there was more than one shooter, but I think a lone gunman could have pulled this off without too much trouble.

    1. MikeNY

      Yes. I’m trying to remember when the last time an unarmed civilian overwhelmed a mass-murderer with an AR-15. Can anyone help?

      Perhaps unarmed civilian resistance to mass-murderers with automatic weapons should be part of the “common core” curriculum. That is, if we won’t arm everyone old enough to pull a trigger with similar weapons — which seems to be the preferred American solution.

      1. nowhere

        What if all guns were outlawed, except your compulsory (issued when you turn 13) musket? Then the gun nuts can’t complain, everyone has a gun, and it would be inline with the technological time period the 2nd Amendment was written. /s (kind of…)

    2. fresno dan

      Take the Fork
      June 15, 2016 at 10:39 am

      I thought initially the same thing, but your analysis makes very good points. Who knows how many did try to advance upon him…and failed?

    3. bronco

      Why would you assume the bullets were hollow points? There are too many survivors also too many people shot I’m thinking.

      The are reports of people being shot 5 or more times and surviving .

      Jacketed rounds from a high velocity rifle could simply pass through a person and the person behind them and leave 2 bleeding survivors . Hollow points expend most or all the energy in the first thing they hit and do huge amounts of damage . 5 hollow point hits to one victim means 5 bullets fired . 5 jacketed round hits in a packed night club could conceivably be 1 or 2 rounds passing through multiple people.

      Multiple hits from hollow points mean rapid death. Multiple hits from jacketed rounds could mean a lot of bleeding which would be fatal in 3 hours. How many people bled to death while 3 hours ticked away on the clock?

      It’s hard to imagine that all deaths were caused by bullets fired by the shooter . Some pictures of the outside of the building seem to show lots of bullet strikes from outside. Steel jacketed rounds can pass through hollow concrete block walls so if that type of bullet was coming from outside it could easily result in casualties . If you saw photos of the same patch of wall from outside and in you could tell which direction the bullets were coming from.

      1. Carolinian

        You sound like the expert but on the Newshour last nght they said the AR-15’s high velocity low mass rounds are specifically designed to upset and tumble when hitting tissue and therefore create garish wounds. The small bullets and design of the rifle also reduce recoil and help with rapid fire. The point of the segment was that this is not a hunting rifle since it would make a mess out of the game. It is a machine for killing humans.

        1. James Levy

          I looked it up and there are 7.62mm and a 5.56mm variants to the AR-15. The smaller caliber bullet would act just as you indicate, but the bigger one in its full metal jacket form would do as was said above–punch through things pretty cleanly. We’d have to know what size and type bullet we are talking about to draw any conclusions.

        2. inode_buddha

          Newshour is 30 yrs out of date. It is used extensively for hunting, especially in the south. The “tumbling dum-dums” are a relic of viet nam. Mostly out of favor due to poor accuracy at long ranges. Whether the bullets tumble has everything to do with the rate of rifling twist — which was corrected back in the 70’s so that they wouldn’t. I hope to ghod you folks aren’t trying to get anything factual from a MSM outlet re guns anyhow — the entire thing is like the “story” about gm pickups exploding.

      2. Antifa

        Pardon, but the weapon used in Orlando was a Sig Sauer MCX. When it comes to killing lots of people, it works quite like the AR-15, but it is a different design altogether.

        Given the firing rate of 45 rounds per minute, and the tumbling effect of its rounds, no sane person would shoot a deer, bear, or moose with a rifle like this. It rips the game up too much.

        1. MikeNY

          Thanks for the correction. I’m no expert on guns and somewhere got the notion it was an AR-15.

      3. Gaianne

        The AR-15 is, as you say, a high-velocity rifle. However, the light-weight .22 calibre bullet is not designed to penetrate (though it will go easily through low-density materials), but to fly more-or-less straight through air and then tumble upon entering flesh (density 1 gm/cc). Tumbling causes tremendous damage, and the AR-15 is far more destructive to living creatures than both lower velocity .22s and high calibre rifles of any velocity.

        By the way, the destructive power of the AR-15 makes it strictly an anti-personnel weapon. It is useless for hunting (wrecks the meat). Designed for spray-and-pray, it is not good for target practice either.

        –Gaianne

    4. Pat

      Please do not forget that high powered high velocity rounds can go through some exterior walls. This is important because unless it hits a bone, flesh is actually much less resistant than even the cheapest plywood or mdf. Multiple people could have been hit with one shot. Probably not many, but in a crowded situation not impossible at all.

  17. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Cats CAN understand physics – When hot, they seek cool places.

    They understand medicine – When thirsty, they drink.

    But sometimes, they don’t understand physics the way acrophobic humans do – they scale incredibly dangerous heights (for humans, that would induce vertigo). So, we humans are still more intelligent than cats…phew….

    1. fresno dan

      and they really understand can openers….

      And when I pull a string to play with my cat, she perfectly understands when the string goes behind the couch to jump over the couch to …(dare I say it?) – get a jump on the string…

      And speaking of heights, I hadn’t seen her climb a tree, but for some reason she goes tearing up an oak at full speed all the way to the top and way out on a tiny limb. I am terrified of heights and I yelled at her to come down…while she serenely ignored me….so I went inside an opened a can of cat food…

    2. Antifa

      And let’s admit it, they are way ahead of us in quantum physics, wormholes, and the like. You can follow a cat into a room, search high and low for it without success, and when you finally retire to the kitchen to consider how this is possible — there’s the cat.

      1. lulu

        They don’t get it about the crazy little red dot, though… still, they can see things people don’t. The Japanese say that cats protect you from ghosts.

  18. Reify99

    Re: Is Borges still dead?
    …Depends on if you notice him waving at you or not.

    On the one hand:
    Every day Whack-a-Mole treatment, and the Edward Bernay’s sauce smeared and congealing all over everything MSM, hammers at and glues our attention to the narrative of (the oligarchs’) choice if we let it. And it’s all about specifics. Look at THIS, and THIS, and THIS. No stray thoughts allowed.

    On the other hand:
    Borges builds a library in our imagination,
    knowing that, once the infrastructure is there, we will each use it differently.
    He uses spare evocations that he knows will have lives of their own beyond his own map of where they might go.

    Each could be said to be a kind of hypnosis. Maybe we could say that one is hypnosis as practiced by jack hammers, the other as practiced by sky writers.

    Now the question arises, if you’ve been hypnotized how do you know? Or how do you find out? Did you do it, or did someone do it to you?

    It could be that the habit someone
    (the hypnotist) gave you proves too confining and you come to realize it.
    Think Bill Murray, Groundhog Day.
    You may not know what’s next but you know this ISN’T IT.

    Or one could have a dream, a la Carlos Castenada,
    where as a sorceress’ apprentice you stand with Borges and you both hold her hand as you practice, as a group, jumping off a cliff and back up. Over and over again. One minute you are on the cliff, feeling the sun warm against your skin, a dry breeze against your face. The next you are below, sand squishing between your toes, cooler humid air, plant smells. As this goes on you relax, becoming aware of details, many of which are sensory. You lose your flip-flops somewhere. At some point, when you are down below, Borges bends over, picks up a leaf, puts it in your hand, folds your fingers closed. Smiles, says nothing. You wake and you don’t remember the dream.

    A few weeks later you find a leaf in your desk. It smells a bit swampy. You wonder where it came from. There seem to be several possibilities.

  19. Dave

    “American attitudes towards refugees”?

    Hmmmm…ask a homeless veteran or an American family living in their car about
    the refugees’ immediate $1,800 cash grant, free housing, food stamps, medicaid,
    and SSI benefits? Plus all the private culturally based charity.

    I’m sure the Americans will have some thoughts about that.

    1. jrs

      And then explain to the veteran that American wars helped create the refugee situation in the first place. Hmmm. Yea it’s largely the fault of the powerful of course, but it’s all connected.

      1. SpringTexan

        Thanks jrs. We cannot let needs here make us cold to all humanity. If Dave wants to press for doing more for the homeless, I’m down with that. If it’s supposed to make us callous to people who are fleeing starvation and bombing, I’m so NOT down with that. Nor are our refugee benefits even very generous at all.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          That’s the least we can do to help those war refugee.

          Reactive, though.

          Pro-active – send money to those not able to make the arduous journey here.

          That is, help for war refugees should not be preconditioned on risking (yet again) their lives on a perilous journey, so they might, one day, make the imperial GDP even larger.

          Who knows, some of them could be so smart they contribute to make powerful weapons like those WWII physicists? Would they be better off (and for the world and Nature as well), staying at their peaceful and prosperous home country, not molested by the empire, living as sustainable farmers or bee-keepers?

      2. Steve in Flyover

        Haven’t fought a war in Mexico for a long time. But that’s where most of our local “undocumenteds” come from. It’s also where most of the manufacturing jobs are going, not China.

        We aren’t getting the college educated and skilled tradesmen we used to get (as recently as the Vietnamese “boat people”) who came here due to religious or political persecution. We are getting the ones who can’t get a decent job in Mexico.

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          It has been a long, continuous neo-liberal war of exploitation in Mexico.

        2. Int

          Nafta was a form of economic warfare on peasants and the poor of Mexico. Not to even mention the drug war that was pushed for by the American and Mexican elites that has caused so much suffering. 150000+ dead bodies, countless disappeared.

  20. fresno dan

    http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-oreilly-orlando-fox-news-2016-6

    Bill O’Reilly of FOX:
    “There is too much gun crime in the USA, and high-powered weaponry is too easy to get,” he said. “That’s the fact. So let’s deal with it. We all have the right to bear arms, but we don’t have the right to buy and maintain mortars. Even if you feel threatened by gangsters or a New World Order. No bazookas, no Sherman tanks, no hand grenades.”

    “That’s because the Second Amendment clearly states the government has a right to regulate militias, made up of individuals,” he continued. “They have that right in the name of public safety. Therefore, Congress should debate what kind of weapons should be available for public sale. And the states, the individual states, should decide what kind of carry laws are good for their own people.”

    O’Reilly said new laws were “definitely needed” in the face of new terrorist threats and mass murders.

    “The FBI and other federal agencies need the power to stop suspected terrorists or other evildoers from buying weapons,” he said. “That law needs to be very precise.”

    “Also, gun dealers all across America should be required to report the sale of certain kinds of guns, heavy weapons, directly to the FBI,” he continued. “Not handguns, not talking about that, but other weapons that would be defined by Congress. That is a sane approach and would make it a lot tougher for the Omar Mateens of the world to get the weaponry to kill.”

    =============================================
    I will be interested to see if O’Reilly walks this back in the next few days….if not, we may have a Cronkite says that Vietnam is lost moment.

    1. Steve in Flyover

      So let me get this straight. The “militia” will be regulated, by banning military style weapons?

      So once again, the kabuki starts. Anyone suggesting that there is a middle ground on this issue will be shouted down by the NRA, or by the “Nobody needs an AR-15” crowd. Or both.

  21. Pat

    Refusing to cover Trump is big in the media today. The ladies of the View today called out the news media for creating Trump by giving him coverage…for ten minutes after covering both Obama and Clinton responding to him. I was struggling to get something ready for a deadline and still ended up laughing at them. First I’m not sure they get how much of the right despises them, and secondly I don’t think they got that they would have to stop talking about him, to stop giving him coverage. That even saying nasty things about him is giving him the free publicity they were decrying.

    But we live in a Nation where pointless gestures apparently still work, I had a couple of people impressed because Democrats erupted after the moment of silence – calling “Where’s the Bill?” without realizing that it wasn’t even that good on a show level. I mean why not wave something around and go “Here’s the Bill, let’s vote!!!”

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      She says, ‘I am not going to speak to you again.”

      Life is paradoxical.

      “I have no rules – that’s my only rule.”

      “I believe in nothing. That’s what I believe.”

      1. Jeff W

        Paradoxical injunctions:

        “Be spontaneous!”

        Do not read this sentence.

        (Communication theory is, at times, helpful.)

  22. polecat

    ‘The View”…. blech!! ……Manufactured Hollywood drivel with a wafer thin coating of ‘liberal populism’ chaired by a rotating passel of has-been actresses & harpies!

    I thank Heyzeus for giving me the strength to ditch the TV years ago!

  23. Steve in Flyover

    The difference between jet engines, and corporate managers of jet airplane manufacturing companies?

    The jet engines whine less………

    The biggest whine continues to be “we can’t find qualified people”. One of my former foreman/supervisor buddies told me that they aren’t getting any experienced applicants at all, even though their pay rates are “as good, or better than anyone in the industry”.

    As it so happens, I still talk with the union steward who was on my crew. He sent me a copy of the current IAM contract.

    A new hire A&P, with (preferably) a couple years experience starting pay rate = $16.43/hour. (I noticed on their employment website that they are starting to waive the “A&P license” requirement for people with previous experience working on cars/trucks/heavy equipment).

    Not that hot. But even worse is what “Crew Chiefs” get. These are the guys directing a crew on a major maintenance project. Ten years plus of experience isn’t too much.

    An absolute maximum rate of pay, including 45 cents/hour for “shift differential” for working on second shift? $35/hour. About $72K a year, assuming they don’t run you into the ground on overtime.

    But they will, because after 40 hours, the company keeps the money deducted for benefits.

    Don’t worry…….you get a automatic 1.5% raise every two years thru 2024, plus a .3% COLA for every 1% rise in the inflation rate.

    And this is considered “industry leading”……….

    1. Left in Wisconsin

      I laugh (sadly) every time I hear some nitwit claim that manufacturing jobs are low skill.

      1. Steve in Flyover

        And so much for the “free market” baloney.

        I’ve experienced it myself. A Director of Maintenance/Crew Chief is essentially an “Asset Manager”. In my case, I’m “managing” a portfolio of business jets worth $10-12 million, with operating budgets in the hundreds of thousands yearly.

        Then, auger one in, because of a maintenance issue. It get’s REALLY expensive.

        But God forbid someone make the suggestion that you are “worth” $100K/year or more. “We just don’t pay people like you that much….”

        The one thing I’ve learned in my career is that US management won’t pay 10% more to be 50% better. They won’t mind spending $100K later when something blows up, instead of spending $5K on something that might prevent it from happening.

        And as always, “nobody could see it coming”

    2. inode_buddha

      Wow, that’s almost as bad as my field (Industrial maint./millwright/mechanic/pipe-fitter/welding plus some machinists certs) 30 yrs exp gets you in the door at 14/hr now. For code pipe welding?!?! The union starts apprentices at 15/hr. I told all my nephews don’t go into industry unless you are union or you own the company. Everyone else gets screwed, hard. Myself, I walked away. I’ll figure out something else to do.

      1. ambrit

        Roughly the same for plumbing. Plus, such trades as these are very physically demanding. I’m nearly burnt out at 60, and, the old, you’re a dime a dozen thinking now controls the middle management who hires and pays the actual workers.
        I have consistently been treated better by ‘one horse’ outfits than big concerns. The immediacy and hands on knowledge the small proprietor possesses leads to saner demands and pay. The best job manager I worked for started out as a welder. No college, just individual courses to pick up needed knowledge. The newly minted MBAs were the worst because they did not have the experience to even recognize when some order of theirs was counter productive. What is worse, these neophytes don’t know enough to realize when they are being strung along by con men pretending to be trained help.
        Gresham should be made a Saint. So many worship at his shrine and believe in the miraculous.

  24. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Our bodies have so many cancer causing chemicals.

    Is it like Global Warming – too late to do anything about it?

    “Thank you, scientists. I don’t think stupid people could have brought us all those chemicals…all by themselves, that is.”

    Perhaps the smart people assume everyone in the world is smart. That’s not a smart assumption.

    1. ambrit

      I like to think that the stumbling block is that the “smart people” think that the world is run by smart people.

  25. ambrit

    Just an idea, but, all this AP massaging of the H Clinton election ‘inevitability’ has me thinking about elections in general.
    Why not ban all pronouncements concerning an election (including polls) from, say, two days before an election till the end of actual polling? Actual political messages, such as policy and character disputation, can be exempted.
    Of course, while we’re at it, paper ballots, hand counted in public, and no computers involved.

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