News from California....
House Republicans today voted overwhelmingly in support of a bill that would change the name of the San Andreas Fault to Obama's Fault.
1/ An excellent, thoughtful article from Thomas Frank about the recent election and the clever, but horribly cynical way the oligarchy continues to fool the vast pool of uninformed Americans.......and the Democrats just keep on with the same old, same old.....
As always from Frank, a fine piece of political analysis.....
Karl Rove, David Koch (Credit: AP/Marion Curtis/Reuters/Carlo Allegri/Photo montage by Salon)
Last week, with the Republican campaign robo-calls coming one after another over the phone in suburban Kansas City — at least a dozen of them every day, the right-wing super PACs’ version of a World War I artillery barrage — I picked out one phrase from the hailstorm of words: “Washington’s liberal class.”
That phrase, delivered with sneering emphasis on the second word, may have been a key to the whole confusing affair. Consider the many ironies of the 2014 elections. Georgia, the state with the highest unemployment in the nation, just elected as its United States senator a businessman who is “proud” of his career of outsourcing. The voters of Illinois overwhelmingly approved a referendum calling for a higher minimum wage, but they also chose as their governor a Wall Street type who in the past has asserted that the minimum wage ought to be reduced or eliminated. And the public as a whole, driven to fury by the spectacle of Washington gridlock, just handed over the U. S. Senate to a party that has enshrined obstructionism as its most precious article of faith.
Low turnout is one reason for these contradictory results. Big money is a second. But a third reason voters did these futile, clashing things is that this is our fourth hard-times election in a row. Lashing out blindly and in all directions against the powerful — against low wages as well as against a comfortable “class” that is amply represented in Washington — is still our political default position, some six years after the financial crisis and the Wall Street bailout. For many Americans, the recession is still on. They know that their region hasn’t recovered … that their household wealth isn’t coming back … that people like them no longer have a shot at the middle-class life in which they were raised.
2/ In right wing media world stories, even if they aren't true, live forever.....Rachel Maddow with a good seven minute segment on the Breitbart fiasco about the Attorney General nominee.....
Rachel Maddow spent her entire opening segment tonight going after conservative media and Breitbart specifically for running that ridiculousLoretta Lynch piece about the wrong Loretta Lynch. But Maddow used this to go after right-wing media as a whole for making up their own facts. In case you need a reminder, Breitbart ran a piece claiming Lynch, President Obama‘s nominee for attorney general, was part of Bill Clinton‘s Whitewater defense team.
Except that was a totally different Loretta Lynch. Not at all the same person. And Maddow took perhaps an unreasonable amount of glee in ripping Breitbart over the error, mockingly asking, “Why won’t the lamestream media tell the truth?!”
Maddow hammered away at Breitbart for a few minutes before broadening her critique to a conservative “parallel universe” where “no matter how stuff gets corrected or laughed at or ridiculed or even occasionally ignored in the real media, on the right, this is what the news looks like.”
3/ Another excellent John Oliver, comedic reporting on state lotteries and how their money is spent. Even though you know your state lottery is a fraud, it's worth watching as a reminder.....14 funny and informative minutes....
Anyone who's ever bought a lottery ticket needs to see John Oliver's explanation of how it all works.
First, there are the remote odds of winning, described on "Last Week Tonight" as akin to being struck by lightning while being eaten by a shark.
Secondly, there's the notion that playing the lottery can help fund education, which is supposed to make lottery players feel good about spending money on the games even when they lose. But as Oliver revealed on Sunday night, the truth about where that money goes might not leave you feeling very good at all:
In North Carolina, for example, the lottery promised to add an extra $500 million to education every year when it was launched a decade ago. Today, the state spends less per student on education than it did when the lottery began, Oliver said.
4/ An amusing French commercial.......30 seconds....."Emma"......
5/ A great piece of journalism in the Hunter S. Thompson style, on the Republican victory and the Democrat's confusion and fumbling. I like this type of writing, fast paced with wry humour.....
So far the game plan seems to be, "Hillary, do something!" If, like CNN's august panel pulling down seven figures while despoiling the last vestiges of dignity in the commonwealth, you assume that the next two years don't matter, this might be a good plan. A record turnout of women voters could potentially carry down to the congressional slate and recapture the Senate in 2016—at which point, the GOP's gerrymandered control of the House and budgetary obduracy will still be there. But this assumes that the identity politics of a woman candidate will recreate among a more electorally diverse group—women—the same kind of demographic dominance that a black Democratic candidate could generate among a racial group that already heavily skews Democrat. And that's before addressing the fact that no one was sick of Barack Obama in 2008; he didn't carry eight years of exhaustion at sex scandals, bogus congressional investigations, shit-stupid "IMPEACH BILLARY" bumper stickers and a vote for the Iraq War.
President Obama speaks during a press conference on November 5th, 2014 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Brendan Smialowki/Getty)
Worse, if you're of the opinion that the Democrats' fundamental failure is an inability to run as actual Democrats while constantly querulously moving toward Republican Lite, Hillary presents a curious solution. Former Reagan advisor and Bush I Treasury official Bruce Bartlett cites numerous examples of right-wing coziness with Hillary, and her war bona fides approach mongery. Watching/reading what passes for "left-wing" commentators in the Beltway, one gets the sense that they think simply making Hillary run will somehow turn her into a liberal firebrand — the same cursed hope that says, "My boyfriend is an alcoholic, but if I marry him, he'll feel responsible enough to quit." All this from the same people who watched Hillary and Obama turn green at the gills next to John Edwards' brand of quasi-liberalism and their palpable sense of relief when he cratered.
The complement to "Save Us, Hillary!" is naturally, "Save Us, Elizabeth Warren!" Again, it's not a national platform or cohesive party strategy down the ticket. Instead, what will happen is that Elizabeth Warren — someone who is not running for president — will run for president and in the process drive Hillary to the left, so when she wins, she'll have to be a liberal. And if we had some eggs, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some ham.
6/ Stephen Colbert had fun with this four minute clip, roasting the fact that Senator Inhofe will now be the Chairman of the Senate science committee....good one, some great zingers....
With the Republican Senate victory Tuesday came the slow realization that Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), a man who literally wrote the book
on climate change denial, was poised to takeover the Environment and Public Works Committee. On Thursday night, Stephen Colbert used Inhofe’s views as a jumping off point to examine the GOP’s general stance on climate, which he summed up as, “We don’t know what the fuck we’re talking about.”
on climate change denial, was poised to takeover the Environment and Public Works Committee. On Thursday night, Stephen Colbert used Inhofe’s views as a jumping off point to examine the GOP’s general stance on climate, which he summed up as, “We don’t know what the fuck we’re talking about.”
As Colbert explained, most Republicans don’t outright deny that climate change is man-made, but instead employ the “brilliant tactic” of those four simple words, “I’m not a scientist.”
“Everyone who denies climate change has the same stirring message: ‘We don’t know what the fuck we’re talking about,’” Colbert said. “I hope that these conservative leaders can inspire all the children out there watching to think to themselves, ‘Hey, maybe someday I could grow up to be not-a-scientist.’”
“Remember kids,” he added, “if you get unhooked on science early, maybe someday you could completely lack any understanding of science and then grow up to be the chairman of the Senate Environmental Committee.
7/ And to expand on the climate change denial, here is four minutes of politicians being asked about their views on climate change running up to the election......scary stuff - all of the scum featured in this video won....
We took a look at the ways in which leading politicians answered simple questions about climate change during the midterms this year and compiled a video. As coal, oil and gas interests have appeared as the primary sponsors of Republican candidates this election cycle, Republic Report has watched as an increasing number of candidates this year have expressed doubt that pollution from their benefactors causes climate change. The influence of fossil fuel money is sure to have a policy impact as well. A - See more at: http://www.republicreport.org/
8/ We have had some good articles about the state of Kansas, and how the Governor, Sam Brownback, has wrecked the state economy by implementing huge tax cuts for corporations, paid for by gutting education and social services. It looked like the voters in Kansas were pissed off enough at this exercise in Tea Party economics to get him out, but it was not to be - after the Koch brothers poured tens of millions into the race, he was reelected. Now the news has come out the damage to the state budget was worse than it appeared.
So middle class and working Kansans - for the next four years you will be financially abused, while the elites in your state will do just fine....suck it up, because you did it to yourselves. If you were stupid enough to vote Republican, or sat at home ignoring your obligation to vote, you deserve what's coming to you.
You can't fix stupid......
Sam Brownback (Credit: AP/Charlie Riedel)
Less than one week after Kansas voters narrowly reelected Gov. Sam Brownback despite the disastrous budgetary consequences of his massive tax cuts for the wealthy, state analysts announced Monday that the state’s fiscal outlook is even more dire than initially realized.
We’ve known for some time that Brownback’s supply-side experiment has been a big budget-buster. Thanks to the governor’s tax cuts, Kansas collected $330 million less revenue than expected for fiscal year 2014 — $700 million below revenue for fiscal 2013. Despite the Brownback administration’s assurances that the state’s fiscal picture would improve — any day now! — the state’s revenue from July to September came up an astonishing 10 percent short of expectations.
The numbers released yesterday are even worse.
Kansas’ revenue forecasts have once again proven far too rosy, with revenue estimates for the current fiscal year now $205 million lower than they were in April. State officials now say that lawmakers will need to slash $278 million in spending no later than June to balance the budget. Moreover, the state’s reserve fund — which contained $379 million just four months ago — will be completely depleted, forecasters say. To avert a deficit in the next fiscal year, lawmakers will also have to cut an additional $435 million from a $5.9 billion budget, the Topeka Capital-Journal reports.
“Sam Brownback spent the last six months lying to the people of Kansas. He knew all along that his fiscal experiment had bankrupted our state,” state Sen. Anthony Hensley, the Democratic minority leader, said in response to the new numbers. ”Now he and his followers will get exactly what they wanted — to starve public schools, to raid the highway fund and to cut the social service safety net that so many Kansans depend on. All of this for the sake of his own reelection and political aspirations,” he added.
9/ An agitated Bill Maher on the same theme - it's the people who stay at home that are the problem......I've rarely seen him so passionate - he is still funny, but it's a serious message.....
After a midterm election in which barely one third of eligible Americans showed up to vote, Bill Maher decided to dedicate his final “New Rule” of the night to his view on why voting matters. If less people had voted in the last two presidential elections, he posited, we could have ended up with President Mitt McCain.
Maher took aim at Russell Brand, who just published a new book called Revolution
, in which he tells young people not to vote “because the system is so awful and so dirty that the only solution if to bring it down — not by violence, but not by voting either. No, by some sort of spiritual awakening.”
, in which he tells young people not to vote “because the system is so awful and so dirty that the only solution if to bring it down — not by violence, but not by voting either. No, by some sort of spiritual awakening.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, fine. You know what? Don’t vote,” he said. “But don’t dress it up as something noble or sophisticated. The fake excuses offend me.”
To illustrate his point, Maher imagined the “alternative reality” in which Obama lost twice and instead we had President Mitt McCain, who never would have implemented the stimulus or saved the auto industry. “Instead of Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court, we have Paula Deen and Joe the Plumber,” he said. And “the attorney general is Dick Cheney’s head.”
“Keep telling yourself that because politics is dirty, so very dirty, that you, precious, by not voting or informing yourself or participating in any way, are clean,” Maher concluded. “If your hands aren’t dirty, it’s not because you’re pure. It’s because you’re not helping.”
10/ Where has Matt Taibbi been? Turns out the move he made to First Look Media didn't work out, so here he is back at Rolling Stone with a story about the whistleblower JP Morgan Chase and the Justice Department have been trying to silence.
Great story - our best financial journalist is back......
And now, with Holder about to leave office and his Justice Department reportedly wrapping up its final settlements, the state is effectively putting the finishing touches on what will amount to a sweeping, industrywide effort to bury the facts of a whole generation of Wall Street corruption. "I could be sued into bankruptcy," she says. "I could lose my license to practice law. I could lose everything. But if we don't start speaking up, then this really is all we're going to get: the biggest financial cover-up in history."
Alayne Fleischmann grew up in Terrace, British Columbia, a snowbound valley town just a brisk 18-hour drive north of Vancouver. She excelled at school from a young age, making her way to Cornell Law School and then to Wall Street. Her decision to go into finance surprised those closest to her, as she had always had more idealistic ambitions. "I helped lead a group that wrote briefs to the Human Rights Chamber for those affected by ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina," she says. "My whole life prior to moving into securities law was human rights work."
11/ If you like drumming, you'll like this - a Korean girl group called Drumcat with an amazing display of power drumming......it's only a minute, but it's exhausting to watch!
12/ Another excellent analysis of what happened to the Democrats.......
Well before this election my theory was that the two parties were appendages of the oligarchy - the Republicans were blatantly and unashamedly the party of the wealthy, and could care less about the 90% of the country - the Democrats were more secretive about their support for the rich, but did a decent job of pretending to care about the middle class. The problem is now the voters are beginning, in varied ways, to see through this charade. Old stupid white people are angry, and everyone else is demoralised....nothing changes....
The author of this piece sees the problem as starting with our corporate President, who certainly in his first six years was just another shill for the boys....an interesting viewpoint. Yes Obama has done some good things, but think business - Obamacare is good for the medical industry, drug and insurance companies as well as covering millions of Americans.
And explain the NSA, the TPP which the President is still pushing and the military industrial complex.....business as usual.
Charlie Baker, Scott Brown, Larry Hogan (Credit: AP/Stephan Savoia/Jim Cole/Patrick Semansky)
The morning after their humiliating defeat, Democrats looked out at a landscape strewn like a Civil War battlefield with the corpses of their dead. This election exposed their weaknesses, shredded their alibis and cast doubt on the notion that there was ever such a thing as a blue state. New England is a case in point. In 2008 and 2012 Barack Obama swept the region. On Tuesday it went absolutely haywire.
In Maine, right-wing crank Paul Lepage won in part due to a ballot question on bear baiting. Massachusetts Democrat Martha Coakley lost to a guy who wept while telling a heart-tugging story he’d apparently made up. Connecticut’s Dannel Malloy squeaked past a study in political ineptitude. Rhode Island Democrat Gina Raimondo won a three-way governor’s race with 41 percent of the vote. (Robert Healey, founder of Rhody’s Cool Moose Party and a dead ringer for Mister Natural, got 20 percent) In the New Hampshire Senate race, likable centrist Jeanne Shaheen was nearly knocked off by carpet-bagging lightweight Scott Brown.
And so it went everywhere. Democrats must now navigate the stages of grief, a tough task for a party so prone to denial. On MSNBC, Chris Hayes argued that Democratic candidates erred in running away from Obama. So did an indignant Al Sharpton and even Republican Joe Scarborough. Many liberal pundits had urged Democrats to stand by their man. Paul Krugman recently called Obama “one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history.”
I think they’re all wrong. Obama left the Democrats in Congress long before they left him. They know their districts and states better than any pundits do and only bailed on Obama when voters started bailing on them, by which time it was too late. Their real mistake was failing to speak up years ago when Obama abandoned many of their party’s principles, or even to realize he’d done it.
13/ "Honest Trailers" takes movies you may have seen and adds a funny soundtrack to the trailer....and if you had the misfortune to see the first two "Hobbit" movies you will appreciate this honest trailer......three amusing minutes.....
14/ One of the problems with having corporate media is you end getting your news from sources who pander to your views - and conservatives end up misinformed and manipulated, a Pew study has found. Note - this story was in Bloomberg News.....
A fascinating, and scary article.......
Liberals live on Mars and conservatives on Venus when comes to getting news about politics and government, and there's little overlap in the sources they turn to and trust, a study released Tuesday by the Washington-based Pew Research Center shows.
"In a nation marked by increasing ideological uniformity and partisan animosity, those with the most consistent ideological views on the left and the right have information streams that are very distinct from each other and from those of individuals with more mixed political views," the study says.
Even so, the report also shows that the modern information environment makes it hard to live in an ideological bubble. Most Americans rely on multiple outlets and many conservatives and liberals hear dissenting views in their everyday lives.
The study found that hard-core conservatives:
- Are tightly clustered around a single news source, far more than other groups in the survey, with 47 percent citing Fox News as their main source for government and political information.
- Express greater distrust than trust of 24 of the 36 news sources measured in the survey. At the same time, 88 percent trust Fox News.
- Are more likely than those in other ideological groups to hear political opinions on Facebook that are in line with their own views.
- Are more likely to have friends who share their own political views. Two-thirds say most of their close friends share their views on government and politics.
15/ Mark Bittman is the food columnist for the Times, and here he has written a good analysis of what the food industry is up to, how it is [not] regulated, and gives you two Very. Simple. Rules. to follow for you to take control of your diet.
SAN FRANCISCO — To a large extent, you can fix the food system in your world today. Three entities are involved in creating our food choices: business (everything from farmers to PepsiCo), government (elected and appointed officials and their respective organizations) and the one with the greatest leverage, the one that you control: you.
We shouldn’t discount small farms and businesses, nor should we ignore relatively minor officials like the mayor of El Monte, Calif., who tried (and failed) to establish a soda tax to benefit public health. We do not always know where real change will come from, and certainly smaller operations may be more innovative and show us the way.
But for the most part we know where real change doesn’t come from: Big Food, the corporations that supply most of the food and stuff masquerading as food that’s sold in supermarkets, as fast food and in casual dining chains; and government, especially the federal government, which is beholden to and entranced by big business. Nothing new here.
There often seem to be more happy exceptions in industry than in government. If you look at the relatively new companies that have blazed a path for the food industry, you see, among others, Whole Foods and Chipotle. One demonstrated that supermarkets could sell better ingredients; the other opened the door to non-junkie fast food.
16/ An excellent movie out last week "Fed Up", a reasoned look at the American diet and why obesity is constantly rising.....the simple answer in one word - sugar....
But also look at this line from the review "Finally, there are answers, surprising and not, which can be reduced to the ugly truth that it isn’t always in the best interests of both big business and the government to keep people healthy".
If you are interested in learning the latest on fighting what’s called the obesity epidemic, you may want to avoid the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website. There, in a section about balancing calories (“Healthy Weight — it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle!”), amid tips on reducing and exercising, you can read that “a calorie is a calorie regardless of its source.” The page also features a graphic of a scale with the words “calories in” and “calories out,” as if all calories were equal. The American Beverage Association, as it happens, pretty much says the same thing on its website: “Quite simply, overweight and obesity are a result of an imbalance between calories consumed and calories burned.”
The rest of it is just fine. With Ms. Couric as its guide, “Fed Up” introduces you to a mystery, namely the puzzle of rising obesity rates. From there, it moves into investigative mode, which is where it becomes more complex and transparently political, as the filmmakers explore who’s killing our health. The villains it nails include entities described in the movie as Big Sugar and such, which are sharply cut down to size by the likes of Robert H. Lustig, a neuroendocrinologist, author
"Fed Up" trailer......very good......
Todays video - "The Honey Badger", narration by Randall.....time for this classic again, and note it's been viewed 70 million times which is pretty high for a "normal" video, i.e. not Beyonce.........
Todays British ISIS joke
I was fed up with being burgled every other day in my neighbourhood. So, I tore out my alarm system & de-registered from our local Neighborhood Watch.
I've planted a Pakistani flag in each corner of my front garden and a large Black Flag of ISIL in its center.
Now, the Yorkshire police, the National Security Bureau, Scotland Yard, MI-5, MI-6, the CIA and every other intelligence service in Europe are all watching my house 24x7x365.
My children are followed to school every day and my wife when she goes shopping. I'm followed to and from work every day. So no one bothers me at all.
I've never felt safer.
Thanks be to Allah.
Todays funny signs jokes
Sign over a Gynecologist's Office: "Dr. Jones, at your cervix." In a Podiatrist's office: "Time wounds all heels." On a Septic Tank Truck: Yesterday's Meals on Wheels
At an Optometrist's Office: "If you don't see what you're looking for,
you've come to the right place."
On a Plumber's truck: "We repair what your husband fixed."
On another Plumber's truck: "Don't sleep with a drip. Call your plumber."
At a Tire Shop in Milwaukee : "Invite us to your next blowout."
On an Electrician's truck: "Let us remove your shorts."
In a Non-smoking Area: "If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."
On a Maternity Room door: "Push. Push. Push."
At a Car Dealership: "The best way to get back on your feet -miss a car payment."
Outside a Muffler Shop: "No appointment necessary. We hear you coming."
In a Veterinarian's waiting room: "Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!"
At the Electric Company "We would be delighted if you send in your payment. However, if you don't, you will be delighted."
In a Restaurant window: "Don't stand there and be hungry;
come on in and get fed up."
In the front yard of a Funeral Home: "Drive carefully. We'll wait."
At a Propane Filling Station: "Thank heaven for little grills."
And don't forget the sign at a CHICAGO RADIATOR SHOP: "Best place in town to take a leak."
And the best one for last............ Sign on the back of another Septic Tank Truck: "Caution - This Truck is full of Political Promises
At an Optometrist's Office: "If you don't see what you're looking for,
you've come to the right place."
On a Plumber's truck: "We repair what your husband fixed."
On another Plumber's truck: "Don't sleep with a drip. Call your plumber."
At a Tire Shop in Milwaukee : "Invite us to your next blowout."
On an Electrician's truck: "Let us remove your shorts."
In a Non-smoking Area: "If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."
On a Maternity Room door: "Push. Push. Push."
At a Car Dealership: "The best way to get back on your feet -miss a car payment."
Outside a Muffler Shop: "No appointment necessary. We hear you coming."
In a Veterinarian's waiting room: "Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!"
At the Electric Company "We would be delighted if you send in your payment. However, if you don't, you will be delighted."
In a Restaurant window: "Don't stand there and be hungry;
come on in and get fed up."
In the front yard of a Funeral Home: "Drive carefully. We'll wait."
At a Propane Filling Station: "Thank heaven for little grills."
And don't forget the sign at a CHICAGO RADIATOR SHOP: "Best place in town to take a leak."
And the best one for last............ Sign on the back of another Septic Tank Truck: "Caution - This Truck is full of Political Promises
A little old lady went to the grocery store to buy cat food. She picked up three cans and took them to the checkout counter.
The girl at the cash register said, "I'm sorry, but we cannot sell you cat food without proof that you have a cat. A lot of old people buy cat food to eat, and the management wants proof that you are buying the cat food for your cat."The little old lady went home, picked up her cat and brought it back to the store.They sold her the cat food. The next day, she tried to buy two cans of dog food.Again, the cashier said, "I'm sorry, but we cannot sell you dog food without proof that you have a dog. A lot of old people buy dog food to eat, but the management wants proof that you are buying the dog food for your dog."
So she went home and brought in her dog.She then was able to buy the dog food. The next day she brought in a box with a hole in the lid.The little old lady asked the cashier to stick her finger in the hole.
The cashier said, "No, you might have a snake in there."
The little old lady assured her that there was nothing in the box that would harm her.
So the cashier put her finger into the box and quickly pulled it out.
She said to the little old lady, "That smells like shit."
The little old lady said, "It is. I want to buy three rolls of toilet paper."Don't mess with old people.
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