1/ Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy for President this week, and although the media will ignore him don't completely discount the man - as Matt Taibbi says in this excellent story he is one of the very few honest politicians we have, and who knows - even some of the stupids could be ready for someone to fight for them.....naaaaa.....
Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone with an excellent [and personal] article.....
he agreed to let me, a reporter, stick next to him without restrictions over the course of a month in congress.
"People need to know how this place works. It's absurd," he'd said. (Bernie often uses the word absurd, his Brooklyn roots coming through in his pronunciation – ob-zert.)
Bernie wasn't quite so famous at the time and the editor scratched his head. "Bernie Sanders," he said. "That's the one who cares, right?"
"Right, that's the guy," I said.
I got the go-ahead and the resulting story was a wild journey through the tortuous bureaucratic maze of our national legislature. I didn't write this at the time, but I was struck every day by what a strange and interesting figure Sanders was.
Many of the battles he brought me along to witness, he lost. And no normal politician would be comfortable with the optics of bringing a Rolling Stone reporter to a Rules Committee hearing.
But Sanders genuinely, sincerely, does not care about optics. He is the rarest of Washington animals, a completely honest person. If he's motivated by anything other than a desire to use his influence to protect people who can't protect themselves, I've never seen it. Bernie Sanders is the kind of person who goes to bed at night thinking about how to increase the heating-oil aid program for the poor.
This is why his entrance into the 2016 presidential race is a great thing and not a mere footnote to the inevitable coronation of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. If the press is smart enough to grasp it, his entrance into the race makes for a profound storyline that could force all of us to ask some very uncomfortable questions.
http://www.rollingstone.com/
2/
The real significance of Bernie Sanders entering the race is still unclear, but as this excellent story in Salon by Bill Curry says Sanders will be a significant force in the campaign....he will be a focus for anyone looking for an honest politician. The mainstream media will discount him, mock his policies and ruthlessly denigrate him, but he might surprise us all......I
certainl
y hope so
.
I was listening to NPR, they said that Bernie's website gets more daily hits than every other politician [both parties] plus the White House combined. Mary and I have often heard him on the Thom Hartmann show on Sirius, as he does an hour every Friday taking calls from ordinary people.....is there any other politician in America that takes unscripted calls from the public? Of course not, and Sanders is consistent and fair with his answers - also if he doesn't know the answer to a question, he says so. He will be a very interesting candidate, because there's a deep dissatisfaction with business as usual.....
Bernie Sanders really matters: He doesn’t have to win to build a progressive movement
Stop thinking about winners, losers and the dumb horse race. Let's build at the grass roots and debate what matters
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., smiles as he is asked about running for president during a news conference on Capitol Hill. (Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
At 73, Bernie Sanders must still like to campaign. On Thursday he kicked off a race for president of the United States, the Iron Man triathlon of politics. He has run 20 races already, as many as Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton combined. He says this one, like all the rest, will be a grassroots movement financed by small-donor giving. All politicians say that, but in a career spanning 43 years, Sanders has shown he means it. It’s just one of the reasons why people say he can’t win.
It isn’t the only one, as Washington handicappers hasten to explain. Another is his allegedly unsociable personality. It’s true that he isn’t much of a networker; you won’t see many “Friend of Bernie” pins. He’ll do well with small groups; one on one, not so much. He doesn’t even have quiet charisma. He relies more on logic than charm — and everyone he’s met says that’s the right call.
Most other analysis is standard-issue political punditry. Noting that “there have been no top-flight hires,” Politico quotes a “labor strategist” who says Sanders “doesn’t have a shot” at union endorsements. Bloomberg says “his aversion to big-dollar fundraising raises questions about whether he can collect cash at the level needed to compete with Clinton.” No doubt working with inside sources, the New York Times’ Nate Cohn confides that Sanders “will most likely champion the liberal cause” and then explains why that can’t possibly work: “The left wing of the Democratic Party just isn’t big enough to support a challenge to the left of a mainstream liberal Democrat like Mrs. Clinton.”
Cohn backs up his thesis with a 2014 Pew poll that says lots of Democrats aren’t really liberals. How 2008 turned out the way it did, he doesn’t say.
3/
John Oliver with one of his journalism pieces on the fashion industry, and how clothing has become cheaper over the last decades and why......actually you know why - it's being made in horrific conditions by sweatshops all over the world....
Not his funniest piece, but some good humour along with some truths that we really don't want to hear as we slip on our inexpensive clothes....
Seventeen minutes....
(Credit: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver)
The average American buys 64 items of clothing per year. That’s fantastic news for CEOs of fast fashion retailers (the chairman of H&M is the 28th richest person in the world; the co-founder of Zara is the 4th richest person of the world) and ghastly news for the thousands of children working in overseas sweatshops — often under incredibly dangerous working conditions — to produce the high volume of clothing necessary.
“Sweatshops aren’t one of those ’90s problems we got rid of like Donnie Wahlberg,” John Oliver said, ripping into the fashion industry on Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight.” “They’re more like one of those problems we’re still very much dealing with like Mark Wahlberg.”
While it’s been Gap Inc. that’s received most of the media’s attention for its use of overseas sweatshops in the last two decades, Oliver reminded everyone that the problem is hitting retailers like H&M, Zara and Forever 21 (the store that allows “Midwestern tweens to dress like fortysomething alcoholics attending the funeral of a Tel Aviv nightclub owner”) just as hard.
4/ Samantha Bee has been a wonderful part of the Daily Show, and Jon Stewart gave her a tribute of the many roles she has played over the years.......she was one of his best correspondents, and it was a reminder of how much we will miss his show.....
A great six minutes, and it moved her to tears at the end.....
After 12 years as one of The Daily Show’s most valuable correspondents, Samantha Bee said goodbye Thursday night before starting work her own “current events-based” comedy program for TBS.
Jon Stewart saluted the “delightful, incredibly funny” longest-serving member of “The Best Fucking News Team Ever” with a montage of her best field pieces, including, of course, her one-woman show about The Five and even better her legendary examination of “choice” at the 2008 Republican National Convention.
When Bee finally took the stage, she was crying even harder than she anticipated. All she could do was take a small bow for the audience before Stewart cut to commercial.
5/ This resonated with me - it's an article by Robert Reich on how Americans are feeling helpless in the face of corporate power.....
Why So Many Americans Feel So Powerless
SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 2015
A security guard recently told me he didn’t know how much he’d be earning from week to week because his firm kept changing his schedule and his pay. “They just don’t care,” he said.
A traveler I met in the Dallas Fort-Worth Airport last week said she’d been there eight hours but the airline responsible for her trip wouldn’t help her find another flight leaving that evening.
“They don’t give a hoot,” she said.
Someone I met in North Carolina a few weeks ago told me he had stopped voting because elected officials don’t respond to what average people like him think or want. “They don’t listen,” he said.
What connects these dots? As I travel around America, I’m struck by how utterly powerless most people feel.
The companies we work for, the businesses we buy from, and the political system we participate in all seem to have grown less accountable. I hear it over and over: They don’t care; our voices don’t count.
A large part of the reason is we have fewer choices than we used to have. In almost every area of our lives, it’s now take it or leave it.
6/ Baltimore, ah Baltimore......Jon Stewart with an excellent segment on how we only pay attention to problems when they explode.....
By the way some of the ongoing coverage on Fox News is disgusting - Hannity actually said Freddie Gray broke his spine himself.....
Jon Stewart opened tonight’s Daily Show by tackling the violence last night in Baltimore, and said maybe people should care a little more about it and other cities before they’re “on fire” and the media suddenly notices.
After some jokes at Wolf Blitzer‘s expense, Stewart tackled the slow response to the violence on Monday night and said it’s a little “fucked up” when Baltimore’s “last, most successful employment program was casting extras for a show about how fucked-up your city was.”
Stewart said people should maybe stop ignoring the roots of the problems in these communities and pay more attention than just freak out every time a “periodic fiery ball of anger threatens to enter our airspace.”
7/ And continuing with Baltimore, here is an amusing SNL skit of sportscasters trying to avoid any references to the troubles.....and of course it doesn't end well......look for Scarlett Johanssen in a couple of appearances in this four minute clip.....
SNL, of course, addressed the unrest in Baltimore tonight with some color commentary of the empty-stadium Orioles-White Sox game.
And the sportscasters did their best to try and avoid any awkward talk of rioting or burning buildings or the word “Negros.”
Guess how well that went.
8/ You may have missed this Floriduh piece on a man who murdered two of his neighbors and wounded a third, citing the stand your ground defense.....
A very strange story, on how the neighbors used to go over to the [killers] house and harass his family....so he "stood his ground"....
Watch the two minute local news feed - look at the redneck in the witness box, and think how fucked up we are here in the sunshine state.....
Two years ago we brought you the story of Florida resident William T. Woodward, who after being accused of shooting three men, killing two of them, cited the state’s “stand your ground” laws and the “Bush Doctrine” of pre-emptive force as justifications for his actions. Well, this week, his court hearings began.
The 46-year-old Titusville, Fla., resident reportedly snuck up on three of his male neighbors during a Labor Day party and fired rounds at them. Since then, Woodward and his attorneys have deemed the assault a pre-emptive response to “imminent threats” from the neighbors, as they were allegedly harassing Woodward and his family.
WKMG Orlando has more details from Monday’s “Stand Your Ground” hearing:
Defense attorney Robert Berry described in great detail Monday morning all the alleged harassment and petty vengeances suffered by his client, William Woodward, 46, including lewd sexual comments aimed at his daughter.“But that is not why he shot them,” Berry said.Instead, he said Woodward waited until three shooting victims said they were going to “get him, and “end this,” before he took action.Woodward is accused of shooting and killing Gary Lee Hembree and Roger Picior and wounding Bruce Timothy Blake on Sept. 3, 2012.His attorneys showed hours of home surveillance video to the judge Monday afternoon. They claim it shows Hembree, Picior and their families yelling obscenities and taunting the Woodward family.
While the court decides whether Woodward can use the “stand your ground” defense under Florida law, he faces two charges of first-degree murder and one charge of attempted first-degree murder.
And as of Friday the judge decided he couldn't use "stand your ground"......
9/ Guy movie - "Mad Max - Fury Road" is coming out May 15th.....it's in 3D lads, so all of the ultra violence will be amazing.....
Here's the two minute trailer...
10/ College students are being pillaged by the university system, ending up in massive debt they cannot get out of for their degrees, and preyed on by for-profit schools like the University of Phoenix.....but the worst of them all was Corinthian, which is now bankrupt.....they were conned and exploited, but the gub'ment makes sure the debt lives on for their students.....
This is a sad story, but one that also should make you angry because it really illustrates what a corrupt society we live in......
Excellent article from The Atlantic.....
Corinthian Colleges, Inc., was once one of the largest for-profit higher-education companies in North America. The 20-year-old company owned well-known subsidiaries like Heald and Everest, institutions that pledged to provide affordable, efficient vocational training to nontraditional college students: single parents, military vets, high-school dropouts who wanted to get back on track. These colleges promised to help fix the nation’s broken higher-education system, putting degrees conveniently—and often virtually—in the hands of anyone who made the effort. Their commercials were so ubiquitous they were the subject of numerous YouTube spoofs.
But in recent years it became increasingly clear that Corinthian’s colleges were, in fact, partially to blame for the system being broken. The vision of a for-profit college education for all began to disintegrate because many students weren’t actually getting the education they were promised. Despite being charged thousands—sometimes tens of thousands—of dollars in tuition, hordes of Corinthian’s students failed to complete their programs, leaving with massive piles of debt or loans in default. And many of the students who did get degrees struggled to land jobs with livable wages, though the exact stats are unclear because Corinthian wasn’t particularly honest with its numbers. Members of Congress got more and more skeptical, as did federal prosecutors and state attorneys general. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wasn’t happy, nor was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
11/ You just read how Corinthian was basically fraudulent, but guess who used his influence to get the feds to lay off the diploma mill? Marco Rubio, our esteemed Senator and red hot Presidential candidate.....just another bought and sold corrupt politician......
Good story from Bloomberg News.....
Last summer, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida asked the U.S. Department of Education to "demonstrate leniency" toward Corinthian Colleges by permitting the wealthy for-profit company to continue accessing millions of dollars in federal financial aid while it was cooperating with a federal investigation.
Ten months later, the company shuttered its remaining 28 campuses, instantly displacing some 16,000 students just days after it was fined $30 million by the Department of Education for a scheme involving "confirmed cases of misrepresentation of job placement rates" for as many as 947 students. The decision to close shop came after years of federal and state investigations into the company.
The top-tier Republican presidential candidate had made his plea in a letter—obtained by Bloomberg Politics—dated June 20, 2014 and addressed to Jim Shelton, the deputy secretary of education, and Ted Mitchell, the undersecretary for post-secondary education
12/ Kiesza is a young singer you've never heard of, but she is also an amazing dancer.....this is her latest music video "Hideaway".......set in an inner city somewhere, with what seems like dozens of fit young ladies and gentlemen dancing their hearts out......decent song too......
13/ Dr. Oz was in the news last week - so much so John Oliver had a most amusing segment on him.....four funny minutes.....
It was almost a year ago that John Oliver took Dr. Mehmet Oz to task for pushing “magic” cures on his daytime medical show. But now that Oz is back in the news, the Last Week Tonight host decided to follow up with a look at how the doctor is defending himself against attacks from his fellow physicians.
Oliver described Oz as a “quack who serves his viewers horseshit dressed up as medicine” and called his response to those claims “pathetic.” For instance, Oz has used his The Dr. Oz Show logo, in which “Oz” is big and “Dr.” is small as evidence that he does not host a “medical show.” But of all the ways Oz has pushed back against the criticism, it was the following that Oliver found the “weakest.”
“No matter our disagreements, freedom of speech is the most fundamental right we have as Americans,” Oz told his viewers last week. “And these 10 doctors are trying to silence that right. So I vow to you right here and right now: we will not be silenced, we will not give in.”
“No, you are scientifically wrong about that, as you are about so many things,” Oliver said in response. “Let’s be clear, the First Amendment protects Americans from government censorship and that’s it. It does not guarantee you the right to simultaneously hold a faculty position at a prestigious private university and make misleading claims on a TV show.”
Utilizing his own freedom of speech, Oliver told Oz, “You are the worst person in scrubs who has ever been on television, and I’m including Katherine Heigl in that.”
14/ However......as we all know there are always two sides to every story, and this is an article from the Times that puts what Dr. Oz does in perspective. It's from a writer who appeared on his show, and tries to give the doctor the benefit of the doubt - yes Oz promotes some dubious shit, but most of the time he recommends eating healthier and using fewer drugs. In fact he is one of the only sources on TV recommending anything dietary, and giving decent information.
And.....it's daytime TV - the only people watching are stupids, so what motivated the media to go into a frenzy about Dr. Oz? At least amidst the garbage he was giving some common sense advice to people whose brains don't function too well.
Could it be Big Ag? The pharmaceutical industry? I certainly understand why John Oliver had a go at him - it's good TV, but there is more to the Oz vendetta than meets the eye.
A good article.....
ONE afternoon last December, my book publicist called with the best possible news: “You’re booked on ‘The Dr. Oz Show’!” she crowed. This was a huge coup, and I tried to sound as thrilled as she was.
Secretly, my heart sank. Dr. Oz? As a serious science writer and devout skeptic, I knew I was supposed to scorn him.
He’d been savaged on social media for months. Last June, Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, had given him a public tongue-lashing for touting a supplement called green coffee bean extract, which he had called “a magic weight loss cure for every body type,” among other over-the-top statements. His enthusiasm was based on a single small study that later turned out to be bogus, and was eventually retracted. Oops. His critics had a field day.
Then, in December, The BMJ, a British medical journal, published a study claiming that fewer than half of the on-air recommendations on “The Dr. Oz Show” were supported by scientific evidence. I happened to be taping my segment that day, and my new pal, Dr. Oz, seemed rather tense. When I said something positive about the health benefits of red wine, he remarked sardonically, “That’s good, because I talk about it all the time.”
Earlier this month, a group of 10 self-described “distinguished physicians” piled on with a letter urging Columbia University to fire Dr. Mehmet Oz from his post as vice chairman of the department of surgery. “Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine,” they wrote. “Worst of all,” they went on, “he has manifested an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.”
On Thursday, an indignant Dr. Oz fired back, saying that he does not endorse or profit from the products he promotes. He also went after his critics personally. Several have ties to an industry-funded advocacy group, he noted, and one — Dr. Gilbert Ross — did prison time for Medicaid fraud, which is an odd definition of “distinguished.”
The ad hominem exchange was unfortunate. A more careful look, however, at the merits of the supposed case against him makes it start to look weaker than a cup of green coffee.
15/ A excellent editorial from the Tampa Bay Times that every Floridian should read....it shows what the scum you elected to the Florida Legislature failed to do in the last session.......a disgusting legacy of abject failure of their responsibility.....
Editorial: The fallout from the House Republican quitters
The Republican-led Florida Legislature has failed this state. When House Republicans abruptly adjourned three days early, they guaranteed the state's most pressing public policy concerns will remain unresolved. Some issues, like energy and medical marijuana, probably will be addressed by voter-initiated constitutional amendments. Others, like health care and gambling, face summer deadlines. The Do-Nothing Legislature will hold a special session to write a state budget, but Florida will suffer the consequences of this petulant behavior by Republican lawmakers who quit on us.
No health care policy
This is one stalemate that absolutely has to be resolved. This summer, the federal government is expected to quit sending $1.3 billion a year to the Low Income Pool that helps cover the hospital costs of treating the uninsured. The potential loss to Tampa General Hospital is $86 million, and it cannot afford the hit. The state and the federal government are negotiating, and lawmakers will have to approve any changes.
Of course, this issue is tied to accepting billions in federal Medicaid expansion money to cover more than 800,000 Floridians. The Senate has a solid bipartisan approach for dealing with LIP and accepting the Medicaid money to help pay for private coverage for low-income residents. The Obama administration has been encouraging. Yet House Republicans stubbornly refuse to accept the expansion money and shamefully adjourned Tuesday, three days early.
The medical community, prominent business groups and a broad bipartisan coalition support the Senate's approach. They should use this legislative timeout to build pressure in the districts of House Republicans and demand that House Speaker Steve Crisafulli allow lawmakers to vote their conscience.
No energy policy
Lawmakers again failed to create a modern energy policy for Florida, despite rapid changes within the industry as the federal government finalizes new clean air regulations to combat the impacts of climate change. This adds more confusion and turbulence at an uncertain time.
Todays video - Louis CK on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno - this is one of those classic interviews where Louis CK makes the jokes, and Leno just manages to hold it together.......
It's eleven minutes, starts slowly but gets very good about the six minute mark, and from 8.30 it's the viral segment "Two Little White Girls In America"......
Todays school jokes
Todays golf joke
Just before he was put under, the surgeon dropped in to see him
"I have some good news and some bad news," says the surgeon.
"The bad news is that I have to remove your right arm!"
"Oh God, no!" cries the man
"My golfing is over! Please Doc what's the good news?
"The good news is I have another one to replace it with, but
it's a woman's arm.
I'll need your permission before I go ahead with the transplant."
"Go for it doc" says the man. "As long as I can play golf again."
The operation went well and a year later the man was
out on the golf course when he bumped into the surgeon.
"Hi, how's the new arm?" asks the surgeon.
"Just great," says the businessman. "I'm playing the best
golf of my life.
My new arm has a much finer touch and my putting has really
improved."
"Not only that," continued the golfer "my handwriting has
improved, I've learned how to sew my own clothes and I've
even taken up painting landscapes in water colours."
"Unbelievable!" said the surgeon "I'm so glad to
hear the transplant was such a great success.
Are you having any side effects?"
"Well, just one problem" said the golfer.
"Every time I get an erection I also get a headache."
Todays Muslim joke
Mohammed heard that one of his wives was leaving him, so he rushed home where he found her on the carpet in front of his tent with her belongings . . .
He sat beside her and said, “I just heard you were planning to leave me?”
She replied,“Yes”.
She replied,“Yes”.
Mohammed asked “But why are you leaving me?”.
She replied “I heard your other wives saying you were a pedophile!”
Mohammed thinks for a minute or so and then responds-
Mohammed thinks for a minute or so and then responds-
“My . . . that’s a mighty big word for a 9 year old!”
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