Monday, March 31, 2014

The surveillance society: a look back

By Tom Tomorrow


The thin veil of rationality

By Tom Tomorrow


 

Former George W. Bush Aide RIPS JEB BUSH For ‘KISSING THE RING’ Of Billionaires




Hey Jebster,....if you want their cash, kiss their ass!.....






Matthew Dowd, who was chief strategist for George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign, on Sunday ripped Republican presidential hopefuls for lowering themselves to “kiss the ring” of billionaires like Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson. During a Sunday panel segment on ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopolous noted that many potential 2016 candidates like former Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov. Scott Walker, Gov. John Kasich and Gov. Chris Christie had already met with Adelson.

“I think it’s ridiculous that these candidates for president are trumping out to Las Vegas to go kiss the ring of a billionaire casino owner,” Dowd said. “And they think that’s somehow going to help them get elected president.”

“I think money matters so much less than your own capacity as a candidate,” he continued. “What is your message? What’s your vision for the country.”

“They would be much better off spending time back where they live — instead of flying to Las Vegas — and figuring out what’s their message, what’s their vision, and how are they going to covey that to the American public.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/30/former-george-w-bush-aide-rips-jeb-bush-for-kissing-the-ring-of-billionaires/
 
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024754678

Friday, March 28, 2014

Chris Christie clears Chris Christie

Chris Christie proclaims his innocence as his allies released an investigation that echoed the New Jersey governor's declarations of innocence.



Thursday, March 27, 2014

Stubborn speaker continues to hurt Americans

Another day goes by as unemployed Americans suffer at the hand of Speaker John Boehner. Ed Schultz and Sen. Sherrod Brown discuss the out of touch GOP.

Chris Hayes spars with Jennifer Stefano over Obamacare

Chris Hayes faces off with Americans for Prosperity’s Jennifer Stefano over the right’s relentless focus on destroying the health care law.



Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Hey, Mitt - about that victory lap...

Mitt Romney and his fellow failed candidates can't resist patting themselves on the back over Putin's move in Ukraine.
 

Monday, March 24, 2014

Nate Silver Has Bad News For Democrats

By

Perennial prognosticator Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com has released his Senate predictions. He appeared on ABC’s ThisWeek where he provided news that Democrats are likely to dislike. He says there is a 60% chance that the Republicans will take the Senate.

Visit the Nate Silver FiveThirtyEight’s complete analysis here. As usual Nate Silver encourages everyone to read his analysis with caution. He writes.
As always, we encourage you to read this analysis with some caution. Republicans have great opportunities in a number of states, but only in West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana and Arkansas do we rate the races as clearly leaning their way. Republicans will also have to win at least two toss-up races, perhaps in Alaska, North Carolina or Michigan, or to convert states such as New Hampshire into that category. And they’ll have to avoid taking losses of their own in Georgia and Kentucky, where the fundamentals favor them but recent polls show extremely competitive races.
Nate Silver says the most reliable metric to gage an election is the generic congressional ballot. Right now they are even. Because of midterm turnout history, this likely means electorally there is a 6 point Republican advantage. Additionally there are more Democratic senators defending in Republicans states than the converse.

Democrats should not feel deflated by the report.  Republicans should not feel emboldened by the report. Nate Silver has an important message everyone must heed.
In plain language: sometimes one party wins most or all of the competitive races. If we had conducted this exercise at this point in the 2006, 2008 or 2012 campaigns, that party would have been the Democrats. In 2010, it would have been the Republicans. There are still more than seven months for news events to intervene and affect the national climate.
There are 10 races that each party has at least a 25 percent chance of winning, according to our ratings. If Republicans were to win all of them, they would gain a net of 11 seats from Democrats, which would give them a 56-44 majority in the new Senate. If Democrats were to sweep, they would lose a net of just one seat and hold a 54-46 majority.
So our forecast might be thought of as a Republican gain of six seats — plus or minus five. The balance has shifted slightly toward the GOP. But it wouldn’t take much for it to revert to the Democrats, nor for this year to develop into a Republican rout along the lines of 2010.

Nate Silver Goes Over His Current Analysis on ThisWeek.

These polls are a snapshot in time. Instead of getting apprehensive about them, one needs to act. The electorate is always in flux and whichever party is able to break through with a middle class centric message will win. Obamacare will be a factor in the election. Currently it is a slight net negative. The tide will turn when one begins using effective truthful language, wordsmith, and examples average Americans can relate to.

See Nate Silver’s analysis here.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Many theories, few answers in jetliner search

Karen Finney tries to sort out the serious from the plain silly of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 theories with security expert and former pilot Anthony Roman.


Wednesday, March 19, 2014

The Secret Lives of Inner City Black Males

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

On Sunday, I took my son to see two movies at a French film festival that was in town. The local train was out. We walked over to Amsterdam to flag down a cab. The cab rolled right past us and picked up two young-ish white women. It's sort of amazing how often that happens. It's sort of amazing how often you think you are going to be permitted to act as Americans do and instead receive the reminder—"Oh that's right, we are just some niggers. I almost forgot." 

Getting angry at the individual cabbie is like getting angry at the wind or raging against the rain. In America, the notion that black people are lacking in virtue is ambient. We see this in our vocabulary of politics and racism, which has no room for the decline in the out-of-wedlock birthrate and invokes Chicago with no regard for Chicago at all, but to deflect all eyes from the body of Trayvon Martin. 

But I was angry, and very much wanted to approach the cabbie, idling there at a red light, in ill disposition. I was also with my son. And more, I am a 6-foot-4 black dude who tries to avoid the police. I think, 15 years ago, with nothing to lose, I would have made a different decision, if only because the culture of my young years made a virtue of meeting disrespect with aggression. This culture was not wrong—the price of ignoring disrespect, in the old town, was more disrespect. The culture was a collection of the best practices for making our socially engineered inner cities habitable. I now live in a different environment. I now have different practices. 

Last week, Paul Ryan went on the radio to address the lack of virtue prevalent among men who grew up like me, my father, my brothers, my best friends, and a large number of my people:
We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.
A number of liberals reacted harshly to Ryan. I'm not sure why. What Ryan said here is not very far from what Bill Cosby, Michael Nutter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama said before him. The idea that poor people living in the inner city, and particularly black men, are "not holding up their end of the deal" as Cosby put it, is not terribly original or even, these days, right-wing. From the president on down there is an accepted belief in America—black and white—that African-American people, and African-American men, in particular, are lacking in the virtues in family, hard work, and citizenship:
If Cousin Pookie would vote, if Uncle Jethro would get off the couch and stop watching SportsCenter and go register some folks and go to the polls, we might have a different kind of politics.
Cousin Pookie and Uncle Jethro voted at higher rates than any other ethnic group in the country. They voted for Barack Obama. Our politics have not changed. Neither has Barack Obama's rhetoric. Facts can only get in the way of a good story. It was sort of stunning to see the president give a speech on the fate of young black boys and not mention the word racism once. It was sort of stunning to see the president salute the father of Trayvon Martin and the father of Jordan Davis and then claim, "Nothing keeps a young man out of trouble like a father who takes an active role in his son’s life."

From what I can tell, the major substantive difference between Ryan and Obama is that Obama's actual policy agenda regarding black America is serious, and Ryan's isn't. But Ryan's point—that the a pathological culture has taken root among an alarming portion of black people—is basically accepted by many progressives today. And it's been accepted for a long time. 

Peddlers of black pathology tend to date the decline of African-American virtue to the 1960's. But pathology arguments are much older. Between 1900 and 1930, blacks were three times as likely as whites to be killed. Their killers tended to be black—black were 80 percent of Mississippi's murderers and 60 percent of its victims. According to historian David Oshinsky, the actual murder rate among African-Americans was likely higher. "We had the usual number of [Negro] killings during the week just closed," the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported in 1904. "Aside from the dozen or so reported in the press, several homicides occurred which the county correspondents did not deem sufficient for the dispatches."

Oshinsky reports that "many of the murders involved liquor, gambling and personal disputes." Did the ghastly amount of violence afflicting black Mississippians spring from poor blacks "not holding up their end of the bargain?" Or was it the the fact that black Mississippians were living in a kleptocracy that had no regard for their lives? As Khalil Muhammad shows in his book The Condemnation of Blackness, progressives and conservatives alike often argued for the former.

Certainly there are cultural differences as you scale the income ladder. Living in abundance, not fearing for your children's safety, and having decent food around will have its effect. But is the culture of West Baltimore actually less virtuous than the culture of Wall Street? I've seen no such evidence. Yet that is the implicit message accepted by Paul Ryan, and the message is bipartisan. 

That is because it is a message that makes all our uncomfortable truths tolerable. Only if black people are somehow undeserving can a just society tolerate a yawning wealth gap, a two-tiered job market, and persistent housing discrimination

I think of that cab driver passing me by on Amsterdam. We are not on the block anymore. We are in America, where our absence of virtue is presumed, and we must eat disrespect in sight of our sons. 

And who can be mad in America? Racism is just the wind, here. Racism is but the rain.

NBC Is Considering Dumping David Gregory As Host of Meet The Press




With Meet The Press pulling historically low ratings, reports are surfacing that NBC News is considering dumping host David Gregory and changing the format of the Sunday staple.

The New York Post (Murdoch owned) reported,
NBC News boss Deborah Turness is spending the last few days of the year eyeing cuts — moves that could include axing some senior on-air talent, The Post has learned.
Turness, brought on in August to shake up the moribund news division — where “Meet the Press” and “Today” had stumbled — is in the midst of a host of end-of -year buyouts and cost reductions, sources said.

Particularly distressed by the changes is the DC bureau team, whose duties include providing political coverage to “Nightly News with Brian Williams” and Sunday talk show “Meet The Press.”
Turness has been trying to figure out the future for David Gregory’s “Meet the Press,” with options including bringing in MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” team of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for a Sunday show, or blowing up the entire franchise and trying something completely different, sources familiar with the situation said.
If NBC News wants to fix both Meet The Press and Today, they can do so with two moves. Fire David Gregory from Meet The Press. Get Matt Lauer off of Today. The ratings problems for both shows can be tied back to the fact that viewers don’t like the high paid on screen talent that each show is built around.

Gregory has pushed viewers away from Meet The Press with a disinterested approach to the show, and an endless habit of regurgitating Republican talking points as fact. Meet The Press has been transformed from the show where newsmakers expected to be challenged to a dull, lazy, and enraging hourlong informercial for Republican talking points and Beltway conventional thinking. David Gregory has been the exact opposite of the late Tim Russert, and the result is that millions of viewers have tuned out.

The worst thing that NBC News could do would be to replace the intolerable Gregory with the nausea inducing Joe Scarborough, and his band of Beltway lackeys. If Joe and Mika were to take over Meet The Press, the program that was once most important public affairs show on television would cease to exist.

The answer for Meet The Press is simple. Hire a dogged journalist who isn’t afraid to ask tough questions to the nation’s political leaders. In my opinion, Rachel Maddow was born to moderate Meet The Press. Maddow is smart, tough, and fair. She would restore the integrity that David Gregory has sucked from the show.

However, NBC and MSNBC have become the textbook example of consistently repetitive bad decisionmaking. If they dump Gregory, you can bet that Joe and Mika will be occupying Sunday mornings.

The good news is that David Gregory might be gone. The bad news is that he could be replaced by Joe Scarborough.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Pilots perspective about missing flight

Flight expert Ed Schultz shares his insight about the missing Malaysian Air Flight. Former Boeing Captain Tom Bunn and Aviation Consultant Scott Hamilton discuss.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Abby Huntsman Needs A Reality Check On Social Security

By karoli

Abby Huntsman is leading her generation astray with bad facts and a clueless perspective about Social Security. 



Abby Huntsman, shame on you! You have a platform to use responsibly, not to spout talking points that have been debunked over and over again.

Yes, the granddaughter of a billionaire, daughter of millionaire and 2012 presidential candidate Jon Huntsman went on a rant last week about how millennials aren't going to get Social Security. That's an old saw. We baby boomers heard it, too and quite nearly were sold the same bill of BS goods back in the early 80's.

Michael Hiltzik slammed her today in his LA Times column:
Huntsman wants to tell it like it is, but she fails due to lack of information. And if her generation believes what she said, it's going to be in deep trouble.
A lot of her spiel resembles the rants issuing from the mouth of former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, 82, a veteran font of Social Social Security misinformation--which shows, one supposes, that error and ignorance is no respecter of age. Most of it has been debunked so thoroughly and repeatedly that one is tempted to believe that the misrepresentations are deliberate.
But as a favor to Huntsman and her generation, we'll set her straight. Again.
Gawd, I love Michael Hiltzik. Read the whole thing.

RJ Eskow followed that up with an open letter:
Even more importantly, it was disappointing to see you repeat the phony claim that there is a "generational war" between the young and the old. The real "war" in this country is between the haves and the have-nots, and it's no secret who's winning that one. In fact, this notion of a "generational war" was dreamed up in the think tanks and PR firms of billionaires, so that credulous journalists, politicians, and yes, news anchors, would pick it up and repeat it endlessly.
Mission accomplished: many of them have.

Let's be real here. We know that Social Security cuts aren't likely to affect baby boomers nearly as much as they will the generations that follow -- particularly millennials. So why push the idea that old people are greedy, when all that does is provide ammunition for an argument that will be used to shaft your fellow young people?

Again, we know who's getting all the national wealth, and it's not old people. Let's look at the facts: in 2012, the average Social Security benefit was $13,648, or $1137 a month.
And that's the average -- for workers with low earning, or those (primarily women) who take time out of the workforce to perform caregiving work, benefits are often much lower. For two-thirds of beneficiaries, Social Security makes up half their income or more.
We've heard all of Abby's points for decades. Actually, they've been around since Social Security passed and are nothing more than the product of resistance by the 'haves' who don't think they live in a society where the elderly should have a solid safety net under them. She does a disservice to all of us by repeating them, especially under the guise of a doomsday message for her fellow millennials.

Social Security is - bar none - the most successful and solvent social program in this country. It will be there for millennials and generations following if they choose not to listen to Abby Huntsman's tired arguments against it.

Now is the time to expand Social Security, not cut it. We should make that expansion for Abby's generation and those who currently benefit, because it's the right and moral thing to do.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Paul Ryan gets it wrong again

After Rep. Paul Ryan’s comments about a “culture problem,” Karen Finney says that Ryan is no Jack Kemp. XM Radio host Joe Madison and author Ian Haney Lopez join to discuss.

Nate Silver Is Back

By Stuart Shapiro

Pundits beware.  Nate Silver’s new website launches on Monday.  In his own words:


The fox logo comes from a quote which was originally attributable to an obscure Greek poet: “The hedgehog knows one big thing and the fox knows many little things.”
The idea being that we’re a lot of scrappy little nerds and we have different data-driven — I hate data-driven as a term — but data journalism takes on a lot of different forms for us. Often, yeah, it does mean numbers and statistics as applied to the news, but it also means data visualization, reporting on data that is both numerate and literate; down the road, it came mean investigative journalism. It can mean building models and forecasts and programs. At the same time, it’s still data journalism. It’s not enough just to be smart. There’s a particular series of methods and a way of looking at the world.
Plenty of pundits have really high IQ's, but they don’t have any discipline in how they look at the world, and so it leads to a lot of bullshit, basically. We think about our philosophy for when we choose to run with a story or when we don’t. We talk about avoiding “smart takes,” quote-unquote. This is data journalism, capital-D. Within that, we take a foxlike approach to what data means. It’s not just numbers, but numbers are a big part of this. We think that’s a weakness of conventional journalism, that you have beautiful English language skills and fewer math skills, and we hope to rectify that balance a little bit.
I know I’m a big nerd, but I’m pretty excited.

Arizona Republican: Slavery Was Good For Black People Because ‘Slave Owners Took Care Of Their Livestock’

By Stephen D. Foster Jr.

Arizona Republican Says Slavery Was Awesome For Black People
Republican Congressional candidate Jim Brown thinks black people lived the good life under slavery because ‘Slave Owners Took Care Of Their Livestock.’
Once again, Republicans have failed to even pretend that they want people of color to vote for them. In yet another instance of being stupid on Facebook, a GOP candidate in Arizona wrote that black people had the good life as slaves because “slave owners took care of their livestock.”

Arizona GOP candidate Jim Brown thinks black people lived the good life under slavery.

Jim Brown is running for a House seat in the 2nd Congressional District of Arizona. The seat is currently held by Democratic Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick and had been considered one of the easier races for the GOP to win in 2014. That is, until Brown posted a diatribe about slavery on his Facebook page. In what is sure to become part of a devastating campaign ad, Brown attempted to compare federal programs that help the poor to the institution of slavery.
“I want folks to think about something,” Brown began. “I want folks to think about how slavery really works. Back in the day of slavery, slaves were kept in slavery by denying them education and opportunity while providing them with their basic needs .. Not by beating them and starving them. (Although there were isolated cases if course) Basically slave owners took pretty good care of their slaves and livestock and this kept business rolling along.”
Apparently realizing that his stupidity would be used against him, Brown removed the post. Fortunately, we have the ability to capture screen shots.
Here’s an image of Brown’s post via The Root.
jim_brown_comments_1

Welfare is NOT the same as slavery.

Brown believes that the government is treating people who need aid like slaves. And just as African-Americans made up the slave population, Brown seems to think they make up the entirety of those who get federal aid. You know, the old “all black people suck on the government tit” line that Republicans can’t stop using? Brown says slavery was awesome for black people, seems to think only black people are on welfare, and thinks getting aid is akin to being a slave. Instead of condemning slavery as vile, Brown also seems to think it was a good business model. After all, “slave owners took pretty good care of their slaves and livestock and this kept business rolling along.” Such a statement is not only an insult to black people, it contradicts the GOP claim that the Civil War was unnecessary because slavery was allegedly dying out.

As it turns out, most welfare recipients are actually white and happen to live in red states. Therefore, if anyone is turning into government “slaves,” it’s the GOP base. But comparing welfare to slavery is total nonsense. Receiving federal aid to keep from starving to death or becoming homeless is not the same as slavery. Slaves were often brutally beaten, starved, banned from owning firearms, and couldn’t exactly leave the plantation at will. Welfare recipients don’t give up any of their freedoms or rights by getting aid. Slaves had NO freedom and NO rights. Slaves also could not get an education, whereas the government often helps to pay education costs for people, even if they are on welfare. Furthermore, the government doesn’t sell welfare recipients to other people like slave owners sold their slaves. Also, unlike slave owners, federal aid isn’t breaking up families nor is it killing or raping people they find inferior. Welfare is colorblind because the only thing that really matters is income. Clearly, getting federal aid is nothing like slavery. In fact, federal aid actually lifts people out of poverty. It’s also temporary assistance that ends once your income level rises above the threshold. Slave owners kept slaves in chains for life.

Praising slavery seems to be a requirement to be in the Republican Party.

Jim Brown is only the most recent Republican to sing the praises of slavery. In 2012, an Arkansas Republican called slavery “a blessing in disguise.” At the same time, another Republican went even further than that. Even CPAC got into the act of defending slavery in 2013. Not long after that, a Nevada Republican told a crowd that he would vote to bring back slavery if they wanted him to do so. Of course, Brown isn’t exactly helping to improve the bigoted reputation of Arizona. The state once refused to honor Martin Luther King Day and has been in hot water for trying to discriminate against gay people.

The party that ended slavery is now controlled by those who want to reinstate it.

Republicans hate welfare programs even as their own states are the real welfare states. They hate these programs so much that they love falsely comparing them to slavery. But over the years, the GOP has made it clear that they actually love slavery and long to bring it back. The GOP hates welfare and wrongly compares it to slavery, but doesn’t think slavery was so bad for black people and wishes it was still around. This is NOT the same Republican Party that worked to abolish slavery and fought a war to end it. This is NOT the same party that fought for the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. This new Republican Party has fallen far from its roots and is now controlled by the very bigots it once battled against. And that is truly sad.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

You’re Invited To The Dumbest March Ever – Thousands May Attend

By Randa Morris

'White Man March' invites thousands to join dumbest event ever
White supremacists claim that thousands of people from around the world will participate in a ‘White Man March’ scheduled for March 15, 2014. – Banner for the White Man March

On March 15, 2014 groups of white supremacists from all around the world will be holding a ‘White Man March.’ At least that’s what is being claimed on the internet and social media sites like facebook and twitter. After doing a little research, however, I see this ‘huge event’ being about as popular as ‘Ex-gay Lobby Day On Capital Hill,’ and about as successful as one of the Tea Party’s many rallies to ‘Take Over Congress And Impeach President Obama.

What is the White Man March?

According to the event page the White Man March isn’t really a planned march. It’s more of an attempt by a few racist idiots to spread their propaganda across the US and apparently around the world. The website and facebook page basically exist to encourage other people to distribute the group’s flyers and posters, and to plan ‘pro-white’ events in their own communities.
An overview of the White Man March propaganda includes:
  • Anti-racism is a code word for anti-white.
  • White supremacist is an anti-white slur.
  • Diversity is a code word for white genocide.
  • White people are suffering from racial discrimination.
  • There’s no such thing as white privilege.
  • Hitler was a hero who was simply defending his race.
Here’s an example of a flyer they’re asking people to distribute.
White Man March flier.
White Man March flier – Piping up about white genocide!
White Man March flier -- Anti racist is a code word for anti-white?
White Man March flier - White slavery.
White Man March flier – White slavery.

White Man March flier - Diversity = White genocide.

What can you expect to see happen on March 15?

While there is a website and facebook group designed to promote the White Man March, the actual number of interested participants isn’t quite thousands. The facebook group can boast 193 active members, but many of them appear to be fake accounts and duplicate accounts.

There seems to be very little planned ‘pro-white’ activity. One person calling himself ‘John Mnsota’ appears to be trying to gather support for a White Man March against Lutheran Social Services and World Relief Services. His group, however, currently has one member, which is himself.

The largest group I could find was one claiming to be from Centralia Illinois. That group has 119 members, but with names like ‘Hushits Asecret,’ it’s pretty clear that many of these are not real people. Take Dave Englisc, for example, who created a facebook account in November, and lists his hometown as Liverpool, UK. Will Dave really be travelling from Liverpool to march in a White Man March in the state of Illinois? I suppose it is remotely possible, but it is also highly unlikely. Then there’s Barry Horowitz, also a member of the Illinois group. This person created his facebook page on February 15, 2014. He appears to be using his page for promoting the White Man March, as well as for reminding his small number of fake facebook followers that America has a (wait for it) black president.

Will there be thousands marching around the world?

There’s a group in Colorado with one member, that might be participating in a White Man March.

Another group calling itself the American Freedom Party, has 6 members, and appears to be trying to find a couple of people in Texas and maybe Louisianna. Then there is the group that calls itself the Northern New England Group, which has 2 members. That group covers the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and ‘Massajewsetts.’ So that’s one member for every two states. Also, there’s a place for people to share their ‘Ideas for Activism.’ That group has 9 members and 6 poster designs, but no mention of a plan to march.

According to a person calling himself Ralph, a white supremacist group in Arizona tried to have a white man’s BBQ last year, but only 11 people showed up. If you can’t even get support for your hateful, ignorant views with a BBQ, that should tell you something.

On top of that, if the white supremacist movement can’t even gain traction in the state of Arizona, I have a feeling it’s not going to do well in other states either.

There will always be stupid people who spend their time creating fake facebook profiles and designing posters full of hate messages, in hopes that they’ll find their way to other idiots who look and think like them. What they don’t seem to understand is that to the majority of people, they look and sound like exactly what they are, idiots.

John Boehner accuses governors of fraud

Chris Hayes explains why House Speaker John Boehner is calling governors, including one Republican governor, cheats and frauds.

Rush Limbaugh Plays Captain Obvious

By karoli March 15, 2014 8:30 am

Rush Limbaugh Plays Captain Obvious
"...and what are those pensions? Those are payments to people who are not working!"

Thus spake Rushbo, and behold, all his listeners nodded fiercely at their radios in rapt agreement.

Shorter Rush: Damn moochers.

Rush, on the other hand, collects a hefty paycheck for not working, making him the King Moocher of the Western Hemisphere.

In case you don't want to listen to the whole thing, the crux is this: Rush is on a tear because property taxes in Illinois may increase, and they may increase because of huge pension liabilities which have been accumulated over time. When cities and states do not make contributions for a number of years in order to balance their budgets by not raising taxes, those liabilities accumulate and the obligation is still there.

At some point the piper must be paid, but Rush would rather sit around, bash unions and working people for working all their lives and expecting to receive the pension they were promised in exchange for lower wages.

They really pay this guy millions for insights like this?

Site Claims SEALs Shot Bin Laden 100 Times

Navy SEALs 'took turns dumping HUNDREDS of bullets' into Osama bin Laden's dead body, a new report reveals

  • Special Ops sources have claimed that the Navy SEAL team unloaded multiple magazines full of ammunition into the dead terror leader's corpse
  • Some think the alleged excessive treatment is the reason why the Obama administration has not released the 'death photos' of the al Qaeda leader
  • White House has always said that any photos of his dead body or sea burial would be used as propaganda by terror cells
By Daily Mail Reporter
|

Special operations sources have claimed that the terror leader was shot more than one hundred times in the fatal 2011 raid.

A new report from a website known within the intelligence and armed services community claims that the sheer number of times that Osama bin Laden was shot is the reason why the government has never released photos of his dead body.

Citing two confidential sources, The Special Operations Forces Situation Report tells how 'operator after operator took turns dumping magazines-worth of ammunition into Bin Laden’s body'.

The site goes on to argue that while the Navy SEALs may have felt it was 'morally, legally, and ethically appropriate to shoot the body a few times to ensure that he is really dead and no longer a threat,' that does not justify the extent of this damage. 

'What happened on the Bin Laden raid is beyond excessive.  The level of excess shown was not about making sure that Bin Laden was no longer a threat.  The excess was pure self-indulgence,' author Jack Murphy writes.

At the time of the assassination, President Obama and his administration argued that they were justified in never releasing the photos of the dead body or the burial at sea because they could be used as propaganda for al Qaeda.

The new theories, however, suggest that they are just trying to avoid retribution for allegedly being excessive.

Scroll down for video
Hollywood interpretation: Zero Dark Thirty imagined the events leading to Bin Laden's capture
Hollywood interpretation: Zero Dark Thirty imagined the events leading to Bin Laden's capture
Mission: The Al Qaeda leader was killed at this compound in Abbottabad by US Special Forces
Mission: The Al Qaeda leader was killed at this compound in Abbottabad by U.S. Special Forces and new reports suggest that the excessive force that was used may be why his death photos have not been released
Photos that have been released: Images of bin Laden, like these which are being used as evidence in the ongoing trial against his son-in-law, have prompted debate among military veterans and good government groups
Photos that have been released: Images of bin Laden, like these which are being used as evidence in the ongoing trial against his son-in-law, have prompted debate among military veterans and good government groups

Details about the classified mission were unearthed in SEAL Team Six member Mark Bissonnette's book which differ from the SOFREP account, but Murphy writes that Bissonnette's version 'is perhaps the most measured and polite description that one could give'.

In his book, Bissonnette does not put a firm number on the amount of bullets used but it sounds far less excessive than the latest reports.

'In his death throes, he was still twitching and convulsing. Another assaulter and I trained our lasers on his chest and fired several rounds,' Bissonnette wrote in No Easy Day which was published in September 2012.

'The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless.'




Hollywood interpretation: Zero Dark Thirty imagined the events leading to Bin Laden's capture

[caption]
Incorrect depiction: The latest information suggests the raid of the Bin Laden compound went down very differently to the events since fictionalized in Hollywood in films like Zero Dark Thirty, pictured


Speaking out: Former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette appeared on US TV show 60 Minutes this week to discuss his book
His version: Mark Bissonnette, who was a member of SEAL Team Six who was at the raid described them using far fewer bullets to kill the elderly terror leader
Tension: The raid of bin Laden's Abottabad compound was watched by President Obama and his closest advisers in the Situation Room of the White House
Tension: The raid of bin Laden's Abottabad compound was watched by President Obama and his closest advisers in the Situation Room of the White House

Murphy argues that the number of bullets used is less of a issue pertaining specifically to this particular case but grows problematic if it represents a changing attitude within the Navy SEALs.

'Gone unchecked, these actions get worse over time,' the Army Special Operations veteran writes.

'The real issue is not that Bin Laden was turned into Swiss cheese, but rather that this type of behavior has become a Standard Operating Procedure in this unit.'

Dole Expands Bagged Salad Recall to the U.S. Due to Listeria







The products being recalled are Dole Italian Blend (UPC 7143000819), Fresh Selections Italian Style Blend (UPC 1111091045), Little Salad Bar Italian Salad (UPC 4149811014) and Marketside Italian Style Salad (UPC 8113102780) coded A058201A or B, with use-by date of March 12, 2014.

The product code and use-by date are in the upper right-hand corner of the package; the UPC code is on the back of the package, below the barcode.

The salads were distributed in 15 U.S. states: Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. They were also distributed in three Canadian provinces: New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec.

No illnesses have been reported in association with the recall. However, due to the time involved in tracing a foodborne illness back to a specific food product, it is impossible to say whether or not anyone has fallen ill.

The recall was issued after one sample of Dole Italian salad yielded a positive result for Listeria monocytogenes in a random sample test conducted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Although the product is past its use-by date, retailers should check their inventories and store shelves to confirm that none of the product is mistakenly present or available for purchase by consumers or in warehouse inventories. Dole Fresh Vegetables customer service representatives are already contacting retailers and are in the process of confirming that the recalled product is being removed from the stream of commerce.

Listeria monocytogenes is an organism that can cause foodborne illness in a person who eats a food item contaminated with it. Symptoms of infection may include fever, muscle aches, gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea or diarrhea. The illness primarily impacts pregnant women and adults with weakened immune systems. Most healthy adults and children rarely become seriously ill.

Christie: ‘I could make up an answer at any time'

Talking about New Jersey's budget woes on Thursday, Gov. Chris Christie boasted that he's a “trained lawyer” who could make up “convincing” answers at any time.



HEY, CHRIS CHRISTIE!

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Even Before Fort Lee Lane Closings, Port Authority Was a Christie Tool


Bill Baroni, left, then deputy executive director of the Port Authority, and Mayor Michael Gonnelli of Secaucus with a piece of steel from the World Trade Center ruins in 2012. Credit Reena Rose Sibayan/The Jersey Journal, via Landov
For a state that lost hundreds of lives on Sept. 11, the gifts were emotionally resonant: pieces of steel from the ruins of the World Trade Center. They were presented by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to 20 carefully chosen New Jersey mayors who sat atop a list of 100 whose endorsements Gov. Chris Christie hoped to win.

At photo opportunities around the mangled pieces of steel, Bill Baroni, Mr. Christie’s top staff appointee at the Port Authority, told audiences how many people wanted a similar remnant of the destroyed buildings, and how special these mayors were.

Mayors lower on the list of 100 — such as Mark Sokolich, of Fort Lee, at No. 45 — received other Port Authority perquisites: an intimate tour of the National September 11 Memorial, or the new World Trade Center construction site, or Port Authority money for jobs programs or new firefighting equipment, even in towns far from the port.

Mr. Christie and his allies at the Port Authority are now entangled in a scandal over the closing of lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge — apparently a politically motivated move aimed at Mr. Sokolich, who had declined to endorse the governor. But long before the lane closings, the Port Authority — a bistate government agency financed by tolls and taxes — had already been turned into a de facto political operation for Governor Christie, a review of the agency’s operations since Mr. Christie took office suggests.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Gov. Chris Christie with Bill Baroni, right, and David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, at a 2011 conference in Trenton on New Jersey transportation. Credit Julio Cortez/Associated Press
Turning wreckage of the twin towers into politically motivated gifts before Mr. Christie’s 2013 re-election was only one example. The authority became a means to reward friends (or hire them) and punish adversaries, and a bank to be used when Mr. Christie sought to avoid raising taxes. Major policy initiatives, such as instituting a large toll and fare increase in 2011, were treated like political campaigns to burnish the governor’s image.

These maneuvers emboldened the Christie team, former Port Authority colleagues say, to close down the lanes on the world’s busiest bridge — ensnaring them in state and federal investigations.
Mr. Christie’s allies at the agency were public, even proud, about their mandate to reshape the agency.

Shortly after he was hired by Mr. Baroni to be director of interstate capital projects, David Wildstein walked into a colleague’s office at the agency’s headquarters on Park Avenue South in Manhattan and gestured toward the window. “You know, that used to be Tammany Hall,” he said, referring to the New York Film Academy below on East 17th Street, according to a person who witnessed the scene. “That’s the seat of all corruption in New York.”

Waiting a beat, he added, “And the Port Authority is right here.”

Jobs for an Inner Circle

The Port Authority was formed in the 1920's to run the various ports, tunnels and bridges shared by New York and New Jersey, with each state choosing its own administrators and directors, who were supposed to work together.

As chairman of the board of commissioners, Mr. Christie appointed David Samson, a well-connected former state attorney general who had led the governor’s transition team. When Mr. Christie appointed Mr. Baroni, a state senator who had been a loyal Christie lieutenant, as deputy executive director soon after he was elected in 2009, the governor noted that the agency offered “significant opportunities for funding projects in the State of New Jersey.”

Mr. Baroni delighted in his role as the agency’s chief ambassador in his home state, where he often headlined local officials’ events to publicize Port Authority projects in their towns. “For the Port Authority, the World Trade Center wasn’t just a building that we built,” he said in a speech in 2011. 

“It was our home.”

“Its rebuilding is a passion to the Port Authority, and it’s a passion to our governor and lieutenant governor,” he added.

Remarks like that rankled New York colleagues at the Port Authority, who felt a tug of war with New Jersey over money to rebuild the site after Mr. Christie’s allies conveyed a clear rule: If New York got something, New Jersey had to get something, too. In exchange for the World Trade Center, for example, New Jersey secured projects including the $1 billion raising of the Bayonne Bridge and the rebuilding of the Pulaski Skyway — an unusual undertaking for the Port Authority, because it does not connect the two states.

Mr. Baroni’s lawyer did not return calls seeking comment, and Mr. Wildstein’s lawyer declined to comment.

Mr. Wildstein, a onetime anonymous political blogger who, like Mr. Baroni, has resigned in the wake of the lane closings, was hired in 2010 and quickly developed a reputation as the governor’s enforcer at the agency. He was known to schedule meetings with subordinates early on Monday mornings — never specifying the topic, leaving them to fret for the weekend — then cancel. He seemed to appear from nowhere in officials’ doorways, staring until they invited him in.

Mr. Wildstein helped end the practice of letting former Port Authority commissioners have free tolls for life, after Mr. Christie had railed against it.

The Port Authority had long been accused of patronage, something longtime agency employees said that the Christie administration had continued.

The administration recommended dozens of people with close ties to the governor or his inner circle — often without relevant experience — for jobs at the agency. These hires included a gourmet food broker and longtime Republican donor, who was given a job as a financial analyst, and the co-author of Mr. Baroni’s self-help book, “Fat Kid Got Fit: And So Can You!” — who received a part-time job as publications editor that paid more than $50,000 per year.

A Problem-Solver

Mr. Christie also used the agency to help him out of political jams. When he came into office, his state’s Transportation Trust Fund, traditionally financed by the gas tax, was nearly empty. But Mr. Christie, as a candidate, had pledged not to raise taxes. The Port Authority’s involvement in a major project, it turned out, presented a perfect solution.

In 2010, Mr. Christie canceled construction on a planned railroad tunnel under the Hudson River that would have eased congestion for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains, and used $1.8 billion that the Port Authority had planned to spend on it to fill the trust fund.

As a Republican administration in a blue state, the governor’s team began considering strategies for his re-election early in his first term.

The agency’s spending served Mr. Christie well as he campaigned, all with an eye to building a broad coalition that would allow him to seek the Republican nomination for president. The governor’s push for projects like raising the roadbed of the Bayonne Bridge helped win endorsements from unions that had backed his opponent in 2009. The agency spent millions of dollars on projects in towns Mr. Christie wanted to win. For example, $25 million went to a new PATH station in Harrison, where Mayor Raymond J. McDonough became the first Democratic official to endorse Mr. Christie.


Christie News Conference on Bridge Flap
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said he took no part in the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge, but acknowledged the involvement of some of his close aides. 

Mr. Baroni, often accompanied by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, one of Mr. Christie’s top aides, delivered the World Trade Center steel to communities like Secaucus and Tenafly where the campaign sought endorsements. Mr. Baroni also frequently gave tours of the construction site, with guest lists that included Democrats whose support the governor was seeking. A tour last year on Aug. 23 included Mr. McDonough, and Dawn Zimmer, the Democratic mayor of Hoboken; the governor’s campaign wanted her to support Mr. Christie — or at least, not endorse his Democratic opponent.

Some tour attendees detected a subtext during their visits. “I viewed it as trying to build relationships and make us feel like we had a place at the table,” said Richard LaBarbiera, the Democratic mayor of Paramus, N.J., “with a possible end in mind.”

Mr. LaBarbiera added that when he informed the campaign that he would not endorse the governor, his relationship with the administration did not change.

Toll Threats

Perhaps the boldest use of the Port Authority as a political tool, a complex sleight-of-hand that raised questions at the time but succeeded anyway, involved large toll increases at the Hudson River crossings in 2011, at the end of Mr. Christie’s first year in office. The episode has recently drawn scrutiny in several major New Jersey newspapers.

At the time, the agency wanted to raise money on the bond markets. But it was becoming apparent that it would not be able to raise enough without a toll increase.

No governor wants to raise tolls, even by an agency shared with a neighboring state. But the issue was particularly nettlesome for Mr. Christie because he had branded himself a fiscal conservative.

An account fleshed out by several participants describes what was essentially a political campaign to convince voters that Mr. Christie had lowered the tolls rather than maneuvered to raise them. While officials in New York signed off on the maneuver, the participants said, the Christie administration was the driving force.

Mr. Baroni took charge. He set up a confidential war room on the 15th floor of the building on Park Avenue South and put restrictions on who could enter. Inside, agency employees ran numbers for various proposed increases, and set up computers to monitor news coverage of the plan.

The initial projection for car tolls had been an increase of $4, spread over two years. But on Aug. 3, Mr. Wildstein, Mr. Baroni and Mr. Samson went to Trenton and met with the governor and five senior staff members, including his chief of staff, his chief counsel, and Deborah Gramiccioni, the head of the authorities unit (who was named to Mr. Baroni’s post at the Port Authority when he resigned as the bridge scandal burgeoned in December).

Mr. Christie instructed the group to propose a plan for a $6 increase for cars by 2014. He told them that he would publicly rail against it, and that the agency would then agree to a lower number, easing the inevitable political fallout while still getting new income, according to a person who was briefed by an attendee on the participants and what was said.

The possibility of a similar ploy — announce an outrageously high increase, and then knock it down — had been considered before toll increases were proposed in November 2007, in a meeting between Port Authority officials and the administration of Gov. Jon S. Corzine, according to two people involved in the discussions, but it was dismissed as too contrived.

Not this time. The plan was announced three days after the meeting in Trenton, on Aug. 6, a Friday afternoon. Within two hours, Mr. Christie and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York produced a joint statement expressing “obvious and significant concerns.” Mr. Christie described his first reaction as, “Are you kidding me?”

The day before the Port Authority board was to vote on the increase, Mr. Christie and Mr. Cuomo released a letter declaring that they had found a way to lower the toll increases — for cars, the cost would go up $4.50 by 2015, rather than $6 by 2014. “We are pleased that our work together resulted in lowering of the original toll increase,” they said.

The board approved the increase unanimously.

Shouts After Whispers

Among Mr. Christie’s allies at the agency, the campaign was considered a success. Mr. Baroni hung a photograph of participants on his office wall.

It was not quite over. The travel organization AAA sued, but was blocked when it tried to gain access to communications between the agency and the governor’s office.

The transportation committee of the New Jersey State Assembly also tried and similarly failed to obtain information. But this effort led to what could be the longest-lasting significance of the toll-increase ploy: The Assembly was given subpoena power, which it eventually used to gather evidence in the recent lane-closing scandal, including the infamous email from one of Mr. Christie’s aides that read, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

In April 2012, Mr. Baroni went to Washington to answer questions from a committee hearing called by the late Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, a Democrat and frequent critic of the governor. The hearing devolved into a shouting match.

Aides to Mr. Christie cheered Mr. Baroni’s performance. In private, though, Mr. Baroni expressed ambivalence about the confrontation with Mr. Lautenberg. He sent word through mutual friends to people on Mr. Lautenberg’s staff that he regretted the scene.

The instructions, he explained, had come from Trenton.

McDonald’s Manager To Sick Employee: ‘Just Put A Bullet In Your Head’

By Rika Christensen

McDonald's Manager Gives Impossibly Disrespectful Reply To Sick Employee Asking To Go Home
A manager at a Chicago McDonald’s told an employee to just put a bullet in her head after she asked to go home following a diabetic episode on the job. Image: 28704869

A manager of a Chicago McDonald’s told employee Carmen Navarrette to put a bullet in her head for being sick. Navarrette is diabetic, and had asked to go home after having a severe diabetic episode.

Navarrette, who’s been an employee at that McDonald’s for nine years, went to the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago with the incident.

She also told her story to the Organizing Committee for Chicago Women Caucus, where there were similar stories from other people. That’s prompted a rally on Saturday, where workers were demanding an end to verbal abuse and respect from their managers. Several Chicago aldermen attended the rally as well.
So far, McDonald’s corporate hasn’t commented on the matter. Last year, they began cracking down on staff and managers for poor customer service. One in five customer complaints has to do with not receiving friendly or speedy service, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. As yet, though, there’s little evidence that they’ve been pressing their franchisees to train managers to treat employees better.

Disrespect isn’t unique to this particular McDonald’s.

Another Chicago McDonald’s is under fire for poor employee treatment, age discrimination, unsanitary conditions, and failure to provide proper safety equipment. Centro De Trabajadores Unidos (CTU) Immigrant Worker Project says that several women at the McDonald’s at 92nd and Commercial Avenue, on Chicago’s south side, frequently deal with verbal abuse, along with stress so bad it affects their health outside of work.

In 2013, CTU was pressuring that McDonald’s restaurant to sit down with them and work something out so that workers would receive better treatment. At the time of their posting, the restaurant had not responded to their letters.

McDonald’s might benefit more from treating their workers with some decency.

Perhaps the problem is deeper than just rude workers. It can be very hard to put a smile on your face when not only does your boss treat you like you’re nothing, but customers do also. Business Insider has a list of McDonald’s horror stories from 2012, and most of them have to do with customers.

There are a few that have to do with bad working conditions.

Perhaps the problem is, at least in part, our society’s disdain for fast-food workers. You see it all over the place, especially when talking about raising the minimum wage.

These jobs are low-skill, requiring minimal training, and for some reason we associate that with a person’s worth as a human being. If they were better people, they’d have better jobs. Since they don’t, there must be something wrong with them that just makes them “beneath” the rest of us.

It’s not just customers who think it’s their right to step all over a fast-food worker like they aren’t human. As Navarrette’s story shows, the managers and franchisees do it, too.

The Wall Street Journal article discusses how trying to raise the level of customer service across the board has had limited success. One McDonald’s franchisee said, “I think it’s an ongoing problem, and always will be.”

The question there is, why? The franchisees are addressing the issue by increasing staffing and introducing new order systems to speed things up. Why doesn’t employee treatment factor into this at all?

Employee engagement and well-being brings in a higher profit margin.

Organizations that actively participate in employee well-being and engagement, and invest time and energy in providing good working environments, tend to see greater returns and greater profits than companies who treat their employees like mere cogs in a machine. This isn’t something that only applies to certain industries; it’s true across all industries. It isn’t necessarily about wages, either.

Treating employees with respect, and letting them know their value to the organization as a whole, can go a very long way towards how well they perform.

But even if the returns were small, treating your employees with disrespect is just bad management.

Anybody who’s so disrespectful that they would tell an employee to put a bullet in their head because they’re sick shouldn’t be a manager to begin with.

This McDonald’s manager really should just be fired for that.

There’s no information available as to how often Navarrette was absent from work due to her diabetes. If it was quite frequent, then frustration on the part of her manager is to be expected.

However, that absolutely does not give him the right to tell her she should kill herself. If her health is causing that much of a problem with her attendance or performance on the job, then he needs to schedule a meeting with her to discuss her options (including things like light duty, and possibly disability).

If, however, her diabetes is not causing problems with her attendance and on-the-job performance, then his behavior is even worse because that level of frustration is entirely unwarranted. But regardless, no manager, no matter how frustrated they are, has the right tell anyone to just put a bullet in their heads.

Navarrette has a petition on Moveon.org regarding her situation, and the situation of all McDonald’s workers who’ve had to endure abuse from their managers. If McDonald’s is serious about improving their customer service, technology is only one step. They need to better train their franchisees to ensure store managers are leaders, and not just overseers.