Somewhere in a fancy colonial home in New Jersey, a bear has
awoken in the form of a pissed off Chris Christie, overcome with anger
for having been passed over by Donald Trump for his much-coveted vice
presidential position.
Reports are emerging that the NJ Governor is not at all happy to have
lost the position he jockeyed for in favor of Indiana Governor Mike
Pence.
If you recall, Christie was prepared to do just about everything it
took to come out on top next to Donald Trump, even if that meant serving
as a errand boy for Trump – reporters said Christie was seen fetching
fast food for the nominee at one point.
And Christie’s loyalty to Trump didn’t come without a price, as the
Governor, who already suffered from diminishing approval in his state,
saw his approval ratings absolutely decimated.
An anonymous source overheard Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort
confirm that Christie was “livid” over the VP announcement made by Trump
late last week.
“Christie was livid, right?” the man said at one point. “Yeah,” Manafort replied.
Despite his tantrums and rage, Christie is still scheduled to speak
at the RNC, so the only thing we can hope at this point is that the
Governor is so enraged at his missed opportunity that he takes his
speaking engagement and shoves it, calling out Trump and the party as a
whole.
Seeing Christie as the gilded whipping boy has been fun and all, but
we kind of miss the firebrand, angry man we all knew and loved from
before Trump’s rise to power.
Bring back the fury, Christie, and regain a tiny bit of the respect you once held.
Among the many things New Yorkers pride ourselves on is food: making
it, selling it and consuming only the best, from single-slice pizza to
four-star sushi. We have fish markets, Shake Shacks and, as of this
year, 74 Michelin-starred restaurants.
Yet most everything we eat is fraudulent.
In his new book, “Real Food Fake Food,”
author Larry Olmsted exposes the breadth of counterfeit foods we’re
unknowingly eating. After reading it, you’ll want to be fed
intravenously for the rest of your life.
Think you’re getting Kobe steak when you order the $350 “Kobe steak”
off the menu at Old Homestead? Nope — Japan sells its rare Kobe beef to
just three restaurants in the United States, and 212 Steakhouse is the
only one in New York. That Kobe is probably Wagyu, a cheaper, passable
cut, Olmsted says. (Old Homestead declined The Post’s request for
comment.)
Fraudulence spans from haute cuisine to fast food: A February 2016
report by Inside Edition found that Red Lobster’s lobster bisque
contained a non-lobster meat called langostino. In a statement to The
Post, Red Lobster maintains that langostino is lobster meat and said
that in the wake of the IE report, “We amended the menu description of
the lobster bisque to note the multiple kinds of lobster that are
contained within.”
Moving on: That extra-virgin olive oil you use on salads has probably
been cut with soybean or sunflower oil, plus a bunch of chemicals. The
100 percent grass-fed beef you just bought is no such thing — it’s very
possible that cow was still pumped full of drugs and raised in a cramped
feedlot.
Unless your go-to sushi joint is Masa or Nobu, you’re not getting the
sushi you ordered, ever, anywhere, and that includes your regular sushi
restaurant where you can’t imagine them doing such a thing, Olmsted
says. Your salmon is probably fake and so is your red snapper. Your
white tuna is something else altogether, probably escolar — known to
experts as “the Ex-Lax fish” for the gastrointestinal havoc it wreaks.
Escolar is so toxic that it’s been banned in Japan for 40 years, but
not in the US, where the profit motive dominates public safety. In fact,
escolar is secretly one of the top-selling fish in America.
The food industry isn’t just guilty of perpetrating a massive health and economic fraud: It’s cheating us out of pleasure.
“Sushi in particular is really bad,” Olmsted says, and as a native
New Yorker, he knows how much this one hurts. He writes that multiple
recent studies “put the chances of your getting the white tuna you
ordered in the typical New York sushi restaurant at zero — as in never.”
Fake food, Olmsted says, is a massive national problem, and the more
educated the consumer, the more vulnerable to bait-and-switch: In 2014,
the specialty-foods sector — gourmet meats, cheeses, booze, oils —
generated over $1 billion in revenue in the US alone.
“This category is rife with scams,” Olmsted writes, and even when it
comes to basics, none of us is leaving the grocery store without some
product — coffee, rice or honey — being faked.
The food industry isn’t just guilty of perpetrating a massive health
and economic fraud: It’s cheating us out of pleasure. These fake foods
produce shallow, flat, one-dimensional tastes, while the real things are
akin to discovering other galaxies, other universes — taste levels most
of us have never experienced.
“The good news,” Olmsted writes, “is that there is plenty of
healthful and delicious Real Food. You just have to know where to look.”
‘Safety isn’t a niche’
One of the most popular, fastest-growing foods in America is olive
oil, touted for its ability to prevent everything from wrinkles to heart
disease to cancer. Italian olive oil is a multibillion-dollar global
industry, with the US its third-largest market.
The bulk of these imports are, you guessed it, fake. Labels such as
“extra-virgin” and “virgin” often mean nothing more than a $2 mark-up.
Most of us, Olmsted writes, have never actually tasted real olive oil.
Old
Homestead in NYC lists “Kobe Beef” on its menu, but that’s not
precisely true. The luxurious Japanese meat can be found at only three
restaurants in the country, including 212 Steakhouse in Midtown.Photo: Shutterstock
“Once someone tries a real extra-virgin — an adult or child, anybody
with taste buds — they’ll never go back to the fake kind,” artisanal
farmer Grazia DeCarlo has said.
“It’s distinctive, complex, the freshest thing you’ve ever eaten. It
makes you realize how rotten the other stuff is — literally rotten.”
Fake olive oil, Olmsted claims, has killed people. He cites the most
famous example: In 1981, more than 20,000 people suffered mass food
poisoning in Spain. About 800 people died, and olive oil mixed with
aniline, a toxic chemical used in making plastic, was blamed.
In 1983, the World Health organization named the outbreak “toxic oil
syndrome,” but subsequent investigations pointed to a different
contaminant and a different food — pesticides used on tomatoes from
Almeria. (Olmsted stands by his reporting.)
Some of the most common additives to olive oil are soybean and peanut
oils, which can prove fatal to anyone allergic — and you’ll never see
those ingredients on a label. Beware, too, of olive oil labeled “pure” —
that can mean the oil is the lowest grade possible.
Some
of the most common additives in olive oil are soybean and peanut oils,
which can prove fatal to anyone allergic — and are often missing from
labels.Photo: Shutterstock
“No one is checking,” Olmsted writes.
How do we find the real thing? Olmsted recommends a few reliable
retailers, including Oliviers & Co. in New York and New Jersey.
Otherwise, look for labels reading “COOC Certified Extra Virgin” — the
newly formed California Olive Oil Council’s stamp — or the international
EVA and UNAPROL labels.
In terms of scope and scale, there’s an even greater level of fraud
throughout the seafood industry.
“Imagine if half the time you pulled
into a gas station, you were filling your tank with dirty water instead
of gasoline,” Olmsted writes. “That’s the story with seafood.”
He cites a 2012 study of New York City seafood done by scientists at
Oceana, a nonprofit advocacy group. They discovered fakes at 58 percent
of 81 stores sampled and at all of the 16 sushi restaurants studied, and
this goes on throughout the United States. If you see the words “sushi
grade” or “sashimi grade” on a menu, run. There are no official
standards for use of the terms.
Red snapper, by the way, is almost always fake — it’s probably tilefish or tilapia. (Tilapia also doubles for catfish.)
“Consumers ask me all the time, ‘What can I do?’ and all I can say
is, ‘Just don’t ever buy red snapper,’ ” Dr. Mark Stoeckle, a specialist
in infectious diseases at Weill Medical College, told Olmsted. “Red
snapper is the big one — when you buy it, you almost never get it.”
Red snapper is almost always fake — it’s probably tilefish or tilapia, which can also double for catfish.Photo: Shutterstock
Farmed Cambodian ponga poses as grouper, catfish, sole, flounder and
cod. Wild-caught salmon is often farmed and pumped up with pink coloring
to look fresher. Sometimes it’s actually trout.
Ever wonder why it’s so hard to properly sear scallops? It’s because
they’ve been soaked in water and chemicals to up their weight, so
vendors can up the price. Even “dry” scallops contain 18 percent more
water and chemicals.
Shrimp is so bad that Olmsted rarely eats it. “I won’t buy it, ever,
if it is farmed or imported,” he writes. In 2007, the FDA banned five
kinds of imported shrimp from China; China turned around and routed the
banned shrimp through Indonesia, stamped it as originating from there,
and suddenly it was back in the US food supply.
Seafood fraud puts pregnant women at risk; high levels of mercury in
fish are known to cause birth defects. Allergic reactions to shellfish
have been known to cause paralysis.
“All the gross details you have heard about industrial cattle farming
— from the widespread use of antibiotics and chemicals to animals
living in their own feces and being fed parts of other animals they
don’t normally consume — occurs in the seafood arena as well,” Olmsted
writes. “Only it is much better hidden.”
Red Lobster’s lobster bisque contains a non-lobster meat called langostino.Photo: Shutterstock
Corruption in the seafood industry is so rife that in 2014, President
Obama formed the Presidential Task Force on Illegal, Unreported, and
Unregulated Seafood Fraud. In the meantime, Olmsted has some
suggestions.
Look for the reliable logos MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) for
wild-caught fish and BAP (Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture
Practices) for farmed, he says.
The most trusted logo is “Alaska Seafood: Wild, Natural,
Sustainable.” Alaska’s system mandates complete supervision of chain of
custody, from catching to your grocery store.
Perhaps most surprising of all: Discount big-box stores such as
Costco, Trader Joe’s, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Walmart are as stringent
with their standards as Whole Foods.
“When customers walk into a store, they don’t expect to have to pay a
premium for safe food,” Walmart exec Brittni Furrow said in 2014.
“Safety isn’t a niche.”
Your grass-fed cow was drugged
One of the simplest things we can do, Olmsted writes, is to look for
products named after their geographical location. Grated Parmesan cheese
is almost always fake, and earlier this year, the FDA said its testing
discovered that some dairy products labeled “100% Parmesan” contained
polymers and wood pulp.
That’s all the FDA did: You can still buy your woody cheese at the supermarket.
The term “grass-fed” does not ensure free-range meat.Photo: Shutterstock
Parmigiano-Reggiano, however, derives its name from Parma, the region
in Italy that’s produced this cheese for over 400 years. If you buy it
with that label, it’s real.
Same with Roquefort cheese and Champagne from France, and San Marzano
tomato sauce, Bologna meat and Chianti from Italy, and Scotch whisky
from Scotland. Still, Olmsted strongly advises looking for the label PDO
— Protected Designation of Origin, the highest guarantee of
authenticity there is.
As for our own lax labeling standards, Olmsted is outraged.
Ninety-one percent of American seafood is imported, but the FDA is
responsible for inspecting just 2 percent of those imports. And in 2013,
the agency inspected less than half of that 2 percent.
“The bar is so low,” he says. “Congress could not have given them
less to do, and they still fail.
They’re not clueless. They know.
They’re actually deciding not to do it. They say they don’t have the
budget.”
When it comes to beef, Olmstead reports that the USDA is no better;
the agency repealed its standards for the “grass-fed” designation in
January after pressure from the agriculture industry.
All that stamp now means, he says, is that in addition to grass, the
animals “can still be raised in an industrial feed lot and given drugs.
It just means the actual diet was grass rather than corn.”
If you don’t have access to a farmer’s market, Olmsted says that
Eli’s and Citarella in New York are reliable providers of true grass-fed
beef.
“Go up to the counter and ask them where the grass-fed beef comes
from,” he says. “They need to know. In New York in particular, you have
access to a lot of specialized gourmet stores, and you can source stuff
locally. You can’t do that in most of the country.”
Here’s a look at some of the grossest ingredients that might be lurking in your favorite foods, including human hair:
The
Democratic National Convention is more than a week away, but
progressive organizers and Bernie Sanders enthusiasts are already
staging demonstrations around town.
(Photo: Sipa via AP)
In February, Black Lives Matters protesters showed their support for Bernie Sanders in Philadelphia.
Independence Blue Cross CEO Daniel J.
Hilferty lives in the Sylvan byways of Ardmore. It’s one of those
neighborhoods on Philadelphia’s Main Line that epitomizes a certain
vision of what the American suburb looks like. Big houses, green lawns,
gently winding lanes with few sidewalks, because no one is driving very
fast anyway.
And it’s quiet, the kind of place where birdsong sounds cacophonous.
That’s probably why five police cars arrived ten minutes after a mob
started chanting slogans in front of the insurance mogul’s house on
Wednesday night.
The group is demanding that
the Democratic National Convention Host Committee reveal its financial
records and the names of its donors.
This is the latest
manifestation of Reclaim Philadelphia, an activist group comprised in
part of former Bernie Sanders campaign staffers and volunteers. The
group is demanding that the Democratic National Convention Host
Committee reveal its financial records and the names of its donors.
Organizers
also want those at the head of host committee—Hilferty, Comcast nabob
David Cohen, and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell—to resign.
Hilferty’s house was activists’ last stop on Thursday. Earlier in the
evening, the protesters had also caravanned between the homes of Cohen
and Rendell to protest on their literal doorsteps.
At Hilferty’s stately stone manor, the delegation of 30 to 40
protesters taped its demands to Hilferty’s front door, and chanted
through a cycle of protest cries, starting with “Independence Blue
Cross, you profit off our loss” and ending with a rousing round of “Hey
hey, ho ho, the host committee has got to go.”
In a Census tract occupied by residents with a median income of
$110,887, the ruckus created a relative chaos that shattered the
otherwise-quiet early summer evening. Dogs were barking, the neighbors
on their front lawns muttering, and one of the activists launched into a
passionate speech denouncing Hilferty’s checkered ties with special
interests.
“The common theme across everyone we visited today is that special
interest and money in politics transcends any given candidate, any given
political issue, and any given election,” says Sameer Khetan, one of
the organizers with Reclaim Philadelphia and a former volunteer on the
Sanders campaign. “Now thankfully in this current national election,
we’ve seen the veil drop on the influence of dark money in politics. But
with these guys and their refusal to reveal their donor list, they’ve
brazenly mocked the gains we’ve made.”
Khetan rattled off the names of politicians who received
contributions from Hilferty in the 2016 election cycle, which sounded
like a who’s-who of so-called establishment Republicans: Chris Christie
($2,700), John Kasich ($2,000), and Jeb Bush ($2,700). He also gave
Hillary Clinton $2,700.
The loudest chorus of boos came when Khetan
revealed that Hilferty gave $10,000 to a PAC backing arch-conservative
Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey.
It was about that time that the cops and arrived and the protesters,
already drifting toward their cars, decisively scattered. The officers
were left to pick through the bushes, and contemplate the “Resign
Hilferty” signs left behind.
Reclaim Philadelphia is one of a profusion of
left-wing groups across the country that have popped up in the wake of
the Bernie Sanders campaign. These loosely knit activist organizations
seem to be largely independent of their erstwhile presidential hopeful,
and are preparing plans of their own, regardless of his next moves.
After Sanders endorsed his Democratic primary rival, Hillary Clinton,
he blasted an email to supporters promising “the creation of successor
organizations to carry on the struggle.” (In The Washington Post,
his campaign manager said as many as three new organizations could be
in the offing.) But groups like Reclaim Philadelphia aren’t waiting
around for their former candidate to act.
“There’s
too much money in politics,” said Xelba Gutierrez, one of the media
representatives for the organization and a former Sanders volunteer, as
she headed off on Wednesday toward the first house on Reclaim
Philadelphia’s list. “It’s like we don’t
have a voice, like we don’t have power, like not even voting gets the
job done. That’s the whole point of what we are doing, to work on the
issues.”
Asked how she feels about Sanders endorsing Clinton, she just smiles
and shrugs. The people who were never going to vote for her won’t, she
says, and those who are willing to will pull the lever. “He said from
the beginning that he would endorse the winner,” says Gutierrez. “We are
glad that he pushed the Democratic platform to be more progressive.”
For the past several weeks, Reclaim Philadelphia has focused on the
quarterly fundraising reports the host committee files with the
Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (the public
institution that extended the convention $15 million on credit).
Although Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records demanded the reports be
released last month, the host committee hasn’t complied. and is fighting
the issue in the courts. That’s why Reclaim Philadelphia is engaging in
its own pressure campaign.
“We decline to comment on the group's activities,” wrote Anna
Adams-Sarthou, media representative of the host committee, in an email.
“Regarding the finance component: We are fully in compliance with the
law, and to state otherwise is to not understand the facts. As we said
repeatedly, we will disclose our donors 60 days after the Convention, in
accordance with the FEC.”
Last week, Reclaim Philadelphia delivered letters to the Center City
Philadelphia offices of Hilferty, Comcast’s David Cohen, and ex-Governor
Rendell, who is also Philadelphia’s former mayor. They were rebuffed,
so this week they went to the three men’s houses. Next week will see a
further escalation of tactics, organizers say, although they would not
share the details.
Reclaim Philadelphia is far from the only organization with ties to
the former Sanders campaign that has big plans for the weeks and months
ahead. The group Democracy Spring has promised to mass activists for
civil disobedience during the Democratic National Convention July 25–28,
although they have released sparse details about when and where.
“The Democratic Party must live up to its name and do whatever it
takes to make this the last corrupt, billionaire-dominated, voter
suppression-maimed election of our lives,” wrote Kai Newkirk,
Democracy
Spring’s mission director, in a press release. Newkirk has previously
been arrested for speaking out against the Supreme Court’s Citizens United
ruling during its oral arguments. “Hillary took a big step in laying
out a strong democracy reform agenda on Tuesday, but we need to hear a
pledge from her and Congressional leaders that they will pass it as a
first priority if elected.”
The group wants electoral reforms, including the abolition of
superdelegates. To press their campaign, they claim to have more than
100 people signed up to perform acts of nonviolent civil disobedience
during the convention, including a few celebrities, like actress Rosario
Dawson.
“We were inspired by Bernie Sanders, but the political revolution
wasn’t about him,” says Desiree Kane, the media representative of
Democracy Spring. “This is our democracy too, and we’re here to
participate.”
There are other groups inspired by Sanders, whose organizers are more
reluctant to try to force change on a resistant Democratic Party. A
local organization called the Philly Socialists, which does not directly
involve itself in electoral politics, is helping to put together a
“Socialist Convergence” during the week of the DNC to game its next
steps. Although all the groups involved predate the Sanders campaign,
some of the largest endorsed him, including the Democratic Socialists of
America and Socialist Alternative. All of them hope to use the momentum
and excitement generated by his effort for their own campaigns, on
down-ballot races, or for the Green Party.
But at the Reclaim Philadelphia actions on Wednesday evening, the
rhetoric wasn’t often directed against the Democratic Party, per se.
Many people spoke of their excitement about the party’s new platform,
which is being called the most left-wing since George McGovern’s
nomination in 1972.
Reclaim Philadelphia’s demands for the resignation
of the host committee’s top leadership isn’t just about the records,
organizers say, but about their suspect status as Democrats.
Cohen supported and raised money for the extremely unpopular former
Republican governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, who slashed education
budgets and crippled school districts across the state (Philadelphia’s
suffering was especially acute). Rendell is very much the kind of Third
Way, pro-business Democrat that Sanders supporters have reviled, and he
recently allied himself with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles in a
campaign to “Fix The Debt” by cutting Social Security and Medicare.
On the doorsteps of Cohen and Hilferty, Reclaim Philadelphia declared
Wednesday that men like these aren’t the future of the Democratic
Party. The effort seems unlikely to topple these three men.
But the
party’s rich and powerful players, while they will always have
influence, may now be forced to share the stage with a profusion of
Sanders-inspired activists who are trying to push the Democratic Party
to the left.
“[David Cohen] demonstrates through his values that he does not
represent the Democratic Party,” declared Emily Strausbaugh on
Wednesday, standing on the Comcast executive’s front steps with a
bullhorn. “David Cohen is not an appropriate person to have at the top
of our party.”
You might want to sit down for this one, kids: Would you believe that
Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka, and his son Donald Junior have all
been named in a lawsuit involving a massive tax avoidance scam related to four Trump-branded real estate deals? Astonishing, we know — we’ll give you a nano-second to catch your breath.
The story comes to us once again from the Daily Beast’s David Cay Johnston, who has made dogging Trump on taxes
his personal beat. Now, it’s worth noting, as Johnston does right up
front, that Trump is not personally accused of wrongdoing in the suit.
Not yet, at least! Here’s the dealio:
He is described as a “material witness” in the evasion of
taxes on as much as $250 million in income. According to the court
papers, that includes $100 million in profits and $65 million in
real-estate transfer taxes from a Manhattan high rise project bearing
his familiar name.
However, his status may change, according to the lawyers who filed
the lawsuit, Richard Lerner and Frederick M. Oberlander, citing Trump’s
testimony about Felix Sater, a convicted stock swindler at the center of
the alleged scheme.
This Felix Sater guy is quite the “colorful character,” as we’ll see
in a moment. But how about the Trumps? What’s their involvement in this?
Mostly, getting buttloads of money while others do the work (dirty or
not), as is their lot in life:
Trump received tens of millions of dollars in fees and
partnership interests in one of the four projects, the Trump Soho New
York, a luxury high rise in lower Manhattan. His son Donald Junior and
his daughter Ivanka also were paid in fees and partnership interests,
the lawyers said, and are also material witnesses in the case.
As usual, there’s a nice record of Trump and his family hanging
out with Sater, the convicted stock swindler guy: Trump and Sater
traveled all over the place together, and “were photographed and
interviewed in Denver and Loveland, Colorado, Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale,
and New York.” The younger Trumplings also met with Sater at least once,
in Moscow, according to an attorney for the Trump Organization.
By now, you should know what’s coming: Trump, who enjoys telling the
media he has the greatest memory of any human alive, insists he barely
even knows this Sater guy:
Trump has testified about Sater in a Florida lawsuit
accusing the two of them of fraud in a failed high-rise project. Trump
testified that he had a glancing knowledge of Sater and would not
recognize him if he were sitting in the room.
He meets lots of people. And if some of them are accused of fraud, or
if he’s insulted them publicly for being disabled, then maybe he
doesn’t remember them so good anymore. It’s kind of weird that Trump has
no idea who Sater was and wouldn’t recognize him, though, seeing as how
Sater ran an investment firm, “Bayrock,” which had its offices in Trump
Tower, and worked a bunch of development deals for Trump-branded office
buildings. Still, Trump Tower’s a big building, and you can’t expect
Donald to know all his tenants. It’s not like he’s running a boarding
house. Oh, except maybe this would suggest Sater knew Trump a little
better than the doorman:
Sater then moved into the Trump Organization offices. He
carried a business card, issued by the Trump Organization, identifying
him as a “senior adviser” to Trump.
Can’t imagine why anyone would think Trump knew the guy.
Now, we’ll let you guys go read Johnston’s piece for all the fun
financial details of the tax fraud lawsuit, because lawyer-and-money
stuff makes our eyes go all funny; what it comes down to is that
partners in the four Trump-branded developments allegedly didn’t
properly report their profits on the deals, and that the defendants
(who, again, don’t include “material witnesses” Trump and kids — yet)
are alleged to owe at least “$7 million in New York state income taxes, a
sum that would be tripled” if the lawsuit is successful. And then, if
the feds decide to get involved, there’d be another $35 million in
unpaid federal taxes.
Johnston also details a convoluted string of other legal actions
involving Sater, all of which thumped against each other like dominoes
to lead to the unsealing of the current tax evasion lawsuit. This is
where Safer’s associations start getting really interesting. Back in
1998, Sater pleaded guilty to running a stock swindle, in which
the $40 million fleeced from investors went to him, the Genovese and Gambino crime families and others.
In 1998 Sater pleaded guilty in federal court, but the plea was kept
secret. Sater was sentenced in secret in 2009 to probation and a $25,000
fine with no jail time and no requirement to make restitution.
Huh! Mobbed up partners — this Sater sounds like a fine person to do business with. And a personal charmer, too, Johnston notes:
That was an extraordinarily light sentence, especially
given Sater’s violent past. In 1991 he admitted to shoving the broken
stem of a margarita glass into a man’s face and was sentenced to two
years.
Well, yeah, but he’d paid his debt to society, and nobody got a margarita glass in the face in the stock fraud case.
Besides, even though Sater is a really colorful guy (who might also
have been an undercover operative for the CIA, maybe), Donald Trump
hardly even knows him, and in fact was not part of that 1998
scheme. He just knows guys who know guys, is all. We certainly are not
suggesting there’s any dirty money paying for all the gold plating on
Trump properties, because we’d never hint at gilt by association.
On the other hand, notes Johnston, it’s awfully suspicious curious, maybe, that Donald Trump has refused to release any of his
income tax returns, which every single presidential nominee has done
since Richard Nixon in 1972. Trump says it’s because his taxes from 2012
to now are being audited, but there’s nothing preventing him from
releasing them anyway:
Mark Everson, a former commissioner of Internal Revenue
has said there is no reason to hold the returns back, even assuming they
are being audited.
He has offered no explanation for not releasing his returns for 2011
and earlier, years on which he has said the audits are closed.
As Johnston points out, documents from the New Jersey Casino Control
Commission show Trump paid no income taxes at all in 1978, 1979, 1992,
and 1994, and as Johnston previously reported,
Trump somehow managed not to pay income taxes in 1984, “by far his most
lucrative year in his career to that point.” Sort of makes you wonder
what we’d find out if we got a look at Trump’s taxes.
Probably
nothing interesting in those tax returns at all. Trump’s merely humble,
and wouldn’t want anyone to think he was bragging about being a an
incredibly wealthy, generous, and scrupulously honest businessman who’s also a Law And Order kind of guy.
All the political luminaries, delegates, and journalists attending
the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia may be flying
directly into a chaotic mess if employers don’t negotiate with airport
workers.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer,
SEIU 32BJ, the union fighting to represent workers at the Philadelphia
International Airport, is demanding the city grant airport employees the
right to unionize. They also made requests for clarity on the airport’s
paid sick day policy, an end to irregular scheduling, and a fairer
disciplinary system.
“The purpose of the DNC is to lift workers out of poverty,” 32BJ area Vice President Gabe Morgan said.
“Fifteen dollars an hour is a plank in the DNC,” he continued. “It
was huge subject of debate during the Democratic Primary, and really
what these workers are fighting for is the same thing the DNC is
fighting for in the upcoming national election.”
The vote to strike passed overwhelmingly by a 461-5 vote, and will
apply to roughly 1,000 airport workers who are hired by various
subcontractors that the airlines use to conduct daily operations. The
striking employees will include baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants,
airplane cleaners, and others. Should the strike go forward, the lack
of available staffing may result in extended flight delays for travelers
arriving to and departing from Philadelphia.
Morgan told the Inquirer the strike is unique to airport workers, as
other unionized employees already have fair contracts and would not be
striking during the convention, which takes place from July 25-28. He
added that the union’s past organizing has resulted in multiple
victories for workers at Philadelphia International, including a
$12/hour minimum wage.
No date has yet been announced for the strike. As of this writing,
there has been no indication from the companies subcontracting with the
airport that they’re willing to meet workers’ demands. The Philadelphia
convention host committee has also not commented on the strike.
Doom on Ultra-Nightmare difficulty without any upgrades!
The
graphic settings are different for this run compared to my previous
ultra-nightmare run. I changed to ultra settings and 105 FOV (120 FOV is
max, my other video was 90). I also reduced the bitrate\quality of the
recording a bit to reduce the size\upload time. I also removed glory
kill highlight, compass and changed crosshair.
No upgrades are:
- No weapon upgrades
- No armor upgrades
- No runes
- No argent cells (first cell is forced)
And no use of glitches\sequence skips, as that would make it trivial.
- No weapon upgrades does a lot less damage.
-
The armor upgrades are very useful for preventing massive damage from
barrels and self-rockets, and also missing faster weapon switch as well
as more effective powerups\grenades. A single barrel or a face rocket
can end your run very quickly.
- No runes will not allow me to grab
runes like for example saving throw which gives me a second chance, rich
get richer which gives me infinite ammo, or equipment powerup which
allows me to get armor from the siphon grenades.
- No argent cells
gives me a lot less health, armor and ammo. I can't afford to lose my
health from the mega health powerups later on, as I can't go over 100\50
from pickups. The lack of ammo makes it very important to be aware of
where the ammo pickups are and not to waste the chainsaw ammo.
This
UNM run is over an hour faster than my previous one, the main reasons
are because I play a lot better, I know where to go and without upgrades
I don't have to spend any time doing rune challenges, grabbing secrets
etc.
Why did I decide to do it without upgrades? Apparently a
lot of people have beaten it now on ultra-nightmare, so I figured I'd
take it a step further. But the main reason is because it's a very fun
way to play the game! I play a lot more aggressive this time and I don't
end up just using gauss cannon with rich get richer rune to clear
everything late game.
Misc:
Previously
I've died at the cyberdemon to a very strange attack combo that I don't
think should be possible, (you can watch that here: https://youtu.be/2Ph7FYhwics
I also died at the hell guardians, I didn't practice the fight properly
and without upgrades it was more difficult than last time. Also
included in the video above is a death at titan's realm.
I had a
crash at the start of the 4th level, never happened there before. I
didn't have any other crashes besides that and fortunately it happened
at the start of the level.
I don't know why my helmet was white at the hell guardians, never seen that before, as it should be either red or yellow.
On July 5th , the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion which found, in part, that sharing passwords is a crime prosecutable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The decision, according to a dissenting opinion on the case, makes millions of people who share passwords for services like Netflix and HBOGo into “unwitting federal criminals.”
MOMMY AND DADDY LOVE EACH OTHER AGAIN!!
Well, well, well, the time has come. Sources named Bernie Sanders said in an interview Thursday
that “We have got to do everything that we can to defeat Donald Trump
and elect Hillary Clinton.”
And by EVERYTHING, he means EVERYTHING. That
involves voting and making phone calls, and then voting in the place of
a dead person (kidding!) and then ‘splaining to your on-the-fence
neighbor who can’t stand Trump but somehow thinks Hillary’s emails mean
she is a criminal, how that is not true. And why should we do that? Tell us, Bernie:
“I don’t honestly know how we would survive four years of a Donald Trump … “
SO NOTED. So is an official endorsement about to happen? It would appear that way! The Huffington Post reports
that Hillz and Bernie will do a rally together in New Hampshire on
Tuesday!
Bernie will say, “I didn’t give a damn about your emails when
we were running against each other, and I don’t give a damn about them
now!” And Hillz will say, “You had some really great ideas, like the
free college thing, and I am trying to work some of those things
into my plans, so all the Democrats can get back to blowjobs, candy
canes and defeating Donald Trump!” And Bernie will reply, “I like candy
canes! They are cunning in their use of stripes!”
OK, where were we? Oh yeah, endorsement. So that’s probably happening Tuesday, unless Bernie decides to pull a GOTCHA!
like he did in June, when he said he was voting for Hillary, but then
like one hour later he was like “Yeah PROBABLY, no promises,” just like
Donald Trump was like “Yeah PROBABLY” about whether he’ll serve as president if he’s elected.
So
what tipped Bernie over into Hillary’s green pastures? The “free
college for most” thing? Maybe so! Or maybe it’s that the Democratic
Party platform is likely to include some very nice Bernie-esque things like support for a $15 minimum wage. Or maybe Bernie is just an overall mensch and smart guy who means it when he says a Trump presidency would be a dumpster fire of epic proportions.
As for Bernie’s supporters, they’re coming around, and his endorsement will help that along quite nicely. Oh, a few dead-enders are going apeshit over the FBI’s decision not to murder Hillary Clinton in her crib over “emails,” but they’re not the majority.
So hooray, put it on your calendars, for Tuesday is the day mommy and daddy are getting married again, WITH VOTES.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Republicans across the country have been
obsessing over former Secretary of State and presumptive Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time
at the State Department.
But what Republicans really should be asking
is:
What about Gowdy’s private email server?
On July 5, Clinton was cleared by a team of FBI investigators led by
FBI Director James Comey. Dismayed by the fact that their email-centric
political witch hunt failed to indict Clinton just weeks after the
Benghazi “scandal” also cleared her, they decided to investigate the
investigators and take on Comey. Gowdy led a portion of Comey’s
interrogation.
Which makes it all the more hypocritical to learn that Benghazi
Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has been exposed for having his own
personal email server at treygowdy.com. AlterNet remarks that
“while it’s not unusual to maintain such a thing particularly for
campaign work, it’s not clear that Gowdy utilizes this email solely for
political campaign work and not congressional tasks.”
Requests for comment by both Alternet and Correct The Record‘s David Brock
were both ignored by the Gowdy camp, which is highly indicative that he
does use his personal email for Congressional work- if he had nothing
to hide, why wouldn’t he just say so? Especially with the integrity of
his failed committee under such harsh scrutiny by the rest of the
nation, demanding answers for the colossal misuse of public funds and
time. Gowdy had better be ready to put his own actions under the
microscope.
Here is the full text of David Brock’s inquiry:
Dear Chairman Gowdy:
I noted with interest your public demand that Secretary Clinton turn
over her personal email server, presumably so that the committee can
access some 30,000 Clinton emails deemed to be strictly private and
beyond the reach of the government.
This Orwellian demand has no basis in law or precedent. Every
government employee decides for themselves what email is work-related
and what is strictly private. There is no reason to hold Secretary
Clinton to a different standard— except partisan politics.
But since you insist that Clinton’s private email be accessed, I’m
writing today to ask you and your staff to abide by the same standard
you seek to hold the Secretary to by releasing your own work-related and
private email and that of your staff to the public.
While I realize that Congress regularly exempts itself from laws that
apply to the executive branch, I believe this action is necessary to
ensure public confidence in the fairness and impartiality of your
investigation.
This week, high-profile police killings of two black men—Alton
Sterling of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile, who was killed
in Falcon Heights, Minnesota—have renewed heated debates about police
violence, and brought the Black Lives Matter movement back into the
spotlight.
Every time this happens, cries of “Black Lives Matter” tend to be
met with the response “All Lives Matter.” Even presidential candidates
have made this mistake—last year, Hillary Clinton said “All Lives
Matter,” though she has since corrected herself. And lots of white
people have expressed confusion about why it’s controversial to broaden
the #BlackLivesMatter movement to include people of all races.
The real issue is that, while strictly true, “All Lives Matter” is a
tone-deaf slogan that distracts from the real problems black people in
America face.
The best explanation we’ve seen so far comes from Reddit, of all
places. Last year, in an “Explain Like I’m 5” thread, user GeekAesthete
explained, clearly and succinctly, why changing #BlackLivesMatter to
#AllLivesMatter is an act of erasure that makes lots of people cringe.
GeekAesthete explains:
Imagine that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and
while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So
you say “I should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this,
your dad corrects you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.”
Now, that’s a wonderful sentiment — indeed, everyone should, and that
was kinda your point in the first place: that you should be a part of
everyone, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad’s
smart-ass comment just dismissed you and didn’t solve the problem that
you still haven’t gotten any!
The problem is that the statement “I should get my fair share” had
an implicit “too” at the end: “I should get my fair share, too, just
like everyone else.” But your dad’s response treated your statement as
though you meant “only I should get my fair share”, which clearly was
not your intention. As a result, his statement that “everyone should get
their fair share,” while true, only served to ignore the problem you
were trying to point out.
That’s the situation of the “black lives matter” movement. Culture,
laws, the arts, religion, and everyone else repeatedly suggest that all
lives should matter. Clearly, that message already abounds in our
society.
The problem is that, in practice, the world doesn’t work that way.
You see the film Nightcrawler? You know the part where Renee Russo tells
Jake Gyllenhal that she doesn’t want footage of a black or latino
person dying, she wants news stories about affluent white people being
killed? That’s not made up out of whole cloth — there is a news bias
toward stories that the majority of the audience (who are white) can
identify with. So when a young black man gets killed (prior to the
recent police shootings), it’s generally not considered “news”, while a
middle-aged white woman being killed is treated as news. And to a large
degree, that is accurate — young black men are killed in significantly
disproportionate numbers, which is why we don’t treat it as anything
new. But the result is that, societally, we don’t pay as much attention
to certain people’s deaths as we do to others. So, currently, we don’t
treat all lives as though they matter equally.
Just like asking dad for your fair share, the phrase “black lives
matter” also has an implicit “too” at the end: it’s saying that black
lives should also matter. But responding to this by saying “all lives
matter” is willfully going back to ignoring the problem. It’s a way of
dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means “only black
lives matter,” when that is obviously not the case. And so saying “all
lives matter” as a direct response to “black lives matter” is
essentially saying that we should just go back to ignoring the problem.
Yep, there you go. Bookmark it, print it out, give it to your friends.
Hillary Clinton has a nearly 80 percent chance of winning the White
House in November, FiveThirtyEight polling guru Nate Silver predicted
Wednesday.
FiveThirtyEight projected Clinton has a 79 percent chance of winning
the general election against Donald Trump, who has just a 20 percent
chance of succeeding President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.
“Here’s how to think about it: We’re kind of at halftime of the
election right now, and she’s taking a seven-point, maybe a 10-point
lead into halftime,” Silver told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “Good
Morning America.” “There’s a lot of football left to be played, but
she’s ahead in almost every poll, every swing state, every national
poll.”
Indeed, a Ballotpedia survey of seven swing states
released Wednesday shows the presumptive Democratic presidential
nominee sweeping Trump in Iowa, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, North
Carolina, Ohio and Virginia by margins ranging from 4 to 17 percentage
points.
Silver, who correctly forecast 49 out of 50 states in 2008 and every
state in 2012, noted that both camps “have a lot of room to grow,” but
no candidate has blown a lead as large as Clinton’s advantage over Trump
in nearly 30 years, when former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis lost
to George H.W. Bush despite maintaining a large lead coming out of the
spring and summer.
“It’s been a crazy year, politically,” Silver said, adding that more
states, particularly red states, are in play in 2016 than in previous
elections. “For example, Arizona looks like a toss-up. Maybe Georgia.
Maybe Missouri, North Carolina again.”
“Likewise,” Silver continued, “if Trump gains ground on Clinton then
maybe a state like Maine — used to be a swing state, not so recently” —
could be in play, too.
Silver also defended his August forecast that gave the billionaire businessman a 2 percent chance to win the GOP nomination.
“That wasn’t based on looking at polls. Trump was always ahead in the
polls, and one big lesson of his campaign is don’t try and out-think
the polls and try and out-think the American public,” Silver said. “And
Trump has never really been ahead of Clinton in the general election
campaign. He did a great job of appealing to the 40 percent of the GOP
he had to win the election, the primary — a lot different than winning
51 percent of 100 percent.”
Lawrence
O’Donnell has a thorough explanation of the woes plaguing Donald
Trump’s campaign as Trump complains he’s running against two parties
while a new scandal develops with the ‘Trump Institute.’
Stuart Stevens and Eugene Robinson join the discussion.
Gary Johnson, Jill Stein (Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Jonathan Ernst)
Ever
since Hillary Clinton became the “presumptive nominee” for the
Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders supporters have been faced with a
seemingly impossible dilemma: Vote for someone you hate (Clinton) or
vote for someone despicable (Trump). You either cast your vote toward
someone you see as a shill for corporate interests or you vote for a
bigoted monster. There is a real sense that there simply is no other
choice.
But
vote shaming seems to have caused unanticipated blowback. As mind
boggling as it may be to consider, many Sanders supporters are actually
suggesting they will choose Trump over Clinton. A June 14 Bloomberg Politics national poll of
likely voters in November’s election found that just over half of those
who favored Sanders — 55 percent — plan to vote for Clinton.
Stop and ponder how crazy that is for a moment. Frustration
with establishment politics is so high that folks will vote for a
misogynistic, racist, egomaniacal buffoon over a party insider. Anger
over a sense that the primary season was rigged, that Clinton lacks
integrity, and that the voting process was unjust has driven supporters
of a progressive candidate toward one who has been repeatedly described as fascist. For some Sanders supporters, #NeverHillary can only mean Trump.
That
false logic is a clear sign of how our democracy is rigged and our
system is flawed: Voters frustrated with the system are planning to cast
their votes within the same system.
Armes, like many other
Sanders supporters, never considered a third option. It never occurred
to her to vote for Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, or Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Armes was thinking in the binary two-party logic that forces her to choose between either a Democrat or a Republican.
There
is only one way to win an election for president in our country today
and that is by being the nominee of one of the two principal parties.
The reason for this is that we have “winner-take-all” system. In almost
every state, the candidate with the majority of votes wins all of the
Electoral College votes. So voting for a third party can really skew the
outcome. Even worse, it usually skews it away from your likely
second-choice candidate toward the person you fear winning the most.
This
is why many Sanders supporters who now say they are voting Clinton have
switched over. In general, they won’t be voting for Clinton because
they like her; they will be voting for Clinton because they are
terrified of Trump. And the same dislike is taking place on the other
side of the political spectrum. Voters are supporting Trump because they
deeply dislike Clinton.
In fact, as Harry Enten reports for Five Thirty Eight,
“Clinton and Trump are both more strongly disliked than any nominee at
this point in the past 10 presidential cycles.” So this really is the
election between two evils. The only question, thus far, has been which
of the two is the worst one.
As FairVote.org explains, ranked choice voting makes democracy more fair and functional.
In ranked choice voting, alternatively known as instant-runoff voting,
voters rank their votes. If your first choice does not win, then your
vote goes to your second choice, and so on. So, under ranked voting, you
could vote Stein first, then Clinton. That would guarantee that a vote
for Stein could not actually help Trump. It would also guarantee that we
could get a fair and accurate assessment of how many people really
picked Clinton or Trump as their first choice. If it seems complicated, check out a sample ballot here.
The
mere idea that voting for Nader wrecked the election and skewed votes
leading to a Bush Jr. presidency should be sign enough that we are due
for change. Voters who wanted to support a splinter candidate were
punished for exercising their rights. The problem is not just the
anti-democratic nature of the Electoral College; it is the way the
all-or-nothing system forces a two-party duopoly that can’t be
challenged without grave consequences.
The
reasons for considering an alternative voting system go beyond a desire
to give third parties a chance for greater visibility and more votes.
There is much more at stake. First of all, the winner-take-all system
increases fear-based voting. Voters are more inclined to vote against a candidate than to vote for someone.
So, as you ponder the two unappealing choices likely to
head the November ballot, consider bucking the closed two-party system
and voting a third way, but more importantly consider fighting to change
the rigged system that got us into this mess.
Sophia A. McClennen is
Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the
Pennsylvania State University. She writes on the intersections between
culture, politics, and society. Her latest book, co-authored with Remy
M. Maisel, is, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics.
A jury has convicted a veteran U.S.
Congressman Chaka Fattah in a racketeering case that largely centered on
various efforts to repay an illegal $1 million campaign loan.
U.S.
Rep. Chaka Fattah was found guilty of all counts against him, including
racketeering, fraud and money laundering. His lawyers had argued that
the schemes were engineered without Fattah's knowledge by two political
consultants who pleaded guilty in the case.
As
he emerged from the courthouse after the guilty verdict, Fattah made a
brief statement about conferring with his lawyers before continuing to
walk away without answering further questions from reporters.
The
59 year old Democrat has represented West Philadelphia as well as parts
of Center City, South Philly, Montgomery County and the Main Line in
Congress since 1995 and served on the powerful House Appropriations
Committee. But he lost the April primary and his bid for his 12th term.
His current term ends in December.
Fattah's
jovial and calm demeanor didn't change much as the verdict was read,
said NBC10's Deanna Durante who was in the courtroom.
Fattah will remain out on bail ahead of his October sentencing.
Jurors
began deliberations late Wednesday afternoon, nearly month after the
trial began May 16. A juror was dismissed in the racketeering case
without explanation Friday. An alternate replaced the missing member,
and U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III ordered jurors to begin
deliberations again.
Four co-defendants also faced numerous charges.
- Fattah's former chief of staff, Bonnie Bowser, was found guilty on some of her 21 counts.
- Fattah's friend and wealthy supporter, Herbert Vederman, was found guilty on all 8 counts.
- Political consultant Robert Brand was found guilty on all two counts.
- Former Fattah aide Karen Nicholas was found guilty on some of her seven counts.
The
four-week trial concluded quicker than most observers expected and did
not involve any bombshell testimony or evidence entered by prosecutors
and defense attorneys.
Instead,
the trial revolved around the legality of the defendants actions related
to a $1 million loan made during Fattah's failed 2007 mayoral campaign.
Prior
to the trial, Fattah's chief strategist for that mayoral bid, Richard
Naylor, pleaded guilty to misuse of campaign funds. He testified early
on in the trial as a prosecution witness.
“This
charge cost him his reelection. He’d been an 11-term Congressman and
did a lot of things for his constituents when he was in office,” said
Howard Bruce Klein, a former federal prosecutor. “So I would say it’s a
sad ending for a public servant who made scholarships available for
thousands of students over the years, but now has come to a very unhappy
ending, being guilty of corruption. So it’s a day for the Congressman,
it’s a sad day for his constituents and it’s a sad day for
Philadelphia.”
Members of the jurors didn't immediately comment as they left the courtroom Tuesday afternoon.
In this Majority Report clip, we are lucky enough to hear the wise words
of Alex Jones concerning the Orlando massacre. Jones (of course) thinks
that the globalists/U.S. Government/anti-gun lobby (??)/probably the
Illuminati/Obama are to blame for the mass shooting at Orlando nightclub
Pulse because of immigration laws.
The shooter, Omar Mateen, was an
American-born citizen, reportedly not that religious, likely mentally
ill, and possibly gay himself.
These are all incredibly sound reasons to
conclude that Alex Jones is wrong, as always, but here you go. He ruins a lovely nature scene while he’s at it.
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) has had enough of the growing movement to
drug test poor people who need government assistance. So on Tuesday,
she’s introducing a bill that she says will make things fairer.
Her “Top 1% Accountability Act” would require anyone claiming
itemized tax deductions of over $150,000 in a given year to submit a
clean drug test. If a filer doesn’t submit a clean test within three
months of filing, he won’t be able to take advantage of tax deductions
like the mortgage interest deduction or health insurance tax breaks.
Instead he would have to make use of the standard deduction.
Her office has calculated that the people impacted will be those who
make at least $500,000 a year.
“By drug testing those with itemized
deductions over $150,000, this bill will level the playing field for
drug testing people who are the recipients of social programs,” a memo
on her bill notes.
Moore has a personal stake in the fight. “I am a former welfare
recipient,” she explained. “I’ve used food stamps, I’ve received Aid for
Families with Dependent Children, Medicaid, Head Start for my kids,
Title XX daycare [subsidies]. I’m truly grateful for the social safety
net.”
Ten states
require applicants to their cash welfare programs to undergo a drug
test. States are currently barred from implementing drug testing for the
food stamps program, but Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has sued the federal government to allow him to do so and has gotten some Congressional Republican support.
Moore has been frustrated to witness attempts to tie those who avail
themselves of the safety net to drug use. “Republicans continue to
criminalize poverty and to put forward the narrative, the false
narrative in fact, that people who are poor and reliant upon the social
safety net are drug users,” she said.
In fact, evidence from test results
among states that test welfare recipients indicates that they are no
more likely to use drugs than the general population — in fact, they may
be less likely.
That didn’t stop House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) from using a drug rehab center as the backdrop while he unveiled his poverty plan
last week. “I think this is what tipped me over the edge,” Moore said,
“rolling out his poverty initiative in front of a drug treatment program
to sort of drive that false narrative forward.”
House Speaker Paul Ryan speaks at a drug rehab
facility in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, Tuesday, June 7,
2016, where he proposed an overhaul for the nation’s poverty programs. CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Moore also wants to use her bill to question why some recipients of
government aid are treated differently than others. “On the one hand,
poor people…are entitled to things like Medicaid and SNAP [food
stamps],” she said. “People who take tax deductions and particularly
those in the top 1 percent…are not entitled to anything.” But they still
benefit from a large pot of government money.
When it comes to drug abuse, “There are no boundaries with regard to
class or race,” she said. “If these poor people who are entitled to SNAP
for survival are required to be drug tested, then certainly those
people who claim $150,000 or more in tax deductions should be subjected
to the same in order to receive this benefit from the government.”
Moore also thinks that while there is no evidence that drug testing
welfare recipients saves states any money, drug tests for wealthy
taxpayers could be different. “We would save a lot of money on this,”
she said. “When you add up all of the tax expenditures, all the money we
give really wealthy people, it really rivals the amount we spend on
Defense, Social Security, Medicare.” The mortgage interest deduction,
which overwhelmingly benefits people making more than $100,000, alone cost $70 billion in 2013, or 0.4 percent of GDP.
Her bill will also help illuminate this very fact: that so much is
spent on tax expenditures, not just on direct aid programs like welfare
and food stamps. “We think it’s important to engage in some transparency
and accountability around tax deductions,” she said.
Moore is not the only lawmaker in Congress who has raised questions
about unequal treatment between the poor who make use of government
programs and everyone else who needs them. In February, Rep. Rosa
DeLauro asked why
only recipients of food stamps were being considered for drug testing
but not the farmers who also make use of programs run by the Agriculture
Department.
But Moore is very serious about pushing her bill forward. “I’m
motivated,” she said. “I’m going to work on it very seriously. I’m going
to try to get cosponsors.”
She also wants to “engage the wealthy in this poverty debate,” she
said. “I would love to see some hedge fund manager on Wall Street who
might be sniffing a little cocaine here and there to stay awake realize
that he can’t get his $150,000 worth of deductions unless he submits to a
drug test.”
Why is the Ed Schultz Show hotter than a polar bear in Pensacola? Easy. Because he is so different from every other talk show hosts. He’s a straight talking, no-nonsense voice of reason in unreasonable times.
On Thursday's Show, Ed gives commentary on the Republicans predicament with Donald Trump as their presumptive nominee and the fight that his heating up over gun control. We are joined by Jane Kleeb, Director of Bold Nebraska and candidate for Nebraska Democratic Party Chair, joins the show to talk about the impact of Bernie Sanders on the Democratic platform.
It is the most famous ducktail in America today, the hairdo of
wayward youth of a bygone era, and it's astonishing to imagine it under
the spotlight in Cleveland, being cheered by Republican dignitaries.
The
class hood, the bully and braggart, the guy revving his pink Chevy to
make the pipes rumble, presiding over the student council. This is the
C-minus guy who sat behind you in history and poked you with his pencil
and smirked when you asked him to stop. That smirk is now on every front
page in America. It is not what anybody — left, right or center — looks
for in a president. There's no philosophy here, just an attitude.
He
is a little old for a ducktail. By the age of 70, most ducks have moved
on, but not Donald. He is apparently still fond of the sidewalls and
the duck's ass in back and he is proud as can be of his great feat, the
first punk candidate to get this close to the White House. He says that
the country is run by a bunch of clowns and that he is going to make
things great again and beat up on the outsiders who are coming into our
neighborhood. His followers don't necessarily believe that — what they
love about him is what kids loved about Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious,
the fact that he horrifies the powers that be and when you are pro-duck
you are giving the finger to Congress, the press, clergy, lawyers,
teachers, cake-eaters, big muckety-mucks, VIPs, all those people who
think they're better than you — you have the power to scare the pants
off them, and that's what this candidate does better than anybody else.
After
the worst mass shooting in American history on Sunday, 50 persons dead
in Orlando, the bodies still being carted from the building, the faces
of horror-stricken cops and EMTs on TV, the gentleman issued a statement
on Twitter thanking his followers for their congratulations, that the
tragedy showed that he had been "right" in calling for America to get
"tough."
Anyone else would have expressed sorrow. The gentleman expressed what was in his heart, which was personal pride.
We
had a dozen or so ducktails in my high school class and they were all
about looks. The hooded eyes, the sculpted swoop of the hair, the curled
lip. They emulated Elvis but only the look, not the talent. Their sole
ambition was to make an impression, to slouch gracefully and exhale in
an artful manner. In the natural course of things, they struggled after
graduation, some tried law enforcement for the prestige of it, others
became barflies. If they were drafted, the Army got them shaped up in a
month or two. Eventually, they all calmed down, got hitched up to a
mortgage, worried about their blood pressure, lost the chippiness, let
their hair down. But if your dad was rich and if he was born before you
were, then the ducktail could inherit enough wealth to be practically
impervious to public opinion. This has happened in New York City. A man
who could never be elected city comptroller is running for president.
The dreamers in the Republican Party imagine that
success will steady him and he will accept wise counsel and come into
the gravitational field of reality but it isn't happening. The Orlando
tweets show it: The man does not have a heart. How, in a few weeks,
should Mr. Ryan and Mr. McConnell teach him basic humanity? The bigot
and braggart they see today is the same man that New Yorkers have been
observing for 40 years. A man obsessed with marble walls and gold-plated
doorknobs, who has the sensibility of a giant sea tortoise.
His response to the Orlando tragedy is one more clue that this
election is different from any other. If Mitt Romney or John McCain had
been elected president, you might be disappointed but you wouldn't fear
for the fate of the Republic. This time, the Republican Party is
nominating a man who resides in the dark depths. He is a thug and he
doesn't bother to hide it. The only greatness he knows about is himself.
So
the country is put to a historic test. If the man is not defeated, then
we are not the country we imagine we are. All of the trillions spent on
education was a waste. The churches should close up shop. The nation
that elects this man president is not a civilized society. The gentleman
is not airing out his fingernail polish, he is not showing off his
wedding ring; he is making an obscene gesture. Ignore it at your peril.
Garrison Keillor hosts "A Prairie Home Companion." This column was provided by the Washington Post News Service.
