RNC: Random Observations on a Pathetic Parade

Posted By Rude One

1. If the first night of the Republican National Convention is remembered for anything other than the insistent invocation of the United States as a scorched hellscape of a nation in the wake of the presidency of Barack Obama, a nation that is as much a fiction as a shining city on a hill ever was, it will be that the campaign of nominee Donald Trump exploited and embarrassed two women before tens of millions of people.

2. The most appalling sight of the appalling evening was Pat Smith, mother of Sean Smith, who was killed in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Smith has long been on a tear to get at some kind of truth for her child's death over what she claims she was told by Hillary Clinton at a memorial for her son, that an anti-Muslim video caused the attack. Frankly, it doesn't matter if it was an anti-Muslim video, a planned terrorist attack, or goats with guns. None of those would bring back her son, but, hey, fuck that Hillary. So Trump had Smith go out and speak to the delegates, many of whom, probably drunk, started crying watching this obviously grieving and Valiumed to the gills woman try to make policy from her pain. Which was more disgusting is up for grabs. "I blame Hillary Clinton personally for the death of my son. That's personally," Smith said, as if Clinton had gone to Benghazi and put a bullet in her son's skull. But the blood lust was rising as outrage grew among the idiot hordes on the floor, an outrage that never fucking occurred at the Republican Convention in 2004 when the man who was president during the 9/11 attacks took the stage. Smith put a bow on it by saying, "Hillary for prison. She deserves to be in stripes." Then she turned around, confused, wondering where she should go, lost, with seemingly no one to guide her away.

2a. Oh, wait. The most disgusting thing was that Donald Trump called into Bill O'Reilly's Crematorium of Reality on Fox "news" at the same time as Smith's speech, which meant that he wasn't even watching it.

3. It doesn't fucking matter if Melania Trump speaks six languages, as Trump lackeys kept telling us today. It doesn't fucking matter that she spoke at the convention without shitting herself, as if that was the measure of quality. Part of her generally terrible, platitudinous, vacuous speech was plagiarized. 

Purely and simply, two paragraphs of it came from Michelle Obama's amazing 2008 convention speech. Using my crazy English professor skills, I know from plagiarism. If a student had written that in my class, I would make them scrap that paper and start from scratch as punishment. (Others would look to have the student drummed out or at least fail the class, but I'm not a dick.) And the Trump campaign, which shouldn't have pushed Ms. Trump to speak when she reportedly didn't want to, which should have anally probed the speech for problems no matter who wrote it, should just admit it fucked up and stop trying to bend the truth to its will. That's totalitarian bullshit, man. That's 2+2=5 and you're a traitor if you think otherwise.

3a. Bonus points to dunderheaded conservative commentator S.E. Cupp on CNN, who said of Melania Trump's speech, "I don't really see a bad ending to however this goes for her tonight." Punditry at its best.

4. But, honestly, the plagiarism is the least of the sins of the evening, which included parading out people whose loved ones were killed by undocumented immigrants. What the fuck are we supposed to do with that? Oh, hey, how about countering with the undocumented man who saved a young girl from abduction? Or the one who helped save the life of a 9 year-old boy in an auto accident in the desert? Those are children who likely would have been dead or seriously harmed without the intervention of an undocumented immigrant. Should they speak at the Democratic convention? No, because this whole fucking argument is dumb and besides the point. All Trump wanted to tell the idiot hordes on the floor and at home is that "illegal aliens" will fucking murder you where you sit because they are naturally evil.

4a. Let's not even talk about Chachi.

5. No one represented the insane asylum that is the modern GOP more than former New York City mayor and man most likely to send back a half-eaten steak and claim it wasn't properly cooked, Rudy Giuliani. Gesturing wildly, screaming, and jumping around like a pug on PCP, Giuliani warned us that the country has become something it quite demonstrably has not. "The vast majority of Americans today do not feel safe. They fear for their children. They fear for themselves," he said, and the only response is "Motherfucker, we're only afraid because you keep telling us to be afraid.  Crime is down, jobs are up, and more people can get medical care than ever. All the shit that's bad - income distribution, guns everywhere - that's on you Republican spoogerags." On and on Rudy went, in that man-cunt way of his, where everything is shit and Barack Obama is a fey demi-man who won't keep you safe and Hillary Clinton is a cold-blooded bitch who murders soldiers and only one man can save us from choking on our own vomit as we're raped by Muslims in our homes and that man is Donald Trump, who is qualified to do this because he got building plans past zoning commissions. Or something. Fucking ridiculous.

6. We've got three more days of this. Three more days of hearing about how Benghazi was the worst crime in the U.S. history. Three more days of people trying to tell us that a bloated pile of shit topped with orange cotton candy is the superhero American needs. As we wallow in the easily understood plagiarism nonsense, we can ignore the racism, the xenophobia, the misogyny, the hate, emanating from the convention center like a shit smell from a diaper.

RNC Day Two: The Motherfucker and the Prick

Part 1: The Motherfucker

The Fat Man strode onto stage at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last night absolutely cocky in his Fat Man suit and tie. His job was one he relished like a corndog on the Seaside Heights boardwalk: to demonstrate that he could fuck mothers better than any other motherfucker in a whole convention center of them. The Fat Man declared himself the prosecutor in a case against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Oh, how the Fat Man loved the attention, the adulation, as he lied and prevaricated and exaggerated Clinton's record as Secretary of State. God, how the Fat Man could have awkwardly reached under his stomach to jerk himself off as the idiot hordes chanted, "Lock her up," turning policy disagreements into high crimes, the better to tee up the inevitable impeachment hearings when Clinton is elected. The Fat Man used his accusations to dance and prance on the stage, the cruel Fool twisting this way and that, all this buffoonery for the enthralled rabble, eager to sate its bloodlust, and the pampered, primped family of Donald Trump sat in the gallery, looked on approvingly, as if all that was needed was a guillotine and the scene would be complete.

The Fat Man obviously felt powerful in his motherfucker role, as if this was what he was always destined to do. He made logical leaps that were astonishing to behold, like when he misrepresented Clinton saying that Syria's president is "a reformer" and "a different kind of leader." It didn't matter at all that she was merely reporting what others had told her and that she was adopting a wait-and-see attitude. Oh, no. The Fat Man decided that was enough to imply that Clinton was partly responsible for the deaths of 400,000 people in Syria. Clinton, according to the Fat Man, is the nexus of all evil around the world, from Nigeria to Cuba to China.

The Fat Man was just the mightiest fucker of mothers of an evening spent fucking mothers. Prior to him, Clinton had been accused of causing the Benghazi deaths, of essentially intentionally leaking classified information through her email server, of attacking women that had been, according to a cruel woman earlier, allegedly "sexually abused" by Bill Clinton. Outside, in just the last few days, there have been calls for Hillary Clinton to be hanged or shot.

To the Fat Man, the cruel woman, all the other motherfuckers, in Cleveland and elsewhere, one has to ask: What the fuck do you think you know? Seriously, what special knowledge about Hillary Clinton do you have that no one else seems to have? No, really. What do you know that multiple congressional committees, for 25 years, including ones led by Republicans, multiple investigations from the FBI, and multiple independent counsels don't know? You read some shit on a website. Every fucking time that someone has attempted to even get Hillary Clinton charged with a crime, it has failed once the facts were clearly ascertained. If you're holding back some super-secret piece of evidence that fucking Kenneth Starr, Rick Lazio, and Trey Gowdy couldn't find, then you better get that out now. Otherwise, just admit that you've got jack shit to back up anything you're saying. But you won't. Because you're motherfuckers, and you'd rather just keep fucking mothers than pretend there's anything like "truth."

Part 2: The Prick

Without a doubt, Donald Trump, Jr. is a douchebag prick. Only douchebag pricks proudly shoot down elephants and display their cut-off tails as trophies. And only a douchebag prick could get up there to give a speech with his greasy, slicked-back hair and try to make himself sound like he comes from a humble background when, really, he is just the prick prince in a kingdom of pricks. Look at the shit he said, like when he tried to Horatio Alger his father's story: "When people told him it was impossible for a boy from Queens to go to Manhattan and take on developers in the big city, rather than give up, he changed the skyline of New York." Yeah, it was really fucking hard for a millionaire with shitloads of connections from his developer father to become a developer.

Or look at this: "The other party gave us public schools that far too often fail our students, especially those who have no options. Growing up my siblings and I, we were truly fortunate to have choices and options that others don't have. We want all Americans to have those same opportunities." This little prick went to the Hill School in Pennsylvania, which doesn't take vouchers and costs $35-55,000 a year, depending on if you board there. To pretend that "all Americans" would be able to get an $8,000 voucher and go to Hill is absurd. It's a fucking lie from a prick.

You want to know where the game is? You want to know the big lie in Junior's seemingly populist speech? It's when he attacked the Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed some regulation on the financial services industry. Junior said that it was a thousand pages long and that "What it does is destroy small business in favor of big businesses, who can afford the vast number of lawyers and accountants needed to comply." Except, of course, for all the protections in the actual law that help small businesses. Getting rid of it will only enrich the Wall Street pricks who probably giggle when Donald and Junior mock them.

And he ended with one other line that gave away the whole sham. In his big finish exhorting everyone to bow down to his father, Junior said, "When we elected him, we'll have done all that, we'll have made America great again, greater than ever before." All by himself, just by putting his ass into a chair in the Oval Office, America will become great. No work needed. Just a sign on what will no doubt be rebranded, "The Trump White House."

By the way, the prick also told an adviser to John Kasich, when they offered the vice-presidency to the Ohio governor, that the VP would be in charge of domestic and foreign policy. What would Trump be in charge of? "Making America great again," Junior said.

The chanting idiot hordes and larger idiot hordes of voters don't give a fuck about democracy. They want a king who can simply clap his hands and make what is not real into reality, or at least the reality he tells them it is.  They want a myth and they want to kill or jail anyone who tries to get in the way of their myth. The faithful shall not be denied their reward of a great America, even if they have to destroy America to get it.

RNC Day Three: Notes on a Traitor

Yesterday, over on the Twitter machine, I made a simple suggestion to Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Couching it in terms of his crushingly awful performance as Samuel Parris in The Crucible when he was a student at Harvard, I asked Cruz to think about John Proctor in Arthur Miller's play about a man standing firm on principles against forces that want him to abandon them and give in to their power. Proctor doesn't, and he is executed for refusing to lie about himself. I asked Cruz to think about who the Devil is in his life and what he should do about it.

And then, last night, lo and behold, Cruz walked up to the snack table at the Republican's party and took a giant dump in the punch bowl while everyone screamed at him to stop.

Yeah, after a pretty boilerplate right-wing Republican speech - blah, blah, Hillary sucks, blah, blah, blah, Constitution, yadda, enemies, whatever - Cruz ended by exhorting the idiot hordes to "vote your conscience," which the delegates took not only as a non-endorsement of nominee Donald Trump but outright heresy, with screams of "Traitor" and "Honor the pledge" and "Fuck you."

Trump himself appeared to gaze, like an angry toad, on the chaos as his minions egged it on and his horrible family looked on. Cruz's wife, Heidi, derided as ugly in something Trump re-tweeted, had to be escorted out lest the idiot hordes rip her limb from limb. Cruz wiped his ass on the tablecloth, perhaps while looking the toad straight in his eyes, and strode away. And nobody really gave a dry mouse shit about Newt Gingrich telling us about his night terrors or Mike Pence's lumbering monologue about how Trump will Trump you with his Trumpiness or that Scott Walker even exists.

This morning, Cruz met with the Texas delegation, most still wearing their dumb ass cowboy hats. At first, Cruz tried to walk a line. He coyly asked why anyone would boo for him saying, "Vote your conscience" (a line that the Hillary Clinton campaign took and ran with). He said he wouldn't speak negatively about Trump, but that Trump hadn't earned his vote yet, and, oh, no, he won't vote for Hillary. But then the questions started and the smarmy, faux-chummy facade cracked. "I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father," Cruz said, and in that moment his heart grew three sizes and his spine unbent to make him completely upright. He would not be "a servile puppy dog" to Trump, he said. And when he asked, " Can anyone imagine our nominee standing in front of voters answering questions like this?" he wasn't talking about answering questions period. He meant answering them with forthrightness, clarity, and honesty.

For an example, look at Trump's interview in the New York Times about foreign policy, where he said, among other terrifying shit, that he would shit-can agreements with NATO if the other countries didn't pay protection money to the United States, as if somehow a stable Europe isn't in America's best interest. Here, though, is the exact quote from the transcript: "If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting other countries, and in many cases the countries I’m talking about are extremely rich. Then if we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able to, but if we cannot make a deal, I would like you to say, I would prefer being able to, some people, the one thing they took out of your last story, you know, some people, the fools and the haters, they said, 'Oh, Trump doesn’t want to protect you.' I would prefer that we be able to continue, but if we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations with tremendous wealth — you have the tape going on?"

That's some Mafia shit right there. "I would prefer to offer you my good graces, but you must be willing to pay what I ask and kiss my ring. And then my ass." And it's expressed in almost Palin-esque gibberish. Dumb fuck. And you're a dumber fuck if you support him after that. No, fuck that. You're a terrible human being if you support Donald Trump, and you deserve every bad thing that would happen to you if he's elected.

Not Ted Cruz, though. He stood there and taunted the idiot hordes. And it was a thing of beauty.

Now you, dear, dear liberal, may feel conflicted about feeling even an inkling of positivity towards Ted Cruz. After all, he is an asshole, a son of a bitch, a dick, a fart in human form, and lots of other things rolled into one odious, annoying package. He believes appalling things, about abortion, about voting rights, about LGBT rights, about...well, pretty much everything. But let's not care about that for a moment. Let's not care that Cruz might be positioning himself for 2020. Fuck 2020. And let's not care about any of the spin from the Trump campaign, which is trying to make itself seem so magnanimous by allowing Cruz to speak. Let's just not give a shit about that.

In this moment, Cruz is Cersei Lannister taking out the High Septon. He is William Munny gunning down Little Bill. He is Walter White rescuing Jesse. An awful person can rise to the moment to do something good, to do away with those worse than them. You don't have to like them. You don't have to get all warm and fuzzy.

You can sit back with a drink and say, "I'd rather have a narcissistic motherfucker working for me than against me, even if it's just this once."

RNC Day Four: We Beheld What We May Become

If I could pinpoint one thing in Donald Trump's sweaty, screechy, masturbatory "Tales of American Armageddon" last night that might actually give other Republicans pause, as they figure out how to deal with a presidential nominee who has tossed out many of their most cherished beliefs, it would be this: One word that was conspicuously absent from the speech was "Congress."

At no point in the entire exhausting, tedious, repetitious series of barks and growls did Trump say he would go to Congress to ask for something. Not once did he even hint that he understood that he couldn't just clap his wee hands and make it so. In fact, everything in his acceptance speech was pointedly about how he and only he can solve the problems in the country. "I am your voice," he said, twice, along with "I will be your champion" and "I will restore law and order to our country." That last one was followed by an unscripted, emphatic "Believe me. Believe me." On it went: "I am going to bring jobs" to various states; "I am not going to let companies move to other countries;" and more. Even worse, "I alone can fix it." If Barack Obama had said that one night, he'd've been lynched before sunrise by conservatives for being a tyrant.

What is going to happen if Trump is elected and Democrats in the Senate block a bill to build the stupid border wall? Or a bill to change the Affordable Care Act? What is he going to do? Trump would say that he'll make deals with them, as if that never occurred to President Obama, who gave Republicans nearly everything they asked for in many negotiations while still getting stabbed in the gut by them when it was time to vote.

Senators have a long memory, and Democrats will want payback. So what will Trump do? He'll do what his idiot hordes demand, up to and including violence. Because when you have a cult of personality, the leader of that is the only thing that matters. You have to believe whole-heartedly in him and support even his most heinous acts because that's easier than admitting you're wrong. You would rather pretend that a crass, bourgeois piglet is a man of the people than face the reality that he's just a puny, pampered pig.

You can find fact checks of all the lies in a speech that Trump promised would be filled with "facts." You could drive yourself mad trying to get your mind around so much of the shit he said. For instance, apparently, Hillary Clinton is the alpha and omega of all bad things going on in the world.

Egypt turmoil? Hillary. Iraq? Hillary. Hot Lebanese dude didn't message you back on Grindr? Hillary. In fact, Clinton is such an evil genius and agent of destruction that we'd better elect her before she has us all killed.

And Trump went further than any of the fear mongers before him in portraying the United States as a nightmare, a lawless landscape of rampant crime (which is really down), cops being gunned down (fewer than ever), and undocumented immigrants murdering the fuck out of us (very rarely). The world itself is falling to pieces (despite it being one of the most peaceful periods in the planet's history). Every one of Trump's assertions is factually wrong. That's not just an opinion. Facts, actual numbers, something that Trump is very fond of mentioning, bear that out. But, no, the whole place is turning to shit, according to Trump. The only solution Trump offered is Trump. Trump will make it all better. All you gotta do is vote him in. Then America will be great again. He'll do it all by himself.

Or maybe, just maybe, this is the con: You make everyone believe that the world is turning to shit and then when you're elected, you just change the spin. "Oh, hey, look, crime is way down," you say, not even hinting that it was down before you were elected. "Oh, hey, look, my strategy on ISIS worked," you say, not mentioning that it was headed that way anyways. "Oh, hey, look, I've put into place a nearly two-year process for incoming refugees," you announce, leaving out that that's how it's been for a long time. See how easy it is to make America great again? You just start saying it is and then, racist blinders off, everyone looks around and says, "Well, shit, things really are pretty good." And for shit that wasn't getting done because Republicans wouldn't let it get done, like child care and infrastructure spending, hell, all of a sudden, the GOP will be the biggest fan of funding bridges and roads. And who gets all the credit? Not the nigger president who obviously fucked it all up because he's such a nigger. All accolades go to Trump.

Along those lines, I have a theory about how we got here. I call it the "Nigger Rejection Theory." See, lots of white people have staked a great deal of their identity and political beliefs on the notion that whiteness is superior to any other race. Niggers aren't good for anything other than basic shit. Sure, sure, black people could entertain them, in movies, music, and sports. Those niggers are fine because they exist only as images and they don't have a day-to-day effect on the lives of these white people. However, along comes Barack Obama, and he's not only president, but he's pretty good at it. In fact, the nigger president succeeded in making the lives of these white people better than they were under the last white president.

They simply couldn't reconcile that. These white people all of sudden found themselves with health insurance, many with jobs, most with lower taxes, and it all happened because of the nigger president. What can you do? You can either admit that your life-long, family-passed-down prejudices are completely wrong and that niggers can do lots of things, including leading the free world. Or you just go into complete denial because you just can't stand to give a nigger credit. Now, here is Trump, telling you that everything is wrecked and it's all turning to shit and, well, fuck, that sounds good because it makes the nigger and his cunt sidekick look bad.

Goddamn, it must feel good to have to give up on a challenging thought and just get your primal racism nerve massaged.

The greatest slap in Obama's face in the whole Nazi rally was when the idiot hordes started chanting, "Yes, you will" at Trump. It was the bizarro version of "Yes, we can," Obama's campaign rallying cry. Obama was saying that we all needed to work together and, even if you think, like I do, that he didn't ask us to do enough, at least he was including us. For Trump and the idiot hordes gazing up at his bloated visage, framed in gold, no such effort is needed beyond making sure that their godhead gets into office. All good things will pour from that. Trump is like the high school asshole guy who tells a girl that giving blow jobs will improve her complexion. No, it won't. All she'll end up with is a mouthful of jizz and a satisfied jerk going home.

Almost a year ago, I joked that "Kneel before Zod" was Trump's guiding principle. Now it appears that that will be his governing policy. If none of this scares you, then you are too fucking dumb to breathe, but you'll still vote.  And if the media makes this into just another day at the races, then we should all invest in kneepads.

Last year, I predicted the GOP would nominate Trump — here is what will happen next

After Trump's defeated, his base will face an energized electorate of diverse Americans who rallied to defeat him

By Chauncey DeVega

 

Donald Trump arrives by escalator inside Trump Tower to announce his campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination in New York, June 16, 2015. (Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid)

 

Last year I predicted that Donald Trump would be the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nominee. I shared this intuition in my writings here at Salon, my own website, and during various TV and radio appearances. My prediction was met with incredulity, rebuttals that the “data” does not support such a conclusion, and a deeply held belief that the elites and opinion leaders in the Republican Party would never let Donald Trump ascend to power.

My critics were wrong. I would be proven right. On Tuesday at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Donald Trump, the American Il Duce, was officially selected as the party’s presidential nominee. I am not psychic. Nor was my prediction an act of political prestidigitation. The talking heads in the mainstream corporate news media were simply looking in the wrong places for answers.

Beyond the overall weakness of the 2016 Republican field, Donald Trump’s coronation as leader of the GOP can be explained by the following factors.

The Republican Party is the United States’ largest white identity organization; Conservatism and racism are now fully one and the same thing in the post civil rights era; an individual’s level of “old fashioned racism” now determines political party preference; the racist “Southern Strategy’ has guided the GOP for at least 40 years; the election of Barack Obama, twice, drove conservatives into a national fit of bigotry and overt racism.

Donald Trump’s nomination is the near-inevitable result.

As documented by Jonathan Weiler and Marc Hetherington, authoritarian values have been increasing among the American people—and conservatives especially—for the last two decades.

Donald Trump is a proto fascist. Thus, his policies and personality found a very receptive audience.

White America is facing a symbolic “death” because of changing cultural norms and racial demographics. Simultaneously, the “deaths of despair” (drug and alcohol abuse, suicides) as well as illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease have dramatically increased the literal death rates of uneducated middle-aged white Americans. Donald Trump, with his supposed billions of dollars in wealth, bragging about being “high energy,” and promise to “Make American Great Again” is a figurehead who soothes the death anxieties of angry, anxious, and easily frightened white conservatives and Right-leaning independents.

Donald Trump is a reality television star. As such, he is a familiar face for millions of Americans. In an era of austerity, surveillance, a neo-liberal nightmare, almost non-existent upward inter-generational class mobility, and broken politics, the fake world of “reality” TV is more comforting than the dystopian present they see in their immediate community and also imagine for their children in the future. His voters have embraced “Donald Trump” the television persona turned political strongman as an outlet for their frustrations and rage.

Donald Trump is a political performance artist who has studied the communication style and narrative tropes of professional wrestling. He used those lessons to vanquish his political rivals and to win over the hearts and minds of Republican voters.

It is estimated that the corporate news media gave Donald Trump two billion dollars in free coverage.

“If it bleeds it leads”. The Republican primaries were a disastrous spectacle. Trump was the most entertaining candidate among a crowded field. The Fourth Estate chose advertising revenues over being responsible guardians of democracy.

I will make a second prediction. Donald Trump will not defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. He lacks the infrastructure and resources to run a proper presidential campaign.

Trump is also extremely unpopular among huge swaths of the American public.

However, the presidential race will be much closer than many pundits and other experts are predicting. As I have suggested here at Salon and elsewhere, I am much more concerned about what happens the day after the presidential election than I am about the actual outcome on Tuesday, November 8, 2016.

Republican voters, and movement conservatives, more generally, have been consistently and willfully lied to by their elected officials, news media, and other opinion leaders. As demonstrated by the ghoulish spectacle and human rodeo that is the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland, American conservatives live in an alternate world which is divorced from empirical reality.

Donald Trump’s political campaign has given further permission to the forces of white identity politics, old-fashioned racism, nativism, xenophobia, misogyny, and bigotry to reassert themselves in American life and politics. After Trump is defeated, his disillusioned foot soldiers will be faced with a mobilized and energized electorate comprised of women, people of color, young people, and others who rallied to defeat their chieftain.

I offer no specific prediction as to what will occur when those two groups encounter one another.

However, I often speak of a reckoning that I believe is coming to American politics. Trump’s defeat in November, and his supporters’ response to it, will be one more step in that direction.

Chauncey DeVega is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook. 

 

More Chauncey DeVega.

Cenk Uygur Explains What Happened With Alex Jones And Roger Stone At The Republican National Convention

Members of The Young Turks media organization had a meltdown at the RNC Thursday after being challenged to a debate by radio host Alex Jones.



Cenk Uygur Explains What Happened With Alex Jones And Roger Stone At The Republican National Convention.

A Man Who Shouldn’t Be President

By Taegan Goddard

Ezra Klein: “Tonight, Donald J. Trump will accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president of the United States. And I am, for the first time since I began covering American politics, genuinely afraid.”

“Donald Trump is not a man who should be president. This is not an ideological judgment. This is not something I would say about Mitt Romney or Marco Rubio. This is not a disagreement over Donald Trump’s tax plan or his climate policies. This is about Trump’s character, his temperament, his impulsiveness, his basic decency.”

“He pairs terrible ideas with an alarming temperament; he’s a racist, a sexist, and a demagogue, but he’s also a narcissist, a bully, and a dilettante. He lies so constantly and so fluently that it’s hard to know if he even realizes he’s lying. He delights in schoolyard taunts and luxuriates in backlash.”

How hackers are revealing the hidden Pokemon Go monsters all around you

Deciphered server data provides precise locations in a handy Google Map.

By Kyle Orland

Hackers have made it relatively simple to see what monsters are lurking nearby in Pokémon Go. (Credit: Github / PokemonGoMap)

One of Pokémon Go's defining characteristics is that you never quite know the precise location of nearby Pokémon, since the game only gives an imprecise "radar" with general distances. A group of hackers has set out to change that situation, exploiting Pokémon Go's server responses to create an easy-to-use map that reveals those hidden Pokémon in your immediate area.

The hack is the result of efforts by the PokemonGoDev subreddit, which is working to reverse engineer an API using the data sent and received by the Pokémon Go servers. So far, the group has managed to parse the basic server responses sent by the game, which can be acquired through an SSL tunnel and deciphered using relatively basic protocol buffers.

From there, a little bit of Python scripting work can convert the usually hidden data on nearby Pokémon locations into an easy-to-use Google Maps picture of your augmented reality surroundings.

There are step-by-step installation instructions for anyone with even a basic understanding of a command line, as well as recent attempts at a self-contained desktop app and Web-based app for those who want a one-step Poké-mapping solution.

Already, people are trying to use this mapping data to crowdsource a complete, worldwide map of all in-game Pokémon. Other apps in the works can notify players when rare Pokémon pop up nearby, spoof GPS coordinates to fool the game into thinking you're in other locations, or even automatically "farm" Pokémon from Pokéstops.

Accessing Pokémon Go data in this way is explicitly against the game's terms of service, which prohibit any "attempt to access or search the Services or Content, or download Content from the Services through the use of any technology or means other than those provided by Niantic or other generally available third-party web browsers." That means your account could be banned if developer Niantic detects you using one of these tools and that you should probably create a new dummy account if you're just curious about seeing the hacks for yourself.

Niantic could also take steps to further obfuscate its server data in the future or attempt to block access by unapproved sources from outside the game. Such moves would no doubt lead to a programming arms race between Niantic and hackers eager to keep the game's hidden bits exposed (Niantic Labs wasn't immediately available to respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica).

While mapping previously hidden Pokémon is obviously a good way to speed up advancement in the game, it also robs you of some of the serendipity of discovery that makes Pokémon Go special. Simply walking to a set point on a map ends up being a little less satisfying than stumbling on the hidden critters yourself.

This kind of mapping also has the potential to hamper some of the social interactions that have helped the game become an instant hit. After all, why bother asking a nearby player if they found any good Pokémon nearby when you can just call up an app that tells you their location instantly?

That said, developer Ahmed Almutawa, who first posted his Pokémon Go mapper on Saturday evening, doesn't seem worried about these kinds of tools damaging the game experience. "Ever since I've made this, I've had a lot more fun," he said in an interview with The Verge, "mostly because I could see where all the lures are and go to where all the people are hanging out."

That said, Almutawa added that he realizes "it is Niantic's game and they're free to do with it whatever they do. I do hope that they're fine with the map itself [and] it's not causing them any issues."

Canada's Jim Cramer with a large dose of Trump In other words a complete fucking asshole

Billionaire Kevin O'Leary says 3.5 billion people living in complete poverty is fantastic.

 Don't buy his wine off of QVC or HSN.

Dirty Trickster And Trump Adviser Roger Stone Speaks At Conspiracist 'America First' Rally At RNC

By Adele Stan

 

Stone started by calling InfoWars host Alex Jones his "friend."

 

CLEVELAND—It’s easy to dismiss Alex Jones, founder of InfoWars, as a right-wing conspiracy theorist nut, because that’s pretty much what he is. But he’s also an integral part of the presidential campaign of one of America’s two major national political parties, empowered by the old-school political operatives advising Donald J. Trump to enact a critical part of their strategy to demonize their man’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

For a brief moment on Monday, political strategist Roger Stone, the old dirty trickster who calls Richard Nixon his mentor, laid bare the rationale for Trump’s embrace of the kook who is Jones.

“A campaign has two requirements,” Stone told the sparse crowd at the “America First for Unity” rally headlined by Jones as the Republican National Convention got underway here. “First you have to qualify your candidate, and then you have to disqualify the other candidate.”

He then issued forth a torrent of plaudits for Trump, followed by a tumult of allegations against Clinton, even recycling the right-wing tropes from the 1990's about Travelgate and the death of Clinton aide Vince Foster. In his telling, it all added up to a criminal past, which is exactly the message Jones has been engaged to impart on Trump’s behalf. Since I arrived here Thursday, a hired propeller plane has trolled the Cleveland skies pulling a banner reading “Hillary for Prison 2016,” emblazoned with the InfoWars web address. At Monday’s rally, Jones’ fans were readily identifiable by their T-shirts bearing the same message.

“It is my great honor to have been [preceded] today by my friend Alex Jones,” Stone said. ”As I told CNN this morning, better Alex Jones than his cousin Van Jones. Folks, I’m a giant fan of InfoWars.com. I see so many Hillary for Prison T-shirts out there…”

Stone’s history with the Republican Party goes way back; he likes to claim it goes back to the 1964 Goldwater campaign. This much is for certain: Look at nearly every well-known Republican dirty trick in the last 30 years, and you’ll find Stone’s fingerprints on it—the racially charged 1988 Willie Horton ad launched against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and the 2000 Brooks Brothers riot in Florida designed to stave off a recount of votes in the 2000 presidential election, to name two.

He’s a longtime adviser to and lobbyist for Donald Trump; his business partner, Paul Manafort, is Trump’s campaign manager. The Trump campaign last August made a show of saying that Stone was no longer with the campaign, perhaps so Stone could start his pro-Trump superPAC, the Committee to Restore America’s Greatness without appearing to run afoul of the law.

Stone was expected to speak around the same time as Jones, but took forever to arrive on the scene.

In his own speech, the InfoWars Internet jockey attempted to steer clear of his trademark 9/11 truther tales, and made no mention of the lizard people from outer space whose presence he has contemplated as being in our midst.

Seeming to run out of material, Jones began calling people he thought were famous to the stage, including Tucker Carlson’s son Buckley, who really didn’t seem to want to say much of anything other than “Make America great again!” Then there was his epic #FAIL when he saw comedian Eric Andre in the crowd, whom he mistook as a cast member of "The Daily Show." Shoved onto the stage by a Jones fan and presented with a microphone, Andre said, “I want you to sleep with my wife.” The comedian also asked Jones why his “peepee” was yellow. Then he brought up Building 7 of the World Trade Center, which Jones contends was blown up in an inside job during the 9/11 attacks.

Stone was not on hand. Yet when explaining to the crowd (which, by the time Stone took the stage numbered in the low hundreds) why he was late getting to the rally, Stone said he was detained by meetings with Trump staff.

The America First rally, which took place on the banks of the Cuyahoga River, opened with what can be charitably described as a unique take on the national anthem—the melody was altered by the singer’s pitch problems, and she forgot the words—and featured a panoply of speakers from hastily organized groups: Christians for Trump, Bikers for Trump, Veterans for Trump…you get the idea.

Stone himself noted several that were nowhere present, including Lithuanians for Trump, Hungarians for Trump and Italians for Trump. “I’m Italian from the waist down,” he added.

After his speech, I caught up with Stone as he exited Settler’s Landing park, and asked him if he had just modeled for the audience the campaign strategy he had prescribed—that of “qualifying” one’s own candidate and “disqualifying” one’s opponent. In response, he launched into his litany of anti-Clinton criminality tropes, so I tried again.

“I appreciate all of that, but I’m asking you were you demonstrating that political strategy for us,” I said.

“I was speaking for myself,” he replied. “I would say the Trump campaign would be wise to heed my words.”

Chris Christie: That Vice Presidential Position Was MINE, Damnit!

By Sydney Robinson

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.

Reported by the Weekly Standard:

“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.

The Cycle Of Trump

Everything we love to eat is a scam

By Maureen Callahan

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:

Sanders Activists Already Agitating In Philadelphia

By Jake Blumgart

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.”

Trump And Family 'Material Witnesses' To Huge Tax Avoidance Scheme By Mobbed-Up Partner. Huh!

By Doktor Zoom -

July 15, 2016 - 12:20pm

 

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.

 [Daily Beast]

Donald Trump selects Mike Pence as VP

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/14/politics/donald-trump-vice-presidential-choice/index.html

Philadelphia Airport Workers Just Voted to Strike During Democratic Convention

By Zach Cartwright

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.

Update 7/23/16 at 6:40 A.M.

 Strike at PHL averted during DNC

Someone finished Doom's insane permadeath mode without any upgrades

By Zero Master

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.

The Truth Revealed

Sharing Your Netflix Password Is Now A Federal Crime

Court upholds conviction of ex-employee who shared database access.

On July 5^th , 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.”

Robbers Are Using Pokémon Go To Target Victims

By Daniel Politi

Bernie Sanders Set To Become Total Hillary Endorsing Sell Out By Next Tuesday

By Evan Hurst

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.

[Bloomberg / Huffington Post]

Bernie Sanders On Green Party Ticket? Jill Stein Offers To Make Way For Vermont Senator’s Presidential Bid

http://www.ibtimes.com/bernie-sanders-green-party-ticket-jill-stein-offers-make-way-vermont-senators-2390239

People Need To See The Truth About Police Violence!

Thom Hartmann talks about the shooting of Philando Castile and the fact that many media outlets didn't show the full video of the aftermath.