Rachel Maddow reviews recent examples of Republican politicians
complaining about a lack of information on issues they claim to care
about and then not going to the briefings where the information they’re
complaining about is being presented.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Thursday, June 5, 2014
A Few Questions to Those Questioning the Prisoner Exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl
The Rude Pundit's gotta be honest: he can't wrap his head around this one. Oh, sure, sure, he can figure out why conservatives would go bugfuck insane over things like Benghazi (dead Americans), Obamacare (living poor Americans), and abortion (freedom for women).
They're dead damn wrong on them and they're wasting everyone's time and money, but there seems to be at least a tincture of logic. Fuck, he can even figure out the brain-damaged logic behind yahoos open-carrying their weapons (in a time of extreme disempowerment of the average person, that person attempts to cling to the accoutrements of power in any way he/she can).
But the idea that something is wrong with negotiating the release of an American soldier held prisoner by the Taliban is just utterly bizarre. Like "Stop beating your head with that fish, Skeeter" weird. It's left the Rude Pundit with a few questions for anyone who thinks there was something hinky about the exchange of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl for a quintet of bearded losers.
1. Were we supposed to just leave him there, even with a deal on the table? That's the not-so-subtle implication from so many of the Bergdahl truthers, who believe he deserted and may have worked with his captors. The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol said, "It's one thing to trade terrorists for a real POW, someone who was taken on the battlefield fighting honorably for our country. It's another thing to trade away 5 high-ranking terrorists to someone who walked away." Considering Kristol's record for being wrong about every fucking thing, it more than likely means that Bergdahl ought to be awarded a medal for bravery.
2. Isn't Bergdahl entitled to a trial for any charges of desertion or collaboration? Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey said of the allegations against Bergdahl, "Like any American, he is innocent until proven guilty," but, he asserted, "the questions about this particular soldier’s conduct are separate from our effort to recover ANY U.S. service member in enemy captivity." Yes, it would have been easier just to drone murder the shit out of Bergdahl, but, hey, he's white, and so far that has been a decent way to avoid missile death. But Bergdahl can still be courtmartialed.
You need look no further than another shitty war for proof: Marine Pfc. Robert Garwood was held in Vietnam until 1979. When he was released, he was charged with desertion and aiding the enemy, and he was convicted, despite an insanity plea. (Side note: Garwood's guilt being questioned by a TV-movie caused a certain senator from Arizona to go apeshit on the Senate floor in 1993.)
3. So if we left Bergdahl in Afghanistan because some people are absolutely convinced of his guilt, doesn't that mean he's being sentenced without trial? The Rude Pundit can't figure out this mania on the right to convict people without ever even charging them with a crime. Leaving Bergdahl behind would have set the precedent that we judge, without knowing the truth, who is worthy of being released. How reassuring that would be to soldiers.
4. Isn't it a huge bowlful of hypocrisy stew for Republicans to become whiny titty babies over President Obama finessing the law when the Bush administration fucking redefined things like "torture" and "duties as commander-in-chief" to get around niceties like congressional approval and oversight? Breitbart.com has gone full nutzoid on the Bergdahl release, questioning Obama's actions, quoting Queen Dink herself, Sarah Palin, on the matter.
5. And what's with the Wag-the-Dog shit about the VA scandal? This is another game the right plays with Democratic presidents: every action is done only to distract from what they see as worse shit.
Clinton bombed a place where he thought Osama bin Laden was. The GOP said it was just meant to distract from the Blow Job That Coated the World. Now, Obama is supposed to have started a whole new controversy to divert attention from the problems at the VA. Obviously, Republicans are used to leaders who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Or, you know, watch TV and eat a pretzel.
At some point, doesn't it get exhausting, Republicans?
Doesn't it get tiresome to have to attack everything, no matter how seemingly goddamn positive?
Is there nothing you have to talk about that isn't merely saying "No" to every "Yes"?
Are you that devoid of purpose?
Because that'd be some hang-yourself-existential-crisis shit right there.
By all means, go ahead - and here's a rope.
Bowe Bergdahl and the Resurgence of Conservative Islamophobia
The debate over the prisoner-swap deal spotlights how anti-Muslim sentiment on the right has actually grown in the last decade.
By
I have some sympathy for critics of President Obama’s decision to trade five Guantanamo prisoners for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. At the very least, the White House should have informed Congress beforehand, as required by law. And the administration’s effort to justify that failure by citing a presidential signing statement altering the law’s meaning sounds positively Cheneyesque.
Still, it's disheartening to see that some prominent conservatives are unable to critique the Bergdahl deal without resorting to anti-Muslim bigotry. Bergdahl’s father, an outraged Bill O’Reilly said earlier this week, “looks like a Muslim. He is also somewhat sympathetic to Islam.” Actually, Bob Bergdahl’s untrimmed beard would fit in well in Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jewish circles as well.
But it’s revealing that for O’Reilly, sympathy for “Islam,”—not “Taliban-style Islam” or “radical Islam” but merely “Islam”—is a character flaw.
It’s remarkable, when you think about it. In recent decades, the stigma associated with offensive comments about African Americans has clearly grown. Donald Sterling is banned for the NBA for life for racist comments made in a private conversation.
When it comes to homophobia, the shift has been even more dramatic. The term “faggot”—which was omnipresent and largely uncontroversial in my youth—is becoming as unacceptable as the term “kike.” (The actor Jonah Hill apologized profusely for using “faggot” earlier this week.) Feminists are enjoying success in their “ban bossy” campaign, an effort that would have been unthinkable a decade or two ago.
Attacking someone for “looking like a Muslim,” on the other hand, arouses barely any controversy.
Some liberal blogs condemned O’Reilly’s comments, but it’s unlikely that he will apologize and unthinkable that he’ll resign.
In conservative circles today, in fact, high-profile expressions of anti-Muslim bigotry are as routine as anti-black or anti-Jewish slurs were a half-century ago. In 2011, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain vowed not to appoint a Muslim to his cabinet. Far from crippling his candidacy, the comment preceded his meteoric (if short-lived) ascent into the lead in national polls. Newt Gingrich traveled the country warning, “I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States.”
At its 2012 national convention, the GOP featured a Catholic priest, a rabbi, an evangelical minister, a Sikh, a Greek Orthodox archbishop, and two Mormon leaders but, conspicuously failed to invite an imam.
It’s not just conservative elites. A 2012 poll for the Arab American Institute found that while 29 percent of Democrats hold an “unfavorable” view of Muslims, among Republicans it's 57 percent. In 2013, two researchers at Carnegie Mellon sent out the resumes of a fictitious Christian and Muslim job applicant with the same credentials. In the 10 states where Barack Obama recorded his highest vote percentage, the two applicants received interview requests at the same rate. In the 10 states where Romney did best, by contrast, the Christian applicant was more than eight times more likely to be asked for an interview.
It would be comforting to believe this is merely a holdover from 9/11, and anti-Muslim bigotry will fade as we move further from that trauma. But according to the Arab American Institute poll, Republicans are 17 points more likely to dislike Muslims than they were in 2003 (although the numbers were even higher in 2010). Between 2002 and 2013, according to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Republicans who said Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence rose 29 points.
Even as public tolerance for most other forms of bigotry declines, hostility to Muslims has actually grown, despite the winding down of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the rise may be partially due to the end of those wars. After 9/11, George W. Bush told Americans that although we were fighting “bad Muslims” (al-Qaeda) “good Muslims”—who constituted the large majority—would embrace our invasions.
It hasn’t worked out that way. My hunch is that faced with the realization that many Iraqis and Afghans hated America’s occupation of their countries, Democrats have been more likely to blame the U.S. for starting those wars in the first place. According to polls, large majorities of Democrats now see both Iraq and Afghanistan as mistakes. Republicans don’t. For Republicans, I suspect, America’s problems in Iraq and Afghanistan say less about us than about them. They prove that Bush was wrong: Most Muslims really are our enemy. Otherwise, why would they oppose our efforts to make them free?
In 2006, when O’Reilly called for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, he said “the essential problem” is that “there are so many nuts in the country—so many crazies—that we can’t control them.” In other words, America’s problem in Iraq is Iraqis. And virtually the only thing most Americans know about Iraqis, and Afghans, is that they’re Muslim.
Perhaps this explains some of the right-wing venom towards the Bergdahls. Sergeant Bergdahl may have done ill-advised and even reprehensible things. But it appears that he and his father reacted to America’s wartime troubles in Afghanistan not by blaming Afghans but blaming America’s war.
That’s exactly what most conservatives—in their zeal to defend America’s righteousness—have refused to do. And in Bill O’Reilly’s eyes, this willingness to side with America’s enemies casts doubt on the Bergdahl’s character. It makes them almost like Muslims themselves.
By
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
I have some sympathy for critics of President Obama’s decision to trade five Guantanamo prisoners for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. At the very least, the White House should have informed Congress beforehand, as required by law. And the administration’s effort to justify that failure by citing a presidential signing statement altering the law’s meaning sounds positively Cheneyesque.
Still, it's disheartening to see that some prominent conservatives are unable to critique the Bergdahl deal without resorting to anti-Muslim bigotry. Bergdahl’s father, an outraged Bill O’Reilly said earlier this week, “looks like a Muslim. He is also somewhat sympathetic to Islam.” Actually, Bob Bergdahl’s untrimmed beard would fit in well in Amish and ultra-Orthodox Jewish circles as well.
But it’s revealing that for O’Reilly, sympathy for “Islam,”—not “Taliban-style Islam” or “radical Islam” but merely “Islam”—is a character flaw.
It’s remarkable, when you think about it. In recent decades, the stigma associated with offensive comments about African Americans has clearly grown. Donald Sterling is banned for the NBA for life for racist comments made in a private conversation.
When it comes to homophobia, the shift has been even more dramatic. The term “faggot”—which was omnipresent and largely uncontroversial in my youth—is becoming as unacceptable as the term “kike.” (The actor Jonah Hill apologized profusely for using “faggot” earlier this week.) Feminists are enjoying success in their “ban bossy” campaign, an effort that would have been unthinkable a decade or two ago.
Attacking someone for “looking like a Muslim,” on the other hand, arouses barely any controversy.
Some liberal blogs condemned O’Reilly’s comments, but it’s unlikely that he will apologize and unthinkable that he’ll resign.
In conservative circles today, in fact, high-profile expressions of anti-Muslim bigotry are as routine as anti-black or anti-Jewish slurs were a half-century ago. In 2011, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain vowed not to appoint a Muslim to his cabinet. Far from crippling his candidacy, the comment preceded his meteoric (if short-lived) ascent into the lead in national polls. Newt Gingrich traveled the country warning, “I believe Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States.”
At its 2012 national convention, the GOP featured a Catholic priest, a rabbi, an evangelical minister, a Sikh, a Greek Orthodox archbishop, and two Mormon leaders but, conspicuously failed to invite an imam.
It’s not just conservative elites. A 2012 poll for the Arab American Institute found that while 29 percent of Democrats hold an “unfavorable” view of Muslims, among Republicans it's 57 percent. In 2013, two researchers at Carnegie Mellon sent out the resumes of a fictitious Christian and Muslim job applicant with the same credentials. In the 10 states where Barack Obama recorded his highest vote percentage, the two applicants received interview requests at the same rate. In the 10 states where Romney did best, by contrast, the Christian applicant was more than eight times more likely to be asked for an interview.
It would be comforting to believe this is merely a holdover from 9/11, and anti-Muslim bigotry will fade as we move further from that trauma. But according to the Arab American Institute poll, Republicans are 17 points more likely to dislike Muslims than they were in 2003 (although the numbers were even higher in 2010). Between 2002 and 2013, according to the Pew Research Center, the percentage of Republicans who said Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence rose 29 points.
Even as public tolerance for most other forms of bigotry declines, hostility to Muslims has actually grown, despite the winding down of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the rise may be partially due to the end of those wars. After 9/11, George W. Bush told Americans that although we were fighting “bad Muslims” (al-Qaeda) “good Muslims”—who constituted the large majority—would embrace our invasions.
It hasn’t worked out that way. My hunch is that faced with the realization that many Iraqis and Afghans hated America’s occupation of their countries, Democrats have been more likely to blame the U.S. for starting those wars in the first place. According to polls, large majorities of Democrats now see both Iraq and Afghanistan as mistakes. Republicans don’t. For Republicans, I suspect, America’s problems in Iraq and Afghanistan say less about us than about them. They prove that Bush was wrong: Most Muslims really are our enemy. Otherwise, why would they oppose our efforts to make them free?
In 2006, when O’Reilly called for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, he said “the essential problem” is that “there are so many nuts in the country—so many crazies—that we can’t control them.” In other words, America’s problem in Iraq is Iraqis. And virtually the only thing most Americans know about Iraqis, and Afghans, is that they’re Muslim.
Perhaps this explains some of the right-wing venom towards the Bergdahls. Sergeant Bergdahl may have done ill-advised and even reprehensible things. But it appears that he and his father reacted to America’s wartime troubles in Afghanistan not by blaming Afghans but blaming America’s war.
That’s exactly what most conservatives—in their zeal to defend America’s righteousness—have refused to do. And in Bill O’Reilly’s eyes, this willingness to side with America’s enemies casts doubt on the Bergdahl’s character. It makes them almost like Muslims themselves.
GOP fast-track sending jobs overseas through TPP
Republican leaders have made it clear that they support fast-tracking
the Trans-Pacific Partnership, sending U.S. jobs overseas. Ed Schultz,
Larry Cohen and Rep. Peter DeFazio discuss.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Panera Removing All Additives from Menu
By
Panera announced Tuesday that it will remove all artificial additives
from its menu by 2016 as restaurant chains race to lure customers with
the promise of more natural products. Panera has made conscientious food
choices central to its brand in recent years.
The restaurant-café chain will remove all artificial additives from
its menu by 2016, the company announced Tuesday. That means no dyes, no
preservatives, and no artificial sweeteners in any Panera
restaurant-café offerings.
“We believe simpler is better,” Scott Davis, chief concept officer, said in the statement announcing the changes. “Panera is on a mission to help fix a broken food system. We have a long journey ahead, but we’re working closely with the nutrition community, industry experts, farmers, suppliers and others to make a difference.”
Panera also released a list of menu items that will have additives removed, including:
Panera has made being at the forefront of food industry changes central to its brand in recent years, perhaps sensing an increased public awareness and concern about what goes into a meal. It was among the first restaurants to post calorie counts on its menus, well before doing so became mandatory for large, national chains.
Today’s additives announcement was part of a larger “food policy” released by the chain, which outlines its commitment to an array of causes that food activists and conscientious eaters hold dear, including meat raised without antibiotics and sustainable fishing and farming.
Panera’s additive purge is just the latest move in an arms race among food companies, especially quick-service restaurants, to convince an ingredient-conscious public that they have their best interests at heart.
Subway recently removed a controversial preservative from its sandwich bread, a move it broadcast loudly in national TV commercials. Chick-fil-A made a series of highly publicized menu tweaks early this year, removing artificial dyes from some of its dipping sauces and committing to a switch to antibiotic-free chicken within the next five years.
Panera going whole hog in the additive issue and combining it with an overarching menu philosophy makes those smaller moves look, well, small. “We’ve never been about one-off reactionary changes,” Ms. Antonacci writes. “Rather, for decades, we have worked to provide our customers with food they can trust and transparency that allows them to make choices.”
It puts Panera more in line with Chipotle, which advertises its use of “naturally raised” pork, and a commitment to have its menu free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) “to the fullest extent possible," in CEO Steve Ells’s words.
Panera will remove all additives from its menu by 2016. Take that, Subway.
Panera announced Tuesday that it will remove all artificial additives
from its menu by 2016 as restaurant chains race to lure customers with
the promise of more natural products. Panera has made conscientious food
choices central to its brand in recent years.
Krista
Johnson passes an order to a customer at a Panera store in Brookline,
Mass. Panera on Tuesday, June 3, 2014 announced it will remove
artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, and preservatives from its food
by 2016, a reflection of the growing distaste people are showing for
such ingredients. Charles Krupa/AP/File
Until now, the food industry’s response to growing public clamor over
unnatural chemicals in its food has been incremental: A bread additive
removed here, a dye in a sports drink replaced there. Panera, on the
other hand, is going big where others have gone small.
“We believe simpler is better,” Scott Davis, chief concept officer, said in the statement announcing the changes. “Panera is on a mission to help fix a broken food system. We have a long journey ahead, but we’re working closely with the nutrition community, industry experts, farmers, suppliers and others to make a difference.”
Panera also released a list of menu items that will have additives removed, including:
Deli smoked turkey: potassium lactate, sodium phosphate, sodium erythorbate, sodium nitrite, and sodium diacetate.
Horseradish: calcium disodium EDTA
Citrus Pepper Chicken: maltodextrin, potassium lactate
Cilantro Jalapeño Hummus: ascorbic acid and tocopherol, tara gum, carrageenan, potassium sorbate, and sodium benzoate
Summer corn chowder: tapioca Dextrin, modified corn starch, autolyzed yeast extract, maltodextrin, coconut oil derived from triglycerides, artificial flavors
Roast beef: caramel color“Some items may disappear, but what is more likely to happen is for items to be reformulated,” Kate Antonacci, Panera’s director of societal impact initiatives, writes the Monitor via e-mail.
Panera has made being at the forefront of food industry changes central to its brand in recent years, perhaps sensing an increased public awareness and concern about what goes into a meal. It was among the first restaurants to post calorie counts on its menus, well before doing so became mandatory for large, national chains.
Today’s additives announcement was part of a larger “food policy” released by the chain, which outlines its commitment to an array of causes that food activists and conscientious eaters hold dear, including meat raised without antibiotics and sustainable fishing and farming.
Panera’s additive purge is just the latest move in an arms race among food companies, especially quick-service restaurants, to convince an ingredient-conscious public that they have their best interests at heart.
Subway recently removed a controversial preservative from its sandwich bread, a move it broadcast loudly in national TV commercials. Chick-fil-A made a series of highly publicized menu tweaks early this year, removing artificial dyes from some of its dipping sauces and committing to a switch to antibiotic-free chicken within the next five years.
Panera going whole hog in the additive issue and combining it with an overarching menu philosophy makes those smaller moves look, well, small. “We’ve never been about one-off reactionary changes,” Ms. Antonacci writes. “Rather, for decades, we have worked to provide our customers with food they can trust and transparency that allows them to make choices.”
It puts Panera more in line with Chipotle, which advertises its use of “naturally raised” pork, and a commitment to have its menu free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) “to the fullest extent possible," in CEO Steve Ells’s words.
Monday, June 2, 2014
The Science of Knowing Who We Really Are
More ancestry testing leads people to discover a mixed bag of racial roots.
By Julie Walker
“I think we probably are cousins, just somebody someplace wasn’t so truthful about it,” Carpenter says.
Welcome to the new world of sophisticated DNA testing, where anyone with motivation, money and some free time can take part. This week, Carpenter and about 300 other people interested in genealogy came out for a panel discussion at the New-York Historical Society as part of the World Science Festival.
“It’s All Relatives: The Science of Your Family Tree,” was inspired by the PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Of the desire to find ancestral roots, Gates says: “I think it’s because people feel so insecure with all the changes of post modernity, including the economic crisis, the crisis of cultures and of religions. I think people take comfort in identifying their own roots ... and I think that makes you more secure in the world.”
There is a case to be made for connecting with our past and our ancestors, which is how panelist CeCe Moore became involved. She calls herself a “citizen scientist” and also appears in Finding Your Roots.
The big discovery for her family was that her brother-in-law, who thought his ancestry was Native American, is actually descended from Sally Hemings, the slave with whom President Thomas Jefferson had six children. It was a pivotal moment not only for her, but also for her blond-haired, blue-eyed niece, “who was excited to find out she was ‘black’,” says Moore. She sees a trend in the field of more “citizen scientists” getting involved and helping to expand the research.
Panelists were able to participate in an on-site genealogy study called ADAPT. It is the brainchild of geneticist Mark D. Shriver of Pennsylvania State University. He uses high-tech imaging to extrapolate genetic inheritance information based on facial features, skin color and hair texture.
Shriver says the line of inquiry is important “because we need a better idea of how genes and the environment affect these traits.” While his study will help predict the faces of our ancestors, it also has practical applications such as helping in forensic investigations.
Panel moderator and broadcast journalist Randall Pinkston was tested using ADAPT. “I’m looking forward to the results of my face,” said Pinkston. Beyond that, he said, it is important for more African Americans to discover their family trees, especially now that so much of the information is available online.
“I think these kinds of events and this kind of knowledge is important so that we can become more concerned about our history,” he told The Root. “I have been concerned for decades about the failure of people to carry on family names. Not only that, but to make up names that may be meaningful to the parent at the time but that have no connection to anything in that family’s history. So, 100 years from now, you can’t figure out who was this child’s grandparents.”
Doris Withers was one of the few blacks in the audience. The 70-year-old said her mother began chronicling their family tree at least 30 years ago through the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Now, Withers is expanding on that research by incorporating genetic testing. She said she has used several DNA companies including Ancestry.com, 23andMe and African Ancestry, and found they all gave her similar results.
Cathy Ball, lead geneticist for Ancestry.com says differences in results among consumer companies that offer genetic predicting “are all about the algorithms and the underlying reference data used to make the predictions.” That is because the science is so advanced that “there is no true litmus test” that can pinpoint an exact percentage.
For many such as Withers and Carpenter, today's costs are money well spent.
“The more we know that we’re not who we think we are, the better off we are,” Carpenter says. “The more we understand that this is one pretty small world in the global scheme of things, the more we’re related, I think that’s fabulous.”
By Julie Walker
For nearly all of her life, Kathleen Carpenter had thought of herself
as white, specifically, one-quarter German and three-quarters from the
British Isles. But, after doing an Ancestry.com DNA test, the
70-year-old New Yorker now has an entirely new history that includes
some North African DNA.
In addition, her brother’s test showed a small percentage of West African DNA. Then came the Ancestry.com message from a black woman who also was using the website to search her roots: They were most likely cousins.
In addition, her brother’s test showed a small percentage of West African DNA. Then came the Ancestry.com message from a black woman who also was using the website to search her roots: They were most likely cousins.
“I think we probably are cousins, just somebody someplace wasn’t so truthful about it,” Carpenter says.
Welcome to the new world of sophisticated DNA testing, where anyone with motivation, money and some free time can take part. This week, Carpenter and about 300 other people interested in genealogy came out for a panel discussion at the New-York Historical Society as part of the World Science Festival.
“It’s All Relatives: The Science of Your Family Tree,” was inspired by the PBS series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Of the desire to find ancestral roots, Gates says: “I think it’s because people feel so insecure with all the changes of post modernity, including the economic crisis, the crisis of cultures and of religions. I think people take comfort in identifying their own roots ... and I think that makes you more secure in the world.”
There is a case to be made for connecting with our past and our ancestors, which is how panelist CeCe Moore became involved. She calls herself a “citizen scientist” and also appears in Finding Your Roots.
The big discovery for her family was that her brother-in-law, who thought his ancestry was Native American, is actually descended from Sally Hemings, the slave with whom President Thomas Jefferson had six children. It was a pivotal moment not only for her, but also for her blond-haired, blue-eyed niece, “who was excited to find out she was ‘black’,” says Moore. She sees a trend in the field of more “citizen scientists” getting involved and helping to expand the research.
Panelists Mark D. Shriver, Brenna Henn, CeCe Moore, Catherine Ball,
and Randall Pinkston at the World Science Festival in NYC, May 29, 2014.
Christopher Farber for World Science Festival
Christopher Farber for World Science Festival
Panelists were able to participate in an on-site genealogy study called ADAPT. It is the brainchild of geneticist Mark D. Shriver of Pennsylvania State University. He uses high-tech imaging to extrapolate genetic inheritance information based on facial features, skin color and hair texture.
Shriver says the line of inquiry is important “because we need a better idea of how genes and the environment affect these traits.” While his study will help predict the faces of our ancestors, it also has practical applications such as helping in forensic investigations.
Panel moderator and broadcast journalist Randall Pinkston was tested using ADAPT. “I’m looking forward to the results of my face,” said Pinkston. Beyond that, he said, it is important for more African Americans to discover their family trees, especially now that so much of the information is available online.
“I think these kinds of events and this kind of knowledge is important so that we can become more concerned about our history,” he told The Root. “I have been concerned for decades about the failure of people to carry on family names. Not only that, but to make up names that may be meaningful to the parent at the time but that have no connection to anything in that family’s history. So, 100 years from now, you can’t figure out who was this child’s grandparents.”
Doris Withers was one of the few blacks in the audience. The 70-year-old said her mother began chronicling their family tree at least 30 years ago through the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Now, Withers is expanding on that research by incorporating genetic testing. She said she has used several DNA companies including Ancestry.com, 23andMe and African Ancestry, and found they all gave her similar results.
Cathy Ball, lead geneticist for Ancestry.com says differences in results among consumer companies that offer genetic predicting “are all about the algorithms and the underlying reference data used to make the predictions.” That is because the science is so advanced that “there is no true litmus test” that can pinpoint an exact percentage.
Ball adds that while technology has vastly improved over the years,
she believes that even more significant advances will be achieved in the
not-too-distant-future. There is also a hope that the cost of genetic
testing will continue to decrease; today, a basic genealogy test costs
about $100. Fifteen years ago, the price was thousands of dollars.
For many such as Withers and Carpenter, today's costs are money well spent.
“The more we know that we’re not who we think we are, the better off we are,” Carpenter says. “The more we understand that this is one pretty small world in the global scheme of things, the more we’re related, I think that’s fabulous.”
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Mitch McConnell’s ACA problem
The Affordable Care Act is working in Kentucky, but Mitch McConell is vehemently opposed to it. So, how to campaign on a losing battle?
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Joe Scarborough Finally Appears On Fox Where He Belongs
By Heather
When I saw that Joe Scarborough was appearing on Fox's The Kelly File, my first thoughts were please lord someone tell me he's found a new home there. Sadly he was just there to push his new book and talk over Megyn Kelly, since his regular co-host Mika Brzezinski wasn't around to put up with his abuse as she does every morning.
Apparently Scarborough isn't quite "conservative" enough to suit the right because he hasn't fully embraced every wingnut talking head on Faux "news" and right-wing hate talker and he's dared to occasionally go against some of the talking points they're all repeating day in and day out.
From Fox's blog: Megyn Kelly to Joe Scarborough: How Can You Be a Conservative If You’re At War With GOP Icons?:
MSNBC host Joe Scarborough looked right at home on
Fox's The Kelly File, where he was pushing his new book this Tuesday
night.
When I saw that Joe Scarborough was appearing on Fox's The Kelly File, my first thoughts were please lord someone tell me he's found a new home there. Sadly he was just there to push his new book and talk over Megyn Kelly, since his regular co-host Mika Brzezinski wasn't around to put up with his abuse as she does every morning.
Apparently Scarborough isn't quite "conservative" enough to suit the right because he hasn't fully embraced every wingnut talking head on Faux "news" and right-wing hate talker and he's dared to occasionally go against some of the talking points they're all repeating day in and day out.
From Fox's blog: Megyn Kelly to Joe Scarborough: How Can You Be a Conservative If You’re At War With GOP Icons?:
Megyn Kelly tonight took on MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, asking him how he would react to Republicans that think he’s a “faux conservative.”
“We had 10 years of big government Republicanism, and what people found out was after the Bush years that big government Republicanism was as bad as big government liberalism, and I was always critical of the Republican establishment,” Scarborough said.
“How can you be a true conservative if […] you’re at war with so many of the conservative icons?” Kelly asked, citing Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.
Scarborough said he’s not at war with them, and that he has consistently been a small government conservative.
“I’m conservative when Republicans are in the White House. I’m conservative when Democrats are in the White House,” he said.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Sunday, May 25, 2014
James O'Keefe Stings HIMSELF Again in 'Frack Film' Fail
By Brad Friedman
Isn't it time that the suckers dumb enough to have given money to Rightwing con-man and federal criminal James O'Keefe's ironically-named "non-profit" Project Veritas started demanding their money back from this clown?
Or are they simply too stupid to care about being played for complete stooges as Fox "News" and, apparently, Megyn Kelly still appear to be?
Here's O'Keefe's latest really huge fail, as revealed fail after "sting victim", Academy Award-nominated Gasland documentarian Josh Fox, turns out to have recorded the entire conversation deceptively edited and featured in pretend "journalist" O'Keefe's new video...
What O'Keefe got busted doing there, as seen in the Chris Hayes MSNBC segment above, is exactly what he does in every one of his pretend "investigations", as we've demonstrated here for years. This time, at least, one of the victims happened to have had the foresight to have recorded it all independently on his own.
It's remarkable that even the wingnut dupes at Fox "News" are still falling for this tired con, frankly, much less people stupid enough to send actual money to support Jimmy's scam.
For specific details on just some of the deceptively edited bullshit in his latest con, see this at Media Matters. For the entirety of the recording that documentarian Fox made of the encounter deceptively pimped in the scam video premiered recently by O'Keefe at Cannes, see this at The Daily Beast. For more on how despicable O'Keefe's latest scam actually was, see this from one of Josh Fox' business associates.
For the early history of the great James O'Keefe/Andrew Breitbart con that put both on these grifters on the map - before we subsequently revealed them to be top-to-bottom two-bit con-artists by debunking the entirety of their infamous ACORN 'Pimp' Hoax bullshit and more - see The BRAD BLOG's Special Coverage page on them here.
Isn't it time that the suckers dumb enough to have given money to Rightwing con-man and federal criminal James O'Keefe's ironically-named "non-profit" Project Veritas started demanding their money back from this clown?
Or are they simply too stupid to care about being played for complete stooges as Fox "News" and, apparently, Megyn Kelly still appear to be?
Here's O'Keefe's latest really huge fail, as revealed fail after "sting victim", Academy Award-nominated Gasland documentarian Josh Fox, turns out to have recorded the entire conversation deceptively edited and featured in pretend "journalist" O'Keefe's new video...
What O'Keefe got busted doing there, as seen in the Chris Hayes MSNBC segment above, is exactly what he does in every one of his pretend "investigations", as we've demonstrated here for years. This time, at least, one of the victims happened to have had the foresight to have recorded it all independently on his own.
It's remarkable that even the wingnut dupes at Fox "News" are still falling for this tired con, frankly, much less people stupid enough to send actual money to support Jimmy's scam.
For specific details on just some of the deceptively edited bullshit in his latest con, see this at Media Matters. For the entirety of the recording that documentarian Fox made of the encounter deceptively pimped in the scam video premiered recently by O'Keefe at Cannes, see this at The Daily Beast. For more on how despicable O'Keefe's latest scam actually was, see this from one of Josh Fox' business associates.
For the early history of the great James O'Keefe/Andrew Breitbart con that put both on these grifters on the map - before we subsequently revealed them to be top-to-bottom two-bit con-artists by debunking the entirety of their infamous ACORN 'Pimp' Hoax bullshit and more - see The BRAD BLOG's Special Coverage page on them here.
Saturday, May 24, 2014
How the MAFIA helped Ronald Reagan get to the White House
EXCLUSIVE: Revealed, how the MAFIA helped Ronald Reagan get to the White House.
Shocking documentary reveals Mob connections that catapulted him to the presidency - and how a probe was thwarted at 'the highest levels'
- President Reagan owed his acting and political career to Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman, chief of entertainment behemoth MCA, who was in bed with the Mob
- An investigation into the relationship between MCA and the Mafia was halted and Federal prosecutors believe it was one of the 'political favors' that can be traced back to Reagan's White House
- 'Ronald Reagan is a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything,' one secret Justice Department document revealed
- According to the producer of the documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, one MCA executive had ties to Mob boss John Gotti
- 'Reagan's whole career in politics was subsidized by MCA,' he asserts, and helped him financially because for a long time he was living above his means
- The Mob was probably working Nancy Reagan too, according to the producer. 'She was a driving force behind Reagan'
From the mid-1950’s to the early 1960’s, Sunday evenings were reserved for millions of families to sit in front of the tube and watch the General Electric Theatre on CBS hosted by genial Ronald Reagan, whose movie career had since dried up.
Television had offered him another chance.
What viewers didn't know was that Reagan was given this new opportunity of visibility and stardom in a highly lucrative and rare deal. Along with a big paycheck, he was made part-owner of the popular program that he hosted for eight years, making him extremely wealthy.
Scroll down for exclusive video
Thick as thieves: Hollywood powerhouse Lew
Wasserman was Ronald Reagan's mentor, once described as 'the Godfather
of the film industry.' A new documentary seen exclusively by MailOnline
explores Wasserman's connections to the Mafia and how that influenced
the man who would be president and his First Lady
His mentor, close friend and the power behind the deal was Lew Wasserman, the very private head of the Music Corporation of America, better known as MCA, a Hollywood entertainment behemoth.
Under Lew Wasserman's brilliant and often brutal leadership, MCA's hugely financially successful forms of mass entertainment have been popular for generations of couch potatoes and movie-goers: from Leave It to Beaver to Miami Vice on television; from American Graffiti to Jaws on the big screen.
As a talent agency in the beginning, its rich acting stable had included Errol Flynn, Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, Joan Crawford and Henry Fonda and Bette Davis.
Wasserman had personally signed and represented many of them. Charlton Heston once described Wasserman as the 'Godfather of the film industry.'
Ronald Reagan, however, was the brightest star in Wasserman's personal firmament.
But there was a dark side to Wasserman - and to Reagan - all of which is revealed in a shocking new documentary, Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, that, according to the film's producer and those interviewed, links both of them in darkly shadowed ways to the Mafia, and the killing of a U.S. Department of Justice organized crime Strike Force investigation into Mob influence and infiltration at the highest levels of MCA.
Driving force: According to the film's director,
Nancy Reagan was 'the driving force behind Reagan. The mob was probably
working her too. She was the one who was pushing him into everything'
It's a case that one participant in the film declares ‘dwarfs the Watergate scandal’.
Neither Reagan nor Wasserman were ever prosecuted, let alone interrogated as a result of the events presented in the film because both were so well-insulated.
Reagan died in 2004 at 93 after suffering from Alzheimer's for a decade, and Wasserman died in 2002 at 89. He was said to be one of the largest contributors to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Center for Public Affairs in Simi Valley, California.
Seven years before Wasserman’s death, President Clinton -- who like Reagan got a lot of campaign and financial support from Hollywood power brokers -- presented Wasserman with the nation's highest civilian honor in a ceremony at the White House, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Wages of Spin II: Bring Down The Wall, produced and directed by Philadelphia filmmaker Shawn Swords, whose previous highly acclaimed documentary revealed the shady business practices of popular TV icon Dick Clark, will soon have it's world premier.
But MailOnline has been given an exclusive screening of the complex film which includes candid interviews with, among others, two former top Justice Department prosecutors and an ex-FBI agent who were spearheading the ill-fated top-secret probe of MCA. These men lost or left their jobs when their investigation was suddenly ordered shut down at 'the highest levels in Washington,' according to Swords and those he interviewed on camera over a two to three year period.
Power player: MCA chairman Wasserman held sway
over Hollywood. With his clout, he helped get Reagan elected president
of the Screen Actor's Guild, Governor of California and then President.
Federal investigators were pursuing his mob ties when the investigation
was suddenly halted
Richard Stavin, a former veteran federal prosecutor who was assigned to the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force in Los Angeles and was an integral member of the MCA-Mafia probe team, declared in the film for the first time:
'It's my belief that MCA and its' involvement with Mafia individuals, Mafia-dominated companies and our inability to pursue those was not happenstance. I believe it was an organized, orchestrated effort on the part of certain individuals within Washington, D.C. to keep a hands-off policy towards MCA.
'At the time, Ronald Reagan was the President of the United States and Edwin Meese was the Attorney General of the United States [Stavin's ultimate boss]. A little known fact was MCA and Lew Wasserman supported Ronald Reagan when he wanted to become president of the Screen Actors Guild, which was the launch of Mr. Reagan's political career.
'I would like to think that the people in the highest levels of this government were not protective of MCA...But I'm not so sure about that.'
Stavin left his Mafia crime-fighting career to which he was dedicated because, as he said on camera,
'I was unable to fulfill the duties for which I took my sworn oath.'
Another veteran federal Strike Force prosecutor involved in the probe of organized crime infiltration at MCA, Marvin Rudnick, known for his bulldog tenacity, was shockingly fired by the Justice Department and considered 'rogue' because he wanted to continue to pursue the suspected MCA bad guys, even if the trail led to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Disillusioned: Richard Stavin, a former federal
prosecutor, left his Mafia crime-fighting career because he was unable
to fulfill his duties. 'It's my belief that MCA and its involvement with
Mafia individuals, Mafia-dominated companies and our inability to
pursue those was not happenstance,' he says. 'I believe it was an
organized, orchestrated effort on the part of certain individuals within
Washington, D.C. to keep a hands-off policy towards MCA'
But the investigation was mysteriously ordered closed. He was later reinstated.
'For the Justice Department to kill the case was a little extraordinary,' Rudnick declared on camera.
'You wonder where it starts and where it ends. We did not get the investigation done because of intereference from high up.'
Special Agent Thomas G. Gates, who was heading up the FBI end of the investigation, declared in the film: "The powers trumped what we were trying to to do. The players within MCA tried to stay as low-key as they could. I don't know how much influence Wasserman was able to put on President
Reagan when he was in office because he [Wasserman] was always a backdoor participant, but we knew who he was associating with."
Gates stated that information about the probe 'was leaking out that shouldn't have happened' from the Justice Department in Washington.
The film's director, Shawn Swords, asserted to MailOnline that the Mob or MCA actually had a mole in the Justice Department. "It was somebody who was feeding information to the Mob and MCA. The FBI knew it was one of twelve people, but they couldn't finger the guilty one.'
Along with Rudnick's firing, and Stavin's quiting after his part of the MCA probe was shut down, all of the sealed files and wiretap documents were said to have mysteriously disappeared from a supposedly secure federal government warehouse in Maryland.
Who was pulling the strings behind all of these questionable events, the more than two-hour documentary essentially asks.
As an unnamed Hollywood source was once quoted in a Justice Department document: "Ronald Reagan is a complete slave of MCA who would do their bidding on anything.'
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Shawn Swords said about Reagan and MCA, 'One hand washed the other. That relationship was so incestuous, and Ed Meese, who was the attorney general [appointed by President Reagan] who headed the Justice Department was really good friends with the board of directors at MCA.
'Reagan's whole career in politics was subsidized by them and helped him financially because for a long time he was living above his means. MCA backed every political campaign he ran. That's the shocking history -- that MCA was prevalent in his career and that they did so much quid pro quo for each other.'
'Ronald Reagan was an opportunist. His whole career was guided by MCA -- by Wasserman and [MCA founder] Jules Stein who bragged that Reagan was malleable, that they could do what they wanted with him.
'That thing about Reagan being tough on [organized] crime -- that's a fallacy.'
When Reagan's movie career was fading and Wasserman had difficulty getting him starring roles, a decision was made that would launch his political career. In 1947, with the aggressive support and backing of the Godfather at MCA, Reagan was elected president of the powerful Screen Actors Guild, known as SAG, a position in which he would serve for some seven terms.
Bulldog: Strike Force prosectutor Marvin Rudnick
was fired by the Justice Department and considered 'rogue' because he
wanted to continue to pursue the suspected MCA bad guys, even if the
trail led to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
SAG's bylaws had always banned talent agencies like MCA from producing any form of entertainment, such as TV programs and movies. But during Reagan's fifth year as the guild's president a secret blanket waiver was negotiated with SAG, and it gave MCA and Wasserman the platinum opportunity to not only market talent as agents but also to move into TV and film making.
After the waiver was granted, MCA formed MCA Television Limited that handled syndication, and then Review Productions to make TV and films, and got the jump on any competitition, making it a Hollywood powerhouse.
When Reagan ran into financial difficulties it was MCA under Wasserman that got him lucrative land deals that made him even wealthier. The General Electric Theater that Reagan hosted and for which he even produced programs was an MCA-Review property.
After Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966, with support and campaign financing from MCA and associates, some with shady ties, MCA benefited from some of his executive decisions.
Fast forward to the mid-1980s when Reagan was in the Oval Office. MCA was then in negotiations to sell out to the giant Japanese company Matsushita Electric Industrial for billions of dollars. From that deal Wasserman reportedly was to benefit to the tune of $500 million.
SAG swag: Ronald Reagan held court at the Screen
Actors' Guild for seven terms. At one point he was able to change to
rules to greatly benefir MCA and Wasserman's bottom line by allowing the
management company to produce TV and film projects
But the big danger for him and his company, dubbed the 'Octopus,' because its tentacles were in virtually all aspects of the entertainment business, was an ongoing U.S. Justice Department probe into suspected organized crime influence at MCA and in particular Wasserman's long purported ties to Mafia figures.
If the probe became public, it would most likely have impacted Wall Street and MCA's publicly held stock, and possibly driven away the Japanese buyers and the lucrative purchase. Wasserman, according to the documentary, wasn't going to let that happen.
The Justice Department-FBI investigation into Mob ties within MCA started by chance when organized crime strike force prosecutor Marvin Rudnick came across intelligence that a man by the name of Salvatore Pisello was in the hierarchy of MCA.
A red flag instantly went up. How and why, Rudnick wondered, was a high-ranking soldier in the Gambino Mafia family of New York who was known to his associates as 'Sal The Banker', 'Sal the Swindler,' and 'Big Sal,' doing businesss in MCA's offices in Universal City.
Thwarted: FBI Special Agent Thomas G. Gates, who
was heading up the FBI end of the investigation, declared in the film:
'The powers trumped what we were trying to to do'
Pisello had just been sentenced to four years in prison on tax evasion charges, and Rudnick at a hearing in U.S. District Court in L.A. stated that evidence had been uncovered linking him to 'criminal activity in the record industry.'
Pisello had denied any involvement in organized crime, and declared, 'I'll go to prison for 20 years if anyone can prove that. I go to church every Sunday and the only organization I ever belonged to was the Holy Name Society.' Regarding his MCA connection, he declared, 'I'm in the record business for one year and I'm supposed to have destroyed the industry.'
But his connections and dealings became the target of several federal grand jury probes. MCA denied knowing anything about his alleged organized crime links, and claimed to have no idea how he got in the door.
The investigation though led to other crime figures involved with MCA before it got shut down.
Another source interviewed on camera in the documentary, investigative reporter William K. Knoedelseder, Jr., author of Stiffed: A True Story of MCA, the Music Business and the Mafia, published in 1993, had for a dozen years been covering organized crime and other corruption in the entertainment industry for The Los Angeles Times.
He began writing revelatory stories for the paper about Rudnick and Stavin's investigation, and was the first to report that Pisello 'wound up in high-level meetings with MCA officers' negotiating lucrative record deals 'that would place him among the best-paid executives in the industry.'
But like Rudnick and Stavin, the series of stories was a newspaper career-ender for Knoedelseder. He was ordered by editors to stop writing about MCA, and he quit his job, according to a 2006 book called 'Supermob' that also dealt with Reagan, Wasserman and the Mafia, and it noted that the publisher of the LA Times at the time had gotten his job 'thanks to Lew Wasserman's kind intercession.'
Rudnick had also been ordered to drop his end of the investigation.
'I was told by my boss not to introduce evidence that was embarrassing to MCA,' he stated in the documentary. 'My office was being told by somebody higher up to stop the investigation to show how Pisello got into MCA which was the most important part of the case. MCA executives weren't cooperating because somebody high up in MCA was trying to kill the deal.
'For MCA to be doing business so closely with Pisello was a primary example of what the Strike Force should be doing, and when the Strike Force looked the other way and turned it down, then you know darn well interference took place. As a prosecutor we should be investigating the people who are interfering, not just walking away from it and this is what I tried to do.'
At one point, Rudnick realized he was being followed as he made his investigative rounds. When he told his superiors in Washington, their response was, 'We got your back.'
Dapper Don: Mafia boss John Gotti was found by investigators to have ties to an MCA executive
According to Rudnick, 'MCA decided to reach out and try to kill our case which they eventually did. MCA sent people out to follow me while I was driving, they stopped a wiretap that was legal. They were able to interfere with all kinds of official acts, but nobody at the highest levels of the Justice Department seemed to care or wanted to stop it. It went all the way to the top.'
During the course of the investigation before it was shut down by powers in Washington the probers found another alleged Mob connection at MCA -- Eugene Giaquinto, who was the head of MCA Home Video. Wiretaps had caught Giaquinto talking to 'La Cosa Nostra people in the East,' and the FBI agent Gates stated on camera that 'Wasserman was Giaquinto's mentor and promoted in the MCA's Home Entertainment Group which was very powerful.'
According to Stavin, Giaquinto, who was an executive at MCA for some two decades, had ties to Mob boss John Gotti, and it was learned by the investigators that when a power struggle between two division heads at MCA had erupted it was allegedly resolved by Gotti, dubbed the 'Teflon Don,' and the 'Dapper Don,' who was Boss of New York's Gambino Family at the time. He died in prison in 2002.
In one bizarre spin-off to the whole complicated case, Gotti was asked to kill a planned movie in which the actor James Caan, who starred in "The Godfather" reportedly was to play the role of Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky.
Giaquinto, a target of the MCA-Mafia probe, reportedly was involved in trying to get the film blocked. Caan dropped the project.
Deal with the devil: GE Theater saved Ronald
Reagan's career and a big payday. MCA's Wasserman set up the deal and
after that Reagan owed the mogul big time, says the documentary producer
In the book Supermob, Giaquinto was identified as the source who went into action to get the MCA-Mafia probe brought to an end. The author quoted the source as recalling Giaquinto going ballistic and declaring, 'I'm calling [Attorney general Ed] Meese and getting this thing stopped right now.' The book also quoted an attorney for several MCA executives who had been cooperating with Strike Force prosecutor Marvin Rudnick as saying, 'There was [talk] about how Ed Meese wanted certain actions taken because Nancy Reagan had a friend in high places in the entertainment industry.'
According to Swords, 'The Mob were probably working her, too. She was on the board of governors for the Screen Actors Guild. She was a driving force behind Reagan. Apparently she was the one who was pushing him into everything.'
Mrs. Reagan turns 93 this coming July 6.
While the once liberal democrat Reagan became a popular screen star and later switched political allegiance and became a conservative Republican political hero to millions, Wasserman was little known to the general public. A tall and gaunt man of mystery who sported oversize eyeglasses and dressed like a mortician -- black suits, white shirts, black ties, Wasserman made his army of underling agents dress similarly. In the business of entertainment , they were considered 'the black-suited Mafia.'
Wasserman was seen as frighteningly ruthless with a temper that made powerful men cringe.
His mentor in the beginning of his career was Jules Stein, an ophthalmologist from the Windy City who in the early years of the Roaring '20s had founded the Music Corporation of America, which booked bands in the Midwest, and had close ties to shady figures, reputedly members of the Chicago Mob.
A poor boy from a Russian immigrant family, Wasserman grew up in Cleveland, worked as a movie house usher at night, and after getting his high school diploma -- he never went to college -- joined up with what was known as the Mayfield Road Gang, an Italian-led Mafia organization with ties to the Jewish mob -- helping to run a casino.
Connections: President Bill Clinton -- who like
Reagan got a lot of campaign and financial support from Hollywood power
brokers -- presented Wasserman with the nation's highest civilian honor
in a ceremony at the White House, the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Moving up the career ladder in Chicago, Wasserman was recruited by founder Jules Stein who saw him as a bright boy with good ideas and made him an MCA talent agent. Stein was well-connected: his MCA was booking bands for the flashy nightclubs and crooked gambling houses run by legendary crime boss Al Capone.
By then, Wasserman had taken a wife -- his attorney father-in-law reportedly was a reputed Mob mouthpiece.
In the late '30s, Stein and Wasserman followed the adage of Horace Greeley and went west, setting up shop in the ritzy center of the entertainment industry -- Beverly Hills, around the same time that the Chicago Mob was putting down roots in the movie capital.
Of all the incredible acting talent in the MCA stable of clients, the first to ever receive a $1 million movie contract was Ronald Reagan-- a deal Wasserman negotiated for him with Warner Brothers Studios in 1941.
Wasserman apparently saw a future for Reagan far beyond the acting world.
Wasserman was just 36 when Stein anointed him MCA's president, the youngest to ever hold such a position of power. It was in the late '40s that Wasserman saw MCA as a major player in the new technology known as television.
In Hollywood, where all movies and their characters have an arc, Wasserman's rise to power ended after the Justice Department's organized Crime Strike Force investigation was killed. The sale of MCA went through to the Japanese for $6.5 billion in 1990. Wasserman had a role in management for a time. But when MCA was sold again to the Seagram Company in 1995 for $5.7 billion,
Wasserman wasn't even told. By then his power was gone.
Desperate Liar Mitch McConnell Gets Caught In His Own Health Care Trap
By Sarah Jones
Upon Senator Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) primary victory promise to repeal
Obamacare, I mused who would ask him about kicking the 413,000
Kentuckians who were on Kynect off of it. Your mainstream media did just
that, and the Kentucky Senator told a bold faced lie. A lie so
disingenuous and so important policy wise that it can’t be overstated.
The man who is hoping to be Majority Leader of the Senate and who promised to repeal Obamacare if he makes it claimed that the Kentucky state exchange is not connected to Obamacare. But of course, it is. It is Obamacare, under a different name.
ABC reported:
A plurality of Kentuckians like their Obamacare, so long as it’s called Kynect, so it’s no wonder that McConnell is trying to dodge his way around kicking them all off of their health insurance.
According to Kynect statistics as of 4/21/14, 413,410 Kentuckians are enrolled in new health coverage, including Medicaid and private insurance.
Per the Kynect website, “Calling it ‘the single-most important decision in our lifetime for improving the health of Kentuckians,’ Gov. Steve Beshear announced in May 2013 the inclusion of 308,000 more Kentuckians in the federal Medicaid health insurance program.
Read slowly in honor of Mitch McConnell:
It looks like McConnell is caught in his own Obamacare trap. Too bad he and his party never tried to do anything to solve the healthcare crisis in this country — and have staked their entire party upon the public buying their smears about Obamacare — instead of realizing that once it was implemented, they would be running on kicking people off of insurance and that’s not as easy as telling Obamascare lies.
Kynect is Obamacare, and Senator McConnell knows it. This is one of the most brazen, outrageous lies told in the last few years, and I’m ranking it above even Mitt Romney’s Jeep lies, because it is meant to fool innocent Kentuckians who have no clue that Kynect is Obamacare. There aren’t words for this kind of cruel hypocrisy.
Politics is full of spin, but this goes beyond spin. This is a matter of people’s lives.
The man who is hoping to be Majority Leader of the Senate and who promised to repeal Obamacare if he makes it claimed that the Kentucky state exchange is not connected to Obamacare. But of course, it is. It is Obamacare, under a different name.
ABC reported:
But the veteran senator won’t say what would happen to the 413,000 Kentuckians who have health insurance through the state’s health care exchange.Kynect is the state exchange version of the Affordable Care Act, aka, Obamacare. It’s a marketplace run by the state as the drafters of the ACA intended all marketplaces to be (before Republicans sabotaged the online marketplace by refusing to build the state markets).
McConnell told reporters Friday that the fate of the state exchange is unconnected to the federal health care law. Yet the exchange would not exist, if not for the law that created it.
A plurality of Kentuckians like their Obamacare, so long as it’s called Kynect, so it’s no wonder that McConnell is trying to dodge his way around kicking them all off of their health insurance.
Per the Kynect website, “Calling it ‘the single-most important decision in our lifetime for improving the health of Kentuckians,’ Gov. Steve Beshear announced in May 2013 the inclusion of 308,000 more Kentuckians in the federal Medicaid health insurance program.
Read slowly in honor of Mitch McConnell:
The expansion – made in accordance with the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) – will help hundreds of thousands of Kentucky families, dramatically improve the state’s health, create nearly 17,000 new jobs and have a $15.6 billion positive economic impact on the state between its beginning in Fiscal Year 2014 and full implementation in Fiscal Year 2021.Kentuckians deserve to know what Mitch McConnell plans to do with all of the folks who signed up for insurance under Kynect or got onto Medicaid when he repeals Obamacare, as he has promised to try to do.
It looks like McConnell is caught in his own Obamacare trap. Too bad he and his party never tried to do anything to solve the healthcare crisis in this country — and have staked their entire party upon the public buying their smears about Obamacare — instead of realizing that once it was implemented, they would be running on kicking people off of insurance and that’s not as easy as telling Obamascare lies.
Kynect is Obamacare, and Senator McConnell knows it. This is one of the most brazen, outrageous lies told in the last few years, and I’m ranking it above even Mitt Romney’s Jeep lies, because it is meant to fool innocent Kentuckians who have no clue that Kynect is Obamacare. There aren’t words for this kind of cruel hypocrisy.
Politics is full of spin, but this goes beyond spin. This is a matter of people’s lives.
Desperate Liar Mitch McConnell Gets Caught In His Own Obamacare Trap was written by Sarah Jones for PoliticusUSA.
Darrell Issa Declares War on John Boehner as Benghazi Investigation Turns Into a Circus
By Jason Easley
The big House Benghazi investigation has turned into
a full blown circus, as John Boehner has lost control over Darrell
Issa, who has gone rogue, and is trashing Boehner’s big plans.
Video:
Here is a transcript of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) explaining the meltdown in the House GOP to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer:
BLITZER: What exactly is going on?
REP. CUMMINGS: I think the Speaker has lost control of Issa. Mr. Issa’s trying to interject himself into the Select Committee’s business. Keep in mind, Wolf, when the Select Committee was formed what the Speaker said was everything comes under the Select Committee. Now, here we have Mr. Issa trying to bring the Secretary in, and the Secretary is saying, you know, I’m going to come, but I’m just going to come one time. This is it. By the way, Wolf, it undermines the Select Committee. It undermines them. This is the very thing they were worried about.
BLITZER: I thought if there was a Select Committee, it would supersede the other committees.
CUMMINGS: That’s exactly right….I can tell you. I would think that Trey (Gowdy) would be a little upset about this. In other words, it’s his committee now, the Select Committee, and now he sees Issa operating on the outside, and the Speaker said it would not be a circus, but we’ve got a circus on the side.
Blitzer and Cummings both agreed that Sec. of State
Kerry wouldn’t know anything, because he was a senator and not the Sec.
of State at the time of the attack.
Yesterday,
Issa sabotaged the Select Committee by disclosing details of a memo
that confirms that the White House was telling the truth about Benghazi.
At the time, it was speculated that Issa was bitter about the Benghazi
investigation being taken away from him. Rep. Issa’s behavior today
proves that he is actively working to sabotage Boehner’s Select
Committee investigating Benghazi.
This whole sideshow has turned into an epic circus
before the Special Committee has even formally been seated. I agree with
Rep. Cummings. Boehner has lost all control of Issa, who is now acting
on his own. The whole let’s get Obama with Benghazi plan is melting into
complete chaos and dysfunction.
The great Benghazi investigation is a total joke, as
Boehner, Issa, and company are getting what they deserve for trying to
exploit the deaths of four Americans for partisan political gain.
Darrell Issa Declares War on John Boehner as Benghazi Investigation Turns Into a Circus was written by Jason Easley for PoliticusUSA.
Friday, May 23, 2014
One county shows why Tom Corbett is doomed
By Adam B
In 2010, Tom Corbett carried Centre County, PA, by a 55%-45% margin.
It's in the center of the state (duh), and sufficiently purplish that
even in 2012, when Barack Obama carried the state 52%-47%, he only won Centre County by 175 votes. If Tom Corbett is going to be re-elected, he needs to win Centre County.
And here's the Republican primary results for Centre County, Pennsylvania, from Tuesday night:
Have you ever, in your life, seen a reverse drop-off like that? A
thousand in his own party writing in someone else, and another thousand
voters also refusing to acknowledge that race at all as demonstrated by
the under vote relative to the legislative races?
I should probably mention something else: Centre County is the home of Penn State University.
The rest, I think you know: Corbett, as attorney general, has been accused of slow-walking the investigation into Jerry Sandusky's horrific crimes against children on campus.
As Governor, he slashed funding to Penn State as well as public education across-the-board; bizarrely approved a $3M grant to Sandusky's Second Mile charity while he knew the investigation was ongoing; and is reviled by many for his acquiescence to the NCAA's punishment of the school, and for commandeering what was seen as the disrespectful way in which Joe Paterno was hastily fired (over the phone) after 61 years devoted to the university. (Paterno died two months later.)
Please read below the fold for more on this story.
And here's the Republican primary results for Centre County, Pennsylvania, from Tuesday night:
I should probably mention something else: Centre County is the home of Penn State University.
The rest, I think you know: Corbett, as attorney general, has been accused of slow-walking the investigation into Jerry Sandusky's horrific crimes against children on campus.
As Governor, he slashed funding to Penn State as well as public education across-the-board; bizarrely approved a $3M grant to Sandusky's Second Mile charity while he knew the investigation was ongoing; and is reviled by many for his acquiescence to the NCAA's punishment of the school, and for commandeering what was seen as the disrespectful way in which Joe Paterno was hastily fired (over the phone) after 61 years devoted to the university. (Paterno died two months later.)
Please read below the fold for more on this story.
Tom Fitzgerald, Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-12-13:
There are many reasons why the Washington Post has listed Corbett as America's most vulnerable governor consistently over the past year and a half. As Tuesday's election results demonstrate, it's not just Democrats who realize how ruinous his governorship has been.
Tom Corbett must be defeated, and we will need your help here in Pennsylvania.
A significant number of voters, 47 percent, said in the latest Quinnipiac University poll on Thursday that the Penn State situation would be a "very" or "somewhat" important factor in their choice for governor next year. By a margin of 58 percent to 23 percent, voters thought that Corbett did not do enough to pursue Sandusky.
Forty-six percent of those polled said the NCAA penalties against Penn State are "too severe," while 32 percent said they are appropriate. Perhaps more important from a political point of view: 75 percent said that the sanctions, including limits on scholarships, a ban on bowl appearances, and a $60 million fine, will hurt the football program.The Pennsylvania Attorney General's office has been pursuing an investigation into Corbett's handling of the allegations against Sandusky; while delayed, its report is expected in the next few months.
There are many reasons why the Washington Post has listed Corbett as America's most vulnerable governor consistently over the past year and a half. As Tuesday's election results demonstrate, it's not just Democrats who realize how ruinous his governorship has been.
Tom Corbett must be defeated, and we will need your help here in Pennsylvania.
Originally posted to Adam B on Thu May 22, 2014 at 07:04 AM PDT.
Also republished by Pittsburgh Area Kossacks, Philly Kos, DKos Pennsylvania, and Daily Kos.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Maddow slams Republicans for complaining about VA scandal after passing budget cuts
By Arturo Garcia
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow argued on Wednesday that the problems currently surrounding the country’s Veterans Affairs (VA) department predated both President Barack Obama and department Secretary Eric Shinseki’s administrations, and were fueled in part by Republican budget cuts and inaction.
“There is a modern American dysmorphia when it comes to veterans,” she said. “We see things that aren’t really there. We tell ourselves that we’re doing things that we’re not really doing. We have a poetry in this country about our love and respect for veterans that is not matched by the prose of how veterans are actually treated.”
Maddow noted that in March 2003 — the same month the U.S. began its second war against Iraq — the GOP-led House of Representatives approved a budget cutting $14 billion from the VA’s budget. Two years later, Anthony Principi, who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush, released a statement saying the department did not “require additional resources” despite the escalating cost of that conflict.
Lawmakers later had to approve an emergency $1.5 billion budget influx following reports that local VA facilities were instituting hiring freezes and lacking the ability to make necessary purchases.
Yet it’s Republicans who are now engaging in a coordinated effort, she said, to oust Shinseki amid an investigation into alleged record-keeping malfeasance in VA clinics in 26 cities.
“Not even the people who are clamoring for him to go — not even the people who are clamoring for the president to fire General Shinzeki — say they believe that that would solve the problem at the VA,” Maddow said. “I mean, whether or not you want Eric Shinzeki to keep his job, what would it take to fix the problem?”
Watch Maddow’s commentary, as aired on Wednesday, below.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow argued on Wednesday that the problems currently surrounding the country’s Veterans Affairs (VA) department predated both President Barack Obama and department Secretary Eric Shinseki’s administrations, and were fueled in part by Republican budget cuts and inaction.
“There is a modern American dysmorphia when it comes to veterans,” she said. “We see things that aren’t really there. We tell ourselves that we’re doing things that we’re not really doing. We have a poetry in this country about our love and respect for veterans that is not matched by the prose of how veterans are actually treated.”
Maddow noted that in March 2003 — the same month the U.S. began its second war against Iraq — the GOP-led House of Representatives approved a budget cutting $14 billion from the VA’s budget. Two years later, Anthony Principi, who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush, released a statement saying the department did not “require additional resources” despite the escalating cost of that conflict.
Lawmakers later had to approve an emergency $1.5 billion budget influx following reports that local VA facilities were instituting hiring freezes and lacking the ability to make necessary purchases.
Yet it’s Republicans who are now engaging in a coordinated effort, she said, to oust Shinseki amid an investigation into alleged record-keeping malfeasance in VA clinics in 26 cities.
“Not even the people who are clamoring for him to go — not even the people who are clamoring for the president to fire General Shinzeki — say they believe that that would solve the problem at the VA,” Maddow said. “I mean, whether or not you want Eric Shinzeki to keep his job, what would it take to fix the problem?”
Watch Maddow’s commentary, as aired on Wednesday, below.
Monday, May 19, 2014
GOP Senator Marco Rubio Is a Frighteningly Stupid Man Who Thinks He's Ready to Be President
Posted By Rude One
One-time Savior of the Republican Party, Senator
Marco Rubio, he of the muy beneficial Cuban background (although, you know,
Hispanics aren't idiots - believe it or not, they can tell a Mexican from a
Puerto Rican from a Cuban), he of the parched lips, he of the allegedly
once-reasonable side of the GOP, thinks he's all grown up and ready
to be president of these here United States. Oh, sure, he was a bit coy during
his Sunday interview, saying that his party of lunatics, whores, and lepers is
just filled to the brim with potential candidates. But, yeah, he's
ready.
And how can you tell he's ready? Because Marco Rubio talked about complex issues like a brain-damaged Twitchy commenter. "I think a president has to have a clear vision of where the country needs to go and clear ideas about how to get it there," he told ABC combover Jonathan Karl. And part of his clear vision is that you can go fuck yourself with your climate change.
When Karl asked him about it on Sunday, Rubio answered, "I don’t agree with the notion that some are putting out there, including scientists, that somehow, there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate." Here's the fuckin' deal: unless you are a scientist and you have slam-dunk evidence in your hand, you don't get to disagree with the "notion" that nearly every climate scientist is wrong. It's like when a fan thinks he can tell the coaches of a pro football team what plays to run by screaming at them from the stands. You know, Senator, a law degree from the University of Miami entitles you to a lot of things. Ignorantly questioning climatologists with statements like "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it" is not one of them. "These scientists" will kick your ass all over your soon-to-be drowned state.
But let's put aside the usual blah-blah-blah climate change denialism. We're pretty much fucked there, and we're not gonna do a goddamned thing about it until we're having Road Warrior-esque drinking water battles.
Instead, have a read of Rubio's erudite statements on how Democrats want to keep people working at Burger King: "I want people to look at the Republican Party as the party that shows them the way to a new American century versus a Democratic Party that shows us how this is the new normal and we just have to get used to it, that the cashier at Burger King will always be a cashier, and all he or she can hope for is an increase in the minimum wage...And what we say is: No, the cashier at Burger King might be a cashier today, but he or she will be a manager tomorrow, and maybe they're paying for school so she can be a doctor in 10 years."
In order to understand that mindbogglingly stupid paragraph, picture this: The skeleton of Ayn Rand has Marco Rubio sitting on her lap. She's got her bony hand up his ass, operating his mouth like the meat puppet he is. Got it?
What is the magical path by which that Burger King worker becomes a doctor, something that is totally within the realm of possibility? So let's use our brain TVs and imagine that Burger King worker. Let's call her "Claudette." Claudette maybe has her high school diploma, so let's say she's around 20. Chances are that, as a full-time worker at Burger King, she'll make somewhere around $7.40 an hour. Even after working a second job, she might make under $15,000 a year with no benefits. If you can imagine someone like that, she might inform you that, after three years at BK, "I still live at home with my mother and try to go to school on the side. I do dream of something more, but it's really hard to get jobs right now."
Oh, wait. We don't have to imagine Claudette because she's a totally fucking real Burger King employee.
How the fuck is she becoming a doctor, Senator Rubio? Only through the government helping through programs like student loans, health care, and, yes, a higher minimum wage so that she can actually save something and not just exist to serve your kids Whopper, Jrs. And Claudette's a best case scenario (other than middle class kids in high school, the GOP fantasy minimum wage workers). What if she had kids? A sick parent? No place to live? That's where government is supposed to step up and says, "Hey, you wanna be a doctor? Let us help you try to achieve that dream." Not "It's your fault you can't make more than $7.40 an hour after 3 years at Burger King."
Show us the way to the "new American century"? Motherfucker, it's 2014, not 2000. We're in the century, the real century. Deal with what's happening, to the climate, to the people, now, not in some fake future constructed in the cash-stuffed offices of think tanks and SuperPACs.
And how can you tell he's ready? Because Marco Rubio talked about complex issues like a brain-damaged Twitchy commenter. "I think a president has to have a clear vision of where the country needs to go and clear ideas about how to get it there," he told ABC combover Jonathan Karl. And part of his clear vision is that you can go fuck yourself with your climate change.
When Karl asked him about it on Sunday, Rubio answered, "I don’t agree with the notion that some are putting out there, including scientists, that somehow, there are actions we can take today that would actually have an impact on what’s happening in our climate." Here's the fuckin' deal: unless you are a scientist and you have slam-dunk evidence in your hand, you don't get to disagree with the "notion" that nearly every climate scientist is wrong. It's like when a fan thinks he can tell the coaches of a pro football team what plays to run by screaming at them from the stands. You know, Senator, a law degree from the University of Miami entitles you to a lot of things. Ignorantly questioning climatologists with statements like "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it" is not one of them. "These scientists" will kick your ass all over your soon-to-be drowned state.
But let's put aside the usual blah-blah-blah climate change denialism. We're pretty much fucked there, and we're not gonna do a goddamned thing about it until we're having Road Warrior-esque drinking water battles.
Instead, have a read of Rubio's erudite statements on how Democrats want to keep people working at Burger King: "I want people to look at the Republican Party as the party that shows them the way to a new American century versus a Democratic Party that shows us how this is the new normal and we just have to get used to it, that the cashier at Burger King will always be a cashier, and all he or she can hope for is an increase in the minimum wage...And what we say is: No, the cashier at Burger King might be a cashier today, but he or she will be a manager tomorrow, and maybe they're paying for school so she can be a doctor in 10 years."
In order to understand that mindbogglingly stupid paragraph, picture this: The skeleton of Ayn Rand has Marco Rubio sitting on her lap. She's got her bony hand up his ass, operating his mouth like the meat puppet he is. Got it?
What is the magical path by which that Burger King worker becomes a doctor, something that is totally within the realm of possibility? So let's use our brain TVs and imagine that Burger King worker. Let's call her "Claudette." Claudette maybe has her high school diploma, so let's say she's around 20. Chances are that, as a full-time worker at Burger King, she'll make somewhere around $7.40 an hour. Even after working a second job, she might make under $15,000 a year with no benefits. If you can imagine someone like that, she might inform you that, after three years at BK, "I still live at home with my mother and try to go to school on the side. I do dream of something more, but it's really hard to get jobs right now."
Oh, wait. We don't have to imagine Claudette because she's a totally fucking real Burger King employee.
How the fuck is she becoming a doctor, Senator Rubio? Only through the government helping through programs like student loans, health care, and, yes, a higher minimum wage so that she can actually save something and not just exist to serve your kids Whopper, Jrs. And Claudette's a best case scenario (other than middle class kids in high school, the GOP fantasy minimum wage workers). What if she had kids? A sick parent? No place to live? That's where government is supposed to step up and says, "Hey, you wanna be a doctor? Let us help you try to achieve that dream." Not "It's your fault you can't make more than $7.40 an hour after 3 years at Burger King."
Show us the way to the "new American century"? Motherfucker, it's 2014, not 2000. We're in the century, the real century. Deal with what's happening, to the climate, to the people, now, not in some fake future constructed in the cash-stuffed offices of think tanks and SuperPACs.
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Charter Schools Are Crooked and Corrupt Money Pits
Charter schools are bad. In addition to taking funding away from the
public education system, a new report by the
Center for Popular Democracy and Integrity in Education shows that fraud, waste,
and abuse cases are abundant within charter schools.
These cases, which total over $100 million in losses to taxpayers could “be just the tip of the iceberg,” according to the report.
The report sets aside other issues associated with charter schools (segregations, low performance records, and questionable administration practices) and focuses on activities classified as criminal. It also indicated that the fraud, waste, and abuse are due to the actual problem of inadequate regulation. While this may only be one symptom of the problem, it is a huge one and should be brought to light.
There are, however, reform efforts in progress in states such as Hawaii, which repealed its charter school law in 2013. Even the Walton Family Foundation, which is a major advocate for charter schools, spent $5 million in 2012 lobbying to make the regulation of charter schools more stringent.
Kyle Serrette of the Center for Popular Democracy explained that they expected to find fraud within the charter school systems, but it was not expected that it would be so prevalent.
The study was conducted in only 15 states. The fraud is more than likely much more expansive than what is realized.
“And that figure [$100 million in losses] fails to capture the real harm to children. Clearly, we should hit the pause button on charter expansion until there is a better oversight system in place to protect our children and our communities,” said Serrette.
Sabrina Stevens, executive director of Integrity in Education, explains, “Our school system exists to serve students and enrich communities. School funding is too scarce as it is; we can hardly afford to waste the resources we do have on people who would prioritize exotic vacations over school supplies or food for children. We also can’t continue to rely on the media or isolated whistle-blowers to identify these problems. We need to have rules in place that can systematically weed out incompetent or unscrupulous charter operators before they pose a risk to students and taxpayers.”
The people that Stevens are referring to are charter school executives, such as Joel Pourier, who embezzled more than $1 million from Oh Day Aki Heart Charter School.
These are funds that should be spent on bettering the education and lives of the children who attend the schools, not make the rich richer.
When will Americans take notice of the major flaws and problems associated with charter schools?
The best move would be to eradicate charter schools, instead of abolishing the public education system, which some Republicans propose.
All charter schools are good for is taking away money from the public education system and taxpayers.
Meg is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire.
The post Charter Schools Are Crooked and Corrupt Money Pits appeared first on Ring Of Fire Radio: Robert Kennedy Jr, Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Limbaugh’s ignorant rhetoric about 2016
Conservative talkers continue their attacks against Hillary Clinton,
this time with Rush Limbaugh’s wild theory about the role of gender in
the race. Ed Schultz, Lizz Winstead and Annette Taddeo discuss.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Marco Rubio's radical denial of climate change
Snow in May, devastating wildfires in California - and Senator Marco Rubio still
denies the existence of scientifically proven Climate Change. Ed Schultz, Mike
Papantonio and Former Governor Brian Schweitzer discuss.
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