Historical Records Show Cliven Bundy's Ancestral Claims Are Lies

By Randa Morris

At the beginning of April tea party terrorists began flocking the residence of a Nevada rancher, Cliven Bundy. The stand off began after right wing media outlets like Fox News began pushing a narrative of the federal government encroaching on Bundy’s rights to graze cattle on land managed by  the federal Bureau of Land Management. Bundy claimed his family established the land in 1877, before the BLM ever existed. Property records show that the ranch was purchased by the Bundy family in 1948, several years after the creation of the BLM.

Bundy’s story doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

In an interview with KLAS – TV, Las Vegas, Bundy said:

“I’ve lived my lifetime here. My forefathers have been up and down the Virgin Valley here ever since 1877.  All these rights that I claim, have been created through pre-emptive rights and beneficial use of the forage and the water and the access and range improvements.”

While it may come as no surprise that Fox news, along with all of the other right wing media outlets that pushed Bundy’s narrative, never bothered to fact check these claims, local reporters from KLAS -TV decided to check the historical records. What they discovered is that the Bundy family purchased the land on which Cliven Bundy’s ranch is located in 1948, from Raoul and Ruth Levin. The record also shows that prior to 1948, the Bundy family resided in the state of Arizona.

Bundy’s claim that his rights predate the BLM also turned out to be bogus.

Bundy also claimed that his ‘ancestral rights’ predate the creation of the BLM. However, the BLM was created in 1946, 2 years before Cliven Bundy’s family moved to the Nevada ranch.

“My rights are before the BLM even existed, but my rights are created by beneficial use. Beneficial use means we created the forage and the water from the time the very first pioneers come here,”

Bundy told KLAS-TV.

Records show that the Bundy family was never granted water rights for land that borders the 160 acre ranch. The BLM also began managing the land in question two years before the Bundy’s moved from the state of Arizona to Nevada.

What’s more, the Bundy family didn’t begin to graze cattle on the federal land in question until 1954, a full ten years after the BLM was formed.

In an interview on the Pete Santilli Show, Bundy explained his real position. He simply denies the right of the federal government to own land. He believes he’s entitled to do whatever he wants and his ‘tea party patriot’ defenders were all too happy to be used as pawns in a phony, Koch backed war on the federal government.

How the oil and gas industry is using the tea party to further their agenda.

Far from being American patriots, the tea party militia members who flocked to Cliven Bundy’s ranch in April are nothing more than a group of pawns who are being used to further the agenda of the fossil fuel industry.

In the wake of the standoff between armed militia members and the federal government, Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva, is calling on the Department of Interior to investigate the connection between ALEC and the incidents that took place at the Bundy ranch earlier this month.

Congressman Grajalva’s letter highlights the connection between ALEC backed legislation, which seeks to remove control of federal land from the US government, giving it to the states, and the Bundy standoff. The ALEC/Koch backed agenda seeks to remove the US government’s control of federal land. It would allow the fossil fuel industry to exploit land that is currently protected by the federal government. Grajalva is the ranking member of the House Resource Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation.

“The ALEC vision of state sovereignty trumping long-standing federal government efforts to manage public lands has already had tangible effects on Bureau of Land Management and other agency employees’ efforts to do their jobs.”

Grajalva wrote in his letter to Acting Inspector General, Mary Kelly.

“Examining how severe that impact has been, and whether ALEC is exerting undue influence on federal land management efforts, is well within the scope of your office. I believe a timely examination of these issues would serve the public interest.”

While Cliven Bundy has never had the legal right to graze his cattle on land that he does not own, his fake plight has been hyped by conservative media outlets across the country. The single reason the right wing media jumped on this story is because it furthers the narrative of the big, bad evil government encroaching on the ‘little guy.’ As it turns out, everything Bundy has said about his ‘ancestral rights’ is just another bold faced lie, being told by another right wing ‘patriot’ con artist.

This time the lies perpetuated by the right wing put the lives of private citizens and law enforcement professionals at risk, including women and children. Bundy and his terrorist buddies have backed the federal government into a corner, creating a situation in which the feds will have to take action against both Bundy and the militia members that rushed to defend him. Doing anything less would be to encourage armed tea party fanatics to repeat the behavior in other areas of the country. Next stop Yellowstone? Why not? They’ve got guns and they are entitled to use them to take what they want from the evil government.

By the way, the US government is us. It’s we the people. Federal land is land that belongs to all citizens of the United States. It includes our national parks, national forests, national monuments, scenic highways, protected wetlands and wilderness, historic landmarks and many other areas of country that the fossil fuel industry is currently not able to plunder and destroy.

Most people understand why they aren’t supposed to let their dogs poop on the public beach. They understand why they can’t just cut down trees in a national forest. They get why their kids can’t throw their trash all over a public park. That’s because they understand that they aren’t the only people with rights.

In Bundy’s case the BLM never said that Bundy couldn’t let his cows trample the land, eat the grass or leave big old cow patties all over the place. They just asked that he contribute a small fee, to help ensure that the land is preserved for the rest of the American taxpayers. But the idea of simple, basic respect for the rights of others is beyond  the comprehension of most tea party members. The idea that a person who owns livestock should carry the burden of the cost of feeding that livestock, is ‘tyranny,’ to tea-publicans. How dare the evil government expect Bundy to contribute to the cost of caring for his own livestock?

Will the right wing media outlets that pushed Bundy as a conservative hero report on the historical facts, now that they’ve been made public? Can we assume that sources like Fox News and Breitbart just failed to fact check Bundy, but didn’t purposely set out to mislead anyone? I highly doubt it.

Remember the conservative mantra, the ends justify the means. If they can rile up enough tea party fanatics to provoke a violent confrontation with the government and ultimately start a civil war, they will accomplish what they set out to do a long time ago.

Here’s the full report on Bundy’s family history from KLAS-TV.

8 News NOW

The rise of the precariat promises a renewal of the left

In sociology and economics, the precariat is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare as well as being a member of a Proletariat class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labour to live. Specifically, it is applied to the condition of lack of job security, in other words intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.

By Guy Standing, The Guardian

Next year is the 800th anniversary of one of the greatest political documents of all time. The Magna Carta was the first class-based charter, enforced on the monarchy by the rising class. Today’s political establishment seems to have forgotten both it and the emancipatory, ecological Charter of the Forest of 1217. The rising mass class of today, which I call the precariat, will not let them forget for much longer.

Today we need a precariat charter, a consolidated declaration that will respect the Magna Carta’s 63 articles by encapsulating the needs and aspirations of the precariat, which consists of millions of people living insecurely, without occupational identity, doing a vast amount of work that is not counted, relying on volatile wages without benefits, being supplicants, dependent on charity, and denizens not citizens, in losing all forms of rights.

The precariat is today’s mass class, which is both dangerous, in rejecting old political party agendas, and transformative, in wanting to become strong enough to be able to abolish itself, to abolish the conditions of insecurity and inequality that define it. A precariat charter is a way of rescuing the future.

Every charter has been a class-based set of demands that constitute a progressive agenda or vision of a good society. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. A radical charter restructures, being both emancipatory, in demanding a fresh enhancement of rights as freedoms, and egalitarian, in showing how to reduce the vital inequalities of the time. Since the crash of 2008 and during the neoliberal retrenchment known as austerity, many commentators have muttered that the left is dead, watching social democrats in their timidity lose elections and respond by becoming ever more timid and neoliberal.

They deserve their defeats.

As long as they orient their posturing to the “squeezed middle”, appealing to their perception of a middle class while placating the elite, they will depend on the mistakes of the right for occasional victories, giving them office but not power.

This retreat of the laborist left does not mean progressive politics is dying. Costas Lapavitsas and Alex Politaki, who wrote for this site earlier this month asking why Europe’s young are not rioting now, are too pessimistic. Appearances deceive. The reason for the lack of conventional political activity reflects a lack of vision from the left.

This is changing, and quickly by historical standards. Let us not forget that the objectives and policies that emerged in the great forward march a century ago were not defined in advance but took shape during and because of social struggles.

I have been fortunate to witness the phenomenal energies within the precariat while traveling in 30 countries over the past two years. But a transformative movement takes time to crystallize. It was ever thus.

To make sense of what is happening, one must appreciate that we are in the middle of a global transformation. The disembedded phase dominated by the neoliberal Washington consensus led to the crisis of 2008 – fiscal, existential, ecological and distributional crises rolled into one. By then, the precariat had taken shape. Its growth has accelerated since.

What Jeremiahs overlook is that a new forward march towards a revival of a future with more emancipation and equality rests on three principles that help define a new progressive agenda.

The first principle is that every forward march is inspired by the emerging mass class, with progress defined in terms of its insecurities and aspirations. Today that class is the precariat, with its distinctive relations of production, relations of distribution and relations to the state. Its consciousness is a mix of deprivation, insecurity, frustration and anxiety. But most in it do not yearn for a retreat to the past. It says to the old left: “My dreams are not in your ballot box.”

The second principle is that a forward march requires new forms of collective action. Quietly, these are taking shape all over the world. No progressive moves can succeed without forms of collective voice, and the new forms will include a synthesis of unions and the guilds that for two millennia promoted occupational citizenship.

The third principle is that every forward march involves three overlapping struggles, which take time to spring into effective life. The first struggle is for recognition. Here, contrary to the Jeremiahs on the left, there has been fantastic progress since 2008.

Recognition has been forged in networks boosted by a string of collective sparks, through the Arab spring, the Occupy movement, the indignados, the upheavals in the squares of great cities, the London riots of 2011, the spontaneous actions in Istanbul and across dozens of Brazilian cities in 2013, the sudden rise of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement in Italy’s elections last year, the riots around Stockholm, the brave, prolonged occupation of the streets in Sofia, Bulgaria, until usurped by an oligarch’s thugs, and the even braver outrage of the precariat in Kiev in recent months. These events are messy, loosely linked at best. But the energy out there is vivid, if one wants to see and feel it.

What has been achieved is a collective sense of recognition, by millions of people – and not just young people. A growing part of the precariat perceives a common predicament, realising that this is a collective experience due to structural features of the economic and political system. We see others in the mirror in the morning, not just our failing selves. The precariat is becoming a class for itself, whether one uses that word or another to describe a common humanity. There is a far greater sense of recognition than in 2008.

That was necessary before the next struggle could evolve into a unifying call for solidarity. That is a struggle for representation, inside every element of the state. It is just beginning, as the precariat realises that anti-politics is the wrong answer. Again, there are encouraging signs that the energy is being channelled into action. We demand to be subjects, not objects to be nudged and sanctioned, fleeced and ignored in turn.

The precariat must be involved in regulating flexible labour, social security institutions, unions and so on. The disabled, unemployed, homeless, migrants, ethnic minorities – all are denizens stirring with anger and collective identity. We are many, they are few. The years of slumber are over.

The third struggle is for redistribution. Here, too, there is progress. The social democratic, lukewarm left has no clothes, and neither does the atavistic left harrying at its heels with empty threats, wanting to turn the clock back to some illusionary golden age. They would not understand the subversive piece of precariat graffiti: “The worst thing would be to return to the old normal.”

Unstable labor will persist; flexibility will increase; wages will stagnate. Now what? The struggle for redistribution is in its infancy, but it has evolved into an understanding of class fragmentation, of how the plutocracy seduces the salariat and placates the proletariat. The struggle will show that with globalization a new distribution system must be constructed, far more radical than that offered by a living wage, however desirable that might be.

A precariat charter should revive a rights-based path towards redistribution of the key assets denied to the precariat, including security, control over time, a reinvigorated commons, assets essential for its reproduction and eventual abolition. This vision is taking shape, messily but perceptibly.

In 1215, the class of barons forced a powerful monarchy to concede to demands for recognition, representation and redistribution. Throughout history, emerging classes have done much the same, from the French Revolution with its radical Enlightenment and the wonderful achievements of Thomas Paine and others to the Chartists of the 19th century and the spate of human rights charters after the second world war. The progressives of the era have always reinvented the future. They are doing it now. Cheer up.

Glenn Beck The Target Of Paranoid Anger He Helped Create

Now that Beck has condemned violence at a Nevada ranch, his own followers have turned on him - with the same violent talk he used to direct at others.

By Ellen Brodsky

Glenn Beck has spent years exploiting violent rhetoric and blowing extremist dog whistles about the U.S. government. But now that his followers have begun acting out his fantasy at the Cliven Bundy ranch conflict in Nevada, Beck has suddenly gone all Prince of Peace. In response, his audience has turned against him with just the kind of rhetoric Beck has directed at others.

Apparently, Beck feels that those armed militia types who have rushed to scofflaw Bundy’s ranch in Nevada are not following God as closely as he does. Or something.

On Monday, Beck wanted them to know he’s really one of them. He said, “I do fully believe that the federal government does want to put ranchers out of business. … I am fully clear on what the federal government wants to do.”

But then Beck started lecturing his listeners about how to respond. He said:

You get down on your knees and you pray. Which way, Lord? Which way? Do I follow the teachings of Jesus vis-a-vis Martin Luther King? Do I follow those rules or do I get into a crowd stirred up by the media on both sides?

Only God is in control and so I will stand exactly where He wants me to stand and I can tell you right now, it is not standing in front of people with guns.

Unfortunately for Beck, all those folks he has stirred up don’t want to hear that. Not only that, they’re thinking he might be some kind of fraud for jumping out of the frying pan, so to speak, just as things are beginning to heat up.

Raw Story caught some of the outcry against Beck on his Facebook page and Twitter:

“When the possibility of bloody conflict exists does Beck simply roll over and side with the oppressor, the tyrannical State?” one Facebook user wrote on the Glenn Beck fan page.

Another person commented: “Glenn, you are no longer a friend of the Patriots fighting for FREEDOM. Go away and sell some books and your false ‘Bravado’ to other traitors. How about you yourself said this Tyranny was coming and did not stand up. Re-read Article 1 Bundy is a hero. Oh, thats why you are mad, they didn’t invite you to speak?”

… “Get a grip Glenn. My vote didn’t keep Obama out of office. Our country is being destroyed and you and Obama think talk will fix it all. I am not for violence but you can’t use a sign against a fed sniper.”

On both Monday and Tuesday, Beck expressed shock and outrage that people should respond to him with such venom. He instructed those who support violence to unfriend him, unsubscribe from his newsletter and Blaze TV.

In truth, Beck is merely reaping what he has sowed. This is the same Beck who has repeatedly suggested that viewers need to use violence against the crooked Obama administration. For example:

“This administration…they model themselves…after Al Capone. You take these guys on, and they will bash your brains out. …That’s what they do to everyone who stands in their way. So, you have to ask yourself, …what are you prepared to do. If you’re going to get into a fight with these guys, you better be able to battle all the way to the end.”

So maybe Beck has replaced “Al Capone” with “Martin Luther King” in his spiels. But now, nobody’s buying it.

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving fellow.

Right Winger Proves Bundy And His Nevada Clown Posse Benefit From White Privilege

By Justin "Filthy Liberal Scum" Rosario

This article was originally posted on ProudToBeAFilthyLiberalScum.com

If there’s one thing right wingers despise more than anything else, it’s when someone points out their White Privilege. They’re so invested in their “I’m a persecuted victim” narrative that any suggestion of white people, specifically white conservatives, getting away with behavior that would land black people in jail or the morgue is met with howls of outrage.

Aside from denying privilege even exists, the favorite anti-privilege tactic of the poor, oppressed white conservative when discussing white privilege is to find a vaguely similar incident involving black people. This proves, PROVES! that black people aren’t treated any differently, liberals are hypocrites, and blablabla.

Curiously, many of these “similar” incidents are only superficially in nature and usually prove the original point that white people do get special treatment. For example, here’s Chris Ayarza, one the genius libertarians I regularly encounter, trying to debunk my claim that if Cliven Bundy and his cosplay cowboy posse had been black, they’d all be dead right now:

The Black Panther Party invade the State Assembly…:http://youtu.be/OUQIYLQ2rbk

Oh noes! He got me! The Black Panthers terrorized the state legislature! That’s just like hundreds of armed militiamen threatening to shoot officers of the law for doing their jobs! Liberal hypocrisy! (There’s a good chance Chris will claim he wasn’t really comparing the two. Good luck with that!)

But what, exactly, were the Black Panthers doing at the California State Assembly and why did they have their guns?

Well, you’ll be shocked to learn that, in the 60's, black people in California had a tendency to be targeted, beaten and/or killed by the police with appalling regularity. Unlike today where that never happens. Ahem.

Apparently, the Black Panthers thought this was not a good thing so they decided to follow the police around in minority neighborhoods to keep an eye on them. Whenever a cop would get out of their car, so would the Panthers. You know, just to let the cops know that someone was watching.

Oh, and they all had guns which was perfectly legal for them to carry out in the open according to California law.

You’ll also be shocked to learn that this sent white people into a complete panic. The idea of openly armed black people was so horrifying that California suddenly thought it might be a good idea to make open carry illegal. The resulting Mulford Act was the very bill under discussion the day the Black Panthers showed up at the State Assembly.

Side note, the NRA was quite an enthusiastic supporter of the Mulford Act and then-Governor Ronald Reagan happily signed it into law. Funny how no one on the right seems to remember this…

Anyway, the end result was that the Black Panthers were arrested, unlike Bundy and his “freedom fighters.” Oh, and the Black Panthers are still regularly referred to as terrorists despite the fact that their community had been (and still is, frankly) terrorized by the police for decades. By way of comparison, Bundy is just a freeloader.

So on the one hand, you have a group of legitimately armed and legitimately angry black men protesting a law being passed specifically to strip away their constitutional rights. Their protest got them arrested and demonized by the right wing. On the other hand, you have a group of white privileged cosplayers playing cowboy, threatening officers of the law and strategizing to use women as human shields all so one man can continue to steal from the taxpayers.

I can’t think of a better example of how white conservatives are afforded special treatment than this.

Angry and armed black men standing up for their constitutional rights are terrorists that need to be arrested. Angry and armed white men standing up for a freeloader that spits on the Constitution are “heroes” that need to be lionized.

Got it. Thanks for clearing that up Chris!

Rush Limbaugh Is Going Down, And It Can't Come Soon Enough

By Ryan Denson

Rush Limbaugh has been around for over twenty years. For twenty years, the misogynistic pig has plagued our airways with outrageous speech, offensive rhetoric, and sheer stupidity to a mass of equally stupid people. However, just two years ago, grassroots groups like BoycottRush and StopRush put their feet down and said enough is enough, and began a massive national boycott movement which took storm to expose Limbaugh for his truly offensive ways, with the goal of destroying his hateful career. Conservatives can pipe up about Limbaugh’s “freedom of speech,” for it is his sponsors who can choose what to do with their money.

Facing possible probes of illegal funding based on political agenda, right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation ended its five-year sponsorship of Limbaugh’s circus act show after paying a total of $9.5 million over the course of the partnership. If someone receives money from an organization like The Heritage Foundation, who pays you to promote their product (in this case a slanted political opinion), without directly telling the audience the source of funding, it may be considered ‘payola,’ which is illegal. It’s like a business paying for positive reviews. So they paid $9,5 million, and when they realized it might be illegal, they pulled out.

So for 25 years Limbaugh has gotten away with his bigotry and wacky conspiracy theories. However, after his grotesque attack on Sandra Fluke, Americans woke up and realized that he was nothing but a fame-seeking moron. Also realizing that neither his radio affiliates, nor the FCC planned to do anything about his hate speech, citing his “first amendment rights,” American consumers decided band together for the common good of the people and their dignity, and organized boycotts via petitions in order to bring Limbaugh down by way of his sponsors. The grassroots organizations prevailed, and it is now reported that 3,100 companies have pulled their ads from Limbaugh’s show.

Rick Ungar, the senior political contributor for the conservative Forbes and regular attendee on Fox, has some tough words when it comes to Limbaugh’s relevance in the conservative movement while being interviewed by MSNBC host Ed Schultz:

“At long last, it appears that Rush Limbaugh has run out of steam. I have to acknowledge that I have sensed Rush getting by on fumes for some time now (yes, I tune into his show from time to time to enjoy his broadcasting skills if not his message). However, it was only recently that the world of Limbaugh crossed that thin red line from partially serious to total self-parody and audience deception—a line crossed from which there is often no return.”



Rush Limbaugh also seems to have a hard time holding onto his sponsors, because as of April 12, 2014, some of the sponsors that haven’t been heard of in months include: Sodastream, Club Glove, Fin Electric Cigarettes, Mannheim Steamroller, Kars4Kids, Sears, Taco Bell, Jewelry Exchange, National Association of Realtors, SweetJack, New Vitality, Greenlight Financial Services, Stanley Steamer, Midas, Income At Home, Verengo Solar, Taste Of Home, Gold Bond, NFL Monday Night Football, Reagan.com, University of Iowa, and Blue Bell Ice Cream.

Things have gotten so bad for Rush Limbaugh, that Cumulus Radio Network also complains of losing millions of dollars due to Limbaugh’s insane and erratic behavior on the air. A representative from the company even said that many companies are reluctant to invest because of Rush, and say that 49 out of 50 advertisers have ‘No-Rush’ clauses when buying air time.

However, some of the more prominent sponsors still remain: U.S. Marine Corps, Advance Auto Parts, Cox, Allegra, Quicken Loans, Menards, ProFlowers, Insperity, Power Swabs, and Lifelock, among others.

Grassroots organizations have the power to shut down hate, and there is nothing Rush Limbaugh can do about it.

If you want to join in on the fight to end the Pig’s career, sign on here:
Boycott Rush Facebook Page
Limbaugh Sponsor-Cumulus Petition
Flush Rush Facebook Page

5 Unemulated Computer Experiences

By Jason Scott

While I and many others work to turn the experience of emulation into one as smooth and ubiquitous as possible, inevitably the corners and back alleys of discussions about this process present people claiming that there are unemulated aspects and therefore the entire project is domed.

I thought I would stoke that sad little fire by giving you five examples of entirely unemulated but perfectly valid vintage computer experiences.

Disk Drive Spin Vibration

Some games on home computers would feature permanent player death and the requirement to start over in the event of a catastrophic loss. To ensure the death was permanent, the player status would have to be recorded on a floppy disk drive with a floppy disk in it. Therefore, a trick could be implemented: by putting your finger underneath the latch of a floppy disk drive, you could feel the vibration of the disk beginning to spin, and you could flip up the drive door, disengaging the magnetic head and ensuring that the death was not recorded.

Computer Fans

There are currently no attempts to emulate the sound of a computer fan or have it speed up and slow down slightly over time, eventually reflecting the decay of the fan and the steadily noisier experience as time goes on. In a tangential relation, there are currently no emulations of system failure due to overheating.

Chip Unseating

One common cause of machine issues in older systems would be the slow working out of seated chips on motherboards and other circuits. The resulting glitches and behavior would be noticed by experienced owners, resulting in a reseating of the chips, either by full-board pressure or by pressing down on individual chips and experiencing the clicking into place.

Damaged Floppy Noise

One of the most terrifying and disheartening sounds was the sound of a distraught grinding across a damaged or demagnetized portion of a floppy disk. The noise told you that it was going to be a crapshoot whether the data would ever be heard from again. Variations in the sound also told you how close you were to total data loss, and whether you were at the beginning of a slow decline for that sector.

Power Outage

Emulators do not have an option for sudden and dramatic loss of power. Is not possible to indicate a lightning strike, a brownout, a black out, or the yanked out power cord. This is a central and fundamental aspect of the Atari 2600, where careful glitching of a system including yanking and replacing cartridges could allow you to access game options and experiences that would otherwise never be reached.



The point of me bringing all these up is not to be particularly weird, but to point out that emulation is not a binary experience – it is a continuum, a spectrum. For some people, the mere reappearance of older computing information is a miracle. For others, it is a endless opportunity to point out flaws, complain about glitches, and otherwise drag the conversation into a Xeno’s paradox of unfulfilled promises and impossibly high hurdles.

As time goes on, I expect some experiences to fall by the wayside, and to live only in lore and stories. Unfortunately, that is the nature of history, and computers don’t get a pass, just because the material involved gets re-created with such fidelity.

So, let’s focus on what’s been done and refine that, instead of a mystical set of experiences that may never see the light of day again except in our stories.

Armed Mob Descends On Nevada To Steal Land From Federal Government

By Nathaniel Downes

Gun-toting ‘Patriots’ attempt to start a new civil war over a Nevada land dispute. Apparently stealing from taxpayers is ‘patriotic’ somehow.

Here go the right-wing lunatic fringe once again. For the past week they have been proclaiming that the federal government is attempting to steal land from a Nevada rancher. Groups have organized with the goal of travelling to Nevada in order to kill federal agents attempting to enforce the law. What would gather this group up with the goal of unloading as many bullets as possible in what they call the “next Ruby Ridge?”

Why, it is this man, Clive Bundy. Here’s the video:

Land Use At Root Of Disagreement

Bundy has been failing to pay the fee for the use of federal land now for over 20 years. After numerous warnings, the federal government began impounding Clive Bundy’s cattle. Of course this caused an outcry of support by anti-government protesters, many of which began arming themselves in anticipation of a wild-west like stand-off.

But why did Clive Bundy stop paying his rent? In an interview with Pete Santilli he came out and said it.



He simply denies that the federal government can own the land, so he refuses to pay for the right to use it. The reality is that the state of Nevada was created out of the merging of the Washoe, Utah and New Mexico territories, three pieces of land owned by the federal government. Why does the federal government own over 80 percent of the land? Because they never sold it in the first place, and still maintain ownership in trust of the land as part of the commons. The US gained the territory after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1849. The portions which were allocated originally were done, initially, under mining and farming claims, but greatly expanded later by the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909.

If and until the United States agrees to sell the land in question, it is the property of the United States. To claim otherwise and win would not succeed in enabling access to the land, but would instead revert the land to its previous registered owner. Incidentally, that is Mexico. If that happens, adios la gente estúpida!

Bundy Summons Gun-Loving Psychopaths To Cause.

Mr. Bundy is inventing terms and conditions in his head, qualifications to defend his defrauding of the US Government of over a million dollars. To defend his fiction, he has called upon armed goons with the idea of murdering people who are there to do their job. This is intimidation of the highest order. But facts do not matter to these ammosexuals. Their fear of some bogeyman monstrous “Govn’t” and their romanticized ideal as to what an armed standoff is so grand, that they would sooner bring war against the United States than pay their own rent. They are just that eager for a war which they cannot win, believing in the fiction one sees in cinema.

Wisely, the Bureau of Land Management backed off of their impounding of illegal cattle. This is not the end of the matter, but the government now will turn to tactics that will make Mr. Bundy wish that they had just impounded his cattle. Things they do can include having his auctioning license and sales permits voided. They can lein his property. They can even legally take snipers and shoot all of his cattle from a safe distance. They can make his life a living hell in ways none of us can fathom.
But hey, he got to play cowboy for a few minutes.

Will Wal-Mart eat up organic supply?

By Jenny Hopkinson

 

Recent announced moves by big retailers could make matters worse. | AP Photo

Big box retailers are attempting to bring organic foods to the masses, but there might not be enough to go around.

Wal-Mart — the country’s largest grocer — announced Thursday that over the next few months, about half of its more than 4,000 U.S. stores will start carrying almost 100 new products from natural food distributor Wild Oats at prices about 25 percent less, on average, than other national brands.

The news from Bentonville, Ark., comes just a day after Target announced it is partnering with 17 natural, organic and sustainable brands, including Annie’s Homegrown, Burt’s Bees, Clif Bar & Co. and Horizon Organic, to make available more than 120 products exclusive to the retailer under its new “Made to Matter – Handpicked by Target” program.

Now the question is, how will organic production keep up with all of this new demand?

The expansion of organic offerings by both companies are “a validation of what we know, which is that organic foods are attractive to consumers and they are attractive to young consumers and consumers from all walks of life,” said Laura Batcha, CEO and executive director of the Organic Trade Association, the industry’s leading lobbying organization.

However, “there are issues with supply currently in the U.S. — we see it particularly in the livestock and dairy production” side, though there also are problems in other commodities as well, she said.

“The growth in the demand is outpacing the acreage.”

If that’s a problem now, the recent announced moves by Wal-Mart and Target look to make matters worse.

Sales of organic food and beverages totaled more than $28 billion in 2012, the most recent year available, accounting for 4 percent of total grocery food sales, OTA reports. In October 2013, the Department of Agriculture estimated that the organic sector would total more than $35 billion in sales in 2014 and grow about 10 percent.

However, production acreage and facilities are growing at a much slower rate. Between 2008 and 2011, organic pasture and croplands grew 12 percent, USDA reports. The total number of certified organic livestock only grew about 3 percent during the same period.

One of the problems is the high barrier that needs to be surmounted to gain USDA organic certification. Under the program, any land used to produce organic commodities must not be treated with non-organic substances for three years before it can be certified. Livestock must be treated organically from before birth.

Farming without chemicals and other synthetic materials is expensive, which is why organic products are sold at a premium, but producers in transition cannot take advantage of that higher price tag at market. The industry has taken steps to address this problem, working with suppliers and producers to ease the burden and gaining a provision in the just-passed farm bill that sets up a cost-share program for transitioning farmers, Batcha noted.

Meanwhile, from Wal-Mart’s perspective, the proposition of adding more organic products to its existing offerings and at a lower price than other stores is hard to resist. The company reports that internal research found 91 percent of its consumers would consider purchasing affordable organic products.

“We know our customers are interested in purchasing organic products and, traditionally, those customers have had to pay more,” Jack Sinclair, executive vice president of grocery at Wal-Mart U.S., said in a statement. “We are changing that and creating a new price position for organic groceries that increases access. This is part of our ongoing effort to use our scale to deliver quality, affordable groceries to our customers.”

Wal-Mart insists that it can keep prices low by using its large scale and supply chain. It’s a theory that a number of organic industry experts believe could work.

“My hope is that this will encourage and increase [organic] acreage in the United States because that’s been the weak link,” said Bill Wolf, president of Wolf DiMatteo & Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in serving the organic industry.

“Their approach to the rollout, with taking a few products, a few more easily produced items that are available, like canned beans and others and limiting how many stores they can go with,” is probably manageable by the sector in the short term, he added.

“Price points can be achieved in a number of ways, and one of the main ways is through efficiency in the supply chain that is not necessarily the same things as paid price to farmers,” Batcha said. “The actual cost of a raw ingredient is just a small percentage” of the price on the shelf.

However, she added, maintaining a good price for organic commodities is key for the survival of the industry.

“Organic farming is difficult to do and there are increased costs going in for production, and it’s important for the long-term viability for farming that at the production level there be sustainable incomes.”

But even if the industry can keep Wal-Mart’s shelves stocked, it’s unclear whether they can do it in the long run at the low prices the company is calling for.

“It depends on the individual brands and how they partner with Wild Oats, but if its private label that usually drives down prices for everyone in the supply chain,” said Mark Kastel, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute, an organic policy research group. “That premium is what enables people to do organic farming. Farmers can’t produce commodities at the same price as conventional. They can’t do it.”

Hank Aaron compares Republicans and other Obama opponents to KKK 

The baseball Hall of Famer, who was honored at the Braves' home opener on Tuesday night, said the only difference between the type of racism he faced as a player and the kind that exists today is 'now they have neckties and starched shirts.'

BY Andy Clayton

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 4:41 PM

  Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images Hall of Famer Hank Aaron, asked about race relations in 2014, says the only thing that’s changed since his days as a player is ‘back then they had hoods. Now they have neckties and starched shirts.’

Hammerin' Hank can still swing for the fences.

Hank Aaron, who was celebrated Tuesday night in Atlanta on the 40th anniversary of breaking Babe Ruth's all-time home run record, compared Obama critics to the KKK as he opened up about the state of race relations in an interview with USA Today.

The Braves legend, who told the newspaper he still has the bigoted letters and death threats he received during his pursuit of one of baseball's most cherished records, said that little has changed despite the decades that have passed.

"The biggest difference is that back then they had hoods," Aaron said. "Now they have neckties and starched shirts."

Aaron said he keeps the hate mail to remind himself that not everything has changed.

National Hall of Fame via Bloomberg News Hank Aaron in a Milwaukee Braves uniform in this undated photo. On Tuesday, the baseball legend compared President Obama's critics to the KKK.

"We can talk about baseball. Talk about politics," said the Hall of Famer who finished with 755 career homers. "Sure, this country has a black president, but when you look at a black president, President Obama is left with his foot stuck in the mud from all of the Republicans with the way he's treated."

"We still have a long ways to go in the country," Aaron added.

On the 40th anniversary of Aaron's record-breaking 715th career home run, the Braves held a pregame ceremony before the start of Tuesday night's game against the Mets at Turner Field.

Aaron was called baseball's "true home run king" by the hometown Braves, while MLB commissioner Bud Selig said he was the "embodiment of the American spirit."

MSNBC silent on Joe Scarborough keynote speech

By DYLAN BYERS 

Back in February, MSNBC host Ed Schultz was forced to cancel his keynote address at a Democratic fundraising event in Florida due to a network policy prohibiting hosts from participating in political fundraisers.

But now that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough is scheduled to give a keynote address at a Republican fundraising event in New Hampshire, MSNBC has gone silent. Lauren Skowronski, the network's vice president of media relations, did not respond to four emails requesting comment on Scarborough's attendance at the event. (She did respond to an email wishing her a happy birthday.)

Scarborough is slated to speak at the Cheshire County Republican Lincoln Day Dinner in May, and a source close to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" said he plans to speak at the event. As Huffington Post's Michael Calderone reported earlier, tickets range from $35 to $50 and go directly to the the Cheshire County Republicans.

When MSNBC pulled the plug on Schultz's Florida fundraiser, Skowronski said Schultz had not realized the event was a fundraiser when he agreed to deliver the keynote. Scarborough's role at the Cheshire County event is certain; his appearance was reportedly secured by State Republican Party Chair Jennifer Horn.

In March, Scarborough appeared at New Hampshire's Northeast Republican Leadership Conference. MSNBC said he was a "discussion moderator," but one attendee - Jazz Shaw, an editor at the conservative Hot Air website - noted that he delivered a "speech" which earned "a standing ovation." Republican New Hampshire state Rep. Joseph Sweeney said Scarborough "energized the crowd" and was hailed as "a rock star." Tickets for that event ran from $50 to $199, with sponsorship options ranging from $500 to $10,000. All proceeds went to the New Hampshire Republicans.

Scarborough declined to comment on the appearance, though in a new blog post for POLITICO (where he is a contributor) he wrote about his desire to address conservatives when discussing his new book about the Republican party.

"Chances are good that on this book tour, I will get a lot more invitations to Lincoln Day dinners and Republican events than Democratic club meetings on New York’s Upper West Side," he wrote. The people I want to infleunce "don't live in Manhattan, Georgetown, or Beverly Hills. Instead, the voters who will have a big say in shaping the future of the Republican Party live in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. So I will take any opportunity to share my thoughts with these and other influencers on how Republicans can start winning presidential elections again."

If MSNBC lets him, that is. And if they do, it will be hard to justify why they didn't let Ed Schultz speak to Florida Democrats.

Bachmann And Gohmert Lower The Bar On Stupid

By Randa Morris

Michelle Bachmann And Louie Gohmert Embarrass Themselves On An Entirely New Level During House Floor Speech On The ‘Killer Drug’ – Birth Control. – From Dummidumwit

It’s not every day that you get to watch Tea Party conservatives embarrass themselves on the House floor. Or wait, yes it is. Be that as it may, Michelle Bachmann and Louie Gohmert may actually have outdone themselves on March 26, 2014.

Bachmann and Gohmert speak on the “unprecedented killer drugs” that are killing America.

There are certain things you can count on, any time Bachmann or Gohmert open their mouths. Both are well known for over the top theatrics and absurd bits of hysteria. On the other hand, neither is known for their great intelligence or habit of making sense when they talk. You can count on half truths and sometimes, like on this occasion, no truths at all.

Gohmert starts off speaking about how ‘an agency,’ made up of unelected officials will be able to determine what medications are covered and not covered under the ACA. Dire warnings and prophecies aside, Bachmann keeps voicing her agreement, the entire time Gohmert is speaking.

It’s as if she believes she’s attending some Pentecostal church revival, and not standing on the floor of the House of Representatives. “That’s right!” She keeps interjecting, “Yes it is.” Not that anyone really wanted to hear what Gohmert was saying, but Bachmann’s repeated interruptions took annoying to an entirely new level.

Bachman finally cuts Gohmert off entirely. She goes off on this nonsensical tangent, before accusing the President of wielding the power to decide who gets medicine and who doesn’t.

“If you looked at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you knew with certainty when you woke up tomorrow morning that your religious liberties were intact. Now, apparently today, the gentlemen was in the chamber and heard that, according to at least one Supreme Court justice, in her opinion, they aren’t so much certain anymore.”
“It is not at only the election of the court, but at the election of the unnamed bureaucrat that decides, today we will have these killer drugs that we mandate. Tomorrow, what drugs will they take off the list? Will I not get life-saving drugs that I need to get?”

Bachmann goes on to tell us what all of this means.

“That means that the president and his administration wins their religious liberty, and the right to force their religious views down the throats of the American people… It’s unlike anything we have ever seen before in the history of the United States of America.”
“The American people better wake up quick because we are living in a country we no longer recognize.”

If you don’t think one word of it makes sense, in spite of Bachmann telling us what it means, you’re not alone.

Would anyone like some some facts with their word salad?

The entire display is beyond ridiculous. First, the government and ‘agencies made up of unelected officials’ already decide which drugs people can and cannot use in this country. That agency is called the FDA. It approves medications for use in the United States. The ACA merely mandates that insurance companies cover medications approved by the FDA.

Second, the only people trying to deny anyone medication, life saving or not, are members of the Tea Party. They want to be the ones to pick and choose which medications will be covered under your health insurance plan, rather than mandating that all drugs are covered, regardless of your employers personal (and misguided) beliefs about them.

Third, this is not ‘unlike anything we’ve ever seen before in the history of the United States of America.’ Not even close. If you get healthcare through the Veteran’s administration, for example, some unelected official dictates which medicines are covered. If you are insured through Medicare or Medicaid, it’s the same thing. Medicaid has covered birth control since Americans first figured out that it’s less expensive than covering a child’s food, housing and medical needs for 18 years or longer. That realization occurred in mainstream America decades ago, but will the Tea Party ever catch up?

Here’s the video of Bachmann and Gohmert’s embarrassing speech on the House floor.

 

Stewart Takes Apart Christie For Exonerating Himself In Bridgegate And Kissing Adelson's Ring

By Heather

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart took apart New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for exonerating himself in the Bridgegate scandal, at the taxpayers' expense, no less. After getting in a few shots at the media for their ridiculous claims that Christie's "got his mojo back," Stewart and his cohort, Samantha Bee slammed Christie and his fellow Republicans for heading to Las Vegas to kiss billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson's ring.

Adelson wasn't too happy with Christie for daring to use the words "occupied territory" during his speech at the event, which made Stewart wonder aloud how this happened.

STEWART: This is crazy. If Sheldon Adelson doesn't approve of a term as widely accepted as occupied territories, what does he think is an acceptable term for that area? [...]
When did the guy who makes Donald Trump's hair look natural get veto power over every word Republicans say about Israel?

After Stewart also wondered how all these men who ran down there kissing up to Adelson could change their behavior for money, Bee challenged him to do the same when it came to one of their advertisers. Needless to say that didn't work out so well for Stewart.

The surveillance society: a look back

By Tom Tomorrow

The thin veil of rationality

By Tom Tomorrow


 

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

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






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

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

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

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

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

 

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024754678

Chris Christie clears Chris Christie

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

Stubborn speaker continues to hurt Americans

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

Chris Hayes spars with Jennifer Stefano over Obamacare

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

Hey, Mitt - about that victory lap...

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

 

Nate Silver Has Bad News For Democrats

By Egberto Willies

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

Visit the Nate Silver FiveThirtyEight’s complete analysis here. As usual Nate Silver encourages everyone to read his analysis with caution. He writes.

As always, we encourage you to read this analysis with some caution. Republicans have great opportunities in a number of states, but only in West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana and Arkansas do we rate the races as clearly leaning their way. Republicans will also have to win at least two toss-up races, perhaps in Alaska, North Carolina or Michigan, or to convert states such as New Hampshire into that category. And they’ll have to avoid taking losses of their own in Georgia and Kentucky, where the fundamentals favor them but recent polls show extremely competitive races.

Nate Silver says the most reliable metric to gage an election is the generic congressional ballot. Right now they are even. Because of midterm turnout history, this likely means electorally there is a 6 point Republican advantage. Additionally there are more Democratic senators defending in Republicans states than the converse.

Democrats should not feel deflated by the report.  Republicans should not feel emboldened by the report. Nate Silver has an important message everyone must heed.

In plain language: sometimes one party wins most or all of the competitive races. If we had conducted this exercise at this point in the 2006, 2008 or 2012 campaigns, that party would have been the Democrats. In 2010, it would have been the Republicans. There are still more than seven months for news events to intervene and affect the national climate.

There are 10 races that each party has at least a 25 percent chance of winning, according to our ratings. If Republicans were to win all of them, they would gain a net of 11 seats from Democrats, which would give them a 56-44 majority in the new Senate. If Democrats were to sweep, they would lose a net of just one seat and hold a 54-46 majority.

So our forecast might be thought of as a Republican gain of six seats — plus or minus five. The balance has shifted slightly toward the GOP. But it wouldn’t take much for it to revert to the Democrats, nor for this year to develop into a Republican rout along the lines of 2010.

Nate Silver Goes Over His Current Analysis on ThisWeek.

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

See Nate Silver’s analysis here.

Many theories, few answers in jetliner search

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

The Secret Lives of Inner City Black Males

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

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

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

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

Last week, Paul Ryan went on the radio to address the lack of virtue prevalent among men who grew up like me, my father, my brothers, my best friends, and a large number of my people:

We have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.

A number of liberals reacted harshly to Ryan. I'm not sure why. What Ryan said here is not very far from what Bill Cosby, Michael Nutter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama said before him. The idea that poor people living in the inner city, and particularly black men, are "not holding up their end of the deal" as Cosby put it, is not terribly original or even, these days, right-wing. From the president on down there is an accepted belief in America—black and white—that African-American people, and African-American men, in particular, are lacking in the virtues in family, hard work, and citizenship:

If Cousin Pookie would vote, if Uncle Jethro would get off the couch and stop watching SportsCenter and go register some folks and go to the polls, we might have a different kind of politics.

Cousin Pookie and Uncle Jethro voted at higher rates than any other ethnic group in the country. They voted for Barack Obama. Our politics have not changed. Neither has Barack Obama's rhetoric. Facts can only get in the way of a good story. It was sort of stunning to see the president give a speech on the fate of young black boys and not mention the word racism once. It was sort of stunning to see the president salute the father of Trayvon Martin and the father of Jordan Davis and then claim, "Nothing keeps a young man out of trouble like a father who takes an active role in his son’s life."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Jason Easley


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

The New York Post (Murdoch owned) reported,

NBC News boss Deborah Turness is spending the last few days of the year eyeing cuts — moves that could include axing some senior on-air talent, The Post has learned.

Turness, brought on in August to shake up the moribund news division — where “Meet the Press” and “Today” had stumbled — is in the midst of a host of end-of -year buyouts and cost reductions, sources said.

Particularly distressed by the changes is the DC bureau team, whose duties include providing political coverage to “Nightly News with Brian Williams” and Sunday talk show “Meet The Press.”

Turness has been trying to figure out the future for David Gregory’s “Meet the Press,” with options including bringing in MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” team of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for a Sunday show, or blowing up the entire franchise and trying something completely different, sources familiar with the situation said.

If NBC News wants to fix both Meet The Press and Today, they can do so with two moves. Fire David Gregory from Meet The Press. Get Matt Lauer off of Today. The ratings problems for both shows can be tied back to the fact that viewers don’t like the high paid on screen talent that each show is built around.

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

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

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

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

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

Pilots perspective about missing flight

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

Abby Huntsman Needs A Reality Check On Social Security

By karoli

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

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

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

Michael Hiltzik slammed her today in his LA Times column:

Huntsman wants to tell it like it is, but she fails due to lack of information. And if her generation believes what she said, it's going to be in deep trouble.

A lot of her spiel resembles the rants issuing from the mouth of former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, 82, a veteran font of Social Social Security misinformation--which shows, one supposes, that error and ignorance is no respecter of age. Most of it has been debunked so thoroughly and repeatedly that one is tempted to believe that the misrepresentations are deliberate.

But as a favor to Huntsman and her generation, we'll set her straight. Again.

Gawd, I love Michael Hiltzik. Read the whole thing.

RJ Eskow followed that up with an open letter:

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

Mission accomplished: many of them have.

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

Again, we know who's getting all the national wealth, and it's not old people. Let's look at the facts: in 2012, the average Social Security benefit was $13,648, or $1137 a month.

And that's the average -- for workers with low earning, or those (primarily women) who take time out of the workforce to perform caregiving work, benefits are often much lower. For two-thirds of beneficiaries, Social Security makes up half their income or more.

We've heard all of Abby's points for decades. Actually, they've been around since Social Security passed and are nothing more than the product of resistance by the 'haves' who don't think they live in a society where the elderly should have a solid safety net under them. She does a disservice to all of us by repeating them, especially under the guise of a doomsday message for her fellow millennials.

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

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

Paul Ryan gets it wrong again

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

Nate Silver Is Back

By Stuart Shapiro

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

The fox logo comes from a quote which was originally attributable to an obscure Greek poet: “The hedgehog knows one big thing and the fox knows many little things.”

The idea being that we’re a lot of scrappy little nerds and we have different data-driven — I hate data-driven as a term — but data journalism takes on a lot of different forms for us. Often, yeah, it does mean numbers and statistics as applied to the news, but it also means data visualization, reporting on data that is both numerate and literate; down the road, it came mean investigative journalism. It can mean building models and forecasts and programs. At the same time, it’s still data journalism. It’s not enough just to be smart. There’s a particular series of methods and a way of looking at the world.

Plenty of pundits have really high IQ's, but they don’t have any discipline in how they look at the world, and so it leads to a lot of bullshit, basically. We think about our philosophy for when we choose to run with a story or when we don’t. We talk about avoiding “smart takes,” quote-unquote. This is data journalism, capital-D. Within that, we take a foxlike approach to what data means. It’s not just numbers, but numbers are a big part of this. We think that’s a weakness of conventional journalism, that you have beautiful English language skills and fewer math skills, and we hope to rectify that balance a little bit.

I know I’m a big nerd, but I’m pretty excited.