5 Reasons To Be Glad You Watched The CBS Democratic Debate

By Jason Easley

Hillary Clinton got pressed on Wall Street, CBS asked a loaded question, and 3 other reasons to be glad that you watched the CBS Democratic debate.

1). CBS Asks A Loaded Question About Obama And ISIS –
The Democratic candidates were asked if the Obama administration will be remembered for not being on top of ISIS. Clinton said that the bulk of the fight did not belong to the United States. O’Malley tried to play catch up in the polls by disagreeing with Clinton. Bernie Sanders tied the founding of ISIS with the war in Iraq. Sanders said that he didn’t think any reasonable person would disagree that the invasion of Iraq led to ISIS.

The question by Face The Nation John Dickerson was short-sighted and wrong. One can’t understand how ISIS came to be without considering the role of the decision by the Bush administration to invade Iraq. Trying to blame Obama for ISIS would be like blaming FDR for the Great Depression.

The idea that Obama is to blame for ISIS was flat out wrong and more superficial media nonsense.

Clinton talked about the broader underlying historical factors that led to the extremism. Sanders called for the Muslim countries to lead the effort against ISIS. Clinton disagreed and said that was unfair to countries like Jordan, who have made a great effort. Clinton agreed with Sanders that many of the countries have to make up their minds on their role in the fight against ISIS.

2). The Amount Of Debate Time Given To The Question Of ISIS and Extremism Benefited Clinton –

Nearly 30 minutes of the debate was dedicated to a discussion of ISIS and radical Islam. This discussion benefitted Hillary Clinton because, as former Sec. of State, she was the most knowledgeable on foreign policy issues. Bernie Sanders is very well informed and has a solid worldview, but Clinton was at another level. As a former governor, Martin O’Malley was doomed in this discussion.

The events in Paris effectively put this debate right into Hillary Clinton’s wheelhouse. Clinton took apart Marco Rubio’s claim that the United States is at war with radical Islam. Sanders brought up a great point that much of the military spending is being wasted and not being properly used to target the terrorist threat.

3). O’Malley and Clinton Hit Republican Immigrant Bashers With The Facts –

After calling Donald Trump an immigrant bashing carnival barker, Martin O’Malley said that net immigration from Mexico has reached zero. Hillary Clinton backed him up and said that it is a fact. Clinton then laid out her vision for immigration reform. According Pew Research, Clinton and O’Malley were correct, “In 2012, 5.9 million unauthorized immigrants from Mexico lived in the U.S., down about 1 million from 2007. Despite the drop, Mexicans still make up a slight majority (52% in 2012) of unauthorized immigrants. At the same time, unauthorized immigration overall has leveled off in recent years. As a result, net migration from Mexico likely reached zero in 2010, and since then more Mexicans have left the U.S. than have arrived.”

4). Sanders Tells Clinton That Her Answer On Regulating Wall Street Is Not Good Enough –
Hillary Clinton said that her record shows that she will battle Wall Street, and pointed out that two billionaires are running a super PAC against her. Sanders replied by going to town on Clinton’s record, and he brought up the common sense point that all of those campaign contributors expect something.

Clinton fired back and said that Sanders had impugned her integrity. Clinton said that she was proud that she helped Wall Street after 9/11. She said that her proposal is tougher than Sanders’ plan to restore Glass-Steagall because she goes after all of Wall Street. Sanders played his trump card and said that it isn’t enough for Democrats to say that they will repeal Citizens United. He said that Democrats must lead by example.

O’Malley got his chance to talk and called Clinton’s proposal to regulate Wall Street “weak tea.”

O’Malley killed his momentum though by agreeing with Sanders that Glass-Steagall must be restored. Clinton said that Wall Street needs to play by the rules, and Sanders replied that the Wall Street business model is fraud.

The Democratic candidates finally disagreed on something. The result was an enlightening discussion on how Wall Street should be reined in.

5). Distinctions Are Drawn When The Candidates Are Asked About The Crisis That Shaped Them
For Hillary Clinton, it was advising Obama on whether or not to go after Bin Laden. Martin O’Malley didn’t have a crisis. Sanders talked about his time as Chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee. Sanders said he was determined to make VA care the best in the world. He discussed his role in shaping one of the most important pieces of bipartisan legislation for vets.

The crisis question was really an experience question. Clinton and Sanders were light years ahead of O’Malley on experience. If Democrats are looking for an experienced leader, the choice is between Clinton and Sanders, with Clinton being ahead of the senator from Vermont in the kind of experiences that look good for a potential president.

Nina Turner changes her mind on Hillary Clinton, endorses Bernie Sanders for President

Former State Sen. Nina Turner arrives at her 2013 campaign kickoff for Ohio secretary of state. Turner announced Thursday that she is backing Bernie Sanders for president. (Chuck Crow, Plain Dealer Publishing Co.)

By Henry J. Gomez, cleveland.com
on November 12, 2015 at 5:03 PM, updated November 12, 2015 at 9:36 PM

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Nina Turner, the former state senator from Cleveland and a top Ohio Democratic Party official, is ditching Hillary Clinton in favor of Bernie Sanders.

Turner and Sanders' presidential campaign confirmed the endorsement Thursday.

"I'm very attracted by his message and his style -- and that he has held pretty much strong on his beliefs and the world is catching up with him," Turner said.

Turner added that Sanders' positions on voting rights and wage issues have stood out to her. While she is expected to be active in his campaign, a Sanders spokeswoman said whatever role Turner has will not be paid.

Turner spoke to cleveland.com by telephone before flying to Iowa, where she will attend Saturday's Democratic debate featuring Clinton, Sanders and Martin O'Malley.

She also will introduce Sanders at his Monday rally at Cleveland State University's Wolstein Center.

The Vermont senator, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, has emerged as Clinton's strongest Democratic primary rival.

"We are extremely, extremely humbled by the support of Sen. Nina Turner," Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said. "She is nationally known as a voice for voting rights, for workers' rights and for marginalized people. The support of someone with that record of standing up for middle-income and working people is tremendously important."

The move comes as a surprise -- and a blow for Clinton. Turner had been among her most enthusiastic cheerleaders in the Buckeye State and nationally. She was involved early with the Ready for Hillary super political action committee that promoted Clinton as a presidential candidate before the former U.S. secretary of state launched her campaign.

Turner spoke last fall in New York and earlier this year at a Cleveland fundraiser for the now-defunct organization. In June, she spoke at a grassroots-organizing event for the Clinton campaign in Cleveland. She also had served on the board of Correct the Record, another pro-Clinton super PAC but recently severed ties.

And Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton, sent a letter on Turner's behalf last year that sought donations for her ultimately unsuccessful run for Ohio secretary of state.

Turner said Thursday that, despite her efforts on Clinton's behalf, she had not formally endorsed the former U.S. secretary of state. Clinton, she said did not lose her support so much as Sanders earned it with his attention to issues dear to her. She stressed that her decision had nothing to do with controversy over Clinton's private email server.

"Yes, I was out there, 'ready' [for Clinton], because I wanted to make sure Democrats were ready," Turner said. "I thought it was important to show that Democrats were ready to go right back at it for 2015 and 2016. This has nothing to do with the secretary."

Turner, who is frequently mentioned as a future candidate for mayor of Cleveland, said she will take a leave of absence from her role as the Ohio Democratic Party's engagement chair as she helps Sanders with his bid for the nomination. She said her endorsement, which party insiders had been buzzing about for days once they heard it was possible, has resulted in some pushback from Clinton loyalists in Ohio.

"I was approached by a Clinton supporter who said that I am doing a disservice to the country," Turner said. "It was very insulting."

Clinton doesn't lack for prominent Ohio supporters. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown announced his backing two weeks ago. U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge of Warrensville Heights endorsed her in July. Reps. Tim Ryan of the Youngstown area and Joyce Beatty of Columbus also are on board. And former Gov. Ted Strickland, a U.S. Senate candidate, is a longtime Clinton ally in the Buckeye State.

The Ohio Democratic Party, meanwhile, is emphasizing its neutrality.

"The Ohio Democratic Party has not endorsed in the 2016 presidential primary -- we welcome, support and work with all Democratic candidates as they compete for the nomination and come to Ohio to talk with voters," state party spokeswoman Kirstin Alvanitakis said Thursday.

"Given this stance, Sen. Turner will take a leave of absence from her leadership role as chair of Party Engagement while serving as a national surrogate for the Sanders campaign. Her tireless work for the party has been so important in engaging Ohio voters, and while we will certainly miss her passion and fearlessness, we wish her nothing but the best in her new role and look forward to her return following the conclusion of the primary."

Postal Workers Snub Clinton, Back Sanders

Sanders wins backing of American Postal Workers Union, his largest labor endorsement.

By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders secured the endorsement of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers Union on Thursday, marking the largest labor union to back his Democratic presidential campaign.

The union's decision gives Sanders a boost heading into the second Democratic debate in Iowa on Saturday and comes as the Vermont senator has sought to halt a string of labor endorsements to Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The postal workers' union said Sanders has a long history of supporting its workers and pointed to his efforts to keep open post offices and mail-sorting plants in rural communities, oppose slower delivery standards and fight attempts to privatize the mail service.

"Sen. Bernie Sanders stands above all others as a true champion of postal workers and other workers throughout the country," APWU President Mark Dimondstein said in a statement. "He doesn't just talk the talk. He walks the walk."

Clinton has locked down several key components of organized labor, including the National Education Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Sanders has assiduously courted rank-and-filed union members but battled against perceptions he wouldn't be as electable as Clinton and strong enough to take on the eventual Republican nominee.


Until now, Sanders had received one national labor endorsement, which came from the 185,000-member National Nurses Union.

Postal worker union officials said Sanders showed a deep understanding of their issues and said they were particularly swayed by his address to 2,000 activists in Las Vegas in October. From his Senate perch, Sanders has also blocked two nominees to the postal Board of Governors who are opposed by postal unions.

The union said Sanders' support was overwhelming among its executive board, which also heard from a labor liaison from Clinton's campaign.
___
On Twitter, follow Ken Thomas: https://twitter.com/KThomasDC

How Facebook Is Stealing Billions Of Views

Facebook just announced 8 billion video views per day. This number is made out of lies, cheating and worst of all: theft. All of this is wildly known but the media giant Facebook is pretending everything is fine, while damaging independent creators in the process. How does this work?



Hank Greens Article:
https://medium.com/@hankgreen/theft-l...

Video by Smartereveryday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6A1L...

Video about Youtube content ID by YMS:
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Get the music of the video here:

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How Facebook is Stealing Billions of Views

Help us caption & translate this video!

http://amara.org/v/HWix/

Police Tracking of 'Pre-crime' Activities - Robocop on Steroids? - Scary Stuff Coming

By tomm2thumbs

From a bit earlier in the year - figured it was worth a post.

Discussions of technology being marketed to seek out apparent 'pre-crime' activity, including drones, facial recognition, motion-tracking and other 1984 style police techniques.

Given that much of this is publicly sold and available to companies, you can imagine the behind-the-scenes military technology that is even more powerful than what you see here...no doubt already under widespread use.

5 Reasons To Be Glad That You Didn't Watch The Fox Business Republican Debate

By Jason Easley

Republicans offered no new policy ideas while resurrecting some old lies about immigration and The Affordable Health Care Act. Here are five reasons to be glad that you didn’t watch the Fox News Republican presidential debate.

1). All Republicans Oppose Raising The Minimum Wage

The first question was about the fast food worker strike and raising the minimum wage. Not surprisingly, Trump said paying workers more money wouldn’t help them. Ben Carson said that the American people need to be “educated about the minimum wage,” and Marco Rubio told viewers that tax reform a.k.a. tax cuts for the wealthy would be better than increasing the minimum wage.
Republicans are setting themselves up for a major defeat as an October poll of low-wage workers found that 75% supported raising the minimum wage to $15/hour and the ability to join a union. The debate demonstrated that Republicans are on the wrong side of the minimum wage issue.

2). Carly Fiorina Falls On Her Face When Asked Why Democrats Are Better At Creating Jobs
 

Carly Fiorina was asked how she would counter the argument that Democratic presidents are better at creating jobs than Republican presidents. Fiorina responded with a long-winded dance about what she would do as president to grow the economy, but nowhere in her answer was an explanation how she would counter the fact that the economy does better under Democratic presidents.

Fiorina’s inability to answer the question illustrated a fundamental problem for Republicans. Whoever the Republican nominee is will not be able to argue that they can create more jobs after President Obama brought the country back from George W. Bush’s Great Recession. Republicans can’t argue the issues, which is why they have to deflect and distract anytime they are confronted with the facts on their economic failures.

3). Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Carly Fiorina Uncork 3 Huge Republican Lies 

Two Republican candidates showed that their party has learned nothing from their party’s 2008 and 2012 presidential election losses by bringing back two tired old lies that have failed Republicans in elections past. Marco Rubio claimed that The Affordable Health Care Act is killing jobs, and Ted Cruz claimed that immigration is hurting jobs and the economy. Fiorina claimed that The Affordable Health Care Act is crushing small businesses.

A study by The Urban Institute found that The Affordable Health Care Act doesn’t kill jobs, “We find that the ACA had virtually no adverse effect on labor force participation, employment, or usual hours worked per week through 2014. This conclusion is true for ACA policies overall and for the Medicaid expansions, in particular, and it applies to the full sample of nonelderly persons and to the subgroup of nonelderly persons with a high school education or less who are more likely to be affected by the ACA.”

The bad news for Carly Fiorina is that only 3% of small businesses were impacted by the ACA.
Ted Cruz was not telling the truth. As reported in 2014, “According to the Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, there were 8.4 million unauthorized immigrants employed in the U.S.; representing 5.2 percent of the U.S. labor force (an increase from 3.8 percent in 2000). Their importance was highlighted in a report by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs that stated, “Without the undocumented population, Texas’ workforce would decrease by 6.3 percent” and Texas’ gross state product would decrease by 2.1 percent. Furthermore, certain segments of the U.S. economy, like agriculture, are entirely dependent upon illegal immigrants.”

4). Jeb Bush Blames Obama For His Brother’s Failure In The Middle East 

Bush blamed Obama for a “failure of leadership” in Iraq. It was amazing to hear a Bush argue for more war in the Middle East as if he had no idea that the Iraq war remains a foreign policy blunder that is thought of badly by a majority of the American people. The Bush tactic of blaming Obama for his brother’s failures, while arguing that the country should return to his brother’s policies is exactly why his campaign is failing. Bush tried to pull a page from the Romney playbook by sounding like he is the most electable. Bush tried to get fired up about foreign policy and take on Trump, but he got tongue-tied and lost his momentum.

Jeb Bush’s plan is to claim that he can beat Hillary Clinton while blaming President Obama for his brother’s foreign policy failures.

5). In Mixed Up Republican World, Regulating The Big Banks Causes Financial Collapse

The Republican presidential candidates agreed that not regulating the banks would prevent another financial collapse. Carly Fiorina called Dodd-Frank socialism and claimed the CFPB is digging through individual Americans financial records to detect fraud. In crazy Republican land, the way to prevent financial collapses is to get government out of the way and not regulate the banks.
Republicans again demonstrated that they have learned nothing from their previous failures by doubling down on another failed policy.

The debate itself was a colossal bore. The top eight contenders for the Republican nomination managed to avoid proposing any new policies while doubling down on their previous failures. No one should be surprised if the ratings for the Republican debates continue to slide. The energy and charisma of Trump have vanished, and all that is left is a bunch of Republicans with no new ideas trying to sell America on a return to failure.

GOP Dream Debate

An Open Letter From A Black Man To White America's Dying White Working Class and Poor

By Chauncey DeVega

My white brothers and sisters, believe me when I tell you that I love and care about you. Because I care, I will tell you things that you may not like. On occasion, I have been moved to write you an open letter. I always do this with concern and care. For example, after the horrific mass shooting in Charleston, I wondered when and if my white brothers and sisters would confront the plague of gun violence in their community. Such worries were met with deflection, denial and anger. Because I love my white brothers and sisters, I will try again.

In rapid succession, over the last few days and weeks, The New York Times, “60 Minutes,” and MSNBC have featured stories about the heroin epidemic that is ravaging the “heartland.” These stories were accompanied by new research that shows how the middle-aged white working class and poor are now dying at extremely high rates as compared to other groups.

The New York Times describes this trend in the following way:

Something startling is happening to middle-aged white Americans. Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic group, unlike their counterparts in other rich countries, death rates in this group have been rising, not falling.

That finding was reported Monday by two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton, who last month won the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, and Anne Case. Analyzing health and mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from other sources, they concluded that rising annual death rates among this group are being driven not by the big killers like heart disease and diabetes but by an epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse: alcoholic liver disease and overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids.

The analysis by Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case may offer the most rigorous evidence to date of both the causes and implications of a development that has been puzzling demographers in recent years: the declining health and fortunes of poorly educated American whites. In middle age, they are dying at such a high rate that they are increasing the death rate for the entire group of middle-aged white Americans, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case found. 

The mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014.

My brothers and sisters in White America, do these facts scare you? They probably should.

My grandmother grew up under the wicked regime of Jim and Jane Crow. Like many other black Americans she escaped to a northern American city during the Great Migration that occurred after World War II. I remember her telling me that the average white person wouldn’t survive being black for even a day. They would die from stress and anxiety.

I believe that she may have been exaggerating. But her observation does get to something real about the way white privilege manifests. Research suggests that the average white American has no basic idea about how white racism and white supremacy impact the day-to-day lives and life chances of non-whites. In fact, social psychology experiments have shown that white folks believe that not having access to television is a far greater hardship than being black. This absurdity is compounded by the belief, demonstrated in recent surveys, that in the Age of Obama, “discrimination” against white people is now a bigger problem in the United States than racism against people of color.

In all, white privilege is a system that gives unearned advantages to white people because of their perceived racial group membership. Those unearned advantages in turn nurture and cultivate a deficit in coping skills. (This is not a function of race, but rather of power. Men likely have worse life coping skills relative to women, and straight people less so than those in the LGBT community.) This should not be a surprise. White America was built upon stolen land, income, labor and wealth, taken from First Nations, African-Americans and other people of color. More recently, the modern white American middle class was created through transfer payments and government subsidies such as the G.I. Bill and VA/FHA housing programs, opportunities that were systematically denied to black and brown Americans. Racism (and sexism) in the American labor force meant that jobs which earned a living wage were deemed the near exclusive province of white men.

And now white people — and white working class men in particular — are suffering an identity crisis, as their perceived birthright is being taken away from them.

Of course, the facts undermine any claims of relative disadvantage compared to people of color. Poor and working class white people possess much more wealth and assets than do black and Latinos who are nominally “middle” or “upper class.” By implication, poor and working class whites have greater financial security than people of color in the same economic cohort. Nevertheless, it is the perception of white insecurity and suffering that matters, not empirical reality. Those who have historically been privileged will feel like equality is oppression.

White America — its poor and working classes in the throes of depression and hopelessness about the future, and killing themselves, intentionally or otherwise — must now summon up in itself the very same “personal responsibility” that the right so often uses to disparage the suffering of the black and brown poor. While globalization is most certainly pushing the white poor and working classes even further into a category of expendables, this same group of people must acknowledge their own complicity with such an outcome.

The truth hurts.

Poor and working class white Republicans, who vote for policies that hurt people like them, have contributed to this problem. White conservatives in the South, who flocked to the Republican Party because of anger about the civil rights movement, have caused this problem. Poor and working class white Republicans, who use the financial prosperity and success of the rich and upper classes as a barometer for how they should vote (a choice made even more absurd in a country where inter-generational upward mobility has been basically non-existent for decades), are a cause of this problem.

And white poor and working class people (as well as white folks en masse) — who do not realize that white elites have systematically lied to them by using the politics of racial resentment to focus their attention on “black crime,” “illegal immigrants” and “welfare queens,” instead of properly on the destructive power of neoliberalism — are among the primary conspirators in their own destruction.

* * *

What is perhaps most unnerving about the current concern for the wellbeing of white America is that Black, brown and First Nations peoples have been dying at far higher rates for years, decades, centuries. Yet there was no great cry of public alarm or panic then.

In this moment, white people struggling with addiction are to be treated with mercy and empathy. A white Republican presidential primary candidate, Chris Christie, has even been recorded sharing a story about a rich white man, a dear friend from law school, whose addiction to pain killers ruined his life. By comparison, black and brown people who use drugs are locked up without mercy or pity by a carceral society that views their pain as criminality.

Black and brown communities were ruined by the Great Recession. Yet their loss was greeted with crickets in the mainstream news media. Black people are recorded being shot, choked to death, beaten up in schools and otherwise brutalized. And yet too many of those in White America engage in excuse-making, and defend the thuggish behavior of its racist and classist criminal justice system.

White America now increasingly encounters those same broken dreams, because the wages of whiteness do not pay the dividends they once did in the not-so-recent past. And this time the mainstream media inaugurates a crisis.

The suffering of people of color in the United States is the rule, a quotidian matter, a given. By definition, white privilege means that white people will have better life chances than whose who are not white. This is the cruel calculus of the color line both in the United States and around the world.

Undoubtedly, there are some black and brown folks who will have no sympathy for white drug addicts, who won’t care how the white working class and poor are dying at increasing, alarming rates. Such cynicism is wholly understandable. But I will not surrender the moral high ground. That is incumbent upon us who are heirs to the Black Freedom Struggle.

What’s more, I am also a secular humanist. I care about all people—even those who are invested in the lie that is Whiteness. Because loyalty to whiteness is treason to humanity, those who see themselves first as “white,” before they see that we are all human beings, are the most in need of help and guidance about how to live a full, rich and ethical life. To borrow from Baldwin, Wright and Ignatiev: A person cannot be a full member of the human race without first dropping and surrendering the lie that is “whiteness.”

James Baldwin spoke to this reality with his genius insight as:

“I’d like to say that when I say ‘white’ I’m not talking about the color of anybody’s skin. I’m not talking about race. It’s a curious country, a curious civilization, that thinks of it as race. I don’t believe any of that. White people are imagined. White people are white only because they want to be white.”

But, I am very worried. The anxiety and the pain and the loss that is being felt by working class and poor white people should occasion a moment of  transcendence, one in which they realize that their elites have lied to, tricked, hoodwinked, and bamboozled them. I dream that this moment of white pain and suffering could be the impetus for new alliances across lines of race and class. There, Lani Guinier’s vision of what she describes as “political race” could be made real: Collective and shared self-interest could trump individual, provincial and superficial, albeit very real, differences of perceived “racial” identities, and the arbitrary value assigned to a person’s melanin count—or lack thereof.

Unfortunately, American history is replete with examples when white people chose racism and white racial affinity over shared class interests with people of color. When threatened, those who are invested in Whiteness as a type of property and psychological wage often double down on protecting it. Instead of embracing black and brown Americans, White America in crisis may wholly abandon the chimera of “post racial” politics and fully embrace a reactionary type of white racial identity politics—and perhaps even overt, old fashioned, bigotry.

White America is hurting. White America is in a panic — stirred up by know-nothing nativists like Donald Trump, the bigotry and resentment-based politics of the Republican Party, as well as the eliminationist anxieties produced by the right-wing media. I worry that, as horses in a fire, that White America will run back into the burning barn instead of running out to the freedom that awaits them should they ever try at meaningful alliances with people of color.

Real Estate Shell Companies Scheme To Defraud Owners Out Of Their Homes

Relying on the secrecy of limited liability companies, white-collar
thieves are targeting pockets of New York City for fraudulent
deed transfers, leaving the victims groping for redress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/nyregion/real-estate-shell-companies-scheme-to-defraud-owners-out-of-their-homes.html?_r=0

Ben Carson's Strange Theory About The Egyptian Pyramids

By Igor Bobic

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson once vocalized an odd theory about Egyptian history.

According to a video unearthed by BuzzFeed on Wednesday, Carson posited in a 1998 commencement address at Andrews University that the pyramids in Egypt were used for grain storage rather than as tombs for ancient kings and queens.

"My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain," Carson said, referring to the Old Testament. "Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, [something to store that grain] would have to be something awfully big, if you stop and think about it."

Carson appeared to be referencing the biblical figure of Joseph, who was sold into slavery in Egypt and later went on to advise the Egyptian pharaoh to store grain due to a coming famine.


The famed neurosurgeon, who is currently the front-runner for the GOP nomination, added in the speech that he didn't think aliens built the pyramids, as some conspiracy theorists have stated.

"And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons," he said.

"And various of scientists have said, 'well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how.'

You know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you."

Betsy M. Bryan, professor of Egyptian Art and Archeology at Johns Hopkins University, explained the pyramids were not conducive structures for storing grain.

"The actual space available within pyramids of any era was highly limited -- far more was devoted to descending and ascending shafts. These would be highly unsuitable for grain storage in large amount," Bryan said in an email, adding that Egyptian granaries "were not pyramidal but mostly beehive-shaped. They were built over brick lined circular bases, and they were filled from the top with ladders set up against them."

J.G. Manning, a professor of classics who studies Egyptian history at Yale University, called Carson's version of events "lunatic."

"It's a biblical view of the pyramids," he told The Huffington Post. "It just has no basis in fact."

Asked Wednesday by CBS News whether he still believed the pyramids were primarily used for grain storage, Carson said, "It's still my belief, yes."

Ben Carson's History As A Medical Malpractice Trainwreck

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson isn’t as good of a doctor as he’s made himself out to be. Carson is actually a walking medical malpractice suit waiting to happen. Thom Hartmann and Ring of Fire host Mike Papantonio discussed Carson’s shady history of medical malpractice.

Watch.

About the Author

Joshua De Leon

Josh de Leon is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire.

Deadly Anticoagulant Xarelto Continues To Get Celebrity Endorsements

As the number of Xarelto lawsuits approaches 2,000 and the drug’s connection to fatal bleeding becomes more widely known, manufacturer Janssen Pharmaceutica is pulling out all the stops on its marketing campaign – including a recent television ad featuring a quartet of prominent celebrities.

The four celebrities –  NBA player Chris Bosh, NASCAR driver Brian Vickers, golfing legend Arnold Palmer and Saturday Night Live alumnus Kevin Nealon – move in widely separated social and professional circles, and would be unlikely to meet for a casual luncheon under most circumstances. However, Janssen would have us believe they’re all old friends who decided to meet up for a friendly game of golf, then retire to the clubhouse to talk about how “treatment with XARELTO® was the right move” for them.

Vickers assures viewers about how Xarelto was “proven to treat and help reduce the risk of DVT (deep vein thrombosis) and PE (pulmonary embolism) blood clots,” while Nealon points out that “Xarelto was also proven to reduce the risk of stroke in people with ‘A-Fib’ (atrial fibrillation, or irregular heartbeat) not caused by a heart valve problem.”

Of course, there’s no mention of FDA concerns over aspects of the clinical tests (specifically, whether or not test subjects had been at the optimal level of blood clotting for a sufficient period of time), nor the fact that post-market studies were funded by the manufacturer and its marketing partners at Bayer.

During the after-game luncheon, in which viewers see the four celebrities chowing down on healthful salads, a voice-over acknowledges that “for people with ‘A-Fib’ currently well-managed on warfarin, there was limited information on how Xarelto and warfarin compare in reducing the risk of stroke.”

Nonetheless, Vickers shares his experience: “You know, I tried warfarin…but the blood testing and dietary restrictions…”  Nealon commiserates: “Don’t get me started on that.”

This has been the big selling point of Xarelto. Warfarin patients are at risk for some 500 interactions with other prescription drugs as well as various foods high in Vitamin K, such as spinach. Those drug interactions are of particular concern among elderly patients, many of whom take several different medications. Xarelto (also known as rivaroxaban) has fewer than 50 interactions and requires far less in the way of expensive, time-consuming patient testing. The ad acknowledges that patients on Xarelto “may bruise more easily, and it may take longer for bleeding to stop.”

That is a gross understatement. In fact, the bleeding may not stop at all until the drug has been removed from the system, as there is no approved reversal agent. Patients taking rival medications Pradaxa (dabigitran) faced similar problems; however, that drug could sometimes be removed by putting the patient on emergency dialysis. Due to Xarelto’s particular mechanism of action, this is not an option for Xarelto patients. The ad goes on to state: “Xarelto may increase the risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines…Xarelto can cause serious, and in rare cases, fatal bleeding.” The voice-over advises patients to seek emergency help in the case of emergency bleeding – but again, there is no mention how such bleeding should be handled.

Meanwhile, our celebrity endorsers are seen as they continue to enjoy their post-luncheon round of golf, to the accompaniment of sprightly guitar music. As Vickers tells Nealon in a confidential tone as they watch Palmer sink a putt, “You know, Xarelto is the Number One prescribed blood thinner in its class,” to which Nealon responds, “That’s a big win.”

It wasn’t such a big win to those who allege that they been injured or killed by Xarelto, says Levin Papantonio attorney Ned McWilliams who is helping to head the national litigation against those involved in the manufacture and promotions of Xarelto. Executives at Janssen and its parent company Johnson & Johnson, which has been target in several liability lawsuits in recent years, know they’re facing some serious trouble, especially with recent studies published in major medical journals.

Although a small San Francisco biotech firm has come up with a promising reversal agent, that drug  – Annexa-R – is still undergoing clinical trials, with no indication as to when or if it will get FDA approval.  In the meantime, Janssen and Bayer are determined to wring as much revenue out of Xarelto as possible, taking advantage of America’s obsession with celebrities in order to manipulate consumers and boost sales.

Hopefully, all four of Xarelto’s celebrity cheerleaders will continue to live healthy, productive lives. However, if any of them wind up suffering uncontrolled bleeding like almost 2,000 other patients, it could put a serious damper on the drug maker’s current marketing ploy.

About the Author

KJ McElrath

K.J. McElrath is a former history and social studies teacher who has long maintained a keen interest in legal and social issues.

Hackers Expose 11 Major Security Flaws In Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge

Posted by Soulskill

MojoKid writes:  

Going on a bug hunt might not sound like the most exciting thing in the world, but for Project Zero, the name for a team of security analysts tasked by Google with finding zero-day exploits, a good old fashioned bug hunt is both exhilarating and productive. 

As a result of Project Zero's efforts to root out security flaws in Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge device (and by association, likely the entire Galaxy S6 line), owners are now more secure. 

The team gave themselves a week to root out vulnerabilities, and to keep everyone sharp, the researchers made a contest out of it pitting the North American and European participants against each other.  

Their efforts resulted in the discovery of 11 vulnerabilities, the "most interesting" of which was CVE-2015-7888. It's a directory traversal bug that allows a file to be written as a system. Project Zero said it was trivially exploitable, though it's also one of several that Samsung has since fixed.

Wingnut Perspectives

Bernie Sanders Sends Shock Waves Through American Politics With $2 Million Campaign Ad

By Jason Easley

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is sending shock waves through the 2016 presidential election with a $2 million television ad that takes his message of change to the masses.

Video:



Transcript of the ad:

VOICE OVER
 
The son of a Polish immigrant who grew up in a Brooklyn tenement.

He went to public schools, then college where the work of his life began.
Fighting injustice and inequality.
Speaking truth to power.

He moved to Vermont, won election and praise — as one of America’s best Mayors.
In Congress, he stood up for working families and for principle
Opposing the Iraq War.
Supporting veterans.

Now, he’s taking on Wall Street and a corrupt political system.
Funded by over a million contributions.
Tackling climate change to create clean energy jobs.
Fighting for living wages, equal pay and tuition-free public colleges

BERNIE SANDERS

“People are sick and tired of establishment politics and they want real change.”

VOICE OVER

Bernie Sanders.
Husband. Father. Grandfather.
An honest leader — building a movement with you, to give us a future to believe in.

BERNIE SANDERS
 
“I’m Bernie Sanders and I approve this message.”

Notice how the ad specifically mentions building a political movement. Bernie Sanders isn’t only interested in winning the Democratic nomination. He is trying to build a movement that will change the United States of America.

Sanders campaign manager John Weaver said, “Thousands of Americans have come out to see Bernie speak and we’ve seen a great response to his message. This ad marks the next phase of this campaign. We’re bringing that message directly to the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire.”

The Sanders campaign is growing. The movement is evolving. Bernie Sanders isn’t going to be stopped by politics as usual. Whether or not he wins the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders is sending shock waves through American politics with his movement to change America by handing political power back to ordinary Americans.

The message that Republicans, their billionaires, and the corporate interests don’t want people to hear is now being broadcast over the mass media. The Sanders call for taking the country back has gone mainstream.

Bernie Sanders has changed the race for the Democratic nomination by making it more liberal and giving voice to issues that would not normally be discussed in primary campaigns. Sanders is also impacting the Republican contest. Republicans are getting debate questions about income inequality.

The impact of his message is sending shock waves through our national dialogue.

The senator from Vermont is changing the political conversation in the United States, and taking his message to television will only expand his reach.

The fact that Sanders can spend $2 million on ad buy for Iowa and New Hampshire is a tribute to the 750,000+ Americans who have donated to his campaign.

Bernie Sanders isn’t just out to win an election. He’s out to change a country.

Fall Of The House Of Bush

Jeb Bush spoke to potential supporters in Portsmouth, N.H., on Thursday. Credit Ian Thomas Jansen-Lonnquist for The New York Times

Maureen Dowd

WASHINGTON — JEB, dragging his wilted exclamation point around, is so boring that it’s hard to focus on the epic nature of his battle.

Not the battle against Donald Trump, although his beat-down by Trump is garishly entertaining. I’m talking about the Brooks Brothers “Game of Thrones” family tangle.

As much as Poppy Bush scoffs at “the D-word,” as he calls any reference to dynasty, the Bushes do consider themselves an American royal family. They have always pretty much divided the world into Bushes and the help. The patriarch once sent me a funny satire referring to himself and Barbara as the Old King and Queen, W. as King George of Crawford and Jeb as the Earl of Tallahassee.

At 91, 41 is living to see Jebbie become president. He is mystified by a world in which Trump, whom he considers a clown, could dethrone the crown prince.

Jeb said in New Hampshire that Poppy is prone to throw his shoe at the TV when Trump comes on. Fortunately, the former president always has very stylish socks.

Some of Jeb’s disillusioned donors are hanging on just because they can’t bear to shatter the old man’s illusions. How can America be rewarding the wrong dynasty — Little Rock over Kennebunkport?

As Jonathan Martin and Matt Flegenheimer recently wrote in The Times, Poppy and Bush retainers like John Sununu are bewildered by a conservative electorate that rejects Republican primogeniture, prefers snark to substance and embraces an extremely weird brain surgeon and an extravagantly wild reality show star.

When the Bushes had to stick a shiv in the ribs of their foes, they behaved like gentlemen and outsourced it to henchmen. They can’t fathom a world where that vulgarian Trump is doing his own dirty work.

Trump has gotten into Jeb’s head, making Jeb so petulant he declared he had “a lot of really cool things” he could be doing instead, when we all know he doesn’t.

For Bushworld, this was the election where the Cain and Abel drama of W. and Jeb would finally have a happy ending.

I covered the Jeb and Junior sibling smashdown from the start. In 1993, I went on the road to watch Jeb run for governor in Florida and W. run for governor in Texas.

Barbara had blurted out to W. that he shouldn’t run because he couldn’t win. And when I talked to Jeb, he seemed annoyed that his older brother had jumped into the race in Texas because it turned it into “a People magazine story.”

But W. had spent his rowdy 20's and 30's living with the unpleasant fact that even though he was the oldest, his parents assumed Jeb had the bright political future. At 47, with his drinking days behind him and Laura beside him, he was ready to cash in on the family name and money and make his move.

It was soon clear to me that the Good Son was not as scintillating a campaigner as the Prodigal Son. W. didn’t know the issues and he had a spiteful side, but he was the one with the crackle.

When Jeb came up with a line on the trail in Florida that worked, W. just swiped it. When Jeb said, “I am running for governor not because I am George and Barbara Bush’s son; I am running because I am George P. and Noelle and Jeb’s father,” W. began saying: “I am not running for governor because I am George Bush’s son. I am running because I am Jenna and Barbara’s father.” Karl Rove laughed about the shoplifting.

Jeb was the image of his mother, especially when he smiled, but his pragmatic political temperament was more like his father’s, even though he never had his dad’s manic “ants on a hot pan” energy. W. looked like his father but got his acerbic streak from his mother.

On election night, W. was steamed that his father seemed more upset by Jeb’s loss than excited by his oldest son’s win. Not only did W. shock his family by making it to the Oval Office before Jeb. In the tie election, Jeb had to be prodded into helping his brother snatch Florida away from Al Gore.

This was going to be the year that settled sibling scores. Jeb would get what his parents considered his birthright.

Even though the brothers are not particularly close, and W.’s tragic over-involvement in the Middle East and tragic under-involvement in Katrina did not make him a campaign asset, somehow Jeb kept wrapping himself around W.’s axle — and his Axis of Evil.

When Jeb was first asked if it had been a good idea to invade Iraq, he gave four different answers. Then he said he wouldn’t rule out torture and thought getting rid of Saddam was “a pretty good deal.” And he couldn’t stop bragging about how his brother kept America safe, even though Trump correctly noted that W. was not on the ball leading up to 9/11. And, of course, W.’s two misbegotten wars have been recruiting boons for terrorist fiends.

Jeb explained away his shambling, shrinking campaign by saying he was a doer, not a performer. But the main thing he was doing was helping to rehabilitate his brother’s pockmarked reputation.

W. headlined a fund-raiser at a Georgetown home Thursday night. When he came out, a TMZ camera captured him jovially signing autographs for people waiting on the street and calling out as he drove away, “Don’t put that on eBay.”

On Friday morning, the chatterers were comparing the stiff Jeb to the loosey-goosey W., gushing with the mistaken cliché that W. is comfortable in his own skin. It was the ultimate vindication for W. His parents had been wrong all along. Jeb wasn’t the Natural on the trail. He was.

Some Jeb! campaign officials think he should “kiss off Iowa,” as one put it, where he’s flatlining, and put the emphasis on New Hampshire, setting the stage for South Carolina. “That’s what 41 did when Bob Dole was winning Iowa,” said one family friend. The Bushworld veterans think that someone gave Jeb bad advice about trying to put his protégé Marco Rubio in his place at the debate.

“It looked out of character for him,” one said. “He looked like he was a little lost when Marco came back at him.”

Jeb’s loyalists are urging reporters to point out, as one asserted, that Trump would be “a catastrophe for the country.”

They also think Jeb has to be more self-deprecating, because he has no choice, and stress his Latino support.

Before the debate debacle, the joyless candidate had been doubling down on his promise to be joyful, proclaiming on NewsmaxTV, “I’m having a blast” and “I’m in phenomenal shape for an old 62 year old guy. In fact, I think we ought to have five-hour debates.”

But this campaign has been defined by Trump parachuting in, like an Elvis impersonator in Vegas, and disrupting the royal coronation. Jeb had been out of politics for eight years and he strolled back, mistakenly assuming that the vassals were waiting eagerly to hail him.

With Trump belittling him for being low energy and running to Mommy and Daddy for help, Jeb realized he was in a new world.

His brother’s muscle-bound presidency led to Barack Obama and the diffident Obama led to a new brand of furious, Tea Party-infused Republicans.

While Jeb was offstage, the whole party and political environment had passed him by. He came back looking very ’90's. He’s talking about pragmatic government at a time when the drivers in his party are talking about tearing it down.

Jeb is trapped in a nightmarish déjà vu. Once he was cast as the wonky one while his brother, the sparky one, slipped ahead. Now Jeb is cast as the wonky one while Marco, the sparky one, slips ahead.

Jeb got confused. He thought he was still in an era when people had to pay their dues.

Follow Maureen Dowd on Twitter.

ARK-3 Source Code released

By Acid_Snake

A while ago Coldbird and I decided to finish the ARK project for good and add all the missing features that need to be added. So we began working on its next iteration, ARK-3.

However things got cold and little to no information has been released so far about the project. This is mainly because Coldbird and I don’t go out publicly too often and because we have problems finding time for the project.

ARK-3 is a Custom Firmware (eCFW) for the emulated PSP on the Vita (ePSP). It is essentially a reworked version of PROVita/ARK-1, a port of the Pro CFW for the PSP.

It’s features include:

– Full compatibility with PSP home brews and games.

– ISO and CSO support through the Inferno ISO Driver as well as compatibility with the M33, ME and NP9660 drivers.

– Compatibility with PSX games under PSP exploits with partial sound through PEOPS.

– Partial compatibility with PSX exploits.

– Compatible with up to firmware 3.52

– Built in menu with advanced features like PMF playback, FTP, CFW settings and more. It is also compatible with other popular menus such as ONEmenu and 138Menu.

---

There’s still a lot of things to do here, most importantly:

– Finish porting ARK-3 to PSX exploits.

– Finish the PEOPS port by improving compatibility and adding game-specific configurations to the built-in database.

– Port 3.5X kernel exploits.

Hopefully releasing the source code calls the attention of other developers that might want to contribute to the project. Anyone is now free to do so.

The project is hosted in the following bitbucket repository: https://bitbucket.org/Coldbird/ark3

Random Impressions of Last Night's GOP Media Murderfest

Posted by Rude One

 

Just a few thoughts on the Republican debate from Boulder, Colorado (the major league one, not the farm team):

1. You can pinpoint the moment that Jeb Bush swallowed his own balls. The former governor of Florida had decided to lob his obviously scripted attack at Sen. Marco Rubio, saying that Rubio's missed votes in the Senate disappointed him as a constituent. Rubio was ready with a comeback about all the past presidential candidates who had missed votes, including John McCain. You could see that Bush realized he had brought a lace doily to a razor fight when he said about McCain, weakly, as if he wanted to vomit, "Well, he wasn't my senator." Then Rubio cut off Bush's balls and you could watch Bush swallow them when he attempted to interrupt the grandstanding Rubio with "Well, I've been--." The problem, at the end of the day, is that Jeb Bush isn't the vicious motherfucker his brother was. George W. would have come back with some remark about Rubio being new on the job...just like Barack Obama. But you got the sense, as his balls were descending his throat and into his stomach, that Jeb just wanted to say, "Fuck this." And no one would have blamed him. At this point, Jeb is a hilariously pitiable figure, a vaudeville clown, a sad sack. It's time for someone to walk him into a field and tell him to look at the rabbits.

2. Whoever advised Chris Christie to look directly at the camera and "answer questions" was a fucking idiot who should be fired immediately. Each time he decided to address the TV audience, it looked like a giant pumpkin head was angry at us. It was disconcerting and just goddamn rude. Motherfucker, someone asked you a question. You could at least look like you give a shit that you're in the same room as the questioner. And "answer questions" is in quotation marks because, more often than not, Christie just decided, "Hey, Chico, Blondie, and Pinhead, fuck what you're asking. I got shit I practiced saying directly to myself in the mirror." So he'd go off about Hillary Clinton or how the country sucks beyond sucking under the Negro president who wants cops killed. And, by the way, of all the lies spit out by the candidates, Christie saying that FBI Director James Comey "has said this week that because of a lack of support from politicians like the president of the United States" cops fear for their lives was the closest to actual slander. Comey never mentioned Obama. Christie came across like a desperate buffoon, the faded high school football star who has become a sad, bloated vestige of the time when he was beautiful.

3. None of the candidates give a fuck about your facts. Rubio got pissed when John Harwood quoted a conservative group, the Tax Foundation, on the math behind the senator's tax plan. Ben Carson waved off the illogical math of his tax plan when it was presented to him. And Donald Trump? Your piddling truth matters not next to his undulating neck flap of fiction. Did he call Rubio "Mark Zuckerberg's personal senator"? Of course he did, but who the hell cares? Who remembers things that are your own campaign website? He loves Mark Zuckerberg. And bankruptcy? Your stupid laws let Trump businesses declare bankruptcy and get out of paying debts. Is it his fault that he dicked over so many people? Get outta here. And guns? Trump might be carrying one right now. He might have to kill someone on the wild streets of Boulder. And, sure, sure, it's a great idea to let his employees carry guns into, let's see, yeah. casinos. That's all just incredible. Amazing. Best there is. Somebody should be there to shit on Trump's face every day of his worthless life.

4. John Kasich looked like he had a case of coke jaw. Not only was he as jittery of someone who is jonesing for something, crank, liquor, smack, something, but he kept clenching and unclenching his jaw and grinding his teeth. It really took something away from his whole "I'm the rational one" persona he was attempting. More upsetting was Kasich's belief in the need for universities to privatize their assets: "[T]hey shouldn't be in the parking lot business. They shouldn't be in the dining business, they shouldn't be in the dorm business." A college shouldn't be in the dorm business? So you want to toss 18 year-olds to the dogs of whatever corrupt bunch of slumlords bid on dorm rights. Well, Kasich isn't exactly known for giving two shits about education unless there's a profit incentive for the people providing it.

5. Creepy Ted Cruz, who looks like every peeping Tom, said the creepiest thing of the night: "If you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not be that guy. But if you want someone to drive you home, I will get the job done and I will get you home." He might have continued, "I might take a detour to my backwoods sodomy pit with you, but your corpse will be dropped off at your home."

6. Presumptive debate victor Marco Rubio actually tried to plead poverty after getting a million dollar book advance. If he had a million dollars in student loans that needed paying off, he must have borrowed the money from the Cuban mafia.

7. Carly Fiorina's most disgraceful moment in a generally disgraceful evening when she said of Hillary Clinton, "Every single policy she espouses, and every single policy of President Obama has been demonstrably bad for women." What would that be? The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act? Keeping funding for Planned Parenthood? Appointing two women to the Supreme Court? Working for women's rights around the world? The one number she offered, that 92% of job losses in Obama's first term were women, was utterly, embarassingly wrong, so she'll probably repeat it endlessly.

8. The Rude Pundit's been told that Rand Paul was there, but there is scant evidence.

9. Mike Huckabee must have jacked off in glee when he realized he could make a blimp reference. He's so in the moment.

10. And, yeah, the moderators sucked early in the debate. Harwood's "Is this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?" to Donald Trump really was a bullshit blogger question. But at other times, they asked direct questions about shit like tax policies, with citations of studies that absolutely have a place in a debate. But someone needs to punch Jim Cramer and Rick Santelli in the nuts before their hysterical ranting is allowed on air. (By the way, fuck you, CNBC, for not freely streaming the event online.)

11. And, yeah, the candidates were total twat crumbs about the media. If the trio of moderators had been the ones at the Democratic debate, then, sure, you can accuse them of having gone easy on the Democrats. But most of the time, they were bitching because they hated being challenged. Whining about media unfairness is great for applause from the slavering hordes of cretins in the audience. Maybe that's all that matters to this slate of losers and human hemorrhoids. But Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sander or, hell, even Martin O'Malley would beat them stupider.