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

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

By Chauncey DeVega

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

More Chauncey DeVega.

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

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



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

A Man Who Shouldn’t Be President

By Taegan Goddard

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

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

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

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

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

By Kyle Orland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Adele Stan

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Sydney Robinson

Somewhere in a fancy colonial home in New Jersey, a bear has awoken in the form of a pissed off Chris Christie, overcome with anger for having been passed over by Donald Trump for his much-coveted vice presidential position.

Reports are emerging that the NJ Governor is not at all happy to have lost the position he jockeyed for in favor of Indiana Governor Mike Pence.

If you recall, Christie was prepared to do just about everything it took to come out on top next to Donald Trump, even if that meant serving as a errand boy for Trump – reporters said Christie was seen fetching fast food for the nominee at one point.

And Christie’s loyalty to Trump didn’t come without a price, as the Governor, who already suffered from diminishing approval in his state, saw his approval ratings absolutely decimated.

An anonymous source overheard Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort confirm that Christie was “livid” over the VP announcement made by Trump late last week.

Reported by the Weekly Standard:

“Christie was livid, right?” the man said at one point. “Yeah,” Manafort replied.

Despite his tantrums and rage, Christie is still scheduled to speak at the RNC, so the only thing we can hope at this point is that the Governor is so enraged at his missed opportunity that he takes his speaking engagement and shoves it, calling out Trump and the party as a whole.

Seeing Christie as the gilded whipping boy has been fun and all, but we kind of miss the firebrand, angry man we all knew and loved from before Trump’s rise to power.

Bring back the fury, Christie, and regain a tiny bit of the respect you once held.

The Cycle Of Trump

Everything we love to eat is a scam

By Maureen Callahan

Among the many things New Yorkers pride ourselves on is food: making it, selling it and consuming only the best, from single-slice pizza to four-star sushi. We have fish markets, Shake Shacks and, as of this year, 74 Michelin-starred restaurants.

Yet most everything we eat is fraudulent.

In his new book, “Real Food Fake Food,” author Larry Olmsted exposes the breadth of counterfeit foods we’re unknowingly eating. After reading it, you’ll want to be fed intravenously for the rest of your life.



Think you’re getting Kobe steak when you order the $350 “Kobe steak” off the menu at Old Homestead? Nope — Japan sells its rare Kobe beef to just three restaurants in the United States, and 212 Steakhouse is the only one in New York. That Kobe is probably Wagyu, a cheaper, passable cut, Olmsted says. (Old Homestead declined The Post’s request for comment.)

Fraudulence spans from haute cuisine to fast food: A February 2016 report by Inside Edition found that Red Lobster’s lobster bisque contained a non-lobster meat called langostino. In a statement to The Post, Red Lobster maintains that langostino is lobster meat and said that in the wake of the IE report, “We amended the menu description of the lobster bisque to note the multiple kinds of lobster that are contained within.”

Moving on: That extra-virgin olive oil you use on salads has probably been cut with soybean or sunflower oil, plus a bunch of chemicals. The 100 percent grass-fed beef you just bought is no such thing — it’s very possible that cow was still pumped full of drugs and raised in a cramped feedlot.

Unless your go-to sushi joint is Masa or Nobu, you’re not getting the sushi you ordered, ever, anywhere, and that includes your regular sushi restaurant where you can’t imagine them doing such a thing, Olmsted says. Your salmon is probably fake and so is your red snapper. Your white tuna is something else altogether, probably escolar — known to experts as “the Ex-Lax fish” for the gastrointestinal havoc it wreaks.

Escolar is so toxic that it’s been banned in Japan for 40 years, but not in the US, where the profit motive dominates public safety. In fact, escolar is secretly one of the top-selling fish in America.

The food industry isn’t just guilty of perpetrating a massive health and economic fraud: It’s cheating us out of pleasure.

“Sushi in particular is really bad,” Olmsted says, and as a native New Yorker, he knows how much this one hurts. He writes that multiple recent studies “put the chances of your getting the white tuna you ordered in the typical New York sushi restaurant at zero — as in never.”

Fake food, Olmsted says, is a massive national problem, and the more educated the consumer, the more vulnerable to bait-and-switch: In 2014, the specialty-foods sector — gourmet meats, cheeses, booze, oils — generated over $1 billion in revenue in the US alone.

“This category is rife with scams,” Olmsted writes, and even when it comes to basics, none of us is leaving the grocery store without some product — coffee, rice or honey — being faked.

The food industry isn’t just guilty of perpetrating a massive health and economic fraud: It’s cheating us out of pleasure. These fake foods produce shallow, flat, one-dimensional tastes, while the real things are akin to discovering other galaxies, other universes — taste levels most of us have never experienced.

“The good news,” Olmsted writes, “is that there is plenty of healthful and delicious Real Food. You just have to know where to look.”

‘Safety isn’t a niche’

One of the most popular, fastest-growing foods in America is olive oil, touted for its ability to prevent everything from wrinkles to heart disease to cancer. Italian olive oil is a multibillion-dollar global industry, with the US its third-largest market.

The bulk of these imports are, you guessed it, fake. Labels such as “extra-virgin” and “virgin” often mean nothing more than a $2 mark-up. Most of us, Olmsted writes, have never actually tasted real olive oil.

Old Homestead in NYC lists “Kobe Beef” on its menu, but that’s not precisely true. The luxurious Japanese meat can be found at only three restaurants in the country, including 212 Steakhouse in Midtown.Photo: Shutterstock

“Once someone tries a real extra-virgin — an adult or child, anybody with taste buds — they’ll never go back to the fake kind,” artisanal farmer Grazia DeCarlo has said.

“It’s distinctive, complex, the freshest thing you’ve ever eaten. It makes you realize how rotten the other stuff is — literally rotten.”

Fake olive oil, Olmsted claims, has killed people. He cites the most famous example: In 1981, more than 20,000 people suffered mass food poisoning in Spain. About 800 people died, and olive oil mixed with aniline, a toxic chemical used in making plastic, was blamed.

In 1983, the World Health organization named the outbreak “toxic oil syndrome,” but subsequent investigations pointed to a different contaminant and a different food — pesticides used on tomatoes from Almeria. (Olmsted stands by his reporting.)

Some of the most common additives to olive oil are soybean and peanut oils, which can prove fatal to anyone allergic — and you’ll never see those ingredients on a label. Beware, too, of olive oil labeled “pure” — that can mean the oil is the lowest grade possible.

Some of the most common additives in olive oil are soybean and peanut oils, which can prove fatal to anyone allergic — and are often missing from labels.Photo: Shutterstock

“No one is checking,” Olmsted writes.

How do we find the real thing? Olmsted recommends a few reliable retailers, including Oliviers & Co. in New York and New Jersey. Otherwise, look for labels reading “COOC Certified Extra Virgin” — the newly formed California Olive Oil Council’s stamp — or the international EVA and UNAPROL labels.

In terms of scope and scale, there’s an even greater level of fraud throughout the seafood industry.

“Imagine if half the time you pulled into a gas station, you were filling your tank with dirty water instead of gasoline,” Olmsted writes. “That’s the story with seafood.”

He cites a 2012 study of New York City seafood done by scientists at Oceana, a nonprofit advocacy group. They discovered fakes at 58 percent of 81 stores sampled and at all of the 16 sushi restaurants studied, and this goes on throughout the United States. If you see the words “sushi grade” or “sashimi grade” on a menu, run. There are no official standards for use of the terms.

Red snapper, by the way, is almost always fake — it’s probably tilefish or tilapia. (Tilapia also doubles for catfish.)

“Consumers ask me all the time, ‘What can I do?’ and all I can say is, ‘Just don’t ever buy red snapper,’ ” Dr. Mark Stoeckle, a specialist in infectious diseases at Weill Medical College, told Olmsted. “Red snapper is the big one — when you buy it, you almost never get it.”

Red snapper is almost always fake — it’s probably tilefish or tilapia, which can also double for catfish.Photo: Shutterstock

Farmed Cambodian ponga poses as grouper, catfish, sole, flounder and cod. Wild-caught salmon is often farmed and pumped up with pink coloring to look fresher. Sometimes it’s actually trout.

Ever wonder why it’s so hard to properly sear scallops? It’s because they’ve been soaked in water and chemicals to up their weight, so vendors can up the price. Even “dry” scallops contain 18 percent more water and chemicals.

Shrimp is so bad that Olmsted rarely eats it. “I won’t buy it, ever, if it is farmed or imported,” he writes. In 2007, the FDA banned five kinds of imported shrimp from China; China turned around and routed the banned shrimp through Indonesia, stamped it as originating from there, and suddenly it was back in the US food ­supply.

Seafood fraud puts pregnant women at risk; high levels of mercury in fish are known to cause birth defects. Allergic reactions to shellfish have been known to cause paralysis.

“All the gross details you have heard about industrial cattle farming — from the widespread use of antibiotics and chemicals to animals living in their own feces and being fed parts of other animals they don’t normally consume — occurs in the seafood arena as well,” Olmsted writes. “Only it is much better hidden.”

Red Lobster’s lobster bisque contains a non-lobster meat called langostino.Photo: Shutterstock

Corruption in the seafood industry is so rife that in 2014, President Obama formed the Presidential Task Force on Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Seafood Fraud. In the meantime, Olmsted has some suggestions.

Look for the reliable logos MSC (Marine Stewardship Council) for wild-caught fish and BAP (Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices) for farmed, he says.

The most trusted logo is “Alaska Seafood: Wild, Natural, Sustainable.” Alaska’s system mandates complete supervision of chain of custody, from catching to your grocery store.

Perhaps most surprising of all: Discount big-box stores such as Costco, Trader Joe’s, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Walmart are as stringent with their standards as Whole Foods.

“When customers walk into a store, they don’t expect to have to pay a premium for safe food,” Walmart exec Brittni Furrow said in 2014. “Safety isn’t a niche.”

 

Your grass-fed cow was drugged

One of the simplest things we can do, Olmsted writes, is to look for products named after their geographical location. Grated Parmesan cheese is almost always fake, and earlier this year, the FDA said its testing discovered that some dairy products labeled “100% Parmesan” contained polymers and wood pulp.

That’s all the FDA did: You can still buy your woody cheese at the supermarket.

The term “grass-fed” does not ensure free-range meat.Photo: Shutterstock

Parmigiano-Reggiano, however, derives its name from Parma, the region in Italy that’s produced this cheese for over 400 years. If you buy it with that label, it’s real.

Same with Roquefort cheese and Champagne from France, and San Marzano tomato sauce, Bologna meat and Chianti from Italy, and Scotch whisky from Scotland. Still, Olmsted strongly advises looking for the label PDO — Protected Designation of Origin, the highest guarantee of authenticity there is.

As for our own lax labeling standards, Olmsted is outraged. Ninety-one percent of American seafood is imported, but the FDA is responsible for inspecting just 2 percent of those imports. And in 2013, the agency inspected less than half of that 2 percent.

“The bar is so low,” he says. “Congress could not have given them less to do, and they still fail.

They’re not clueless. They know. They’re actually deciding not to do it. They say they don’t have the budget.”

When it comes to beef, Olmstead reports that the USDA is no better; the agency repealed its standards for the “grass-fed” designation in January after pressure from the agriculture industry.

All that stamp now means, he says, is that in addition to grass, the animals “can still be raised in an industrial feed lot and given drugs. It just means the actual diet was grass rather than corn.”

If you don’t have access to a farmer’s market, Olmsted says that Eli’s and Citarella in New York are reliable providers of true grass-fed beef.

“Go up to the counter and ask them where the grass-fed beef comes from,” he says. “They need to know. In New York in particular, you have access to a lot of specialized gourmet stores, and you can source stuff locally. You can’t do that in most of the country.”

Here’s a look at some of the grossest ingredients that might be lurking in your favorite foods, including human hair:

Sanders Activists Already Agitating In Philadelphia

By Jake Blumgart

The Democratic National Convention is more than a week away, but progressive organizers and Bernie Sanders enthusiasts are already staging demonstrations around town.

(Photo: Sipa via AP)

In February, Black Lives Matters protesters showed their support for Bernie Sanders in Philadelphia.

Independence Blue Cross CEO Daniel J. Hilferty lives in the Sylvan byways of Ardmore. It’s one of those neighborhoods on Philadelphia’s Main Line that epitomizes a certain vision of what the American suburb looks like. Big houses, green lawns, gently winding lanes with few sidewalks, because no one is driving very fast anyway.

And it’s quiet, the kind of place where birdsong sounds cacophonous.

That’s probably why five police cars arrived ten minutes after a mob started chanting slogans in front of the insurance mogul’s house on Wednesday night.

The group is demanding that the Democratic National Convention Host Committee reveal its financial records and the names of its donors. 

 

This is the latest manifestation of Reclaim Philadelphia, an activist group comprised in part of former Bernie Sanders campaign staffers and volunteers. The group is demanding that the Democratic National Convention Host Committee reveal its financial records and the names of its donors. 

 Organizers also want those at the head of host committee—Hilferty, Comcast nabob David Cohen, and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell—to resign.

Hilferty’s house was activists’ last stop on Thursday. Earlier in the evening, the protesters had also caravanned between the homes of Cohen and Rendell to protest on their literal doorsteps.

At Hilferty’s stately stone manor, the delegation of 30 to 40 protesters taped its demands to Hilferty’s front door, and chanted through a cycle of protest cries, starting with “Independence Blue Cross, you profit off our loss” and ending with a rousing round of “Hey hey, ho ho, the host committee has got to go.”

In a Census tract occupied by residents with a median income of $110,887, the ruckus created a relative chaos that shattered the otherwise-quiet early summer evening. Dogs were barking, the neighbors on their front lawns muttering, and one of the activists launched into a passionate speech denouncing Hilferty’s checkered ties with special interests.

“The common theme across everyone we visited today is that special interest and money in politics transcends any given candidate, any given political issue, and any given election,” says Sameer Khetan, one of the organizers with Reclaim Philadelphia and a former volunteer on the Sanders campaign. “Now thankfully in this current national election, we’ve seen the veil drop on the influence of dark money in politics. But with these guys and their refusal to reveal their donor list, they’ve brazenly mocked the gains we’ve made.”

Khetan rattled off the names of politicians who received contributions from Hilferty in the 2016 election cycle, which sounded like a who’s-who of so-called establishment Republicans: Chris Christie ($2,700), John Kasich ($2,000), and Jeb Bush ($2,700). He also gave Hillary Clinton $2,700.

The loudest chorus of boos came when Khetan revealed that Hilferty gave $10,000 to a PAC backing arch-conservative Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey.

It was about that time that the cops and arrived and the protesters, already drifting toward their cars, decisively scattered. The officers were left to pick through the bushes, and contemplate the “Resign Hilferty” signs left behind.

Reclaim Philadelphia is one of a profusion of left-wing groups across the country that have popped up in the wake of the Bernie Sanders campaign. These loosely knit activist organizations seem to be largely independent of their erstwhile presidential hopeful, and are preparing plans of their own, regardless of his next moves.

After Sanders endorsed his Democratic primary rival, Hillary Clinton, he blasted an email to supporters promising “the creation of successor organizations to carry on the struggle.” (In The Washington Post, his campaign manager said as many as three new organizations could be in the offing.) But groups like Reclaim Philadelphia aren’t waiting around for their former candidate to act.

 

“There’s too much money in politics,” said Xelba Gutierrez, one of the media representatives for the organization and a former Sanders volunteer, as she headed off on Wednesday toward the first house on Reclaim Philadelphia’s list. “It’s like we don’t have a voice, like we don’t have power, like not even voting gets the job done. That’s the whole point of what we are doing, to work on the issues.”

Asked how she feels about Sanders endorsing Clinton, she just smiles and shrugs. The people who were never going to vote for her won’t, she says, and those who are willing to will pull the lever. “He said from the beginning that he would endorse the winner,” says Gutierrez. “We are glad that he pushed the Democratic platform to be more progressive.”

For the past several weeks, Reclaim Philadelphia has focused on the quarterly fundraising reports the host committee files with the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (the public institution that extended the convention $15 million on credit). Although Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records demanded the reports be released last month, the host committee hasn’t complied. and is fighting the issue in the courts. That’s why Reclaim Philadelphia is engaging in its own pressure campaign.

“We decline to comment on the group's activities,” wrote Anna Adams-Sarthou, media representative of the host committee, in an email. “Regarding the finance component: We are fully in compliance with the law, and to state otherwise is to not understand the facts. As we said repeatedly, we will disclose our donors 60 days after the Convention, in accordance with the FEC.”

Last week, Reclaim Philadelphia delivered letters to the Center City Philadelphia offices of Hilferty, Comcast’s David Cohen, and ex-Governor Rendell, who is also Philadelphia’s former mayor. They were rebuffed, so this week they went to the three men’s houses. Next week will see a further escalation of tactics, organizers say, although they would not share the details.

Reclaim Philadelphia is far from the only organization with ties to the former Sanders campaign that has big plans for the weeks and months ahead. The group Democracy Spring has promised to mass activists for civil disobedience during the Democratic National Convention July 25–28, although they have released sparse details about when and where.

“The Democratic Party must live up to its name and do whatever it takes to make this the last corrupt, billionaire-dominated, voter suppression-maimed election of our lives,” wrote Kai Newkirk,

Democracy Spring’s mission director, in a press release. Newkirk has previously been arrested for speaking out against the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling during its oral arguments. “Hillary took a big step in laying out a strong democracy reform agenda on Tuesday, but we need to hear a pledge from her and Congressional leaders that they will pass it as a first priority if elected.”

The group wants electoral reforms, including the abolition of superdelegates. To press their campaign, they claim to have more than 100 people signed up to perform acts of nonviolent civil disobedience during the convention, including a few celebrities, like actress Rosario Dawson.

“We were inspired by Bernie Sanders, but the political revolution wasn’t about him,” says Desiree Kane, the media representative of Democracy Spring. “This is our democracy too, and we’re here to participate.”

There are other groups inspired by Sanders, whose organizers are more reluctant to try to force change on a resistant Democratic Party. A local organization called the Philly Socialists, which does not directly involve itself in electoral politics, is helping to put together a “Socialist Convergence” during the week of the DNC to game its next steps. Although all the groups involved predate the Sanders campaign, some of the largest endorsed him, including the Democratic Socialists of America and Socialist Alternative. All of them hope to use the momentum and excitement generated by his effort for their own campaigns, on down-ballot races, or for the Green Party.

But at the Reclaim Philadelphia actions on Wednesday evening, the rhetoric wasn’t often directed against the Democratic Party, per se. Many people spoke of their excitement about the party’s new platform, which is being called the most left-wing since George McGovern’s nomination in 1972.

Reclaim Philadelphia’s demands for the resignation of the host committee’s top leadership isn’t just about the records, organizers say, but about their suspect status as Democrats.

Cohen supported and raised money for the extremely unpopular former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, who slashed education budgets and crippled school districts across the state (Philadelphia’s suffering was especially acute). Rendell is very much the kind of Third Way, pro-business Democrat that Sanders supporters have reviled, and he recently allied himself with Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles in a campaign to “Fix The Debt” by cutting Social Security and Medicare.

On the doorsteps of Cohen and Hilferty, Reclaim Philadelphia declared Wednesday that men like these aren’t the future of the Democratic Party. The effort seems unlikely to topple these three men.

But the party’s rich and powerful players, while they will always have influence, may now be forced to share the stage with a profusion of Sanders-inspired activists who are trying to push the Democratic Party to the left.

“[David Cohen] demonstrates through his values that he does not represent the Democratic Party,” declared Emily Strausbaugh on Wednesday, standing on the Comcast executive’s front steps with a bullhorn. “David Cohen is not an appropriate person to have at the top of our party.”

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

By Doktor Zoom -

July 15, 2016 - 12:20pm

 

You might want to sit down for this one, kids: Would you believe that Donald Trump, his daughter Ivanka, and his son Donald Junior have all been named in a lawsuit involving a massive tax avoidance scam related to four Trump-branded real estate deals? Astonishing, we know — we’ll give you a nano-second to catch your breath.

The story comes to us once again from the Daily Beast’s David Cay Johnston, who has made dogging Trump on taxes his personal beat. Now, it’s worth noting, as Johnston does right up front, that Trump is not personally accused of wrongdoing in the suit. Not yet, at least! Here’s the dealio:

He is described as a “material witness” in the evasion of taxes on as much as $250 million in income. According to the court papers, that includes $100 million in profits and $65 million in real-estate transfer taxes from a Manhattan high rise project bearing his familiar name.

However, his status may change, according to the lawyers who filed the lawsuit, Richard Lerner and Frederick M. Oberlander, citing Trump’s testimony about Felix Sater, a convicted stock swindler at the center of the alleged scheme.

This Felix Sater guy is quite the “colorful character,” as we’ll see in a moment. But how about the Trumps? What’s their involvement in this? Mostly, getting buttloads of money while others do the work (dirty or not), as is their lot in life:

Trump received tens of millions of dollars in fees and partnership interests in one of the four projects, the Trump Soho New York, a luxury high rise in lower Manhattan. His son Donald Junior and his daughter Ivanka also were paid in fees and partnership interests, the lawyers said, and are also material witnesses in the case.

As usual, there’s a nice record of Trump and his family hanging out with Sater, the convicted stock swindler guy: Trump and Sater traveled all over the place together, and “were photographed and interviewed in Denver and Loveland, Colorado, Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale, and New York.” The younger Trumplings also met with Sater at least once, in Moscow, according to an attorney for the Trump Organization. By now, you should know what’s coming: Trump, who enjoys telling the media he has the greatest memory of any human alive, insists he barely even knows this Sater guy:

Trump has testified about Sater in a Florida lawsuit accusing the two of them of fraud in a failed high-rise project. Trump testified that he had a glancing knowledge of Sater and would not recognize him if he were sitting in the room.

He meets lots of people. And if some of them are accused of fraud, or if he’s insulted them publicly for being disabled, then maybe he doesn’t remember them so good anymore. It’s kind of weird that Trump has no idea who Sater was and wouldn’t recognize him, though, seeing as how Sater ran an investment firm, “Bayrock,” which had its offices in Trump Tower, and worked a bunch of development deals for Trump-branded office buildings. Still, Trump Tower’s a big building, and you can’t expect Donald to know all his tenants. It’s not like he’s running a boarding house. Oh, except maybe this would suggest Sater knew Trump a little better than the doorman:

Sater then moved into the Trump Organization offices. He carried a business card, issued by the Trump Organization, identifying him as a “senior adviser” to Trump.

Can’t imagine why anyone would think Trump knew the guy.

Now, we’ll let you guys go read Johnston’s piece for all the fun financial details of the tax fraud lawsuit, because lawyer-and-money stuff makes our eyes go all funny; what it comes down to is that partners in the four Trump-branded developments allegedly didn’t properly report their profits on the deals, and that the defendants (who, again, don’t include “material witnesses” Trump and kids — yet) are alleged to owe at least “$7 million in New York state income taxes, a sum that would be tripled” if the lawsuit is successful. And then, if the feds decide to get involved, there’d be another $35 million in unpaid federal taxes.

Johnston also details a convoluted string of other legal actions involving Sater, all of which thumped against each other like dominoes to lead to the unsealing of the current tax evasion lawsuit. This is where Safer’s associations start getting really interesting. Back in 1998, Sater pleaded guilty to running a stock swindle, in which

the $40 million fleeced from investors went to him, the Genovese and Gambino crime families and others.

In 1998 Sater pleaded guilty in federal court, but the plea was kept secret. Sater was sentenced in secret in 2009 to probation and a $25,000 fine with no jail time and no requirement to make restitution.

Huh! Mobbed up partners — this Sater sounds like a fine person to do business with. And a personal charmer, too, Johnston notes:

That was an extraordinarily light sentence, especially given Sater’s violent past. In 1991 he admitted to shoving the broken stem of a margarita glass into a man’s face and was sentenced to two years.

Well, yeah, but he’d paid his debt to society, and nobody got a margarita glass in the face in the stock fraud case.

Besides, even though Sater is a really colorful guy (who might also have been an undercover operative for the CIA, maybe), Donald Trump hardly even knows him, and in fact was not part of that 1998 scheme. He just knows guys who know guys, is all. We certainly are not suggesting there’s any dirty money paying for all the gold plating on Trump properties, because we’d never hint at gilt by association.

On the other hand, notes Johnston, it’s awfully suspicious curious, maybe, that Donald Trump has refused to release any of his income tax returns, which every single presidential nominee has done since Richard Nixon in 1972. Trump says it’s because his taxes from 2012 to now are being audited, but there’s nothing preventing him from releasing them anyway:

Mark Everson, a former commissioner of Internal Revenue has said there is no reason to hold the returns back, even assuming they are being audited.

He has offered no explanation for not releasing his returns for 2011 and earlier, years on which he has said the audits are closed.

As Johnston points out, documents from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission show Trump paid no income taxes at all in 1978, 1979, 1992, and 1994, and as Johnston previously reported, Trump somehow managed not to pay income taxes in 1984, “by far his most lucrative year in his career to that point.” Sort of makes you wonder what we’d find out if we got a look at Trump’s taxes.

Probably nothing interesting in those tax returns at all. Trump’s merely humble, and wouldn’t want anyone to think he was bragging about being a an incredibly wealthy, generous, and scrupulously honest businessman who’s also a Law And Order kind of guy.

 [Daily Beast]

Donald Trump selects Mike Pence as VP

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

Philadelphia Airport Workers Just Voted to Strike During Democratic Convention

By Zach Cartwright

All the political luminaries, delegates, and journalists attending the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia may be flying directly into a chaotic mess if employers don’t negotiate with airport workers.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, SEIU 32BJ, the union fighting to represent workers at the Philadelphia International Airport, is demanding the city grant airport employees the right to unionize. They also made requests for clarity on the airport’s paid sick day policy, an end to irregular scheduling, and a fairer disciplinary system.

“The purpose of the DNC is to lift workers out of poverty,” 32BJ area Vice President Gabe Morgan said.

“Fifteen dollars an hour is a plank in the DNC,” he continued. “It was huge subject of debate during the Democratic Primary, and really what these workers are fighting for is the same thing the DNC is fighting for in the upcoming national election.”

The vote to strike passed overwhelmingly by a 461-5 vote, and will apply to roughly 1,000 airport workers who are hired by various subcontractors that the airlines use to conduct daily operations. The striking employees will include baggage handlers, wheelchair attendants, airplane cleaners, and others. Should the strike go forward, the lack of available staffing may result in extended flight delays for travelers arriving to and departing from Philadelphia.

Morgan told the Inquirer the strike is unique to airport workers, as other unionized employees already have fair contracts and would not be striking during the convention, which takes place from July 25-28. He added that the union’s past organizing has resulted in multiple victories for workers at Philadelphia International, including a $12/hour minimum wage.

No date has yet been announced for the strike. As of this writing, there has been no indication from the companies subcontracting with the airport that they’re willing to meet workers’ demands. The Philadelphia convention host committee has also not commented on the strike.

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

 Strike at PHL averted during DNC

Someone finished Doom's insane permadeath mode without any upgrades

By Zero Master

Doom on Ultra-Nightmare difficulty without any upgrades!

The graphic settings are different for this run compared to my previous ultra-nightmare run. I changed to ultra settings and 105 FOV (120 FOV is max, my other video was 90). I also reduced the bitrate\quality of the recording a bit to reduce the size\upload time. I also removed glory kill highlight, compass and changed crosshair.

No upgrades are:
- No weapon upgrades
- No armor upgrades
- No runes
- No argent cells (first cell is forced)

And no use of glitches\sequence skips, as that would make it trivial.

- No weapon upgrades does a lot less damage.
- The armor upgrades are very useful for preventing massive damage from barrels and self-rockets, and also missing faster weapon switch as well as more effective powerups\grenades. A single barrel or a face rocket can end your run very quickly.
- No runes will not allow me to grab runes like for example saving throw which gives me a second chance, rich get richer which gives me infinite ammo, or equipment powerup which allows me to get armor from the siphon grenades.
- No argent cells gives me a lot less health, armor and ammo. I can't afford to lose my health from the mega health powerups later on, as I can't go over 100\50 from pickups. The lack of ammo makes it very important to be aware of where the ammo pickups are and not to waste the chainsaw ammo.

This UNM run is over an hour faster than my previous one, the main reasons are because I play a lot better, I know where to go and without upgrades I don't have to spend any time doing rune challenges, grabbing secrets etc.

Why did I decide to do it without upgrades? Apparently a lot of people have beaten it now on ultra-nightmare, so I figured I'd take it a step further. But the main reason is because it's a very fun way to play the game! I play a lot more aggressive this time and I don't end up just using gauss cannon with rich get richer rune to clear everything late game.

Misc:

Previously I've died at the cyberdemon to a very strange attack combo that I don't think should be possible, (you can watch that here: https://youtu.be/2Ph7FYhwics

 I also died at the hell guardians, I didn't practice the fight properly and without upgrades it was more difficult than last time. Also included in the video above is a death at titan's realm.

I had a crash at the start of the 4th level, never happened there before. I didn't have any other crashes besides that and fortunately it happened at the start of the level.

I don't know why my helmet was white at the hell guardians, never seen that before, as it should be either red or yellow.

The Truth Revealed

Sharing Your Netflix Password Is Now A Federal Crime

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

On July 5^th , the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion which found, in part, that sharing passwords is a crime prosecutable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). The decision, according to a dissenting opinion on the case, makes millions of people who share passwords for services like Netflix and HBOGo into “unwitting federal criminals.”

Robbers Are Using Pokémon Go To Target Victims

By Daniel Politi

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

By Evan Hurst

MOMMY AND DADDY LOVE EACH OTHER AGAIN!!

Well, well, well, the time has come. Sources named Bernie Sanders said in an interview Thursday that “We have got to do everything that we can to defeat Donald Trump and elect Hillary Clinton.”

And by EVERYTHING, he means EVERYTHING. That involves voting and making phone calls, and then voting in the place of a dead person (kidding!) and then ‘splaining to your on-the-fence neighbor who can’t stand Trump but somehow thinks Hillary’s emails mean she is a criminal, how that is not true. And why should we do that? Tell us, Bernie:

“I don’t honestly know how we would survive four years of a Donald Trump … “

SO NOTED. So is an official endorsement about to happen? It would appear that way! The Huffington Post reports that Hillz and Bernie will do a rally together in New Hampshire on Tuesday!

Bernie will say, “I didn’t give a damn about your emails when we were running against each other, and I don’t give a damn about them now!” And Hillz will say, “You had some really great ideas, like the free college thing, and I am trying to work some of those things into my plans, so all the Democrats can get back to blowjobs, candy canes and defeating Donald Trump!” And Bernie will reply, “I like candy canes! They are cunning in their use of stripes!”

OK, where were we? Oh yeah, endorsement. So that’s probably happening Tuesday, unless Bernie decides to pull a GOTCHA! like he did in June, when he said he was voting for Hillary, but then like one hour later he was like “Yeah PROBABLY, no promises,” just like Donald Trump was like “Yeah PROBABLY” about whether he’ll serve as president if he’s elected.

So what tipped Bernie over into Hillary’s green pastures? The “free college for most” thing? Maybe so! Or maybe it’s that the Democratic Party platform is likely to include some very nice Bernie-esque things like support for a $15 minimum wage. Or maybe Bernie is just an overall mensch and smart guy who means it when he says a Trump presidency would be a dumpster fire of epic proportions.

As for Bernie’s supporters, they’re coming around, and his endorsement will help that along quite nicely. Oh, a few dead-enders are going apeshit over the FBI’s decision not to murder Hillary Clinton in her crib over “emails,” but they’re not the majority.

So hooray, put it on your calendars, for Tuesday is the day mommy and daddy are getting married again, WITH VOTES.

[Bloomberg / Huffington Post]

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

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

People Need To See The Truth About Police Violence!

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

BUSTED: Republican Trey Gowdy Caught Using Private Email Server

By Colin Taylor

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Republicans across the country have been obsessing over former Secretary of State and presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time at the State Department.

But what Republicans really should be asking is:

What about Gowdy’s private email server?

On July 5, Clinton was cleared by a team of FBI investigators led by FBI Director James Comey. Dismayed by the fact that their email-centric political witch hunt failed to indict Clinton just weeks after the Benghazi “scandal” also cleared her, they decided to investigate the investigators and take on Comey. Gowdy led a portion of Comey’s interrogation.

Which makes it all the more hypocritical to learn that Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) has been exposed for having his own personal email server at treygowdy.com. AlterNet remarks that “while it’s not unusual to maintain such a thing particularly for campaign work, it’s not clear that Gowdy utilizes this email solely for political campaign work and not congressional tasks.”

Requests for comment by both Alternet and Correct The Record‘s David Brock were both ignored by the Gowdy camp, which is highly indicative that he does use his personal email for Congressional work- if he had nothing to hide, why wouldn’t he just say so? Especially with the integrity of his failed committee under such harsh scrutiny by the rest of the nation, demanding answers for the colossal misuse of public funds and time. Gowdy had better be ready to put his own actions under the microscope.

Here is the full text of David Brock’s inquiry:

Dear Chairman Gowdy:

I noted with interest your public demand that Secretary Clinton turn over her personal email server, presumably so that the committee can access some 30,000 Clinton emails deemed to be strictly private and beyond the reach of the government.

This Orwellian demand has no basis in law or precedent. Every government employee decides for themselves what email is work-related and what is strictly private. There is no reason to hold Secretary Clinton to a different standard— except partisan politics.

But since you insist that Clinton’s private email be accessed, I’m writing today to ask you and your staff to abide by the same standard you seek to hold the Secretary to by releasing your own work-related and private email and that of your staff to the public.

While I realize that Congress regularly exempts itself from laws that apply to the executive branch, I believe this action is necessary to ensure public confidence in the fairness and  impartiality of your investigation.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

David Brock
Correct The Record

The next time someone says ‘all lives matter,’ show them these 5 paragraphs

By groundloop 

I found this link from a posting on Facebook, it's very much worth reading. (I wish I could write as eloquently as this).

http://fusion.net/story/170591/the-next-time-someone-says-all-lives-matter-show-them-these-5-paragraphs/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialshare&utm_content=theme_top_desktop

This week, high-profile police killings of two black men—Alton Sterling of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Philando Castile, who was killed in Falcon Heights, Minnesota—have renewed heated debates about police violence, and brought the Black Lives Matter movement back into the spotlight.

Every time this happens, cries of “Black Lives Matter” tend to be met with the response “All Lives Matter.” Even presidential candidates have made this mistake—last year, Hillary Clinton said “All Lives Matter,” though she has since corrected herself. And lots of white people have expressed confusion about why it’s controversial to broaden the #BlackLivesMatter movement to include people of all races.

The real issue is that, while strictly true, “All Lives Matter” is a tone-deaf slogan that distracts from the real problems black people in America face.

The best explanation we’ve seen so far comes from Reddit, of all places. Last year, in an “Explain Like I’m 5” thread, user GeekAesthete explained, clearly and succinctly, why changing #BlackLivesMatter to #AllLivesMatter is an act of erasure that makes lots of people cringe.

GeekAesthete explains:

Imagine that you’re sitting down to dinner with your family, and while everyone else gets a serving of the meal, you don’t get any. So you say “I should get my fair share.” And as a direct response to this, your dad corrects you, saying, “everyone should get their fair share.” Now, that’s a wonderful sentiment — indeed, everyone should, and that was kinda your point in the first place: that you should be a part of everyone, and you should get your fair share also. However, dad’s smart-ass comment just dismissed you and didn’t solve the problem that you still haven’t gotten any!

The problem is that the statement “I should get my fair share” had an implicit “too” at the end: “I should get my fair share, too, just like everyone else.” But your dad’s response treated your statement as though you meant “only I should get my fair share”, which clearly was not your intention. As a result, his statement that “everyone should get their fair share,” while true, only served to ignore the problem you were trying to point out.

That’s the situation of the “black lives matter” movement. Culture, laws, the arts, religion, and everyone else repeatedly suggest that all lives should matter. Clearly, that message already abounds in our society.

The problem is that, in practice, the world doesn’t work that way. You see the film Nightcrawler? You know the part where Renee Russo tells Jake Gyllenhal that she doesn’t want footage of a black or latino person dying, she wants news stories about affluent white people being killed? That’s not made up out of whole cloth — there is a news bias toward stories that the majority of the audience (who are white) can identify with. So when a young black man gets killed (prior to the recent police shootings), it’s generally not considered “news”, while a middle-aged white woman being killed is treated as news. And to a large degree, that is accurate — young black men are killed in significantly disproportionate numbers, which is why we don’t treat it as anything new. But the result is that, societally, we don’t pay as much attention to certain people’s deaths as we do to others. So, currently, we don’t treat all lives as though they matter equally.

Just like asking dad for your fair share, the phrase “black lives matter” also has an implicit “too” at the end: it’s saying that black lives should also matter. But responding to this by saying “all lives matter” is willfully going back to ignoring the problem. It’s a way of dismissing the statement by falsely suggesting that it means “only black lives matter,” when that is obviously not the case. And so saying “all lives matter” as a direct response to “black lives matter” is essentially saying that we should just go back to ignoring the problem.

Yep, there you go. Bookmark it, print it out, give it to your friends.

Nate Silver: 79 percent chance Clinton wins

 By Nolan D. McCaskill

Hillary Clinton has a nearly 80 percent chance of winning the White House in November, FiveThirtyEight polling guru Nate Silver predicted Wednesday.

FiveThirtyEight projected Clinton has a 79 percent chance of winning the general election against Donald Trump, who has just a 20 percent chance of succeeding President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

“Here’s how to think about it: We’re kind of at halftime of the election right now, and she’s taking a seven-point, maybe a 10-point lead into halftime,” Silver told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America.” “There’s a lot of football left to be played, but she’s ahead in almost every poll, every swing state, every national poll.”

Indeed, a Ballotpedia survey of seven swing states released Wednesday shows the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee sweeping Trump in Iowa, Michigan, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia by margins ranging from 4 to 17 percentage points.

Silver, who correctly forecast 49 out of 50 states in 2008 and every state in 2012, noted that both camps “have a lot of room to grow,” but no candidate has blown a lead as large as Clinton’s advantage over Trump in nearly 30 years, when former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis lost to George H.W. Bush despite maintaining a large lead coming out of the spring and summer.

“It’s been a crazy year, politically,” Silver said, adding that more states, particularly red states, are in play in 2016 than in previous elections. “For example, Arizona looks like a toss-up. Maybe Georgia. Maybe Missouri, North Carolina again.”

“Likewise,” Silver continued, “if Trump gains ground on Clinton then maybe a state like Maine — used to be a swing state, not so recently” — could be in play, too.

Silver also defended his August forecast that gave the billionaire businessman a 2 percent chance to win the GOP nomination.

“That wasn’t based on looking at polls. Trump was always ahead in the polls, and one big lesson of his campaign is don’t try and out-think the polls and try and out-think the American public,” Silver said. “And Trump has never really been ahead of Clinton in the general election campaign. He did a great job of appealing to the 40 percent of the GOP he had to win the election, the primary — a lot different than winning 51 percent of 100 percent.”

Trump has himself to blame for GOP strife

Lawrence O’Donnell has a thorough explanation of the woes plaguing Donald Trump’s campaign as Trump complains he’s running against two parties while a new scandal develops with the ‘Trump Institute.’ Stuart Stevens and Eugene Robinson join the discussion.

The system really is rigged: Why “winner-take-all” voting is killing our democracy

The Electoral College makes it virtually impossible for a third party to challenge the system

By Sophia A. McClennen
 

 

Gary Johnson, Jill Stein   (Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson/Jonathan Ernst)

 

Ever since Hillary Clinton became the “presumptive nominee” for the Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders supporters have been faced with a seemingly impossible dilemma: Vote for someone you hate (Clinton) or vote for someone despicable (Trump). You either cast your vote toward someone you see as a shill for corporate interests or you vote for a bigoted monster. There is a real sense that there simply is no other choice.

If you lean left and you haven’t moved from feeling the Bern to being with “her,” then you have likely been suffering from what I call “vote shaming.” Vote shaming takes place when a Clinton supporter tells you that it will be your fault if Trump wins. Vote shaming, like fat shaming and its ilk, depends on assuming that there is only one way to be—get on board or get bullied. Even Sanders himself seems to have succumbed to vote shaming, having announced he will vote for Clinton in order to help defeat Trump.

But vote shaming seems to have caused unanticipated blowback. As mind boggling as it may be to consider, many Sanders supporters are actually suggesting they will  choose Trump over Clinton. A June 14 Bloomberg Politics national poll of likely voters in November’s election found that just over half of those who favored Sanders — 55 percent — plan to vote for Clinton.

According to Bloomberg, 22 percent of Sanders supporters say they’ll vote for Trump. They quote Laura Armes, a 43-year-old homemaker from Beeville, Texas, who participated in the poll and plans to vote Trump: “I’m a registered Democrat, but I cannot bring myself to vote for another establishment politician like Hillary. I don’t agree with a lot of what Trump says. But he won’t owe anybody. What you see is what you get.”

Stop and ponder how crazy that is for a moment. Frustration with establishment politics is so high that folks will vote for a misogynistic, racist, egomaniacal buffoon over a party insider. Anger over a sense that the primary season was rigged, that Clinton lacks integrity, and that the voting process was unjust has driven supporters of a progressive candidate toward one who has been repeatedly described as fascist. For some Sanders supporters, #NeverHillary can only mean Trump.

That false logic is a clear sign of how our democracy is rigged and our system is flawed: Voters frustrated with the system are planning to cast their votes within the same system.

Armes, like many other Sanders supporters, never considered a third option. It never occurred to her to vote for Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, or Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. Armes was thinking in the binary two-party logic that forces her to choose between either a Democrat or a Republican.

There is only one way to win an election for president in our country today and that is by being the nominee of one of the two principal parties. The reason for this is that we have “winner-take-all” system. In almost every state, the candidate with the majority of votes wins all of the Electoral College votes. So voting for a third party can really skew the outcome. Even worse, it usually skews it away from your likely second-choice candidate toward the person you fear winning the most.

This is why many Sanders supporters who now say they are voting Clinton have switched over. In general, they won’t be voting for Clinton because they like her; they will be voting for Clinton because they are terrified of Trump. And the same dislike is taking place on the other side of the political spectrum. Voters are supporting Trump because they deeply dislike Clinton.

In fact, as Harry Enten reports for Five Thirty Eight, “Clinton and Trump are both more strongly disliked than any nominee at this point in the past 10 presidential cycles.” So this really is the election between two evils. The only question, thus far, has been which of the two is the worst one.

Dissatisfaction with voting choices, though, may have opened a window for serious debate about an alternative voting system. In an interview with Green Party candidate Jill Stein for Redacted Tonight VIP, Lee Camp asked Stein how voters could justify “wasting” a vote on her. Stein said the answer was simple: change the system from winner take all to ranked choice voting.

As FairVote.org explains, ranked choice voting makes democracy more fair and functional. In ranked choice voting, alternatively known as instant-runoff voting, voters rank their votes. If your first choice does not win, then your vote goes to your second choice, and so on. So, under ranked voting, you could vote Stein first, then Clinton. That would guarantee that a vote for Stein could not actually help Trump. It would also guarantee that we could get a fair and accurate assessment of how many people really picked Clinton or Trump as their first choice. If it seems complicated, check out a sample ballot here.

Ranked choice voting is used in local elections throughout the country. It is also used in national elections in Ireland and New Zealand. It has a history of making elections more open and fair. Even more importantly, it encourages candidates to cultivate a broad, moderate base of support rather than intense, zealous supporters.

Proponents of the system also point out that if we had used it in the 2000 elections, Al Gore would have beaten George H. W. Bush in Florida, since most of the voters who chose Ralph Nader first would have chosen Gore second.

The mere idea that voting for Nader wrecked the election and skewed votes leading to a Bush Jr. presidency should be sign enough that we are due for change. Voters who wanted to support a splinter candidate were punished for exercising their rights. The problem is not just the anti-democratic nature of the Electoral College; it is the way the all-or-nothing system forces a two-party duopoly that can’t be challenged without grave consequences.

In the past 200 years, there have been 700 proposals introduced to Congress to change or eliminate the Electoral College. As the National Archives reports, “There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject.” Scholars also agree that the Electoral College makes it virtually impossible for a third party to challenge the system.

The reasons for considering an alternative voting system go beyond a desire to give third parties a chance for greater visibility and more votes. There is much more at stake. First of all, the winner-take-all system increases fear-based voting. Voters are more inclined to vote against a candidate than to vote for someone.

And second, our current system increases partisanship since candidates campaign more on their differences from other candidates than on their actual policies. Research by Pew shows a marked increase in political polarization. This is especially true in Congress, where “partisanship or non-cooperation … has been increasing exponentially for over 60 years with no sign of abating or reversing.”

In contrast, ranked choice voting has been proven to reduce political polarization because candidates are not simply fighting to be #1, they are also hoping to be considered as backup choices, which often means reaching across party lines. When San Francisco implemented it in 2004, observers noticed a direct decrease in hostility among rival candidates.

But the biggest reason to consider an alternative system is the health of our democracy. FairVote.org reports that according to domestic and international experts, “US elections are rated as the worst among all Western democracies.”

From the influence of big money in races to dysfunctional polling places to voters purged from rosters, this election cycle has been plagued by endless allegations of election flaws. As Matthew Cooke points out, when AP called the primary early for Clinton, that was just the frosting on a series of election disasters.

All of this points to an election cycle that offers new opportunities for a third party candidate. Johnson is polling at 10 percent nationally and appears to have about 18 percent of Sanders supporters. Stein, when she is included in polls, seems to be pulling about 5 percent of the vote. It is all very exciting for both Johnson and Stein, who have a chance to increase the visibility of their platforms, but without ranked choice voting those too afraid of Trump or Clinton will still likely vote out of fear.

So, as you ponder the two unappealing choices likely to head the November ballot, consider bucking the closed two-party system and voting a third way, but more importantly consider fighting to change the rigged system that got us into this mess.

Sophia A. McClennen is Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University. She writes on the intersections between culture, politics, and society. Her latest book, co-authored with Remy M. Maisel, is, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics. 

 

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