Hey Jebster,....if you want their cash, kiss their ass!.....
Matthew Dowd, who was chief strategist for George W. Bush’s 2004 campaign, on Sunday ripped
Republican presidential hopefuls for lowering themselves to “kiss the
ring” of billionaires like Las Vegas casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson. During a Sunday panel segment on ABC’s This Week, host George Stephanopolous noted
that many potential 2016 candidates like former Gov. Jeb Bush, Gov.
Scott Walker, Gov. John Kasich and Gov. Chris Christie had already met
with Adelson.
“I think it’s ridiculous that these candidates for president are trumping out to Las Vegas to go kiss the ring of a billionaire casino owner,” Dowd said. “And they think that’s somehow going to help them get elected president.”
“I think money matters so much less than your own capacity as a
candidate,” he continued. “What is your message? What’s your vision for
the country.”
“They would be much better off spending time back where they live —
instead of flying to Las Vegas — and figuring out what’s their message,
what’s their vision, and how are they going to covey that to the
American public.”
Another day goes by as unemployed Americans suffer at the hand of Speaker John
Boehner. Ed Schultz and Sen. Sherrod Brown discuss the out of touch GOP.
Perennial prognosticator Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com has
released his Senate predictions. He appeared on ABC’s ThisWeek where he
provided news that Democrats are likely to dislike. He says there is a
60% chance that the Republicans will take the Senate.
Visit the Nate Silver FiveThirtyEight’s complete analysis here. As usual Nate Silver encourages everyone to read his analysis with caution. He writes.
As always, we encourage you to read this analysis with some
caution. Republicans have great opportunities in a number of states, but
only in West Virginia, South Dakota, Montana and Arkansas do we rate
the races as clearly leaning their way. Republicans will also have to
win at least two toss-up races, perhaps in Alaska, North Carolina or
Michigan, or to convert states such as New Hampshire into that category.
And they’ll have to avoid taking losses of their own in Georgia and
Kentucky, where the fundamentals favor them but recent polls show
extremely competitive races.
Nate Silver says the most reliable metric to gage an election is the
generic congressional ballot. Right now they are even. Because of
midterm turnout history, this likely means electorally there is a 6
point Republican advantage. Additionally there are more Democratic
senators defending in Republicans states than the converse.
Democrats should not feel deflated by the report. Republicans should
not feel emboldened by the report. Nate Silver has an important message
everyone must heed.
In plain language: sometimes one party wins most or all
of the competitive races. If we had conducted this exercise at this
point in the 2006, 2008 or 2012 campaigns, that party would have been
the Democrats. In 2010, it would have been the Republicans. There are
still more than seven months for news events to intervene and affect the
national climate.
There are 10 races that each party has at least a 25 percent chance
of winning, according to our ratings. If Republicans were to win all of
them, they would gain a net of 11 seats from Democrats, which would give
them a 56-44 majority in the new Senate. If Democrats were to sweep,
they would lose a net of just one seat and hold a 54-46 majority.
So our forecast might be thought of as a Republican gain of six seats
— plus or minus five. The balance has shifted slightly toward the GOP.
But it wouldn’t take much for it to revert to the Democrats, nor for
this year to develop into a Republican rout along the lines of 2010.
Nate Silver Goes Over His Current Analysis on ThisWeek.
These polls are a snapshot in time. Instead of getting apprehensive
about them, one needs to act. The electorate is always in flux and
whichever party is able to break through with a middle class centric
message will win. Obamacare will be a factor in the election. Currently
it is a slight net negative. The tide will turn when one begins using
effective truthful language, wordsmith, and examples average Americans can relate to.
Karen Finney tries to sort out the serious from the plain silly of
missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 theories with security expert and
former pilot Anthony Roman.
On Sunday, I took my son to see two movies at a French film festival that was in town. The
local train was out. We walked over to Amsterdam to flag down a cab.
The cab rolled right past us and picked up two young-ish white women. It's
sort of amazing how often that happens. It's sort of amazing how often
you think you are going to be permitted to act as Americans do and
instead receive the reminder—"Oh that's right, we are just some niggers. I almost forgot."
Getting angry at the individual cabbie
is like getting angry at the wind or raging against the rain. In
America, the notion that black people are lacking in virtue is ambient.
We see this in our vocabulary of politics and racism, which has no room for the decline in the out-of-wedlock birthrate and invokes Chicago with no regard for Chicago at all, but to deflect all eyes from the body of Trayvon Martin.
But I was angry, and very much wanted
to approach the cabbie, idling there at a red light, in ill disposition.
I was also with my son. And more, I am a 6-foot-4 black dude who tries
to avoid the police. I think, 15
years ago, with nothing to lose, I would have made a different decision,
if only because the culture of my young years made a virtue of meeting
disrespect with aggression. This
culture was not wrong—the price of ignoring disrespect, in the old town,
was more disrespect. The culture was a collection of the best practices for making our socially engineered inner cities habitable. I now live in a different environment. I now have different practices.
Last week, Paul Ryan went on the radio to address the lack of virtue prevalent among men who grew up like me, my father, my brothers, my best friends, and a large number of my people:
We
have got this tailspin of culture, in our inner cities in particular,
of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about
working or learning the value and the culture of work, and so there is a
real culture problem here that has to be dealt with.
A number of liberals reacted harshly to Ryan. I'm not sure why. What Ryan said here is not very far from what Bill Cosby, Michael Nutter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama said before him. The
idea that poor people living in the inner city, and particularly black
men, are "not holding up their end of the deal" as Cosby put it, is not
terribly original or even, these days, right-wing. From the president on
down there is an accepted belief in America—black and white—that
African-American people, and African-American men, in particular, are lacking in the virtues in family, hard work, and citizenship:
If Cousin Pookie would vote, if Uncle Jethro would get off the couch
and stop watching SportsCenter and go register some folks and go to the
polls, we might have a different kind of politics.
Cousin Pookie and Uncle Jethro voted at higher rates than any other
ethnic group in the country. They voted for Barack Obama. Our politics
have not changed. Neither has Barack Obama's rhetoric. Facts
can only get in the way of a good story. It was sort of stunning to see
the president give a speech on the fate of young black boys and not
mention the word racism once. It was sort of stunning to see the
president salute the father of Trayvon Martin and the father of Jordan
Davis and then claim, "Nothing keeps a young man out of trouble like a
father who takes an active role in his son’s life."
From what I can tell, the major
substantive difference between Ryan and Obama is that Obama's actual
policy agenda regarding black America is serious, and Ryan's isn't. But
Ryan's point—that the a pathological culture has taken root among an
alarming portion of black people—is basically accepted by many
progressives today. And it's been accepted for a long time.
Peddlers of black pathology tend to date the decline of
African-American virtue to the 1960's. But pathology arguments are much
older. Between 1900 and 1930, blacks were
three times as likely as whites to be killed. Their killers tended to
be black—black were 80 percent of Mississippi's murderers and 60 percent
of its victims. According to historian David Oshinsky, the actual
murder rate among African-Americans was likely higher. "We had the usual
number of [Negro] killings during the week just closed," the Jackson Clarion-Ledger reported
in 1904. "Aside from the dozen or so reported in the press, several
homicides occurred which the county correspondents did not deem
sufficient for the dispatches."
Oshinsky reports that "many of the murders involved liquor, gambling
and personal disputes." Did the ghastly amount of violence afflicting
black Mississippians spring from poor blacks "not holding up their end
of the bargain?" Or was it the the fact that black Mississippians were
living in a kleptocracy that had no regard for their lives? As Khalil Muhammad shows in his book The Condemnation of Blackness, progressives and conservatives alike often argued for the former.
Certainly there are cultural differences as you scale the income
ladder. Living in abundance, not fearing for your children's safety, and
having decent food around will have its effect. But is the culture of
West Baltimore actually less virtuous than the culture of Wall Street?
I've seen no such evidence. Yet that is the implicit message accepted by Paul Ryan, and the message is bipartisan.
I think of that cab driver passing
me by on Amsterdam. We are not on the block anymore. We are in America,
where our absence of virtue is presumed, and we must eat disrespect in
sight of our sons.
And who can be mad in America? Racism is just the
wind, here. Racism is but the rain.
With Meet The Press pulling historically low ratings, reports are
surfacing that NBC News is considering dumping host David Gregory and
changing the format of the Sunday staple.
NBC News boss Deborah Turness is spending the last few
days of the year eyeing cuts — moves that could include axing some
senior on-air talent, The Post has learned.
Turness, brought on in August to shake up the moribund news division —
where “Meet the Press” and “Today” had stumbled — is in the midst of a
host of end-of -year buyouts and cost reductions, sources said.
Particularly distressed by the changes is the DC bureau team, whose
duties include providing political coverage to “Nightly News with Brian
Williams” and Sunday talk show “Meet The Press.”
Turness has been trying to figure out the future for David Gregory’s
“Meet the Press,” with options including bringing in MSNBC’s “Morning
Joe” team of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for a Sunday show, or
blowing up the entire franchise and trying something completely
different, sources familiar with the situation said.
If NBC News wants to fix both Meet The Press and Today, they can do so with two moves. Fire David Gregory from Meet The Press. Get Matt Lauer off of Today.
The ratings problems for both shows can be tied back to the fact that
viewers don’t like the high paid on screen talent that each show is
built around.
Gregory has pushed viewers away from Meet The Press with a disinterested approach to the show, and an endless habit of regurgitating Republican talking points as fact. Meet The Press
has been transformed from the show where newsmakers expected to be
challenged to a dull, lazy, and enraging hourlong informercial for
Republican talking points and Beltway conventional thinking. David
Gregory has been the exact opposite of the late Tim Russert, and the
result is that millions of viewers have tuned out.
The worst thing that NBC News could do would be to replace the
intolerable Gregory with the nausea inducing Joe Scarborough, and his
band of Beltway lackeys. If Joe and Mika were to take over Meet The
Press, the program that was once most important public affairs show on
television would cease to exist.
The answer for Meet The Press is simple. Hire a dogged
journalist who isn’t afraid to ask tough questions to the nation’s
political leaders. In my opinion, Rachel Maddow was born to moderate Meet The Press. Maddow is smart, tough, and fair. She would restore the integrity that David Gregory has sucked from the show.
However, NBC and MSNBC have become the textbook example of
consistently repetitive bad decisionmaking. If they dump Gregory, you
can bet that Joe and Mika will be occupying Sunday mornings.
The good news is that David Gregory might be gone. The bad news is that he could be replaced by Joe Scarborough.
Flight expert Ed Schultz shares his insight about the missing Malaysian Air
Flight. Former Boeing Captain Tom Bunn and Aviation Consultant Scott Hamilton
discuss.
Abby Huntsman is leading her generation astray with bad facts and a clueless perspective about Social Security.
Abby
Huntsman, shame on you! You have a platform to use responsibly, not to
spout talking points that have been debunked over and over again.
Yes, the granddaughter of a billionaire, daughter of millionaire and
2012 presidential candidate Jon Huntsman went on a rant last week about
how millennials aren't going to get Social Security. That's an old saw.
We baby boomers heard it, too and quite nearly were sold the same bill
of BS goods back in the early 80's.
Huntsman wants to tell it like it is, but she fails due
to lack of information. And if her generation believes what she said,
it's going to be in deep trouble.
A lot of her spiel resembles the rants issuing from the mouth of
former GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, 82, a veteran font of Social Social
Security misinformation--which shows, one supposes, that error and
ignorance is no respecter of age. Most of it has been debunked so
thoroughly and repeatedly that one is tempted to believe that the
misrepresentations are deliberate.
But as a favor to Huntsman and her generation, we'll set her straight. Again.
Gawd, I love Michael Hiltzik. Read the whole thing.
Even more importantly, it was disappointing to see you
repeat the phony claim that there is a "generational war" between the
young and the old. The real "war" in this country is between the haves
and the have-nots, and it's no secret who's winning that one. In fact,
this notion of a "generational war" was dreamed up in the think tanks
and PR firms of billionaires, so that credulous journalists,
politicians, and yes, news anchors, would pick it up and repeat it
endlessly.
Mission accomplished: many of them have.
Let's be real here. We know that Social Security cuts aren't likely
to affect baby boomers nearly as much as they will the generations that
follow -- particularly millennials. So why push the idea that
old people are greedy, when all that does is provide ammunition for an
argument that will be used to shaft your fellow young people?
Again,
we know who's getting all the national wealth, and it's not old people.
Let's look at the facts: in 2012, the average Social Security benefit
was $13,648, or $1137 a month.
And that's the average -- for workers
with low earning, or those (primarily women) who take time out of the
workforce to perform caregiving work, benefits are often much lower.
For two-thirds of beneficiaries, Social Security makes up half their
income or more.
We've heard all of Abby's points for decades. Actually, they've been
around since Social Security passed and are nothing more than the
product of resistance by the 'haves' who don't think they live in a
society where the elderly should have a solid safety net under them. She
does a disservice to all of us by repeating them, especially under the
guise of a doomsday message for her fellow millennials.
Social Security is - bar none - the most successful and solvent
social program in this country. It will be there for millennials and
generations following if they choose not to listen to Abby Huntsman's
tired arguments against it.
Now is the time to expand Social Security,
not cut it. We should make that expansion for Abby's generation and
those who currently benefit, because it's the right and moral thing to
do.
After Rep. Paul Ryan’s comments about a “culture problem,” Karen Finney says
that Ryan is no Jack Kemp. XM Radio host Joe Madison and author Ian Haney Lopez
join to discuss.
Pundits beware. Nate Silver’s new website launches on Monday. In his own words:
The fox logo comes from a quote which was originally
attributable to an obscure Greek poet: “The hedgehog knows one big thing
and the fox knows many little things.”
The idea being that we’re a lot
of scrappy little nerds and we have different data-driven — I hate data-driven
as a term — but data journalism takes on a lot of different forms
for us. Often, yeah, it does mean numbers and statistics as applied to
the news, but it also means data visualization, reporting on data that
is both numerate and literate; down the road, it came mean investigative
journalism. It can mean building models and forecasts and programs. At
the same time, it’s still data journalism. It’s not enough just to be
smart. There’s a particular series of methods and a way of looking at
the world.
Plenty of pundits have really high IQ's, but they don’t have any
discipline in how they look at the world, and so it leads to a lot of
bullshit, basically. We think about our philosophy for when we choose to
run with a story or when we don’t. We talk about avoiding “smart
takes,” quote-unquote. This is data journalism, capital-D.
Within that, we take a foxlike approach to what data means. It’s not
just numbers, but numbers are a big part of this. We think that’s a
weakness of conventional journalism, that you have beautiful English
language skills and fewer math skills, and we hope to rectify that
balance a little bit.
Republican
Congressional candidate Jim Brown thinks black people lived the good
life under slavery because ‘Slave Owners Took Care Of Their Livestock.’
Once again, Republicans have failed to even pretend that they want
people of color to vote for them. In yet another instance of being
stupid on Facebook, a GOP candidate in Arizona wrote that black people
had the good life as slaves because “slave owners took care of their
livestock.”
Arizona GOP candidate Jim Brown thinks black people lived the good life under slavery.
Jim Brown is running for a House seat in the 2nd Congressional
District of Arizona. The seat is currently held by Democratic Rep. Ann
Kirkpatrick and had been considered one of the easier races for the GOP
to win in 2014. That is, until Brown posted a diatribe about slavery on
his Facebook page. In what is sure to become part of a devastating
campaign ad, Brown attempted to compare federal programs that help the poor to the institution of slavery.
“I want folks to think about something,” Brown began. “I want
folks to think about how slavery really works. Back in the day of
slavery, slaves were kept in slavery by denying them education and
opportunity while providing them with their basic needs .. Not by
beating them and starving them. (Although there were isolated cases if
course) Basically slave owners took pretty good care of their slaves and
livestock and this kept business rolling along.”
Apparently realizing that his stupidity would be used against him,
Brown removed the post. Fortunately, we have the ability to capture
screen shots.
Here’s an image of Brown’s post via The Root.
Welfare is NOT the same as slavery.
Brown believes that the government is treating people who need aid
like slaves. And just as African-Americans made up the slave population,
Brown seems to think they make up the entirety of those who get federal
aid. You know, the old “all black people suck on the government tit”
line that Republicans can’t stop using? Brown says slavery was awesome
for black people, seems to think only black people are on welfare, and
thinks getting aid is akin to being a slave. Instead of condemning
slavery as vile, Brown also seems to think it was a good business model.
After all, “slave owners took pretty good care of their slaves and
livestock and this kept business rolling along.” Such a statement is not
only an insult to black people, it contradicts the GOP claim that the
Civil War was unnecessary because slavery was allegedly dying out.
As it turns out, most welfare recipients are actually white and happen to live in red states.
Therefore, if anyone is turning into government “slaves,” it’s the GOP
base. But comparing welfare to slavery is total nonsense. Receiving
federal aid to keep from starving to death or becoming homeless is not
the same as slavery. Slaves were often brutally beaten, starved, banned
from owning firearms, and couldn’t exactly leave the plantation at will.
Welfare recipients don’t give up any of their freedoms or rights by
getting aid. Slaves had NO freedom and NO rights. Slaves also could not
get an education, whereas the government often helps to pay education
costs for people, even if they are on welfare. Furthermore, the
government doesn’t sell welfare recipients to other people like slave
owners sold their slaves. Also, unlike slave owners, federal aid isn’t
breaking up families nor is it killing or raping people they find
inferior. Welfare is colorblind because the only thing that really
matters is income. Clearly, getting federal aid is nothing like slavery.
In fact, federal aid actually lifts people out of poverty.
It’s also temporary assistance that ends once your income level rises
above the threshold. Slave owners kept slaves in chains for life.
Praising slavery seems to be a requirement to be in the Republican Party.
Jim Brown is only the most recent Republican to sing the praises of slavery. In 2012, an Arkansas Republican called slavery “a blessing in disguise.” At the same time, another Republican went even further than that. Even CPAC got into the act of defending slavery in 2013. Not long after that, a Nevada Republican told a crowd that he would vote to bring back slavery if they wanted him to do so.
Of course, Brown isn’t exactly helping to improve the bigoted
reputation of Arizona. The state once refused to honor Martin Luther
King Day and has been in hot water for trying to discriminate against
gay people.
The party that ended slavery is now controlled by those who want to reinstate it.
Republicans hate welfare programs even as their own states are the real welfare states.
They hate these programs so much that they love falsely comparing them
to slavery. But over the years, the GOP has made it clear that they
actually love slavery and long to bring it back. The GOP hates welfare
and wrongly compares it to slavery, but doesn’t think slavery was so bad
for black people and wishes it was still around. This is NOT the same
Republican Party that worked to abolish slavery and fought a war to end
it. This is NOT the same party that fought for the 13th, 14th, and 15th
Amendments to the Constitution. This new Republican Party has fallen far
from its roots and is now controlled by the very bigots it once battled
against. And that is truly sad.
White
supremacists claim that thousands of people from around the world will
participate in a ‘White Man March’ scheduled for March 15, 2014. –
Banner for the White Man March
On March 15, 2014 groups of white supremacists from all around the world will be holding a ‘White Man March.’
At least that’s what is being claimed on the internet and social media
sites like facebook and twitter. After doing a little research, however,
I see this ‘huge event’ being about as popular as ‘Ex-gay Lobby Day On Capital Hill,’ and about as successful as one of the Tea Party’s many rallies to ‘Take Over Congress And Impeach President Obama.‘
What is the White Man March?
According to the event page the White Man March isn’t really a
planned march. It’s more of an attempt by a few racist idiots to spread
their propaganda
across the US and apparently around the world. The website and facebook
page basically exist to encourage other people to distribute the
group’s flyers and posters, and to plan ‘pro-white’ events in their own
communities.
An overview of the White Man March propaganda includes:
Anti-racism is a code word for anti-white.
White supremacist is an anti-white slur.
Diversity is a code word for white genocide.
White people are suffering from racial discrimination.
There’s no such thing as white privilege.
Hitler was a hero who was simply defending his race.
Here’s an example of a flyer they’re asking people to distribute.
White Man March flier – Piping up about white genocide!
White Man March flier – White slavery.
What can you expect to see happen on March 15?
While there is a website and facebook group designed to promote the
White Man March, the actual number of interested participants isn’t
quite thousands. The facebook group can boast 193 active members, but many of them appear to be fake accounts and duplicate accounts.
There seems to be very little planned ‘pro-white’ activity. One person calling himself ‘John Mnsota’ appears
to be trying to gather support for a White Man March against Lutheran
Social Services and World Relief Services. His group, however, currently
has one member, which is himself.
The largest group I could find was one claiming to be from Centralia Illinois. That group has 119 members, but with names like ‘Hushits Asecret,’ it’s pretty clear that many of these are not real people. Take Dave Englisc,
for example, who created a facebook account in November, and lists his
hometown as Liverpool, UK. Will Dave really be travelling from Liverpool
to march in a White Man March in the state of Illinois? I suppose it
is remotely possible, but it is also highly unlikely. Then there’s Barry Horowitz,
also a member of the Illinois group. This person created his facebook
page on February 15, 2014. He appears to be using his page for promoting
the White Man March, as well as for reminding his small number of fake
facebook followers that America has a (wait for it) black president.
Will there be thousands marching around the world?
There’s a group in Colorado with one member, that might be participating in a White Man March.
Another group calling itself the American Freedom Party, has
6 members, and appears to be trying to find a couple of people in Texas
and maybe Louisianna. Then there is the group that calls itself the Northern New England Group,
which has 2 members. That group covers the states of Maine, New
Hampshire, Vermont and ‘Massajewsetts.’ So that’s one member for every
two states. Also, there’s a place for people to share their ‘Ideas for Activism.’ That group has 9 members and 6 poster designs, but no mention of a plan to march.
According to a person calling himself Ralph, a white supremacist group in Arizona tried to have a white man’s BBQ
last year, but only 11 people showed up. If you can’t even get support
for your hateful, ignorant views with a BBQ, that should tell you
something.
On top of that, if the white supremacist movement can’t even
gain traction in the state of Arizona, I have a feeling it’s not going
to do well in other states either.
There will always be stupid people who spend their time creating fake
facebook profiles and designing posters full of hate messages, in hopes
that they’ll find their way to other idiots who look and think like
them. What they don’t seem to understand is that to the majority of
people, they look and sound like exactly what they are, idiots.
"...and what are those pensions? Those are payments to people who are not
working!"
Thus spake Rushbo, and behold, all his listeners nodded fiercely at their
radios in rapt agreement.
Shorter Rush: Damn moochers.
Rush, on the other hand, collects a hefty paycheck for not working, making
him the King Moocher of the Western Hemisphere.
In case you don't want to listen to the whole thing, the crux is this: Rush
is on a tear because property taxes in Illinois may increase, and they may
increase because of huge pension liabilities which have been accumulated over
time. When cities and states do not make contributions for a number of years in
order to balance their budgets by not raising taxes, those liabilities
accumulate and the obligation is still there.
At some point the piper must be paid, but Rush would rather sit around, bash
unions and working people for working all their lives and expecting to receive
the pension they were promised in exchange for lower wages.
They really pay this guy millions for insights like this?
Navy SEALs 'took turns dumping HUNDREDS of bullets' into Osama bin Laden's dead body, a new report reveals
Special
Ops sources have claimed that the Navy SEAL team unloaded multiple
magazines full of ammunition into the dead terror leader's corpse
Some
think the alleged excessive treatment is the reason why the Obama
administration has not released the 'death photos' of the al Qaeda
leader
White House has always said that any photos of his dead body or sea burial would be used as propaganda by terror cells
By
Daily Mail Reporter PUBLISHED:
16:35 EST, 14 March 2014
| UPDATED:
05:51 EST, 15 March 2014
Special operations sources have claimed that the terror leader was shot more than one hundred times in the fatal 2011 raid.
A
new report from a website known within the intelligence and armed
services community claims that the sheer number of times that Osama bin
Laden was shot is the reason why the government has never released
photos of his dead body.
Citing two confidential sources, The Special Operations Forces Situation Report tells how 'operator after operator took turns dumping magazines-worth of ammunition into Bin Laden’s body'.
The
site goes on to argue that while the Navy SEALs may have felt it was
'morally, legally, and ethically appropriate to shoot the body a few
times to ensure that he is really dead and no longer a threat,' that
does not justify the extent of this damage.
'What
happened on the Bin Laden raid is beyond excessive. The level of
excess shown was not about making sure that Bin Laden was no longer a
threat. The excess was pure self-indulgence,' author Jack Murphy
writes.
At the time of the
assassination, President Obama and his administration argued that they
were justified in never releasing the photos of the dead body or the
burial at sea because they could be used as propaganda for al Qaeda.
The new theories, however, suggest that they are just trying to avoid retribution for allegedly being excessive.
Scroll down for video
+7
Hollywood interpretation: Zero Dark Thirty imagined the events leading to Bin Laden's capture
+7
Mission: The Al Qaeda leader was killed at this
compound in Abbottabad by U.S. Special Forces and new reports suggest
that the excessive force that was used may be why his death photos have
not been released
+7
Photos that have been released: Images of bin
Laden, like these which are being used as evidence in the ongoing trial
against his son-in-law, have prompted debate among military veterans and
good government groups
Details
about the classified mission were unearthed in SEAL Team Six member Mark
Bissonnette's book which differ from the SOFREP account, but Murphy
writes that Bissonnette's version 'is perhaps the most measured and
polite description that one could give'.
In
his book, Bissonnette does not put a firm number on the amount of
bullets used but it sounds far less excessive than the latest reports. 'In his death throes, he
was still twitching and convulsing. Another assaulter and I trained our
lasers on his chest and fired several rounds,' Bissonnette wrote in No
Easy Day which was published in September 2012.
'The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless.'
+7
Incorrect depiction: The latest information
suggests the raid of the Bin Laden compound went down very differently
to the events since fictionalized in Hollywood in films like Zero Dark
Thirty, pictured
+7
His version: Mark Bissonnette, who was a member
of SEAL Team Six who was at the raid described them using far fewer
bullets to kill the elderly terror leader
+7
Tension: The raid of bin Laden's Abottabad
compound was watched by President Obama and his closest advisers in the
Situation Room of the White House
Murphy
argues that the number of bullets used is less of a issue pertaining
specifically to this particular case but grows problematic if it
represents a changing attitude within the Navy SEALs.
'Gone unchecked, these actions get worse over time,' the Army Special Operations veteran writes.
'The
real issue is not that Bin Laden was turned into Swiss cheese, but
rather that this type of behavior has become a Standard Operating
Procedure in this unit.'
The products being recalled are Dole Italian Blend (UPC
7143000819), Fresh Selections Italian Style Blend (UPC 1111091045),
Little Salad Bar Italian Salad (UPC 4149811014) and Marketside Italian
Style Salad (UPC 8113102780) coded A058201A or B, with use-by date of
March 12, 2014.
The product code and use-by date are in the upper right-hand corner
of the package; the UPC code is on the back of the package, below the
barcode.
The salads were distributed in 15 U.S. states: Connecticut, Florida,
Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New
Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina,
and Virginia. They were also distributed in three Canadian provinces:
New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec.
No illnesses have been reported in association with the recall.
However, due to the time involved in tracing a foodborne illness back to
a specific food product, it is impossible to say whether or not anyone
has fallen ill.
The recall was issued after one sample of Dole Italian salad yielded a
positive result for Listeria monocytogenes in a random sample test
conducted by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Although the product is past its use-by date, retailers should check
their inventories and store shelves to confirm that none of the product
is mistakenly present or available for purchase by consumers or in
warehouse inventories. Dole Fresh Vegetables customer service
representatives are already contacting retailers and are in the process
of confirming that the recalled product is being removed from the stream
of commerce.
Listeria monocytogenes is an organism that can cause foodborne
illness in a person who eats a food item contaminated with it. Symptoms
of infection may include fever, muscle aches, gastrointestinal symptoms
such as nausea or diarrhea. The illness primarily impacts pregnant women
and adults with weakened immune systems. Most healthy adults and
children rarely become seriously ill.
Talking about New Jersey's budget woes on Thursday, Gov. Chris Christie boasted
that he's a “trained lawyer” who could make up “convincing” answers at any time.
Bill Baroni, left, then
deputy executive director of the Port Authority, and Mayor Michael
Gonnelli of Secaucus with a piece of steel from the World Trade Center
ruins in 2012.Credit
Reena Rose Sibayan/The Jersey Journal, via Landov
For
a state that lost hundreds of lives on Sept. 11, the gifts were
emotionally resonant: pieces of steel from the ruins of the World Trade
Center. They were presented by the Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey to 20 carefully chosen New Jersey mayors who sat atop a list of
100 whose endorsements Gov. Chris Christie hoped to win.
At
photo opportunities around the mangled pieces of steel, Bill Baroni,
Mr. Christie’s top staff appointee at the Port Authority, told audiences
how many people wanted a similar remnant of the destroyed buildings,
and how special these mayors were.
Mayors
lower on the list of 100 — such as Mark Sokolich, of Fort Lee, at No.
45 — received other Port Authority perquisites: an intimate tour of the
National September 11 Memorial, or the new World Trade Center
construction site, or Port Authority money for jobs programs or new
firefighting equipment, even in towns far from the port.
Mr.
Christie and his allies at the Port Authority are now entangled in a
scandal over the closing of lanes leading to the George Washington
Bridge — apparently a politically motivated move aimed at Mr. Sokolich,
who had declined to endorse the governor. But long before the lane
closings, the Port Authority — a bistate government agency financed by
tolls and taxes — had already been turned into a de facto political
operation for Governor Christie, a review of the agency’s operations
since Mr. Christie took office suggests.
Gov. Chris Christie with Bill
Baroni, right, and David Samson, the chairman of the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey, at a 2011 conference in Trenton on New Jersey
transportation.Credit
Julio Cortez/Associated Press
Turning
wreckage of the twin towers into politically motivated gifts before Mr.
Christie’s 2013 re-election was only one example. The authority became a
means to reward friends (or hire them) and punish adversaries, and a
bank to be used when Mr. Christie sought to avoid raising taxes. Major
policy initiatives, such as instituting a large toll and fare increase
in 2011, were treated like political campaigns to burnish the governor’s
image.
These
maneuvers emboldened the Christie team, former Port Authority
colleagues say, to close down the lanes on the world’s busiest bridge —
ensnaring them in state and federal investigations.
Mr. Christie’s allies at the agency were public, even proud, about their mandate to reshape the agency.
Shortly
after he was hired by Mr. Baroni to be director of interstate capital
projects, David Wildstein walked into a colleague’s office at the
agency’s headquarters on Park Avenue South in Manhattan and gestured
toward the window. “You know, that used to be Tammany Hall,” he said,
referring to the New York Film Academy below on East 17th Street,
according to a person who witnessed the scene. “That’s the seat of all
corruption in New York.”
Waiting a beat, he added, “And the Port Authority is right here.”
Jobs for an Inner Circle
The
Port Authority was formed in the 1920's to run the various ports,
tunnels and bridges shared by New York and New Jersey, with each state
choosing its own administrators and directors, who were supposed to work
together.
As
chairman of the board of commissioners, Mr. Christie appointed David
Samson, a well-connected former state attorney general who had led the
governor’s transition team. When Mr. Christie appointed Mr. Baroni, a
state senator who had been a loyal Christie lieutenant, as deputy
executive director soon after he was elected in 2009, the governor noted
that the agency offered “significant opportunities for funding projects
in the State of New Jersey.”
Mr.
Baroni delighted in his role as the agency’s chief ambassador in his
home state, where he often headlined local officials’ events to
publicize Port Authority projects in their towns. “For the Port
Authority, the World Trade Center wasn’t just a building that we built,”
he said in a speech in 2011.
“It was our home.”
“Its rebuilding is a passion to the Port Authority, and it’s a passion to our governor and lieutenant governor,” he added.
Remarks
like that rankled New York colleagues at the Port Authority, who felt a
tug of war with New Jersey over money to rebuild the site after Mr.
Christie’s allies conveyed a clear rule: If New York got something, New
Jersey had to get something, too. In exchange for the World Trade
Center, for example, New Jersey secured projects including the $1
billion raising of the Bayonne Bridge and the rebuilding of the Pulaski
Skyway — an unusual undertaking for the Port Authority, because it does
not connect the two states.
Mr. Baroni’s lawyer did not return calls seeking comment, and Mr. Wildstein’s lawyer declined to comment.
Mr.
Wildstein, a onetime anonymous political blogger who, like Mr. Baroni,
has resigned in the wake of the lane closings, was hired in 2010 and
quickly developed a reputation as the governor’s enforcer at the agency.
He was known to schedule meetings with subordinates early on Monday
mornings — never specifying the topic, leaving them to fret for the
weekend — then cancel. He seemed to appear from nowhere in officials’
doorways, staring until they invited him in.
Mr.
Wildstein helped end the practice of letting former Port Authority
commissioners have free tolls for life, after Mr. Christie had railed
against it.
The
Port Authority had long been accused of patronage, something longtime
agency employees said that the Christie administration had continued.
The
administration recommended dozens of people with close ties to the
governor or his inner circle — often without relevant experience — for
jobs at the agency. These hires included a gourmet food broker and
longtime Republican donor, who was given a job as a financial analyst,
and the co-author of Mr. Baroni’s self-help book, “Fat Kid Got Fit: And
So Can You!” — who received a part-time job as publications editor that
paid more than $50,000 per year.
A Problem-Solver
Mr.
Christie also used the agency to help him out of political jams. When
he came into office, his state’s Transportation Trust Fund,
traditionally financed by the gas tax, was nearly empty. But Mr.
Christie, as a candidate, had pledged not to raise taxes. The Port
Authority’s involvement in a major project, it turned out, presented a
perfect solution.
In
2010, Mr. Christie canceled construction on a planned railroad tunnel
under the Hudson River that would have eased congestion for Amtrak and
New Jersey Transit trains, and used $1.8 billion that the Port Authority
had planned to spend on it to fill the trust fund.
As
a Republican administration in a blue state, the governor’s team began
considering strategies for his re-election early in his first term.
The
agency’s spending served Mr. Christie well as he campaigned, all with
an eye to building a broad coalition that would allow him to seek the
Republican nomination for president. The governor’s push for projects
like raising the roadbed of the Bayonne Bridge helped win endorsements
from unions that had backed his opponent in 2009. The agency spent
millions of dollars on projects in towns Mr. Christie wanted to win. For
example, $25 million went to a new PATH station in Harrison, where
Mayor Raymond J. McDonough became the first Democratic official to
endorse Mr. Christie.
Christie News Conference on Bridge Flap
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said he
took no part in the lane closings at the George Washington Bridge, but
acknowledged the involvement of some of his close aides.
Mr.
Baroni, often accompanied by Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, one of Mr.
Christie’s top aides, delivered the World Trade Center steel to
communities like Secaucus and Tenafly where the campaign sought
endorsements. Mr. Baroni also frequently gave tours of the construction
site, with guest lists that included Democrats whose support the
governor was seeking. A tour last year on Aug. 23 included Mr.
McDonough, and Dawn Zimmer, the Democratic mayor of Hoboken; the
governor’s campaign wanted her to support Mr. Christie — or at least,
not endorse his Democratic opponent.
Some
tour attendees detected a subtext during their visits. “I viewed it as
trying to build relationships and make us feel like we had a place at
the table,” said Richard LaBarbiera, the Democratic mayor of Paramus,
N.J., “with a possible end in mind.”
Mr. LaBarbiera added
that when he informed the campaign that he would not endorse the
governor, his relationship with the administration did not change.
Toll Threats
Perhaps
the boldest use of the Port Authority as a political tool, a complex
sleight-of-hand that raised questions at the time but succeeded anyway,
involved large toll increases at the Hudson River crossings in 2011, at
the end of Mr. Christie’s first year in office. The episode has recently
drawn scrutiny in several major New Jersey newspapers.
At
the time, the agency wanted to raise money on the bond markets. But it
was becoming apparent that it would not be able to raise enough without a
toll increase.
No
governor wants to raise tolls, even by an agency shared with a
neighboring state. But the issue was particularly nettlesome for Mr.
Christie because he had branded himself a fiscal conservative.
An
account fleshed out by several participants describes what was
essentially a political campaign to convince voters that Mr. Christie
had lowered the tolls rather than maneuvered to raise them. While
officials in New York signed off on the maneuver, the participants said,
the Christie administration was the driving force.
Mr.
Baroni took charge. He set up a confidential war room on the 15th floor
of the building on Park Avenue South and put restrictions on who could
enter. Inside, agency employees ran numbers for various proposed
increases, and set up computers to monitor news coverage of the plan.
The
initial projection for car tolls had been an increase of $4, spread
over two years. But on Aug. 3, Mr. Wildstein, Mr. Baroni and Mr. Samson
went to Trenton and met with the governor and five senior staff members,
including his chief of staff, his chief counsel, and Deborah
Gramiccioni, the head of the authorities unit (who was named to Mr.
Baroni’s post at the Port Authority when he resigned as the bridge
scandal burgeoned in December).
Mr.
Christie instructed the group to propose a plan for a $6 increase for
cars by 2014. He told them that he would publicly rail against it, and
that the agency would then agree to a lower number, easing the
inevitable political fallout while still getting new income, according
to a person who was briefed by an attendee on the participants and what
was said.
The
possibility of a similar ploy — announce an outrageously high increase,
and then knock it down — had been considered before toll increases were
proposed in November 2007, in a meeting between Port Authority
officials and the administration of Gov. Jon S. Corzine, according to
two people involved in the discussions, but it was dismissed as too
contrived.
Not
this time. The plan was announced three days after the meeting in
Trenton, on Aug. 6, a Friday afternoon. Within two hours, Mr. Christie
and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York produced a joint statement
expressing “obvious and significant concerns.” Mr. Christie described
his first reaction as, “Are you kidding me?”
The
day before the Port Authority board was to vote on the increase, Mr.
Christie and Mr. Cuomo released a letter declaring that they had found a
way to lower the toll increases — for cars, the cost would go up $4.50
by 2015, rather than $6 by 2014. “We are pleased that our work together
resulted in lowering of the original toll increase,” they said.
The board approved the increase unanimously.
Shouts After Whispers
Among
Mr. Christie’s allies at the agency, the campaign was considered a
success. Mr. Baroni hung a photograph of participants on his office
wall.
It
was not quite over. The travel organization AAA sued, but was blocked
when it tried to gain access to communications between the agency and
the governor’s office.
The
transportation committee of the New Jersey State Assembly also tried
and similarly failed to obtain information. But this effort led to what
could be the longest-lasting significance of the toll-increase ploy: The
Assembly was given subpoena power, which it eventually used to gather
evidence in the recent lane-closing scandal, including the infamous
email from one of Mr. Christie’s aides that read, “Time for some traffic
problems in Fort Lee.”
In
April 2012, Mr. Baroni went to Washington to answer questions from a
committee hearing called by the late Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New
Jersey, a Democrat and frequent critic of the governor. The hearing
devolved into a shouting match.
Aides
to Mr. Christie cheered Mr. Baroni’s performance. In private, though,
Mr. Baroni expressed ambivalence about the confrontation with Mr.
Lautenberg. He sent word through mutual friends to people on Mr.
Lautenberg’s staff that he regretted the scene.
The instructions, he explained, had come from Trenton.
A
manager at a Chicago McDonald’s told an employee to just put a bullet
in her head after she asked to go home following a diabetic episode on
the job. Image: 28704869
A manager of a Chicago McDonald’s told employee Carmen Navarrette to put a bullet in her head for being sick.
Navarrette is diabetic, and had asked to go home after having a severe
diabetic episode.
Navarrette, who’s been an employee at that McDonald’s
for nine years, went to the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago with
the incident.
She also told her story to the Organizing Committee for Chicago Women
Caucus, where there were similar stories from other people. That’s
prompted a rally on Saturday, where workers were demanding an end to
verbal abuse and respect from their managers. Several Chicago aldermen
attended the rally as well.
So far, McDonald’s corporate hasn’t commented on the matter.
Last year, they began cracking down on staff and managers for poor
customer service. One in five customer complaints has to do with not
receiving friendly or speedy service, according to an article in theWall Street Journal. As
yet, though, there’s little evidence that they’ve been pressing their
franchisees to train managers to treat employees better.
Disrespect isn’t unique to this particular McDonald’s.
Another Chicago McDonald’s is under fire for poor employee treatment,
age discrimination, unsanitary conditions, and failure to provide
proper safety equipment. Centro De Trabajadores Unidos (CTU) Immigrant
Worker Project says that several women at the McDonald’s at 92nd
and Commercial Avenue, on Chicago’s south side, frequently deal with
verbal abuse, along with stress so bad it affects their health outside
of work.
In 2013, CTU was pressuring that McDonald’s restaurant to sit down
with them and work something out so that workers would receive better
treatment. At the time of their posting, the restaurant had not
responded to their letters.
McDonald’s might benefit more from treating their workers with some decency.
Perhaps the problem is deeper than just rude workers. It can be very
hard to put a smile on your face when not only does your boss treat you
like you’re nothing, but customers do also. Business Insider has a list
of McDonald’s horror stories from 2012, and most of them have to do
with customers.
There are a few that have to do with bad working
conditions.
Perhaps the problem is, at least in part, our society’s disdain for
fast-food workers. You see it all over the place, especially when
talking about raising the minimum wage.
These jobs are low-skill,
requiring minimal training, and for some reason we associate that with a
person’s worth as a human being. If they were better people, they’d
have better jobs. Since they don’t, there must be something wrong with
them that just makes them “beneath” the rest of us.
It’s not just
customers who think it’s their right to step all over a fast-food worker
like they aren’t human. As Navarrette’s story shows, the managers and
franchisees do it, too.
The Wall Street Journal article discusses how trying to raise
the level of customer service across the board has had limited success.
One McDonald’s franchisee said, “I think it’s an ongoing problem, and
always will be.”
The question there is, why? The franchisees are addressing the issue
by increasing staffing and introducing new order systems to speed things
up. Why doesn’t employee treatment factor into this at all?
Employee engagement and well-being brings in a higher profit margin.
Organizations that actively participate in employee well-being
and engagement, and invest time and energy in providing good working
environments, tend to see greater returns and greater profits than
companies who treat their employees like mere cogs in a machine. This
isn’t something that only applies to certain industries; it’s true
across all industries. It isn’t necessarily about wages, either.
Treating employees with respect, and letting them know their value to
the organization as a whole, can go a very long way towards how well
they perform.
But even if the returns were small, treating your employees with
disrespect is just bad management.
Anybody who’s so disrespectful that
they would tell an employee to put a bullet in their head because
they’re sick shouldn’t be a manager to begin with.
This McDonald’s manager really should just be fired for that.
There’s no information available as to how often Navarrette was
absent from work due to her diabetes. If it was quite frequent, then
frustration on the part of her manager is to be expected.
However, that
absolutely does not give him the right to tell her she should kill
herself. If her health is causing that much of a problem with her
attendance or performance on the job, then he needs to schedule a
meeting with her to discuss her options (including things like light
duty, and possibly disability).
If, however, her diabetes is not causing problems with her attendance
and on-the-job performance, then his behavior is even worse because
that level of frustration is entirely unwarranted. But regardless, no
manager, no matter how frustrated they are, has the right tell anyone to
just put a bullet in their heads.
Navarrette has a petition on Moveon.org
regarding her situation, and the situation of all McDonald’s workers
who’ve had to endure abuse from their managers. If McDonald’s is serious
about improving their customer service, technology is only one step.
They need to better train their franchisees to ensure store managers are
leaders, and not just overseers.
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