Conservative Plan To Fix The VA Has Vets Hopping Mad

Why is a commission charged with fixing the problems hoping to close down its hospitals?

—By AJ Vicens

Veterans commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War on March 29 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Bruce R. Bennett/Zuma

 

Some members of the commission established by Congress to evaluate the Department of Veterans Health Administration have proposed drastically reducing the size of the VHA by closing its health facilities and transferring the care of the nation's millions of military veterans to the private sector.

But in a letter sent to the chair of the Commission on Care, leaders of eight of the country's most prominent veterans' advocacy organizations blasted the proposal.

"We are greatly alarmed by the content of [the proposal] that was developed and drafted outside the open Commission process by seven of the Commission's fifteen members—without the input or even knowledge of the other Commissioners," they wrote in a letter signed by senior leaders of the Disabled American Veterans, the American Legion, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, AMVETS, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

The plan—known as the "Strawman Document"—was floated in March by seven members of the 15-member Commission on Care, an oversight group that was established by Congress in 2014 in the wake of the national scandal surrounding the lengthy wait times for healthcare at VA facilities. The commission is charged with evaluating veterans' access to health care and with offering proposals for how the Veterans Health Administration should be organized over the next 20 years.

The "Strawman" report, which echoes VA privatization efforts that have been backed by the Koch brothers, says "bold transformation" is needed for the VA to address the needs of its enrolled veterans, and that the system is "seriously broken" with "no efficient path to repair it." The plan calls for closing many "obsolete" VA facilities and moving toward a model where veterans can seek taxpayer-funded care at private health care facilities. A process similar to the Base Realignment and Closure system—used by the military since the end of the Cold War to decide which bases to close—would be used to evaluate which VA medical facilities would close. Under the plan, there would be no new facilities or major renovations of the existing VA facilities.

The plan also called for private doctors to be reimbursed at 5 to 10 percent higher than the Medicare rate, so they would have a greater incentive to participate.

The authors wrote that eventually the VA would become a broad-based payer system, "though it will continue to pay for the veteran care provided by the community system."

Those who opposed the plan agree the VA needs to be improved, but they argue that essentially privatizing it would force veterans to search for care at private facilities that might not be trained or equipped to serve veterans suffering from the long-range effects of combat, such as spinal cord injuries "and the Polytrauma System of Care." The authors add that the proposal ignores recent research, some commissioned by Congress itself, that found that VA care is often better than care in the private sector.

Louis Celli, the national director of veterans affairs and rehabilitation for the American Legion, told the Arizona Republic that he was "angered and insulted" by the "strawman" plan, and that the commission is now "absolutely divided" between those who want to privatize VA care and those who don't.

The plan lines up with ideas from Concerned Veterans for America, a group that's backed by the Koch brothers. The group has called for more choice for veterans seeking health care and for the VA and its health functions to be partly privatized. Suzanne Gordon, a health care writer who has covered the VA, notes in her personal blog and in the American Prospect that the supporters and drafters of the "strawman" proposal include conservatives and several hospital executives "who stand to benefit financially from [VA medical] privatization."

Dan Caldwell, a spokesman for the Koch-backed group, told the Arizona Republic that the "Strawman" proposal has been "completely distorted by opponents," and that there is no call to abolish the VA health care system. "We are not proposing to abolish the [VA health care system] or to end government funding of veterans' health care," Caldwell said.

According to the Arizona Republic, the commission will have two public meetings before issuing a report on its proposal June 30. The report was due in February, but the commission asked for and received an extension.

Feds: Chenault-Fattah recording could expose her to 'criminal liability'

US CONGRESSMAN Chaka Fattah, right, and Renee Chenault-Fattah Crystal tea room 100 E Penn Square, Philadelphia, PA June 14,2015 Reuben Harley/Daily News

By Jeremy Roebuck, Staff Writer

Ten months after Renee Chenault-Fattah finalized paperwork on the sale of her 1989 Porsche convertible to a lobbyist friend of her husband's, the former NBC10 news anchor continued to insure the sports car and keep it in her garage.

Now, federal prosecutors say they have a recording that proves Chenault-Fattah still considered the car to be her own nearly a year later and knew its January 2012 sale for $18,000 was little more than a sham.

The tape - which prosecutors intend to play next month at the corruption trial of her husband, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah - could expose Chenault-Fattah to criminal liability, they said in court filings late last week.

The recording itself - of a November 2012 call Chenault-Fattah placed to change the insurance policy on the Porsche - is relatively benign.

But in describing its importance to their case, prosecutors went further than they had gone previously in suggesting that Chenault-Fattah, once one of the most recognizable faces in local TV news, was at least aware of - if not an active participant in - a complex bribery scheme involving her husband and the Porsche.

Her "statements plainly tend to expose [Chenault-Fattah] to criminal liability for the false statements and documents she provided to the financial institution about the $18,000 payment," Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul Gray and Eric Gibson wrote, referring to the audio and describing documents Chenault-Fattah and her husband filed with their bank to register the Porsche's sale.

They added in a footnote: "The government expects [Chenault-Fattah] to be unavailable to testify at trial by virtue of her assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination."

Chenault-Fattah has not been charged in her husband's case. And prosecutors have offered no indication that they intend to seek an indictment against her. They continue to refer to her in court filings only as "Person E."

Reached on her cellphone Monday, Chenault-Fattah told a reporter, "Sorry, can't help you," before hanging up. Her lawyer, Robert Vance, did not return calls seeking comment.

But since her husband was indicted on racketeering-conspiracy charges last year, Chenault-Fattah has rebuffed any suggestion that the car deal was anything but a "legitimate sale."

In a letter to NBC10 management in July, she wrote that she kept the Porsche in one of her three garages months after she sold it. She explained that the lobbyist who bought it - former Rendell-era Deputy Mayor Herbert Vederman - lived in an apartment, and that she had more space for the car.

"For a time I continued with insuring it since it was in our garage and wanted nothing to happen to it," she wrote. "I had it towed to be serviced in the spring because I wanted it to be in good shape . . . since this transaction had happened so hastily in the dead of winter."

She maintained she did not drive it during that time.

The station later quoted portions of her letter in a news story about its decision to suspend her.

(Chenault-Fattah parted ways with NBC10 earlier this year, although the station has not said whether she agreed to leave or was fired.)

But an Aug. 22, 2012, story in the Daily News appears to contradict her claims that she never drove the car after selling it to Vederman. It noted that she was spotted the day before, fueling the Porsche at a Sunoco station in Germantown, seven months after the sale.

And in their filings last week, prosecutors said Chenault-Fattah did not sound like a woman who had no intention of ever driving the car again when she called her insurance company three months later to alter the policy.

"We have the Porsche, which we take off of insurance during the winter because we have it just in the garage," she told the company in a portion of the recording quoted in government filings.

She asked a customer-service representative to remove her collision insurance but to make sure the car was "still covered" because "it'll be in the garage."

The Porsche is at the heart of one of the many alleged schemes that prosecutors say Vederman used to hide bribes he paid to Fattah.

As federal authorities describe it, Vederman offered the $18,000 in 2012 to help cover closing costs on a $425,000 vacation home that Fattah and his wife hoped to buy in the Poconos. In exchange, Fattah hired Vederman's girlfriend for a job in his congressional office, where she performed "little to no work."

Fattah and Vederman tried to hide their exchange of cash, the indictment alleges, by falsifying documents to show that Chenault-Fattah had obtained the $18,000 by selling her Porsche to Vederman.

Both Fattah and Vederman have denied the charges. And although prosecutors now allege that Chenault-Fattah knew the sale was faked, they offered no indication in their filing last week of whether they believe she knew of the larger machinations that allegedly surrounded the deal.

Fattah's lawyers - Mark Lee, Bruce Merenstein, and Samuel Silver - have declined to discuss specifics of the case, saying only that they intend to vigorously fight the charges at a trial scheduled to begin May 2.

Their client also stands accused in four other schemes of misusing campaign cash, charitable contributions, and federal grant money under his control to pay off debts and line the pockets of his family and members of his inner circle.

jroebuck@phillynews.com
215-854-2608
@jeremyrroebuck

Trump SMASH!

The Observer

Anti-Vaccine Film Safely Removed From Robert De Niro’s Ass

By Fare la Volpe

You talkin ta me?

Welcome back to the cheaters, rapscallions, and assorted flim-flammers alike. It’s time once more for the Snake Oil Bulletin! This week we have a double dose of dumb-dumbs being extra diddly-dumb about vaccines. Do vaccines cause autism? Still nope! But that hasn’t stopped these intrepid idjits from spreading their lethal brand of nonsense all over this great land of ours. Let’s start off the Bulletin with a feel-good story about people finally calling out those anti-vaxxing booger weasels.

It’s a Christmas miracle! Tribeca decides not to listen to anti-vaxxing charlatan after all!

After facing a blistering round of criticism from anyone with a brain, the Tribeca Film Festival has canceled the screening of a film that claims vaccines cause autism and the CDC is covering it up.

The film in question, Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe, is written and directed by everyone’s favorite charlatan Andrew Wakefield. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Wakefield was the original liar who lied in his fake study that purported to show a made-up connection between vaccines and autism. Y’know what, let’s have Joe Hanson of the fabulous PBS series It’s Okay To Be Smart summarize Wakefield’s faux-dentials by adjusting Tribeca’s official description of the flim-flammer:

In a nutshell, Wakefield fraudulently created a study that purported to show a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. He did this by manipulating data, violating ethical standards of medicine, and sometimes just outright lying. He did this because he was being paid by a law firm that was attempting a class action suit against a vaccine manufacturer, and because Wakefield himself had recently bought stock in a competing MMR vaccine. Wakefield was eventually found out, had his study retracted, and had his license to practice medicine revoked. He’s spent the last few years portraying himself as a martyr to any who would listen, and since this is anti-vaxxers we’re talking about, listen they did. Now Wakefield has gotten into movies, like all great hacks whose work can’t make it into scientific journals.

The claim of the film is the same that Wakefield has been touting on the very lucrative anti-vaccine lecture circuit for the past few years: Wakefield claims the CDC is engaged in a concentrated cover-up of research conducted by supposed whistleblowers Brian Hooker and William Thompson. Wakefield says Thompson has documents proving the CDC deliberately suppressed data in a study that was supposed to test autism rates in the Atlanta area. As veteran quack-debunker Orac explains at Respectful Insolence, Thompson’s and Hooker’s claims of malfeasance seem to indicate less “cover-up” and more “bad science rejected by peer review.”

Nevertheless, despite even TIME Magazine calling bull on Wakefield’s latest raison d’etre, the pompous ass decided to make a film out of his claims, because movies don’t need any of that silly “peer review” process — just a handicam and enough money to purchase an editor off Fiverr.
The Vaxxed film got the attention of the Tribeca Film Festival’s co-founder, actor/director/your dad’s shifty friend from middle school Robert De Niro. In a statement responding to complaints about the film’s inclusion in the festival, De Niro said:

Grace [De Niro’s wife] and I have a child with autism and we believe it is critical that all of the issues surrounding the causes of autism be openly discussed and examined. In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming. However this is very personal to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will be screening VAXXED. I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.

The best way to have any discussion is to have one side equipped with facts while the other side has a bunch of made-up lies that carry equal weight. That’s what Fox News calls “fair and balanced.”

De Niro himself pushed for the film to be included in the festival’s lineup, and the reaction was swift. Legitimate scientists and journalists implored the board to remove the film. Filmmaker Peggy Lane called out Wakefield for being a proven fraud, and claimed that including Vaxxed in the Tribeca lineup threatened the credibility of not just the festival but all the festival’s other
tales of gay cowboys eating puddinghard-hitting pieces of cinema. Twitter relentlessly mocked the festival with the hashtag #FutureTribecaDocumentary, which imagined other idiotic, agenda-driven films like “‘Shutting that whole thing down’: How Todd Akin revolutionized the field of reproductive health biology.”
Finally, after mounting pressure and threats of boycotts, De Niro himself issued a retraction:

My intent in screening this film was to provide an opportunity for conversation around an issue that is deeply personal to me and my family. But after reviewing it over the past few days with the Tribeca Film Festival team and others from the scientific community, we do not believe it contributes to or furthers the discussion I had hoped for.

Naturally, Wakefield et al. are claiming censorship, a word that people still don’t seem to “get.” Censorship means that the government is purposely silencing your message. What happened here is that a private group decided not to give Wakefield a gallon of their own kerosene when they saw he’d come equipped with matches. You do not have a right to burn down a building, and you do not have a right to spread malicious lies about autistic people and the medicine that has saved so many children from deadly diseases. It’s because of people like Wakefield that deadly diseases have made a comeback, and scientists can now make a causal link between the rise of Wakefield’s anti-vaxxers and the increase in whooping cough and measles.
 
Go try out your matches on your film reel, Andrew. Now you’ll have lots of free time on your Conspira-Sea cruise lines. You can torch the negatives in between lectures on crop circles and chemtrails, because that is where you actually work now.

Guns don’t kill people, People Magazine kills people

You know what’s the hottest look for summer? Malnourished babies! Or at least that seems to be the editorial decision of long-running health and nutrition journal People Magazine, who featured on their website a recipe for homemade baby formula that will kinda sorta kill babies. It must have been rejected idea for finally dropping that baby weight.

As part of the book tour for her new autobiography, Balancing in Heels, apparently famous person Kristin Cavallari (it’s okay, we’ve never heard of her either) shared some great parenting insights with People, insights she no doubt gained from being an amateur immunologist and professional wife of a sportsball person named Jay Cutler, which is a career now we guess? Okay, sure. If dog psychic is a real career then bridal lump can be too.

Cavallari offered her formula for homemade baby formula made of goat’s milk in the magazine’s “Great Ideas” section. Hold your giggles. According to People, Cavallari says her children have sensitivities to cow’s milk and thus she feeds them a formula of goat milk, cod-liver oil, and organic maple syrup. Nothing babies (and baby parents) love more than an oil expressly taken to make children barf.

People published the recipe for Cavallari’s formula, but added a disclaimer at the end that, oh, BTW, this could super kill your baby. Drink responsibly!

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends feeding infants breast milk or iron-fortified infant formula. Cow’s milk, raw goat’s milk and soy milk are not recommended during the first 12 months of life.

“Why would you want to use an alternative formula when there are well tested and tried formulas widely available?” Dr. Mark Corkins, a pediatric gastroenterologist and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics, tells PEOPLE. “These cocktail formulas do not have the fortification of the vitamins and minerals that the standard formulas have. Commercial formulas are some of the most highly regulated foods with strict nutritional standards that the companies have to meet for the FDA.”

That actual doctor person saying quite clearly that you should not feed your baby goat’s milk didn’t stop People from publishing Cavallari’s recipe in full, with the thought process no doubt not extending beyond “if we put a disclaimer on it, no one’s going to actually use it, right?” It’s the same thinking behind publishing the schematics to a pipe bomb and putting a big red sticker on the book that says “Don’t build this if you’re a terrorist please thx.” Anna Merlan of Jezebel went one step further by pointing out that, according to the journal Pediatrics, babies who are fed exclusively goat’s milk suffer from a rash of health problems such as metabolic acidosis and anaphylactic shock. We’ve no doubt that Ms. Cavallari would rather you use a natural alternative for that anaphylaxis instead of using a gross Epipen.

After someone on the janitorial staff (we bet) told the editors at People that this was a stupid thing to publish, People quietly retracted the story from their website, saving all the children whose parents read the awful article. Now the only place they can find the anaphylactic formula recipe is on internet archives and in Cavallari’s book, now available on Kindle! And with stellar reviews like these, how could anything go wrong?

“I am obsessed with Kristin Cavallari. Not only is ‘Balancing In Heels’ such a fun read―her wellness, beauty, and parenting advice is perfect for all super mommas!”― Molly Sims

Super.

Orrin Hatch very disturbed his lunch was disrupted by Supreme Court protesters

By Joan McCarter  

Monday Mar 28, 2016 · 12:34 PM EST

Those radical hippies who think that the Senate should hold confirmation hearings on a new Supreme Court justice after a sitting one dies have gone too far for Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch. They interrupted his lunch, he writes in an op-ed for Bloomberg. And they had signs.

Recently, I was invited by a well-respected legal organization to speak at their monthly lunch meeting. As a group of 200 Washington-area lawyers sat eating in a packed Chinatown restaurant, I began to share my thoughts regarding the current vacancy on the Supreme Court caused by the untimely death of my friend, Justice Antonin Scalia.  

Midway through my remarks, a group of protesters rose from their seats near the front of the room and began shouting “Do your Job!” As these disrupters stood chanting and holding professionally printed signs, it reinforced my belief that by deferring the confirmation process until after this toxic election season, the Senate is doing exactly what it should: We are doing our job.

This was all so disturbing that the very senior senator from Utah was compelled to write some more, this time in The New York Times, about how this simple unprecedented blockade by Republicans of a Supreme Court nominee has been turned into a totally political thing by Democrats. Republicans simply wanted to let the people decide, see? Because the overwhelming decision of the people in 2012 to have Barack Obama for president for four more years doesn't count.

The only thing that counts, Hatch says, is that Democrats were mean to Robert Bork and then retaliated by changing filibuster rules when Republicans were doing their totally non-political blockade of almost all of President Obama's judicial nominees. There are people with "professionally printed signs" now, which just demonstrates that "Democrats have no credibility in lecturing Republicans on how to conduct the current confirmation process" because "liberal pressure tactics belie any commitment to keeping politics out of the confirmation process."

And, of course, there's not a smidgeon of politics in the Republican blockade. The millions being spent by far-right groups to intimidate Republicans and smear the nominee proves it.

Please donate $3 today to help turn the Senate blue. The future of the Supreme Court depends on it.

Monday Cartoon Roundup

By n2doc

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Cal



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Bern

Dark Souls III Looks And Plays Fantastic on PC; Watch 40 Minutes Of Brutal Gameplay In 1080p/60 FPS

By Giuseppe Nelva

By now you have probably seen a ton of game play of Dark Souls III on consoles. The game is already available for PS4 and Xbox One in Japan, and you can even play it in English on Microsoft’s console, even if it’s still pending an important day one patch.

Yet, the PC version is still quite far from release, coming with the official western launch on April 12th, so fellow PC users may be wondering how it looks and runs, especially considering the fairly depressing chain of shoddy PC ports in the past year or so.

Luckily, you can rest easy. The game looks and plays like a dream on PC, provided that you have fairly affordable gaming specs. We tested it on my home rig with an Intel Core i7 4790k at stock clock, 32 GB of Ram and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970.

The build we were provided not only looked absolutely stunning with all the graphics options maxed up at 1080p resolution, but it easily held a steady 60 FPS frame rate 99% of the time.

The game is also a ton of fun, and brutal as you would expect, but we’ll talk more about that in our review, which will come soon enough.

Of course, I’m sure you prefer seeing some game play instead reading my description, to experience just how lovely the game looks with your own eyes. We were authorized to show you the beginning of the game, so below you can check out the first 20 minutes (which obviously include mild spoilers, but we stopped early to avoid showing too much of the story), and the character creation.

If you want to go in blind, you can stop watching the first video as I pan over the beautiful view at the three minutes mark. That way you’ll still experience the game’s beauty and smooth frame rate, but you’ll avoid seeing the first boss and the first bunch of NPC's you meet, keeping your spoiler-free run safe.

You can safely watch the second video, that shows only the character creation on PC. Do ignore just how bad I am at it. This was my first touch of a Souls game since Bloodborne months ago, and I’m still in the process of getting used to the rhythm of it.



 

How To Rip The GOP And Their Hero Ronald Reagan Apart

The Post-Trump Era

David Brooks

This is a wonderful moment to be a conservative. For decades now the Republican Party has been groaning under the Reagan orthodoxy, which was right for the 1980's but has become increasingly obsolete. The Reagan worldview was based on the idea that a rising economic tide would lift all boats. But that’s clearly no longer true.

We’ve gone from Rising Tide America to Coming Apart America. Technological change, globalization and social and family breakdown mean that the benefits of growth, to the extent there is growth, are not widely shared.

Republicans sort of recognize this reality, but they are still imprisoned in the Reaganite model. They ask Reaganite questions, propose Reaganite policies and have Reaganite instincts.

Now along comes Donald Trump, an angel of destruction, to blow it all to smithereens. He represents not only a rejection of the existing Reaganite establishment, but also a rejection of Reaganite foreign policy (he is less globalist) and Reaganite domestic policy (he is friendlier to the state).

Trumpism will not replace Reaganism, though. Trump is prompting what Thomas Kuhn, in his theory of scientific revolutions, called a model crisis.

According to Kuhn, intellectual progress is not steady and gradual. It’s marked by sudden paradigm shifts. There’s a period of normal science when everybody embraces a paradigm that seems to be working. Then there’s a period of model drift: As years go by, anomalies accumulate and the model begins to seem creaky and flawed.

Then there’s a model crisis, when the whole thing collapses. Attempts to patch up the model fail. Everybody is in anguish, but nobody knows what to do.

That’s where the Republican Party is right now. Everybody talks about being so depressed about Trump. But Republicans are passive and psychologically defeated. That’s because their conscious and unconscious mental frameworks have just stopped working. Trump has a monopoly on audacity, while everyone else is immobile.

But Trump has no actual ideas or policies. There is no army of Trumpists out there to carry on his legacy. He will almost certainly go down to a devastating defeat, either in the general election or — God help us — as the worst president in American history.

At that point the G.O.P. will enter what Kuhn called the revolution phase. During these moments you get a proliferation of competing approaches, a willingness to try anything. People ask different questions, speak a different language, congregate around a new paradigm that is incommensurate with the last.

That’s where the G.O.P. is heading. So this is a moment of anticipation. The great question is not, Should I vote for Hillary or sit out this campaign? The great question is, How do I prepare now for the post-Trump era?

The first step clearly is mental purging: casting aside many existing mental categories and presuppositions, to shift your identity from one with a fixed mind-set to one in which you are a seeker and open to anything. The second step is probably embedding: going out and seeing America again with fresh eyes and listening to American voices with fresh ears, paying special attention to that nexus where the struggles of Trump supporters overlap with the struggles of immigrants and African-Americans.

This is a moment for honesty. Valuably, Trump has exposed the rottenness of the consultant culture, and the squirrelly way politicians now talk to us. This is a moment for revived American nationalism. Trump’s closed, ethnic nationalism is dominant because Iraq, globalization and broken immigration policies have discredited the expansive open form of nationalism that usually dominates American culture.

This is also a moment for redefined compassion. Trump is loveless. There is no room for reciprocity and love in his worldview. There is just winning or losing, beating or being beaten.

It is as if he was a person who received no love and tried to compensate through competition. That is an ugly, freakish and untenable representation of the human condition. Somehow the Republican Party will have to rediscover a language of loving thy neighbor, which is a primary ideal in our culture, and a primary longing of the heart.

This is also a moment for sociology. Reaganism was very economic, built around tax policies, enterprise zones and the conception of the human being as a rational, utility-driven individual. The Adam Smith necktie was the emblem of that movement.

It might be time to invest in Émile Durkheim neckties, because today’s problems relate to binding a fragmenting society, reweaving family and social connections, relating across the diversity of a globalized world. Homo economicus is a myth and conservatism needs a worldview that is accurate about human nature.

We’re going to have two parties in this country. One will be a Democratic Party that is moving left. The other will be a Republican Party. Nobody knows what it will be, but it’s exciting to be present at the re-creation.

Keith Olbermann Returns And Perfectly Explains Why Donald Trump Will Not Win

By Jason Easley

Keith Olbermann returned to talking about politics, with an appearance on The View where he perfectly explained why Donald Trump won't win. 

Olbermann said, “Because of the premise of the campaign, I don’t think he has a reasonable chance of being elected. At this point, from what I’m hearing, I don’t even think he’s going to get the nomination. Because I think the Republican Party is going to say, everybody who is in the Republican Party goes if he wins, we all lose our jobs. If he loses, we all lose our jobs. He’s probably not going to win. Let’s make sure he doesn’t lose. We’re going to lose the party to him one way or another. Everybody in the Republican Party, in the establishment, has a self-interest in keeping him away because he could bring down congressional results.”

Keith Olbermann also shot down Trump threat of riots if he is denied the nomination, “To be fair, who are the people who are supporting him, generally speaking? What I’m saying is they’re mostly people who can’t really be trusted to find their own homes again once they leave them.”

The former ESPN/MSNBC anchor explained that Republicans are really good at preventing things that are supposed to happen from happening. Olbermann said, “This is their own house. This isn’t some governmental agency. They can do what they want. They can change the rules….Whatever rule they need to make to make sure that he doesn’t get the nomination.”

Olbermann was 100% right. The only path that Trump has to the Republican nomination is getting 1,237 delegates. If Trump doesn’t reach the magic number, Republicans will make sure that he is not the nominee. Olbermann’s comments on The View should remind those on the left of why his presence is so sorely missed on television. In a corporate media landscape that is dominated by conservative talking heads, Olbermann brings outstanding broadcasting skills and a point of view that is nearly invisible in the mass media landscape.

In the election cycle of Trump, the American people need to hear the voices of those of the left who are being intentionally shut out of the corporate media.

Lawnmower + Explosives + Shotgun = Amputation

NRA leader Wayne La Pierre was speaking recently about how American gun owners are the smartest people in the world. He may not have met Presley, a Georgia man who loaded up his lawnmower with explosives and shot it with a shotgun, losing a leg in the process. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.



"A Walton County man's leg was severed just below the knee with a piece of shrapnel when he and his friends blew up a lawn mower.

Media outlets report the incident happened Wednesday afternoon in a rural area between Monroe and Bethlehem.

According to reports from the sheriff's office, the men were using Tannerite to blow up the lawn mower. Tannerite is a combination of chemicals sold legally at most sporting goods stores.

One of the men told deputies they put three pounds of Tannerite inside the mower and 32 year old David Presley shot a gun at the Tannerite to ignite an explosion.

A piece of shrapnel hit Presley's leg, severing it. Presley had to be airlifted to Grady Hospital in Atlanta, where his condition was unavailable Wednesday.”

http://newschannel9.com/news/offbeat/walton-county-mans-leg-severed-while-blowing-up-lawn-mower

Impact Wrestling 3/15/16

Jimmy Kimmel's Fake Ad Hilariously Points Out Cruz And Trump Are One And The Same

When both of your options are awful, it can be hard to find the silver lining.

 

By Kali Holloway / AlterNet

Photo Credit: Salon.com

Republicans, who have no one but themselves to blame for the titanic disaster that is Donald Trump, also have no one but themselves to blame for the gigantic disaster that is Ted Cruz. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so they’re doing what they can to help what they perceive to be the less massive disaster win.

A few weeks ago, that entailed having Mitt Romney come out to defame Trump and speak glowingly about pretty much anyone else running on the GOP ticket.

Now, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel has unveiled a parody commercial featuring Mittens trying hard to highlight the differences between the two candidates. That task, it turns out, isn’t easy. On account of both of them being awful. And just the worst.

Watch the fake ad in its entirety, below.

Who are the pickpockets prowling your city's airport?

Posted by Jim Hightower

Listen to this Commentary

 

If you take the word f-r-e-e and rip the "r" out of it, what do you get? Two things, actually: One, instead of "free" you get "fee" – and then you get mad.

This is happening to millions of airline passengers who're discovering that the advertised price of a ticket is not the half of it. Beaucoup fees have been added, charging us for items that previously were (and still should be) free. People's rage-ometers zing into the red zone when they see that these fees-for-former-freebies will often more than double the cost of a trip.

Like diabolical bankers did years ago, top executives of airline corporations have learned to goose up prices and profits (as well as their own pay) by nickel-and-diming customers. Only, their fees are way more than nickel and dimes. For example, if you schedule a flight, but something comes up and you have to change the time, day, or destination of your trip – BAM! – airlines zap you with a $200 fee.

Basically for nothing! Computers quickly make the change, costing the corporation a mere pittance, but rather than graciously accommodating your need and making you a satisfied customer, they pick your pocket and make you angry.

Gouging and infuriating ticket buyers might seem like a poor business model for the long run, but airline CEO's these days insist that their duty is not to please consumers, but only to make their major stockholders happy by maximizing their short term profits. And, indeed, the ripoff is very lucrative for the corporate elite – airlines pocketed nearly $3 billion last year just from fees they charged passengers who needed to alter their flights.

To curtail this "Great American Plane Robbery," several senators have proposed a "FAIR Fees Act."

For information contact Sen. Ed Markey's office: 202-224-2742 or www.markey.senate.gov.

"As Passenger Ire Rises, Bill Is Introduced to Restrict 'Ridiculous' Airline Fees," The New York Times, March 9, 2016.

"Reservation Cancellation/Change Fees by Airline 2015," www.rita.dot.gov, December 15, 2015.

"Airlines Are Swimming in Profits Thanks to Cheap Fuel, High Fees," www.time.com, January 21, 2016.

Keiser Report: Trump Addicted America

Check Keiser Report website for more: http://www.maxkeiser.com/

In this episode of the Keiser Report Max and Stacy ask what’s the matter with Kansas? And Virginia? North Carolina? Florida? Alabama? Michigan and Massachusetts? Are voters flocking to Donald Trump because they’re racist? Or, is it the economy and so-called ‘free trade’ deals, stupid? In the second half Max continues his interview with Satyajit Das, author of Extreme Money and A Banquet of Consequences about the coming market collapse.

Tesla VS Edison Mortal Kombat Style

The GOP’s blocking of Supreme Court pick is indefensible

By GEORGE F. WILL

The Republican Party’s incoherent response to the Supreme Court vacancy is a partisan reflex in search of a justifying principle. The multiplicity of Republican rationalizations for their refusal to even consider Merrick Garland radiates insincerity.

Republicans instantly responded to Antonin Scalia’s death by proclaiming that no nominee, however admirable in temperament, intellect and experience, would be accorded a hearing. They say their obduracy is right because: Because they have a right to be obdurate, there being no explicit constitutional proscription against this.

Or because President Obama’s demonstrated contempt for the Constitution’s explicit text and for implicit constitutional manners justifies Republicans reciprocating with contempt for his Supreme Court choice, regardless of its merits. Or because, 24 years ago, then-Sen. Joe Biden - he is not often cited by Republicans seeking validation - suggested that a president’s right to nominate judges somehow expires, or becomes attenuated, in a “political season,” sometime after the midterm elections during a second presidential term.

Or because if a Republican president tried to fill a court vacancy during his eighth year, Democrats would behave the way Republicans are behaving.

In their tossed salad of situational ethics, the Republicans’ most contradictory and least conservative self justification is: The court’s supposedly fragile legitimacy is endangered unless the electorate speaks before a vacancy is filled.

This legal doctrine actually is germane to Garland. He is the most important member (chief judge) of the nation’s second-most important court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the importance of which derives primarily from its caseload of regulatory challenges. There Garland has practiced what too many conservatives have preached - “deference” in the name of“judicial restraint” toward Congress, and toward the executive branch and its appendages in administering congressional enactments. 

Named for a 1984 case, Chevron deference unleashes the regulatory state by saying that agencies charged with administering statutes are entitled to deference when they interpret supposedly ambiguous statutory language.

Of the last 25 justices confirmed, beginning with Dwight Eisenhower’s 1954 nomination of Earl Warren as chief justice, Garland, 63, is the second oldest nominee. (Lewis Powell was 64 when Richard Nixon selected him in 1971.) The average age of the 25 was 53. So, Obama’s reach into the future through Garland is apt to be more limited than it would be with a younger nominee.

Republicans who vow to deny Garland a hearing and who pledge to support Donald Trump if he is their party’s nominee are saying: Democracy somehow requires that this vacancy on a non-majoritarian institution must be filled only after voters have had their say through the election of the next president. And constitutional values will be served if the vacancy is filled not by Garland but by someone chosen by President Trump, a stupendously uninformed dilettante who thinks judges “sign” what he refers to as “bills.”

Trump’s multiplying Republican apologists do not deny the self-evident - that he is as clueless regarding everything as he is about the nuclear triad. These invertebrate Republicans assume that as president he would surround himself with people unlike himself - wise and temperate advisers. So, we should wager everything on the hope that the man who says his “number one” foreign policy adviser is “myself” (because “I have a very good brain”) will succumb to humility and rely on people who actually know things. If Republicans really think that either their front-runner or the Democrats would nominate someone superior to Garland, it would be amusing to hear them try to explain why they do.

George Will’s email address is georgewill@washpost.com

The Incredible Trump

Wrath Of The Abyss Demo

Control two heroes as they venture into the land of the Abyss and they try to stay alive for as long as possible

Wrath of the Abyss is a top-down 2D arcade game that will likely satisfy anyone who wants to destroy at least two keyboards every day.

Wrath of the Abyss is an arcade game that generates the level every time you start it. It’s not the kind of game that you played before, but if you manage to get past the unexpected deaths, that come from all kinds of dangers and enemies, you might enjoy it.

It’s no doubt that the people who are going to try Wrath of the Abyss and like it are gluttons for punishment. It’s an incredibly difficult game, and there is no learning curve. You just start the game and die over and over again, until you either quit or you start to understand what you have to do to survive.

Story and gameplay

It turns out that an archmage named Lutis has severed the land of the Abyss from the rest of the mortal plane. It’s been lost for thousands of years, and it became populated with all kinds of creatures, monsters and dangers.

For some unknown reason, the land of the Abyss is once more accessible, so a couple of adventures went through a portal in search of glories and riches. And then they die in the first few minutes. This should be the story.

Fortunately, players can choose to reload the same level, so it might be a little bit easier a second time. In any case, if you exit the game you won’t be able to find the same level unless you save the progress.

Players will find chests with items and weapons, but for the most part, it’s just them against all the others. It’s not an easy game, and it makes no promises.

The fact that it’s not using an advanced game engine is hampering the experience somewhat. The hit boxes don’t seem to be all that precise and in this game every hit matters.

If you want some punishment, and you think that you have to be good at something, you might want to give Wrath of the Abyss a go.

5 screenshots

Wrath of the Abyss Demo was reviewed by Silviu Stahie 2.5/5

 Last updated on March 21st, 2016 http://games.softpedia.com/get/Games-Demo/Wrath-of-the-Abyss.shtml#download

Here’s Bernie Sanders Official Plan To Win — And How You Can Help

By Nathan Wellman

The Bernie Sanders campaign has had tremendous grassroots support from various sources, but his campaign is now kicking the effort into high gear.

Grassroots tools

Among all the usual methods of reaching voters, supporters are being encouraged to host what is called a “barnstorm” event to organize volunteers. These events are described as “a 90-minute organizing meeting designed to sign up everybody in the room to contact voters for Bernie. Whether it be through phone banking or canvassing. The events are fun, high-energy and easy to execute.” Information for hosting barnstorm events can be found here.

Residents of upcoming primary and caucus states can use these events to distribute directions and information for traditional methods of campaigning — canvassing for local primaries and phone banking to reach voters across the country.

Putting March 15 in perspective

The call to action was promptly picked up by the Reddit community, which has become a hub of logistical support for the Sanders campaign, building websites and Facebook pages, phone banking, fundraising, etc. A “corporal” of Maine’s branch of the “Bernie Squad” put Tuesday’s losses in perspective while outlining a “plausible path to victory.”

Regarding Tuesday’s results, they said “Expectations were high after the Michigan upset, so the loss may feel worse than it really was. We did far better in NC than expected. Polls showed a 30% loss and we got a 15% loss. We also exceeded poll numbers in a few other states.”

The briefing heavily emphasized the importance of volunteering, making a point to mention that “some of our huge gains and upsets are due largely to the activism we’ve seen” while encouraging supporters with the astounding fact that “Bernie 2016 has the largest voter contact machine in known campaign history.”

They added, “We’re on track to beat the Obama 2008 record of 100 million (phone calls), which included the general election.”

Bernie Sanders’ must-win states

The campaign will need all the grassroots help it can get. According to the New York Times, most of the coming contests throughout the remainder of March are favorable to Bernie Sanders throughout the end of March. However, Clinton will still likely have a small delegate lead, as states award Democratic delegates proportionally, rather than as a winner-take-all system:

Mr. Sanders is clearly favored to exceed his target — the roughly 16-point, 58-to-42 percent margin of victory — in six of the eight contests over the next month. He’s a strong favorite in the caucuses in Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington and Wyoming.

Barack Obama won an average of 72 percent of the vote in these contests in 2008, and so far Mr. Sanders is running an average of four points behind Mr. Obama’s showing in caucus states. Mr. Sanders is also a strong favorite in the Utah primary.

Combined, these six states hold 216 delegates. Mr. Sanders might hope to win them by a 2-to-1 margin — perhaps narrowing Mrs. Clinton’s lead by 65 to 70 delegates.

The Times, however, predicted that Sanders would come across formidable Clinton support in both Wisconsin and Arizona, where Clinton has a strong polling advantage. And while Sanders has the clear lead in small-delegate states, the end of the primary will be highly competitive in states where lots more delegates are at stake. The Times estimates Sanders will need to win some of these larger states by convincing margins to truly capture the nomination from Clinton:

The preponderance of delegates will be from the diverse, affluent, blue states along or near the coasts, like California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and the District of Columbia.

Based on the results so far, including those from Tuesday night, Mr. Sanders is not a favorite to win big in any of those. He’ll need to beat Mrs. Clinton by at least an average of 10 percentage points, and perhaps more if he under-performs in the other states mentioned.

However, the Sanders campaign has a lot of firepower left in terms of its money advantage. Sanders surpassed Hillary Clinton’s fundraising by $5 million in January, and then raised $43 million in February compared to Clinton’s $30 million. Sanders also pointed out on his website in February that the majority of Clinton’s donors have already put in the maximum contribution of $2,700, meaning Sanders capacity to fundraise is even greater still compared to Clinton.

The media has been trying to sing funeral dirges for Bernie’s campaign for months, and this week has been no exception. However, the movement’s continued enthusiasm and diligence seem to suggest that more historic surprises are not only likely, but inevitable.

Hillary Clinton Is Not Entitled To The Votes Of Bernie Sanders Supporters

By Tom Cahill

Hillary Clinton and her supporters would like to assume that if the former Secretary of State does end up with the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders’ base will fall in line and vote for Clinton to stop Trump. But they are wrong.

First off, it’s important to shut down the myth of Clinton’s inevitability as the eventual general election opponent to Donald Trump. The Democratic presidential primary is only halfway over, and Bernie Sanders has 42 percent of the pledged delegates thus far.

Even the New York Times — which has publicly endorsed Clinton’s campaign and whose public editor called out the paper for showing an obvious pro-Clinton bias in a recent stealth editing job — admits Sanders can still end up as the nominee, and they laid out a path for how he could do it.

Writing off Sanders’ chances now and telling his supporters that they have no choice but to unite behind Clinton is premature.

Aside from that, many of Bernie Sanders’ supporters aren’t Democrats. Sanders himself has identified as an independent throughout his entire career, with the exception of the 2016 election.

And he’ll be the first to tell you that he only ran as a Democrat so the media would perceive him as a serious challenger to Hillary Clinton. Likewise, his supporters are largely independents and young voters under the age of 35, and roughly half of those young voters identify as independents, despite their tendency to lean leftward in their politics.

In fact, between 2004 and 2014, the percentage of young voters who identified as independent rather than Democrat jumped from 38 percent to 50 percent. And in all of the states Bernie Sanders has won, and even the states he’s lost by considerable margins, like Virginia and Tennessee, he’s still managed to capture a wide majority of independents and voters under the age of 35. It’s unrealistic to expect these largely independent voters to switch to the Democratic Party and vote for an elite member of the Democratic establishment.

And, let’s be honest — the entire reason so many Bernie Sanders supporters are so ardently anti-Hillary Clinton might be because of her refusal to strongly oppose the corrupt campaign finance system Bernie rages against. Clinton’s top campaign donors include criminal Wall Street banks like Citibank and Goldman Sachs, and corporate-owned media companies like Time Warner and 21st Century Fox. While Sanders is raising millions of $27 donations from the grassroots, Clinton raised money from Wall Street on at least 31 different occasions between the start of her campaign and the end of February.

Asking the supporters of the anti-Wall Street candidate who rejects Super PAC's to suddenly back a pro-Wall Street candidate who embraces the Super PAC system would be asking them to betray their core values. This is likely why a full third of Bernie Sanders’ supporters refuse to back Clinton if she’s the nominee.

Hillary Clinton is unable to bring in new blood to the Democratic Party like Bernie Sanders has done. In the last 11 primary contests, 7 states have gone to Clinton and 4 have gone to Sanders. As the below table shows, turnout for all of the states Clinton won is down significantly from 2008, the last time there was a contested Democratic presidential primary. Yet in three of the last four states Bernie Sanders won, turnout was up by as much as 49 percent:



The numbers speak for themselves: The Democratic Party is in for a shellacking if they end up nominating Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders has proven himself to be the one candidate capable of uniting the Democratic Party in his ability to bring in fresh faces, his consistently higher numbers when pitted against Republicans in hypothetical general election matchups, and a message that resonates with future generations. 

Students Participate In One Of The First Human Feeding Trials Of Genetically Engineered Bananas

By Angie Carter, Anha Kruzic, Rivka Fidel, Food First

 

Students are helping to investigate GE health claims — one banana at a time.

A recent controversy about an upcoming genetically engineered (GE) banana study at Iowa State University (ISU) highlights public universities’ reluctance to engage with students in critical dialogue. Several graduate students, over the course of the last year, have raised critical questions about the claims made by ISU administrators and others that the GE banana study will save lives. The research will test the bioavailability of beta carotene in bananas genetically engineered to contain more of the Vitamin A precursor. The study recruited 12 female ISU students (ages 18-40) to eat GE bananas in return for $900. This study is one of the first human feeding trials of GE products and the first feeding trial of the GE banana.

The students also recently delivered 57,309 petition signatures to ISU in conjunction with a parallel delivery to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle by AGRA Watch and the Community Alliance for Global Justice. Critics of the initial questions and subsequent petition delivery use an increasingly common argument that critical questions about GE technology are somehow “anti-science.” Several GE proponents also accused students and activists involved in the delivery of using their white privilege to keep Africans hungry and malnourished.

Yes, students are privileged to ask these questions. The opportunity to engage in a scientific dialogue is a powerful privilege. This privilege compels us to ask difficult questions about the ethical dimensions of this GE banana research process, as well as its impacts and other viable alternatives.

Last year, the concerned ISU graduate students drafted scientific questions investigating how the study would be conducted and potential effects the GE bananas could have on Ugandan food systems.

Their questions are not about whether the use of biotechnology is morally right or wrong, or if the researchers are good or bad people. At their heart, these questions are about social, economic and environmental impacts that this kind of research will have upon real people in real places. Hunger and malnutrition are not only biological challenges, they are social problems rooted in inequality.

The questions boil down to four main queries: (1) How will GE bananas impact nutrition and hunger in Uganda, or how will ISU and/or the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation address this question? (2) How was the technology determined to be a culturally appropriate intervention? (3) Who will own or control this technology upon its development? and (4) How should public universities be involved in GE biofortification and testing?

These questions highlight the need for a public dialogue on our campuses about the role of power in the scientific process. Claims made by ISU officials that this research will save lives are premature and a smokescreen to deflect students’ questions. These claims are made without any grounding in research or recognition of the power differential between their privileged positions as tenured faculty, deans, or department chairs and the would-be recipients of their GE hunger “solutions.” The claims ignore the ways in which the incessant battle to convince communities across the world to accept GE technology as a one-size-fits-all solution to complex social problems is itself a privileged perspective.

Such far-reaching claims are not only unscientific but may lead to dangerous assumptions. These claims have also falsely implied that students, in asking their questions, attempted to directly malign the study’s primary researcher. Aligning the ISU students’ critical questions with attacks on the researcher is a sabotage of the scientific process itself.

GE proponents’ over-simplified approach poses risks to us all. Genetic engineering, in some cases, may be an appropriate technology that helps to solve agricultural and human health problems. Yet, for this approach to be scientific, it must incorporate – and take part in dialogue about – the social, economic, and environmental consequences associated with this technology.

No scientific study is free from the social, political, and cultural context in which it is conducted. We must be able to have meaningful critiques, pulling from multiple scientific disciplines, that challenge GE technology, including its potential uses, as well as interrogating who controls, owns, and benefits from it.

Science is a negotiation – an iterative process rooted in asking questions, in testing hypotheses and counter-hypotheses. Thus it is crucial that scientists and students of science – regardless of status, expertise, or background – be able to ask critical questions regarding each other’s work without fear of vitriolic retribution or retaliation.

We need a long view that takes into account social inequality and includes space for critical dialogue. No single crop, GE or otherwise, will solve the fundamental problems of hunger and malnutrition.

There is a great deal of evidence that a more diversified agriculture – a system that places women’s empowerment and food sovereignty at its center – is likely to be more successful in the long term in achieving these ends. Many in agriculture and food systems scientists acknowledge that we need more research and development in alternative agricultural solutions.

To raise questions about the safety, utility, as well as the social and ecological consequences of GE is scientifically valid, and not akin to wanting people to go hungry or become malnourished. While administrators at public universities, philanthropic organizations, and private corporations talk about “saving lives,” many others want to talk about rebuilding their lives on their own terms, through agroecological methods and food sovereignty. As such, we should be investing in these endeavors just as we invest in GE technology.

It is essential that there is a space at public universities, with large philanthropic organizations, and in broader society where students, academics, and activists can ask difficult questions in the name of a more sustainable and equitable food system without being labeled as unscientific or accused of misusing their privilege.

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Watch The Bernie Sanders Speech The Networks Won't Show You

By Arturo Garcia

 

This is what you might have seen if all the networks weren't carrying Trump.

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was among the presidential candidates speaking on Tuesday night. But as the Young Turks reported during their coverage of the evening’s primaries, national media outlets refused to show his remarks.

While the Turks showed the majority of the senator’s rally in Phoenix, other networks instead opted to cover Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s speech even before it took place.

 

Watch the speech in its entirety, as posted online,below.

 

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Obama Destroys His Legacy With Corporate-Friendly Supreme Court Pick

After a month of speculation, President Obama has made his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia.  That person is Judge Merrick Garland, who comes from the corporate defense law firm of Arnold & Porter.  With this pick, Obama has secured his legacy as a corporate appeaser.  Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Follow more of our stories at http://www.TROFIRE.com

Marco Rubio Suspends His Campaign After Florida Blowout

By Karoli Kuns

 

Marco Rubio snuck in a quiet announcement that he was suspending his campaign, but he was careful to bury it in a pile of old speeches, much of which he stole from candidate Barack Obama.

Things about being the son of immigrants, and more. He also blamed the conservative movement and the establishment Republicans for this years' season of discontent, before saying he wasn't going to be President in 2016, or maybe ever.

Bet on the ever part, Marco. Your party is dead.

Chris Matthews Suggests Hillary Clinton Pick John Kasich For A Running Mate

By Heather

This is what Chris Matthews sounds like after he's been huffing way too much of that Tip and the Gipper, bipartisan, magical fairy dust during MSNBC's Super Tuesday election coverage.

Apparently Matthews think the potential Democratic nominee for president of the United States needs to pick an anti-choice, anti-labor, trickle-down, gives tax cuts to the rich on the backs of the working class, former Lehman Brothers executive as a running mate in order to get elected.

Thanks for the advice Tweety, but no thanks.