Sanders wins backing of American Postal Workers Union, his largest labor endorsement.
By KEN THOMAS, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders
secured the endorsement of the 200,000-member American Postal Workers
Union on Thursday, marking the largest labor union to back his
Democratic presidential campaign.
The union's decision gives Sanders a boost heading into the second
Democratic debate in Iowa on Saturday and comes as the Vermont senator
has sought to halt a string of labor endorsements to Democratic
front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The postal workers' union said Sanders has a long history of supporting
its workers and pointed to his efforts to keep open post offices and
mail-sorting plants in rural communities, oppose slower delivery
standards and fight attempts to privatize the mail service.
"Sen. Bernie Sanders stands above all others as a true champion of
postal workers and other workers throughout the country," APWU President
Mark Dimondstein said in a statement. "He doesn't just talk the talk.
He walks the walk."
Clinton has locked down several key components of organized labor,
including the National Education Association and the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Sanders has assiduously
courted rank-and-filed union members but battled against perceptions he
wouldn't be as electable as Clinton and strong enough to take on the
eventual Republican nominee.
Until now, Sanders had received one national labor endorsement, which came from the 185,000-member National Nurses Union.
Postal worker union officials said Sanders showed a deep understanding
of their issues and said they were particularly swayed by his address to
2,000 activists in Las Vegas in October. From his Senate perch, Sanders
has also blocked two nominees to the postal Board of Governors who are
opposed by postal unions.
The union said Sanders' support was overwhelming among its executive
board, which also heard from a labor liaison from Clinton's campaign.
___
On Twitter, follow Ken Thomas: https://twitter.com/KThomasDC
Facebook just announced 8 billion video views per day. This number is
made out of lies, cheating and worst of all: theft. All of this is
wildly known but the media giant Facebook is pretending everything is
fine, while damaging independent creators in the process. How does this
work?
From a bit earlier in the year - figured it was worth a post.
Discussions of technology being marketed to seek out apparent
'pre-crime' activity, including drones, facial recognition,
motion-tracking and other 1984 style police techniques.
Given that much
of this is publicly sold and available to companies, you can imagine
the behind-the-scenes military technology that is even more powerful
than what you see here...no doubt already under widespread use.
Republicans offered no new policy ideas while resurrecting some old
lies about immigration and The Affordable Health Care Act. Here are five reasons to be glad
that you didn’t watch the Fox News Republican presidential debate.
1). All Republicans Oppose Raising The Minimum Wage
The first question was about the fast food worker strike and raising
the minimum wage. Not surprisingly, Trump said paying workers more money
wouldn’t help them. Ben Carson said that the American people need to be
“educated about the minimum wage,” and Marco Rubio told viewers that
tax reform a.k.a. tax cuts for the wealthy would be better than
increasing the minimum wage.
Republicans are setting themselves up for a major defeat as an
October poll of low-wage workers found that 75% supported raising the
minimum wage to $15/hour and the ability to join a union. The debate
demonstrated that Republicans are on the wrong side of the minimum wage
issue.
2). Carly Fiorina Falls On Her Face When Asked Why Democrats Are Better At Creating Jobs
Carly Fiorina was asked how she would counter the argument that
Democratic presidents are better at creating jobs than Republican
presidents. Fiorina responded with a long-winded dance about what she
would do as president to grow the economy, but nowhere in her answer was
an explanation how she would counter the fact that the economy does
better under Democratic presidents.
Fiorina’s inability to answer the question illustrated a fundamental
problem for Republicans. Whoever the Republican nominee is will not be
able to argue that they can create more jobs after President Obama
brought the country back from George W. Bush’s Great Recession.
Republicans can’t argue the issues, which is why they have to deflect
and distract anytime they are confronted with the facts on their
economic failures.
3). Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Carly Fiorina Uncork 3 Huge Republican Lies
Two Republican candidates showed that their party has learned nothing
from their party’s 2008 and 2012 presidential election losses by
bringing back two tired old lies that have failed Republicans in
elections past. Marco Rubio claimed that The Affordable Health Care Act is killing jobs, and
Ted Cruz claimed that immigration is hurting jobs and the economy.
Fiorina claimed that The Affordable Health Care Act is crushing small businesses.
A study by The Urban Institute found that The Affordable Health Care Act doesn’t kill
jobs, “We find that the ACA had virtually no adverse effect on labor
force participation, employment, or usual hours worked per week through
2014. This conclusion is true for ACA policies overall and for the
Medicaid expansions, in particular, and it applies to the full sample of
nonelderly persons and to the subgroup of nonelderly persons with a
high school education or less who are more likely to be affected by the
ACA.”
The bad news for Carly Fiorina is that only 3% of small businesses were impacted by the ACA.
Ted Cruz was not telling the truth. As reported in 2014,
“According to the Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, there were 8.4
million unauthorized immigrants employed in the U.S.; representing 5.2
percent of the U.S. labor force (an increase from 3.8 percent in 2000).
Their importance was highlighted in a report by Texas Comptroller Susan
Combs that stated, “Without the undocumented population, Texas’
workforce would decrease by 6.3 percent” and Texas’ gross state product
would decrease by 2.1 percent. Furthermore, certain segments of the U.S.
economy, like agriculture, are entirely dependent upon illegal
immigrants.”
4). Jeb Bush Blames Obama For His Brother’s Failure In The Middle East
Bush blamed Obama for a “failure of leadership” in Iraq. It was
amazing to hear a Bush argue for more war in the Middle East as if he
had no idea that the Iraq war remains a foreign policy blunder that is
thought of badly by a majority of the American people. The Bush tactic
of blaming Obama for his brother’s failures, while arguing that the
country should return to his brother’s policies is exactly why his
campaign is failing. Bush tried to pull a page from the Romney playbook
by sounding like he is the most electable. Bush tried to get fired up
about foreign policy and take on Trump, but he got tongue-tied and lost
his momentum.
Jeb Bush’s plan is to claim that he can beat Hillary Clinton while
blaming President Obama for his brother’s foreign policy failures.
5). In Mixed Up Republican World, Regulating The Big Banks Causes Financial Collapse
The Republican presidential candidates agreed that not regulating the
banks would prevent another financial collapse. Carly Fiorina called
Dodd-Frank socialism and claimed the CFPB is digging through individual
Americans financial records to detect fraud. In crazy Republican land,
the way to prevent financial collapses is to get government out of the
way and not regulate the banks.
Republicans again demonstrated that they have learned nothing from
their previous failures by doubling down on another failed policy.
The debate itself was a colossal bore. The top eight contenders for
the Republican nomination managed to avoid proposing any new policies
while doubling down on their previous failures. No one should be
surprised if the ratings for the Republican debates continue to slide.
The energy and charisma of Trump have vanished, and all that is left is a
bunch of Republicans with no new ideas trying to sell America on a
return to failure.
My white brothers and sisters,
believe me when I tell you that I love and care about you. Because I
care, I will tell you things that you may not like. On occasion, I have
been moved to write you an open letter. I always do this with concern and care. For example, after the horrific mass shooting in Charleston,
I wondered when and if my white brothers and sisters would confront the
plague of gun violence in their community. Such worries were met with
deflection, denial and anger. Because I love my white brothers and
sisters, I will try again.
In rapid succession, over the last few days and weeks, The New York Times, “60 Minutes,”
and MSNBC have featured stories about the heroin epidemic that is
ravaging the “heartland.” These stories were accompanied by new research
that shows how the middle-aged white working class and poor are now
dying at extremely high rates as compared to other groups.
Something startling is happening to
middle-aged white Americans. Unlike every other age group, unlike every
other racial and ethnic group, unlike their counterparts in other rich
countries, death rates in this group have been rising, not falling.
That finding was reported Monday by
two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton, who last month won the 2015
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science, and Anne Case. Analyzing
health and mortality data from the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention and from other sources, they concluded that rising annual
death rates among this group are being driven not by the big killers
like heart disease and diabetes but by an epidemic of suicides and
afflictions stemming from substance abuse: alcoholic liver disease and
overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids.
The analysis by Dr. Deaton and Dr.
Case may offer the most rigorous evidence to date of both the causes and
implications of a development that has been puzzling demographers in
recent years: the declining health and fortunes of poorly educated
American whites. In middle age, they are dying at such a high rate that
they are increasing the death rate for the entire group of middle-aged
white Americans, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case found.
The
mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high
school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to
2014.
My brothers and sisters in White America, do these facts scare you? They probably should.
My grandmother grew up under the
wicked regime of Jim and Jane Crow. Like many other black Americans she
escaped to a northern American city during the Great Migration that
occurred after World War II. I remember her telling me that the average
white person wouldn’t survive being black for even a day. They would die
from stress and anxiety.
I believe that she may have been
exaggerating. But her observation does get to something real about the
way white privilege manifests. Research suggests that the average white
American has no basic idea about
how white racism and white supremacy impact the day-to-day lives and
life chances of non-whites. In fact, social psychology experiments have
shown that white folks believe that not having access to television is a
far greater hardship than being black. This absurdity is compounded by
the belief, demonstrated in recent surveys, that in the Age of Obama,
“discrimination” against white people is now a bigger problem in the United States than racism against people of color.
In all, white privilege is a system
that gives unearned advantages to white people because of their
perceived racial group membership. Those unearned advantages in turn
nurture and cultivate a deficit in coping skills. (This is not a
function of race, but rather of power. Men likely have worse life coping
skills relative to women, and straight people less so than those in the
LGBT community.) This should not be a surprise. White America was built
upon stolen land, income, labor and wealth, taken from First Nations,
African-Americans and other people of color. More recently, the modern
white American middle class was created through transfer payments and government subsidies such
as the G.I. Bill and VA/FHA housing programs, opportunities that were
systematically denied to black and brown Americans. Racism (and sexism)
in the American labor force meant that jobs which earned a living
wage were deemed the near exclusive province of white men.
And now white people — and white
working class men in particular — are suffering an identity crisis, as
their perceived birthright is being taken away from them.
Of course, the facts undermine any claims of relative disadvantage compared to people of color. Poor and working class white people possess much more wealth and assets than
do black and Latinos who are nominally “middle” or “upper class.” By
implication, poor and working class whites have greater financial
security than people of color in the same economic cohort. Nevertheless,
it is the perception of white insecurity and suffering that matters,
not empirical reality. Those who have historically been privileged will
feel like equality is oppression.
White America — its poor and working classes in the throes of depression and hopelessness about the future, and killing themselves,
intentionally or otherwise — must now summon up in itself the very same
“personal responsibility” that the right so often uses to disparage the
suffering of the black and brown poor. While globalization is most
certainly pushing the white poor and working classes even further into a
category of expendables, this same group of people must acknowledge
their own complicity with such an outcome.
The truth hurts.
Poor and working class white
Republicans, who vote for policies that hurt people like them, have
contributed to this problem. White conservatives in the South, who
flocked to the Republican Party because of anger about the civil rights
movement, have caused this problem. Poor and working class white
Republicans, who use the financial prosperity and success of the rich
and upper classes as a barometer for how they should vote (a choice made
even more absurd in a country where inter-generational upward mobility
has been basically non-existent for decades), are a cause of this
problem.
And white poor and working class
people (as well as white folks en masse) — who do not realize that white
elites have systematically lied to them by using the politics of racial
resentment to focus their attention on “black crime,” “illegal
immigrants” and “welfare queens,” instead of properly on the destructive
power of neoliberalism — are among the primary conspirators in their
own destruction.
* * *
What is perhaps most unnerving about
the current concern for the wellbeing of white America is that Black,
brown and First Nations peoples have been dying at far higher rates for
years, decades, centuries. Yet there was no great cry of public alarm or
panic then.
In this moment, white people
struggling with addiction are to be treated with mercy and empathy. A
white Republican presidential primary candidate, Chris Christie, has
even been recorded sharing a story about a rich white man, a dear friend
from law school, whose addiction to pain killers ruined his life. By
comparison, black and brown people who use drugs are locked up without
mercy or pity by a carceral society that views their pain
as criminality.
Black and brown communities were
ruined by the Great Recession. Yet their loss was greeted with crickets
in the mainstream news media. Black people are recorded being shot,
choked to death, beaten up in schools and otherwise brutalized. And yet
too many of those in White America engage in excuse-making, and defend
the thuggish behavior of its racist and classist criminal justice
system.
White America now increasingly
encounters those same broken dreams, because the wages of whiteness do
not pay the dividends they once did in the not-so-recent past. And this
time the mainstream media inaugurates a crisis.
The suffering of people of color in
the United States is the rule, a quotidian matter, a given. By
definition, white privilege means that white people will have better
life chances than whose who are not white. This is the cruel calculus of
the color line both in the United States and around the world.
Undoubtedly, there are some black
and brown folks who will have no sympathy for white drug addicts, who
won’t care how the white working class and poor are dying at increasing,
alarming rates. Such cynicism is wholly understandable. But I will not
surrender the moral high ground. That is incumbent upon us who are heirs
to the Black Freedom Struggle.
What’s more, I am also a secular
humanist. I care about all people—even those who are invested in the lie
that is Whiteness. Because loyalty to whiteness is treason to humanity,
those who see themselves first as “white,” before they see that we are
all human beings, are the most in need of help and guidance about how to
live a full, rich and ethical life. To borrow from Baldwin, Wright and
Ignatiev: A person cannot be a full member of the human race without
first dropping and surrendering the lie that is “whiteness.”
James Baldwin spoke to this reality with his genius insight as:
“I’d like to say that when I say
‘white’ I’m not talking about the color of anybody’s skin. I’m not
talking about race. It’s a curious country, a curious civilization, that
thinks of it as race. I don’t believe any of that. White people are
imagined. White people are white only because they want to be white.”
But, I am very worried. The anxiety
and the pain and the loss that is being felt by working class and poor
white people should occasion a moment of transcendence, one in
which they realize that their elites have lied to, tricked, hoodwinked,
and bamboozled them. I dream that this moment of white pain and
suffering could be the impetus for new alliances across lines of race
and class. There, Lani Guinier’s vision of what she describes as
“political race” could be made real: Collective and shared self-interest
could trump individual, provincial and superficial, albeit very real,
differences of perceived “racial” identities, and the arbitrary value
assigned to a person’s melanin count—or lack thereof.
Unfortunately, American history is
replete with examples when white people chose racism and white racial
affinity over shared class interests with people of color. When
threatened, those who are invested in Whiteness as a type of property
and psychological wage often double down on protecting it. Instead of
embracing black and brown Americans, White America in crisis may wholly
abandon the chimera of “post racial” politics and fully embrace a
reactionary type of white racial identity politics—and perhaps even
overt, old fashioned, bigotry.
White America is hurting. White
America is in a panic — stirred up by know-nothing nativists like Donald
Trump, the bigotry and resentment-based politics of the Republican
Party, as well as the eliminationist anxieties produced by the
right-wing media. I worry that, as horses in a fire, that White America
will run back into the burning barn instead of running out to the
freedom that awaits them should they ever try at meaningful alliances
with people of color.
Relying on the secrecy of limited liability companies, white-collar thieves are targeting pockets of New York City for fraudulent deed transfers, leaving the victims groping for redress.
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson once vocalized an odd theory about Egyptian history.
According to a video unearthed by BuzzFeed
on Wednesday, Carson posited in a 1998 commencement address at Andrews
University that the pyramids in Egypt were used for grain storage rather
than as tombs for ancient kings and queens.
"My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store
grain," Carson said, referring to the Old Testament. "Now all the
archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But,
you know, [something to store that grain] would have to be something
awfully big, if you stop and think about it."
Carson appeared to be referencing the biblical figure of Joseph, who
was sold into slavery in Egypt and later went on to advise the Egyptian
pharaoh to store grain due to a coming famine.
The famed neurosurgeon, who is currently the front-runner for the GOP nomination, added in the speech that he didn't think aliens built the pyramids, as some conspiracy theorists have stated.
"And when you look at the way that the pyramids are made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons," he said.
"And various of scientists have said, 'well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how.'
You know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you."
Betsy M. Bryan, professor of Egyptian Art and Archeology at Johns
Hopkins University, explained the pyramids were not conducive structures
for storing grain.
"The actual space available within pyramids of any era was highly
limited -- far more was devoted to descending and ascending shafts.
These would be highly unsuitable for grain storage in large
amount," Bryan said in an email, adding that Egyptian granaries "were
not pyramidal but mostly beehive-shaped. They were built over brick
lined circular bases, and they were filled from the top with ladders set
up against them."
J.G. Manning, a professor of classics who studies Egyptian history
at Yale University, called Carson's version of events "lunatic."
"It's a biblical view of the pyramids," he told The Huffington Post. "It just has no basis in fact."
Asked Wednesday by CBS News whether he still believed the pyramids were primarily used for grain storage, Carson said, "It's still my belief, yes."
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson isn’t as good of a
doctor as he’s made himself out to be. Carson is actually a walking
medical malpractice suit waiting to happen. Thom Hartmann and Ring of Fire host Mike Papantonio discussed Carson’s shady history of medical malpractice.
Watch.
About the Author
Joshua De Leon
Josh de Leon is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire.
As the number of Xarelto lawsuits approaches 2,000 and the drug’s
connection to fatal bleeding becomes more widely known, manufacturer
Janssen Pharmaceutica is pulling out all the stops on its marketing
campaign – including a recent television ad featuring a quartet of
prominent celebrities.
The four celebrities – NBA player Chris Bosh, NASCAR driver Brian Vickers, golfing legend Arnold Palmer and Saturday Night Live alumnus
Kevin Nealon – move in widely separated social and professional
circles, and would be unlikely to meet for a casual luncheon under most
circumstances. However, Janssen would have us believe they’re all old
friends who decided to meet up for a friendly game of golf, then retire
to the clubhouse to talk about how “treatment with XARELTO® was the
right move” for them.
Vickers assures viewers about how Xarelto was “proven to treat and
help reduce the risk of DVT (deep vein thrombosis) and PE (pulmonary
embolism) blood clots,” while Nealon points out that “Xarelto was also
proven to reduce the risk of stroke in people with ‘A-Fib’ (atrial
fibrillation, or irregular heartbeat) not caused by a heart valve
problem.”
Of course, there’s no mention of FDA concerns over aspects of the
clinical tests (specifically, whether or not test subjects had been at
the optimal level of blood clotting for a sufficient period of time),
nor the fact that post-market studies were funded by the manufacturer
and its marketing partners at Bayer.
During the after-game luncheon, in which viewers see the four
celebrities chowing down on healthful salads, a voice-over acknowledges
that “for people with ‘A-Fib’ currently well-managed on warfarin, there
was limited information on how Xarelto and warfarin compare in reducing
the risk of stroke.”
Nonetheless, Vickers shares his experience: “You
know, I tried warfarin…but the blood testing and dietary restrictions…”
Nealon commiserates: “Don’t get me started on that.”
This has been the big selling point of Xarelto. Warfarin patients are
at risk for some 500 interactions with other prescription drugs as well
as various foods high in Vitamin K, such as spinach. Those drug
interactions are of particular concern among elderly patients, many of
whom take several different medications. Xarelto (also known as rivaroxaban)
has fewer than 50 interactions and requires far less in the way of
expensive, time-consuming patient testing. The ad acknowledges that
patients on Xarelto “may bruise more easily, and it may take longer for
bleeding to stop.”
That is a gross understatement. In fact, the bleeding may not stop at
all until the drug has been removed from the system, as there is no
approved reversal agent. Patients taking rival medications Pradaxa (dabigitran)
faced similar problems; however, that drug could sometimes be removed
by putting the patient on emergency dialysis. Due to Xarelto’s
particular mechanism of action, this is not an option for Xarelto
patients. The ad goes on to state: “Xarelto may increase the risk of
bleeding if you take certain medicines…Xarelto can cause serious, and in
rare cases, fatal bleeding.” The voice-over advises patients to seek
emergency help in the case of emergency bleeding – but again, there is
no mention how such bleeding should be handled.
Meanwhile, our celebrity endorsers are seen as they continue to enjoy
their post-luncheon round of golf, to the accompaniment of sprightly
guitar music. As Vickers tells Nealon in a confidential tone as they
watch Palmer sink a putt, “You know, Xarelto is the Number One
prescribed blood thinner in its class,” to which Nealon responds,
“That’s a big win.”
It wasn’t such a big win to those who allege that they been injured or killed by Xarelto, says Levin Papantonio
attorney Ned McWilliams who is helping to head the national litigation
against those involved in the manufacture and promotions of Xarelto.
Executives at Janssen and its parent company Johnson & Johnson,
which has been target in several liability lawsuits in recent years,
know they’re facing some serious trouble, especially with recent studies published in major medical journals.
Although a small San Francisco biotech firm has come up with a
promising reversal agent, that drug – Annexa-R – is still undergoing
clinical trials, with no indication as to when or if it will get FDA
approval. In the meantime, Janssen and Bayer are determined to wring as
much revenue out of Xarelto as possible, taking advantage of America’s
obsession with celebrities in order to manipulate consumers and boost
sales.
Hopefully, all four of Xarelto’s celebrity cheerleaders will continue
to live healthy, productive lives. However, if any of them wind up
suffering uncontrolled bleeding like almost 2,000 other patients, it
could put a serious damper on the drug maker’s current marketing ploy.
About the Author
KJ McElrath
K.J. McElrath is a former history and social studies teacher who has long maintained a keen interest in legal and social issues.
Going
on a bug hunt might not sound like the most exciting thing in the
world, but for Project Zero, the name for a team of security analysts
tasked by Google with finding zero-day exploits, a good old fashioned
bug hunt is both exhilarating and productive.
The team gave themselves a week to root out
vulnerabilities, and to keep everyone sharp, the researchers made a
contest out of it pitting the North American and European participants
against each other.
Their efforts resulted in the discovery of 11 vulnerabilities, the "most interesting" of which was CVE-2015-7888.
It's a directory traversal bug that allows a file to be written as a
system. Project Zero said it was trivially exploitable, though it's also
one of several that Samsung has since fixed.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is
sending shock waves through the 2016 presidential election with a $2
million television ad that takes his message of change to the masses.
Video:
Transcript of the ad:
VOICE OVER
The son of a Polish immigrant who grew up in a Brooklyn tenement.
He went to public schools, then college where the work of his life began.
Fighting injustice and inequality.
Speaking truth to power.
He moved to Vermont, won election and praise — as one of America’s best Mayors.
In Congress, he stood up for working families and for principle
Opposing the Iraq War.
Supporting veterans.
Now, he’s taking on Wall Street and a corrupt political system.
Funded by over a million contributions.
Tackling climate change to create clean energy jobs.
Fighting for living wages, equal pay and tuition-free public colleges
BERNIE SANDERS
“People are sick and tired of establishment politics and they want real change.”
VOICE OVER
Bernie Sanders.
Husband. Father. Grandfather.
An honest leader — building a movement with you, to give us a future to believe in.
BERNIE SANDERS
“I’m Bernie Sanders and I approve this message.”
Notice how the ad specifically mentions building a political
movement. Bernie Sanders isn’t only interested in winning the Democratic
nomination. He is trying to build a movement that will change the
United States of America.
Sanders campaign manager John Weaver said, “Thousands of Americans
have come out to see Bernie speak and we’ve seen a great response to his
message. This ad marks the next phase of this campaign. We’re bringing
that message directly to the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire.”
The Sanders campaign is growing. The movement is evolving. Bernie
Sanders isn’t going to be stopped by politics as usual. Whether or not
he wins the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders is sending shock waves
through American politics with his movement to change America by handing
political power back to ordinary Americans.
The message that Republicans, their billionaires, and the corporate
interests don’t want people to hear is now being broadcast over the mass
media. The Sanders call for taking the country back has gone
mainstream.
Bernie Sanders has changed the race for the Democratic nomination by
making it more liberal and giving voice to issues that would not
normally be discussed in primary campaigns. Sanders is also impacting
the Republican contest. Republicans are getting debate questions about
income inequality.
The impact of his message is sending shock waves
through our national dialogue.
The senator from Vermont is changing the political conversation in
the United States, and taking his message to television will only expand
his reach.
The fact that Sanders can spend $2 million on ad buy for Iowa and New
Hampshire is a tribute to the 750,000+ Americans who have donated to
his campaign.
Bernie Sanders isn’t just out to win an election. He’s out to change a country.
WASHINGTON
— JEB, dragging his wilted exclamation point around, is so boring that
it’s hard to focus on the epic nature of his battle.
Not
the battle against Donald Trump, although his beat-down by Trump is
garishly entertaining. I’m talking about the Brooks Brothers “Game of
Thrones” family tangle.
As
much as Poppy Bush scoffs at “the D-word,” as he calls any reference to
dynasty, the Bushes do consider themselves an American royal family.
They have always pretty much divided the world into Bushes and the help.
The patriarch once sent me a funny satire referring to himself and
Barbara as the Old King and Queen, W. as King George of Crawford and Jeb
as the Earl of Tallahassee.
At
91, 41 is living to see Jebbie become president. He is mystified by a
world in which Trump, whom he considers a clown, could dethrone the
crown prince.
Jeb
said in New Hampshire that Poppy is prone to throw his shoe at the TV
when Trump comes on. Fortunately, the former president always has very
stylish socks.
Some
of Jeb’s disillusioned donors are hanging on just because they can’t
bear to shatter the old man’s illusions. How can America be rewarding
the wrong dynasty — Little Rock over Kennebunkport?
As Jonathan Martin and Matt Flegenheimer recently wrote
in The Times, Poppy and Bush retainers like John Sununu are bewildered
by a conservative electorate that rejects Republican primogeniture,
prefers snark to substance and embraces an extremely weird brain surgeon
and an extravagantly wild reality show star.
When
the Bushes had to stick a shiv in the ribs of their foes, they behaved
like gentlemen and outsourced it to henchmen. They can’t fathom a world
where that vulgarian Trump is doing his own dirty work.
Trump
has gotten into Jeb’s head, making Jeb so petulant he declared he had
“a lot of really cool things” he could be doing instead, when we all
know he doesn’t.
For Bushworld, this was the election where the Cain and Abel drama of W. and Jeb would finally have a happy ending.
I
covered the Jeb and Junior sibling smashdown from the start. In 1993, I
went on the road to watch Jeb run for governor in Florida and W. run
for governor in Texas.
Barbara
had blurted out to W. that he shouldn’t run because he couldn’t win.
And when I talked to Jeb, he seemed annoyed that his older brother had
jumped into the race in Texas because it turned it into “a People
magazine story.”
But
W. had spent his rowdy 20's and 30's living with the unpleasant fact that
even though he was the oldest, his parents assumed Jeb had the bright
political future. At 47, with his drinking days behind him and Laura
beside him, he was ready to cash in on the family name and money and
make his move.
It
was soon clear to me that the Good Son was not as scintillating a
campaigner as the Prodigal Son. W. didn’t know the issues and he had a
spiteful side, but he was the one with the crackle.
When
Jeb came up with a line on the trail in Florida that worked, W. just
swiped it. When Jeb said, “I am running for governor not because I am
George and Barbara Bush’s son; I am running because I am George P. and
Noelle and Jeb’s father,” W. began saying: “I am not running for
governor because I am George Bush’s son. I am running because I am Jenna
and Barbara’s father.” Karl Rove laughed about the shoplifting.
Jeb
was the image of his mother, especially when he smiled, but his
pragmatic political temperament was more like his father’s, even though
he never had his dad’s manic “ants on a hot pan” energy. W. looked like
his father but got his acerbic streak from his mother.
On
election night, W. was steamed that his father seemed more upset by
Jeb’s loss than excited by his oldest son’s win. Not only did W. shock
his family by making it to the Oval Office before Jeb. In the tie
election, Jeb had to be prodded into helping his brother snatch Florida
away from Al Gore.
This was going to be the year that settled sibling scores. Jeb would get what his parents considered his birthright.
Even
though the brothers are not particularly close, and W.’s tragic over-involvement in the Middle East and tragic under-involvement in
Katrina did not make him a campaign asset, somehow Jeb kept wrapping
himself around W.’s axle — and his Axis of Evil.
When
Jeb was first asked if it had been a good idea to invade Iraq, he gave
four different answers. Then he said he wouldn’t rule out torture and
thought getting rid of Saddam was “a pretty good deal.” And he couldn’t
stop bragging about how his brother kept America safe, even though Trump
correctly noted that W. was not on the ball leading up to 9/11. And, of
course, W.’s two misbegotten wars have been recruiting boons for
terrorist fiends.
Jeb
explained away his shambling, shrinking campaign by saying he was a
doer, not a performer. But the main thing he was doing was helping to
rehabilitate his brother’s pockmarked reputation.
W.
headlined a fund-raiser at a Georgetown home Thursday night. When he
came out, a TMZ camera captured him jovially signing autographs for
people waiting on the street and calling out as he drove away, “Don’t
put that on eBay.”
“It looked out of character for him,” one said. “He looked like he was a little lost when Marco came back at him.”
Jeb’s loyalists are urging reporters to point out, as one asserted, that Trump would be “a catastrophe for the country.”
They also think Jeb has to be more self-deprecating, because he has no choice, and stress his Latino support.
Before
the debate debacle, the joyless candidate had been doubling down on his
promise to be joyful, proclaiming on NewsmaxTV, “I’m having a blast”
and “I’m in phenomenal shape for an old 62 year old guy. In fact, I
think we ought to have five-hour debates.”
But
this campaign has been defined by Trump parachuting in, like an Elvis
impersonator in Vegas, and disrupting the royal coronation. Jeb had been
out of politics for eight years and he strolled back, mistakenly
assuming that the vassals were waiting eagerly to hail him.
With Trump belittling him for being low energy and running to Mommy and Daddy for help, Jeb realized he was in a new world.
His
brother’s muscle-bound presidency led to Barack Obama and the diffident
Obama led to a new brand of furious, Tea Party-infused Republicans.
While
Jeb was offstage, the whole party and political environment had passed
him by. He came back looking very ’90's. He’s talking about pragmatic
government at a time when the drivers in his party are talking about
tearing it down.
A while ago Coldbird and I decided to finish the ARK project for good and add all the missing features that need to be added. So we began working on its next iteration, ARK-3.
However things got cold and little to no information has been released
so far about the project. This is mainly because Coldbird and I don’t go
out publicly too often and because we have problems finding time for
the project.
ARK-3
is a Custom Firmware (eCFW) for the emulated PSP on the Vita (ePSP). It
is essentially a reworked version of PROVita/ARK-1, a port of the Pro CFW for the PSP.
It’s features include:
– Full compatibility with PSP home brews and games.
– ISO and CSO support through the Inferno ISO Driver as well as compatibility with the M33, ME and NP9660 drivers.
– Compatibility with PSX games under PSP exploits with partial sound through PEOPS.
– Partial compatibility with PSX exploits.
– Compatible with up to firmware 3.52
–
Built in menu with advanced features like PMF playback, FTP, CFW
settings and more. It is also compatible with other popular menus such
as ONEmenu and 138Menu.
There’s still a lot of things to do here, most importantly:
– Finish porting ARK-3 to PSX exploits.
– Finish the PEOPS port by improving compatibility and adding game-specific configurations to the built-in database.
– Port 3.5X kernel exploits.
Hopefully
releasing the source code calls the attention of other developers that
might want to contribute to the project. Anyone is now free to do so.
Just a few thoughts on the Republican debate from Boulder, Colorado (the major league one, not the farm team):
1. You can pinpoint the moment that Jeb Bush swallowed
his own balls. The former governor of Florida had decided to lob his
obviously scripted attack at Sen. Marco Rubio, saying that Rubio's
missed votes in the Senate disappointed him as a constituent. Rubio was
ready with a comeback about all the past presidential candidates who had
missed votes, including John McCain. You could see that Bush realized
he had brought a lace doily to a razor fight when he said about McCain,
weakly, as if he wanted to vomit, "Well, he wasn't my senator." Then
Rubio cut off Bush's balls and you could watch Bush swallow them when he
attempted to interrupt the grandstanding Rubio with "Well, I've
been--." The problem, at the end of the day, is that Jeb Bush isn't the
vicious motherfucker his brother was. George W. would have come back
with some remark about Rubio being new on the job...just like Barack
Obama. But you got the sense, as his balls were descending his throat
and into his stomach, that Jeb just wanted to say, "Fuck this." And no
one would have blamed him. At this point, Jeb is a hilariously pitiable
figure, a vaudeville clown, a sad sack. It's time for someone to walk
him into a field and tell him to look at the rabbits.
2. Whoever advised Chris Christie to look directly at the camera and
"answer questions" was a fucking idiot who should be fired immediately.
Each time he decided to address the TV audience, it looked like a giant
pumpkin head was angry at us. It was disconcerting and just goddamn
rude. Motherfucker, someone asked you a question. You could at least
look like you give a shit that you're in the same room as the
questioner. And "answer questions" is in quotation marks because, more
often than not, Christie just decided, "Hey, Chico, Blondie, and
Pinhead, fuck what you're asking. I got shit I practiced saying directly
to myself in the mirror." So he'd go off about Hillary Clinton or how
the country sucks beyond sucking under the Negro president who wants
cops killed. And, by the way, of all the lies spit out by the
candidates, Christie saying that FBI Director James Comey "has said this
week that because of a lack of support from politicians like the
president of the United States" cops fear for their lives was the
closest to actual slander. Comey never mentioned Obama. Christie came
across like a desperate buffoon, the faded high school football star who has become a sad, bloated vestige of the time when he was beautiful.
3. None of the candidates give a fuck about your facts. Rubio got pissed
when John Harwood quoted a conservative group, the Tax Foundation, on
the math behind the senator's tax plan. Ben Carson waved off the
illogical math of his tax plan when it was presented to him. And Donald
Trump? Your piddling truth matters not next to his undulating neck flap
of fiction. Did he call Rubio "Mark Zuckerberg's personal senator"? Of
course he did, but who the hell cares? Who remembers things that are
your own campaign website? He loves Mark Zuckerberg. And bankruptcy?
Your stupid laws let Trump businesses declare bankruptcy and get out of
paying debts. Is it his fault that he dicked over so many people? Get
outta here. And guns? Trump might be carrying one right now. He might
have to kill someone on the wild streets of Boulder. And, sure, sure,
it's a great idea to let his employees carry guns into, let's see, yeah.
casinos. That's all just incredible. Amazing. Best there is. Somebody
should be there to shit on Trump's face every day of his worthless life.
4. John Kasich looked like he had a case of coke jaw. Not only was he as
jittery of someone who is jonesing for something, crank, liquor, smack,
something, but he kept clenching and unclenching his jaw and grinding
his teeth. It really took something away from his whole "I'm the
rational one" persona he was attempting. More upsetting was Kasich's
belief in the need for universities to privatize their assets: "[T]hey
shouldn't be in the parking lot business. They shouldn't be in the
dining business, they shouldn't be in the dorm business." A college
shouldn't be in the dorm business? So you want to toss 18 year-olds to
the dogs of whatever corrupt bunch of slumlords bid on dorm rights.
Well, Kasich isn't exactly known for giving two shits about education unless there's a profit incentive for the people providing it.
5. Creepy Ted Cruz, who looks like every peeping Tom, said the creepiest
thing of the night: "If you want someone to grab a beer with, I may not
be that guy. But if you want someone to drive you home, I will get the
job done and I will get you home." He might have continued, "I might
take a detour to my backwoods sodomy pit with you, but your corpse will
be dropped off at your home."
6. Presumptive debate victor Marco Rubio actually tried to plead poverty
after getting a million dollar book advance. If he had a million
dollars in student loans that needed paying off, he must have borrowed
the money from the Cuban mafia.
7. Carly Fiorina's most disgraceful moment in a generally disgraceful
evening when she said of Hillary Clinton, "Every single policy she
espouses, and every single policy of President Obama has been
demonstrably bad for women." What would that be? The Lilly Ledbetter
Fair Pay Act? Keeping funding for Planned Parenthood? Appointing two
women to the Supreme Court? Working for women's rights around the world?
The one number she offered, that 92% of job losses in Obama's first
term were women, was utterly, embarassingly wrong, so she'll probably repeat it endlessly.
8. The Rude Pundit's been told that Rand Paul was there, but there is scant evidence.
9. Mike Huckabee must have jacked off in glee when he realized he could make a blimp reference. He's so in the moment.
10. And, yeah, the moderators sucked early in the debate. Harwood's "Is
this a comic book version of a presidential campaign?" to Donald Trump
really was a bullshit blogger question. But at other times, they asked
direct questions about shit like tax policies, with citations of studies
that absolutely have a place in a debate. But someone needs to punch
Jim Cramer and Rick Santelli in the nuts before their hysterical ranting
is allowed on air. (By the way, fuck you, CNBC, for not freely
streaming the event online.)
11. And, yeah, the candidates were total twat crumbs about the media. If
the trio of moderators had been the ones at the Democratic debate,
then, sure, you can accuse them of having gone easy on the Democrats.
But most of the time, they were bitching because they hated being
challenged. Whining about media unfairness is great for applause from
the slavering hordes of cretins in the audience. Maybe that's all that
matters to this slate of losers and human hemorrhoids. But Hillary
Clinton or Bernie Sander or, hell, even Martin O'Malley would beat them
stupider.
PENNSAUKEN, N.J. (AP) — Federal regulators say two investigations
have found that the snack foods company that makes SuperPretzels and
ICEE drinks cheated temporary production line workers out of wages.
The U.S. Department of Labor says Tuesday that J&J Snack Foods
Corp. paid more than $2.1 million in back wages and damages to nearly
700 temporary workers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The labor department found that the company and the temporary
staffing firms it used denied minimum wage and overtime pay to 677
workers.
A spokesman for J&J didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.
The workers made products including frozen Minute Maid juice bars and
Country Home Bakers goods at facilities in Swedesboro, New Jersey, and
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
The Pennsauken-based company makes and distributes snack foods to food service and supermarket industries.
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