July 31, 2015

"Strange Orange Robots Sail Into Dutch Harbor. Just What Are They Up To?"

Excerpts from a very entertaining article

These robots are 18 feet tall. Each one has a bright orange wing of carbon fiber sticking up from a floating platform. At sea, they look like oversized windsurfers. Using the wind for propulsion, and solar panels for their electronics, they’ve been traveling thousands of miles in the Bering Sea all by themselves.

Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and the University of Washington are collaborating on the high-tech project.

They say each drone can carry more than 200 pounds of scientific instruments. They can cruise the open ocean at up to 14 knots. They can boldly go where it would cost a lot more to send a ship full of human beings.

At a busy fishing dock on Unalaska’s Captain’s Bay, Jenkins says he launched the two sail drones from the very same dock in April.
Jenkins: “We sent them out of here into 45-knot headwinds. From here, they went to St. Paul, then up through the Bering Sea up to Nome, then over to Norton Sound. We mapped the Yukon delta. Then they sailed back to Dutch Harbor. So 4,500 miles on each drone.” The last time humans surveyed the sea floor of the Yukon delta, the year was 1899.

http://kucb.org/news/article/strange-orange-robots-sail-into-dutch-harbor-just-what-are-they-up-to/

July 30, 2015

Strange comment - one might say a tad disturbed/disturbing.

I haven't received any of the recently discussed threatening or ugly private messages, but I was amazed to read this response on a GD-Primary thread:

I decided not to provide a link or the name of the poster - have no intent to specifically call her or him out - I'm writing about this as others have written about the PMs they received, without identifying the person sending it.
"You post rudely.I read and watch it and make note of it."

Anyone else seen anything like it? It's funny, in a sad and pathetic way. Anyone else reminded of Dickens' character, Madame Defarge and her knitting in A Tale of Two Cities?
Even on a literal level, Madame Defarge’s knitting constitutes a whole network of symbols. Into her needlework she stitches a registry (one might say, makes a note of), or list of names, of all those condemned to die in the name of a new republic.

Although the comment was directed at another Sanders supporter, not me, I did respond to it:

Divernan (12,827 posts)
xxx. Shades of the Lord High Executioner/The Mikado

What fun! We're getting into Gilbert and Sullivan territory here.
In the Mikado, the character of Ko-Ko, aka The Lord High Executioner, has a lovely song and it goes a little something like this:

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/mikado/webopera/mk105a.html

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you very much! Tip your servers!
I'll be playing here all primary season!

And of course in the proud tradition of making up lists, we have a real life historical character known for his "lists" - Red-baiting, black-listing, anti-homosexual witch-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy

Wheeling speech
McCarthy experienced a meteoric rise in national profile on February 9, 1950, when he gave a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. His words in the speech are a matter of some debate, as no audio recording was saved. However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."

There is some dispute about whether or not McCarthy actually gave the number of people on the list as being "205" or "57". In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record, he used the number 57. The origin of the number 205 can be traced: In later debates on the Senate floor, McCarthy referred to a 1946 letter that then–Secretary of State James Byrnes sent to Congressman Adolph J. Sabath. In that letter, Byrnes said State Department security investigations had resulted in "recommendation against permanent employment" for 284 persons, and that 79 of these had been removed from their jobs; this left 205 still on the State Department's payroll. In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks.

July 29, 2015

Clinton underestimates the grassroots energy around Keystone XL at her own peril

Hillary Clinton's answer Tuesday to a question on the Keystone XL pipeline was a refusal to comment because the decision was up to President Obama and she didn't want to "second-guess" him. She said, “If it’s undecided when I become president, I will answer your question.”

For real? I'll tell you after you elect me? This is a completely misguided strategy by the Clinton campaign and it will deeply undermine her credibility with the progressive base even as she rolls out her climate change policies. On its face, it looks like a total equivocation. Worse yet, it follows news last week that the Clinton campaign has now hired Democratic strategist Jeff Berman, who also happens to be a former lobbyist for TransCanada—the company that's pushing Keystone XL.

The newest hire for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is a longtime strategist who played a key role in her 2008 primary defeat while working for then-Sen. Barack Obama.
He’s also a Washington lobbyist who lobbied the State Department -- led, at the time, by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- on behalf of the company seeking to build the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

The Clinton campaign is deeply underestimating the grassroots appetite for shutting down the Keystone XL. Her hedge today is punctuated by the presence of Berman in her campaign. If she wants to maintain her integrity on Keystone, she must do one of two things:
1) Dismiss Berman so that her policy approach isn't unduly influenced by his presence;
2) Actually say what she would do as president about Keystone—then voters can judge for themselves.

Hillary Clinton's team may not recall the 2011 Keystone protests that drew thousands to Washington for arrestable actions and thousands more to form a human chain several-people deep around the White House. But if she thinks climate change activists are going to be any easier to dodge than Dreamers or Black Lives Matter activists, she is mistaken.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/29/1406641/-Clinton-underestimates-the-grassroots-energy-around-Keystone-XL-at-her-own-peril?detail=facebook#

July 29, 2015

Shades of the Lord High Executioner/The Mikado

What fun! We're getting into Gilbert and Sullivan territory here.
In the Mikado, the character of Ko-Ko, aka The Lord High Executioner, has a lovely song and it goes a little something like this:

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list — I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There's the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs —
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs —
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with 'em flat —
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that —
And all third persons who on spoiling tête-á-têtes insist —
They'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed!
Chorus.
He's got 'em on the list — he's got 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed.

http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/mikado/webopera/mk105a.html

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you very much! Tip your servers!
I'll be playing here all primary season!

And of course in the proud tradition of making up lists, we have a real life historical character known for his "lists" - Red-baiting, black-listing, anti-homosexual witch-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy

Wheeling speech

McCarthy experienced a meteoric rise in national profile on February 9, 1950, when he gave a Lincoln Day speech to the Republican Women's Club of Wheeling, West Virginia. His words in the speech are a matter of some debate, as no audio recording was saved. However, it is generally agreed that he produced a piece of paper that he claimed contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. McCarthy is usually quoted to have said: "The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."[36][37]

There is some dispute about whether or not McCarthy actually gave the number of people on the list as being "205" or "57". In a later telegram to President Truman, and when entering the speech into the Congressional Record, he used the number 57.[38] The origin of the number 205 can be traced: In later debates on the Senate floor, McCarthy referred to a 1946 letter that then–Secretary of State James Byrnes sent to Congressman Adolph J. Sabath. In that letter, Byrnes said State Department security investigations had resulted in "recommendation against permanent employment" for 284 persons, and that 79 of these had been removed from their jobs; this left 205 still on the State Department's payroll. In fact, by the time of McCarthy's speech only about 65 of the employees mentioned in the Byrnes letter were still with the State Department, and all of these had undergone further security checks.[39]

July 29, 2015

Consider photo of firefighters working in protective gear in high 90's temps.

Talk about physically demanding/exhausting work. Now compare & contrast that with (1) the pampered politicians enthroned in air-conditioned comfort in their spacious office suites - fund raising on their speaker-phones (aside to assistant: "Madge: Where's my iced tea!?!?&quot or with (2) conservative pundits in their ergonomic desk chairs in front of a computer - who have likely never worked at a physically demanding job in their lives - calling for an increase in retirement age re social security.

July 28, 2015

LOL "might radically affect my support of Bernie!"

(And yes, sarcasm applies to my entire post!)
In the grand and whining tradition of those fragile flowers who raise their heads up from their fainting couches, clutch their pearls, and tremulously snarl, "Well I WAS going to support Bernie Sanders, but then one of his supporters here on DU hurt my widdle feelings by reporting hard facts about Hillary's Wall Street ties/Bosnian airport heroics/son-in-law hedge fund profiteer/whatevs, so now I'm going to tell Bernie on them!

And then I'm going to drop by the Clintons' $18 million summer vacation rental digs in the Hamptons with my campaign donation. She'll appreciate my loyalty now that some really rich Dems are backing Jeb!

The Clinton’s rental, reportedly worth around $18 million, leaves the Obamas in the dust. The Clintons are reportedly paying $100,000 for their month long (August) summer stay. The Clintons will enjoy a seven-bedroom, seven-and-a-half-bath home.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/battle-summer-vacation-homes-obamas-clintons/story?id=24934506

Pretty ritzy for a poor couple who were flat broke and in debt when leaving the White House! But it's vital to their self-esteem to keep up with the One Percenters. Any why lower herself to talk to reporters or speak to thousands of backers all around the country when she can hobnob with the billionaire set? And the Hamptons is a great place for fund-raising. She better get moving though. Jeb Bush just had a fund raiser in the Hamptons where the host and half the guests were rich Dems & they all wrote checks to Jeb! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jeb-bush-snares-democratic-moneyman-090102593.html;_ylt=A0LEVvHxvLZVYUIAOXsnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0a


Jeb Bush Snares a Democratic Moneyman on Hamptons Tour
Bloomberg By Zachary Mider
14 hours ago

Behind a garden modeled on Monet's, Jeb Bush addressed a lawn-full of chief executives and hedge-fund managers at an East Hampton, New York, estate Saturday morning. While the candidate is no stranger to courting wealthy donors, this time was different: about half the attendees were Democrats.
This guy sells well," said Kenneth Lipper, the money manager and registered Democrat who hosted the event, after Bush left. Virtually the only one who left without writing a check, Lipper said, was a buck deer that wandered past the group assembled on the wooded grounds.
The wealthiest donors are playing an unprecedented role in the early stages of the 2016 race. For the first time ever, most candidates are raising more money through super-PACs, which can accept donations of up to $1 million or more, than through the traditional campaign accounts that are capped at $2,700 per donor.

No one has raised as much in this new environment as Bush, who had amassed about $103 million in his super-PAC and another $11 million for his campaign by the end of June. The Lipper event shows how widely Bush is ranging in his quest for donors.

The race for money adds to the importance of places like the Hamptons, Wall Street's oceanside playground, where Lipper remarked that it's become fashionable to spend more than $100 million on a vacation home. The entire annual income for the median U.S. household—$50,000—wouldn’t cover more than 900 of the summer rentals here listed on one brokerage's website.

After answering questions for an hour at Lipper's event, Bush left for two more gatherings at a pair of mansions near the beach.

July 28, 2015

She has hubris to spare.

In its modern usage, hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance. Hubris is often associated with a lack of humility, though not always with the lack of knowledge. Those accused of hubris often come from higher social backgrounds, such as politicians or wealthy celebrities, than the accuser, who accuses them of having marginal experience with the realities of the topics they are addressing. An accusation of hubris often implies that suffering or punishment will follow, similar to the occasional pairing of hubris and nemesis in Greek mythology.

The proverb "pride goeth (goes) before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (from the biblical Book of Proverbs, 16:18) is thought to sum up the modern use of hubris. It is also referred to as "pride that blinds", as it often causes one accused of hubris to act in foolish ways that belie common sense.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

July 27, 2015

Hillary Clinton aides' Wall Street links raise economic policy doubts

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/26/wall-street-links-hillary-clinton-aides-economic-policy-doubts

Hillary Clinton aides' Wall Street links raise economic policy doubts (headline)
Tom Nides and Robert Hormats, once of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, are veterans of the revolving door between Washington and the financial sector(subheadline)

The former aides, Tom Nides and Robert Hormats, have shuttled between government and Wall Street for years. Nides, who is frequently described as a Clinton confidant, is a longtime Morgan Stanley executive who served as deputy secretary of state for management and resources from 2011 to 2013 before returning to Morgan Stanley. Nides is also the former chairman of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Sifma), the main lobbying group for Wall Street in Washington DC.

Hormats, a former vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs, served as under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment from 2009 to 2013. He is currently vice-chairman of Kissinger Associates, the consulting firm founded by the former secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

Neil Sroka, a spokesman for the progressive advocacy group Democracy for America, expressed his angst about the influence of the two in Clinton world. “It’s hard to imagine how a presidential candidate is going to seriously confront the powerful, greed-driven interests on Wall Street when they’re taking advice and staffing cabinet posts with people who just clocked out of the same big banks and investment firms that made bundles from wrecking our economy,” Sroka said.

Both Nides and Hormats have a strong history of taking pro-business stances on financial regulation and other issues near and dear to progressives. While at Morgan Stanley, which received a federal bailout, Nides pushed for the Obama administration to “find the right balance” in avoiding criticism of Wall Street in the aftermath of the financial crisis. He also played an important role in the Bill Clinton administration lobbying members of Congress to vote for Nafta in 1993.

July 25, 2015

The Clintons' voluminous baggage goes back decades & it's documented.

Interesting that the Republicans pushing on the email investigation and missing emails have not, as far as I've seen, mentioned the similarity to the missing Whitewater documents. That was some 20 years ago, so younger posters probably never heard of this, but I have no doubt that GOP oppo research team is drooling to throw this at HRC should she win the primary.

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/05/us/hillary-clinton-s-fingerprints-among-those-found-on-papers.html
Those Whitewater documents had been subpoenaed from HRC and for 2 years she stoutly claimed she had absolutely no idea where they were. Then they were found on a table in the first family's private quarters - just outside the door to HRC's office. And she again disavowed any knowledge of how they got there.

It was so painful and ugly, for me as a Democrat who had worked for Bill's election and even been a guest at his first inauguration, to go through all the years of investigations and embarrassing results thereof. If she's the Dem. nominee, we will all have to go through months and months of rehashing this yet again. Horrifying to contemplate. If the Clintons had come clean and cooperated with the Whitewater investigations, as your post mentions they were recommended to do, Ken Starr would never have gotten around to Monica Lewinsky.

In January 1998, Starr suddenly requested and received permission to expand his investigation again. The new area of inquiry: whether Clinton and his close friend Vernon E. Jordan Jr. encouraged Monica Lewinsky to lie under oath about whether she had an affair with the president. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/whitewater.htm

Ted Koppel did a masterful Nightline report on the whole incident. Here's a link to the transcript of Ted Koppel's coverage of this nightmare. HRC is caught in mis-statement after mis-statement after mis-statement and keeps trying to spin and twist her way out of it. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/clinton/etc/01301996.html
The Whitewater Lost And Found Records
January 30, 1996
Correspondent: Chris Bury
Anchor: Ted Koppel

Announcer: January 30th, 1996.



ANNOUNCER: This is ABC News Nightline. Reporting from Washington, Ted Koppel.



CHRIS BURY, ABC NEWS (VO): The President and Mrs Clinton complain that the questions keep changing, but the controversies over Whitewater and the Travel Office have stayed alive, in large part, because the answers keep changing, too.

CHRIS BURY (VO): On January 15th, Mrs Clinton told a radio interviewer all documents had been released. Five days later, the White House issued a statement to The New York Times saying that wasn't quite true. On Castle Grande, Hillary Clinton's legal work for a land deal regulators describe as fraudulent: in May 1995 she told the Resolution Trust Corporation, quote, 'I don't believe I knew anything about any of these real estate parcels and projects.' But after billing records showed Hillary Clinton had at least 14 conversations with Seth Ward, the major player in the deal, Mrs Clinton told Barbara Walters she knew the project by another name.

HILLARY CLINTON: ('20/20,' January 19, 1996) And so when I was asked about it last year, I didn't recognize it, I didn't remember it. The billing records show I did not do work for Castle Grande. I did work for something called IDC, which was not related to Castle Grande.

CHRIS BURY (VO): That is not how Susan McDougal, the Clintons' former business partner, remembers it.
SUSAN MCDOUGAL: It was always the same thing. As far as I know, IDC and- and- and Castle Grande were one and the same.

July 25, 2015

Bill Clinton's net worth in 2013 was $80 million; John Kerry's was $125 million

Since we all know the Clintons left the White House "dead broke" according to HRC's own words, we see that Bill went from zero to $80 million in just 12 years. At that rate, he'll catch up to John Kerry by 2020.

About Bill Clinton
The 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001, with an estimated net worth of $80 million.Bill Clinton give speeches around the world, often for over $100,000 a speech.
Earnings 2013 $80 Million
Clinton roughly earned $106 million from his speaking engagements from 2001 to 2013

http://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/politician/president/bill-clinton-net-worth/

You may own a Ferrari, you lucky One Percenter, you! But I live within a mile of the Heinz Family Estate in Fox Chapel, PA, so have long been familiar with that family - and a wonderful and generously philanthropic family it has always been and remains to this day. Upon John Heinz's tragic death, the Heinz fortune went into trust funds for his wife and their three sons - John, Chris and Andre.

Teresa Heinz Kerry's personal fortune is reportedly worth as much as $1.2 billion, stemming from her earlier marriage to former Pennsylvania Sen. John Heinz III, who died in 1991 in a helicopter crash. Much of John Kerry's own wealth comes from his own family trusts. Worth as much as $125 million according to his disclosures, Kerry had been the wealthiest U.S. senator until he joined the Obama administration last month.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/heinz-buyout-john-kerrys-portfolio-could-grow-with-mega-deal-87671.html#ixzz3gtqalwCK

So that is why I have nothing against John Kerry in regard to his wealth. He inherited it - he did not raise it at a rate of 6.5 million a year by trading in on his past political office or his wife's anticipated future political office. Whatever happened to the honorable concept of "public service"? You know, where people worked hard at their professions and accumulated enough wealth to then devote their knowledge & experience to their country by holding public office.