May 29, 2016

I watched the live stream (Bksfld) and he was awesome!

He also held a Q&A before the rally, also live streamed, and the people that spoke about the concerns they hoped to bring to his attention were gobsmacking! Sanders himself looked shocked when he heard of some of the local problems. Polluted water, farm worker's abuse, fracking, etc. Grown men were choking back sobs and tears when they spoke.

I live @ 2 miles from this lovely vista:


http://earthjustice.org/blog/2015-december/one-california-countys-fracked-idea

snip/

Which county in America produces the most oil? If you guessed somewhere in Texas, you’d be wrong. Alaska? Nope. Pennsylvania? Not even close.

It’s Kern County, California with around 42,000 active wells . California is the third largest oil producing state, behind Texas and North Dakota. The epicenter of the state’s oil boom is Kern County, which lies about 100 miles north of Los Angeles in the rural Central Valley. Kern is home to approximately 75 percent of California's oil drilling and 95 percent of the state’s fracking, and regulators hope to keep the black gold flowing.

Last month, the county board of supervisors approved a new ordinance that would purportedly allow oil and gas companies to fast track drilling permits for tens of thousands of new wells in the next two decades with no environmental review and no public notice or participation. On Thursday, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against Kern County on behalf of the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), in coordination with the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment and the Center for Biological Diversity. The Earthjustice suit challenges the county’s claim that a single environmental review conducted before the ordinance was passed is sufficient to authorize up to 3,647 new oil and gas wells a year for the next 20 years or longer, for a total of 72,000 new wells.

NRDC found that 14 percent of Californians—5.4 million people—live within one mile of an oil or gas well. Of that group, 69 percent are people of color, most Hispanic or Latino. Low-income communities of color typically face disproportionate financial and health burdens from heavy industry, including oil and gas production. The new wells authorized by the Kern County plan would be built in an area that already has some of the nation’s worst air quality. According to the American Lung Association, Bakersfield, the largest city in Kern County, is the second worst city in the country for air pollution, both short-term and year-round.

Air pollution from oil and gas wells can exacerbate illnesses like asthma and high blood pressure, and fracking, specifically, has been linked to water pollution, which can occur when massive amounts of fracking wastewater laced with chemicals are injected deep underground. Just one barrel of fracked oil produces 10 barrels of contaminated waste water that must be disposed of.


Yeah. We have water pollution problems. Sky-high asthma and birth defect rates. And I saw some here criticizing about why Sanders would come to a red area like this. Tell you what - he's the only politician I've seen that gave a shit about people like us enough to show up and listen to these issues. The GOPers like Romney, Trump and Bush come here. But they don't hold events in the free fairgrounds for the hoi polloi, they have them in fabulously decorated and catered event tents for high dollar patrons. Bernie didn't care about the farm signs around the rodeo arena (where he spoke).

I'll take him. Any day, any time. He doesn't worry about getting cooties from us. He gives a shit.



on edit: Shout out to DUer Donkees for providing the live stream links. TY!

April 15, 2016

Clinton's Image Among Democrats at New Low - April 14, 2016

snips/

Clinton's image has undergone ups and downs over the course of the campaign season, just as it has over her entire 25-year career in the national spotlight. Overall, however, April so far has not been kind to the former secretary of state. Her net favorable rating has descended steadily to her current low point -- in the midst of a crucial stage of the primary season, which will help determine whether she'll emerge the clear winner over Bernie Sanders before the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia this July.

The degree of the depths to which Clinton has descended is evident when compared with her highest net favorable rating (+63, among Democrats) in early November. This means her current net favorable rating among her own partisans is about half of what it was at its peak last fall.

From a long-range perspective, Sanders' image became more positive than Clinton's for the first time in January, and except for a period in the second half of February, has been above hers since. He reached his personal net favorable rating apogee (+63) in late March/early April, and although it's been down slightly since then, his is still the most positive rating for any candidate of either party at this point, by a large margin.

The big picture for Sanders is one of image improvement over time as he has become better known. This directly contrasts the big-picture trend for Clinton of a decline in her image over time, particularly in recent weeks.

Bottom line on the Democrats at this point: Sanders clearly is the better liked of the two candidates among Democrats, as Clinton's image has suffered a significant decline in recent days.



The more voters get to know Sanders, the better they like him. Clinton ... not so much. IMO, of course!

March 7, 2016

Nancy Reagan was the epitome of how the right likes their women:

vacuous and submissive - forever in service to a man. I'll give Nancy respect for her devotion to her husband (caring for someone with Alzheimer's is not an easy or pleasant thing to do). She had done some work for Alzheimer's, but that's not being a decent person, that's following her selfish interests. She had no interest in stem cell research until it affect her personally.

That woman caused a lot of suffering to those with AIDS, and for entire families with her war on drugs, so I can't conjure up heartfelt sympathies for someone who cared little about anyone else.

Nancy Reagan was America's Imelda Marcos .... from her $400,000 china services (remember that one? while they were cutting school lunches and categorizing relish and ketchup as vegetables?), 10's of thousands on wardrobes she demanded to be given for free - just because of who she was?, pushing the Carters to get out of the WH 3 months early so she could get her free redecorating done before they moved in?, it goes on and on. I was an adult at that time. I remember it all. She was not some sweet old lady with a love story for the ages. Yes, she produced 2 remarkable children. They turned out that way in spite of their parents - not because of them. Her daughter at 24, fearful of passing on her parents genes, she says, underwent a tubal ligation. Patti wrote a book detailing the mental and physical abuse she grew up with.

Her vapid "Just say no" campaign was a public relations smokescreen for Reagan SLASHING drug abuse treatment, drug abuse research and drug education funding in his savage-to-the-poor early budgets.

When she helped cover up his mental health issues, she damaged the republic. Covering up her husband's dementia (during his !st term in office!) while he emptied the mental institutions and overnight created the beginnings of the homelessness epidemic. That he and she refused to say AIDS, joked about AIDS - let alone make an effort to take care of the afflicted, while he and Oliver North were allowing the Iran Contra to sell drugs in our country to fund their war.


In a picture-taking session at the Reagan ranch in California earlier this month, Mr. Reagan was asked a question about American-Soviet talks on space weapons. When he hesitated, Mrs. Reagan could be heard saying, ''Tell them we are doing everything we can.''

In short: Bette Davis

"You should only speak good of the dead."
"Joan Crawford is dead."
"Good."