May 31, 2016

Hillary often gets blamed here for the coup in the Honduras, as if she was responsible

for Zelaya's ouster and/or as if she should have somehow put him put back in office, despite the opposition of the Honduran Congress and Supreme Court.


Here's an argument from the other point of view:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/10/25/1438997/-It-Takes-Fortitude-and-Hillary-Clinton-Has-It-The-Honduras-Edition

May 31, 2016

Dear Black Parents

http://verysmartbrothas.com/dear-black-parents-please-love-your-children-so-they-wont-grow-up-to-be-clarence-thomas/

DEAR BLACK PARENTS: PLEASE LOVE YOUR CHILDREN SO THEY WON’T GROW UP TO BE CLARENCE THOMAS

My daughter will be six months old in a few days. She is a smiling, rolling, bouncing, and burping bundle of Blackness. She’s amazing, hilarious, and perfect. She is also a minuscule masochist who doesn’t waste opportunities to find new ways to potentially injure herself. (For instance, just yesterday, while holding her while typing, she decided to head bunt my laptop. And then she started crying for 10 seconds. And then I got scared thinking she was really hurt. And then she starting smiling and laughing like “Got you, nigga!“) Which means that my primary parental objective at this point is to make sure she’s still breathing.

She will eventually age out of this slapstick infant stage. And while keeping her alive will always be paramount, other more complex objectives will enter the picture. Like making sure she knows how to recognize a high ball screen and when to hedge on her man. And cultivating a sincere appreciation for pancakes. And sugar on grits. And teaching her the lyrics of Radiohead’s “Talk Show Host.”

But mostly I want her to be in love with who she is. Not a suffocating, consuming, constricting, and narcissistic love where she’s the only meaningful entity in her universe. But a love where she’s able to acknowledge, accept, embrace, and find the beauty and the value in all the things that make her her. A love of herself and her skin and her nose and her lips and her hair and her people and her parents and her Blackness that exists without reservation or shame and permeates and inspires others around her to strive for their best selves.

SNIP

May 31, 2016

"No, not Trump. Not ever." Conservative columnist David Brooks rips Trump to shreds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/opinion/no-not-trump-not-ever.html

The Republicans who coalesce around Trump are making a political error. They are selling their integrity for a candidate who will probably lose. About 60 percent of Americans disapprove of him, and that number has been steady since he began his campaign.

Worse, there are certain standards more important than one year’s election. There are certain codes that if you betray them, you suffer something much worse than a political defeat.

Donald Trump is an affront to basic standards of honesty, virtue and citizenship. He pollutes the atmosphere in which our children are raised. He has already shredded the unspoken rules of political civility that make conversation possible. In his savage regime, public life is just a dog-eat-dog war of all against all.

As the founders would have understood, he is a threat to the long and glorious experiment of American self-government. He is precisely the kind of scapegoating, promise-making, fear-driving and deceiving demagogue they feared.

Trump’s supporters deserve respect. They are left out of this economy. But Trump himself? No, not Trump, not ever.

May 30, 2016

Primatologist: the barricade around the zoo's gorilla enclosure was inadequate.

Being a parent is hard. Paying full attention to a child or multiple children 100% of the time is almost impossible.

On the other hand, building a fixed zoo enclosure that could keep all unauthorized human animals out should be achievable. And this zoo enclosure lacked the secondary barrier that it should have had.

Why are so many so quick to blame the mother -- who witnesses say had other children with her. Were the blamers such perfect parents themselves, all the time? Did they keep an eye on every child, 100% of the time? Did they never have to drop a child's hand? Were they ever parents at all?


P.S. That whole zoo should be carefully inspected for similar problems in design and/or maintenance.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/animals/mother-of-boy-who-fell-into-gorilla-enclosure-lashes-out-at-critics/news-story/4bcae24f7d62ad0fd2841ebc8ee6d3f4

May 30, 2016

Hearing on CA primary emergency injunction set for Wednesday, June 1.

On May 20 the original lawsuit was filed and the judge set a hearing date for August.

On Friday, after hours, a request for an emergency injunction was filed -- to the same judge. This is how he responded:

http://www.sfcityattorney.org/2016/05/27/hearing-set-bernie-sanders-backers-injunction-bid-calif-primary-june-1-1100-m/

Shortly after plaintiffs filed their after-hours motion for a preliminary injunction at approximately 7:00 p.m. this evening, U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup issued a terse, one-paragraph order:

SNIP

City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who is defending San Francisco’s Department of Elections in the federal action, criticized the lawsuit as factually-unsupported.

“San Francisco’s Department of Elections and its employees have been doing an exemplary job,” Herrera said. “I’m equally confident based on the evidence I’ve seen that our co-defendants are also meeting or exceeding their legal duties. This politically-motivated lawsuit is without merit, and there is no basis for an emergency injunction. I intend to fight it aggressively.”

The case is: Voting Rights Defense Project et al. v. Tim Depuis et al., U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Case No. 3:16-CV-02739, filed May 20, 2016. Additional documentation on the case is available on the San Francisco City Attorney’s website at: http://www.sfcityattorney.org/.

May 30, 2016

Bernie says the GOP claims that he improperly pressured a bank to lend money

to Burlington College are lies -- and they probably are.

Just as the GOP has thrown lies against the Clintons for 25 years.

But this is a sample of the kind of thing that they would attack Bernie with if he were the candidate in the general. It is entirely unrealistic to think that Hillary is the only one who would face smears from the GOP.

http://digital.vpr.net/post/republicans-claim-sanders-used-senate-office-help-wife-burlington-college#stream/0

In a letter to U.S. Attorney Eric Miller, Toensing said that he “was recently approached and informed that Senator Bernard Sanders’s office improperly pressured People’s United Bank to approve the loan application submitted by the Senator’s wife, Ms. Sanders.”

Toensing also called on Sen. Sanders to release any documents related to his involvement in the financing deal.

A spokesman for Sanders said the claims are politically motivated “lying.”

Earlier this year, Toensing called for a federal investigation of Jane Sanders involved in securing financing for the college. He alleges that she committed federal loan fraud by overstating the amount of money the college could raise to pay for a property purchased from the Catholic Diocese of Burlington in 2010.

SNIP

May 29, 2016

The new anti-Sanders ads are funded by anti-Clinton donors.

And judging by DU, they're having the desired effect. People are swallowing them, hook, line, and sinker.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/esa-fund-anti-sanders-super-pac_us_56ae76cae4b0010e80ea89fa

About a week ago, a super PAC bankrolled by a wealthy conservative donor announced that it would run an ad attacking Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for being too far along the ideological spectrum. The group, called ESA Fund, was reportedly backed by $600,000 in spending from TD Ameritrade executive Joe Ricketts. And its ad went after Sanders for supporting things like free college tuition, Medicare for all and tax hikes on the super rich.

Something was obviously suspicious. The strategy reeked of an attempt by conservatives to actually bolster Sanders in a Democratic primary under the guise of an assault. The method has worked before — famously deployed by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) in her Senate campaign to bolster her most conservative opponent in the Republican primary, Todd Akin.

ESA Fund pled ignorance, insisting that the spot was merely in response to Sanders’ strong positioning in the polls. And Sanders, as was certainly his right (really, it would have been malpractice for him not to) proudly noted that Wall Street interests were going after him.

On Sunday, however, more evidence emerged that ESA Fund is, indeed, trying to prop up Sanders as a means of taking Clinton down. In the group’s filing with the Federal Election Commission, it revealed some massive contributions from high-profile donors, including $500,000 from hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, $850,000 from Ricketts’ wife, Marlene, and $500,000 from Paul Singer, another hedge fund manager (who has now given ESA over $1 million).

Those names are familiar to anyone who follows campaign finance. They’re some of the biggest Republican donors. And not only that, they’re the same exact individuals who already started another super PAC, Future45, to go after... wait for it... Hillary Clinton.

May 29, 2016

Idiotic Sanders supporter claims he created fake homophobic video as a social experiment.

So the video of the rally which appeared to show Sanders entering the stage to a homophobic rap video is a fake, with the video altered to include that song.

And it was done by a Bernie supporter -- not a Bernie hater.

I think his story is very strange though. Why would he do a social experiment that could make Bernie look bad?

His statement here:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/05/28/sanders_campaign_denies_senator_played_homophobic_dmx_song_at_rally.html


http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/davidbadash/faked_bernie_sanders_playing_homophobic_rap_song_video_was_made_by_a_bernie_sanders_supporter

But according to Joe.My.God., Acuna has confessed to LGBT blogger and author Matt Rettenmund of Boy Culture, and to Slate. Before Acuna's confession, Rettenmund was on to the perpetrator, having wading through his tweets to confirm he's a Sanders supporter.

Acuna tells Rettenmund, "this was a social experiment, and everyone seem to fall for it."

Well, not everyone. NCRM did not.

Confessing that the "video was faked," Acuna says, "i knew everyone would go nuts."

"Im a Bernie supporter but one of the main things that I set to prove is the medias ability to rewrite headlines and make everything seem twisted." Which is essentially what he did, only worse. Most of the media doesn't intentionally splice audio on top of video to create 100 percent false stories that people think are real.

"The video was a joke at first." Acuna says, "as i thought about it, i knew everyone would go nuts," confessing that the "video was faked." i just want to give a major shout out to boy culture for keeping a level head about the situation.

https://www.washingtonblade.com/2016/05/28/video-of-homophobic-rap-at-sanders-rally-seems-fake/

UPDATE: Acuna, who identifies as a Sanders supporter, shared with the Blade a statement he gave to other media outlets asserting the video is fake and he created it as a “social experiment.”

“I did this to prove how quick the internet is to chew something up, and believe anything they here going as far as to make comments about Bernie Sanders and saying that he is a homophobe, the video is fake, he obviously is not,” Acuna said. “Moral of the story? Don’t believe everything you see on the internet. Our integrity must be stronger than to vote for a man based off a video and stronger than to just accuse a man of being something he isn’t off of something you see on the internet just to use for your own political agenda.”

May 28, 2016

Democrats reject Sanders demand to oust Frank and Malloy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanders-fails-to-oust-clinton-backers-from-convention-roles/2016/05/28/cd29b186-24fb-11e6-b944-52f7b1793dae_story.html?tid=ss_fb

WASHINGTON — Democratic officials have rejected Bernie Sanders’ request to remove two high-profile Hillary Clinton supporters from leadership positions at the party’s summer convention.

Sanders’ presidential campaign said in a letter Friday to the Democratic National Committee that Dannel Malloy, Connecticut’s governor, and Barney Frank, a former Massachusetts congressman, couldn’t be relied upon to perform their roles “fairly and capably while laboring under such deeply held bias.”

Malloy is Platform Committee co-chairman. Frank is co-chairman of the Rules Committee.

Democratic officials responded to Sanders’ request on Saturday, saying in a letter that Malloy and Frank were elected under party rules and that Sanders wasn’t alleging any violations of that process.

SNIP

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/05/28/bernie-sanders-calls-ouster-two-convention-co-chairs/85084502/

In April, Tad Devine, Sanders’ senior adviser, said Frank is among surrogates for Hillary Clinton who used Sanders’ remarks to a New York Daily News editorial board on April 1 to promote a story line that questions Sanders’ capacity to be president. Devine pointed to Frank’s April 6 statements on MSNBC that Sanders “confused several things” in his responses to questions about his core issue of breaking up big banks. Frank also said Sanders’ responses to the editorial board were not “coherent.”

Frank said in an April interview with USA TODAY that he would step aside from his co-chairmanship if the Democratic nomination is still uncertain in June and if a Rules Committee decision could be the deciding factor. With Clinton's decisive lead in delegates, that appears unlikely.

A Connecticut Democratic Party spokesman told USA TODAY earlier this month that Malloy agrees with Sanders on many issues. On Saturday, Leigh Appleby said Malloy is committed to a platform and process reflective of the party's diverse viewpoints.

"This year's Democratic platform process is making an unprecedented effort to ensure the process is reflective of the entire party and that every Democrat has an opportunity to have their voice heard in a meaningful way," Appleby said in a statement. "And at the end of the day, Democats will put forward a platform that stands in stark contrast to the hateful, divisive, and dangerous policies of Donald Trump."

May 28, 2016

AIDS activists blast Bernie's campaign for "using and abusing" them in the publicity

for a meeting they had, which the Bernie campaign falsely portrayed as a meeting to discuss CA's drug pricing ballot initiative, ahead of the CA primary.

They were already upset with him for canceling a meeting to discuss their concerns, and then having to be pushed to reschedule. But when the meeting finally happened things only got worse.

The campaign put out a press release lying about the AIDS activists’ support of a CA drug pricing initiative that Bernie has endorsed and implying that this was a focus of the meeting. One of the leaders said he felt “used and abused” by the Sanders campaign. They haven’t endorsed the initiative -- they actually have serious concerns about it -- and Bernie knows that.

The activists are worried that it is a badly written law that may have the unintended consequence of preventing the state from buying critical AIDS drugs.

http://americablog.com/2016/05/aids-activists-blast-sanders-lying-meeting.html

Sanders had agreed to the meeting a while ago, then abruptly canceled; incurring the wrath of AIDS activists after refusing to reschedule. The criticism apparently grew to be too much and Sanders was forced to relent and hold the meeting.

Here’s the text of what Peter Staley wrote:

It’s a complicated issue that John Weir gets into in detail here. But what isn’t complicated is that a group of America’s top HIV activists sat down with Bernie Sanders and told him unequivocally that they opposed this initiative. Sanders turned around and lied about them, and their alleged support for this initiative, ostensibly to endear himself to key organizations in California that can help him in the upcoming primary race in that state.

SNIP

It’s bad enough that Sanders blew off the AIDS community last month, and that up until a month or so ago Sanders didn’t even mention AIDS on the rather-short-on-substance LGBT page on his campaign site (the page was only beef upped after I publicly complained about its paucity). But for Sanders to take a community that’s already ticked at him, that he’s already dissed, and then use his meeting with them to curry favor with key political allies in a primary state is the height of the very Machiavellian politics that Sanders claims to eschew.

John Weir’s public Facebook post:

https://www.facebook.com/john.weir.7796420/posts/10154884037947519


They were already upset with him for canceling a meeting to discuss their concerns, and then having to be pushed to reschedule. But when the meeting finally happened things only got worse.

The campaign put out a press release lying about the AIDS activists’ support of a CA drug pricing initiative that Bernie has endorsed and implying that this was a focus of the meeting. One of the leaders said he felt “used and abused” by the Sanders campaign. They haven’t endorsed the initiative and Bernie knows that.

The activists are worried that it is a badly written law that may have the unintended consequence of preventing the state from buying critical AIDS drugs.