July 31, 2015

Berniemania sweeps Brooklyn...

In Brooklyn at a special ‘online party,’ there are ‘Bernie Is Bae’ placards, and—in a sea of Converse sneakers, crop tops, and tattoos—passionate support for Bernie Sanders.
Early Wednesday evening at a sweaty loft party in Bushwick, hipster clichés sipped all-natural, hibiscus- and mint-flavored soda and admired their host’s artwork: small swaths of canvas stenciled with slogans for Bernie Sanders’s grassroots 2016 presidential campaign, from the traditional (“Go Bernie!”), to the alliterative and playful (“Bernie or Bust” and “Feel the Bern”), to the millennial (“Bernie is Bae”).

The latter was particularly popular among 70 or so young anti-establishment liberals who filed into the Bushwick loft Wednesday night, where Steve Panovich, 36, was hosting one of 3,300 “online house parties” across the country organized by Sanders’s Democratic campaign.

Panovich apologized to guests for the venue’s sauna-like temperatures, but no one seemed to mind much: For refreshments there were Tostitos, nuts, and warm beer.

“Feel the Bern! Literally!” one ebullient Bernie fanboy shouted from the crowd of hipsters-in-uniform: Converse sneakers, crop tops, tattoos, purple hair, and ironic T-shirts.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/30/berniemania-sweeps-bushwick-deep-in-sanders-hipster-heartland.html

July 29, 2015

Mysterious plane wreckage sparks MH370 speculation

A mysterious piece of plane debris washed up on the French Indian Ocean island of La Reunion on Wednesday, prompting some speculation it could be part of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

The two-metre-long piece of wreckage, which seemed to be part of a wing, was found by people cleaning up a beach.

"It was covered in shells, so one would say it had been in the water a long time," said one witness.

French air transport officials have already opened a probe to investigate where the wreckage could have come from.

Xavier Tytelman, an expert in aviation security, said it could not be ruled out that the wreckage belonged to MH370, which vanished without trace in March last year.


http://news.yahoo.com/mysterious-plane-wreckage-sparks-mh370-speculation-164923155.html;_ylt=AwrBT9wlCLlVYpgA.IxXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyZGprdmI3BGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjAxMjJfMQRzZWMDc2M-

July 27, 2015

‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby

‘I’m No Longer Afraid’: 35 Women Tell Their Stories About Being Assaulted by Bill Cosby, and the Culture That Wouldn’t Listen


More has changed in the past few years for women who allege rape than in all the decades since the women’s movement began. Consider the evidence of October 2014, when an audience member at a Hannibal Buress show in Philadelphia uploaded a clip of the comedian talking about Bill Cosby: “He gets on TV, ‘Pull your pants up, black people … I can talk down to you because I had a successful sitcom.’ Yeah, but you rape women, Bill Cosby, so turn the crazy down a couple notches … I guess I want to just at least make it weird for you to watch Cosby Showreruns. Dude’s image, for the most part, it’s fucking public Teflon image. I’ve done this bit onstage and people think I’m making it up … That shit is upsetting.” The bit went viral swiftly, with irreversible, calamitous consequences for Cosby’s reputation.

Perhaps the most shocking thing wasn’t that Buress had called Cosby a rapist; it was that the world had actually heard him. A decade earlier, 14 women had accused Cosby of rape. In 2005, a former basketball star named Andrea Constand, who met Cosby when she was working in the athletic department at Temple University, where he served on the board of trustees, alleged to authorities that he had drugged her to a state of semi-consciousness and then groped and digitally penetrated her. After her allegations were made public, a California lawyer named Tamara Green appeared on the Today show and said that, 30 years earlier, Cosby had drugged and assaulted her as well. Eventually, 12 Jane Does signed up to tell their own stories of being assaulted by Cosby in support of Constand’s case. Several of them eventually made their names public. But they were met, mostly, with skepticism, threats, and attacks on their character.

In Cosby’s deposition for the Constand case, revealed to the public just last week, the comedian admitted pursuing sex with young women with the aid of Quaaludes, which can render a person functionally immobile. “I used them,” he said, “the same as a person would say, ‘Have a drink.’ ” He asked a modeling agent to connect him with young women who were new in town and “financially not doing well.” In the deposition, Cosby seemed confident that his behavior did not constitute rape; he apparently saw little difference between buying someone dinner in pursuit of sex and drugging them to reach the same goal. As for consent, he said, “I think that I’m a pretty decent reader of people and their emotions in these romantic sexual things.” If these women agreed to meet up, his deposition suggested, he felt that he had a right to them. And part of what took the accusations against Cosby so long to surface is that this belief extended to many of the women themselves (as well as the staff and lawyers and friends and others who helped keep the incidents secret).

Months after his depositions, Cosby settled the case with Constand. The accusations quickly faded from the public’s memory, if they registered at all. No one wanted to believe the TV dad in a cardigan was capable of such things, and so they didn’t. The National Enquirer had planned to run a big story detailing one of the women’s accounts, but the magazine pulled it when Cosby agreed to give them a two-page exclusive telling his side (essentially that these were instances that had been “misinterpreted”).People ran a story alleging that several of the women had taken money in exchange for their silence, implying that this was nothing more than an elaborate shakedown. Cosby’s career rolled on: In 2014 alone, there was a stand-up special, plans for a new family comedy on NBC, and a high-profile biography by Mark Whitaker that glossed over the accusations.

The group of women Cosby allegedly assaulted functions almost as a longitudinal study — both for how an individual woman, on her own, deals with such trauma over the decades and for how the culture at large has grappled with rape over the same time period. In the ’60s, when the first alleged assault by Cosby occurred, rape was considered to be something violent committed by a stranger; acquaintance rape didn’t register as such, even for the women experiencing it. A few of Cosby’s accusers claim that he molested or raped them multiple times; one remained in his orbit, in and out of a drugged state, for years. In the ’70s and ’80s, campus movements like Take Back the Night and “No Means No” helped raise awareness of the reality that 80 to 90 percent of victims know their attacker. Still, the culture of silence and shame lingered, especially when the men accused had any kind of status. The first assumption was that women who accused famous men were after money or attention. As Cosby allegedly told some of his victims: No one would believe you. So why speak up?

http://nymag.tumblr.com

July 27, 2015

Hillary Clinton's Bernie Sanders Problem Is Bigger Than Anyone Realizes

Seven ways in which the septuagenarian socialist from Vermont actually presents a mortal threat to the Democratic front-runner.

Let’s all please stop asserting that Bernie Sanders can’t beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic nomination race. Pundits and journalists galore have been declaring (alleged margin of error: zero) that the Vermont senator will lose to his party’s front-runner. Sure, his odds are long, but so far he’s shown substance, grit, and surprising appeal. Why not let the voters decide who will accept the torch in Philadelphia next summer?

Clinton is, without doubt, still the odds-on favorite to win, with plenty of support, cash, and ballast for the foreseeable future. Therefore, it is more germane to ask: What impact might Sanders have on the former secretary of state in the nomination fight? And, if Sanders doesn’t win his party’s nomination, what impact might he have overall on Clinton’s chances of becoming the next president of the United States?

Sanders’ surprising success has already influenced Clinton’s conduct and fortunes, and there is every reason to believe that he will continue to challenge her, influence her, and create significant problems for her as the race continues.

There are plenty of recent examples of underdog candidates in both parties who “couldn’t” win the nomination in the estimation of the chattering class but who nonetheless had an outsized influence on the contours and, indeed, outcome of the race. These include Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich in 2012 against Mitt Romney; Pat Buchanan in 1992 against George H.W. Bush; and Jesse Jackson in 1988 against Michael Dukakis. Based on how things are shaping up so far, Sanders has the potential to adversely affect Clinton in numerous ways, echoing the underdogs who ran before. Romney, Bush, and Dukakis, not coincidentally, all lost the White House.

Here, then, are seven ways Sanders can weaken Clinton in the general election, perhaps fatally, even if he doesn’t manage to beat her for the nomination.

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-07-27/hillary-clinton-s-bernie-sanders-problem-is-bigger-than-anyone-realizes

July 25, 2015

LADYBABY Nippon Manju Music Clip

July 24, 2015

Sanders Surges, Clinton Sags in U.S. Favorability

Source: Gallup

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' favorable rating among Americans has doubled since Gallup's initial reading in March, rising to 24% from 12% as he has become better known. Hillary Clinton's rating has slipped to 43% from 48% in April. At the same time, Clinton's unfavorable rating increased to 46%, tilting her image negative and producing her worst net favorable score since December 2007.

Sanders' increased favorability reflects the broader increase in the public's familiarity with him since March. Overall, 44% of Americans are able to rate him today, up from 24% in March. Not only has the percentage viewing him favorably increased, but also the percentage viewing him unfavorably has risen, up eight percentage points to 20%.



Read more: http://www.gallup.com/poll/184346/sanders-surges-clinton-sags-favorability.aspx

July 24, 2015

‘He Could Have Been Working for Anyone,’ Attorney Says of Mystery Man With Palisades Weapons Cache

The mystery around a Los Angeles man whose decomposing body was found in an SUV near a home filled with 1,200 guns, tons of ammunition and $230,000 in cash was only deepening Thursday.

Identified by an attorney for his fiancée as Jeffrey Alan Lash, 60, the man apparently acted secretively for years, never explaining to those around him exactly what he did for a living.

When he died in early July after collapsing in a Santa Monica grocery store parking lot, Lash refused to go to a hospital or let anyone call 911, celebrity defense attorney Harlan Braun said in an interview with KTLA Wednesday evening.

Braun represents Lash’s fiancée, Catherine Nebron, who fled to Oregon with an employee after leaving Lash’s body parked in an SUV outside her home in the Palisades Highlands development of upscale Pacific Palisades. The disappearance of that employee, 39-year-old Dawn VadBunker, in turn prompted a missing person investigation from Oxnard police. VadBunker was found safe in Oregon, but has not contacted her family, her mother said.

http://ktla.com/2015/07/23/jeffrey-alan-lash-pacific-palisades-mystery-man-weapons-cache/

July 12, 2015

Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman escapes jail

Source: BBC

Top Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman, known as El Chapo or "Shorty", has escaped from a maximum security prison for a second time, officials say.

In a statement, Mexico's National Security Commission said Guzman was last seen in the showers of the Altiplano jail late on Saturday night.

He was the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which smuggles huge amounts of illegal drugs into the US.

His recapture in 2014 was hailed as a victory for Mexico's government.


Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-33497301

July 7, 2015

Youth Flocking to Sanders Because 'You're Right, Bernie, You're Right!'

If you're wondering why the campaign continues to build momentum and attract big crowds, one person among the many thousands in Portland shouted his answer.

Continuing to draw large and enthusiastic crowds wherever he goes, Sen. Bernie Sanders attracted approximately 9,000 people to a downtown sports arena in Portland, Maine on Monday evening as throngs of people—with a noticeable presence of students and young adults—waited for more than an hour in a line that stretched around the building in order to hear the presidential candidate's populist message.

Though the campaign only put the number at 7,500 in the crowd, those familiar with building—which was filled to capacity—placed the number well over 9,000. Though not quite so many as the record crowd of 10,000 that turned out in Madison, Wisconsin the week before, many noted that the coastal New England city of Portland has less than half the population. And with other big turnouts recently in Iowa, Colorado, and elsewhere—this is becoming the new normal for the campaign.

"In case you didn’t notice, this is a big turnout," Sanders told the excited crowd as he took the podium. A longtime political observer in the state told this writer that never in his long history of attending rallies in the state—from Barack Obama to Bill Clinton to Jimmy Carter—did he ever see such an enormous showing for a presidential candidate at this stage of the campaign season—or possibly ever.

On the topic of the energy his campaign is generating, Sanders continued his speech by saying that national media outlets are increasingly asking him: "Well, Bernie, Why are so many people coming to your events? Why have hundreds of thousands of people in every state in this country volunteered to play a role in the campaign? Why have 250,000 people made small donations to the campaign? Why are grassroots organizations popping up all over America?—"

And at that moment, a young man in the crowd shouted: "Because you're right, Bernie, you're right!"

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/07/07/youth-flocking-sanders-because-youre-right-bernie-youre-right

July 7, 2015

Bernie-mania running wild as Hillary Clinton sputters

Bernie-mania swept through here last night, as more than 7,500 screaming, sign-waving supporters packed a downtown arena — many lining up hours early — for surging Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The outpouring came as a Bay State Democratic congressman warned one-time sure-shot Hillary Clinton has an “excitement problem” in the Democratic race for the White House.

“In case you didn’t notice, this is a big turnout,” Sanders told the cheering crowd at Cross Insurance Arena. “From Maine to California — we have friends from Alaska and Hawaii as well — the American people understand that establishment politics and establishment economics is not working for America.”

The rally started 20 minutes late so the people stuck in line outside could filter in, and nearly every seat was filled. Some supporters waved homemade signs, including one that read “#Bern Baby Bern” and “Feel the Bern.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/us_politics/2015/07/bernie_mania_running_wild_as_hillary_clinton_sputters