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November 19, 2019
FUCK Nunes and the Russian pony he rode in on ('The Drug Deal the Dems are Cooking Up Now')
can he just fuck right off!!
Just came back from a play and dinner and tuned in on a stream to THIS SHIT
November 19, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/style/ok-boomer.html
In a viral audio clip on TikTok, a white-haired man in a baseball cap and polo shirt declares, “The millennials and Generation Z have the Peter Pan syndrome, they don’t ever want to grow up.” Thousands of teens have responded through remixed reaction videos and art projects with a simple phrase: “ok boomer.”
“Ok boomer” has become Generation Z’s endlessly repeated retort to the problem of older people who just don’t get it, a rallying cry for millions of fed up kids. Teenagers use it to reply to cringey YouTube videos, Donald Trump tweets, and basically any person over 30 who says something condescending about young people — and the issues that matter to them. Teenagers have scrawled the message in their notebooks and carved it into at least one pumpkin. For senior picture day at one Virginia high school, a group of nine students used duct tape to plaster “ok boomer” across their chests.
The meme-to-merch cycle is nothing new, but unlike most novelty products, “ok boomer” merch is selling. Shannon O’Connor, 19, designed a T-shirt and hoodie with the phrase “ok boomer” written in the “thank you” style of a plastic shopping bag. She uploaded it to Bonfire, a site for selling custom apparel, with the tagline “Ok boomer have a terrible day.” After promoting the shirt on TikTok, she received more than $10,000 in orders.
“The older generations grew up with a certain mind-set, and we have a different perspective,” Ms. O’Connor said. “A lot of them don’t believe in climate change or don’t believe people can get jobs with dyed hair, and a lot of them are stubborn in that view. Teenagers just respond, ‘Ok, boomer.’ It’s like, we’ll prove you wrong, we’re still going to be successful because the world is changing.”
snip
'OK Boomer' Marks the End of Friendly Generational Relations
Now it’s war: Gen Z has finally snapped over climate change and financial inequality.https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/style/ok-boomer.html
In a viral audio clip on TikTok, a white-haired man in a baseball cap and polo shirt declares, “The millennials and Generation Z have the Peter Pan syndrome, they don’t ever want to grow up.” Thousands of teens have responded through remixed reaction videos and art projects with a simple phrase: “ok boomer.”
“Ok boomer” has become Generation Z’s endlessly repeated retort to the problem of older people who just don’t get it, a rallying cry for millions of fed up kids. Teenagers use it to reply to cringey YouTube videos, Donald Trump tweets, and basically any person over 30 who says something condescending about young people — and the issues that matter to them. Teenagers have scrawled the message in their notebooks and carved it into at least one pumpkin. For senior picture day at one Virginia high school, a group of nine students used duct tape to plaster “ok boomer” across their chests.
The meme-to-merch cycle is nothing new, but unlike most novelty products, “ok boomer” merch is selling. Shannon O’Connor, 19, designed a T-shirt and hoodie with the phrase “ok boomer” written in the “thank you” style of a plastic shopping bag. She uploaded it to Bonfire, a site for selling custom apparel, with the tagline “Ok boomer have a terrible day.” After promoting the shirt on TikTok, she received more than $10,000 in orders.
“The older generations grew up with a certain mind-set, and we have a different perspective,” Ms. O’Connor said. “A lot of them don’t believe in climate change or don’t believe people can get jobs with dyed hair, and a lot of them are stubborn in that view. Teenagers just respond, ‘Ok, boomer.’ It’s like, we’ll prove you wrong, we’re still going to be successful because the world is changing.”
snip
November 18, 2019
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Before he's officially a presidential candidate, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is picking up a key endorsement in South Carolina. Steve Benjamin, the mayor of Columbia, told The Associated Press on Monday that he's ready to back the billionaire if he decides to seek the Democratic presidential nomination. "He's got what it takes and he's got the resources to take it to Trump," Benjamin said in an interview. "I believe firmly that Mike Bloomberg can win. I think resources are going to matter."
First elected in 2010, Benjamin is one of South Carolina's highest-profile black politicians and was among the candidates to be Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016. He's met with nearly all of the 2020 Democratic White House hopefuls, offering advice as they wind their way through South Carolina, home to the first southern primary next year and a contest in which support from black voters is critical.
Benjamin recently finished a term as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, an organization through which he got to know Bloomberg well. Bloomberg has endeared himself to mayors across the nation in recent years by spending millions of dollars on local partnerships to support his policy goals.
Bloomberg is working to repair his relationship with black voters ahead of his expected presidential candidacy, which could be announced in the coming days. He addressed a black church in Brooklyn on Sunda y to apologize for his longstanding support of the controversial "stop-and-frisk" police strategy, a practice that he embraced as mayor and continued to defend despite its disproportionate impact on people of color. Benjamin was in the audience at the church.
snip
Bloomberg wins key SC endorsement ahead of possible 2020 bid
http://www.startribune.com/bloomberg-wins-key-sc-endorsement-ahead-of-2020-run/565092842/COLUMBIA, S.C. — Before he's officially a presidential candidate, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is picking up a key endorsement in South Carolina. Steve Benjamin, the mayor of Columbia, told The Associated Press on Monday that he's ready to back the billionaire if he decides to seek the Democratic presidential nomination. "He's got what it takes and he's got the resources to take it to Trump," Benjamin said in an interview. "I believe firmly that Mike Bloomberg can win. I think resources are going to matter."
First elected in 2010, Benjamin is one of South Carolina's highest-profile black politicians and was among the candidates to be Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016. He's met with nearly all of the 2020 Democratic White House hopefuls, offering advice as they wind their way through South Carolina, home to the first southern primary next year and a contest in which support from black voters is critical.
Benjamin recently finished a term as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, an organization through which he got to know Bloomberg well. Bloomberg has endeared himself to mayors across the nation in recent years by spending millions of dollars on local partnerships to support his policy goals.
Bloomberg is working to repair his relationship with black voters ahead of his expected presidential candidacy, which could be announced in the coming days. He addressed a black church in Brooklyn on Sunda y to apologize for his longstanding support of the controversial "stop-and-frisk" police strategy, a practice that he embraced as mayor and continued to defend despite its disproportionate impact on people of color. Benjamin was in the audience at the church.
snip
November 18, 2019
https://www.socialeurope.eu/antifragile-states
In a series of books, and especially in Antifragile, Nassim Taleb has introduced an important concept—that of being antifragile, referring to ‘things that gain from disorder’. ‘Fragile’ is, of course, the opposite: it connotes something that thrives under stable conditions but, being brittle, loses, and at times loses big, amid volatility. In the middle, ‘robust’ indicates resilience against uncertainty and turmoil, without the capacity to profit from it. The contrast between antifragile and the two other categories relates to that between centralised, top-down formations (such as unitary states) and decentralised, bottom-up and more flexible, federal structures. As an example of the latter Taleb takes Switzerland, with its decentralised cantonal system and grassroots democracy.
But Switzerland is also antifragile in another sense. It has historically been a country that benefited from turmoil and disorder outside its borders—from wars, nationalisations, uncertain property rights and outright plunder. In all these cases, whether Jews were trying to save their property from ‘Aryanisation’, Chinese millionaires feared a revolution or African potentates needed a haven in which to park their loot, Switzerland offered the comfort of safety. It was (and is) the ultimate antifragile state: it thrives on disorder.
Dubious legality
While Switzerland became emblematic of such a safe haven, it is hardly unique nowadays in benefiting from it. Globalisation and worldwide turmoil, combined with openness of capital accounts, have allowed many small economies to specialise in functions which run from asset safety and money-laundering to tax avoidance and evasion. In most cases, the legality of such transactions is dubious; many belong to the grey zone where neither full legality nor full illegality can be attributed. In western Europe, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Ireland have engaged in stimulating tax evasion, including from neighbouring countries. In his Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens, Gabriel Zucman documents the large outflows from Switzerland and inflows into Luxembourg’s banking system which followed the (forced) decision by the Swiss authorities to impose withholding tax on accounts held by foreigners.
Ireland’s provision of safe haven from taxes to various large multinational corporations received quite a lot of attention when the European Commission obliged the county to assess these rates, particularly for Apple, at other than zero. In what may well be a singular historical case, the Irish government complained about having to receive billions more taxes! Elsewhere, as in the Caribbean, small nation-states have specialised in providing the legal framework for shell companies. In Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent, Brooke Harrington describes a single building in the Cayman Islands which houses headquarters for several hundred companies. Shell companies have played an enormous role in the money-laundering which followed privatisations in many east-European countries after 1989, as well as in providing cover for many illegal activities—from drug and arms sales to people-trafficking.
snip
Branko Milanovic: Why we are all Capitalists now! And how this could reduce inequality
Watch Social Europe Editor-in-Chief Henning Meyer in conversation with Branko Milanovic. They discuss the evolution of capitalism, inequality and technology based on Branko's new book "Capitalism, Alone" published by Harvard University Press.
Branko Milanovic is one of the world's leading experts on inequality. He is a visiting presidential professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and an affiliated senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). He also teaches at the London School of Economics and the Barcelona Institute for International Studies.
If you like our podcast you might also find our regular articles, blogs and other written publications of interest. Just visit our website https://www.socialeurope.eu to read our latest output. If you want to stay up-to-date with all things Social Europe just sign up to our regular newsletter. You can do so on our website.
Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World – Book Review
If capitalism has triumphed to become the sole socio-economic system globally, what are the prospects for achieving a fairer world? - reviewed by Roberto Iacono
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2019/11/17/capitalism-alone-the-future-of-the-system-that-rules-the-world-book-review/
Capitalism, Alone by Branko Milanovic is a remarkable book, possibly the author’s most comprehensive opus so far. For economists working on inequality measurement, often accused of dealing with ‘measurement without theory’, Capitalism, Alone provides a novel paradigm within which analysis of distributional issues in different economies and social systems can be placed. The overall thesis of the book is that, for the first time in global history excluding a few country cases, capitalism (referring to production organised for profit using wage labour and mostly privately owned capital) is currently the ‘sole socio-economic system in the world’ (2).
This does not entail the end of history however, since a set of typologies of capitalism are sketched by Milanovic in the book – although the author does this in a more stylised manner than usually provided in the academic literature on varieties of capitalism. In my view, the main contribution of the book lies precisely in the neat way Milanovic categorises these ideal-typical social and economic systems, as I explain in the following.
Liberal Meritocratic Capitalism represents the typology of capitalism embraced by the core economies of the West, with the US being its most paradigmatic example. Individuals in liberal meritocratic capitalist states receive positive shares of both capital and labour incomes, whilst tax and transfers redistribute a fraction of those incomes. The moderate degree of redistribution does not, however, erase ‘social separatism’ (215), entailing that the rich consume more private education and health services than the middle class and the poor. Due to this, intergenerational mobility under liberal meritocratic capitalism is not necessarily high. Last but not least, democracy is one of the main strengths of liberal meritocratic capitalism, since the feedback of voters ensures, in principle, that the system does not end up failing in the provision of basic liberties (defined as a primary good by John Rawls, 208), although at the cost of lower growth rates of income than liberal meritocratic capitalism could achieve by retrenching these rights.
Up to this point, not much novelty. However, Milanovic reaches further than other scholars working on capitalism by defining a novel phenomenon that alone encompasses several challenges that liberal meritocratic capitalism has been facing in recent decades: homoploutia (34). Namely, the rising share of the population earning both high labour and capital income (hence owning the same – homo, wealth – ploutia). Although the association of high labour and capital income at the top of the income distribution has been studied by economists before (by Tony Atkinson, among others), it is in Capitalism, Alone that this concept is embedded for the first time within a thorough analysis of the underlying socio-economic system. Why is a rising degree of homoploutia dangerous within liberal meritocratic capitalism? Because it allows economic elites to become more autonomous from the rest of society, and to overlap to a higher extent with political elites, introducing plutocratic features. If this distortion expands, the danger is that liberal meritocratic capitalism would assume the contours of the other main typology of capitalism analysed in the book: Political Capitalism.
snip
Antifragile states
Branko Milanovic explains how globalisation has allowed small states to become major players and big cities to outgrow their nation-states.https://www.socialeurope.eu/antifragile-states
In a series of books, and especially in Antifragile, Nassim Taleb has introduced an important concept—that of being antifragile, referring to ‘things that gain from disorder’. ‘Fragile’ is, of course, the opposite: it connotes something that thrives under stable conditions but, being brittle, loses, and at times loses big, amid volatility. In the middle, ‘robust’ indicates resilience against uncertainty and turmoil, without the capacity to profit from it. The contrast between antifragile and the two other categories relates to that between centralised, top-down formations (such as unitary states) and decentralised, bottom-up and more flexible, federal structures. As an example of the latter Taleb takes Switzerland, with its decentralised cantonal system and grassroots democracy.
But Switzerland is also antifragile in another sense. It has historically been a country that benefited from turmoil and disorder outside its borders—from wars, nationalisations, uncertain property rights and outright plunder. In all these cases, whether Jews were trying to save their property from ‘Aryanisation’, Chinese millionaires feared a revolution or African potentates needed a haven in which to park their loot, Switzerland offered the comfort of safety. It was (and is) the ultimate antifragile state: it thrives on disorder.
Dubious legality
While Switzerland became emblematic of such a safe haven, it is hardly unique nowadays in benefiting from it. Globalisation and worldwide turmoil, combined with openness of capital accounts, have allowed many small economies to specialise in functions which run from asset safety and money-laundering to tax avoidance and evasion. In most cases, the legality of such transactions is dubious; many belong to the grey zone where neither full legality nor full illegality can be attributed. In western Europe, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Ireland have engaged in stimulating tax evasion, including from neighbouring countries. In his Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens, Gabriel Zucman documents the large outflows from Switzerland and inflows into Luxembourg’s banking system which followed the (forced) decision by the Swiss authorities to impose withholding tax on accounts held by foreigners.
Ireland’s provision of safe haven from taxes to various large multinational corporations received quite a lot of attention when the European Commission obliged the county to assess these rates, particularly for Apple, at other than zero. In what may well be a singular historical case, the Irish government complained about having to receive billions more taxes! Elsewhere, as in the Caribbean, small nation-states have specialised in providing the legal framework for shell companies. In Capital Without Borders: Wealth Managers and the One Percent, Brooke Harrington describes a single building in the Cayman Islands which houses headquarters for several hundred companies. Shell companies have played an enormous role in the money-laundering which followed privatisations in many east-European countries after 1989, as well as in providing cover for many illegal activities—from drug and arms sales to people-trafficking.
snip
Branko Milanovic: Why we are all Capitalists now! And how this could reduce inequality
Watch Social Europe Editor-in-Chief Henning Meyer in conversation with Branko Milanovic. They discuss the evolution of capitalism, inequality and technology based on Branko's new book "Capitalism, Alone" published by Harvard University Press.
Branko Milanovic is one of the world's leading experts on inequality. He is a visiting presidential professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and an affiliated senior scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS). He also teaches at the London School of Economics and the Barcelona Institute for International Studies.
If you like our podcast you might also find our regular articles, blogs and other written publications of interest. Just visit our website https://www.socialeurope.eu to read our latest output. If you want to stay up-to-date with all things Social Europe just sign up to our regular newsletter. You can do so on our website.
Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World – Book Review
If capitalism has triumphed to become the sole socio-economic system globally, what are the prospects for achieving a fairer world? - reviewed by Roberto Iacono
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2019/11/17/capitalism-alone-the-future-of-the-system-that-rules-the-world-book-review/
Capitalism, Alone by Branko Milanovic is a remarkable book, possibly the author’s most comprehensive opus so far. For economists working on inequality measurement, often accused of dealing with ‘measurement without theory’, Capitalism, Alone provides a novel paradigm within which analysis of distributional issues in different economies and social systems can be placed. The overall thesis of the book is that, for the first time in global history excluding a few country cases, capitalism (referring to production organised for profit using wage labour and mostly privately owned capital) is currently the ‘sole socio-economic system in the world’ (2).
This does not entail the end of history however, since a set of typologies of capitalism are sketched by Milanovic in the book – although the author does this in a more stylised manner than usually provided in the academic literature on varieties of capitalism. In my view, the main contribution of the book lies precisely in the neat way Milanovic categorises these ideal-typical social and economic systems, as I explain in the following.
Liberal Meritocratic Capitalism represents the typology of capitalism embraced by the core economies of the West, with the US being its most paradigmatic example. Individuals in liberal meritocratic capitalist states receive positive shares of both capital and labour incomes, whilst tax and transfers redistribute a fraction of those incomes. The moderate degree of redistribution does not, however, erase ‘social separatism’ (215), entailing that the rich consume more private education and health services than the middle class and the poor. Due to this, intergenerational mobility under liberal meritocratic capitalism is not necessarily high. Last but not least, democracy is one of the main strengths of liberal meritocratic capitalism, since the feedback of voters ensures, in principle, that the system does not end up failing in the provision of basic liberties (defined as a primary good by John Rawls, 208), although at the cost of lower growth rates of income than liberal meritocratic capitalism could achieve by retrenching these rights.
Up to this point, not much novelty. However, Milanovic reaches further than other scholars working on capitalism by defining a novel phenomenon that alone encompasses several challenges that liberal meritocratic capitalism has been facing in recent decades: homoploutia (34). Namely, the rising share of the population earning both high labour and capital income (hence owning the same – homo, wealth – ploutia). Although the association of high labour and capital income at the top of the income distribution has been studied by economists before (by Tony Atkinson, among others), it is in Capitalism, Alone that this concept is embedded for the first time within a thorough analysis of the underlying socio-economic system. Why is a rising degree of homoploutia dangerous within liberal meritocratic capitalism? Because it allows economic elites to become more autonomous from the rest of society, and to overlap to a higher extent with political elites, introducing plutocratic features. If this distortion expands, the danger is that liberal meritocratic capitalism would assume the contours of the other main typology of capitalism analysed in the book: Political Capitalism.
snip
November 16, 2019
This week it's the NHS "who can piss the highest?" contest.
Jonathan Pie : Election 2019: Week 2
This week it's the NHS "who can piss the highest?" contest.
November 15, 2019
A federal jury in San Francisco found that the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress and its president, David Daleiden, broke multiple state and federal laws when they secretly recorded and released videos of Planned Parenthood employees. The jury awarded Planned Parenthood $2 million in damages, finding that Daleiden and his organization engaged in fraud, trespassing and illegal secret recording.
“David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress intentionally waged a multi-year illegal effort to manufacture a malicious campaign against Planned Parenthood,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the acting president and CEO of Planned Parenthood. “The jury recognized today that those behind the campaign broke the law in order to advance their goals of banning safe, legal abortion in this country, and to prevent Planned Parenthood from serving the patients who depend on us.
In 2013 and 2014, Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, posing as human tissue procurers for a fake company, secretly recorded their discussions with Planned Parenthood employees about acquiring fetal tissue from abortions for medical research. Planned Parenthood argues the videos were selectively edited and manipulated to make it appear as if their employees were talking about profiting off fetal tissue donations.
The organization has repeatedly stated it does not profit from fetal tissue donations and only collected money to cover procurement costs, as allowed by federal law. It sued Daleiden and his group in 2016, alleging they broke several laws in an effort to further their anti-abortion agenda, which includes pushing Congress to strip Planned Parenthood of all federal funding. Daleiden’s defense argued he was acting as a citizen journalist when he shot and released the videos. The videos sparked Republican-led congressional investigations in 2015, but no wrongdoing was found on Planned Parenthood’s part.
snip
Planned Parenthood awarded $2M in lawsuit against hidden camera activists
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/470724-planned-parenthood-awarded-2-million-in-lawsuit-against-anti-abortionA federal jury in San Francisco found that the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress and its president, David Daleiden, broke multiple state and federal laws when they secretly recorded and released videos of Planned Parenthood employees. The jury awarded Planned Parenthood $2 million in damages, finding that Daleiden and his organization engaged in fraud, trespassing and illegal secret recording.
“David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress intentionally waged a multi-year illegal effort to manufacture a malicious campaign against Planned Parenthood,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, the acting president and CEO of Planned Parenthood. “The jury recognized today that those behind the campaign broke the law in order to advance their goals of banning safe, legal abortion in this country, and to prevent Planned Parenthood from serving the patients who depend on us.
In 2013 and 2014, Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, posing as human tissue procurers for a fake company, secretly recorded their discussions with Planned Parenthood employees about acquiring fetal tissue from abortions for medical research. Planned Parenthood argues the videos were selectively edited and manipulated to make it appear as if their employees were talking about profiting off fetal tissue donations.
The organization has repeatedly stated it does not profit from fetal tissue donations and only collected money to cover procurement costs, as allowed by federal law. It sued Daleiden and his group in 2016, alleging they broke several laws in an effort to further their anti-abortion agenda, which includes pushing Congress to strip Planned Parenthood of all federal funding. Daleiden’s defense argued he was acting as a citizen journalist when he shot and released the videos. The videos sparked Republican-led congressional investigations in 2015, but no wrongdoing was found on Planned Parenthood’s part.
snip
November 15, 2019
'Racist' TYT reporter continues smear campaign against Buttigieg
https://orderofthecoif.wordpress.com/2019/10/25/racist-tyt-reporter-continues-smear-campaign-against-buttigieg/
The Young Turks today published the latest in a series of articles about Pete Buttigieg that they’ve characterised as “investigative reporting”. As will be shown in this article, these articles by Jonathan Larsen constitute nothing less than a sustained smear campaign that breaks all the basic rules of good, objective journalism. Mr Larsen consistently relies upon anonymous sources with suspect motivations, and often misleads his readers about the nature of documents on which he purports to rely.
The articles have also consistently pressed the most slanted and unfavourable interpretation against Mr Buttigieg, and relied substantially on innuendo and conspiracy theory dressed up as searching questions. The articles have sought to create an impression that Mr Buttigieg is engaging in racist policies or corrupt conduct, while failing to establish corroborated facts that actually support such an interpretation. This article will also set out Mr Larsen has questions to answer about his own conduct, which has been alleged in open court to include racist bullying, harassment and racial discrimination. Cenk Uygur should explain why a reporter credibly accused of racist conduct is allowed to continue on his staff while the issue remains unresolved.
Secret Tapes
The matter begins in January 2012 when Mr Buttigieg commenced his first term as Mayor of South Bend. Upon taking up a mayoralty, an Indiana mayor will determine who their chief of police shall be. The incumbent is not guaranteed to be appointed to continue under the new mayor. The incumbent chief in South Bend was Chief Darryl Boykins, an African-American police officer who enjoyed the confidence and respect of the community. Mr Buttigieg interviewed three candidates from the South Bend Police Department; Chief Boykins and division chiefs Steve Richmond and Tim Corbett. Mayor Buttigieg decided, based on his performance as chief and his good relations with the community, to reappoint Chief Boykins.
It has been alleged that six days after Mayor Buttigieg took office, on 6th January, 2012, Chief Boykins called division chief Richmond into his office and, “berated him for having been disloyal to him by seeking his job and for being a ‘backstabber'”. Chief Boykins also told Richmond that he had been wiretapping his and other senior officers phone lines, and that “he would fire anyone he determined to be disloyal”. It is also said that on 17th January, Richmond spoke to Karen DePaepe, SBPD Director of Communications, and asked her whether it was true that his line had been tapped. DePaepe responded that the chief requested a line tap “the day he promoted you to division chief”.
Richmond and other officers whose phone lines it transpired had been tapped by DePaepe at the request of the chief since 2010, went to the US Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, a Democrat Mr David Capp (who was incidentally later fired by Donald Trump), to complain about the taps which they interpreted to be illegal breaches of their constitutional 4th amendment rights. The FBI commenced an investigation of Chief Boykins, and Mayor Buttigieg was informed. Prior to this the mayor was unaware of the existence of the tapes. The US Attorney informed the mayor that if Chief Boykins was quietly dispensed with as head of the SBPD, they would agree not to press charges.
snip
a lot more at the link, all documented, including the court documents showing the all The Young Turks and their reporter's alleged racism
'Racist' TYT reporter continues smear campaign against Buttigieg
A must read, this backs up what I have been saying since spring. It also does a great job at fully fleshing out the Boykins (the SB demoted police chief) issue in some depth. The whole Sirota/JD/TYT/DSA/BoBer/Jacobin/Nina Turner etc etc crowd has been camping down in South Bend for 8 months or so in various and sundry permutations, trying to dig up dirt and smear Buttigieg. This was often done with the aid of small local disaffected partisan hacks and outright cranks, many with dodgy personal agendas and reasons (which I also have documented in the past, including a rabidly homophobic SB councilman (now ex) who posted man/dog sex pics to condemn gays in the military), who were then amplified at times by the national press after the far left penumbra had already baked them into the cake.'Racist' TYT reporter continues smear campaign against Buttigieg
https://orderofthecoif.wordpress.com/2019/10/25/racist-tyt-reporter-continues-smear-campaign-against-buttigieg/
The Young Turks today published the latest in a series of articles about Pete Buttigieg that they’ve characterised as “investigative reporting”. As will be shown in this article, these articles by Jonathan Larsen constitute nothing less than a sustained smear campaign that breaks all the basic rules of good, objective journalism. Mr Larsen consistently relies upon anonymous sources with suspect motivations, and often misleads his readers about the nature of documents on which he purports to rely.
The articles have also consistently pressed the most slanted and unfavourable interpretation against Mr Buttigieg, and relied substantially on innuendo and conspiracy theory dressed up as searching questions. The articles have sought to create an impression that Mr Buttigieg is engaging in racist policies or corrupt conduct, while failing to establish corroborated facts that actually support such an interpretation. This article will also set out Mr Larsen has questions to answer about his own conduct, which has been alleged in open court to include racist bullying, harassment and racial discrimination. Cenk Uygur should explain why a reporter credibly accused of racist conduct is allowed to continue on his staff while the issue remains unresolved.
Secret Tapes
The matter begins in January 2012 when Mr Buttigieg commenced his first term as Mayor of South Bend. Upon taking up a mayoralty, an Indiana mayor will determine who their chief of police shall be. The incumbent is not guaranteed to be appointed to continue under the new mayor. The incumbent chief in South Bend was Chief Darryl Boykins, an African-American police officer who enjoyed the confidence and respect of the community. Mr Buttigieg interviewed three candidates from the South Bend Police Department; Chief Boykins and division chiefs Steve Richmond and Tim Corbett. Mayor Buttigieg decided, based on his performance as chief and his good relations with the community, to reappoint Chief Boykins.
It has been alleged that six days after Mayor Buttigieg took office, on 6th January, 2012, Chief Boykins called division chief Richmond into his office and, “berated him for having been disloyal to him by seeking his job and for being a ‘backstabber'”. Chief Boykins also told Richmond that he had been wiretapping his and other senior officers phone lines, and that “he would fire anyone he determined to be disloyal”. It is also said that on 17th January, Richmond spoke to Karen DePaepe, SBPD Director of Communications, and asked her whether it was true that his line had been tapped. DePaepe responded that the chief requested a line tap “the day he promoted you to division chief”.
Richmond and other officers whose phone lines it transpired had been tapped by DePaepe at the request of the chief since 2010, went to the US Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, a Democrat Mr David Capp (who was incidentally later fired by Donald Trump), to complain about the taps which they interpreted to be illegal breaches of their constitutional 4th amendment rights. The FBI commenced an investigation of Chief Boykins, and Mayor Buttigieg was informed. Prior to this the mayor was unaware of the existence of the tapes. The US Attorney informed the mayor that if Chief Boykins was quietly dispensed with as head of the SBPD, they would agree not to press charges.
snip
a lot more at the link, all documented, including the court documents showing the all The Young Turks and their reporter's alleged racism
November 15, 2019
The far-Right Sweden Democrats party has become the most popular in Sweden in a historic poll which marks the failure of long-term efforts by the traditional parties to freeze them out. According to a poll published on Friday in the Aftonbladet newspaper, the populist party now has the support of 24 percent of voters, compared to just 22.2 percent for the Social Democrats, the lead party in the country's current coalition government. "I'm not surprised. I've long argued we would be the biggest party sooner or later," party leader Jimmie Åkesson told the Aftonbladet newspaper. "We've been talking constructively over gang criminality, escalating insecurity, and a migration policy that doesn't work for so many years."
Mr Åkesson has over the past 14 years transformed his party from a fringe white-power group by ruthlessly casting out its more extreme elements and claiming to uphold a zero-tolerance policy towards racism. The poll, by the Swedish opinion research company Demoskop, marks the first time the party has been the largest party in any of the five opinion polls carried out on behalf of Sweden's mainstream newspapers and broadcasters. The Social Democrats have been the biggest party in every election in Sweden since 1914, with the party building the country's generous welfare society over more than 40 years of unbroken rule from 1932 to 1976.
Lena Rådström Baastad, party secretary for the Social Democrats, said voters had clearly been affected by a spate of explosions in several Swedish cities and by the shooting of 15-year-old boy in a pizzeria in central Malmö earlier this month. "It's a damned tough situation right now, so I'm not surprised when you consider what we've got against us, with gang murders, shootings and explosions. It's us, as the ruling party, who has to pay the price." She also pointed to the difficult compromises the party had had to make in the January Agreement it agreed with the minority Centre and Liberal Parties to stay in power after last year's election.
The agreement saw the two liberal parties break with the centre-Right Alliance bloc and instead let the Social Democrats stay in power, so long as they agreed to a tax cut on some of the highest earners and reforms to the the country's 'last-in, first-out' employment law. The parties argued that an alternative government led by the Moderate Party would have been too dependent on the tacit support of the Sweden Democrats. But by keeping the populist right from gaining influence, they have pushed the Moderate Party and the Christian Democrats into joining the Sweden Democrats in a loose conservative bloc, while allowing Mr Åkesson to present his party as the true opposition. "In the old days it was the Moderates and [former PM Fredrik] Reinfeldt who were challenging them, now it's us," he told Aftonbladet. "It's a welcome shift in Swedish politics."
snip
Far-right Sweden Democrats top opinion poll in historic shift
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/15/far-right-sweden-democrats-party-top-swedish-poll-first-time/The far-Right Sweden Democrats party has become the most popular in Sweden in a historic poll which marks the failure of long-term efforts by the traditional parties to freeze them out. According to a poll published on Friday in the Aftonbladet newspaper, the populist party now has the support of 24 percent of voters, compared to just 22.2 percent for the Social Democrats, the lead party in the country's current coalition government. "I'm not surprised. I've long argued we would be the biggest party sooner or later," party leader Jimmie Åkesson told the Aftonbladet newspaper. "We've been talking constructively over gang criminality, escalating insecurity, and a migration policy that doesn't work for so many years."
Mr Åkesson has over the past 14 years transformed his party from a fringe white-power group by ruthlessly casting out its more extreme elements and claiming to uphold a zero-tolerance policy towards racism. The poll, by the Swedish opinion research company Demoskop, marks the first time the party has been the largest party in any of the five opinion polls carried out on behalf of Sweden's mainstream newspapers and broadcasters. The Social Democrats have been the biggest party in every election in Sweden since 1914, with the party building the country's generous welfare society over more than 40 years of unbroken rule from 1932 to 1976.
Lena Rådström Baastad, party secretary for the Social Democrats, said voters had clearly been affected by a spate of explosions in several Swedish cities and by the shooting of 15-year-old boy in a pizzeria in central Malmö earlier this month. "It's a damned tough situation right now, so I'm not surprised when you consider what we've got against us, with gang murders, shootings and explosions. It's us, as the ruling party, who has to pay the price." She also pointed to the difficult compromises the party had had to make in the January Agreement it agreed with the minority Centre and Liberal Parties to stay in power after last year's election.
The agreement saw the two liberal parties break with the centre-Right Alliance bloc and instead let the Social Democrats stay in power, so long as they agreed to a tax cut on some of the highest earners and reforms to the the country's 'last-in, first-out' employment law. The parties argued that an alternative government led by the Moderate Party would have been too dependent on the tacit support of the Sweden Democrats. But by keeping the populist right from gaining influence, they have pushed the Moderate Party and the Christian Democrats into joining the Sweden Democrats in a loose conservative bloc, while allowing Mr Åkesson to present his party as the true opposition. "In the old days it was the Moderates and [former PM Fredrik] Reinfeldt who were challenging them, now it's us," he told Aftonbladet. "It's a welcome shift in Swedish politics."
snip
November 15, 2019
The Presets have long been one of Australia’s biggest electronic music exports, releasing imaginative, boundary-pushing techno-pop since the early 2000s (the duo famously toured with Daft Punk in 2007). But don’t think for a minute that they’ve lost their touch. On Raka, they team up with rising DJ/producer Golden Features, also from Sydney, on an EP of tunnelling, brutalist electro-house. The whole package is steeped in darkness. “Is anyone out there feeling dangerous?” Julian Hamilton taunts on the sinister title track, a joyride of sirens and synths that feels pulled from Grand Theft Auto. Coming from anyone else, it all might feel heavy-handed, but this trio know when to take their foot off the gas. “Paradise” and “Control” are headier rave cuts, layered with ethereal melodies and vocals about time and space. Fans of fellow Daft Punk disciple Gesaffelstein will relish “The End”, a menacing blend of techno and hip-hop that delivers more big questions: “Could you fill my vacant mind? Could you fill my empty veins? Could you feed this hungry heart? Could you shake these bones again?”
Get Prepared To Have Your Mind Blown By The Golden Features X The Presets Collab
https://www.coolaccidents.com/news/golden-features-the-presets-paradise
Golden Features x The Presets - Raka (just dropped a few hours ago)
The Presets have long been one of Australia’s biggest electronic music exports, releasing imaginative, boundary-pushing techno-pop since the early 2000s (the duo famously toured with Daft Punk in 2007). But don’t think for a minute that they’ve lost their touch. On Raka, they team up with rising DJ/producer Golden Features, also from Sydney, on an EP of tunnelling, brutalist electro-house. The whole package is steeped in darkness. “Is anyone out there feeling dangerous?” Julian Hamilton taunts on the sinister title track, a joyride of sirens and synths that feels pulled from Grand Theft Auto. Coming from anyone else, it all might feel heavy-handed, but this trio know when to take their foot off the gas. “Paradise” and “Control” are headier rave cuts, layered with ethereal melodies and vocals about time and space. Fans of fellow Daft Punk disciple Gesaffelstein will relish “The End”, a menacing blend of techno and hip-hop that delivers more big questions: “Could you fill my vacant mind? Could you fill my empty veins? Could you feed this hungry heart? Could you shake these bones again?”
Get Prepared To Have Your Mind Blown By The Golden Features X The Presets Collab
https://www.coolaccidents.com/news/golden-features-the-presets-paradise
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