Friday Reads: And now for something completely different …
Posted: September 9, 2016 Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: 50th anniversary of Star Trek, Blue lives matter, Ginseng poaching in NC, Rebecca Solnit 23 Comments
Happy Friday Sky Dancers!
I’m going to change the topic for awhile and just provide some good, interesting reads for you! I hope you’ll share some of the interesting things you’ve been reading this week!
I don’t know if you’re aware of Rebecca Solnit who is considered an important, modern feminist writer and activist. I found an interesting article about her activism and thought I’d start off with suggesting you read it. That’s her picture top left holding the great sign on hope and fury. I picked up this feature on her from Lion’s Roar which is a Buddhist site in my tradition. She speaks on her life and on her Buddhist practice or nonpractice as the case may be.
Rebecca Solnit is certain of only one thing—that hope includes uncertainty. “We don’t know what’s going to happen next, and that gives us room to act,” she says. “Hope is active engagement with uncertainty and the possibilities that it holds.”
Solnit is best known as an important feminist writer and activist. Her 2008 essay Men Explain Things to Me is credited with launching the term “mansplaining.” But as an award-winning journalist, historian, and activist, her work spans many genres, disciplines, and causes: landscapes, criticism, human rights, technology, indigenous peoples, gender, visual art, and climate change.
When I ask Solnit how she describes what she does, she says, “My work has often been about connections between things seen as far apart or disparate—connections to cross fields in disciplines and cross times in cultures. I try and encourage people. I take interest in pleasures and possibilities that are already all around us. I try and connect the present, past, and future in how I tell stories. I try to look for the alternatives and the overlooked entrances and exits.”
I particularly like this quote from her book The Faraway Nearby.
The coolness of Buddhism isn’t indifference but the distance one gains on emotions, the quiet place from which to regard the turbulence. From far away you see the pattern, the connections, and the thing as a whole, see all the islands and the routes between them.”
This suggested read is a local story in the local paper and involves a recent law passed in Louisiana referred to as “Blue Lives Matter”. This arrest is highly dubious and based on this law. I certainly hope the ACLU will look at this because it appears to me that it’s infringes on first amendment speech.
The New Orleans Police Department was wrong to book a man who cussed at officers with an anti-police hate crime, the department’s communications director Tyler Gamble said in a Thursday afternoon email. Raul Delatoba, 34, used racist and sexist epithets to address the police he encountered early Monday morning, and initially the police decided that Delatoba’s disrespect rose to the level of a felony.
But Gamble wrote in his email, “After reviewing the initial facts of the case, it is clear that the responding officer incorrectly applied the law relative to a hate crime in this incident.” Gamble said the district attorney’s office will have to make the final decision regarding what charges Delatoba will face, if any. “In the meantime,” he wrote, “we are in the process of training all officers and supervisors on the updated law to ensure it is applied properly moving forward.”
It’s hard to imagine the “Blue Lives Matter” law being “applied properly” because the “Blue Lives Matter” law was unnecessary legislation that Gov. John Bel Edwards never should have signed. There were already enhanced penalties for hurting law enforcement officers. So what does the law do except give police permission to newly interpret obnoxious behavior as felonies?
The law is bad on its face, and no amount of training of officers and supervisors is likely to redeem it.
Here’s how you can be sure that the law is bad: When a reporter asked the man who wrote the bill if he thought it appropriate for NOPD to pull out the hate crime statute for a man who cussed at them, the bill’s author declined to say no. Instead, Rep. Lance Harris, R-Alexandria, punted and said how or if to charge Delatoba would be “left up to the DA’s interpretation.” Of course. That’s always the case, no matter the accusation. But the question was about Harris’ own interpretation of the law he created. If Harris had wanted to say, “No, I didn’t intend for the law to apply to people who cuss cops,” he was free to say just that. His decision not to make such a simple statement suggests that Harris wasn’t at all bothered by what NOPD had initially done even though what NOPD initially did was hugely troubling.
Troubling doesn’t even begin to describe what I feel this situation has shown us about the idea of associating hate crimes and
a powerful, government institution like your local police.
Here’s a scary Press Release from our newest banking regulator the CFPB: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Fines Wells Fargo $100 Million for Widespread Illegal Practice of Secretly Opening Unauthorized Accounts ;Bank Incentives to Boost Sales Figures Spurred Employees to Secretly Open Deposit and Credit Card Accounts. You may have to read this a few times to get it to completely sink in on how big and bad it actually is.
Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. $100 million for the widespread illegal practice of secretly opening unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts. Spurred by sales targets and compensation incentives, employees boosted sales figures by covertly opening accounts and funding them by transferring funds from consumers’ authorized accounts without their knowledge or consent, often racking up fees or other charges. According to the bank’s own analysis, employees opened more than two million deposit and credit card accounts that may not have been authorized by consumers. Wells Fargo will pay full restitution to all victims and a $100 million fine to the CFPB’s Civil Penalty Fund. The bank will also pay an additional $35 million penalty to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and another $50 million to the City and County of Los Angeles.
“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “Because of the severity of these violations, Wells Fargo is paying the largest penalty the CFPB has ever imposed. Today’s action should serve notice to the entire industry that financial incentive programs, if not monitored carefully, carry serious risks that can have serious legal consequences.”
This year celebrates 50 years of the Star Trek phenomenon. I loved the program from day one.
For Star Trek‘s George Takei, it was one of the worst predictions he ever made, and one of the best strokes of luck in his life: Takei, known to fans worldwide as helmsman Hikaru Sulu, originally thought the show would last only one season.
“When we were shooting the pilot, Jimmy Doohan [who played engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott] said to me, ‘Well, George, what do you think about this? What kind of run do you think we’ll have?'” says Takei. “And I said, ‘I smell quality. And that means we’re in trouble.’ ”
Already a bit cynical about the way TV worked, Takei figured any series he liked wouldn’t last long — including the one he was appearing in. He feared Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had developed a show too sophisticated for mass audiences; a show that disguised social commentary with space action.
Fifty years later, relaxing in his comfortable Los Angeles home with a long career as an actor, author and activist, Takei is happy to admit his instincts were off the mark.
“The Starship Enterprise was a metaphor for Starship Earth,” he adds, referencing an acronym Roddenberry cited often to describe his approach: IDIC, or Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. “It was the diversity of this planet — people of different backgrounds, different cultures, different races … all coming together in concert and working as a team … I think that’s why, even a half century later, it’s as popular as it is.”
On Sept. 8, one of the most enduring franchises in TV and movie history celebrates its 50th birthday. Star Trek debuted on NBC in 1966, developed by Roddenberry, a former Los Angeles cop who wanted to make a TV series that could sneak past the rampant escapism of most programs back then.
The swamps of the Southern United States are giving up their secrets. Archaeologists are finding how escaped slaves developed hidden communities to keep their freedom.
The Great Dismal Swamp, now reduced by draining and development, is managed as a federal wildlife refuge. The once-notorious panthers are gone, but bears, birds, deer and amphibians are still abundant. So are venomous snakes and biting insects. In the awful heat and humidity of summer, Sayers assures me, the swamp teems with water moccasins and rattlesnakes. The mosquitoes get so thick that they can blur the outlines of a person standing 12 feet away.
In early 2004, one of the refuge biologists strapped on his waders and brought Sayers to the place we’re going, a 20-acre island occasionally visited by hunters, but completely unknown to historians and archaeologists. Before Sayers, no archaeology had been done in the swamp’s interior, mainly because conditions were so challenging. One research party got lost so many times that it gave up.
When you’ve been toiling through the sucking ooze, with submerged roots and branches grabbing at your ankles, dry solid ground feels almost miraculous. We step onto the shore of a large, flat, sun-dappled island carpeted with fallen leaves. Walking toward its center, the underbrush disappears, and we enter a parklike clearing shaded by a few hardwoods and pines.
“I’ll never forget seeing this place for the first time,” recalls Sayers. “It was one of the greatest moments of my life. I never dreamed of finding a 20-acre island, and I knew instantly it was livable. Sure enough, you can’t put a shovel in the ground anywhere on this island without finding something.”
He has named his excavation areas—the Grotto, the Crest, North Plateau and so on—but he won’t name the island itself. In his academic papers and his 2014 book, A Desolate Place for a Defiant People, Sayers refers to it as the “nameless site.” “I don’t want to put a false name on it,” he explains. “I’m hoping to find out what the people who lived here called this place.” As he sifts the earth they trod, finding the soil footprints of their cabins and tiny fragments of their tools, weapons and white clay pipes, he feels a profound admiration for them, and this stems in part from his Marxism.
“These people performed a critique of a brutal capitalistic enslavement system, and they rejected it completely. They risked everything to live in a more just and equitable way, and they were successful for ten generations. One of them, a man named Charlie, was interviewed later in Canada. He said that all labor was communal here. That’s how it would have been in an African village.”
Ever take ginseng? Here’s a frightening connection between the region growing Ginseng in Appalachia and poaching 
exotic substances.
On the outskirts of Boone, North Carolina, a small college and ski town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Travis Cornett had turned his bucolic farm into a virtual fortress. He’d started by installing a handful of security cameras across his 12 acres of sloping pine woods. Then he’d nailed 15 bright red signs to tree trunks along the property line that warned, “Trespassers will be prosecuted.” He also kept a .22 Ruger rifle and a Kalashnikov on hand.
As far as Cornett was concerned, no one was going to touch his ginseng.
It was the fall of 2013, six years since Cornett had planted his first “sang,” as locals call it: some 40 pounds of seed in a patch of forest shade. Initially, Cornett wasn’t too worried about poachers, well known around Boone for stealing ginseng from land that isn’t theirs. His fledging crop, low growing with green, jagged-edged leaves, had looked like wild strawberry plants. Now, though, it was coming into its prime. The maturing stems were taking on a distinctive purple tinge, their leaves multiplying, their berries turning lipstick red. Cornett knew that the plants’ roots, which are more valuable with age, could soon fetch hundreds of dollars per pound. It was only a matter of time before the rest of his farm, where he’d planted more seed over the years, would grow ripe for profit — and for theft.
Yet his fortifications weren’t enough. One September afternoon, neighbors saw a scruffy man creeping around Cornett’s land. When Cornett got the news — the security cameras had failed to pick up the intruder — he grabbed a weed whacker and unleashed it on his oldest ginseng, slicing off the leafy tops. If poachers couldn’t spot the decapitated plants, he reasoned, they couldn’t steal the roots.
A week later, though, he got a call that the trespasser had returned. Just then, the man was walking up a country byway near Cornett’s property, wearing dirt-covered jeans and carrying a backpack. Cornett, who was a few minutes from home, jumped into his black GMC truck and sped through the rural hills until he spotted David Presnell. When confronted, Presnell pleaded with Cornett not to call the cops. Cornett pulled out his cell phone anyway, and Presnell took off running, unzipping his backpack as he went. Then he reached inside and started tossing tan, snaking ginseng roots by the handful into laurel thickets lining the road.
By the time police arrived several minutes later, nothing was left in Presnell’s bag save some dirt and a few stringy runners. At Cornett’s urging, however, the cops drove to Presnell’s mobile home, where they found several roots strung up to dry. Others were dehydrating on large screened trays. The incursion into Cornett’s property, police suspected, wasn’t a first offense.
In December 2014, Presnell became the first person in North Carolina to be convicted of felony ginseng larceny on private property. He joined other thieves across Appalachia — the mountainous strip of territory extending from southern New York through the Carolinas down into Mississippi — who’ve been arrested, fined, even imprisoned for various ginseng-related crimes, including poaching, illegal possession, and unlawful trade across state lines. Presnell received 30 months’ probation.
So, hopefully these are some relaxed and interesting reads to help kick off a starting-to-look-like Autumn weekend. What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Live Blog: NBC “Commander-in-Chief Forum”
Posted: September 7, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Foreign Affairs, Live Blog, U.S. Military | Tags: Commander in Chief Forum 112 Comments
Tonight, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will respond to questions by Matt Lauer and an audience of Iraq/Afghanistan War Vets and their families. Clinton will be up first in
NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum. The Forum will be broadcast live from New York. It will provide an opportunity to see the candidates back-to-back in their first somewhat joint event.
On Wednesday, September 7, NBC News and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America present a historic event: The Commander-in-Chief Forum live from New York City.
During this one-hour forum, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be on stage back-to-back taking questions on national security, military affairs and veterans issues from NBC News and an audience comprised mainly of military veterans and active service members.
The event will air live on MSNBC at 8 p.m. ET and will be simulcast live on NBC in most markets. Check listings if you live in the Mountain and Pacific time zones. The event will also air on NBC in its entirety at 8 p.m. PT and 9 p.m. MT. The broadcast will also be streamed live at NBCNews.com.Forum at 8 p.m. ET.
Here are a few links to prepare for possible and needed questions.
From Charles P. Pierce writing for Esquire Magazine:
“Here’s What NBC Should Ask at Tonight’s ‘Commander-in-Chief Forum’
It’s a question all presidents should ask themselves.”
Over the almost 15 years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, almost everything about our politics, our culture, and ourselves has been heavily militarized. (It is not insignificant that most of the reaction against Colin Kaepernick’s gesture of protest has centered on his disrespect “for the troops.”) This includes almost any debate over foreign policy, which is too often tangled up in debates about military policy. (The current debate over trade policy is a welcome relief.) And most of my qualms are centered on the iconization of the term, commander-in-chief, which is now dangerously close to defining the office of president itself, which is, at the moment, a civilian job.
Time Magazine and Mark Thompson ask:
“Are military endorsements worth as much as the candidates think?”
So why should voters listen to ex-generals? In part, it’s because Americans hold their military in high esteem. The latest Gallup poll shows it’s the U.S. institution that citizens hold in highest regard (73%), with the presidency, at 36%, and Congress, at 9%, far below. The generals’ endorsements are sought not because of whom they are, or how many wars they’ve won, frankly, but because they bask in the glow given to GI Joe and Jane since 9/11. There’s a profound sense of gratitude (and, absent a draft, guilt) among Americans toward troops willing to salute and carry out the nation’s orders.
While Trump exasperates many former military leaders, he polls well among the troops, at least according to a non-scientific survey conducted by the independent Military Times newspapers. A CNN poll releasedTuesday highlights the fluidity of the race when it comes to national security: he does better when it comes to combating terrorism (51-45%), while she gets the edge when it comes to serving as commander-in-chief (50-45%).
The nation’s most-recently retired top military officer doesn’t like his former comrades choosing sides. “Politicians should take the advice of senior military leaders but keep them off the stage,” Martin Dempsey, an Army four-star general who retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs from 2011 to 2015, said after a pair of retired generals appeared at the recent political conventions, one backing Clinton and the other backing Trump. “They have just made the task of their successors—who continue to serve in uniform and are accountable for our security—more complicated. It was a mistake for them to participate as they did. It was a mistake for our presidential candidates to ask them to do so.”
Yet not all who have worn the uniform agree. “Who should speak on security affairs to our nation? Professors? Anti-war activists? Pot-bellied defense lobbyists grubbing for blood-money? Think-tank creeps with narrow shoulders and massive egos?” asks Ralph Peters, a retired Army lieutenant colonel. “Shouldn’t we also lend an ear to those who have actual and lengthy military experience?”
Retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich, who has criticized the nation’s post-9/11 wars, also doesn’t find rolling out military brass like so many artillery pieces particularly disturbing, so long as their opinions are given proper weight: “A retired general is no more competent to comment on presidential politics than is a retired dentist or a retired ballet dancer.”
Jeff Stein writing for VOX suggests “how to watch Trump, Clinton online, TV.”
The forum will begin at 8 pm Eastern at the the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City. NBC’s Matt Lauer, host of the Today Show, gets to ask the questions.
How to watch
TV: The event will be simulcast on both NBC and MSNBC.
Streaming: The event will be live-streamed here.
You can also just ignore the visuals and listen to the forum on MSNBC’s radio channel.
What to expect
This could be a good night for Clinton.
The back-and-forth of the debates reward masters in the theater of campaigning. Trump excelled at that during the Republican primaries, in part with put-downs of his rivals and his sense of humor.
The forums are different. The candidates will have to sit for extended interviews that test the range of their expertise, making it much more difficult to provide a punchy one-line answer or turn the tables on their opponents to prove a point.
“A well-prepared moderator can have an easier time pinning down a candidate and following up on the audience’s questions,” writes Gary Legum in Salon. “It requires a candidate to move around the stage, maintain eye contact with questioners and show empathy and relatability to members of the audience. This is not exactly Trump’s strong suit.”
PolitiFact will be Fact-Checking the Forum.
I’m personally don’t have faith in Matt Lauer asking any tough questions given he’s basically a news reader and on air personality for fluffy morning news. I am hoping the vets and their families will have tough questions.
I want to hear what Trump says about his comments about John McCain not being a real hero and see if he will apologize to the Khans, frankly for his outrageous comments about the gold star family. Basically, this Hillary internet ad says it all to me. How do you compare the service and sacrifice of service members to your blowing through you Daddy’s trustfund to build fugly buildings?
Monday Reads: The Swiftboating of Hillary and the Clinton Foundation
Posted: September 5, 2016 Filed under: morning reads | Tags: Pay for Play and the Trump Foundation, Trump Foundation Scandal, Unequal coverage of Clinton Trump campaigns 21 Comments
Happy Labor Day!
We’ve been discussing the absolutely uneven and biased media coverage of the 2016 presidential race for some time here at Sky Dancing. Corporate media’s fascination with Donald Trump is completely swamping any motivation to actually ensure the truth of statements made by his campaigns and campaign surrogates.
There’s an obsessive false equivalency giving Clinton positions and arguments some kind of equal footing with outrageous, unsupported accusations and name calling coming from Trump and his seriously unhinged surrogates. A laundry list of appeals to the Alt-Right and dog whistles to White Nationalists does not equate to calling some one a bigot with no proof above and beyond the name calling. Just sayin’.
So why do they get away with it? Hasn’t anyone in the media determined that right wing conspiracies and bigoted statements by fringe groups are disinformation and propaganda?
A few group associated with media accountability and culpability plus a few–primarily woman and minority–journalists are beginning to document the absolute unequal treatment of coverage of the Trump Foundation and actual circumstances of illegal donations with that of the Clinton Foundation.The Clinton foundation has long been considered one of the ethical charities in existence. I want to provide some information on the swiftboating of the Clinton Foundation vs. the hands-off treatment given the already fined and found guilty Trump Foundation. As we’ve discussed here, both the AP and the NYT have hit absolute lows in reporting tying to infer that Clinton’s time at the State Department included a pay for play scheme with her husband’s foundation.
Hillary Clinton has faced consistent scrutiny for her role in the Clinton Foundation, which was established after Bill Clinton left office. The foundation focuses on global health, climate change, improving opportunities for girls and women and a variety of other activities.
Much of the controversy about the Clinton Foundation focuses on Hillary Clinton’s role as Secretary of State and whether she was complicit in “selling access” in return for donations to the foundation. These charges were elevated to prominence by Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, in his book Clinton Cash.
The Government Accountability Institute is the non-profit arm of Breitbart.com, a notoriously pugilistic right-wing website. Trump recentlyhired Steve Bannon, who runs Breitbart, to be the CEO of his campaign. Schweizer’s book failed to uncover any clear evidence of wrongdoing — and was rife with errors — but it did succeed in focusing mainstream media attention on the alleged issue.
Details from both the NYT and AP stories proved to be an assortment of cherry-picked schedules, innuendo, and clickbait headlines. Meawhile, an actual example of illegal donations–which has all the look of a pay for play on the part of the Trump Foundation–has going nearly ignored. I’ve borrowed a few paragraphs’ here from Judd Legume’s excellently researched at Think Progress. Please go read the entire piece which includes the wonky graph up top.
Meanwhile, on September 1, news broke that the Trump Foundation “violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general.” It was required to pay a $2500 fine to the IRS.
The details of the case are even more unseemly. Florida’s Attorney General was considering opening an investigation into Trump University, which is accused of defrauding students. Bondi herself contacted Trump and asked for a political contribution. After a political committee associated with her campaign received the illegal $25,000 contribution, she decided not to pursue it.
The story has something that none of the Clinton Foundation stories have: Actual evidence of illegal conduct. In this case, not only is there concrete evidence that the Trump Foundation broke the law, but a formal finding of wrongdoing by the IRS.
This weekend, many others have taken up the banner to decry the unequal coverage. Professor Rick Hasen–a political science and law professor at UCI--is among them
Hassan points out the silence of the lambs at the NYT on the Bondi bribe. Check out the Storify listed by Greg Dworkin (below) for his complete analysis. He also has a blog which we’ll quote from shortly.
Paul Krugman has gone on the attack too. Here’s some analysis via AltNet.
Krugman has a sick feeling of deja vu in the coverage of Clinton and Trump. True, some of Trump’s dishonesty has been reported. But he is definitely being normalized and graded on a crazy curve. The minute he does not say anything deeply offensive for a whole day, he is hailed as pivoting and being presidential. Maybe he won’t immediately round up 11 million undocumented immigrants. Good for him! Meanwhile, his latest apparent criminality, payoffs to state attorneys general to stop investigating his fraudulent University, is getting almost no attention.
Compare this to the Clinton Foundation, the coverage of which Krugman calls “bizarre.”
When Bill Clinton left office, he was a popular, globally respected figure. What should he have done with that reputation? Raising large sums for a charity that saves the lives of poor children sounds like a pretty reasonable, virtuous course of action. And the Clinton Foundation is, by all accounts, a big force for good in the world. For example, Charity Watch, an independent watchdog, gives it an “A” rating — better thanthe American Red Cross.
Now, any operation that raises and spends billions of dollars creates the potential for conflicts of interest. You could imagine the Clintons using the foundation as a slush fund to reward their friends, or, alternatively, Mrs. Clinton using her positions in public office to reward donors. So it was right and appropriate to investigate the foundation’s operations to see if there were any improper quid pro quos. As reporters like to say, the sheer size of the foundation “raises questions.”
But nobody seems willing to accept the answers to those questions, which are, very clearly, “no.”
The now infamous Associated Press report, filled with innuendo, managed to dig up the fact that Clinton met with a Nobel Peace Prize winner and personal friend Muhammad Yunus. Oooooo, that’s bad.
Krugman cautions readers of such reports to be aware of “weasel” words, like “raises questions,” or creates “shadows.”
Only one candidate in the raise bilked students, stiffed workers, and from all appearances, failed to pay his share of taxes. Which is to say nothing of being totally incoherent about policy and engaging in dangerous, violence-inciting fearmongering.
My friend David Bernstein dropped these links to my facebook comment about the Bondi and Abbot donations. There is a clear implication of pay to play here as well as where the real IRS fine occurred in the Bondi case.
From the Miami Herald: Donald Trump Buys himself an attorney General for $25000 from June 8, 2016.
From the Federalist: Did Trump Buy Off Cuomo To Protect His Bogus University? from April 18, 2016
From CBS NEWS: Former Texas official says he was told to drop Trump University probe from June 5, 2016
Owens said he was so surprised at the order to stand down he made a copy of the case file and took it home.
“It had to be political in my mind because Donald Trump was treated differently than any other similarly situated scam artist in the 16 years I was at the consumer protection office,” said Owens, who lives in Houston.
Owens’ boss at the time was then-Attorney General Greg Abbott, who is now the state’s GOP governor.
The Associated Press first reported Thursday that Trump gave donations totaling $35,000 to Abbott’s gubernatorial campaign three years after his office closed the Trump U case. Several Texas media outlets
Here’s Hasen’s analysis of the impropriety of the Bondi donation. As mentioned before, Hasen is a professor of political science and law at UCI.
This good story by WaPo’s David Fahrenthold explains how a $25,000 contribution to Florida AG Bondi wound up illegally, and apparently inadvertently, getting paid out of the Trump Foundation account (which cannot make such political donations) rather than from Trump personally. The explanation for how this happened seems plausible enough.
But the real scandal here is not that a payment came from a foundation but that Trump was giving money to Bondi while Bondi was deliberating over whether or not to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. After the $25,000 donation, Bondi decided not to pursue the case.
Quid pro quo? Not proven. But conflict of interest for the AG to solicit money from someone while contemplating a civil [corrected] investigation of that person? That stinks.
And imagine if Hillary Clinton had made a contribution to someone who was deciding whether to investigate her. That certainly would have been a bigger story.
This is a much worse pay-to-play problem than we’ve seen with the Clinton Foundation stories, at least what we know so far.
Meanwhile, coverage by the media has been scant with the exception of Joy Reid. (Ask me about being one of the original Reiders!!!) Media Matters gives this headline: “CBS’ John Dickerson Is Only Sunday Host To Cover Trump Foundation’s Proven Lawbreaking”.
A Washington Post report that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 fine after his charitable foundation illegally gave a political contribution went mostly ignored by the cable and network Sunday political talk show hosts, with only CBS’ John Dickerson questioning a Trump surrogate about the story.
The September 1 Post article reported that the Donald J. Trump Foundation had “violated tax laws” with a $25,000 political contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who at the time was deciding whether or not to take action against Trump University. The report also highlighted an error, “which had the effect of obscuring the political gift from the IRS.” According to the Post’s article, the Trump Foundation is still out of compliance because “under IRS rules, it appears that the Trump Foundation must seek to get the money back” from the group which should never have received it:
Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year, an official at Trump’s company said, after it was revealed that Trump’s charitable foundation had violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general.
The improper donation, a $25,000 gift from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, was made in 2013. At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi was considering whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. She decided not to pursue the case.
Earlier this year, The Washington Post and a liberal watchdog group raised new questions about the three-year-old gift. The watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a complaint with the IRS — noting that, as a registered nonprofit, the Trump Foundation was not allowed to make political donations.
The Post reported another error, which had the effect of obscuring the political gift from the IRS.
In that year’s tax filings, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump’s foundation listed a donation — also for $25,000 — to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi’s political group. In fact, Trump’s foundation had not given the Kansas group any money.
The prohibited gift was, in effect, replaced with an innocent-sounding but nonexistent donation.
With the breathless media hyping of every new detail about the Clinton Foundation, despite the lack of anything illegal occurring, one would think that the proof of lawbreaking by a charitable foundation founded and named for one of the two major party presidential nominees would attract significant attention from the media. But Face the Nation host John Dickerson was the only Sunday political talk show host to bring up thePost’s findings.
During his interview with Trump campaign surrogate Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), Dickerson cited the Post story to ask if it was an example of Trump knowing “how to use political donations to get the system to work for him” because in this situation Trump “gave the money then the investigation didn’t happen”
Karoli covers the Reid coverage and the lack of coverage by both FOX and CNN.
Last Friday, Washington Post reporter David Farenthold broke a blockbuster of a story about Donald Trump, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and a clear-cut pay-to-play scheme. Our report on that is here.
It’s a blockbuster of a report that can leave no doubt about the fact that there was a quid pro quo between Bondi and Trump, with an equally clear effort to conceal it on the Trump Foundation reports.
In other words, it’s truly a scandal. A REAL scandal. One that should have dominated today’s Sunday shows and the newspaper headlines this weekend. Yet, there was no mention that I saw on any Sunday shows, and headlines are still dominated with bogus Clinton email stories.
Curiously, only MSNBC has reported the story at all. Joy Reid did a lengthy segment while sitting in for Chris Hayes on All In last Friday night, a bit of which we’ve clipped above. In the words of Joe Biden, this is a BFD.
After sitting through all of the Sunday shows today, I wondered about where all of the stories on this were, so I went on a hunt. I searched the transcripts for Fox News, CNN and MSNBC to see where they had done any reporting on this. There are also huge questions about whether Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also dropped a Trump University investigation after receiving $35,000 from Trump, but for now let’s focus on Bondi since the Trump Foundation admitted they sent her a contribution when they weren’t supposed to.
The last mention of Bondi on Fox News was on August 24th, ahead of a Trump rally where she was slated to warm up the crowd. Before that, the last mention was during the Republican National Convention, where she was a speaker.
There have been no mentions of Bondi whatsoever on CNN since Wolf Blitzer interviewed a Gold Star parent who talked about a meeting Bondi facilitated with Trump.
Meanwhile, Bondi is shocked ! Shocked I tell you! Evidently, not opening an investigation isn’t the same as blocking it! And maybe she’s
mostly shocked because she got $10,000 less than Abbott. Check out their cozy picture. Trump has a type, doesn’t he?
The alternative media and a few intrepid reporters in various outlets are giving this story legs. Meanwhile, I want to draw your attention to to journalists that are speaking out and loudly.
Charles Blow outlines the bleak state of Trump’s Soul. I wasn’t aware he had one. The entire op-ed is here at the NYT.
“You have proudly brandished your abrasiveness, and now you want to whine and moan about your own abrasions,” Blow writes. “Not this day. Not the next day. Not ever. You will never shake the essence of yourself. Your soul is dark, your character corrupt. You are a reprobate and a charlatan who has ridden a wave of intolerance to its crest.”
He then reminds us of some of Trump’s greatest hits, including:
- His role in promoting the “birther” conspiracy theory about President Obama
- His claim that Mexico is intentionally sending rapists across the border into our country
- His lies about Muslims in New Jersey celebrating 9/11
- Mocking a disabled reporter and then lying about it
- Encouraging supporters to “knock the crap” out of protesters at his rallies
“You are not to be praised for your fourth quarter outreach, but reviled for it, because it contains contempt, not contrition,” Blow seethes. “Everything about this spectacle was offensive: that a black pastor had invited this money changer into the temple to defile it; that Trump was once again using the objects of his aggression for a last-ditch photo-op; that news media continue to call this an ‘outreach to black voters,’ when it’s clearly not.”
The best is from Soledad O’Brien who accuses CNN of mainstreaming White Supremacist thought.
From Raw Story: Soledad O’Brien eviscerates CNN: ‘You have normalized’ white supremacy with shoddy Trump reporting
Former CNN host Soledad O’Brien blasted the cable news business over the weekend for profiting off the hate speech that has fueled Donald Trump’s political rise.
According to O’Brien, the media had gone through “contortions to make things seem equal all the time” when comparing Trump to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“If you look at Hillary Clinton’s speech where she basically pointed out that what Donald Trump has done — actually quite well — has normalized white supremacy,” O’Brien explained to CNN host Brian Stelter on Sunday. “I think she made a very good argument, almost like a lawyer. Here is ways in which he has actually worked to normalize conversations that many people find hateful.”
“I’ve seen on-air, white supremacists being interviewed because they are Trump delegates,” she noted. “And they do a five minute segment, the first minute or so talking about what they believe as white supremacists. So you have normalized that.”
“And then Donald Trump will say, ‘Hillary Clinton, she’s a bigot.’ And it’s covered, the journalist part comes in, ‘They trade barbs. He said she’s a bigot and she points out that he might be appealing to racists.’ It only becomes ‘he said, she said.’ When in actuality, the fact that Donald Trump said she’s a bigot without the long laundry list of evidence, which if you looked at Hillary Clinton’s speech, she actually did have a lot of really good factual evidence that we would all agree that are things that have happened and do exist. They are treated as if they are equal.”
O’Brien insisted “that’s where journalists are failing: the contortions to try to make it seem fair.”
The former CNN host argued that the question that journalists should be asking is if Trump is “softening the ground for people — who are white supremacists, who are white nationalists, who would self-identify that way — to feel comfortable with their views being brought into the national discourse to the point where they can do a five minute interview happily on national television?”
“And the answer is yes, clearly,” she said. “And there is lots of evidence of that.”
O’Brien observed that cable news outlets were effectively being rewarded for bad behavior.
This puts me in mind of the harping of the TV news readers on Hillary Clinton’s lack of press conferences. She had a press conference. The audience was Black and Hispanic Journalists.
Hillary Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine told ‘This Week’ host Martha Raddatz that claims that Hillary Clinton is avoiding the press are not true. He also compared Donald Trump’s relationship with the press to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
“Secretary Clinton has not held a press conference in 274 days,” Raddatz noted. “Our campaign reporters and others say she doesn’t really answer that many questions. Is this going to change?”
“She’s had hundreds interviews in the last year,” Kaine replied. “And I’ve got to push back on the notion that she hasn’t done a press conference.”
Kaine referred to Clinton’s appearance last month at the Association of Black and Hispanic Journalists convention where “members of mainstream media outlets” were allowed to ask Clinton questions. “She did a press conference there,” Kaine said.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the 2016 National Association of Black Journalists’ and National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Hall of Fame Luncheon at Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, Friday, Aug. 5, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Here’s a headline that appeared in someplace other than CNN, FOX News, etc. from August 5, 2016 : Journalists grill Hillary Clinton at NABJ/NAHJ conference
Hillary Clinton held a mini-press conference of sorts with reporters Friday — and lived to tell the tale.
She spoke to the joint convention of the National Association of Black Journalists/National Association of Hispanic Journalists in Washington, D.C. and briefly dealt with what’s been her frustrating (for reporters) reluctance to hold a press conference.
She was more predictable and scripted than revealing and forthcoming as she answered a series of questions from NBC’s Kristen Welker and Telemundo’s Lori Montenegro, who then opened the proceeding up to questions from the audience.
Some drew very generic responses from a political pro, while others were a bit more ticklish but navigated without much apparent damage by her. But there was one surprisingly, and needlessly, awkward moment.
The two most notable questions perhaps came from Ed O’Keefe of The Washington Post and Kevin Merida, a former top Post editor who now oversees ESPN’s daily dissection of sports, race and culture, the Undefeated.
O’Keefe spoke to press chagrin with how a famously press-wary figure deals with the press following her on the campaign. Damning with a certain faint praise, he said, “We encourage you to do this more often with reporters across the country, especially those news organizations that travel the country with you whereever you go.”
He didn’t get any response to that comment. He did get a very Clinton-esque response when he got to his main query: How would she lead a nation where a majority of people mistrust her, according to survey?
Her answer: She’s been in the public arena long time, it’s in the opposition’s self-interest to stir the pot against her and, regardless, she will work to earn the trust of all Americans once elected.
I guess it’s only a press conference if the white boys get to do it.
So, I’ve run long. It’s a holiday and I’m sure you didn’t want this long form, documented rant from me but here it is!!
And, I’m giving my last word to the Rude Pundit. Hillary Clinton is running for President too.
While we are all mesmerized by watching the ongoing train crash into a dumpster fire on top of a mountain of shit that is the Donald Trump campaign, we seem to be missing any coverage at all of what’s been going on with Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, aka “The Evilest Harpy Ever to Swoop from the Heavens to Devour Our Children and Our Testicles” or whatever right-wing media and Trump are calling her now.
Believe it or not, she has a campaign, too. I know. Hard to believe. And things happen with it that have nothing to do with love emails to ISIS or the Clinton Foundation digging a tunnel right to the State Department’s door or whatever we’re supposed to believe now. And some of those things happened just in this last week or so of watching Trump dance the merengue on the dreams of immigrants.
For instance, Clinton proposed a “Comprehensive Agenda on Mental Health,” something you’d think Donald Trump’s family would want him to get in on. A chunk of it already has bipartisan support in that the GOP-controlled House passed some of what she is proposing. Her full plan is incredibly detailed, with projected costs included, in a way that you’d never see on that other guy’s website for his idiot hordes. It’s smart and insightful, and it has real reform and compassion behind it. So no one gives a shit. If she had said, “Lock up the calm nuts and shoot the criminal ones in the streets like they’re rabid dogs,” the media would have been all over it, discussing the merits of such an extreme action.
Clinton also proposed a public health fund for things like the Zika outbreak. Yeah, “Rapid Response Fund” isn’t as glamorous as “big, beautiful wall,” but, you know, probably a great deal more useful.
She was also recently endorsed by the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, which has never endorsed a candidate in its 15 year existence. Oh, and the Teamsters endorsed her last week, making it the final of the 5 biggest unions in the United States to do so, none of which seem to be bothered by email bullshit or faux Foundation shenanigans. Or even Benghazi.
Yeah, in a normal campaign, where we actually treated the candidates in a normal way, we’d have a discussion about some of these things and their implications should Clinton become president.
But when one thing sucks up all the oxygen in the room, the rest of us suffocate.
Have a good Labor Day!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: SMH and WTF all day long
Posted: September 2, 2016 Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: Clinton Derangement, Clinton Foundation, Donald Trump and the Alt Right 21 Comments
Good Afternoon and Welcome to the Long Weekend!
There is a very little about this campaign season and the associated media coverage that can shock me any more. We’ve gone way beyond the usual silly season nonsense. We’ve got a Republican candidate that shouldn’t be any where near anything having to do with Presidency and the media seems to just be trying to turn lies and conspiracy theories about the Clintons into actual news rather than cover the jaw-dropping shit coming from him and his campaign. Boston Boomer has been covering this aspect of the campaign quite completely and I’m afraid I have to go there for one more day of posts. It isn’t getting any better.
We keep hearing total fabrications about the Clinton Foundation while we really actually do have a scandal about a candidate’s foundation. This is from Vox and Matthew Yglesias: ‘Guess which candidate’s foundation was caught in an illegal campaign funding scheme?’ The Trump Foundation has been fined and caught making illegal campaign contributions.
For some time now, the Washington Post’s David Fahrenthold has been looking into the neglected subject of Donald Trump’s charitable giving.
And most recently he’s found out that Trump’s charitable foundation made an illegal campaign contribution to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi (this reporting is based, in turn, in part on work done by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington). Then when they found out they had broken the law, they kinda sorta corrected the error but didn’t actually follow their legal obligation to get the money back.
It’s all at least a little suspicious. The story includes the phrase: “Trump staffers said that a series of unusual — and unrelated — errors by people working for Trump had led to both the improper donation and to the omission of that donation from the foundation’s tax filings.”
What’s more, the contribution to Bondi came right when she was one of several attorneys general who were looking into possible Trump University fraud investigations. Shortly after receiving the illegal campaign contribution she dropped the investigation.
Oh, also, it turns out that the Trump Foundation itself was part of a setup to ensure thatTrump’s own money was never used to finance a Trump charitable contribution.
In the grand scheme of the 2016 campaign this seems like maybe not that big of a deal.
But it’s hard not to notice the fact that various Clinton Foundation lacuna involving such scandalous activity as trying to help a Nobel Peace Prize winner, introducing the chair of the Kennedy Center at the Kennedy Center Honors dinner, and having a meeting with the Crown Prince of Bahrain have been major, cycle-dominating news stories. I think it’s fair to say that a lot more digital pixels have been spent exploring possible conflicts of interest involving Clinton charities than the contents of Clinton’s plan for combatting drug addiction.
Oh, for the love of god, mother Times. Are you freaking kidding me?
It’s long past the point where many of our major news publications be sent to the dogtrack with their names pinned to their sweaters, at least as far as the Clintons are concerned. Right now, there is substantial evidence that many of them will print anything as long as they can wedge “Clinton,” “questions” and “e-mails” into a headline. Of course, if Hillary Rodham Clinton would just hold a press conference, at which every question would feature those three words in some order or another, then we’d all turn to discussing the comprehensive mental health plan that she released to thundering silence on Monday when most of the press was in an Anthony Weiner frenzy. Yes, and I am the Tsar of all the Russias.
But this latest iteration of The Clinton Rules is probably the most egregious one yet. From the Times:
A top aide to Hillary Clinton at the State Department agreed to try to obtain a special diplomatic passport for an adviser to former President Bill Clinton in 2009, according to emails released Thursday, raising new questions about whether people tied to the Clinton Foundation received special access at the department.
The request by the adviser, Douglas J. Band, who started one arm of the Clintons’ charitable foundation, was unusual, and the State Department never issued the passport. Only department employees and others with diplomatic status are eligible for the special passports, which help envoys facilitate travel, officials said.
Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign said that there was nothing untoward about the request and that it related to an emergency trip that Mr. Clinton took to North Korea in 2009 to negotiate the release of two American journalists. Mrs. Clinton has long denied that donors had any special influence at the State Department.
Jesus H. Christ on Dancing With The Stars, that’s what this is about? Bill Clinton’s mission to get two American journalists out the hoosegow of The World’s Craziest Place? Wasn’t that a triumph?Weren’t we all happy about it? Hell, this was so surreptitious and “questionable” that HRC even wrote about it in one of her books.
I thought the bombshell in Tiger Beat On The Potomac about how Bill Clinton questionably availed himself of services to which he was legally entitled as an ex-president was going to be this week’s most prominent parody of investigative journalism. (After all, it got to drop the ominous “taxpayer money” into the conversation right next to “private server,” which one of the endless parade of dingbats shilling for the Trump campaign used on CNN just this morning.) But this story puts that one in the ha’penny place, as my grandmother used to say.
Meanwhile, Trump hires a Citizen’s United dude and crickets except for WAPO. Thank you Robert Costa! This means it’s only going to get uglier.
David N. Bossie, the veteran conservative operative who has investigated the Clintons for more than two decades, has been named Donald Trump’s deputy campaign manager.
The Republican presidential nominee revealed his hire in a phone call with The Washington Post.
“A friend of mine for many years,” Trump said, speaking from his office in New York. “Solid. Smart. Loves politics, knows how to win.”
Bossie participated Thursday in strategy sessions at Trump Tower where he was introduced to campaign aides and Trump associates, according to Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway.
Conway said Bossie would be assisting her with managing day-to-day operations and with strategic planning.
“He’s a battle-tested warrior and a brilliant strategist,” Conway said. “He’s a nuts-and-bolts tactician as well, who’s going to help us fully integrate our ground game and data operations, and help with overall strategy as my deputy.”
Bossie will also work on crafting attacks against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, mining past controversies involving her and former president Bill Clinton, and cultivating Trump’s bond with conservative activists.
The addition of Bossie, who first gained notice in the 1990s as the Republican congressional staffer who aggressively delved into the Clintons’ finances and dealings, is the latest sign that the Trump campaign’s new leadership team is embracing right-wing figures whose ties to the party’s elected leadership have been tenuous or even hostile.
And outreach to hispanics with race baiting continues with the race baiting coming from representatives of the groups themselves! This happened after three hispanic advisors quit the Trump Campaign after that horrid Wednesday night screed.
A supporter of Donald Trump appeared on MSNBC’s “All In” on Thursday night to offer a vision of a bleak, delicious future.
“My culture is a very dominant culture, and it’s imposing — and it’s causing problems,” Marco Gutierrez of Latinos for Trump told Joy Ann Reid. “If you don’t do something about it, you’re going to have taco trucks on every corner.”
That’s a serious charge, worthy of being considered seriously. Although easy access to inexpensive Mexican food would be a boon for hungry Americans, what would the inevitable presence of those trucks do to the American economy? How could our country accommodate an explosion of trucks at that scale?
And we find out that Trump’s outreach to Black Americans has been scripted and arranged so that he doesn’t really have to go near the community still. He just has to hold his breath long enough to read his script in front of maybe one or two in Detroit. I mean, WTF does this say?
Donald J. Trump’s visit to a black church here on Saturday will be a major moment for a candidate with a history of offending the sensibilities of black Americans.
His team was leaving nothing to chance.
Instead of speaking to the congregation at Great Faith Ministries International, Mr. Trump had planned to be interviewed by its pastor in a session that would be closed to the public and the news media, with questions submitted in advance. And instead of letting Mr. Trump be his freewheeling self, his campaign prepared lengthy answers for the submitted questions, consulting black Republicans to make sure he says the right things.
An eight-page draft script obtained by The New York Times shows 12 questions that Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, the pastor, intends to ask Mr. Trump in the taped question-and-answer session, as well as the responses Mr. Trump is being advised to give.
The proposed answers were devised by aides working for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, according to an official who has been involved in the planning but declined to be identified while speaking about confidential strategy.
The document includes the exact wording of answers the aides are proposing for Mr. Trump to give to questions about police killings, racial tension and the perception among many black voters that he and the Republican Party are racist, among other topics.
The official said the answers could change based on feedback from the black Republicans they are consulting with.
At least the Press of Lake Woebegone are working overtime.
Essas três mulheres não são Rosa Luxemburgo, Simone de Beauvoir e Emma Goldman na praia dos anos 1930
Former “Prairie Home Companion” host Garrison Keillor penned a scathing letter to Donald Trump on Wednesday, accusing him of only running for president to win the respect of Manhattan elites.
“If you were to win election, they couldn’t ridicule you anymore,” the author and radio personality wrote.
“You wanted Mike Bloomberg to invite you to dinner at his townhouse. You wanted the Times to run a three-part story about you, that you meditate and are a passionate kayaker and collect 14th-century Islamic mosaics. You wish you were that person but you didn’t have the time.”
Keillor mocked Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hat and his entourage of Fox News host Sean Hannity, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, comparing them to hospital visitors.
“The cap does not look good on you, it’s a duffer’s cap, and when you come to the microphone, you look like the warm-up guy, the guy who announces the license number of the car left in the parking lot, doors locked, lights on, motor running.”
Running for president won’t gain Trump the respect he wants because he lacks the discipline, Keillor writes:
“You walk out in the white cap and you rant for an hour about stuff that means nothing and the fans scream and wave their signs and you wish you could level with them for once and say one true thing: I love you to death and when this is over I will have nothing that I want.”
It’s about time Hillary Clinton comes out swinging and defending her honor directly. I’ve really appreciated how many of her proxies–like Jennifer Granholm yesterday–have been sticking up for the work of the Clinton Foundation and pushing back on the false narratives cooked up by the press and the Alt-Right. But, it’s time Hillary address them directly. BB said she felt that we were seeing the swiftboating of Hillary. That’s a very good comparison. But this time, the press appears eager to join in with the lies. Watch the Granholm interview. She expresses complete, utter frustration while listing a catalog of complaints.
Here are a few other things to read:
From Raw Story: ‘Drinking the Orange Kool-Aid’: Cult expert says Trump is like Rev. Jim Jones — but far more dangerous
From The Californian: Trump’s repellant inner circle
From NYDN: KING: Oregon white supremacist uses his Jeep to chase down, maul and kill black teen
I hope your Labor Day Weekend will be AB FAB!!!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: A Reptile Dysfunction
Posted: August 29, 2016 Filed under: just because, morning reads | Tags: Colin Kaepernick, hurricane katrina, nagas, nagginis, radical christianists terrorists, the national anthem is racist 31 CommentsEleven years ago, Honey, Karma, Miles and I were sharing a small pink futon on the floor of a Lake Charles motel between the beds of a Chinese and Japanese Graduate student from UNO. I had told all of our foreign grad students in our doctorate program to get hotel rooms and get the heck out of Dodge about 5 days before. I was going to stick it out but didn’t and wound up be very thankful to join them. There’s was nothing to do but to watch CNN and hook up the internet.
It was a day that changed many lives including mine. Honey and Karma, my French Quarter Dogs, have since crossed the Rainbow Bridge. Miles and I are a little worse for the wear and frankly, so is the Kat House. My insurance company never really did pony up enough money to cover the damages and I never took the Road Home Funds because I had–and still have–survivor guilt. My house didn’t flood. But, one of the residuals is that I have a $10,000 deductible for named storms and live in constant fear of anything with a name on it now. Then, of course, we’re still reeling from the post-hurricane damage of 8 years of Bobby Jindal and the continued encroachment on the wetlands by oil companies and housing developers. The last set of floods is just the most recent display of what happens when you really don’t take care of your Mother Earth.
At least this year, I don’t have to hear the word resilient.
Good Morning!
Here’s some linky goodness and badness from me, the dakini of the swamps. I’m in wrathful form today so enjoy some pictures of Naginis.
Here’s a wonderful and ominous post recommended by General Russell Honore about the issues with our Louisiana Wetlands. I hope you can take some time to read it all.
We need a massive reforestation of Louisiana. Mature, native, water-loving trees like Live Oaks and Bald Cypress drink up to 1,000 gallons of water per day and should be as common and beloved a site in our urban and rural landscapes as Saints bumper stickers. One huge impetus behind founding SOUL is the very large goal of replanting New Orleans, the most deforested city in the U.S.! But rural Louisiana suffers from deforestation as well, largely due to short-sighted development of subdivisions and commercial areas that raze the forest and level the land before construction. Trees are essential to our resilience as they absorb stormwater into their root systems and transpire it back into the air. A mature tree produces enough oxygen for ten people, and can lower our air temperatures by up to two degrees. The benefits of trees are endless, and our futures rely on them.
It’s time to respect the gravity of gravity. It there’s one thing we can always count on, it’s that water will always travel downhill. Thus, it is vital that water has an unobstructed path to its nearest floodplain or basin. Rural Louisiana has many flood plains and small water bodies like creeks that are bisected by roads. During heavy rains these spots turn into dams and cause massive flooding as water seeks a lower point of gravity.
New construction should be raised to a level accommodating a 2,000-year storm.Considering how quickly our disasters are growing in intensity and frequency, it only makes sense that we should build new homes and businesses according to future storm levels. We’re recovering from a 1,000-year flood, so let’s rebuild to a 2,000-year disaster this time. Many of the structures that were damaged were built at grade on slab. Cities must stop allowing development that ignores our hydrology and natural history, for the sake of developers maximizing their profits.
We need to integrate “green infrastructure” into every aspect of our lives. If you’re not already familiar with this term, it refers to infrastructure that mimics natural systems and harnesses stormwater at its source. Essentially its goal is to get water back into the ground and into the water table.
There’s a developing tropical storm that’s due to enter the Gulf. It’s supposed to turn back on Florida at this point. However, you never know and we would be on the wet side if it gets too close for comfort. People south of us already have a lot on their plate and any kind of drenching of the area would be really bad. Thankfully, the winds aloft are not particularly friendly atm. I just hope it doesn’t get a name if it pours on the Kat House and that it misses the folks in the flooded area completely.
So, onward with today’s theme of snaky people.
A white male radical christianist was plotting a ” mass shooting to protect 2nd Amendment from ‘f*ggots’.” This guy sounds like a good Trump supporter, doesn’t he?
Bryce Cuellar, 24, was arrested by Las Vegas police after they were notified by Interpol in July about Cuellar’s video. In the video, Cuellar stated that he is tired of the government trying to take away his First and Second Amendment rights and planned to go on a killing spree.
Calling himself a “Christian warrior,” Cuellar bragged that he would use his weapons as the Founding Fathers intended, killing,” gays, faggots, lesbians and satanists.”
According to Las Vegas police, Cuellar reportedly beat his wife hours after posting the video on YouTube, where he displayed his weapons while wearing a Kevlar vest and sporting night-vision goggles.
A review of Cuellar’s YouTube page reveal a collection of conspiracy-minded videos including ones that question what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary, support for the Bundy family’s war on the government, the threat of the Illuminati and proof that angels and demons are real. Investigators say the timeline of his videos suggest that he has sunk deeper in the world of conspiracy mongering over the past three years.
This is pretty scary. Foreign hackers have gotten into the state election databases according to the FBI. 
The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement officials.
The FBI warning, contained in a “flash” alert from the FBI’s Cyber Division, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo News, comes amid heightened concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about the possibility of cyberintrusions, potentially by Russian state-sponsored hackers, aimed at disrupting the November elections.
Those concerns prompted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to convene a conference call with state election officials on Aug. 15, in which he offered his department’s help to make state voting systems more secure, including providing federal cyber security experts to scan for vulnerabilities, according to a “readout” of the call released by the department.
Johnson emphasized in the call that Homeland Security was not aware of “specific or credible cybersecurity threats” to the election, officials said. But three days after that call, the FBI Cyber Division issued a potentially more disturbing warning, entitled “Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems.” The alert, labeled as restricted for “NEED TO KNOW recipients,” disclosed that the bureau was investigating cyberintrusions against two state election websites this summer, including one that resulted in the “exfiltration,” or theft, of voter registration data. “It was an eye opener,” one senior law enforcement official said of the bureau’s discovery of the intrusions. “We believe it’s kind of serious, and we’re investigating.”
The bulletin does not identify the states in question, but sources familiar with the document say it refers to the targeting by suspected foreign hackers of voter registration databases in Arizona and Illinois. In the Illinois case, officials were forced to shut down the state’s voter registration system for ten days in late July, after the hackers managed to download personal data on up to 200,000 state voters, Ken Menzel, the general counsel of the Illinois Board of Elections, said in an interview. The Arizona attack was more limited, involving malicious software that was introduced into its voter registration system but no successful exfiltration of data, a state official said.
A huge amount of hoopla has surrounded the 49ers Quarterback who has refused to stand for the pre-game playing of our national anthem. My 10 year old self would actually have a crush on this guy. I refused to say the pledge in classroom at that ripe old age, was nearly kicked out of Girl Scouts and was asked why by the Principal who couldn’t understand why mass symbolic recitations of anti-communist loyalty shows would disturb me. I basically said it was pretty meaningless and why didn’t we just read the preamble to the Constitution instead. Actually, the District wound up taking this activity out of the daily classroom and never said another word to me. I think it was because the Constitution was behind me and the District Lawyer figured it out. I never heard back why but was relieved to not have to go through a rote, meaningless exercise every day to prove I wasn’t a communist. I am not nor have I ever been a communist or a member of the communist party. Now, can I quit the loyalty oath shit?
But, Colin Kaepernick has stated his reason as a protest of national oppression of racial minorities. The NFL is actually giving him quiet consent. I say more power to him.
San Francisco 49ers backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick on Sunday defended his decision not to stand for the national anthem at a game two days earlier, saying he is protesting on behalf of people oppressed because of their race.
“This country stands for freedom, liberty, justice for all — and it’s not happening for all right now,” Kaepernick said.
Kaepernick did not stand as the national anthem played before a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. The move sparked criticism, and some fans posted videos of themselves burning Kaepernick jerseys and other apparel.
Actually, if you read the real history of this anthem and the racist who wrote it and an abhorrent additional verse that is totally 
racist, you’d be asking them to switch our anthem to something like America the Beautiful where I could substitute something creative for the current head nod to the angry sky fairy.
The story, as most of us are told, is that Francis Scott Key was a prisoner on a British ship during the War of 1812 and wrote this poem while watching the American troops battle back the invading British in Baltimore. That—as is the case with 99 percent of history that is taught in public schools and regurgitated by the mainstream press—is less than half the story.
To understand the full “Star-Spangled Banner” story, you have to understand the author. Key was an aristocrat and city prosecutor in Washington, D.C. He was, like most enlightened men at the time, not against slavery; he just thought that since blacks were mentally inferior, masters should treat them with more Christian kindness. He supported sending free blacks (not slaves) back to Africa and, with a few exceptions, was about as pro-slavery, anti-black and anti-abolitionist as you could get at the time.
Of particular note was Key’s opposition to the idea of the Colonial Marines. The Marines were a battalion of runaway slaves who joined with the British Royal Army in exchange for their freedom. The Marines were not only a terrifying example of what slaves would do if given the chance, but also a repudiation of the white superiority that men like Key were so invested in.
All of these ideas and concepts came together around Aug. 24, 1815, at the Battle of Bladensburg, where Key, who was serving as a lieutenant at the time, ran into a battalion of Colonial Marines. His troops were taken to the woodshed by the very black folks he disdained, and he fled back to his home in Georgetown to lick his wounds. The British troops, emboldened by their victory in Bladensburg, then marched into Washington, D.C., burning the Library of Congress, the Capitol Building and the White House. You can imagine that Key was very much in his feelings seeing black soldiers trampling on the city he so desperately loved.
A few weeks later, in September of 1815, far from being a captive, Key was on a British boat begging for the release of one of his friends, a doctor named William Beanes. Key was on the boat waiting to see if the British would release his friend when he observed the bloody battle of Fort McHenry in Baltimore on Sept. 13, 1815. America lost the battle but managed to inflict heavy casualties on the British in the process. This inspired Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner” right then and there, but no one remembers that he wrote a full third stanza decrying the former slaves who were now working for the British army:
Read the comments there to fully embrace the number of white folks that want the revisionist version of history and their 
comments. It’s pretty revealing of a few nasty natures. Speaking of which, RUN HUMA RUN. Anthony Weiner has done it again. Huma actually has decided to separate from the man now so evidently, he’s worked her last nerve.
Just two weeks ago, when he was asked if his sexting days were behind him, he seemed to deflect. And now we know why: On Sunday night, the New York Post reported that Weiner had recently been sexting with a woman who is not his wife. Making the story even more cringe-worthy, the New York Post reports that Weiner sent a suggestive photo of himself while his toddler son was in the bed next to him.
Weiner didn’t deny any of this. He told the New York Post that he and the woman “have been friends for some time.”
“She has asked me not to comment except to say that our conversations were private, often included pictures of her nieces and nephews and my son and were always appropriate,” he said. By Monday morning, Weiner had deleted his Twitter account. By Monday afternoon, his wife, Huma Abedin, announced the two were separating.
At least he’s not shooting up malls of innocents but wow, the dude has major issues. He had so much going for him. What accounts for such self-destructive behavior?
Is it just me or is the entire national discourse today turning into some display of things that require medication and the help of a a good psychiatrist/psychologist? One more story about the nation’s top pathological liar and I’m going to make more coffee and listen to some nice music. Trump has turned into a whirling dervish on the immigration issue.
The real reason Trump is now shifting away from mass deportations is almost too obvious to restate: It is probably alienating the college educated whites and white women — swing constituencies — that he simply must improve among if he is to have a chance at winning. And so, Trump is now downplaying this goal, by saying that his priority is to remove “criminal” illegal immigrants. The game here is to sound more reasonable to swing voters who are horrified by mass deportations and generally support mass assimilation, by projecting a recognition that not all of them are full blown criminals. He compassionately understands that many of them are “good ones,” believe me! But in so doing, Trump is still preserving his underlying stance that all the 11 million generally remain targets for removal. He eventold CNN that there’s a “very good chance” that all the rest would be deported later. This isn’t as crazy as vowing proactive, immediate mass deportations. But it still is not an actual solution. At best, it is tantamount to leaving them all in the shadows for an indefinite period, or a reversion to Mitt Romney’s absurd “self deportation” stance. In reality it probably means they’ll all have to go.
And this leads to the ultimate point: Donald Trump’s deportation problem is the GOP’s deportation problem. Many Republican lawmakers — including GOP leaders — generally support the goal of legalization. They recognize that the most realistic solution for the 11 million — the one that would best serve the national interest — is some kind of path to assimilation, combined with penalties and increased border security. They also recognize that long term demographic and political realities compel this stance.
But the party has refrained from embracing that solution, because the base won’t allow it. For years, that forced many Republicans to continue saying the 11 million should be subject to removal, but when pressed, they tended to fudge on whether this means they all should be deported right way, since that’s politically and substantively untenable. Instead they took refuge in the platitude that we should merely “enforce the law,” without saying exactly what that should mean. What it really means is, leave most of them in the shadows indefinitely.
Trump is now being forced to sever himself from his explicit mass deportations pledge. And this is forcing him to adopt the GOP’s platitudinous “enforce the law” position. We’ve come full circle: On deportations, the GOP nominee is now pretty much where most Republicans have publicly been. Thus, in his speech, he will probably revert to a vow to target criminals first while more generally promising to “enforce the law” to deal with the rest. But Trump — as the GOP nominee and as someone whose entire campaign is built on the idea that illegal immigrants are nothing more than criminal invaders — is facing a much higher level of media scrutiny on this issue than GOP lawmakers have to date, rendering that long-held GOP position untenable for him in a way it wasn’t for other Republicans.
Serpent Cults have been a part of human history for some time. Many religious myths embrace the serpent concept as symbolic of a number of things. As I look at the many stories I’ve gathered today, I can only think of our folksy renderings of calling a man a ‘snake in the grass’. We also have the imagine of woman as a siren or mermaid or woman turned temptress by snakes and apples. It strikes me that we never really truly forget our ancient mythos and their identification of the many aspects of our human nature.
In mythology, the serpent symbolises fertility and procreation, wisdom, death, and resurrection (due to the shedding of its skin, which is not akin to rebirth), and in the earliest schools of mysticism, the symbol of ‘The Word’ was the serpent. The ‘light’ that appeared was metaphorically defined as a serpent called ‘Kundalini’, coiled at the base of the spine to remain dormant in an unawakened person. Divinity or awakening one’s Godhood and latent abilities came with the rituals and teachings brought by the serpent people.
To understand them, we must look at the original ‘serpents’. In China, it was a male and female pair with human heads and serpent bodies named Fu Xi and Nu Wa who created humans. In Sumer, it was the Annunaki Nin-Khursag and her husband Enki who were given the task of creating workers. Enki is known to us as the serpent in Genesis—the one who gave us the ability to think and reason and so was cursed by his brother Enlil for it. To the Hindus, it was the cosmic serpent Ananta who created us. So, if, at the dawn of man’s creation we have a pair of serpent-like beings who created us, then those of the serpent cult must have been their direct descendants, either by blood or by spirit.
Government has been designed with the idea that you can punish or circumvent aspects of 
human nature with the rule of law and the force of the will of the many. Still, we get Snake Oil Salesmen like Donald Trump and guys that can’t get past their basic anatomy and their urge to think with their littlest head or use other phallic symbols like missiles and killing projectiles to take out the creative and intelligent forces that stymie them which, mostly tend to be women and small children when you think about it. The Trump CEO–Steven Bannon–is like the walking symbol of all things snaky. Here’s the latest op research his life of evil doing.
Donald Trump’s campaign CEO fired a new mother suffering from multiple sclerosis while she was on maternity leave, according to a lawsuit obtained exclusively by The Post.
“Julia Panely-Pacetti, a new mother who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was terminated by defendants from her position as head of public relations and corporate marketing because of her sex and her disability,” states the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court in September 2005.
I wish there was a better tradition of snake handling in this country. Maybe we could learn something from the ancients. Maybe that medieval guy with the bow has the right idea.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
dakinikat
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
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