Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Interesting psychological study on changing the brain and relieving stress

The words you choose to use can literally change your brain.

Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist at Thomas Jefferson University, and Mark Robert Waldman, a communications expert, collaborated on the book, "Words Can Change Your Brain."

In it, they write, "a single word has the power to influence the expression of genes that regulate physical and emotional stress."

When we use words filled with positivity, like "love" and "peace", we can alter how our brain functions by increasing cognitive reasoning and strengthening areas in our frontal lobes.

Using positive words more often than negative ones can kick-start the motivational centers of the brain, propelling them into action.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, when we use negative words, we are preventing certain neuro-chemicals from being produced which contribute to stress management.

Each and every one of us are initially hardwired to worry; it's how our primal brain protects us from dangerous situations for survival.

So, when we allow negative words and concepts into our thoughts, we are increasing the activity in our brain's fear center (the amygdala), and causing stress-producing hormones to flood our system.

These hormones and neurotransmitters interrupt the logic and reasoning processes in the brain and inhibit normal functionality.

Newberg and Waldman write:

"Angry words send alarm messages through the brain, and they partially shut down the logic-and-reasoning centers located in the frontal lobes."

An excerpt from their book tells us how using the *right* words can literally change our reality:

"By holding a positive and optimistic [word] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. 

"And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain.

"Functions in the parietal lobe start to change, which changes your perception of yourself and the people you interact with. A positive view of yourself will bias you toward seeing the good in others, whereas a negative self-image will include you toward suspicion and doubt. 

"Over time the structure of your thalamus will also change in response to your conscious words, thoughts, and feelings, and we believe that the thalamic changes affect the way in which you perceive reality."

A study done by Positive Psychology further elaborates on the effects of using positive words. A group of adults aged 35-54 were given a nightly task of writing down three things that went well for them that day, including an explanation of why.  The following three months showed their degrees of happiness continued to rise, and their feelings of depression continued to decline. By focusing and reflecting on positive ideas and emotions, we can improve our overall well-being and increase functionality of our brain.

What words do you choose to focus your energy on? If you notice your life isn't exactly "peachy," try carrying a journal with you to keep track of how often you use negative words. You may be surprised to find how simple the solution to a better life really is- change your words, change your life.

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Monday, June 27, 2016

CHILD OF MINE: For every mother, daughter, father, son, brother and sister

Beautiful video of heart-touching truth:  CHILD OF MINE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sagUHYywmAs

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Saturday, June 25, 2016

Want Proof that "Trickle-Down" doesn't work? HERE IT IS.

The experiment in Kansas has shown us what strict adherence to Reagan's trickle-down economics results in.  I've got an idea! Here's a Proposal that should appeal to everyone, right or left:  let all right wingers who love Reagan and his trickle-down economics move to Kansas and claim it as their own country. They can live in the kind of environment their philosophy produces and shout "Hail, Reagan!" to their heart's content. The rest of us can then create the kind of nation that works for everyone, not just the wealthy 1%. 


Here's What's the Matter With Kansas
by Thom Hartmann | June 25, 2016 - 8:50am

The verdict is in, and it's time for conservatives to face the cold hard facts.

Right-wing trickle-down Reaganomics doesn't work.

It doesn't work internationally, it doesn't work nationally and it doesn't work at the state level.

And we know this is true thanks in part to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's  2010 decision to turn his state into a "real live experiment" in Reaganism and the religion of trickle-down economics.

Quickly after taking office, Brownback and the Tea Party-controlled legislature passed massive tax breaks for the state's 1%; repealed all income taxes for more than 100,000 businesses; tightened welfare requirements, making life harder for the working poor and poor children; privatized the delivery of Medicaid so his corporate buddies could have a bigger slice of the state action; cut $200 million from the education budget; eliminated four state agencies; and laid off 2,000 government employees.

In 2013, after he signed the largest tax cut in Kansas history with the help of legislators backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), he told The Wall Street Journal, "My focus is to create a red-state model that allows the Republican ticket to say, 'See, we have a different way, and it works.'"

And in 2016, six years after Governor Brownback took office and started shaping Kansas into the "red-state model," you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in their right mind, Republican or Democrat, who would say that the economy in Kansas "works."

Back when Governor Brownback initiated the plan, conservative economists like Arthur Laffer predicted a massive boom in the state, and the CATO-inspired Kansas Policy Institute projected that his tax cuts would create $323 million in new local revenues by the year 2018.

In reality, during the first year of Brownback's budget, the state lost $688 million and job growth shrank to 1.1 percent below the national average.

And it didn't get better.

In following years, job growth dropped to one-tenth of 1 percent, and personal income growth slowed from 6.1 percent to 3.6 percent.

According to the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, the poorest one-fifth of households in Kansas, households that make less than $23,000 a year, saw their average taxes go up about $200 a year, while the richest 1% are saving an average of $25,000 a year.

That means that under Sam Brownback's "red state model," the richest 1% in Kansas are SAVING $2,000 more in TAXES than the bottom fifth of households EARN in a year in INCOME.

As a direct result of this policy, now one health insurance CEO is taking his company across the border to Missouri, just to get away from the cruelty of Brownback's so-called "red state model."

Jeff Blackwood, the president and CEO of Pathfinder Health Innovations, recently published a blog post called "Kansas Isn't Home Anymore," announcing that Pathfinder's headquarters will be moving from Kansas to Missouri.

In the post, Blackwood points out that Republican Kansas Governor Brownback has worked as an ultraconservative tool of the Koch Brothers and ALEC to make Kansas into "a test center of 'trickle down' economics" where "the burdens for the shortfalls rest on the shoulders of those who can least afford it, children and the developmentally disabled."

He points out that, "One of Brownback's first actions was to close the [city of] Lawrence's office for Kansas Social & Rehabilitation Services," which provided services for low-income children and the developmentally disabled.

That cut was supposed to save $400,000 per year, but Blackwood points out that Brownback chose to pursue "a personal vendetta at the expense of the disabled" when he then proceeded to squander more than $400,000 on lawyers and auditors to attack the Kansas Bioscience Authority.

Beyond that, Blackwood notes that when Brownback privatized Medicaid (which is what Paul Ryan wants to do with Medicare nationwide) the results were even more disastrous for the state.

Blackwood personally saw the impacts as the president and CEO of a private health insurance company, and he points out that the cuts to Kansas's Medicaid program led to significant delays in eligibility, an inexplicable loss of coverage, an increase in caseloads and struggles for providers to get paid.

Blackwood ends his lengthy post saying that, "I can't, in good conscience, continue to give our tax money to a government that actively works against the needs of its citizens; a state that is systematically targeting the citizens most in need, denying them critical care, and reducing their cost of life as if they're simply a tax burden that should be ignored."

A stagnant economy, failing job growth, falling personal income, massive budget shortfalls, loss of healthcare coverage, significant delays in health care services and CEOs who take up stakes and move their businesses across the border: These are the results of Brownback's experiment in rabid "free-market" trickle-down economics.

What's happening in Kansas is no exception though.

ALEC is pushing this broken and cruel "red-state model" of Reaganomics in every state across the country, and they've successfully implemented it to varying degrees in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Texas, Arizona, West Virginia and the list unfortunately goes on.

There is a proven alternative to the "red state model," though, because California has been running what might be called a "blue state" experiment since 2012 when voters increased the state's top income tax rate to 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation.

In 2014, two years after that tax hike went into effect, California's economy grew by 3.1 percent.

One year later it grew by 4.1 percent, tying with Oregon for the fastest state growth of the year, and resulting in a budget surplus of nearly $900 million.

Of course, conservatives who pretend to understand economics, like Laffer, predicted a disastrous slowdown in growth in California, and they were as wrong about tax hikes California as they were wrong about tax cuts Kansas.

There's a simple lesson here: Assume the opposite of whatever Laffer and his Reagan leftovers predict.

Brownback's experiment has proven that conservative "trickle-down economics" doesn't benefit anyone except for the superrich and large corporations, and it undoubtedly and unnecessarily hurts the poorest and sickest Americans.

If we genuinely want to help low-income Americans, if we want to promote small businesses, if we really want to see our states grow, we need lawmakers across the country to reject the failed ALEC-backed "red state model" and to follow the proven model of raising taxes on the billionaire class and investing in the state economy.
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Friday, June 24, 2016

Trump is not preparing for debates, he will just be "himself"

Well, this should be fun. Get the popcorn ready.   (Clinton is OK with Trump's decision. (~.~))

From Crooksandliars.com

Donald Trump is going to be incredibly ready for his debates with Hillary Clinton, although he hasn't started preparing for them yet. September is FOREVER away.

Donald Trump is not worried about debating Hillary Clinton this fall, not the least little bit, because he's great at debating. Didn't you see him cream all those stiffs in the primaries? In fact, he hasn't even started preparing for debates, because debate prep would be work and might make him all stiff and un-Trumpy. But he'll be right on top of all the facts when he needs to be, he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in an interview Thursday. Or at least all the fact-like statements that he's ever used in a debate.

Trump will be meeting Clinton for the first of three debates on September 26, which is plenty of time to prepare, he told Hewitt. Hewitt asked Trump if he was in "full practice mode" with mock debates yet, and Trump reassured him that, no matter what the other guys do, he's decided to Let Trump Be Trump:

I have not. No, I have not. And I must tell you, I think you and I have a little different mode. I watched [Mitt] Romney went into a log cabin or something and he came out and he wouldn't talk to anybody for weeks, you know, and all of that, and then he got to the debate and he wasn't able to speak so well. I've seen that, and to a certain extent, you have to be yourself. I do know the issues, I actually know the issues much better than people understand that I know the issues. But I want to, obviously I will be practicing. But I don't want to put so much practice in that all of a sudden you're not who you are. Does that make sense to you?

Heavens, we certainly wouldn't want to see Trump be anything less than Full Trump in the debates. For one thing, we'll have all that popcorn handy.

Not surprisingly, Trump also had to bring the topic around to how popular he is. Rather than talk about his debate prep process, he really brightened up when he told Hewitt "they're saying the debate's gonna be the biggest show ever on television, in terms of ratings." Don't you ever change, you special man, you.

Hewitt noted that chances were pretty good Clinton might bring up some of the less than comprehensive knowledge of the world and of governing that Trump showed off during the primary debates, like his not knowing what the nuclear triad is, confusing Hamas with Hezbollah, not knowing how many aircraft carriers the Navy has, and not being clear on the military chain of command. Trump said he'll be ready for whatever Clinton comes up with, because as we all know, he is a very smart man, very smart:

"I know the chain of command, and I will have a lot of things mastered. You know, as I've told you, I've been a very successful businessman, I've never done this," Trump said. "When they asked about NATO as an example, I was asked by Wolf Blitzer, you know, just off the cuff, you know, tell me about NATO on live television."

That really was pretty out of left field, asking someone who wants to be president about NATO. Are they even in the real estate business? But Trump improvised, and that turned out just fine, he says:

After he gave his answer about how other NATO countries are not paying their fair share, "everybody laughed," Trump recalled, "and then three days later, they started saying, you know Trump is 100 percent right."

Well, actually, almost all of "them" - at least the ones who know foreign policy - said that threatening to pull out of NATO was a deeply terrible idea, especially when Russia is trying to gobble up chunks of former Soviet republics in eastern Europe. But yes, everyone Donald Trump listened to - Donald Trump and his toadies - all think he's 100 percent right. He also noted he'd said in the primaries that NATO was obsolete because it didn't deal with terrorism, and just last week the Wall Street Journal had a story about NATO finally starting an anti-terror center. "I got no credit for that…If I didn't say that, it never would have happened." Not that he's a narcissist.

Hewitt also warned Trump that Hillary is "gonna try and gotcha. That's what she's going to do." Again, not a problem, because whatever Donald Trump doesn't know, doesn't matter. Besides, said Trump, "I have plenty of gotcha for her, too, if she plays that card."

Besides promising to come to the debates with as much knowledge as he can make up on the spot, Trump also took a moment to bask in the glory of his boring teleprompter speech Wednesday, and to complain how unfair it is that he even has to have an opponent in the general election, because did you know Hillary Clinton did email stuff that she should already be in jail for? The gentleman who's running for president while facing three civil lawsuits and an IRS audit complained that it's "very unfair that she's even allowed participate in this election" while the FBI is investigating Clinton's email server:

"I may do a separate speech on it," Trump said. "In fact, you send me whatever material you have, because I have a lot. But if you have any information you have on that send it to me, Hugh. Because I may just do a separate speech on that. You know, I got very high marks on that yesterday, I got high marks yesterday from people that truly, truly hate me."

Or maybe he'll spend some time on Twitter. Or reading up on his poll numbers. Or googling "Donald Trump." Or perhaps just staring in the mirror one more time at his own magnificence. Then the Sunday before the debates, he'll watch the shows, and he'll be ready to go.

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Thursday, June 23, 2016

Real Truth -- isn't it wonderful to hear it at last????

Thank you, Neal Gabler, for saying so eloquently what most reasonable, thoughtful Americans know to be true.  Here is just an excerpt from the EXCEPTIONAL common-sense piece below (just to whet your appetite to hear more truth within the rest of it):

EXCERPT: The MSM continue to treat the Republican Party as if it were just another constellation of ideology and policy — another way of governing the country, even though this campaign season, if not the last 30 years, should have disabused journalists of that notion. Today's GOP is closer to a religious cult than a political institution. It operates on dogma, sees compromise as a moral failing, views enemies as pagans who must be vanquished, and considers every policy skirmish another Götterdämmerung.  ...We all know that there is a big difference between Republicans and Democrats, and it isn't just a matter of philosophy-cum-policy. It is a matter of what values underlie the parties' philosophies. And, if I may be blunt, Republican values just aren't very consistent with what most of us think when we think of good values. ...Our media state of affairs is so sad that it largely has fallen to comedians to be our primary truth tellers about what one of our two major parties really stands for — among them, Jon Stewart in his day, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Samantha Bee, whose recent broadcasts on Orlando and guns and on Republican racism have torn the so-called "principled ideological" veil off the GOP and exposed it for what it is: a cult of cranks.

When Trump's candidacy first began taking hold, we were told in the media that Republicans had a Trump problem. As he rose to the top of the GOP presidential heap and rank-and-file Republicans supported him — because of his hateful rhetoric, and not in spite of it — we realized the Republicans had a Republican problem, though, again, the media dare not say it. Now that Trump is the party's presumptive nominee and Republicans are falling into line just as conservatives did in Germany in 1933, we have come to a much graver realization: America has a Republican problem.

This isn't about whom we elect as president. It goes much deeper. This is about who we want to be as a people. For three decades, the MSM have been collaborators with the GOP, pretending the cult is a normal party with values just to the right of center. The result is the proto-fascist Donald Trump and an institution that continues to legitimize what is worst in us.

America Has a Republican Problem — and the Media is Partly to Blame
by Neal Gabler | June 23, 2016 - 8:46am

— from Moyers & Company

As incendiary and dangerous as he is — and he is very dangerous — and as much of a main event as he has been in this election season, Donald Trump is largely a distraction from what really ails our political discourse. Long after he is gone from the scene, the Republican Party that engendered him, facilitated him, and now supports him — despite a severe case of buyer's remorse — will no doubt still thrive, booting up for a future candidacy of Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan. And the media will still act as if Trump were an aberration, a departure from so-called "sensible" conservatism. If so, it will be yet another act of media dereliction.

In fact, worse than dereliction, because the Republican Party, with its history of dog-whistle racism, sexism, homophobia, nativism, and gun addiction, salted now by incipient fascism, has been legitimized by the mainstream media for years. One could say that the GOP and MSM have operated in collusion to the great detriment of this country. One could say that and not even be a liberal, just a commonsensical American.

The MSM continue to treat the Republican Party as if it were just another constellation of ideology and policy — another way of governing the country, even though this campaign season, if not the last 30 years, should have disabused journalists of that notion. Today's GOP is closer to a religious cult than a political institution. It operates on dogma, sees compromise as a moral failing, views enemies as pagans who must be vanquished, and considers every policy skirmish another Götterdämmerung.  

That isn't politics; it's a modern version of the medieval Crusades, and as the ancient Crusades did to Europe, it has inflicted untold damage on our country. Because it is deep in the bones of the Republicans, it won't end with Trump, who is a non-believer himself when it comes to conservative orthodoxy. It can only end with the extinction of the party itself as presently constituted — Cruz, Ryan, Rubio, McConnell, et al. — and the rise of a new conservative party, not a cult.

You won't hear that in the MSM, in large part because, partisan organs like Fox News and MSNBC aside, it tries to maintain that deadly and deadening balance so often discussed and decried by media critics like me. This is a practice that requires a tit for every tat, so that blame can never be leveled against one party unless the media immediately level it against the other as well. Political equipoise, as it were.

Part of this is laziness. Part is fear. The press knows that if it were to come right out and criticize the GOP for its denial of climate change, its campaign to deny the LGBT community its civil rights, its efforts to strip food stamps from children and health insurance from the poor, its systematic attempts to suppress minority voters, its recent howl to protect the Second-Amendment rights of suspected terrorists while at the same time calling for greater surveillance of us all, there would be hell to pay from the right wing, which would invoke the mythical and dreaded "liberal media." The historian and columnist Eric Alterman calls this "working the refs," and the MSM fall for it every time.

But there is another reason why the MSM haven't called out the Republican Party, despite its egregious behavior, and this one is especially relevant in this election: The media simply won't discuss the Republican Party's values, as values are the third rail of political journalism. You just don't talk about values, because when you do so, you can't fake balance. We all know that there is a big difference between Republicans and Democrats, and it isn't just a matter of philosophy-cum-policy. It is a matter of what values underlie the parties' philosophies. And, if I may be blunt, Republican values just aren't very consistent with what most of us think when we think of good values.

So the GOP's blatant contradictions, its hate disguised as individual rights and its disdain for the weakest among us, largely go unexamined. Indeed, our media state of affairs is so sad that it largely has fallen to comedians to be our primary truth tellers about what one of our two major parties really stands for — among them, Jon Stewart in his day, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Samantha Bee, whose recent broadcasts on Orlando and guns and on Republican racism have torn the so-called "principled ideological" veil off the GOP and exposed it for what it is: a cult of cranks.

By rousing the hatefulness within the GOP rank and file, Donald Trump has emboldened a few intrepid MSM journalists to rip off the veil, too — even journalists who treat Paul Ryan as if he were a first-rate intellect. Andrew Rosenthal, the departing editorial page editor at The New York Times, wrote a blistering takedown of the GOP's refusal to denounce Trump, and Times columnist and Iraq War apologist Thomas Friedman, the very definition of a cautious Big-Foot pundit who slavishly creates and follows the conventional wisdom, called for a reconstituted Republican Party on the basis of "moral bankruptcy." It is a terrific column. Read it.

Of course, two larks don't an exaltation make, and in any case, both Rosenthal and Friedman are primarily print journalists. Television news still has the longest national reach, and it will never call out the Republican Party no matter what it does, much less examine its values. Instead, we get endless horse-race coverage that turns the election into a long sporting event in which nothing seems to matter except who's winning. We all know that now, and despite the yowls of protest, we also know that it is not likely to change. Political journalists are like sports writers, tracking a team's game plans and checking the score — or, as we call it in politics, the polls.

But what we may fail to notice is that, with all its blather about what states are in play or whose field operation is better or which internecine battles presently engage the candidates' staffs, this kind of coverage is not only a way to juice the political narrative; it's also a way to avoid touching that third rail. So long as we are talking about strategy or who is winning, we don't have to talk about policy (borrrrrrrring!!!) or about values.

Avoiding talking about values is one of the reasons we find ourselves in our current political situation. Doing so might have stopped the threat of Donald Trump. Thirty years ago, it might even have stopped the march of the current Republican Party; its values could have been exposed as indefensible, which could have shamed them (and us) into changing. There is a reason the Republicans contrived the slogan "compassionate conservatism." It was because even they knew their compassion was dubious. It would have been nice to have the MSM examine that, though, of course, it would have required both the courage to buck the right-wing, who would howl, and the seriousness to discuss just how important values are in our politics. In some measure, because we never got that discussion, for three decades the GOP has gotten off scot-free.

Now the MSM routinely rebuke Trump, but that easy critique allows them not to have to rebuke the Republican Party itself, whose values, if not his often-changing policy pronouncements, are virtually identical with Trump's, minus his oft-changing policy pronouncements. It is the politesse of a Paul Ryan that Trump lacks in expressing his hostility, and it is that politesse that has conned a gullible, frightened media.

When Trump's candidacy first began taking hold, we were told in the media that Republicans had a Trump problem. As he rose to the top of the GOP presidential heap and rank-and-file Republicans supported him — because of his hateful rhetoric, and not in spite of it — we realized the Republicans had a Republican problem, though, again, the media dare not say it. Now that Trump is the party's presumptive nominee and Republicans are falling into line just as conservatives did in Germany in 1933, we have come to a much graver realization: America has a Republican problem.

This isn't about whom we elect as president. It goes much deeper. This is about who we want to be as a people. For three decades, the MSM have been collaborators with the GOP, pretending the cult is a normal party with values just to the right of center. The result is the proto-fascist Donald Trump and an institution that continues to legitimize what is worst in us.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Bernie Sanders and the Hall of Heroes

I'm glad someone is standing up and saying it -- Bernie Sanders' name will go down in history as a true hero. He is standing up for the people at all cost and is willing to go the entire distance against establishment politics to bring about much-needed change to actually improve the lives of common people, us little taxpayers that keep the wheels turning (what a concept!). Sadly, the $$ establishment has won this round and we will have to endure the machine going on with another Clinton and the same old hand-holding with Wall Street. But Bernie did throw a wrench into the gears this time around and let the rulers of this oligarchy know that change in favor of the people is on its way -- and won't be stopped.

God bless Bernie for carrying it to the convention and not giving in to the paid lapdog pundits' cries for him to throw in the towel. He is not the usual kind of politician, in it just for themselves.  Bernie is saying "Damn the torpedoes, Full Steam ahead!"  He is doing this for us, though no Republicans and not every Democrat voter realizes it yet. Too many bought the Clinton/establishment/pundits' pronouncements that Bernie didn't have a chance or that he just "isn't wise enough" in foreign affairs (we all know the spiel), and cast their votes against him. But that will change in the future, as more and more come to realize Bernie's line in the sand to the establishment is a harbinger of a better life for the common folk.  His torch will be carried on, and the generation coming up now will recognize that a committed progressive like Bernie/Elizabeth/whoever CAN and WILL make the changes to benefit the little folk if the revolution of the people behind them is strong enough. I'm grateful to the NY Times author of this piece for shouting out the truth about Bernie. He is a hero for all time.


EXCERPT:

Bernie Sanders is one of my heroes, a truth-teller, a genuine iconoclast in his own right. We have not seen his like in electoral politics for a long time. I would give just about anything to see him sworn into office come January, but that's not going to happen. The math simply isn't there, so here I sit: terrified of the GOP nominee, terrified of the Democratic nominee, and hit on all sides by those who say Sanders should bow to the inevitable and step aside.

Hell with that. Take it to the convention and hats over the windmill. At a minimum, his presence will keep Hillary Clinton from careening to the right upon first glance of opportunistic daylight. Sanders can march into the convention hall a hero, triumphant even in defeat, full in the knowledge that he became the change he wished to see in the world and left this joint a little better than he found it.


Bernie Sanders and the Hall of Heroes

  
by William Rivers Pitt | June 22, 2016 - 8:27am

— from Truthout

I know my heroes from books, from grainy filmstrips and stories told by elders. I smell their lives in the dust on the jacket of the third biography to the left on the fourth shelf of the fifth bookcase in the den. They are my absent teachers, ever present and gone forever. I am, because they once were.

John F. Kennedy was murdered eight years before I was born. Medgar Evers was murdered eight years before I was born. Malcolm X was murdered six years before I was born. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were murdered three years before I was born. I have borrowed as best I can attributes from all of them so as to craft within myself a complete person, a moral person, angry and resolute and generous, and yet I have spent not one second in this world while any of them were alive. The true north of my moral compass is aimed at ghosts.

But.

Not all of my heroes are gone. Being a New Englander for nearly half a century -- Boston and then New Hampshire -- I have been well aware of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for a long time. The Democratic Socialist, the anomaly within the binary reality of our two-party system who kept getting re-elected to Congress by astonishing margins of victory. This year, he decided to run for president straight into the teeth of the most powerful and well-funded political dynasty the Democrats have to offer.

Nobody gave Sanders even the slimmest hope of a chance against the Clinton machine, and then he won New Hampshire by double digits and the nation went, "Oh." The old man with a riot of white wool on his head and a bull-throated Brooklyn roar wasn't here to get some face time on the networks. The man came to play, and started throwing chairs and flipping tables in state after state because he meant what he said, because his bones burned with rage at the injustice endured by so many people in this country. Bernie Sanders wanted to lay his body upon the gears and force the machine to stop, and he wanted us to join him, and a great many did.

Bernie Sanders is one of my heroes, a truth-teller, a genuine iconoclast in his own right. We have not seen his like in electoral politics for a long time. I would give just about anything to see him sworn into office come January, but that's not going to happen. The math simply isn't there, so here I sit: terrified of the GOP nominee, terrified of the Democratic nominee, and hit on all sides by those who say Sanders should bow to the inevitable and step aside.

Hell with that. Take it to the convention and hats over the windmill. At a minimum, his presence will keep Hillary Clinton from careening to the right upon first glance of opportunistic daylight. Sanders can march into the convention hall a hero, triumphant even in defeat, full in the knowledge that he became the change he wished to see in the world and left this joint a little better than he found it.

Most of my heroes were gone before I arrived, but that's OK. Earth is more than 4 billion years old, and I have the great good fortune of knowing that I occupied this planet at the same time as Sen. Bernie Sanders.
_______

About author William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence. His newest book, House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation, will be available this winter from PoliPointPress.

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Monday, June 20, 2016

The full scoop on the Clintons' dilemma re. VP choice

Wall Street donors seek to block Warren VP pick

If Clinton chooses the Massachusetts senator as her running mate, donations will dry up, fundraisers warn.

Elizabeth Warren speaks at a convention on July 17, 2015, in Phoenix. | AP Photo

NEW YORK — Big Wall Street donors have a message for Hillary Clinton: Keep Elizabeth Warren off the ticket or risk losing millions of dollars in contributions.

In a dozen interviews, major Democratic donors in the financial services industry said they saw little chance that Clinton would pick the liberal firebrand as her vice presidential nominee. These donors despise Warren's attacks on the financial industry. But they also think her selection would be damaging to the economy. And they warned that if Clinton surprises them and taps Warren, big donations from the industry could vanish.

"If Clinton picked Warren, her whole base on Wall Street would leave her," said one top Democratic donor who has helped raise millions for Clinton. "They would literally just say, 'We have no qualms with you moving left, we understand all the things you've had to do because of Bernie Sanders, but if you are going there with Warren, we just can't trust you, you've killed it.'"

Most big donors don't want Warren on the ticket because she is the most accomplished anti-Wall Street populist in the Democratic Party. But many also think her presence would drive a potential Clinton administration too far to the left, poison relations with the private sector from the start and ultimately be damaging to the economy.

A constant theme that emerged in the interviews is that executives in the financial industry believe the first 100 days of a Clinton administration could feature potential deal making with Republicans, who are likely to maintain their majority in the House of Representatives.

The dream deal for Wall Street would be a combination of targeted infrastructure spending that appeals mostly to Democrats and corporate and international tax reform that could bring Republicans along. The fear is that Warren would make such a deal more difficult.

"Clinton is going to face a divided government unless there is a total tsunami," said one moderate Washington Democrat with close ties to the banking industry. "What you want in a vice president is someone who can negotiate for you on the Hill, someone like Joe Biden. And that is not a Warren strength."

All of the donors and senior Democrats interviewed for this story demanded that their names not be used both because they were not authorized to speak about the Clinton campaign's internal deliberations and because they feared Warren's wrath. "There is no upside to my talking to you on the record," one big donor said. "Either I piss off the Clinton campaign or I piss off Warren, or both."

Several donors said they did not really fear Warren going on the ticket because they do not believe Clinton has a strong relationship with the senator and would not trust Warren to be a loyal No. 2, either on the campaign or in the White House.

"First of all, they don't particularly like each other," said one prominent hedge fund manager who has raised millions for Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton before her. But, the manager added, "The absolute predicate for a vice presidential nominee is they have to understand they are No. 2 both during the campaign and once you take office, and I just don't think Elizabeth Warren is that type of person."

The distaste for Warren in the banking industry is not surprising. No American politician in recent history has done more to harness the powerful anti-Wall Street sentiment that continues to rage in the country since the financial crisis of 2008.

Warren created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that many bankers dislike, and she continues to push for far stronger regulations including breaking up the nation's largest financial institutions into smaller, simpler pieces. This is exactly the reason that many on the left, including ardent backers of Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, want to see Warren on the ticket.

"It's very clear that Wall Street guys don't like her because she has been a lot more effective than most in communicating an anti-Wall Street message that has been part of the Democratic Party for 80 years, since the 1930s," said Charles Geisst, a Wall Street historian at Manhattan College. "It's not so much that Wall Street doesn't like her personally, most of them don't even know her, but they don't like anyone that espouses that particular ideology."

A Clinton campaign spokesman declined to comment for this story. A representative of Warren did not respond to requests for comment.

Clinton earlier this month said she thinks Warren is "qualified" to be vice president. "I have the highest regard for Sen. Warren," she said in an interview with Politico. "I think she is an incredible public servant, eminently qualified for any role. I look forward to working with her on behalf of not only the campaign and her very effective critique of [Donald] Trump, but also on the issues that she and I both care about."

Warren has maintained the typical stance of potential vice presidents, saying she is perfectly happy in her current job. But she has some powerful backers pushing Clinton to pick her for the vice-presidential slot, including outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

People close to the Clinton campaign say that while Warren might not wind up as the vice-presidential selection, Wall Street executives are dead wrong to think that it couldn't happen.

They say Warren is very high on the list of possible vice presidential candidates along with Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Cory Booker of New Jersey; Labor Secretary Tom Perez; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro; and Rep. Xavier Becerra of California, among others. "We are not at the point of ruling anyone in or out," a person close to the process said.

Picking Warren would be risky for Clinton's fundraising operation. The presumptive Democratic nominee hopes to raise $1.5 billion for her campaign against Trump, and Wall Street has been a big source of funding for her over the years.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Clinton and outside groups supporting her have raised $289 million so far in the 2016 cycle. The securities and investment industry is easily Clinton's top source of cash, donating over $28 million so far, according to the CRP.

"Things are so volatile now with all of the outside groups that all it can take is pissing off one billionaire on Wall Street to make it difficult," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the CRP. "And you don't run national campaigns for as many years as Clinton has without some serious support from Wall Street, they are just too much of a heavy hitter."

The progressive case for Warren holds that she would immediately energize the liberal base and bring Sanders voters into the fold. And Warren backers note that the senator has been an early and enthusiastic basher of Trump and shown a knack for getting under the presumptive GOP presidential nominee's skin.

"Elizabeth Warren very effectively called out Donald Trump for cheering the Wall Street collapse because it would make him money — and that moment reminded Democrats how powerful Warren's megaphone can be," said Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "Whether it's as vice president or as co-chair of the presidential transition committee, it's hard to imagine Hillary Clinton not wanting a very large role for Elizabeth Warren at the table."

But more moderate Democrats in the financial services industry argue that Sanders voters will come on board anyway and that Clinton does not need to pick Warren to help her win.

"We are going to win this. Trump shouldn't be president and he isn't going to be president," said one senior executive at a Wall Street bank who is close to Clinton. "Picking Warren would indicate weakness and panic for no reason and make them look like they are running scared of Trump. There will be plenty of time to galvanize the left and get them to come out. And Warren would be a nightmare to try and manage."

Another argument against putting Warren on the ticket is that she can be just as effective a surrogate while maintaining her power base in the Senate.

"In the current era of presidential politics, social media has allowed more people to assume the role of attack dog that was traditionally left to the vice-presidential nominee," said Jason Rosenstock, an analyst at Thorn Run Partners who covers the financial industry. "Warren has shown an excellence in the platform that would allow her to help the campaign incredibly while maintaining her growing position of power in the Senate."

On the economic front, some moderate Democrats and financial executives worry that having Warren as vice president would poison relationships between business and the White House from the beginning of a potential Hillary Clinton administration.

These people say there is an opportunity for much better relations between business and the White House than during President Barack Obama's tenure, as well as more effective deal making with Congress to avoid the kind of fiscal crises that damaged the economy the past six years. In addition to cutting deals on taxes and infrastructure, Wall Street worries about the return of the debt ceiling as a potentially big issue in 2016, as well as the return of sequester spending cuts.

"There is going to be a lot to deal with in the first 100 days, and I'm not sure going left and picking Warren would be particularly helpful," said a top financial services lobbyist in Washington.

This Democrat, along with several Wall Street donors mentioned Kaine as the ideal vice-presidential pick. The Virginia Democrat comes from a key swing state, is fluent in Spanish, sits on the Armed Services Committee and is generally palatable to both progressives and more business-friendly Democrats.

"He checks every box," the moderate Washington Democrat with close ties to the banking industry said. "You could see him step in as president, he is credible with the base of the party, and he's also comfortable spending time with the rich people you need to raise money from."

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Wall Street Tells Clinton: NO Warren for VP or We Bolt

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/06/wall-street-threatens-to-revolt-if-clinton-taps-warren-for-vp-we-just-cant-trust-you/comments/#disqus

What more do we need to know about the quid pro quo between Hillary and Wall Street?  After Hill and Bill have taken millions in cash from Wall St./corporate sources, here is absolute proof that they now owe allegiance to those sources (Duh!) and will have to do whatever Wall Street tells them to do if they want to keep the moolah rolling in.  You can just hear the wheels turning in their brains right now: Hmm...what to do? Do we try to get on board all the millions of Sanders voters by naming Warren as VP?  Or do we obey our money masters to whom we have sold our souls and name a non-progressive like Tim Kaine?  (What do you think they will do?  Remember, they are the Clintons with a long history of always selling out to the highest bidder....).  It pleases me no end that Wall Street is panicky about Warren -- all the regulations they've managed to ditch with payoffs through their lobbyists since the Reagan years might just be reinstituted on them. OMG! Imagine that!  And they might even have to start actually paying taxes!  

Wall Street threatens to revolt if Clinton taps Warren for VP: 'We just can't trust you'

Would presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton really pick Sen. Elizabeth Warren as her running mate? There are many reasons for skepticism and one of them is that some of Hillary's Wall Street donors are threatening to bolt if she taps Warren for VP.

Politico has a big report out that shows Clinton's Wall Street donors are positively panicky about the prospect of Vice President Warren — and they're telling the campaign that they'll bolt if Warren comes on the ticket.

"If Clinton picked Warren, her whole base on Wall Street would leave her," one major Democratic donor tells Politico. "They would literally just say, 'We have no qualms with you moving left, we understand all the things you've had to do because of Bernie Sanders, but if you are going there with Warren, we just can't trust you, you've killed it.'"

The article goes on to note that Clinton is planning to amass a giant $1.5 billion war chest against Trump and will likely need help from financial to get there.

At the same time, it's hard to imagine many on Wall Street throwing their backing to Trump, whose proposals for immigration and trade would sow the kind of economic uncertainty that's bad for business. So if Clinton actually did pick Warren for VP, it would be very interesting to see where all that Wall Street campaign cash ends up going.

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Sunday, June 19, 2016

What It's Like at a Trump Rally with Hatred and Bigotry Unleashed

Shades of the Nuremberg rallies in Hitler's time!  Trump's racist rhetoric is allowing the underbelly of America's bigoted right wing to be revealed in all its ugliness.  I can only imagine what the convention will be like.  I hope poor Cleveland is ready for the onslaught heading their way! The National Guard had better be on alert.

American Horror Story

A Donald Trump rally is a homophobic, misogynistic, racist nightmare.

June 15, 2016

"Bitch!"

The shout came after the first mention of Hillary Clinton's name at Tuesday night's Donald Trump rally in North Carolina: An opening speaker had called her "Crooked Hillary." There was a smattering of laughs inside the Greensboro Coliseum. Many of the attendees were boozy-eyed. Many had turned to their neighbors and rolled their eyes, while a few people clapped in the stands.

But now it was Trump making the case that Clinton wouldn't help the LGBT community because of her ties to countries that openly discriminated against women and gays, all the while belaboring the shooter's Muslim immigrant parents from Afghanistan, the words spit out like they tasted foul.

"And she's no friend of LGBT Americans. She's no friend. Believe me."

"The gays had it coming!" a man shouted and gazed back at the guy who'd called Hillary a bitch. They met eyes, shared a smile, a look of recognition.

As if it were some kind of joke.

As if 49 of his fellow Americans—49 living, breathing human beings—hadn't just been mowed down.


I've spent a good deal of my time on the 2016 campaign trail trying to empathize with the Donald Trump supporter. As the product of Linton, Indiana, a Midwestern town gutted by NAFTA and the son of a working-class family the American Dream left behind, I can, with some effort, put myself in a Trump voter's shoes.

They have, after all, been manipulated for at least the past 50 years to vote against their interests, as wedge issues and social crusades have persuaded them to forget their checkbooks and pledge support to a Republican Party that has promised to protect them from The Other, whether that's been African-Americans, homosexuals, or feminists.

They have, after all, suffered the depletion of their work in the wake of globalism and free-trade initiatives, of which the Democrats have played a part.

They have, after all, been betrayed time and again by both parties in a system that rewards money and power and special interests.

They have, after all, been told incessantly in every medium how the country is being taken over by radicals intent on shredding the Constitution, and a lie can only be told so long before it sounds like a truth.

They have, after all, watched a very real and seismic shift in both demographics and social attitudes, the combination of which has upset the only thing they had: a consistent reality.

When I look at it in those terms, I can understand. Not necessarily condone, but at least understand. Trump, as they say, "speaks his mind." He's the megaphone through which their visceral and terrorizing nightmares could be given voice. It's unreasonable but fathomable. And it explains why his rallies are themselves visceral and terrorizing nightmares.


In the parking lot of the Greensboro Coliseum there were vendors hawking everything from cheap pins of the GOP's elephant mascot wearing Donald Trump's hair-helmet to knock-off "Make America Great Again" hats in red, black, white, and camo. The coveted item for the day, however, were screen-printed anti-Hillary T-shirts.

"Hillary For Prison '16."

"Trump That Bitch."

And the real star, a shirt you could hear vendors peddling from a hundred yards away: "Hillary Sucks, But Not Like Monica."

They were everywhere. People inside were finding their fellow Trumpers wearing it and posing for pictures. Flashing big thumbs up and cheesy grins.

After the rally the vendors were back at it, barking like carnies.

"Hillary sucks, but not like Monica!"

"Come on, now! Hillary sucks, but not like Monica!"

I walked behind a father explaining the shirt to his ten-year-old son by saying the former secretary of the state, the first female presidential nominee of a major political party, had "let her husband have all kinds of oral sex in the White House."

The "Hillary Sucks, But Not Like Monica" shirt wasn't the worst one I saw. I caught a few glimpses of another take on "Hillary For Prison '16," this one featuring a caricature of Clinton. Her waist and thighs were ballooned for effect, trapped in what I have to assume was supposed to be a jail cell but more resembled a cage. Like she was an animal that needed to be tamed.


By the end of Trump's speech, everything had been touched: His successes in the polls. ISIS and illegal immigrants in the same breath. Elizabeth "Pocahontas" Warren. The "dishonest" media and Trump's revocation of the Washington Post's press credentials, during which my section chanted "Kill them all / kill them all."

He'd rambled until he couldn't ramble anymore and seemed spent. He'd exhausted yelling "Shut up, you SILLY WOMAN!" during an odd, misplaced poem that compared immigrants to snakes. At another point, a boy interrupted with "We all bleed red" and was dragged out by security as Trump sarcastically called, "Don't hurt him! Please don't hurt that person!" and the crowd replied, "Hurt him! / Hurt him!" As he was led to the doors, a small pack of supporters broke off from the throng and followed as if they meant to pummel him just past the exit.

Outside, the lot was filled with more vendors and beyond them cars and trucks with Confederate Flag bumper stickers, decals, license plates, and actual Confederate Flags. In the shadow of one I watched a dad spank his child heatedly, as if the man needed somewhere to focus all his anger.

On everybody's lips were strange non-sequiturs of hate.

"You can't trust Latinos. Some maybe, but not most."

"Immigrants aren't people, honey."

"You know them crazy black girls, how they are."

Sickened, I got in my car and watched in the rearview as a group of college boys tailgated out of their pickup. They'd just finished their beers and were taking turns slamming them on the ground, one of them flinging it at the bumper of a passing car. Next to them another group of college boys wearing the telltale uniform of Southern preppiedom: gingham shirts tucked into thigh-length khaki shorts with braided belts and sockless loafers. Their wavy helmets of Bieberish hair tucked under those generic hats.

That's when I realized what had been there all along. This campaign, whose success has long been attributed to the forgotten working and middle classes, the so-called Silent Majority, has been, and always will be, an unholy alliance between the Hateful and the Privileged, the former always on a never-ending search for new venues for their poison and the latter enjoying, for the first time since Reagan's '80s, an opportunity to get out and step on some necks in public.

I considered the odd pairing and its implications as I left the lot and turned onto Coliseum Boulevard. Trump can be defeated, and most likely he will be, but elections cannot cure this disease. It's always been here and perhaps it always will be. Trump's narcissistic quest to "Make America Great Again" has only drawn the insects to the surface, and there's plenty of room to wonder whether he's driving the movement or if it's driving him.

There wasn't much time to mull it over. Parallel to the traffic crawling down US-220 was a green and white sedan, the driver hanging a Mexican flag from his window. "Fuck Trump!" he yelled, succeeding in gaining the ire but failing to earn the attention of the shiny new SUV clogging the lane next to mine. At mind-numbing levels these college boys were playing "I Am a Real American," the theme music of professional wrestling hero-turned-bigot Hulk Hogan, all while flipping off pedestrians with one hand and flashing Trump yard signs with the other.



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Saturday, June 18, 2016

"Tiny Hands PAC" Releases First Anti-Trump Video Ad

It demands he release his hand measurements.  Click on link below to see it.

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/06/tiny-hands-pacs-first-ad-demands-trump
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Bernie's speech inspires progressive supporters to run for office

It's been reported that, after hearing Bernie's speech a few nights ago, over 6,000 progressives have made themselves available to run for office in different races around the country.  As Bernie says in the last paragraph of his speech:

"My hope is that when future historians look back and describe how our country moved forward into reversing the drift toward oligarchy, and created a government which represents all the people and not just the few, they will note that, to a significant degree, that effort began with the political revolution of 2016."

Bernie is calling for an army of supporters to jump into public service at the local level as he attempts to harness the populist energy that fueled his Democratic presidential bid.  In his speech, Sanders urged that thousands of supporters should join local institutions such as city councils and school boards that make "enormously important decisions." The campaign has created a website to help like-minded people run for office.  He also asked people to become doctors, child care workers, teachers, business people and scientists who will fuel his reforms in other areas of society.

To read his full inspiring speech, go to:
http://time.com/4372673/bernie-sanders-speech-text-read-transcript/

EXCERPT:  This campaign has never been about any single candidate. It is always about transforming America.

It is about ending a campaign finance system which is corrupt and allows billionaires to buy elections.

It is about ending the grotesque level of wealth and income inequality that we are experiencing where almost all new wealth and income goes to the people on top, where the 20 wealthiest people own more wealth than the bottom 150 million.

It is about creating an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1 percent.

It is about ending the disgrace of native Americans who live on the Pine Ridge, South Dakota, reservation having a life expectancy lower than many third-world countries.

It is about ending the incredible despair that exists in many parts of this country where – as a result of unemployment and low wages, suicide, drugs and alcohol – millions of Americans are now dying, in an ahistorical way, at a younger age than their parents.

It is about ending the disgrace of having the highest level of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth and having public school systems in inner cities that are totally failing our children – where kids now stand a greater chance of ending up in jail than ending up with a college degree.

It is about ending the disgrace that millions of undocumented people in this country continue to live in fear and are exploited every day on their jobs because they have no legal rights.

It is about ending the disgrace of tens of thousands of Americans dying every year from preventable deaths because they either lack health insurance, have high deductibles or cannot afford the outrageously high cost of the prescription drugs they need.

It is about ending the disgrace of hundreds of thousands of bright young people unable to go to college because their families are poor or working class, while millions more struggle with suffocating levels of student debt.

It is about ending the pain of a young single mother in Nevada, in tears, telling me that she doesn't know how she and her daughter can make it on $10.45 an hour. And the reality that today millions of our fellow Americans are working at starvation wages.

It is about ending the disgrace of a mother in Flynt, Michigan, telling me what has happened to the intellectual development of her child as a result of lead in the water in that city, of many thousands of homes in California and other communities unable to drink the polluted water that comes out of their faucets.

In America. In the year 2016. In a nation whose infrastructure is crumbling before our eyes.

It is about ending the disgrace that too many veterans still sleep out on the streets, that homelessness is increasing and that tens of millions of Americans, because of a lack of affordable housing, are paying 40, 50 percent or more of their limited incomes to put a roof over their heads.

It is about ending the disgrace that, in a given year, corporations making billions in profit avoid paying a nickel in taxes because they stash their money in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens....

...My hope is that when future historians look back and describe how our country moved forward into reversing the drift toward oligarchy, and created a government which represents all the people and not just the few, they will note that, to a significant degree, that effort began with the political revolution of 2016.


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Friday, June 17, 2016

Sarah Palin joins Trump in Ignorant Pronouncements - OMG! When will this END?

The blatant ignorance that fuels Republican oratory demonstrates itself over and over again.  With spokespeople like Palin and Trump, the GOP is revealing its sordid underbelly to the world at large. Such sheer lunacy as preached by Trump and Palin can no longer be hidden behind BS political rhetoric.  The truth about the right wing base is out now, in all its insanity, for everyone in the world to see. It's impossible to see how the Republican Party can ever recover from the revelations that are finally showing in vivid NEON LIGHTS what it really is, shorn of all pretense!  My advice to any still-thinking Republicans whose minds must be getting very numb by now: Get out while you still have your intellect and morals intact!

Sarah Palin invites mockery by calling Obama 'special kind of stupid' in latest unhinged rant

By Bethania Palma Markus

Former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin has never been shy about her unfavorable opinions regarding President Barack Obama.

Her Friday criticism may strike some as odd, however. In a Facebook rant, Palin called the Harvard Law-educated president a "special kind of stupid" in all-capital letters. Palin was apparently upset about Obama's efforts to enact gun regulations in the wake of the most deadly mass shooting in recent U.S. history.

"OBAMA IS A SPECIAL KIND OF STUPID," she exploded. "Enough is enough, Mr. President. There's no 'due respect' due you after pulling this stunt."

Obama's "stunt" was, in her mind, a call to ban high-capacity assault rifles like the one used by Florida shooter Omar Mateen. While visiting Orlando in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting this week, Obama spoke of the families of the victims, according to an Independent Journal article Palin linked to.

"Those who defend the easy accessibility of assault weapons, should meet these families and explain why that makes sense," Obama said. "Why is it they think our liberty requires these repeated tragedies? That's not the meaning of liberty."

Palin continued her rant, which veered into an anti-Muslim tirade.

"Exploiting a sick, evil, ideological-driven attack on Americans to further your twisted anti-Second Amendment mission is disgusting," she wrote. "Today you're demanding an 'explanation' from law abiding gun owners, but not demanding the same from followers of Islam, the religion behind this terror? If the demented Orlando terrorist doesn't represent all Islamic followers, then why do you insinuate he represents all gun owners?"

In the article Palin linked to, it's clear the president is talking to lawmakers and lobbyists and makes no comparison between the Orlando shooter and "law-abiding gun owners." He calls for accountability from legislators who blocked background checks after the massacre of school children at Sandy Hook.

"And why, after any shooting, do you always want to take away firearms from the innocent people who didn't do it?" Palin rants. "Forget your asinine gun control, do your job and engage in Islamic terrorist control. Yes, it's a special kind of stupid to demand we explain ourselves. But if you really want them, get ready for our explanations. Here's mine."

She then links to the Journal article, which makes no mention of Obama wanting to take guns away from "innocent" gun owners, but instead discusses his visit to Orlando where he talked about the need to enact legislation that will stop mass shootings.

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Conservative writer says GOP should win Darwin Award for backing Trump


What a debacle! The Republican Party finally achieved the nomination of a presidential candidate that stands for everything they cherish and have been demonstrating for years--bigotry, racism, hatred--the whole ball of wax. And now that their self-created Monster is standing there just as they designed him, they decide they don't like the mirror image staring back at them.  There is a lot of speculation on the right that Trump will not emerge as the nominee from the Republican convention.  Maybe Romney will knock Trump off the podium and do the run again. It's the GOP's only hope of dodging the bullet they aimed at their own head and which will assuredly win them a Darwin award, as their party disappears from the American political gene pool.

Conservative writer says GOP should win a "Darwin Award" for backing Trump


The Washington Free Beacon's Matthew Continetti writes that the Republican Party is destroying itself by backing Trump -- so much so that it should win a "Darwin Award" for removing itself from the political gene pool:

"By supporting the least qualified, least knowledgeable, most unsuited major-party nominee for president in history, they are engaged in an 'astounding misapplication of judgment.' Every week that Donald Trump remains the Republican nominee, the party comes closer to removing itself from the presidential gene pool. Self-selection is at work here. Trump's supporters are choosing their party's demise."

What a debacle! The Republican Party finally achieved the nomination of a presidential candidate that stands for everything they cherish and have been aiming for for years. Bigotry, racism, hatred--the whole ball of wax. And now that  their self-created Monster is standing there just as they designed him, they decide they don't like the mirror image staring back at them.  There is a lot of speculation on the right that Trump will not emerge as the nominee from the Republican convention.  Maybe Romney will knock Trump off the podium and do the run again. It's their only hope of dodging the bullet they aimed at their own head and which will assuredly win them a Darwin award, as their party disappears from the American political scene.
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Thursday, June 16, 2016

Two Hafiz quotes that are perfect for our time--sent with love (~.~)

"I should not make any promises right now,
But I know if you
Pray
Somewhere in this world -
Something good will happen."
Hafiz


"Listen: this world is the lunatic's sphere,
Don't always agree it's real,

Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door

My address is somewhere else."
Hafiz
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THE ROOTS OF TRUMP'S CRUEL POPULISM

Donald Trump's angry and ugly populism has roots going back to Jim Crow-era race-baiters and Cold War-era red-baiters, including Joe McCarthy's adviser Roy Cohn and his disciples, write Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.

EXCERPT:

There's a virus infecting our politics and right now it's flourishing with a scarlet heat. It feeds on fear, paranoia and bigotry. All that was required for it to spread was a timely opportunity — and an opportunist with no scruples.

There have been stretches of history when this virus lay dormant. Sometimes it would flare up here and there, then fade away after a brief but fierce burst of fever. At other moments, it has spread with the speed of a firestorm, a pandemic consuming everything in its path, sucking away the oxygen of democracy and freedom.

Today its carrier is Donald Trump, but others came before him: narcissistic demagogues who lie and distort in pursuit of power and self-promotion. Bullies all, swaggering across the landscape with fistfuls of false promises, smears, innuendo and hatred for others, spite and spittle for anyone of a different race, faith, gender or nationality.

THE ROOTS OF TRUMP'S CRUEL POPULISM

Donald Trump's angry and ugly populism has roots going back to Jim Crow-era race-baiters and Cold War-era red-baiters, including Joe McCarthy's adviser Roy Cohn and his disciples, write Bill Moyers and Michael Winship.

By Michael Winship

There's a virus infecting our politics and right now it's flourishing with a scarlet heat. It feeds on fear, paranoia and bigotry. All that was required for it to spread was a timely opportunity — and an opportunist with no scruples.

There have been stretches of history when this virus lay dormant. Sometimes it would flare up here and there, then fade away after a brief but fierce burst of fever. At other moments, it has spread with the speed of a firestorm, a pandemic consuming everything in its path, sucking away the oxygen of democracy and freedom.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, who led the "Red Scare" hearings of the 1950s.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, who led the "Red Scare" hearings of the 1950s.

Today its carrier is Donald Trump, but others came before him: narcissistic demagogues who lie and distort in pursuit of power and self-promotion. Bullies all, swaggering across the landscape with fistfuls of false promises, smears, innuendo and hatred for others, spite and spittle for anyone of a different race, faith, gender or nationality.

In America, the virus has taken many forms: "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, the South Carolina governor and senator who led vigilante terror attacks with a gang called the Red Shirts and praised the efficiency of lynch mobs; radio's charismatic Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-Semitic, pro-Fascist Catholic priest who reached an audience of up to 30 million with his attacks on Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal; Mississippi's Theodore Bilbo, a member of the Ku Klux Klan who vilified ethnic minorities and deplored the "mongrelization" of the white race; Louisiana's corrupt and dictatorial Huey Long, who promised to make "Every Man a King." And of course, George Wallace, the governor of Alabama and four-time presidential candidate who vowed, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

Note that many of these men leavened their gospel of hate and their lust for power with populism — giving the people hospitals, schools and highways. Father Coughlin spoke up for organized labor. Both he and Huey Long campaigned for the redistribution of wealth. Tillman even sponsored the first national campaign-finance reform law, the Tillman Act, in 1907, banning corporate contributions to federal candidates.

But their populism was tinged with poison — a pernicious nativism that called for building walls to keep out people and ideas they didn't like.

The McCarthy Connection

Which brings us back to Trump and the hotheaded, ego-swollen provocateur he most resembles: Joseph McCarthy, U.S. senator from Wisconsin — until now perhaps our most destructive demagogue. In the 1950s, this madman terrorized and divided the nation with false or grossly exaggerated tales of treason and subversion — stirring the witches' brew of anti-Communist hysteria with lies and manufactured accusations that ruined innocent people and their families.

Billionaire businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Billionaire businessman and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

"I have here in my hand a list," he would claim — a list of supposed Reds in the State Department or the military. No one knew whose names were there, nor would he say, but it was enough to shatter lives and careers.

In the end, McCarthy was brought down. A brave journalist called him out on the same television airwaves that helped the senator become a powerful, national sensation. It was Edward R. Murrow, and at the end of an episode exposing McCarthy on his CBS series See It NowMurrow said:

"It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one, and the junior senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism.

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular."

There also was the brave and moral lawyer Joseph Welch, acting as chief counsel to the U.S. Army after it was targeted for one of McCarthy's inquisitions. When McCarthy smeared one of his young associates, Welch responded in full view of the TV and newsreel cameras during hearings in the Senate.

"You've done enough," Welch said. "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?… If there is a God in heaven, it will do neither you nor your cause any good. I will not discuss it further."

It was a devastating moment. Finally, McCarthy's fellow senators — including a handful of brave Republicans — turned on him, putting an end to the reign of terror. It was 1954. A motion to censure McCarthy passed 67-22, and the junior senator from Wisconsin was finished. He soon disappeared from the front pages, and three years later was dead.

The Roy Cohn Link

Here's something McCarthy said that could have come straight out of the Trump playbook: "McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled." Sounds just like The Donald, right? Interestingly, you can draw a direct line from McCarthy to Trump — two degrees of separation. In a Venn diagram of this pair, the place where the two circles overlap, the person they share in common, is a fellow named Roy Cohn.

President Reagan meets with publisher Rupert Murdoch, U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Wick, lawyers Roy Cohn and Thomas Bolan in the Oval Office on Jan. 18, 1983. (Photo credit: Reagan presidential library)

President Reagan meets with publisher Rupert Murdoch, U.S. Information Agency Director Charles Wick, lawyers Roy Cohn and Thomas Bolan in the Oval Office on Jan. 18, 1983. (Photo credit: Reagan presidential library)

Cohn was chief counsel to McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the same one Welch went up against. Cohn was McCarthy's henchman, a master of dark deeds and dirty tricks. When McCarthy fell, Cohn bounced back to his hometown of New York and became a prominent Manhattan wheeler-dealer, a fixer representing real estate moguls and mob bosses — anyone with the bankroll to afford him. He worked for Trump's father, Fred, beating back federal prosecution of the property developer, and several years later would do the same for Donald.

"If you need someone to get vicious toward an opponent," Trump told a magazine reporter in 1979, "you get Roy." To another writer he said, "Roy was brutal but he was a very loyal guy."

Cohn introduced Trump to his McCarthy-like methods of strong-arm manipulation and to the political sleazemeister Roger Stone, another dirty trickster and unofficial adviser to Trump who just this week suggested that Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin was a disloyal American who may be a spy for Saudi Arabia, a "terrorist agent."

Cohn also introduced Trump to the man who is now his campaign chair, Paul Manafort, the political consultant and lobbyist who without a moral qualm in the world has made a fortune representing dictators — even when their interests flew in the face of human rights or official U.S. policy. [Editor's Note: Roy Cohn was also the connection between President Ronald Reagan, an ally from the McCarthy era, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. See Consortiumnews.com's "How Roy Cohn Helped Rupert Murdoch."]

So the ghost of Joseph McCarthy lives on in Donald Trump as he accuses President Obama of treason, slanders women, mocks people with disabilities, and impugns every politician or journalist who dares call him out for the liar and bamboozler he is. The ghosts of all the past American demagogues live on in him as well, although none of them have ever been so dangerous — none have come as close to the grand prize of the White House.

Understandable Resentments

Because even a pathological liar occasionally speaks the truth, Trump has given voice to many who feel they've gotten a raw deal from establishment politics, who see both parties as corporate pawns, who believe they have been cheated by a system that produces enormous profits from the labor of working men and women that are gobbled up by the 1 percent at the top. But again, Trump's brand of populism comes with venomous race-baiting that spews forth the red-hot lies of a forked and wicked tongue.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

We can hope for journalists with the courage and integrity of an Edward R. Murrow to challenge this would-be tyrant, to put the truth to every lie and publicly shame the devil for his outrages. We can hope for the likes of Joseph Welch, who demanded to know whether McCarthy had any sense of decency.

Think of Gonzalo Curiel, the jurist Trump accused of persecuting him because of the judge's Mexican heritage. Curiel has revealed the soulless little man behind the curtain of Trump's alleged empire, the avaricious money-grubber who conned hard-working Americans out of their hard-won cash to attend his so-called "university."

And we can hope there still remain in the Republican Party at least a few brave politicians who will stand up to Trump, as some did McCarthy. This might be a little harder. For every Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham who have announced their opposition to Trump, there is a weaselly Paul Ryan, a cynical Mitch McConnell and a passel of fellow travelers up and down the ballot who claim not to like Trump and who may not wholeheartedly endorse him but will vote for him in the name of party unity.

As this headline in The Huffington Post aptly put it, "Republicans Are Twisting Themselves Into Pretzels To Defend Donald Trump." Ten GOP senators were interviewed about Trump and his attack on Judge Curiel's Mexican heritage. Most hemmed and hawed about their presumptive nominee.

As Trump "gets to reality on things he'll change his point of view and be, you know, more responsible." That was Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. Trump's comments were "racially toxic" but "don't give me any pause." That was Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Republican African-American in the Senate. And Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas? He said Trump's words were "unfortunate." Asked if he was offended, Jennifer Bendery writes, the senator "put his fingers to his lips, gestured that he was buttoning them shut, and shuffled away."

No profiles in courage there.  But why should we expect otherwise? Their acquiescence, their years of kowtowing to extremism in the appeasement of their base, have allowed Trump and his nightmarish sideshow to steal into the tent and take over the circus.

Alexander Pope once said that party spirit is at best the madness of the many for the gain of a few. A kind of infection, if you will — a virus that spreads through the body politic, contaminating all. Trump and his ilk would sweep the promise of America into the dustbin of history unless they are exposed now to the disinfectant of sunlight, the cleansing torch of truth. Nothing else can save us from the dark age of unreason that would arrive with the triumph of Donald Trump.

Bill Moyers is the managing editor of Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com. Michael Winship is the Emmy Award-winning senior writer of Moyers & Company and BillMoyers.com, and a former senior writing fellow at the policy and advocacy group Demos.
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