January 7, 2016

The Problem With Hillary Clinton Using a Progressive Hero to Attack Bernie Sanders

(The Intercept) Hillary Clinton is using a prominent surrogate to attack Bernie Sanders’ emphatic proposals for reforming Wall Street: Gary Gensler, former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Gensler, who is the Clinton campaign’s chief financial officer, has enormous credibility among financial reformers after his aggressive (and lonely) efforts to rein in banks during the early years of the Obama administration.

As a result, the Clinton campaign has tapped him to fend off Sanders and make the difficult case that Clinton is genuinely interested in cleaning up Wall Street.

Gensler, for instance, delivered a pre-buttal before Sanders’ speech on Tuesday, and deemed it insufficient afterward.

But Gensler’s attacks on Sanders come across as hollow given that the Clinton campaign has been largely silent on the issue that defined Gensler’s legacy – the regulation of derivatives – and the undermining of that legacy by the man Obama chose to succeed him. ................(more)

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/07/the-problem-with-hillary-clinton-using-gary-gensler-to-attack-bernie-sanders/

January 7, 2016

African Women Organize to Reclaim Agriculture Against Corporate Takeover

African Women Organize to Reclaim Agriculture Against Corporate Takeover

Wednesday, 06 January 2016 00:00
By Mphatheleini Makaulele, Other Worlds | Op-Ed


Beverly Bell and Simone Adler conducted the following interview with Mphatheleini Makaulele from which this text is drawn. Makaulele is an award-winning indigenous leader, farmer, and activist, and Director of Dzomo la Mupo, a community organization in rural South Africa. She is also part of the African Biodiversity Network.


Everybody originated with indigenous ways of living and the way of Mother Earth.

The real role of women is in the seed. It is the women who harvest, select, store, and plant seeds. Our seeds come from our mothers and our grandmothers. To us, the seed is the symbol of the continuity of life. Seed is not just about the crops. Seed is about the soil, about the water, and about the forest.

When we plant our seeds, we don't just plant them anytime or anywhere. We listen to our elders, who teach us about the ecological calendar. The seed follows this natural ecological flow. When it bears another seed, that one is planted and the cycle continues.

If you cut the cycle of the seed, you cut the cycle of life. We do not understand how something [like genetically modified and chemically treated seeds] can be called seeds if they cannot continue the cycle of life.

Reviving African Agricultural Values

In South Africa, we know there is a freedom of plants to germinate and grow. People are now awakened to the word GMO, and many people are trying to bring forward the issue of food sovereignty. ..................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/34308-african-women-organize-to-reclaim-agriculture-against-corporate-takeover

January 7, 2016

The iPhone slowdown spells doom for Apple

(MarketWatch) Apple Inc. started 2015 with a bang, with shares of the iPhone maker jumping almost 20% in the first two months of the year as the benchmark S&P 500 Index tacked on only 3%.

Then Apple’s stock fell hard in the second half of 2015, and is now down about 25% from its July high.

And, sadly, based on recent performance, those losses could be just the beginning after recent news of an iPhone slowdown.

If you missed the reports, Apple is expected to slash its planned iPhone 6s production by 30% for the first three months of 2016. Inventories have apparently built up at retailers, and the initial demand spike caused by the launch of the bigger-screened iPhone 6 Plus in late 2014 tapped into the majority of pent-up demand. ........................(more)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-iphone-slowdown-spells-doom-for-apple-2016-01-07?dist=tbeforebell

January 7, 2016

2015 Brought Warmest, Wettest December on Record in U.S.

December 2015 was both the warmest and wettest December on record in the contiguous United States, according to a report released Thursday by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. The month capped a year in which every state in the Lower 48 was warmer than average.

The December mean temperature over the contiguous U.S. of 38.6 degrees Fahrenheit topped the previous record warm December of 37.7 degrees set in 1939, according to NOAA/NCEI's State of the Climate report. December 2015 was 6 degrees warmer than the 20th-century average. Temperature records for the Lower 48 as a whole date back to 1895.

Twenty-nine states, including every state east of the Mississippi River, set record warm Decembers. Only the West featured near-average December temperatures. No state had a cooler-than-average December. ...............(more)

http://www.weather.com/news/climate/news/record-warmest-wettest-december-us-2015

January 7, 2016

Apple Falls Third Day as IPhone Woe Cuts $40 Billion in Value

(Bloomberg) Apple Inc. fell for a third straight day amid concern that demand is waning for the iPhone, its bestselling product, shaving about $40 billion from the company’s market capitalization so far this year.

Shares of the world’s most valuable company fell below $100 for the first time since October 2014. They were trading at $98.20 at 9:34 a.m. in New York Thursday. The stock has lost more than 4 percent so far in 2016 after declining 4.6 percent in 2015.

Over the past month analysts at firms including Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and UBS AG have cut estimates of iPhone shipments, based on weaker demand for upgrades to the 6s and 6s Plus, which debuted in September, and saturation in some developed markets.

Concern was fanned again this week after Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review reported that the U.S. company would reduce the output of its latest iPhones by about 30 percent in the first quarter, a number that surprised many analysts. ............(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-07/apple-falls-third-day-as-iphone-woe-cuts-40-billion-in-value

January 7, 2016

‘This is a nightmare’: Black residents fume as Alabama city backs ‘Confederate commander’ police chi

Residents of an Alabama city are up in arms because their city leaders openly support the police chief, who has admitted to being a member of a neo-Confederate group, WTVM reports.

Dothan police Chief Steven Parrish is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and residents voiced outrage that he continues in his capacity at a Tuesday city government meeting. Some on Tuesday complained they were not allowed to speak when Mayor Mike Schmitz cut short public comment, allowing one representative for and against the chief to speak.

“This would never happen to the Jewish community,” resident Paul Carroll told the City Commission. “You would never see someone who’s a neo-Nazi being made chief of police, but somehow we as the black community are supposed to accept that we have a neo-Confederate?”

According to WTVY, protesters have been calling for Parrish to resign or for him to be fired, with some saying they do not feel safe in the city as long as he is police chief.

“We are supposed to accept that we are supposed to put our trust and our faith in someone who has those connections?” resident Paul Carroll said, according to the Dothan Eagle.. “I don’t (feel safe). Sometimes when you have had a life of white privilege it is very difficult for you to understand what it is like to be a minority.” ................(more)

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/this-is-a-nightmare-black-residents-fume-as-alabama-city-backs-confederate-commander-police-chief/

January 7, 2016

Deb, don't go away mad. Deb, just go away.

(The Intercept) Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the New York Times she continues to oppose legalizing marijuana — even as she has courted alcohol PACs as one of the largest sources of her campaign funding.

Wasserman Schultz, a House Democrat from Florida, said she doesn’t “think we should legalize more mind-altering substances if we want to make it less likely that people travel down the path toward using drugs. We have had a resurgence of drug use instead of a decline. There is a huge heroin epidemic.”

The fifth-largest pool of money the congresswoman has collected for her re-election campaign has been from the beer, wine, and liquor industry. The $18,500 came from PACs including Bacardi USA, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, Southern Wine & Spirits, and the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that during a recent period, “excessive drinking was responsible for one in 10 deaths among working-age adults aged 20-64.” ...............(more)

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/06/wasserman-schultz-fueled-by-booze-pacs-blasts-legal-pot/

January 7, 2016

Politicians Use North Korea H-Bomb Fears to Pitch Wasteful Missile Defense Projects

(The Intercept) Republican politicians responded almost reflexively to the North Korean nuclear test on Tuesday by demanding more spending on missile defense programs that have historically proved ineffective at preventing an enemy strike — but are built by companies that have lavished policymakers with campaign cash and political support.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., released a statement calling for the country to “reinvest in missile defense and our military presence in the Pacific.” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., called for Obama to “dramatically enhance trilateral missile defense” and declared that Obama should deploy a Lockheed Martin missile defense system in South Korea. Raytheon and Lockheed Martin are among his top donors. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, issued a statement specifically calling for spending on that same program; Lockheed Martin is by far his biggest donor over the course of his congressional career.

Since the early 1990s, politicians of both parties have cited the threat of North Korea to demand funding for an array of missile defense programs that quickly became monumental examples of government waste. Meanwhile, the contractors involved in these projects, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon, among others, have manipulated the politics around these programs by funding politicians, pundits, think tanks, and lobbyists behind the never-ending spiral of taxpayer spending. ..............(more)

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/06/north-korea-missile-waste/

January 7, 2016

Rolling Stone: 4 Ways the World Will Suck in 2016

1. We're going to keep fucking up the planet.

We've only got one, but we keep treating it like there's an extra in a box in the garage. Obama can sign all the climate accords he wants, but America's wallet is still controlled by a conservative-dominated Congress whose climate ideas amount to, "If global warming is real, why is it cold?" We've reached the point where doing anything is a huge accomplishment, but when our big-deal benchmarks amount to half measures, it's like getting your car interior detailed 72 months after your last oil change.

2. If you're middle aged and your favorite childhood musical artist creates anything during this calendar year, it will be bad.

Nostalgia is a powerful force. Just enough pastiches of songs you liked or callbacks to beats, guitar tones or vocal tricks that amped you up can make you convince yourself that this new thing is good. This can even catch you early: I spent a teen year trying to trick my brain into thinking The Division Bellwas an OK album instead of doing better things with it, like nitrous.

....(snip)....

3. We're not going to get any less racist or sexist anytime soon.

The biggest flaw in Star Trek: The Next Generation was always the idea that racism, sexism and classism would somehow vanish even with 350 years and a post-scarcity economy. Like post-scarcity could even start to address our problems. I refuse to believe the State of Texas would ever join the United Federation of Planets. "Sure, I get everything I need, but I have to sleep on a foam roll in foil Hammer pants? Fuck you, I'm rolling coal. I got a shitload of phasers in my Nemesis-class dune buggy. MOLON LABE AND HOOK 'EM HORNS."

To put this in a timeline, the Enlightenment — there's a term for you — began 300 years ago, and the greatest country on earth has as one of its top contenders for the presidency a billionaire mattress seller whose principal sales pitch is that we're all endangered by Muslims, Mexicans and Megyn Kelly's menstruation. The rest of that man's party differs from him only in tone. Their chief opponent will probably be a woman, after eight years of a black man's presidency. That's going to go extremely well even without another series of faked Planned Parenthood videos designed to take down the Recreational Vaginal-Use Complex. .............(more)

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/4-ways-the-world-will-suck-in-2016-20160106#ixzz3wZdHVbm8

January 7, 2016

Global Corporate Debt is Coming Unglued

Global Corporate Debt is Coming Unglued
by Wolf Richter • January 6, 2016


[font color="blue"]Default Rate Highest since 2009, US Distress Ratio Soars.[/font]

Standard & Poor’s slashed the credit ratings of 112 corporations around the globe to default (D) or selective default (SD) in 2015, according to S&P Capital IQ Global Credit. The highest number of global defaults since nightmare-year 2009, when a previously unthinkable 268 companies defaulted, and not far behind the second highest default tally of 125, in 2008.

The oil & gas sector led with 29 defaulters (26% of the total). Metals, mining, and steel followed with 17 defaulters (15% of the total). The consumer products sector and the bank sectors tied for the third place, each with 13 defaulters (12% of the total).

So where are the defaulters? In Russia and Brazil? The economies of both countries have been ravaged by deep recessions and other problems. They rank high on the list but the country with most of the defaulters is… the US.

In total, 66 defaulters were US issuers, up 100% from 33 in 2014, and the highest since 2009. US defaulters accounted for 59% of the global total. Some of this dominant share of defaulters can be attributed to the size of the US economy and the enormous size of its credit market. But the US is also the epicenter of oil & gas defaults, with contagion now spreading to other sectors. ................(more)

http://wolfstreet.com/2016/01/06/global-corporate-debt-is-coming-unglued/