July 15, 2015

Seattle Man Accused of Spitting on Gay Couple, Black Woman on Metro Bus

July 15--A Seattle man is accused of spitting on a gay couple and a black woman, and using gay and racial slurs, aboard a Metro bus last week, according to court records.

Jeffrey Brooks Knothe, 57, was jailed following his arrest on July 7 and released with conditions the following day, jail and court records show. Charged Friday with malicious harassment, the state's hate crime statute, Knothe was taken back into custody on Monday night, but was then released from the King County Jail on Tuesday morning after posting $10,000 bail, according to the records.

Knothe was charged with two counts of malicious harassment for his alleged treatment of the married gay couple, but charging documents explain the woman he is accused of racially harassing and spitting on left the scene before transit police officers arrived.

It was a little after 7:30 p.m. when the couple boarded a No. 120 bus at Southwest Kenyon Street and Delridge Way Southwest, say the charges. One man wore a "Seattle Pride" T-shirt, while his husband sported a shirt with the rainbow flag logo, according to the charges. As they made their way to the back of the bus, Knothe made anti-gay comments, told them "Pride is over," and raised his hand as if he intended to strike them, charging papers say. ................(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/news/14038186/man-accused-of-spitting-on-gay-couple-black-woman-on-metro-bus

July 15, 2015

Progressive Democrats of America Bring Movement Pressure to Dems Through Bernie Sanders Campaign

from In These Times:



Progressive Democrats of America Bring Movement Pressure to Dems Through Bernie Sanders Campaign
Thanks to social media campaigns and behind-the-scenes work from the Progressive Democrats of America, Sanders’ chances at president have become a reality.

BY THEO ANDERSON


In late April, when he announced that he would enter the presidential race, Bernie Sanders was the relatively unknown junior U.S. Senator from Vermont. Now he’s everywhere.

Though the “Sanders surge” seemed to come from nowhere, it was long in the making. Sanders’ rapid rise in the polls, and his increasing visibility over the past few weeks, are in part the result of behind-the-scenes work by organizations like Progressive Democrats of America (PDA).

PDA was founded in 2004 by progressives at the Democratic National Convention who were disappointed with the party’s presidential nominee, John Kerry, but were unwilling to give up on electoral politics. One evening, at the convention’s conclusion, about 200 people met to chart a path forward.

“PDA was founded that night with an inside-outside strategy—to bring outside energy inside the party,” said Conor Boylan, who began working for PDA in 2009 and has been its co-director since 2014. “It was almost an insurgency: We’ll be members of the party, but we’ll also form our own chapters and hold the party accountable.”

.....(snip).....

What happens if Bernie is not the candidate? What does PDA’s role become?

We’re not going to endorse Hillary—that’s the reality. We took a poll of our membership, and there just isn’t the energy there to endorse her. So we’ll switch gears, and the issues that Bernie has pushed, we want to continue to move those issues and build a movement, continue to build a movement. ......................(more)

http://inthesetimes.com/article/18181/sanders-surge-shows-that-the-underdog-has-a-chance

July 15, 2015

Court asked to kill off NSA's 'zombie dragnet' of Americans' bulk phone data

(Guardian UK) The leading civil liberties group in the United States has requested a federal court to stop the National Security Agency from collecting Americans’ phone data in bulk through the end of the year.

While the surveillance dragnet was phased out by Congress and Barack Obama last month, an American Civil Liberties Union suit seeks to end a twilight, zombie period of the same US phone records collection, slated under the new law to last six months.

“Today the government is continuing – after a brief suspension – to collect Americans’ call records in bulk on the purported authority of precisely the same statutory language this court has already concluded does not permit it,” the ACLU writes in a motion filed on Tuesday before the second circuit court of appeals.

The venue is significant. On 7 May, as Congress debated ending the domestic phone-records collection, the second circuit ruled the collection was illegal. Yet it did not order Obama’s administration to cease the bulk collection, writing that a preferable option would be to stay out of the unfolding legislative battle over the future scope of US surveillance. ..............(more)

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/14/nsa-zombie-dragnet-bulk-phone-data-court

July 15, 2015

The Problem of Greece Is Not Only a Tragedy - It Is a Lie

The Problem of Greece Is Not Only a Tragedy - It Is a Lie

Tuesday, 14 July 2015 10:41
By John Pilger, Truthout | Op-Ed


An historic betrayal has consumed Greece. Having set aside the mandate of the Greek electorate, the Syriza government has willfully ignored last week’s landslide "No" vote and secretly agreed on a raft of repressive, impoverishing measures in return for a "bailout" that means sinister foreign control and a warning to the world.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has pushed through parliament a proposal to cut at least 13 billion euros from the public purse - 4 billion euros more than the "austerity" figure rejected overwhelmingly by the majority of the Greek population in a referendum on July 5.

These reportedly include a 50 percent increase in the cost of health care for pensioners, almost 40 percent of whom live in poverty; deep cuts in public sector wages; the complete privatization of public facilities such as airports and ports; a rise in value-added tax to 23 percent, now applied to the Greek islands where people struggle to eke out a living.

There is more to come.

"Anti-austerity party sweeps to stunning victory," declared a Guardian headline on January 25. "Radical leftists" the paper called Tsipras and his impressively educated comrades. They wore open-neck shirts, and the finance minister rode a motorbike and was described as a "rock star of economics." It was a façade. They were not radical in any sense of that cliched label; neither were they "anti-austerity."

.......(snip).......

Greece’s debt, reports an audit by the Greek parliament, "is illegal, illegitimate and odious." Proportionally, it is less than 30 percent that of the debt of Germany, its major creditor. It is less than the debt of European banks, whose "bailout" in 2007-2008 was barely controversial and unpunished. .............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31842-the-problem-of-greece-is-not-only-a-tragedy-it-is-a-lie

July 15, 2015

Did a little web searching to see if the likes of Cheney and John Bolton have commented on Iran....

..... seems that they've offered their reactions in "exclusives" to the Daily Caller and WND, where they knew there'd be no reality-based questions asked.

July 15, 2015

The Ultimate Tool

Just a few weeks before his re-election bid, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) was asked whether minimum-wage laws should even exist. The Republican governor replied, “Well, I’m not going to repeal it but I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it serves a purpose.”

Seven months later, shortly after kicking off his GOP presidential campaign, Walker went just a little further. The Washington Post reported:

Scott Walker appeared to take aim at the national minimum wage on Monday evening, referring to it as one of many “lame ideas” pushed by Democrats.

Walker’s comment came in a lengthy interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity immediately following a speech formally announcing his entrance into the 2016 presidential race. Walker said the next president needs to speak the language of the industrial Midwest and connect with the working class.

According to the video, eagerly disseminated by Democratic officials, Walker told the Fox News host, “The left claims that they’re for American workers and they’ve just got just really lame ideas – things like the minimum wage.”

In context, there was nothing to suggest the governor was talking about his opposition to a minimum-wage increase, so much as the existence of the minimum wage itself. To hear Walker tell it, the law is a “lame” benefit for American workers. ...........(more)

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/walker-dismisses-minimum-wage-lame

July 15, 2015

Weak U.S. retail sales hint at slower economic growth

(Reuters) U.S. retail sales unexpectedly fell in June as households cut back on purchases of automobiles and a range of other goods, raising concerns the economy was slowing again.

Tuesday's weak retail sales report, together with signs of some softening of the labor market, dampened expectations a bit for an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve this year, which most economists expect could come in September.

"The underlying tone of this report suggests that the recovery is beginning to show some signs of strain. If anything it will temper, at the margin, any consideration for a September rate hike," said Millan Mulraine, deputy chief economist at TD Securities in New York.

The Commerce Department said retail sales slipped 0.3 percent last month, the weakest reading since February, after May's downwardly revised 1.0 percent increase. ..............(more)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/14/us-usa-economy-retail-idUSKCN0PO1HY20150714

July 15, 2015

Retail Sales in U.S. Unexpectedly Fall on Broad-Based Drop

(Bloomberg) Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly dropped in June, curbing optimism about the strength of the rebound in consumer spending during the second quarter.

Purchases decreased 0.3 percent after a 1 percent advance in May that was smaller than previously reported, Commerce Department figures showed Tuesday in Washington. The median forecast of 82 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a 0.3 percent gain. Eight of 13 major retail categories showed declines in demand.

An early Memorial Day holiday that may have boosted sales in May at the expense of last month, and a longer school year caused by the harsh winter probably contributed to the more subdued sales performance for the quarter. Stronger gains in incomes will probably be needed to give consumer spending, which accounts for almost 70 percent of the economy, a bigger lift heading into the second half of the year.

“The weakness is pretty broad-based, but it does look like categories that you would consider to be seasonal in nature looked to be very weak,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Stamford, Connecticut-based Amherst Pierpont Securities LLC, who projected June retail sales would be unchanged from the prior month. “It puts a little cold water on the idea that the consumer was gathering momentum.” .....................(more)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-14/retail-sales-in-u-s-unexpectedly-fall-on-broad-based-retreat

July 15, 2015

IMF Throws a Spanner in Proposed Greece Deal, Says Financing May Not Be Enough

from Naked Capitalism:


IMF Throws a Spanner in Proposed Greece Deal, Says Financing May Not Be Enough
Posted on July 14, 2015 by Yves Smith


The IMF today took a stronger version of the line it has been taking recently on Greece, that the it may not be able to carry the debt about to be imposed on it. Given that the ECB’s strangulation of the banks has taken the weakened economy to a lower level, and it’s not clear when the ELA will be restored, it’s likely that the the IMF can’t even make an assessment until conditions have stabilized.

One also has to note that the IMF has dropped this shoe before the Greek government has passed any of the legislation required in the pending deal.

The fact that an organization that believes in austerity, at least on the program side, has never been able to make the math on Greece work even with its dubious assumptions is pretty damning. The question then is why is the IMF piping up now?

The issue that the IMF flags, and this is a killer from the Eurozone perspective, is that the way that the Eurozone members want to give Greece debt relief is via interest rate reductions and extension of maturities. It will not reduct the face value of the debt; that was stated explicitly in the letter to Greece. The reason for not lowering the face amount of the debt, as opposed to using other means to lower the economic value of the loans, is that given how the loans to Greece have been structured (the governments did not fund them in cash but gave guarantees to lending facilities) is that a writedown would result in the need to pay investors for the loss immediately. That means big bills to taxpayers under Eurozone rules, which put strict limits on government deficits. By contrast, the payments on the loans to Greece now are so attenuated that even in the event of a total default, the losses would be recognized gradually over decades, starting in 2020, and would be much less painful. ............(more)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/07/imf-throws-a-spanner-in-proposed-greece-deal-says-financing-may-not-be-enough.html

July 14, 2015

Wolf Blitzer cannot mask his disdain for the Iran nuke deal.....

..... I'm watching"Speedy TV" while here pumping gas at Speedway, and a segment with blitzer talking about the Iran deal came on. He unjoyfully mumbled through the first part, which was the opinions of proponents of the deal. But then with a wicked glee, he says, "But some say the deal will further destabilize the world."
Dude is so blatantly biased on this issue.