http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/04/don-blankenship-sentenced-prison-west-virginia

A federal judge in West Virginia sentenced former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship to a year in prison on Wednesday for conspiring to commit mine safety violations at his company's Upper Big Branch mine during a period leading up to the explosion there that left 29 miners dead in 2010.

Blankenship was convicted of the misdemeanor charge in December, but the conviction was explicitly not linked to the Upper Big Branch disaster itself and Blankenship's attorney worked hard to ensure the accident was hardly mentioned during the trial. And that verdict was a disappointment to prosecutors; he was found not guilty of the more serious felony charges of making false statements to federal regulators in the aftermath of the blast in order to boost Massey's stock price. (Had he been convicted on all counts, he would have faced up to 30 years in prison.) The conspiracy conviction rested on evidence of Blankenship's domineering management style which emphasized profits over the federal mine safety laws designed to avert underground explosions:

The attention to detail that made Blankenship such an effective bean counter may also be his undoing. He constantly monitored every inch of his operation and wrote memos instructing subordinates to move coal at all costs. "I could Krushchev you," he warned in a handwritten memo to one Massey official whose facilities Blankenship thought were underperforming. He called another mine manager "literally crazy" and "ridiculous" for devoting too many of his miners to safety projects. Despite repeated citations by the MSHA, Blankenship instructed Massey executives to postpone safety improvements: "We'll worry about ventilation or other issues at an appropriate time. Now is not the time." And this is only what investigators gleaned from the documents they could find: Hughie Stover, Blankenship's bodyguard and personal driver—and the head of security at Upper Big Branch—ordered a subordinate to destroy thousands of pages of documents, while the government's investigation was ongoing. (Stover was sentenced to three years in prison in 2012 for lying to federal investigators and attempting to destroy evidence.)

Before he stepped down as Massey's CEO in 2010, Blankenship had built the company into one of the largest coal producers in the United States, and become a polarizing figure in his home state, where he bankrolled the rise of Republican party, pushed climate denial, and crushed unions. For more on Blankenship, read my piece from the magazine on his rise and fall.

This Is Why Sanders Can Stay in the Race Until the Bitter End



http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/why-bernie-sanders-not-dropping-out

The delegate math is daunting for Bernie Sanders. As numbers-cruncher Nate Silver explained last week, the democratic socialist senator from Vermont has to win handily big states—most notably New York and California—in order to close his gap with Hillary Clinton in the pledged delegate count, and then he must convince hundreds of superdelegates to back him.

But Sanders will be able to fight to the very end, for one simple reason: He has a lot of money. Each month this year, the Sanders campaign has raised more money than the last. In January, he hauled in $20 million; in February, $43.5 million; and in March, $44 million. (Clinton raised $29.5 million in March.) And while Sanders is spending that money at a fast clip, he is collecting enough to sustain the high burn rate. The campaign spent $50 million in February yet ended the month with more cash in the bank ($17.2 million) than at the beginning of the month ($14.7 million). There is no complete data available yet for March.

Candidates usually have much less cash than the Sanders campaign has in the bank when they end their White House bids. Clinton concluded her first presidential campaign in June 2008 with virtually no money. She had $26,046,667 in the bank, but owed $25,201,722 in debt.

Other failed candidates usually are close to tapped out—or they owe money—when they pull the plug. When former Texas Gov. Rick Perry ended his second presidential bid last fall, he had about $45,000 in his campaign bank account. Mike Huckabee, the last candidate to fall to John McCain in the 2008 primaries, had $79,762 in his coffers after he ended that run.

Last week, George Mason University announced that it was renaming its law school in honor of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Henceforth, students would attend the Antonin Scalia School of Law or, as the internet quickly (and gleefully) pointed out, ASSLaw—or ASSoL

It didn't take long for the school to tweak the name. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University" will be the official name, but the school's website and promotional materials will refer to the Antonin Scalia Law School. Take that, snarky acronym-mongers!

The decision to rename the school came after it received two major donations: an anonymous donor, who requested the name change to commemorate Scalia, gave $20 million, and the Charles Koch Foundation gave $10 million.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/04/antonin-scalia-law-school-name

Everlast Blasts Donald Trump for Using 'Jump Around' at Rallies
House of Pain rapper calls candidate "fucking racist piece of shit," promises to send cease and desist order
By Jon Blistein April 5, 2016



Rapper Everlast has threatened to hit Donald Trump with a cease and desist order for using "Jump Around," his 1992 hit with House of Pain, at campaign rallies.

In an interview with Billboard, the rapper — real name Erik Schrody — said someone on Twitter sent him a CNN clip featuring footage from a Trump rally where "Jump Around" was playing in the background. As Schrody noted sarcastically, "The smartest businessman in the world should know that you have to license this music if it makes an appearance on TV with you, and they're making appearances on TV — so you're a moron."

Schrody joins a growing list of artists who have sparred with the Trump campaign for using their music, including R.E.M., Neil Young and Aerosmith. But the rapper said he wouldn't take the Republican frontrunner to court because suing would be "a scumbag Donald Trump move."

Schrody went on to call Trump a "fucking racist piece of shit" and accused the candidate and his campaign of purposely playing "Jump Around" — one of the biggest hip-hop hits by a white outfit — to "create these inroads to people's demographic cubbyholes, so they can be like, 'Yeah, we're down with hip-hop. Yeah, we're fucking cool.'

Hillary just headlined a rally for a cause she doesn’t believe in

http://nypost.com/2016/04/04/hillary-just-headlined-a-rally-for-a-cause-doesnt-believe-in/

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Hillary Clinton was the star speaker at Gov. Cuomo’s “Fight for $15” minimum-wage victory rally Monday at the Javits Center. Only one problem: She’s not in favor of a $15 minimum wage.

Hillary’s actually right on the policy — but that won’t help her on the politics.

***

All very nice — except this isn’t a case of Hillary and Bernie both being in favor of a $15 wage, and differing on who can get the job done. Clinton believes in a $12 federal minimum wage, not $15.

Indeed, in her “victory” speech Clinton was careful to pledge only to achieve “an increased minimum wage at the federal level” — a phrase with less ring to it than “Fight for $15.”

Charles Koch Is Privately Committed To Getting Paul Ryan Nominated In Cleveland: Source

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/charles-koch-paul-ryan-nomination_us_57029099e4b083f5c6082b95

Charles Koch is confident House Speaker Paul Ryan could emerge from the Republican National Convention as the party’s nominee if Donald Trump comes up at least 100 delegates shy, he has told friends privately.

Koch believes Ryan would be a “shoo-in” at a contested convention, should the campaign get to that point. Though Koch’s wealth gives him significant influence within the Republican Party, it does not necessarily translate into skill in political prognostication. Still, he and his brother David are fond of Ryan. As a source close to the brothers told the Huffington Post, they appreciate the agenda he has pursued as speaker, including opposition to tax extenders and heightened warnings against corporate welfare — positions that contrast with the admittedly vague portfolio pushed by Donald Trump.

One source close to Ryan said he would only be interested in it if the party could unite behind him, a scenario he can’t envision. “I don’t know what to tell you. He doesn’t want the nomination. And can you imagine the backlash from the Trump forces if someone who didn’t run for president wins the nomination? It would be complete chaos,” he said.

A second source close to the Koch brothers said he wasn’t aware of a conversation about Ryan, but it didn’t surprise him.

You may remember Scott Baio from sitcom Happy Days and its spin-off Joanie Loves Chachi, as well as the classic Charles in Charge. A few weeks ago, Baio endorsed Donald Trump to be America's next president because, as he told Fox News this weekend, Trump "is the only guy that has the will to attack and to fight." Also Baio thinks the US-Mexico border wall is a good idea.

On Saturday, Baio expressed his support for Trump in the form of a Starbucks coffee cup. On Sunday, he expressed it in the form of a tweet about climate change that is straight from the Trump playbook:



Dear Scott Baio: The continued existence of weather—yes, including snow!—does not disprove climate change.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2016/04/scott-baio-donald-trump-climate-dumb

http://www.vox.com/2015/12/8/9866726/ted-cruz-electability

But let's be clear: Cruz is calling for a 19 percent federal sales tax that would apply to all purchases of goods and services made in the United States. This is possibly the single least voter-friendly idea one could imagine.

It's so toxic that he doesn't call it a 19 percent federal sales tax at all.

"For businesses, the corporate income tax will be eliminated," Cruz writes on his website. "It will be replaced by a simple Business Flat Tax at a single 16 percent rate."

This sounds like Cruz is calling for the replacement of the current loophole-ridden corporate income tax with a new flat corporate income tax featuring a broader base and a lower rate. But that's not what Cruz is proposing at all. His "business flat tax" is a sales tax, not a corporate income. And it's a 19 percent sales tax, not a 16 percent one.

The Tax Foundation, a center-right think tank that believes in giving conservative tax plans extremely generous "dynamic" scores, explains that Cruz's business tax is "often known as a subtraction-method value-added tax" and "its base is identical in economic terms to that of the credit-invoice VAT seen in many OECD countries."