TheNutcracker
TheNutcracker's JournalBernie Sanders nails it again on Social Security!
Why the Tampa Bay Rays cannot be trusted
There was a vote tonight, to allow them to get out of their contract. But where they wanted those contract protections, was only in their best interest. They showed themselves for who they really are in the council meeting tonight! Arrogance does not even begin to describe it! Here is a sample of what was written after the vote tonight.
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http://www.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/romano-city-council-says-no-when-tampa-bay-rays-seek-an-even-sweeter-deal/2210793
Romano: City Council says no when Tampa Bay Rays seek an even sweeter deal
The deal is off the table, and you should blame City Council members.
You might also want to praise them.
For, in baseball terms, they got a save.
An issue raised by St. Petersburg City Council member Karl Nurse revealed that the terms of the city's proposed deal with the Tampa Bay Rays to allow them to look at other stadium sites may have tilted more toward the team's side than previously realized.
And when Rays president Brian Auld was asked about it by Nurse during Thursday night's council meeting, he essentially acknowledged that.
"He killed it right there,'' City Attorney John Wolfe said. "I was watching the faces of council members, and Auld lost a lot of their votes at that moment.''
The question had to do with the redevelopment rights for the 85 acres surrounding Tropicana Field. The original stadium use agreement calls for the city and the team to split profits 50-50 on any development of that land.
So Nurse asked if the Rays still expected the city to split redevelopment profits if the team had a deal to move to Tampa. In other words, did the Rays expect to make money off the Trop land even on their way out the door?
As long the Rays are in the Trop, Auld said, they would expect the city to live up to the terms of the original use agreement.
"He didn't just say no, he said hell no,'' said council member Jim Kennedy. "It was a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, and that's not the best way to do business.''
Here's the basic problem with the team's stance:
The city has two incentives to allow the Rays to shop around Tampa Bay for stadium sites 12 years before their agreement at Tropicana Field is up.
1. It lessens the possibility the Rays reach the end of their lease and decide to look in Montreal or Nashville or San Antonio or anywhere else.
2. If the Rays do decide to move to Tampa, then St. Petersburg can start redeveloping the 85 acres surrounding Tropicana Field.
But St. Pete's incentive to build on that land is not nearly as attractive if the Rays are still able to claim 50 percent of the redevelopment profits.
So the city would be faced with the choice of delaying redevelopment of the land until the Rays were actually out of Tropicana Field — which could be four or five years after the team decides to leave — or handing money to a lame duck team.
Mayor Rick Kriseman knew the redevelopment rights were going to be a sticking point, but didn't include them in the proposed deal because that would have substantially changed the terms of the use agreement and city attorneys were fearful of that.
There was a possibility of renegotiating that part of the deal in the termination agreement when, or if, the Rays decided to move to Hillsborough.
Auld did not seem to suggest that was a possibility when asked by Nurse.
"That was a deal breaker for me,'' said council member Amy Foster. "He essentially said, 'We want you to abide by the use agreement, but we're trying to get out of it ourselves.' '
more at link above..
Virus killing dolphins along East Coast confirmed in Keys - Not BP!
Virus killing dolphins along East Coast confirmed in Keys
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 13, 2014
BIG PINE KEY – Scientists say a virus that has killed Atlantic bottlenose dolphins along the East Coast has reached the Florida Keys.
The remains of a dolphin that died Nov. 7 after stranding in Bahia Honda State Park have tested positive for morbillivirus. It’s a measles-like disease that is highly contagious among sea mammals.
The virus has killed over 1,560 dolphins from New York to central Florida since July 2013. Laura Engleby of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tells The Miami Herald that with the confirmation of morbillivirus in the Keys, Florida’s Gulf coast is now considered a “surveillance area” for the outbreak.
In 1990, the virus killed 290 dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists say it possibly was the same strain that killed 742 dolphins on the East Coast in 1987 and 1988.
Jeb Bush Has A Mitt Romney Problem
Source: Bloomberg
A private-equity-guy presidential candidate with lots of deals for the press to untangle—it sounds at least 47 percent familiar.....
Over the last several months, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has been giving speeches, campaigning for candidates, appearing at public forums, and meeting with wealthy donors, which has led many people to believe that he may soon enter the race to become the next Republican presidential nominee. On Dec. 1, Bush told a gathering of business leaders at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington that he would make a decision about his political future “in short order.” But Bush’s recent business ventures reveal that he shares a number of liabilities with the last nominee, Mitt Romney, whose career in private equity proved so politically damaging that it sunk his candidacy.
Documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Nov. 27 list Bush as chairman and manager of a new offshore private equity fund, BH Global Aviation, which raised $61 million in September, largely from foreign investors. In November the fund incorporated in the United Kingdom and Wales—a structure, several independent finance lawyers say, that operates like a tax haven by allowing overseas investors to avoid U.S. taxes and regulations.
BH Global Aviation is one of at least three such funds Bush has launched in less than two years through his Coral Gables, Fla., company, Britton Hill Holdings. He’s also chairman of a $26 million fund, BH Logistics, established in April with backing from a Chinese conglomerate, and a $40 million fund involved in shale oil exploration, according to documents filed in June and first reported on by Bloomberg News. His flurry of ventures doesn’t suggest someone preparing to run for president, according to a dozen fund managers, lawyers, and private-placement agents who were apprised of his recent activities by Bloomberg Businessweek. Most private equity funds have a life span of 10 years. While it isn’t impossible that Bush could bail on his investors so soon after taking their money, “that would be unusual,” says Steven Kaplan, a private equity expert at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. One fundraiser for private equity adds that normally you’d be winding down such businesses, rather than expanding them, if you were going to run.
“I think it signals someone who isn’t seriously looking at the presidency or he wouldn’t have gone down this path.”
Republican consultant John Brabender
Until now, many people have assumed that Bush’s greatest challenge would be dispelling the perception among Republican primary voters that he’s a moderate in a party dominated by right-wing conservatives. In the wake of Romney’s bruising 2012 loss, however, Bush’s overseas funds, mysterious investors, and foreign entanglements could prove harder to overcome. As a budding private equity mogul, he’s begun to resemble a Mini-Mitt. Bush declined to be interviewed for this article.
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/features/2014-12-11/jeb-bush-has-a-mitt-romney-problem
Keep walking JEB, not enough time has passed. And your brother's record is raining all over you right now, along with your business history.
The ‘Jeb Bush Doctrine’ makes debut
Source: Miami Herald
The Bush Doctrine is on the verge of making a comeback.
As Jeb Bush weighs a presidential bid, the former Florida governor on Tuesday laid out his foreign policy precepts, which closely mirror that of his brother, former President George W. Bush.
Bush detailed seven points in all during a speech to the U.S. Cuba Democracy PAC at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, where he told the crowd that the United States shouldn’t back away from engaging its friends or enemies anywhere in the world.
For Bush, that starts 90 miles from U.S. shores, with the Cuban embargo and travel policy.
“I would argue that, instead of lifting the embargo, we should consider strengthening it,” Bush said, calling for free elections, free trade and the release of political prisoners on the communist island.
The crowd of donors, the backbone of Cuba’s exiled elite, applauded loudly.
Bush called for more military and cybersecurity spending, strengthening international alliances, robustly criticizing enemies and expanding free trade. He sounded notes of concern with nearly every quarter of the world: Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel.
Bush’s speech doubled as a campaign trial balloon and as payback against President Obama, who successfully campaigned in 2008 against George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Obama promised to withdraw from Iraq and generally called for a less muscular overseas engagement.
Jeb Bush inverted those criticisms of Obama, pointing to the chaos in Syria and the rise of the terrorist group ISIS there and in Iraq.
“In this unstable and uncertain world, the United States has actually played a part in creating greater instability and greater unraveling,” Bush said, adding that the United States, “because we’ve retrenched,” now has “worse relations than what we had before.”
Bush’s foreign-policy speech came a day after he outlined domestic policy points at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council gathering in Washington. Many of those who attended Tuesday’s event said Bush’s back-to-back policy addresses were the clearest sign yet that he intends to run for
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article4249229.html#storylink=cpy
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article4249229.html
BE VERY AFRAID!!!
Further in the story they quote a supporter and republican incoming house member saying, "this is the JEB BUSH doctrine".....
He's lost weight, so now he looks more like poppy than mommy and that also is a sign he will run.
I can't say this enough and I'll continue to say it, the democrats need a real alternative to run against JEB, and that's not Hillary. By alternative I mean, a candidate that republicans will vote for, because they are 'Bush fatigued" as well. But they won't vote for Hillary, or anyone that they have disliked and ran against in the past. This lesson was just learned in Florida. So few want another Bush, but don't expect the republicans that we need to win, to vote for a Clinton! They won't do it! Also, neither side is looking forward to another Bush/Clinton race. A campaign of total baggage, the electorate is TIRED of. It will not generate turnout. Mommy Bush had it right, when she said there are more than two families in this country.
Get it DNC???
The Octopus - The Strange Death of Danny Casolaro
This story has been blogged on right here at DU. I wanted to let everyone know, that his cousin wrote a play, "Danny Casolaro Died for You". Now, they are making a movie!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Casolaro
In Popular Culture[edit]
Dominic Orlando, Casolaro's cousin, wrote a play based on Casolaro's story in 2008 called, "Danny Casolaro Died For You." [17]
In January, 2013 Aviation Cinemas Productions and Caliber Media optioned the film rights to the story of Danny Casolaro based on the play, "Danny Casolaro Died For You," written by his cousin, Dominic Orlando. Adam Donaghey, Eric Steel, Dallas Sonnier and Jack Heller are set to produce with Eric Steel directing. Production is set to begin in 2014.[18]
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This should be good.....may Danny rest in peace.
Democrats, stung by low turnout, consider shifting Florida's election schedule
Source: Tampa Bay Times
TALLAHASSEE — After yet another defeat blamed on low voter turnout, some Florida Democrats want to change the rules and elect the governor in the same year voters pick the president — when turnout is always much higher.
In the aftermath of Charlie Crist's narrow loss to Gov. Rick Scott, strategists are plotting how to put an initiative on the 2016 ballot that would shift statewide races back to presidential years, as they were in Florida until 1964.
"Our state leaders should be elected by the greatest number of people," said Ben Pollara, a Miami strategist who worked on the medical marijuana campaign. "How can you argue that having fewer people participate in the political process is good for the state?"
Crist adviser Kevin Cate wrote an opinion column, which got picked up by liberal blog the Daily Kos, in favor of shifting statewide elections. It launched an online petition that argues: "More Floridians deserve to have their voice heard." Backers have sought legal guidance from Jon Mills, dean of the University of Florida law school and a former House speaker, who also worked on the medical marijuana campaign.
The 2014 election was the first Florida midterm in which 6 million people cast ballots, but that figure pales in comparison to the 8.5 million who voted in the 2012 presidential election in Florida.
Read more: http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/stung-by-low-turnout-democrats-eye-shifting-floridas-statewide-election/2208133
It does not change the fact that people did not like either candidate very much, and the democratic party forced Crist on the voters. Along with that, the republicans said they would flat out not vote for him. This race was doomed from the get go....
Can we get Bernie Sanders to weigh in on Hagel's resignation? I trust Sanders with the truth!
Many say Hagel was there to withdraw, so is he not a good fit for beating war drums?
The Story of Bush's old DUI - Tampa Bay Times
Tampa Bay Times - Perspective
Finally, 38 years later, we're getting details about George W. Bush's 1976 DUI arrest. The info comes from his drinking buddy that night — former tennis great John Newcombe. Thanks, Newk.
Bush's long-ago DUI became a thing with the approach of Election Day 2000. Fox News disclosed Bush's previously unbeknownst-to-most-of-us 1976 DUI in Maine. Bush fessed up to it on the campaign trail but spared us the details.
The 1976 arrest went down near the Bush family's Kennebunkport, Maine, complex. (Don't all families have a "complex" of some sort?) It was known that Newcombe was a passenger in the car, but he kept mum about details until now.
more at link below:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/perspective/perspective-the-story-of-bushs-old-dui/2207410
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There is also another aspect of this story, still untold. It was not just a DUI that was hidden. It's the story of once this ticket and or others were written, HOW it would be covered up, and the community work Bush had to do to make the charges go away, where he really did the community service work, and the driver's license number change. Only because Daddy was head of the CIA could they get that done. This is the story of what happened after the DUI, that is not discussed.
James Hatfield told this story in his book, Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President, and of course he died after writing it.
Democracy Now! Premieres the Full Interview with Bush Biographer J.H. Hatfield who died in 2001 of an alleged suicide amidst controversy Over his book Fortunate Son
Listen to the interview with Hatfield on Democracy Now years ago. Why they are writing about this covered up DUI now, I'm not sure. But there is more to it, so I thought I would put some of it together for readers here.
http://www.democracynow.org/2003/8/11/democracy_now_premieres_the_full_interview
Today we play an interview that we have held for over three years. It involves allegations of President Bush, drugs, obstruction of justice and corporate scandal. It raises questions about why Bush’s driver license number was changed.
In the book Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President author J.H. Hatfield charges that President Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession and that Bush’s father George Sr. used his political connections to have his son’s record expunged.
Soon after publication, Hatfield’s credibility was challenged. He had been convicted in 1988 for hiring a hit-man in a failed attempt to kill his boss and had served five years in prison.
J.H. Hatfield died of an alleged suicide in July 2001. [Includes transcript]
This is how the story goes: Four years ago St. Martins Press published a book by author James H. Hatfield called Fortunate Son. It is about the life of George W. Bush.
In the book, Hatfield charges that Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession. Why wasn’t the future President charged? Hatfield writes that Bush’s father used his political connections to have his son’s record expunged.
Soon after publication of Fortunate Son the Dallas Morning News received information about Hatfield’s criminal past.
The media jumped all over it and Hatfield’s reputation and credibility were ruined.
St. Martins Press promised to turn Fortunate Son into "furnace fodder." It withdrew 70,000 copies from bookshelves and destroyed them. But a small publisher Soft Skull Press reprinted the book with the banner "The Book They Burned is Back."
Hatfield had previously refused to reveal the source of his information about Bush’s alleged cocaine arrest. He now to decided to name him. He claimed it was none other than Karl Rove, Bush’s closest political adviser.
If Rove did indeed leak the information, he couldn’t have leaked it to a better subject. Soon after publication of the Fortunate Son, Hatfield’s credibility came under fierce attack.
The media followed the trail laid out for them. They diverted inquiries about Bush’s drug history to stories about Hatfield’s checkered past. He lost two other book contracts and faced financial ruin and obscurity.
The character assassination finally took its toll. In July 2001, Hatfield was found dead of an apparent suicide in a hotel room in Springdale, Arkansas. He was 43 years old. Police said he left notes for his family and friends that listed alcohol, financial problems and Fortunate Son as reasons for killing himself. He is survived by a wife and daughter.
Special thanks to Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky who made the documentary film "Horns and Halos" about J.H. Hatfield and Soft Skull Press publisher Sander Hicks. They filmed the Democracy Now! interview we premiered today.
Listen to the interview above. You can still buy the book!
http://www.amazon.com/Fortunate-Son-George-American-President/dp/1887128840
Pipe Dreams? Cornell study on Keystone and unsubstantiated jobs numbers
Pipe Dreams? Jobs Gained, Jobs Lost by the Construction of the Keystone XL
Report Overview
TransCanada, the American Petroleum Institute and other proponents of the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline claim KXL will be a $7 billion boon to the U.S. economy, creating 20,000 direct construction and manufac-turing jobs and 119,000 indirect jobs. Cornell Global Labor Institute’s (GLI) analysis of the project has found that these numbers are unsubstantiated, and that the project will produce far fewer jobs than they claim. In fact, the construction of KXL may destroy more jobs than it creates.
America needs a jobs plan, but KXL is NOT it. Here’s why:
KXL’s U.S. Project Budget is $3.3 billion, NOT $7 billion: TransCanada claims that KXL is a $7 billion project. TransCanada arrives at this figure by including $1.6 billion that will be spent in Canada and approximately $2.6 billion that has already been spent or committed, including on steel pipe manufactured outside the U.S. A much smaller project budget means a lot less jobs.
U.S. Manufacturing Jobs? Think again. Steel pipe is the main material input for KXL. To date, TransCanada has had almost 50% of the pipe manufactured outside the U.S., even though they claim KXL will create 20,000 direct construction and manufacturing jobs in the U.S. TransCanada is having the same multi-national corporation, based in India, manufacture the pipe for KXL as they did for Phase 1 and 2. This company, Welspun, is being investigated for producing sub-standard steel that led to spills and leaks in other pipeline projects. Plus, TransCanada has procured this pipe even though they have not received a Presidential Permit to construct KXL.
KXL Will Increase Fuel Prices in the Midwest, Hurting Consumers and Destroying Jobs. KXL will divert tar sands oil from Midwest refineries to refineries in the Gulf Coast where the oil will sell for a higher price. Tar Sands oil will also be available for export to countries like China where the demand for oil is growing rapidly. TransCanada states that KXL will increase the price of heavy crude oil in the Midwest by almost $2 to $4 billion annually. Top energy economists believe Midwestern consumers may end up paying 10 – 20 cents more for a gallon of gas as a result of tar sands oil being diverted to refineries in Texas. Just one year of fuel price increases as a result of KXL could cancel out some or all of the jobs created by KXL, based on the $3- $4 billion budget.
Oil Spills, Pollution and Climate Change Cost Jobs Too! The industry has ignored or dismissed fears that KXL will have a serious impact on our environment and our economy through inland spills, spills into freshwater supplies (principally the Ogallala Aquifer) or increases in greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution. But clean-up operations, permanent spill damage to sectors like agriculture and tourism, and rising emissions and other pollutants incur costs and divert public and private funds away from productive economic activity. For Phase 1 of Keystone, TransCanada claimed 11 spills could be expected over a 50 year period –over 30 spills have occurred on the Keystone pipeline just in its first year of operation in Canada and the U.S.
KXL Jobs Are Temporary and Non-Local. Only 10-15% of the total KXL workforce is expected to be hired locally. Based on information provided by TransCanada to the State Department, a state-by-state jobs breakdown reveals that Keystone XL will create very few jobs in the states along the pipeline (e.g., 6-18 jobs in Kansas;
90-248 jobs in Nebraska; and 41-113 jobs in Oklahoma). Plus, these construction jobs will disappear after the completion of the project.
Industry Study Exaggerates Job Estimates: The industry’s claim that KXL will create 119,000 total jobs (direct, indirect and induced) is based on a poorly documented study commissioned by TransCanada (The Perryman Group study). The Perryman study is not transparent and does not include basic information on the overall cost of the project and input data from TransCanada. In short, the Perryman Study does not provide enough information to know how the estimated job impacts were calculated.
The full report can be downloaded here:
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/globallaborinstitute/research/upload/GLI_KeystoneXL_Reportpdf.pdf
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Can we get democrats in the house and senate to starting talking about this report, instead of just saying it's dirty and bad? Boxer should have used this when she spoke on it, no theatrics needed with a report and source such as this.
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