December 22, 2016

Why Is It That Americans Always Get Screwed???... The Banksters!

Thom asks why Americans allow themselves to be screwed over when it comes to student loans, pharmaceutical drugs, retirement, and more? It turns out that the answer to each is the Banksters.

Find out more at: http://www.thomhartmann.com

Follow Thom on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thom_hartmann

December 8, 2016

In Denmark, supermarkets selling expired food are all the rage

http://www.lostateminor.com/2016/12/09/in-denmark-supermarkets-selling-expired-food-are-all-the-rage/

While most people abhor the thought of eating food already past its expiry date, the Danish are actually lining up in droves for it.
Early this year, a special supermarket called WeFood opened its doors in Copenhagen. The ‘surplus store’ sells items – that are either expired, mislabeled, damaged, or headed to the trash – at discounts of up to 50 percent. With Danes throwing away around 700,000 tonnes of food annually, this initiative is a huge win in fighting food wastage.

“WeFood is the first supermarket of its kind in Denmark and perhaps the world as it is not just aimed at low-income shoppers but anyone who is concerned about the amount of food waste produced in this country,” said a representative. “Many people see this as a positive and politically correct way to approach the issue.”

In less than a year, WeFood has already opened a second store to fulfill demand. We recently talked to volunteer coordinator Sofie Ostengard to know more.

What was the inspiration for WeFood?

“About three years ago, the Danish Minister of Agriculture and Food, our General Secretary at Folkekirkens Nødhjælp and Head of CSR at Danish Supermarket Group gathered in a documentary concerning food waste. Then we decided to do something about this huge problem both in an environmental and economic perspective.”

How exactly does WeFood work? And why didn’t anyone think of this incredible concept before?

“We receive groceries from different suppliers, for instance, supermarket chains as a donation. Then we sell it in our shops 30-50% cheaper than normal. Everything from vegetables, bread, fruit, candy, beverages etc.”


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December 8, 2016

The Democratic Party has been Constitutionally "kettled", there is really only one doable solution

Kettling (also known as containment or corralling) is a tactic for controlling large groups. You move to subdue a crowd by breaking it up and moving it into a contained limited area(s). This has occurred at both US House levels, and thus at Electoral College levels. Giant states like California, New York, etc are now cut off from numerically equal representation, they have become impotent cul-de-sacs. Take away all (not just Clinton's) of California's POTUS votes, Hillary loses the popular vote nationally as well. No one bothers to contest it, as it does NOT have a fair amount of House members, and thus it doesn't have a fair amount of EV's either. The Rethugs just write it off.

Imagine as it keeps growing. There simply will never be enough EV's and House seats (if the pot is 538 for the EC and 435 for the House) to give CA fairness at electoral power level in both the EC and the House.

The same kettling occurs for giant cities all over the nation. Tens upon tens of millions are denied fair electoral power, and the Rethugs have gamed the entire system for their benefit. Urban drift, the ever-growing trend to huge urban areas is allowing the left (who dominate in these mega enclaves) to be kettled politically, at multiple inflection points, as well, especially at state and even more so, federal levels.

There is a solution:

Increase the size of the House of Representatives, and thus the EC, no Constitutional Amendment needed

The Electoral College is never going away. The National Popular Vote Compact is unconstitutional (especially if the SCOTUS is RW).

Abolition will never occur, as even if the constitutional amendment were passed in the Congress, all it takes is 13 states (the smaller ones, of course) to block it. They have way more than 13 who oppose it.

BUT there is a fix, and it just doesn't fix the electoral college. If fixes the House too.

Expand the House to 1001. That would also Expand the EC to 1106 (100 for senators, 1001 for House, plus 5 for DC). It doesn't take a Constitutional Amendment either, just an Act of Congress (overturning a 1929 Act).

Its been stuck at 435 (with 2 temp added for AK and HI for a couple years, removed in 1962) SINCE 1913!


The population then was 97 million. Now is 325 million. The average rep has almost 750,000 people in his/her district.

Because the EC is based (in the constitution) off number of congress people, increasing the House also increases the EC.

THEN you can more fairly split up those 1106 EV's and those 1001 House seats. Right now, a Wyoming electoral vote is worth 3.7 times MORE than a California vote.


Expanding the House also, of course allow for a more representational distribution for the states as well, at HOUSE government levels. California, and the other large states get FUCKED right now in every way.

The main barrier to this will be getting House members to dilute their power, PLUS Rethugs to go along, as they KNOW they have all the benefits to the current system


Read this for more info. http://www.thirty-thousand.org/

The 1001 is just my own number, you could do it so many different ways (such as the much less impactful (but still better than nothing) Wyoming Rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Rule or double it, plus one (has to be odd number to avoid ties)

December 8, 2016

Everything you were afraid to ask about white nationalisms new place in American politics

These hate groups’ names are becoming household terms.

http://www.vox.com/identities/2016/12/7/13802640/white-nationalists-alt-right-racism-bannon-spencer-trump

Merriam-Webster’s 2016 word of the year might be fascism. For betting types making early 2017 predictions, “white nationalism” would not be a bad guess. Along with “white supremacy” and the newer phrase “alternative right,” or alt-right, it’s been a post-election fixture of news and accompanying battles over politics, racism, and language.

It started in earnest when it was announced that former Breitbart News editor Steve Bannon would serve as President-elect Donald Trump’s administrative adviser. White nationalists like neo-Nazi writer and publisher Andrew Anglin rejoiced. Ken Reed, the national director of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Renaissance Society, celebrated in a Facebook post that read, “Can you say WINNING boys and girls???” using the hashtags #WhiteLivesMatter and #AltRight.

The self-proclaimed alt-right made even more headlines when the white supremacist National Policy Institute held an alt-right conference in Washington, DC, the weekend after the election. There, the group’s leader, Richard Spencer, delivered remarks calling America “a white country designed for ourselves and our posterity.” In a video shared by the Atlantic, Trump’s victory and Spencer’s statements were cheered by the crowd with Nazi salutes and chants of, “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”

Yes, actual Nazi salutes. In a DC hotel. By people who felt Trump’s election and appointments were their victory.

Along with the horror over this came complaints that alt-right activists were being referred to in many headlines with their chosen, innocuous-sounding title, rather than something that made their racist agenda plain. Before long, the Associated Press and the New York Times issued strong guidance to their writers regarding the term. In both cases, they said uses of the alt-right’s preferred label must be accompanied by an explanation to readers about what defines the group: the racism, misogyny, and white supremacy that characterize it.

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MUCH more at link

December 7, 2016

Red Menace

November 30, 2016

Anti-Muslim Activist Katharine Gorka Named to Homeland Security Transition Team

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/30/katie-gorka-trump/

KATHARINE GORKA, a controversial national security analyst who specializes in discussing the threat posted by Muslims to the United States, has complained bitterly that the Department of Homeland Security trains its agents — falsely, in her opinion — that Islam is a “religion of peace.”

Now, Gorka will have a chance to help Donald Trump remake the department. On Tuesday, she was selected by Trump to be part of the DHS “landing team” that will meet with Obama’s DHS officials to manage the handoff to new leadership. Gorka, the president of a think tank called the Council on Global Security and the president of Threat Knowledge Group, a consulting firm, is a well known figure among anti-Muslim campaigners.

Gorka argues that the only way to defeat terrorism “depend upon our being able to call the enemy by its proper name: Global Jihadism.” She has pushed legislation to designate the the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group and impose sanction on its “affiliates, associated groups, or agents”. The affiliated groups mentioned in the legislation include mainstream civil rights organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

Gorka is also writes about Islam for Breitbart News, a website described by its former executive chairman Steve Bannon as a “platform” for the white supremacist “alt-right” movement. Bannon is one of Trump’s top advisers. In one 2014 column, Gorka wrote that when “Presidents Bush and Obama both publicly declared Islam to be a religion of peace,” it “struck a sour chord for many,” and that “American and Western leaders have preemptively shut down any debate within Islam by declaring that Islam is the religion of peace.”

In another column, she defended five members of Congress, including then-Presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachman, R-Iowa, who were widely denounced by their own party leaders for spreading conspiracy theories in 2012 after they accused a top Clinton aid of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and called on President Obama to investigate.


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November 29, 2016

Despotism (1946 Film, but might as well be from 70 years later)

November 29, 2016

A horrific map, Trump 532 EV's, Sec. Clinton 3 EV's (hint, it's the guns)

Gun Humpers Unite!

Sickening

https://www.surveymonkey.com/elections/map/2016/us?poll=sm-exit-gunowner-cps



Clinton, within this massive exit poll, actually won unmarried men, dominated with unmarried women and millennials, but was crushed in the 65+ age group, and married men, and lost married women as well (based off EV's).

November 26, 2016

Fidel Castro Put Gay Men in Labor Camps. His Niece Mariela Is Leading Cubas LGBTQ Revolution.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/11/26/how_fidel_castro_s_niece_mariela_led_a_lgbtq_revolution_in_cuba.html

What does it mean to be a revolutionary?

In the early days of Fidel Castro’s Cuba, being a revolutionary wasn’t just about commitment to socialist philosophy. It also reflected a certain machismo, a view of “a new man,” who “couldn’t be gay.” So says Luis Perez, himself gay and one of the subjects of Mariela’s March: Cuba’s LGBT Revolution, director Jon Alpert’s new documentary, which now takes on an extra layer of timeliness since it premieres on HBO at 9 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 28, just days after Castro’s Nov. 25 death.

Perez’s unsparing view of the Cuban Revolution was earned through his two years of toil at one of the misnamed “Military Units to Aid Production” during the 1960s. Gay men were sent to these facilities for conversion, for punishment, and as a kind of deterrence. After doing his time at what amounted to forced labor, Perez was rewarded by having his identification card “branded” with his incarceration and thereby shut out of education and employment.

Other stories from the early days of the revolution were equally harrowing, some even worse. One unidentified trans woman explains that she wears sunglasses because of an incident long ago. She then removes the glasses to show an eye bleached by acid that was thrown in her face.

Margarita Diaz, a Cuban tennis champion, sadly recounts her experience of being kicked off the national team in 1988 because of her unfeminine ways.

Then there’s Yanet, a self-described “peasant” who lives in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. She and Mailin are in in a long-term relationship and seem happy enough. The young man who directs the filmmaker to the lesbian couple affirms that everyone in the area knows and respects them. Yet Yanet continues to suffer from discrimination at work—although she can’t prove it.

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November 26, 2016

The Kremlin's Trojan Horses

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/The_Kremlins_Trojan_Horses_web_1116.pdf

In 2014, Russia seized Crimea through military force. With this act, the Kremlin redrew the political map of Europe
and upended the rules of the acknowledged international order. Despite the threat Russia’s revanchist policies
pose to European stability and established international law, some European politicians, experts, and civic groups
have expressed support for—or sympathy with—the Kremlin’s actions.  These allies represent a diverse network
of political influence reaching deep into Europe’s core.

The Kremlin uses these Trojan horses to destabilize European politics so efficiently, that even Russia’s limited
might could become a decisive factor in matters of European and international security.  President Putin
increasingly sees that which the West seeks—Europe whole, free, and at peace—not as an opportunity for
prosperous coexistence but as a threat to his geopolitical agenda and regime survival.

Moscow views the West’s virtues—pluralism and openness—as vulnerabilities to be exploited. Its tactics are
asymmetrical, subversive, and not easily confronted.  Western governments have ignored the threat from Putin’s
covert allies for too long, but finally, awareness is growing that the transatlantic community must do more to
defend its values and institutions.

To that end, Western governments should encourage and fund investigative civil society groups and media
that will work to shed light on the Kremlin’s dark networks.  European Union member states should consider
establishing counter-influence task forces, whose function would be to examine financial and political links
between the Kremlin and domestic business and political groups. American and European intelligence agencies
should coordinate their investigative efforts through better intelligence sharing.  Financial regulators should be
empowered to investigate the financial networks that allow authoritarian regimes to export corruption to the
West.  Electoral rules should be amended, so that publically funded political groups, primarily political parties,
should at the very least be required to report their sources of funding.

The Kremlin’s blatant attempts to influence and disrupt the US presidential election should serve as an inspiration
for a democratic push back.   




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Why Europe Is Right to Fear Putin’s Useful Idiots

The Kremlin’s support for right-wing parties is no game. It’s trying to subvert the European idea.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/23/why-europe-is-right-to-fear-putins-useful-idiots/

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Prior to 2010, one would be hard-pressed to find public statements in praise of Putin by far-right leaders. Today, they are commonplace. UKIP’s Nigel Farage is a self-proclaimed fan of the Russian president. Jobbik’s head, Gabor Vona, is a frequent invited guest in Moscow. And, of course, Madame Le Pen, whose party was the beneficiary of a 9.4 million euro loan from a Russian-owned bank, is a consistent voice of support for Russian foreign policy in Ukraine and the Middle East. Even Germany, where the far right has failed to gain a foothold, is not immune to Moscow’s narrative. Supporters of PEGIDA, the increasingly popular xenophobic group whose acronym stands for “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West,” often carry Russian flags and anti-government posters begging for Putin’s help.

As European far-right leaders openly voice their support for Moscow, it would be wise to remember that Putin’s Russia is not just another “meddling power” lobbying for its interests.Putin’s Russia is not just another “meddling power” lobbying for its interests. It is a government hostile to the West and the value system — democracy, freedom of expression, political accountability — that it represents. For proof, one must look no further than Russia’s national security strategy, in which the Russian government explicitly names NATO as a threat and accuses the U.S. and its allies of operating “military-biological” labs on Russia’s border.

Calling the West’s response to the love affair between Putin and the far right an overreaction greatly underestimates the extent to which the Kremlin and its state-controlled media use support of European politicians to legitimize Moscow’s explicitly anti-western foreign policy agenda: far-right politicians not only vote for pro-Kremlin policies in the EU parliament, they also take part in election observation missions — most notably the referendum for the annexation of Crimea and the “elections” in Ukraine’s Russian-controlled “people’s republics.” The Russian media uses these events and far-right leaders’ visits to Moscow to tout European support for Putin. Even Le Pen was an unknown in Russia until the Ukraine crisis and her outspoken public support for Putin. Now she is paraded as proof that there is some support for Putin’s policies in Europe.

In addition, Radnitz assumes that mainstream politicians, U.S. officials, and other experts who have pointed out the pro-Russian turn of Europe’s far right aim to discredit such parties through “guilt by association.” But there is no evidence that these parties’ pro-Putin stance is hurting them at the polls or that it has discredited them in the eyes of voters. If anything, their pro-Russian turn has coincided with their rise in the polls.

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The likely winner of this weekend’s French presidential primary will be Russia’s Vladimir Putin

http://qz.com/846200/the-likely-winner-of-this-weekends-french-presidential-primary-will-be-russias-vladimir-putin/

If you’ve paid any attention to France’s presidential race, you’ll know that the Front National’s Marine Le Pen is a serious contender. But the prospect of another far-right nationalist coming to power in a major Western country is not, in fact, the only thing to worry about.

The other worry—and one that should concern not just residents of France, but the entire world—is that whether Le Pen wins or loses, France’s next president is likely to be part of a new, hardline Moscow-Paris-Washington axis: supporting Russia’s Vladimir Putin, appeasing Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and turning geopolitics away from liberalism and human rights. That’s because this Sunday, Nov. 27, is the primary for the center-right Les Républicains party, and the front-runner is François Fillon, a socially conservative, provincial French Catholic who claims Russia poses “no threat.” All polls point to Le Pen eliminating François Hollande’s unpopular Socialists in the first round of the presidential election next April, leaving a Fillon-Le Pen run-off on May 7—a contest Fillon is tipped to win.

Both Le Pen and Fillon are slavishly Russophile and close friends of Putin. They are both committed to ending sanctions against Moscow over the annexation of Crimea, and happy to prop up the war criminal in Damascus in a murky anti-ISIL alliance.
In Le Monde (link in French) on Nov. 24, Fillon confirmed his geopolitical stance. Parroting Moscow’s arguments against “unrealistic” sanctions, he said France “must know how to speak to all states” and called for a “frank and solid renewal of relations” with Putin—and with Donald Trump, whom Fillon insists we must stop labeling a populist.

Fillon also echoes much of Le Pen’s (and Putin’s) rhetoric against Islam, in a country still under a state of emergency after a series of huge terrorist attacks. Jewish leaders, too, are alarmed by his seeming dog-whistle comments (French) about French Jews’ alleged history of not “living by the rules of the French Republic.”


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