October 26, 2015

Rubio struggles in Senate, but wants a promotion

But for a mainstream audience, the fact that Rubio effectively wasted his Capitol Hill career, achieving practically nothing despite all the promise and hype, isn’t much of a selling point.

I suspect many Rubio supporters will naturally want to draw parallels between his record and President Obama’s Senate tenure. And at a certain level, they have a point – Obama was quickly frustrated by Congress’ pace. David Axelrod later admitted that the Illinois Democrat “was bored being a senator” and quickly grew “restless.”

It seems the same words could be applied to the junior senator from Florida.

The difference, though, is that Obama put in far more effort than Rubio, and as a result, he had more success. As a senator, Obama developed a reputation as a work horse, being well prepared for briefings and hearings, introducing a lot of bills, and developing an expertise on serious issues like counter-proliferation.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rubio-struggles-senate-wants-promotion

October 26, 2015

VIDEO: Pedestrians fall to ground as quake hits Nepal in April 2015

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Video-shows-pedestrians-knocked-to-ground-as-7-5-6590711.php

October 26, 2015

ACLU files class action lawsuit against Mississippi debtors prison system

the fines were for other traffic violations dating back to 2013. At that time, Kennedy says she told her probation officers – a private company called Judicial Corrections Services Inc (JCS) – that she was so poor there was no way she could find the money.

She worked as a cleaner at the baseball field in downtown Biloxi, earning less than $9,000 a year – well below the federal poverty level for a single person, let alone a mother of two dependent children. Her plea fell on deaf ears: a JCS official told her that unless she paid her fines in full, as well as a $40 monthly fee to JCS for the privilege of having them as her probation officers, she would go to jail – an arrest warrant was duly secured to that effect through the Biloxi municipal court

Nor was Kennedy’s inability to pay her fines as a result of poverty taken into account by the police officer when he stopped her in July, she said. Discovering the arrest warrant, he promptly put her in handcuffs and took her to a Gulfport jail.

There she was told that unless she came up with all the money – by now the figure had bloated as a result of JCS’s monthly fees to $1,000 – she would stay in jail. And so she did. Kennedy spent the next five days and nights in a holding cell.

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Kennedy is the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuitlodged on Wednesday with a federal district court in Gulfport against the city of Biloxi, its police department, the municipal court system and the private probation company JCS. The filing, drawn up by the American Civil Liberties Union, claims that the agencies collectively conspired to create a modern form of debtors’ prison as a ruse to extract cash from those least able to afford it – the city’s poor.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/pay-or-go-jail-how-mississippi-town-resurrected-debtors-prison

October 26, 2015

In a hurting economy, selling plasma is part of their financial lifeblood

On a steamy October day in the town of Orange, a white van with an Uber sign in the front window ran out of gas in the parking lot of a plasma donation center.

Call it a snapshot, if you will, of an economy that for many folks continues to sputter.

A woman named Crystal, who had just sold her plasma, lent a one-gallon gas can to the couple in the van. Crystal, 28, told me she carries the can in her 1998 Nissan because it's tough to keep up with the bills and she's often running on fumes.

The couple with the van were in a hurry and I didn't get much information out of them, except that the man sometimes drives for Uber and the woman has a rare blood type, so she makes decent money having Biomat USA draw it through a needle at regular intervals.

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Jessica Wade has developed scar tissue on her arm from so many needle pricks. The 25-year-old Cal State Long Beach student is studying to be a teacher, works 40 hours a week at Starbucks, lives in a studio apartment with her working boyfriend and donates plasma twice a week.

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"This is my first time," a middle-aged woman named Elizabeth told me at the Lake Balboa Biomat USA. She said she took time off from a job to care for her ailing mother, and now she can't find work.

"If you would have told me five years ago that I'd end up in here, I wouldn't have believed it. It's reality, and it's humbled me for sure."

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-1025-lopez-plasma-20151025-column.html

October 26, 2015

Lego refuses bulk orders of legos to be used for political art

Disident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei says Lego refused to sell him toy bricks for his artwork, calling it an "an act of censorship and discrimination."

Ai -- known for critiquing censorship by the Chinese government -- said he intended to use Legos for a piece destined for an Australian exhibition in December.

In an Instagram post on Saturday, Ai wrote that Lego sent an email in September saying, "We are not in a position to support the exhibition ... by supplying the bulk order."

Lego spokesperson Roar Rude Trangbaek declined to comment on Ai's case, but said "we refrain -- on a global level -- from actively engaging in or endorsing the use of Lego bricks in projects or contexts of a political agenda."

Trangbaek added that the company denies "donations or support for projects -- such as the possibility of purchasing Lego bricks in very large quantities, which is not possible through normal sales channels -- where we are made aware that there is a political context."

Ai claimed that Lego acted with its own political motivations. He pointed to plans to build a Legoland in Shanghai announced last week.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/25/news/ai-weiwei-lego/index.html?iid=ob_homepage_NewsAndBuzz_pool&iid=obnetwork

October 25, 2015

Trump said Rubio "sweats like a dog"

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/10/24/trump-mocks-bush-in-florida-losing-badly-and-embarrassing-his-family/

Bush wasn’t the only rival Trump targeted during a speech that lasted about an hour and 20 minutes. Florida’s junior senator, Marco Rubio, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson also took hits.

“You’ve got Rubio doing poorly, and he sweats like a dog,” Trump said. “You’ve got Carson. I don’t know what the hell’s going on there. I don’t get it.”

It was the second straight day Trump campaigned in Florida, where he leads in recent polls — a point he took joy in letting the crowd know.

“Trump is No. 1. Rubio, waaaaay back,” Trump said. “You’re talking about a guy who’s sweating, now he’s really sweating.”

He also said Rubio is disloyal because he is challenging Bush for the nomination after saying for years that Bush was his political mentor.

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Daily mail ran this pic with their article

October 25, 2015

Judge Jeanine to Hillary before the hearings: Pitbull Trey Gowdy is coming for you

After going through a laundry list of questions that haven’t been answered, she noted one big difference between her previous testimony and the one before the House Select Committee on Benghazi scheduled for October 22.

That difference will be the committee’s chairman, the House Republican pit bull Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, she notes at about there 4:45 mark.

“Had it not been for Trey Gowdy, we would never have known about the server, the lies, the emails and the danger zone you allowed to our national security,” Pirro said. “To all the critics out there: let Trey Gowdy do his job.”



Read more: http://www.bizpacreview.com/2015/10/18/judge-jeanine-puts-hillary-on-notice-pitbull-trey-gowdy-is-coming-for-you-265502#ixzz3pZDsfa9n

October 25, 2015

Many on the right grudgingly say the former secretary of state bested her interrogaters

What Conservative Media Say About the Benghazi Hearing
Many on the right grudgingly say the former secretary of state avoided missteps and bested her interrogators in Thursday’s House committee marathon.


How did Hillary Clinton do in Thursday’s hearings of the House Select Committee on Benghazi? Liberals and Clinton supporters are jubilant. Mainstream outlets also confidently declared Clinton the winner.

“As a matter of pure political theater, yesterday’s Benghazi committee hearing was a victory for Hillary Clinton and an overwhelming defeat for House Republicans,” write NBC’s Chuck Todd and Mark Murray. “The hearing was, in a word, boring. And that’s exactly what Clinton wanted,” Chris Cillizza declared.

But what about conservative media? In such a politicized setting, with many liberals having already absolved Clinton of any wrongdoing in the September 11, 2012, attacks that killed four Americans in Libya, and many conservatives having already deemed her guilty of something, does that divide translate into the media response? Put another way, are declarations of Clinton victory another evidence of press bias?

Maybe not.

A trip around conservative media shows many commentators interpreted the hearings the same way mainstream and liberal reporters did: As a victory for a poised and polished Clinton, and a defeat for Republicans on the panel. One place to start is Fox News, where Ed Henry spoke with Greta van Susteren even as the hearings crawled along to their finish, 11 hours after they began.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/conservative-media-hillary-clinton-benghazi-committee/412117/

October 24, 2015

A philanthropist designs backpack for homeless. Distributes 400 in SF

Chicago philanthropist, Ron Kaplan, gives a demonstration of the free backpacks given away at the homeless Navigation Center in the Mission district on Friday, Oct. 23, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif.on Friday, Oct. 23, 2015 in San Francisco, Calif.


Homelessness isn’t backpacking. It’s not military marching. But there are aspects of those things that can make a big difference to a penniless drifter, and a Chicago philanthropist has distilled those aspects into a boxy little creation that could be life-changing.

He has had a backpack designed specifically for the homeless. On Friday, he brought 400 of them to hand out for free in San Francisco.
Homeless people get a lot of free things, like food and clothes, but this sturdy, waterproof, multi-pocketed and security-conscious contraption is different. In its own way, it’s dignity, acknowledgment, freedom and engagement all rolled into one black bag.

The homeless men and women shaking creator Ron Kaplan’s hand when they picked up their useful freebie understood the Zen and the practicality of it all right away.

“Sa-weet!” exclaimed Audrey Rome, 26, as she admired her new pack at arm’s length. She poked through the many pockets inside and out, and pinched the outer fabric between her fingers.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/A-backpack-to-help-S-F-s-homeless-deal-with-6587150.php#photo-8840193

October 24, 2015

"She’s ready for them. More than ready. Obama-level ready."

that Clinton calmly held her own for the entirety of the rather sickening, epic assault, during which not a single new or damning fact was uncovered, isn’t the most impressive part. It’s the other thing, how Clinton essentially showed America and the world exactly how she’ll respond – with what level of class, calm and intelligence – when she’s faced with this exact level of GOP venom and ineptitude nearly every day of her stewardship, should she become president.

In short: She’s ready for them. More than ready. Obama-level ready. She can take the “worst” the GOP has to offer – their most calculating buffoons, their nastiest pile-on tactics, their months of savage preparation, their inbred misogyny – and leverage it to her/our advantage, all without even breaking a sweat.

But it’s not just the GOP. It’s safe to translate that skill, that temperament straight over to how she’ll deal with all those other supposedly tough-minded, troublesome, macho world leaders, from Putin to Netanyahu, the U.N. to King Salman. “Reassuring” doesn’t begin to cover it. “Totally in control and sort of badass?” That’s more like it.

But there’s an even larger upshot: No more lukewarm liberal support. No more tepid fence-sitting for the large chunk of Democrats who’ve long been wary of Clinton, who’ve complained that, despite her obvious smarts and tenacity, she’s far from an ideal progressive candidate, for all the reasons you already know: too hawkish, too front-loaded with political baggage, too friendly with Wall Street, and so on.

Well, enough of that. If you weren’t much impressed by her before, it’s downright impossible not to be, now. Yes, Bernie is engaging, too. But Hillary just took it all to the next level – the truly presidential one.
http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/10/23/all-the-president-hillary-you-can-possibly-handle/