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Monday, February 29, 2016

The "Brown Shirts" are organizing. Trump rally turns violent: photographer thrown to ground amid protests | US news | The Guardian

There’s also the real possibility that the New York Telephone case doesn’t matter at all. The All Writs Act only applies where there’s no preexisting statute that addresses the situation — but we’ve added a lot of new statutes in the 39 years since New York Telephone was argued. Some legal experts have offered 1994’s Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act in particular as a relevant statute. If the court agrees, it would strike at the heart of the government’s case, punting the entire argument directly back to Congress.
The government’s filings address this up front, claiming CALEA is inapplicable because Apple isn’t a carrier and the order concerns stored data rather than real-time phone records. But Apple’s filing points out a separate section of CALEA that says the government "cannot dictate to providers of electronic communications services or manufacturers of telecommunications equipment any specific equipment design or software configuration." It’s not an exact match — since GovtOS won’t be sold as a product, maybe it’s more like a coding request than a dictated software configuration — but for many, it sounds an awful lot like what the FBI is asking from Apple in the broader encryption fight.


Trump rally turns violent: photographer thrown to ground amid protests | US news | The Guardian

Is #MSNBCSoWhite? The departure of Melissa Harris-Perry raises the issue - The Washington Post

MSNBC spent about six years building itself into a different kind of cable-news network, with a diverse cast of hosts, anchors and contributors. It has taken a matter of months for people to call that image into question.
The network on Saturday dropped host Melissa Harris-Perry after she walked off her program to protest a series of preemptions because of campaign coverage. Harris-Perry, an African American intellectual, effectively sealed her fate by issuing an email to her colleagues that implied the network had mistreated her because of her race.


Is #MSNBCSoWhite? The departure of Melissa Harris-Perry raises the issue - The Washington Post

After Tense Weeks, Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC Show Is Canceled - The New York Times

I am disgusted and I have had it with MSNBC. Once again the Sisyphean nature of racial progress and the dominance of white privilege manifests itself in America,   "It all began to unravel for Melissa Harris-Perry four weeks ago.



It was a day before the Iowa caucuses, and despite being in Des Moines, she was not hosting the weekend show on MSNBC that bears her name. That privilege belonged to the network’s legal correspondent, Ari Melber, who quickly introduced her in a split-screen at the beginning of the show.



“It’s a very exciting day here in the ‘Place for Politics,’ ” he said, referring to MSNBC’s slogan. “We are going to get to Melissa, who everyone can see there live in Iowa, in just a second.”



Ms. Harris-Perry vanished from the screen and Mr. Melber added, “That’s what we call proof of life.”



Mr. Melber was joking but the phrasing turned out to be eerily prescient when it came to how Ms. Harris-Perry felt she was treated by the network in the following weeks.



Two days after an email became public in which Ms. Harris-Perry said she felt “worthless” to NBC News executives, and after two weeks of her show being pre-empted so that the network could cover other news, an MSNBC spokesman on Sunday confirmed that the network and Ms. Harris-Perry were “parting ways.”



After Tense Weeks, Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC Show Is Canceled - The New York Times

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Donald Trump (HBO) He tears apart Trump

Idris Elba: Beasts of No Nation and James Bond - The man who deserved an Academy Award

Video: Screen Actors Guild 2016: Idris Elba wins two awards - Telegraph



Video: Screen Actors Guild 2016: Idris Elba wins two awards - Telegraph

Sunday, February 28, 2016

Hillary Clinton, ‘Smart Power’ and a Dictator’s Fall - The New York Times

Hillary Clinton, ‘Smart Power’ and a Dictator’s Fall - The New York Times

"This is the story of how a woman whose Senate vote for the Iraq war may have doomed her first presidential campaign nonetheless doubled down and pushed for military action in another Middle Eastern country. As she once again seeks the White House, campaigning in part on her experience as the nation’s chief diplomat, an examination of the intervention she championed shows her at what was arguably her moment of greatest influence as secretary of state. It is a working portrait rich with evidence of what kind of president she might be, and especially of her expansive approach to the signal foreign-policy conundrum of today: whether, when and how the United States should wield its military power in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East."

Saturday, February 27, 2016

What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team - The New York Times

"As the researchers studied the groups, however, they noticed two behaviors that all the good teams generally shared. First, on the good teams, members spoke in roughly the same proportion, a phenomenon the researchers referred to as ‘‘equality in distribution of conversational turn-taking.’’ On some teams, everyone spoke during each task; on others, leadership shifted among teammates from assignment to assignment. But in each case, by the end of the day, everyone had spoken roughly the same amount. ‘‘As long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well,’’ Woolley said. ‘‘But if only one person or a small group spoke all the time, the collective intelligence declined.’’



Second, the good teams all had high ‘‘average social sensitivity’’ — a fancy way of saying they were skilled at intuiting how others felt based on their tone of voice, their expressions and other nonverbal cues. One of the easiest ways to gauge social sensitivity is to show someone photos of people’s eyes and ask him or her to describe what the people are thinking or feeling — an exam known as the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test. People on the more successful teams in Woolley’s experiment scored above average on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test. They seemed to know when someone was feeling upset or left out. People on the ineffective teams, in contrast, scored below average. They seemed, as a group, to have less sensitivity toward their colleagues.



What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team - The New York Times

Friday, February 26, 2016

Hillary Clinton has a race problem — and it’s resurfacing at a dangerous time - Salon.com



"Americans remember that Hillary Clinton’s ‘90s policy stances punished those born into systemic racism and poverty by instituting mandatory minimums, eliminating rehabilitative programs for inmates addicted to drugs, implementing the three-strikes law (which Bill now admits “made the problem worse”), expanding the death penalty (which Hillary still supports), and building more prisons countrywide.
Indeed, the ‘94 legislation threw millions of black women and men into prison; in fact, throughout Bill Clinton’s presidency, the black prison population increased by 50 percent.
All of this spelled mass incarceration and mass disenfranchisement for the black Americans of South Carolina.
Today, due to felonies, one out of every 27 black voters in South Carolina is disenfranchised, and, although black people make up just 28 percent of the state’s population, they account for a devastating 62 percent of the prison and jail population, in no small part because of the draconian measures the Clinton administration, along with the strong support of its first lady, took in the name of being “tough on crime.”
And now, 20 years later, at the end of February 2016, Clinton finds herself being directly challenged by a young Black protester named Ashley Williams on her past rhetoric and role in creating America’s stringent criminal justice system, under which people are still being penalized today, including those in South Carolina."

In Republican Debate, a Feisty Marco Rubio Lays Into Donald Trump - The New York Times



In Republican Debate, a Feisty Marco Rubio Lays Into Donald Trump - The New York Times

Clinton regrets 1996 remark on ‘super-predators’ after encounter with activist - The Washington Post

This is weak but we must confront all politicians about what they do and say about life.  With politicians you often have to be "rude" or they will ignore you.



"In a written response to The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart on the issue Thursday, Clinton said: “Looking back, I shouldn’t have used those words, and I wouldn’t use them today."



"My life’s work has been about lifting up children and young people who’ve been let down by the system or by society, kids who never got the chance they deserved," Clinton continued in the statement. "And unfortunately today, there are way too many of those kids, especially in African-American communities.  We haven’t done right by them.  We need to.  We need to end the school to prison pipeline and replace it with a cradle-to-college pipeline."



Clinton regrets 1996 remark on ‘super-predators’ after encounter with activist - The Washington Post

Thursday, February 25, 2016

President Jimmy Carter: The United States is an Oligarchy...

The Rubio and Cruz Delusion - The New Yorker

Even scarier than Trump. "Cruz took the stage to deliver what sounded like a victory speech after a resounding loss. It was like watching a broadcast from North Korea. Cruz came onstage to cheers and applause from smiling supporters, who arrayed themselves behind him. “God bless the great state of Nevada!” Cruz announced. Even though the race had been called for Trump, Cruz said the ballots were still being counted and suggested there was some mystery about the results. “I want to congratulate Donald Trump on a strong evening tonight.” He couldn’t bring himself to admit Trump had won."



The Rubio and Cruz Delusion - The New Yorker

A Democratic socialist talks Sanders Bernie Sanders style of socialism has struck a chord with millions of voters. One of the nation's leading Democratic socialists and activists, Professor Frances Fox Piven, joins Lawrence to talk about the Sanders campaign and what it means for America. - The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC



The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC

Why the Oscars really lack diversity In his latest Rewrite, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell discusses why he thinks the film 'Beasts of No Nation' was overlooked by the Academy Awards this year and why the Oscars lack real diversity. - The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC



The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

‘Good Morning, Mr. Mandela’ Movie in the Works | Variety

Nelson Mandela



"Maven Pictures and Jacqui Lewis are producing the film adaptation of Zelda la Grange’s book “Good Morning, Mr. Mandela,” based on her friendship with the former South African president.



La Grange, a white Afrikaner, grew up surrounded by people who perceived Mandela as a terrorist but she eventually served as one his most devoted associates for almost two decades. She began working in Mandela’s office as a typist in 1994, when he was elected as the post-apartheid president, and was promoted in 1999 to the post of private secretary to the office of the president.



Maven co-founders Celine Rattray and Trudie Styler are producing with Lewis. The producers have not yet attached a director or actors for “Good Morning, Mr. Mandela.”



Mandela died in late 2013, shortly after the release of the film “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom,”



‘Good Morning, Mr. Mandela’ Movie in the Works | Variety

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

NYTimes: Donald Trump in New York: Deep Roots, but Little Influence

"Mr. Trump once received favorable treatment from the city’s tabloid newspapers, personally calling in stories that landed on the front page. But as he stokes populist outrage in the Republican presidential primaries, The Daily News, in particular, has hardly embraced him as a local boy done good and has instead served up headlines like “Dawn of the Brain Dead” and “Anti Christ!”

New Nelson Mandela biopic to tell story of South African freedom fighter's years in power

New Nelson Mandela biopic to tell story of South African freedom fighter's years in power

"La Grange told the Observer’s John Carlin in 2008 that she burst into tears upon first meeting Mandela in 1994 out of a sense of guilt at how the Afrikaans people had treated the great man.

John Carlin meets Nelson Mandela's secretary Zelda la Grange
“I was scared of him, not knowing what to expect of him, whether he was going to dismiss me, humiliate me,” she said. “And instantly it was that feeling of guilt that all Afrikaners carry with them …

“Because you could see he wasn’t 60, he was 75 at the time, and you could see he was old, and the thing that immediately crosses your mind is, ‘I sent this man to jail.’ My people sent this man to jail! I was part of this even though I couldn’t vote … Then I started crying. And then he shook my hand and he held my hand.”

La Grange was later hand-picked by Mandela to attend overseas meetings, first as a symbol that the new South Africa was keen to work with people of all colours and creeds and later as a trusted aide who paid attention to detail and got things done. “We both had the same urgency,” she told Carlin when asked to explain her rapid rise in the role. “I also had that very Afrikaner thing of respect for the orders of the boss, respect for elderly people, a submissive role before the person in charge, and I was very happy with that because that was my upbringing.”

The Counted: people killed by police in the United States – interactive

The Counted: people killed by police in the United States – interactive

295,000 US deaths may be prevented by 2030 with cuts to greenhouse gas

295,000 US deaths may be prevented by 2030 with cuts to greenhouse gas

"New paper finds that Americans who would otherwise die from lung cancer, heart attacks or respiratory diseases would be saved by reduction in air pollution
US climate change greenhouse gas global warming
According to the World Health Organisation, about seven million people died in 2012 as a result of air pollution."

295,000 US deaths may be prevented by 2030 with cuts to greenhouse gas

"New paper finds that Americans who would otherwise die from lung cancer, heart attacks or respiratory diseases would be saved by reduction in air pollution
US climate change greenhouse gas global warming
According to the World Health Organisation, about seven million people died in 2012 as a result of air pollution."

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Pope Calls for Worldwide Abolition of Death Penalty - NBC News

A real religious leader that understands Jesus' teaching better than any evangelical I have ever met! "At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women.Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap,in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.



Pope Calls for Worldwide Abolition of Death Penalty - NBC News

Real Time with Bill Maher: New Rule – For the Love of Bud (HBO) The truth that so many Americans are afraid to acknowledge.

Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show - Bruno Mars & Beyonce ONLY [HD] 2016 Excellent Performance and for those who don't like it get over it. The Black Panthers were heroes.

NYTimes: For 45 Years in Prison, Louisiana Man Kept Calm and Held Fast to Hope

NYTimes: For 45 Years in Prison, Louisiana Man Kept Calm and Held Fast to Hope

"On Friday morning, Mr. Woodfox, who had just turned 69, was released from prison as part of a plea deal with Louisiana prosecutors. He pleaded no contest before a state judge to charges of manslaughter and aggravated burglary in the 1972 death of a corrections officer. In return, he turned his back on the 45 years he had spent in Louisiana’s custody, nearly all that time in a 50-square-foot cell, perhaps the longest time in solitary confinement of any prisoner in United States history."

NYTimes: Why Is Mitch McConnell Picking This Fight?

NYTimes: Why Is Mitch McConnell Picking This Fight?

"There was an obvious cost to this approach. Withholding any support for President Obama’s agenda meant giving up the chance for more policy concessions on big issues like health care and financial reform. But for Mr. McConnell, shaping policy wasn’t the goal. Winning was. When he said, notoriously, just before the 2010 election that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” it was less an expression of personal animosity than it was a simple reflection of the permanent campaign ethos."

NYTimes: The Crisis of Minority Unemployment

NYTimes: The Crisis of Minority Unemployment

"The outrage is that there are strategies, which Congress has rejected, that could help rescue a generation of young men from failure and oblivion. Among these is the employment subsidy program that was passed as part of the Recovery Act in 2009. It created more than 260,000 temporary jobs for young people and adults. Governors and employers were ecstatic. But Republicans in Congress denounced the program as useless a year later and blocked proposals that would have extended it."

Friday, February 19, 2016

Donald Trump confronted with past support for Iraq war

Donald Trump confronted with past support for Iraq war

"The Republican frontrunner was left scrambling during a CNN town hall when confronted with a 2002 interview in which he supported the Iraq invasion. "

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Donald Trump’s Secret? Channeling Andrew Jackson - The New York Times

What could the voters of such a region possibly see in a loud and self-interested New York real estate tycoon? In some respects, he is a type of leader Appalachia has seen before. Students of history will recognize that Mr. Trump is a Jackson man.



Consciously or not, Mr. Trump’s campaign echoes the style of Andrew Jackson, and the states where Mr. Trump is strongest are the ones that most consistently favored Jackson during his three runs for the White House.



What Mr. Trump borrows from Jackson is not an issue, but a way of thinking about the world. Mr. Trump promises to fix his supporters’ problems, no matter who else is hurt. He’s a wealthy celebrity always ready for a fight, a superpatriot who says he will make America great again. He vows to attack government corruption and defend the common man. All this could be said of Jackson.





Donald Trump’s Secret? Channeling Andrew Jackson - The New York Times

Monday, February 15, 2016

The Fire Meets the Wall - The New York Times

In last week’s debate, a testy, abrasive and often flat-out rude Sanders tried to navigate this terrain, and failed. When Clinton attacked him for his criticism, an attack Sanders called a “low blow,” Sanders responded: “Last I heard we lived in a democratic society. Last I heard, a United States senator had the right to disagree with the president, including a president who has done such an extraordinary job. So I have voiced criticisms. You’re right. Maybe you haven’t. I have.”



All true, but unfortunately in today’s politics, nuance loses. Hillary loses in her nuanced argument about practicality, and Sanders loses in his nuanced argument about criticizing the president.



For all these reasons, Clinton’s margin in South Carolina seems to me too wide to hold to the current degree, but sadly for Sanders it’s also one that seems too wide to completely close. And on the horizon are many more states that look more like South Carolina than Iowa and New Hampshire.



The Fire Meets the Wall - The New York Times

Sunday, February 14, 2016

NYTimes: Justice Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court Legacy

NYTimes: Justice Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court Legacy

"From abortion rights to marriage equality and desegregation, Justice Scalia opposed much of the social and political progress of the late 20th century and this one. He wanted to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision on women’s rights to privacy, he dissented on the decision that said anti-sodomy laws were unconstitutional, and he dissented on decisions that it was unconstitutional to execute mentally disabled or teenage prisoners. He disapproved of the Miranda decision that requires police to read prisoners their rights."

Friday, February 12, 2016

Eric Garner's Daughter Endorses Bernie Sanders -- NYMag

This is huge for me. This occurred very close to where I grew up. This is the most important issue for African Americans, even if it is not number ! for white liberals. If their family members and neighbors were dying this issue would jump to the top of their list. Once again White Supremacy rears it's ugly head.


Eric Garner's Daughter Endorses Bernie Sanders -- NYMag

Eric Garner's Daughter Endorses Bernie Sanders -- NYMag

This is huge for me. This occurred very close to where I grew up. This is the most important issue for African Americans, even if it is not number ! for white liberals. If their family members and neighbors were dying this issue would jump to the top of their list. Once again White Supremacy rears it's ugly head.


Eric Garner's Daughter Endorses Bernie Sanders -- NYMag

Beyonce's style director on controversial Super Bowl outfit - Fox 5 NY | WNYW

Dumb, Dumb and dumber.  White Privilege rears it's ugly head again.  Was Beyonce's outfit inspired by Michael Jackson (most likely) or the Panthers ( I saw many Black Panthers and never saw one with a sexy outfit on)?  What does it matter?  What was wrong with the "Black Panther Party For Self Defense"?  Are not Black people entitled to defend themselves from physical abuse just like white people?  The "so called" founding fathers took up arms against the British for far less cause than African Americans have to revolt today.  Remember the founding "so called " fathers were rich slave masters.  George Washington was the richest colonist in the 13 colonies (See Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of the United States).  This is a controversy only because some dumb, narrow minded, poorly educate white folk think they have the right to tell people of color what symbols we should use and how we should celebrate our history.  Unfortunately white supremacy is so ingrained in American culture that most Americans, of all colors fail to see it's most obvious manifestations.   May Huey P Newton and Nat Turner's ghost pay these whining whites a visit in their dreams, LOL.




Beyonce's style director on controversial Super Bowl outfit - Fox 5 NY | WNYW

Thursday, February 11, 2016

Why Donald Trump Is Such a Formidable Politician - The New Yorker

"It is sometimes said that Trump’s support is confined to the poorly educated, but in the Granite State he also came out ahead among people who attended some college and among college graduates. The only educational demographic with which he didn’t finish first was voters with a postgraduate degree."...  "When Trump makes offensive comments or insults his opponents and media critics, it seems only to confirm in the minds of many Republican and independent voters that he is an authentic anti-politician. Last weekend, Adam Gabbatt, a reporter for the Guardianvisited a biker bar in Seabrook, New Hampshire, where he found quite a few Trump supporters. “He’s bringing a point of view that isn’t common in politics,” one of the bikers said. “He’s self-funding so nobody can buy him,” said another."






Why Donald Trump Is Such a Formidable Politician - The New Yorker

Ben Jealous draws distinctions in Democratic race | MSNBC



Ben Jealous draws distinctions in Democratic race | MSNBC

Monday, February 08, 2016

White America’s ‘Broken Heart’ - The New York Times

"On Sunday, at the Corinthian Baptist Church in Des Moines, former President Bill Clinton, looking frail and sounding faint, stumped for his wife, working through her qualifications with a husband’s devotion and a Svengali’s facility.



But one thing he said stood out to me for its clear rhetorical framing.



He attributed much of the anger that’s present in the electorate to anxiety over a changing demographic profile of the country, but then said: We are going to share the future. The only question is: What will be the terms of the sharing?"

Sunday, February 07, 2016

Once Impervious, Marco Rubio Is Diminished by a Caustic Chris Christie - The New York Times





Once Impervious, Marco Rubio Is Diminished by a Caustic Chris Christie - The New York Times

Mr. Christie accomplished something that the rest of the Republican field has repeatedly tried but failed to do so far: diminish and even embarrass Mr. Rubio, whose rapid rise in the polls, broad appeal and seeming imperviousness to attack have made impeding him his rivals’ most urgent mission.

Mr. Christie, who as a presidential candidate has frequently suppressed his most pugilistic instincts, cast off any restraint and did what he does best: slice and slash.

He derisively called Mr. Rubio nothing more than a programmed deliverer of polished-sounding lines.

Seconds later, Mr. Rubio seemed to prove Mr. Christie right.

Mr. Rubio was already on the defensive. Pressed to prove that, despite his short time and lack of major accomplishment in the Senate, he had the experience and skills to be president, Mr. Rubio instead pivoted quickly to a well-rehearsed argument about President Obama’s liberal agenda.