White House Correspondent’s Association too craven and cowardly to schedule a Comedian lest they face a twit storm of criticism from Unidicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio and his foul mouthed minority of yellow bellied, lily livered Bigots?
Don’t worry. Samantha Bee has you covered.
Red Carpet- Live!
I say we nuke them from orbit.
It’s the only way to be sure.
The Wall of Shame.
A musical number.
Awards.
In Memoriam.
Playground toys.
Let’s call a Spade a Playing Card with a shovel shaped symbol on it replacing earlier Spear iconography.
It’s funny because I say it is. You just don’t get it.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:30am (ET) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini killed; Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein born; Muhammad Ali refuses military induction during the Vietnam War; The first space tourist; ‘Tonight Show’ host Jay Leno born.
SINCE 2009, Big Pharma has given a decent amount of money each year to the Third Way Foundation, the parent of the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank with ties to Democratic Party leadership. The giving wasn’t astronomical, ranging between $25,000 and $75,000, but in 2016, the health care debate in the Democratic Party got real, and the contributions swelled, as Sen. Bernie Sanders gave Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton a scare, running on Medicare for All as a signature issue.
According to tax records, PhRMA, or the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, upped its gift that year to $265,000. With Donald Trump in the White House, PPI’s haul in 2017 from the drugmakers was back to normal, at $50,000, bringing the total since Barack Obama was inaugurated to $615,000. Figures for 2018 aren’t yet available yet, but PhRMA has been getting its money’s worth from PPI, as the group plays a leading role in opposing the Democratic Party’s move toward single payer.
Three years after Sanders’s first run, public opinion has shifted overwhelmingly in support of Medicare for All. Yet in its latest report “A Radically Pragmatic Vision for Universal Health Care,” PPI has worked to cast a majoritarian position as the handiwork of some fringe leftists.
PhRMA, which depends heavily on government patents and money for research and development, has teamed up with other health care interest groups to try to crush the movement for a single-payer system, and spent $28 million on lobbying last year — but that’s only what it had to report. Gifts to groups like PPI don’t legally count as lobbying.
PhRMA is part of a coalition of insurance providers, pharmaceutical companies, and investor-owned hospitals in the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future strategizing to defeat Medicare for All. The Intercept reported in November that PAHCF pushed Democratic candidates to run on saving the Affordable Care Act rather than supporting Medicare for All. And Democratic leadership won’t get behind single payer, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi advocating instead to fix the ACA and arguing that we just can’t pay for a nationalized health care system.
The Democratic establishment is already taking steps to stop insurgent progressive challengers to the party’s incumbents.
Marie Newman, who is challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) in the 2020 primary for the Illinois 3rd District, told Politico on Friday that a number of vendors have already dropped out of her campaign—the direct result of a rule put in place by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) banning consultants and other campaign mechanics from working with anyone running against a sitting Democrat.
“I’ve had four consultants leave the campaign,” Newman said. “We’ve now had two mail firms say that they couldn’t work with us because of the DCCC issue, and then a [communications] group, a compliance group and several pollsters.”
Per Politico:
Consultants who planned to work with Newman said that the DCCC delivered the warning in the nicest terms possible—but that it was a very clear threat to their ability to do business with the DCCC.
…Our Revolution delivered the committee a petition to rescind the rules with 30,000 signatures, but the DCCC is standing firm, an aide told Politico.
AFTER SEIZING UNIFIED control of the Colorado state government in November’s wave election, Democrats there did something unusual: They governed.
For decades, the oil and gas industry has had a stranglehold on Colorado politics, but the newly empowered Democrats unveiled a sweeping bill to rein in fracking. The industry spent millions to stop it, but Democrats muscled it through, and it was signed by Gov. Jared Polis, an independently wealthy Democrat who ran in opposition to the industry.
Now the industry is fighting back by threatening to recall state Rep. Rochelle Galindo, who was elected last year and represents Weld County, the state’s top oil and gas producer. Galindo is the first openly gay person or woman of color to hold her seat.
…
Recall efforts have also been launched against Polis, Rep. Meg Froelich and Sen. Jeff Bridges, but no official petitions have been approved. According to state law, a governor must be in office for at least six months before a recall can be petitioned. Polis opponents would have to obtain 630,000 signatures in 60 days to get a recall election on the next ballot, and the signatures can’t be collected until July.
It isn’t an empty threat, either. The last time Colorado Democrats held a trifecta of control, two Democratic lawmakers were successfully voted out of office in the state’s first-ever recall elections. Former Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron were ousted in an NRA-led effort for their support of tougher gun laws following the Sandy Hook and Aurora mass shootings. Those recalls have haunted Colorado politics since.
…
A single Weld County rancher, Steve Wells, is bankrolling the effort to push Galindo out of office. Wells, whose property has hundreds of oil and gas wells, has donated $100,000 to the Committee to Recall Rochelle Galindo through his company, according to filings with the Secretary of State’s office.
There was initially another recall effort against the freshman representative that has now been disbanded, pushed by Joe Neville, brother of Senate Minority Leader Patrick Neville; Weld County pastor Steven Grant, who called Galindo a “homosexual pervert”; and gun rights lobbyist Dudley Brown.
“The voters of House District 50 are not going to be intimidated by millionaires and special interests cutting six-figure checks to political operatives engaging in the divisive Washington-style politics Coloradans consistently reject,” Galindo said in a statement earlier this month. “People are free to disagree with the decisions I make at the state capitol, and they’re free to vote for someone else in 2020. I will fight every day for our community and our shared best interests, and even for the people who disagree with me.”
“The reality is, [the oil and gas industries] are not used to not getting their way,” Senate Majority Leader Steve Fenberg, a sponsor of the legislation, told The Intercept. “Specifically, they get to say which bills pass and which ones fail, and that’s what led us to the point of where we are now. So they gave it all they got. They spent millions of dollars on TV ads and patch-through phone calls to members to make it feel like there was a groundswell of opposition.”
Fenberg added that the oil and gas industries held rallies at the Capitol, hired an army of lobbyists, and were part of creating an obstructionist atmosphere in the state Senate, in which Republican senators would ask for bills to be read “at length,” a parliamentary tactic used to slow legislation.
KRAIG LEWIS WAS living in Connecticut and was nine credits away from his MBA when the neighborhood he had spent his life trying to get away from came back to haunt him. Growing up in a mostly poor and at times violent section of the Bronx, Lewis had seen his share of illegal activity. Some of those behind the criminality — mostly low-level drug dealing — were his friends. Lewis hung out with them while also keeping focused on school. Education was his ticket to a different life, his mother always said, and no one could take that away from him.
She was wrong. Three years ago this week, helicopters and armored vehicles swarmed Lewis’s old neighborhood, and SWAT teams and some 700 officers with the NYPD and a host of federal law enforcement agencies knocked down doors at the Eastchester Gardens public housing project and nearby homes. At the same time, 40 miles and a world away, police showed up at the loft apartment Lewis shared with his girlfriend in the seaside city of Bridgeport. Lewis, who had no criminal record and had never been arrested before, was taken away in handcuffs while his 6-year-old son was asleep in his bed. Police drove Lewis to the local station and then back to the Bronx, to a police precinct where he saw dozens of his childhood friends, some for the first time in years.
…
Like 117 other defendants in the case, Lewis was originally given a court-appointed lawyer. At his first court appearance, in federal court in downtown Manhattan, a judge told Lewis and dozens of his co-defendants that they could face the death penalty, though depending on the specific counts each of them was charged with, they faced a maximum sentence of 20 years or life. Lewis’s bail was initially set at $1.5 million, but prosecutors appealed that and he was held without bail as a “danger to society.”
Lewis spent 22 months in jail before pleading guilty to conspiring to distribute marijuana and once having owned a gun. There was no physical evidence against him — just text messages he had exchanged with friends from his neighborhood, social media photos that showed him socializing with other co-defendants, and the word of an unnamed witness. Prosecutors offered him a 12-year deal, which he refused. By the time they came back and offered him five years, life at the Metropolitan Detention Center had taken its toll. One of his friends there had been stabbed, and Lewis wanted out. He accepted the five years but the judge in the case thought that was too much, calling what had happened to him an “injustice” and releasing him on time served.
Lewis is now a convicted felon, on federal probation, unable to get the financial aid he needs to finish his MBA. He’s back at his mother’s home in the Bronx, living in a tiny room that had belonged to his teenage sister, his law and business textbooks stacked against pastel blue walls covered in butterfly decals. He works odd jobs, delivering Uber Eats and signaling traffic at road construction sites. “This is where I have got to rebuild everything from scratch,” he told me during a recent interview. “I am trying to do legal things and I keep getting the door shut in my face; the illegal activities are wide open in front of me.”
“I worked so hard, I had a plan, and that’s what’s killing me,” he added. “Growing up, you always feared the word ‘felon,’ because it’s like, you get a felony, you can’t do anything in the world.”
“I feel like I’m just going back in a machine. I made it out of the machine, and they grabbed me, and put me back into the machine, and now I’m stuck in the machine.”
April 25 (UPI) — A pair of Massachusetts 10-year-olds are hoping to save lives with a crosswalk they designed to capture the attention of drivers with a 3D illusion.
Isa, a fourth grader at Brooks Elementary School in Medford, said she and her friend Eric came up with the idea for the 3D crosswalk when Eric’s brother had a close encounter with a car.
The kids took their idea to the Center for Citizenship and Social Responsibility, a young people’s organization they belong to, and local artist Nate Swain was hired to put the idea into action in the driveway of the elementary school.
The crosswalk makes it appear to drivers as though the white lines are elevated from the ground.
“I love it. It looks amazing. Exactly how I pictured it and more,” Isa told CBS Boston. “When you’re walking across you can tell it’s painted, but what we hope is, when you’re driving down, you’ll see it as 3D, three dimensional. So it looks real.”
The city is planning to add similar crosswalks at the other three local elementary schools during the summer.
Pondering the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
On Sunday mornings we present a preview of the guests on the morning talk shows so you can choose which ones to watch or some do something more worth your time on a Sunday morning.
The Sunday Talking Heads: Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ);
This Week with George Stephanopolis: The guests on Sunday’s “This Week” are: House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC); nominee to the Federal Reserve Board Stephen Moore; Dan Abrams; and Alan Dershowitz.
The roundtable guests are: Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ); ABC News Political Analyst Matthew Dowd; “The View” Co-Host Meghan McCain; and Democratic Strategist Amanda Renteria.
Face the Nation: Host Margaret Brennan’s guests are: Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA); Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale; and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif.
Her panel guests are: Lanhee Chen, the Hoover Institution; Jamal Simmons), Hill.TV; Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report; and Mark Landler, The New York Times.
Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on this week’s “MTP” are: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI); and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.
The panel guests are: Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Robert Costa, The Washington Post; former Rep. Carlos Curbela (R-FL); and Peggy “Our Lady of the Magic Dolphins” Noonan, The Wall Street Journal.
His panel guests are: Former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D); Kirsten Powers<, USA Today; Republican strategist David Urban; and former Rep. Mia Love (R-NV).
Baku is the Capital of Azerbaijan and the largest City in the World below Sea Level. It is a Street Circuit and the 2nd longest track in Formula One. It’s a relatively recent expansion to the schedule having held its first race in 2017, just 2 years ago. Tires will run from C2 Hard to C4 Soft with Mediums adding 1.4 seconds per Lap and Hards 2.3. Most Teams will be running a 1 Stop except for Red Bull which seems prepped for 2.
Mercedes continues its string of good luck. After LeClerc and the Scuderia dominated practice he parked it quite heavily at the end of Q2 and will start no better than 9th if the car is in sufficiently good shape so as not to require a replacement chassis. Gasly of Red Bull will start from the pit after incuring a 5 position penalty for a gearbox replacement and then failing to report for a Steward’s inspection. Giovinazzi, also Maranello powered was penalized 10 spots. Kubica also parked in Qualifying and will start next to last.
Starting Grid-
Grid
Driver
Team
Grid
Driver
Team
1
Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes
2
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
3
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
4
Max Verstappen
Red Bull Racing Honda
5
Sergio Perez
Racing Point BWT Mercedes
6
Daniil Kvyat
Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda
7
Lando Norris
McLaren Renault
8
Kimi Räikkönen
Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari
9
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
10
Carlos Sainz
McLaren Renault
11
Daniel Ricciardo
Renault
12
Alexander Albon
Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda
13
Kevin Magnussen
Haas Ferrari
14
Lance Stroll
Racing Point BWT Mercedes
15
Romain Grosjean
Haas Ferrari
16
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault
17
George Russell
Williams Mercedes
18
Antonio Giovinazzi
Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari
19
Robert Kubica
Williams Mercedes
20
Pierre Gasly
Red Bull Racing Honda
Don’t let the length fool you. The fast Laps are in the low 1:40s but there are not really many places to pass. On the other hand there are a lot of corners that collect cars so Yellows and Reds can easily effect the results. Mercedes is crushing the early Manufacturer’s Standings and the Driver’s Championship is a duel between Hamilton and Bottas.
Driver’s Standings
Position
Driver
Team
Points
Position
Driver
Team
Points
1
Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes
68
2
Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes
62
3
Max Verstappen
Red Bull Racing Honda
39
4
Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari
37
5
Charles Leclerc
Ferrari
36
6
Pierre Gasly
Red Bull Racing Honda
13
7
Kimi Räikkönen
Alfa Romeo Racing Ferrari
12
8
Lando Norris
McLaren Renault
8
9
Kevin Magnussen
Haas Ferrari
8
10
Nico Hulkenberg
Renault
6
11
Daniel Ricciardo
Renault
6
2
Sergio Perez
Racing Point BWT Mercedes
5
13
Alexander Albon
Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda
3
14
Lance Stroll
Racing Point BWT Mercedes
2
15
Daniil Kvyat
Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda
1
Needless to say Maranello is very disappointed because they thought this was their year. It’s a bit too early to panic but if things continue as they have so far there could be major changes in Management even before the end of the season.
Sri Lanka attacks: Children of the Easter Sunday carnage
By Ayeshea PereraBBC News, Sri Lanka
One week ago many dozens of children were killed in Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday attacks. Dressed in their finest clothes for one of the most important church services of the year, this was the first generation in decades to grow up free of violence. Their stories – and the struggle for the surviving children to comprehend the carnage – take the island down a devastatingly familiar path.
When bubbly Sneha Savindri Fernando went along for the Easter Sunday service at St Sebastian’s church in Negombo, her mind was on something else entirely. She had spent weeks excitedly making plans for her 13th birthday – a day she would never get the chance to celebrate.
“She was like a little bird. She loved to dance. She danced to anything. If you asked her to dance, she would immediately jump into a sari or a long skirt and oblige,” her mother, Nirasha Fernando says. Sneha, Ms Fernando and their neighbours Gayani and Tyronne all left together in Tyronne’s auto-rickshaw.
Sri Lanka: churches shut as worshippers mourn one week after bombings
Cardinal Ranjith delivers televised sermon as bells ring out across the country
Associated Press
It was the first Sunday anyone could remember without a mass at St Sebastian’s.
A week since the bombings that killed at least 250 people, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, Sri Lanka’s most senior Catholic, had ordered the country’s churches not to hold services until police could be sure they would not be attacked.
In a televised mass, Ranjith delivered a homily before members of the clergy and the country’s leaders in a small chapel at his Colombo residence – an extraordinary measure underlining the fear still gripping this nation of 21 million people.
‘This Is Our Jungle’Abysmal Conditions for Refugees in the Greek Islands
The European Union claims that the refugee pact with Turkey has been a success. Yet asylum-seeker camps on Greek islands in the Aegean have transformed into prisons. Thousands of migrants live there in horrific conditions.
Annick Toudji has found a bit of shelter in between some cardboard boxes, tarps and plastic bottles. It stinks of urine that has trickled in from the hillside above, past rickety tents and past the rocks where Toudji is about to build a fire. The acrid stench is a constant presence.
A tall and gaunt 33-year-old, Toudji is perched on a stump and cutting tomatoes with short, decisive blows into a pot. “This is our jungle,” she says. It is a jungle without electricity or toilets. Instead, it has rats, cockroaches and scabies.
Sudan’s protest leaders, army rulers agree on joint council
Sudan’s protest leaders and army rulers agreed Saturday to establish a joint civilian-military ruling council, a major breakthrough in talks between the two sides over demonstrators’ demands for a handover to civilian rule.
The agreement on the highly disputed issue came as thousands of protesters remain encamped outside the military headquarters since the army ousted longtime leader Omar al-Bashir on April 11, demanding that the army rulers step down.
“We agreed on a joint council between the civilian and the military,” one of the leaders of the protest campaign, Ahmed al-Rabia, who was involved in the talks, told AFP.
Over the next few months, the world’s current and previous superpowers are set to undergo enormous self-harm.
The biggest victim could be democracy itself, and the biggest losers the approximately 4 billion people who live in its imperfect embrace.
As London and Washington convulse, China belches along, gobbling up cultures in a way that should alarm us all.
Pine room and a secret jewel: Japan’s abdication rituals
By Miwa Suzuki
Japan has waited more than two centuries for an emperor to abdicate, but the main ceremony to perform the ritual will take a mere 10 minutes.
The solemn rite will take place at precisely 5 p.m. on Tuesday in the 370-square-meter Matsu-no-Ma (Room of Pine), considered the most elegant hall in the sumptuous imperial palace.
It is the only room with wooden floors — made from Japanese zelkova trees — rather than carpet, and the walls are covered with fabric featuring raised pine-leaf motifs.
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here.
My go to web site for great recipes is Epicurious.com. They always have something that appeals to even the fussiest of palates. This week they created recipes that are better than take out and, probably, cheaper. Here are a few of their 51 recipes
We’ve got the secret to cooking a burger that’s crispy on the outside, yet juicy on the inside: Freeze the patties for 15 minutes before cooking, then use two large griddle spatulas to smash them flat against the hottest skillet possible. Freezing the meat prevents it from cooking too quickly in the middle, which gives you time to get that deeply browned crust.
Served with a bright, refreshing radish salad, these salty, sweet, and shatteringly crisp glazed thighs will satisfy all your classic chicken teriyaki cravings.
A lighter version of the iconic takeout dish, this spicy 22–minute recipe for General Tso’s Chicken is just as flavorful as the original. The Sriracha and tomato paste may not be authentic, but they give the dish a powerful umami boost.
Making a ground beef taco filling ain’t rocket science. You just cook ground meat with Tex-Mex seasonings. This recipe is a little spicy, but feel free to skip the serranos and substitute a packaged taco seasoning mixture for the spices, especially if you’re cooking for kids. Many taco seasoning mixes, such as Old El Paso and Ortega, come in your choice of spicy or mild.
Fried rice is one of the fastest, easiest meals you can make, and a great way to use up leftovers. Our vegetable-packed version calls for freshly cooked broccolini, snow peas, edamame, and chicken, but feel free to substitute any quick-cooking or leftover vegetables and protein. The simple orange-soy sauce adds acidity, sweetness, and an umami punch.
Our take on this classic Chinese-American dish can be cooked in 22 minutes or less. So the next time you crave take-out, put down the phone and pick up a skillet.
Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungoverwe’ve been bailed outwe’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.
This Day in History
President and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant born; Explorer Ferdinand Magellan killed; U.S. Marines attack North Africa during the First Barbary War; Ailing baseball star Babe Ruth honored.
Breakfast Tunes
Something to Think about over Coffee Prozac
The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.
As the day draws to a close in Rome, tourists are enjoying a nightcap at a bar on Piazza della Rotonda. In front of them stands the majestic Pantheon, the imposing domed temple built by Emperor Hadrian.
To their right, however, is a scene less befitting the piazza, famed for its elegance and history. A photomural of the temple covers boarding that surrounds a building under renovation and as the night gets later it is used to prop up a pile of rubbish bags and boxes discarded by nearby restaurants.
The rubbish will be cleared by the time the tourists have breakfast, but not before they have taken note. “Rome is beautiful but they can’t seem to manage the rubbish situation, can they?” remarked a visitor from Austria.
Pakistan suspends polio vaccine drive after health worker attacks
At least three polio workers have been killed in April, while thousands of parents have refused to allow their children to be inoculated. Pakistan is one of the three countries in the world where polio is endemic.
Pakistan authorities have suspended the anti-polio campaign “for an indefinite period” across the country amid increasing violent attacks on polio workers.
A nationwide anti-polio drive was launched in all districts of the country on April 22.
The South Asian country’s National Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) for polio directed all provinces on Friday to halt the drive, in an effort to protect some 270,000 polio field staff from attacks, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported on Saturday.
People are becoming angrier and more stressed, Gallup report says
People around the world are becoming angrier and more stressed – especially in Armenia and Greece, the annual Gallup Global Emotions Report has found.
A total of 150,000 people in more than 140 countries were polled in the 10-question survey, in which participants were asked about the positive and negative emotions they had experienced the day before. Questions ranged from “Did you smile or laugh yesterday?” to “Did you learn or do something interesting yesterday?” to “Did you experience physical pain?”
On a global average, 71 percent of respondents said they had experienced a lot of enjoyment the previous day, 72 percent said they had felt well rested, 74 percent reported having smiled or laughed, and 87 percent said they had been treated with respect.
Putin seems to pop up wherever there is a political vacuum in the world
Russian President Vladimir Putin capped a week of high-profile diplomacy on Friday, when he appeared at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing — and received an especially warm welcome from Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“President Putin is a good friend and an old friend to Chinese people,” Xi said. “And he is my closest friend.”
Friendship was also on the agenda in Putin’s summit meeting Thursday in the Russian city of Vladivostok with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. In Vladivostok, Putin positioned himself as an essential broker for resolving the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula, and as a prominent player on the world stage.
Hatred and dangerous nostalgia in Spain’s far-right farming town
Ahead of Sunday’s election, nostalgia for the Franco regime and xenophobia are palpable in El Ejido.
“I’ve never really been into politics,” says 43-year-old construction worker Francisco Maldonado, as he lights a cigarette in his apartment in Santa Maria Del Aguila, a town on the outskirts of El Ejido, a working-class suburb in the Spanish province of Almeria.
A short stroll away, at the base of low rocky hills, a rolling expanse of plastic-roofed greenhouses dominates the landscape, glaring under the midday sun.
Covering 31,000 hectares and extending along the region’s 50-kilometre stretch of coastline, it is the single largest concentration of greenhouses in the world and one of Spain’s major economic hubs, exporting its crop of fruit and vegetables across Europe.
Gerrymandering is the practice of manipulating the boundaries of an electoral constituency giving favor to one party or class.
The term is named after Elbridge Gerry, who as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812 signed a bill that created a contorted-shaped partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. In addition to its use achieving desired electoral results for a particular party, gerrymandering may be used to help or hinder a particular demographic, such as a political, ethnic, racial, linguistic, religious, or class group, such as in U.S. federal voting district boundaries that produce a majority of constituents representative of African-American or other racial minorities, known as “majority-minority districts“. Gerrymandering can also be used to protect incumbents.
Since the 2010 Census and the Supreme Court’s ruling that struck down part of the voting rights acts, Republicans have been especially adept in using this practice to isolate their opposition taking control of state legislatures and the House of Representatives in several Midwestern and Southern states. The Democrats have only managed to pull this off in one state, Maryland. That is slowly coming to and end. On Thursday a three judge panel of the U.S. District Court of Eastern Michigan declared Michigan’s congressional map unconstitutional and ordered it redrawn for the 2020 election.
The three-judge panel said it found that the redistricting plan in 34 congressional and state legislative districts was designed to thwart Democratic voters by dispersing their votes into districts where Republicans dominated, in violation of the First and 14th amendments.
“Evidence from numerous sources demonstrates that the map-drawers and legislators designed the Enacted Plan with the specific intent to discriminate against Democratic voters,” the panel, two judges appointed by President Bill Clinton and one by President George H.W. Bush, wrote in its decision.
The panel ordered the state’s Republican-controlled legislature to come to an agreement with its newly sworn-in Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, to redraw the districts from the plan before the 2020 elections. If the state officials are unable to come up with new maps by Aug. 1, the court will redraw them itself.
The violations were so pronounced, the panel said, that all of the state Senate districts in the plan would need to have special elections, meaning that some lawmakers’ four-year terms would be cut short. [..]
The panel noted that the redistricting plan had advantaged Republicans over the course of several election cycles. In three elections in those districts between 2012 and 2016, Republicans won 64 percent of the state’s congressional seats — nine out of 14 — while never earning more than 50.5 percent of the statewide vote, they wrote.
The Michigan ruling now lies with the Supreme Court who last month heard arguments for cases in Maryland and North Carolina where federal panels made similar decisions. It is probable that the GOP majority will request a stay of the order until the Supreme Court rules this June.
Thursday night MSNBC host Ali Velshi, sitting in for Chris Hayes on All In, discussed the ruling with Katy Fahey, founder of Voters Not Politicians and the subject of the documentary “Slay the Dragon,” and the documentary’s producer Barak Goodman.
Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from> around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Pondering the Pundits”.
“If you live in the Midwest, where else do you want to live besides Chicago? You don’t want to live in Cincinnati or Cleveland or, you know, these armpits of America.” So declared Stephen Moore, the man Donald Trump wants to install on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, during a 2014 event held at a think tank called, yes, the Heartland Institute.
The crowd laughed.
Moore is an indefensible choice on many grounds. Even if he hadn’t shown himself to be extraordinarily misogynistic and have an ugly personal history, his track record on economics — always wrong, never admitting error or learning from it — is utterly disqualifying.
His remarks about the Midwest, however, highlight more than his unsuitability for the Fed. They also provide an illustration of something I’ve been noticing for a while: The thinly veiled contempt conservative elites feel for the middle-American voters they depend on.
It may be risky politically, but Congress has a responsibility to act.
The decision facing the House Democrats over whether to proceed with an impeachment of President Trump is both more difficult and more consequential than the discussion of it suggests. The arguments offered by House leaders, in particular Speaker Nancy Pelosi, against it are understandable, including that impeachment could invite a wrenching partisan fight; render the party vulnerable to the charge that it’s obsessed with scoring points against Mr. Trump; and distract Democrats from focusing on legislation of more interest to voters.
But the Democrats would also run enormous risks if they didn’t hold to account a president who has clearly abused power and the Constitution, who has not honored the oath of office and who has had a wave of campaign and White House aides plead guilty to or be convicted of crimes.
The argument that the Democratic House wouldn’t be able to focus on substantive legislation is the flimsiest rationale. It did so in 1974 while the House Judiciary Committee was considering the impeachment of Richard Nixon. It seems clear that what the Democratic leaders are actually worried about is public relations. The press no doubt would focus on that sexier subject. [..]
The Democrats may succeed in avoiding a tumultuous, divisive fight over impeachment now. But if they choose to ignore clear abuses of the Constitution, they’ll also turn a blind eye to the precedent they’re setting and how feckless they’ll look in history.
By the standards of a potential impeachment inquiry, the evidence is clear.
n his first letter after receiving the Mueller report, Attorney General William Barr accurately quoted it as saying that “the investigation did not establish” that the Trump campaign “conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
But the opposite is also true: The Mueller report does establish that, in fact, members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
How is this possible? It’s the difference between the report’s criminal prosecution standard of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” and a lower standard — the preponderance standard of “more likely than not” — relevant for counterintelligence and general parlance about facts, and closer to the proper standard for impeachment.
There is confusion about the Mueller report’s fact-finding because he used the wrong coordination standard, obstruction probably obscured the evidence of crimes, and the summary was unclear about evidentiary standards. The report’s very high standard for legal conclusions for criminal charges was explicitly proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” So the report did not establish crimes beyond a reasonable doubt. But it did show a preponderance of conspiracy and coordination.
Joe Biden begins his presidential campaign with a lead over the crowded Democratic field and a simple message the nation can immediately grasp: I can stop the madness. I can beat President Trump. [..]
Conventional wisdom holds that the Democratic candidates can’t just be anti-Trump — that they must talk primarily about bread-and-butter issues such as health care, the opioid crisis and the hollowing out of the working class. Indeed, Democrats do have to offer solutions. But to be silent about Trump is to tiptoe around the elephant in the parlor. The single biggest issue, for the health and prosperity of the nation, is getting him out of office.
We will hear much in the coming months about which candidates appeal to which components of the electorate. Biden potentially could do very well with two widely disparate groups in particular — the white working-class voters in the Rust Belt who gave Trump his 2016 victory; and the African Americans without whose support no one can win the Democratic presidential nomination.
But is Biden too moderate for a party that has moved leftward in recent years? I think he should invite a group of the fiery first-term Democratic women in the House to lunch. Instead of trying to hug them, he should listen to what they have to say. If he fails to make a real effort to understand how the party has changed, his first day on the campaign trail may turn out to have been his best day.
I used to be a reluctant environmentalist. Of course, as a scientist, I’ve always believed in the science of climate change – even a casual examination of the evidence shows that humans burning fossil fuels into the Earth’s atmosphere is causing it. But my reluctance wasn’t about science, it’s just that the images of melting glaciers and dying polar bears – while compelling for many people – just didn’t move me. I’m not an outdoorsman. Besides, polar bears, however cute and cuddly they may seem, eat their own young.
As a doctor, I careabout people. And the consequences of climate change felt so remote from the daily struggle. Babies are dying, so why should I be worried about faraway glaciers and cannibalistic bears? But after being appointed health director of the City of Detroit, I realized that the forces that cause climate change are the same forces that poisoned the lungs of babies in my city. Today, I’m standing up for the Green New Deal because it’s also a Public Health New Deal.
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s 
