Former Chair of The DNC, Donna Brazile, continues on her 12-step program to Clinton-sobriety today telling MSNBC's Joe Scarborough that the "arrogant" Clinton campaign was more like "cult" than a political campaign.
Brazile further said that the main reason Clinton lost was due to her "arrogance."
Brazile pulls no punches…
SCARBOROUGH: “Bottom line it for us. Why did they lose? Was it, at the end of the day, arrogance?”
BRAZILE: “Yes, Joe. It was a cult, I felt like it was a cult. You could not penetrate them. I mean, I — look, you can — I’m a grassroot organizer. I know street politics better than I know sweet politics. I know how to touch people where they live, work, pray, and play. But I cannot help a candidate, Joe, if I don’t have the resources, if I cannot spend the resources that the party is raising because there’s a blind agreement between…“
BRZEZINSKI: “…Exactly…"
BRAZILE: "…A campaign…"
BRZEZINSKI: "…Unspoken even"
BRAZILE: "…And, again, I want my party to come back from this stronger. I like what Tom Perez is doing. I know he said this is not about my book. Baby, I know it’s not about my book. But it’s about making much-needed changes and reform inside the party. I’ve sat at the table. I want to make room for others to sit at the table, but you have to come into the room knowing you have to change the recipe. Yesterday was a wake-up call for the Democrats, too. Because you know what? It’s coming from the bottom up. It’s not top-down anymore. It’s bottom-up politics now.”
The death Frank Liberto, the “Father of Nachos,” this week is a reminder that cultural appropriation’s biggest enablers are clueless reporters who’ll swallow any Montezuma’s Revenge that PR hacks and Google feed them, Gustavo Arellano writes.
When I finally found the source for most of these origin stories, it turned out they were outright lies created to feed into American preconceptions of Mexicans as stupid, lazy beaners.
Such dereliction by writers not only erases Mexicans from their own history but becomes its own fuel for the hype fire that sets off most cultural appropriation controversies in the first place. Why look for Mexicans cooking Mexican food when it’s easier to find whites and Asians doing the same? And why go to a Mexican restaurant run by Mexicans when they don’t get the attention others do? You can’t blame restaurateurs for wanting to make money, but you should blame the people whose job it is to promote the Next Big Thing.
If food writers (and social media influencers) would do actual journalism (or hire writers who know what the hell they’re talking about), then most of the poster children for culinary cultural appropriation would get as much attention as a week-old bowl of guacamole and promptly disappear. Then social justice types could move on to bigger issues than whether it’s OK that a Virginia housewife was the Johnny Appleseed of Mexican cooking in the U.S.
This just might spoil what has so far been a strong year for Carl Icahn. Bloomberg is reporting that the FBI has issued subpoenas for information on Carl Icahn’s possible lobbying to change biofuel policy while serving as an informal adviser to President Donald Trump, according to regulatory filings.
Icahn, who briefly served as an adviser to the president and who was once suspected of being a possible pick for Treasury, announced in August that he was no longer serving as an adviser to the president regarding regulatory reform. In his curiously worded letter, he specified that he “never had a formal position” in the White House.
The Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York is “seeking production of information” pertaining to Icahn’s activities regarding the Renewable Fuel Standard, according to a Form 10-Q that Icahn Enterprises LP filed on Friday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The investigators also want information on Icahn’s role as an adviser to the president, the document says.
“We are cooperating with the request and are providing information in response to the subpoena,” Icahn Enterprises said in the filing. “The U.S. Attorney’s office has not made any claims or allegations against us or Mr. Icahn."
Neither Icahn nor the DOJ commented for Bloomberg. The news immediately hit shares of Icahn Enterprises.
The price of Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs, the credits used to show compliance with the biofuel mandate have been volatile in the past year, Bloomberg says. The RIN tracking ethanol consumption, for example, tumbled some 35% in one day after it was reported that Icahn struck a deal for changes with segments of the ethanol industry. That deal never resulted in policy changes.
Icahn, the majority owner of independent oil refiner CVR Energy Inc., has been criticized for pushing for regulatory reforms that would benefit his business interests. Specifically, he wanted the Environmental Protection Agency to change who must comply with annual biofuel quotas, shifting the burden away from fuel refiners.
The US Attorney also sent subpoenas to CVR Energy for information on its activities, as well as those of CVR Refining and Icahn, according to a separate filing by that company.
Icahn’s role was a controversial one from the start, one reason he was passed over for Treasury Secretary – because he said he’d be unwilling to part with his business interests. Some criticized him for his adviser role, accusing him of self-dealing.
The value of Icahn’s stake in the Texas refiner increased by $491 million between Nov. 8 and Aug. 2, to about $1.4 billion, a period running from Trump’s election to the day before reports surfaced that the Trump administration was set to reject the bid to relieve refiners of their burden to satisfy annual biofuel quotas.
Since the headlines hit the price of RINs have tumbled 4.5%…
Earlier this week, following a series of interviews with Matt Lauer, Megyn Kelly and Dr. Oz, Corey Feldman announced via twitter that he had filed a formal complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department regarding a pedophilia ring that he says has persisted in Hollywood since he burst onto the scene as America’s favorite child actor in the 80’s.
IMPORTANT CAMPAIGN UPD8: I JUST COMPLETED A FORMAL SIT DOWN INTERVIEW W @LAPDHQ SPECIAL DIVISION, & GAVE THEM ALL THE INFO I KNOW! THIS WAS
Of course, Feldman’s credibility on the topic was questioned last week after he told Matt Lauer that he would only name names if he could raise $10 million to make a full-length motion picture about his abuse…which led many, including Lauer, to question whether Feldman’s story was real or just a self-enrichment scheme.
Alas, we now seem to have some level of confirmation that Feldman has a real story to tell as the Los Angeles police department has confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that he did, in fact, file a full report which has been referred to the department’s “Robbery/Homicide Division” for investigation.
Los Angeles police have opened an investigation into the claims from Corey Feldman that a pedophile ring has been victimizing young actors for years in Hollywood, LAPD detective Ross Nemeroff confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
“When a report is filed on something as severe as this, an investigation is opened by the robbery/homicide division (which also handles sex crimes),” Nemeroff told THR.
Of course, as we pointed out last week, Feldman did identify one of his six alleged attackers, during an appearance on the Dr. Oz show, as his former assistant John Grissom.
Feldman has been a fixture on the daytime talk show circuit since first revealing in mid-2006 that he and his friend Corey Haim were the victims of a Hollywood pedophilia ring. Feldman said he wanted to name Grissom in his 2013 memoir Coreyography, but his lawyers warned him not to.
Feldman has said the men repeatedly molested him, while Haim was repeatedly raped – a trauma that Feldman said contributed to Haim’s death by drug overdose.
Of course, Feldman’s claims are receiving new attention amid the deluge of accusations of sexual assault and abuse that have been levied against many powerful figures in the entertainment and media industries. Actor Kevin Spacey saw Netflix cancel his series “House of Cards” after actor Anthony Rapp said Spacey molested him in the 1980s.
Combined with the Weinstein accusations and a whole host of new allegations of treacherous behavior that spring up daily, Hollywood seems to be growing very close to its inevitable end game: complete self-destruction.
Massachusetts State Trooper Ryan Sceviour is suing his superiors with the State Police, including Supt. Richard D. McKeon, alleging they ordered him to alter a police report involving the daughter of a judge in a DUI and drug incident.
The state police aren’t disputing Sceviour’s central claim, arguing the order to change the report was appropriate.
Sceviour arrived at the scene of a crash Oct. 16 on I-190 in Worcester. Behind the wheel he reported he found Alli Bibaud, daughter of Timothy Bibaud, who presides over drug cases for the Dudley District Court, reeking of alcohol with a “heroin kit” in the car, according to the Boston Globe.
Sceviour’s report said Bibaud told him she had traded sex for drugs and that she was the daughter of a judge who would kill her if he found out. Bibaud allegedly offered to have sex with Sceviour for more lenient treatment.
A state trooper called Sceviour on his day off two days later and told him to report to barracks in Holden, 90 miles away, where he was ordered to alter his police report. In his suit, Sceviour alleges he was reprimanded for including Bibaud’s statements in his report.
A police spokesperson responded to that by insisting, as WBUR reports, that a reprimand was not “technically discipline.”
“The revision consisted of removal of what the Colonel and senior commanders felt was a sensationalistic and inflammatory directly-quoted statement that made no contribution to proving the elements of the crimes with which she was charged.” a police spokesperson told the Globe.
Whether Bibaud’s comments belong in the report is an open question. Between 2009 and 2014, nearly 1,000 officers in the U.S. were fired for sex crimes or sexual misconduct. It’s not hard to imagine how neglecting to report an offer of sex for leniency could backfire.
More importantly, the lack of any effort to ensure that “sensationalistic and inflammatory” statements by other suspects don’t appear in police reports suggests the state police was more interested in protecting Bibaud’s father than the privacy of all people arrested by state police.
Sceviour’s lawsuit suggests a lack of any substantive mechanism for whistleblowing, either within the state police agency itself, or elsewhere in state government. Sceviour claims the actions of his commanders and McKeon, caused “damage to his reputation, have negatively impacted his employment, and have caused him severe emotional distress.”
Remember that next time police insist a bad actor within their ranks has been reprimanded.
This incident illustrates the toxicity of a law enforcement and criminal justice culture largely aligned to protect and perpetuate itself, as well as the urgency of substantive police reform and its nexus with limiting the size and power of government. It starts with the ability to hold police officers, their superiors, and other government officials accountable in systematic ways.
Real whistleblower protections, transparency in criminal justice processes, and zero tolerance for misconduct and other inappropriate behavior (and the role back in the privileges and immunities cops and other actors are afforded by law and contract) are policies lawmakers at local levels of government can deploy to transform the police agencies that are supposed to work for the same people that elect those lawmakers.
After another tragic mass shooting—one that likely could have been prevented if existing laws had been enforced—there has been another round of completely predictable calls to “do something” about America’s apparent problem with gun violence.
For those who want to see something done, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) has done something. Along with more than 20 fellow Senate Democrats, Feinstein announced on Wednesday the re-introduction of a bill to ban so-called “assault weapons” and those bump stocks that took so much of the blame for last month’s massacre in Las Vegas.
Specifically, Feinstein’s legislation would ban the sale and manufacture of 205 different weapons (a full list can be found in the bill). One is the AR-15, a semi-automatic rifle used in several mass shootings, including the attack on the Texas church last weekend—and also used by Stephen Willeford, the former NRA instructor who engaged the church shooter and may have prevented further deaths. Feinstein’s bill also targets specific gun accessories, including the bump stocks used by the Las Vegas concert shooter. Bump stocks allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at higher rates but with less accuracy.
The bill exempts weapons used for hunting, and it would allow anyone who already owns one of the proscribed guns to keep them. In other words, it would be completely ineffective at removing these weapons from American society. But that’s not really the goal at all. The goal is to do something about gun violence, and Feinstein’s proposal certainly counts as something. Something ineffective and useless, but still a thing. A thing that could be done.
Feinstein admits as much.
“We’re introducing an updated Assault Weapons Ban for one reason,” she said in a statement announcing the bill: “so that after every mass shooting with a military-style assault weapon, the American people will know that a tool to reduce these massacres is sitting in the Senate, ready for debate and a vote.”
It’s interesting that Feinstein sees that as the “one reason” why this bill has been introduced. Not because it will stop mass shootings, or because it will make it harder for bad people to get guns, or even because it’s a small step toward a less violent society.
Nope. This bill has been introduced for “one reason”: so Democrats can score political points by holding it up and waving it every time there’s a high-profile crime with a gun. Look! There’s a bill right here, ready for debate and a vote! Will the bill do anything to stop these horrific attacks from happening? Well, no, but that’s not the point.
The simple fact of the matter is that no amount of new laws will stop mass shootings. And when we can’t even accurately enforce the gun laws already on the books—the Texas church shooter would not have been able to buy his AR-15 if Air Force bureaucrats had properly reported his domestic abuse problems, as they were supposed to do—it’s even harder to see Feinstein’s proposal as anything other than what it is: a nakedly political maneuver meant to score points with the vapid “do something” crowd.
No 52-week high in the Nasdaq 100 has ever been accompanied by as few advancing stocks as today’s.
As most readers know, we are big proponents of strong breadth, or participation, in signifying healthy markets. When rallies are accompanied by a large swathe of advancing stocks, it is more likely to go further and last longer than those coming on the back of just a relatively few stocks. As such, it was encouraging to see the significant level of participation during the August-October stock market rally. Recent efforts, however, have not been so robust.
Today’s action on the Nasdaq exchange is Exhibit A. On the one hand, the Nasdaq 100 (NDX) managed to rally – again – closing at a new all-time high – again. Despite the new high, however, the breadth on the Nasdaq read as follows (according to our vendor):
Nasdaq Advancing Issues: 840
Nasdaq Declining Issues: 2105
If that seems unusually skewed to decliners considering the NDX hit a 52-week high, you are on to something. As a matter of fact, at 28.5% of all issues, today saw the fewest advancing issues ever on a day when the NDX closed at a 52-week high.
So, is this dwindling participation a serious warning sign for the rally? Or is today a random outlier, irrelevant to the bigger picture?
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If you’re interested in the “all-access” version of our charts and research, please check out our new site, The Lyons Share. Find out what we’re investing in, when we’re getting in – and when we’re getting out. Considering what we believe will be an investment environment tailor made for our active, risk-managed approach, there has never been a better time to reap the benefits of this service. Thanks for reading!
Why are women so damned mean? Was that a sexist remark? I don’t think so. Here’s a nice middle aged man trying to explain to Francis why the tax cut wasn’t for him. Whether you agree with him or not is immaterial. Look at the scorn she directed towards him, bitter and angry because his position on taxes didn’t jibe with hers.
Even if the tax cuts made perfect sense, it is literally the job of democratic advisors to defecate on republicans all day long. They’re mainly a-political hacks who want to win.
Shame on Melissa Francis for behaving like an uncaged animal.
Just over a year ago, we were all told that the following video of Hillary collapsing into a van, because she literally couldn’t support her own weight, was just a big ‘nothing burger’ being sensationalized by right-wing kooks for political gain. Rather than being caused by some serious ailment, the mainstream media eagerly assured everyone that Hillary’s “medical episode” was just a reaction to the blistering 70 degree ‘heat’ on the beautiful New York Fall day.
But, it apparently wasn’t just “right-wing kooks” who were focused on Hillary’s health…according to Donna Brazile’s new tell-all book, the interim DNC chair said she seriously considered replacing the Clinton-Kane ticket with a Biden-Booker ticket in the days following Hillary’s “medical episode.” Per the New York Post:
Silly, silly Donna Brazile. She’s publishing a book detailing turmoil in the Democratic Party during the 2016 campaign, highlighted by her concern that Hillary Clinton was seriously ill and might need to be replaced by Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders.
In other words, the claim of allergies was a big fat lie. That prompted Brazile to contemplate starting the process of replacing Clinton, writing in her book that the campaign also was “anemic” and had “the odor of failure.” She says she considered numerous tickets to replace Clinton and Sen. Tim Kane, and decided that Biden and Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) would be the best.
It’s not clear how long she deliberated or how many people she talked to, but Brazile writes that Biden called her on Sept. 12th. In the end, she says she made no move because she couldn’t disappoint Clinton’s supporters.
Of course, the real story here isn’t whether or not Hillary was really sick, anyone with a functional brain stem understood that the collapse above was not caused by New York’s 70-degree Fall ‘heat wave’, but rather the unprecedented lengths that the mainstream media had to go to bury the single biggest scoop of the 2016 presidential election, namely that Brazile was, in fact, actively working to replace Clinton-Kane as the Democratic ticket.
The missed stories are not merely the result of mistakes or sloppy reporting. Brazile’s book is a revelation in that it shows that many left-leaning journalists didn’t so much cover Clinton as cover up for her.
Put it this way: How is it possible that the leader of the Democratic Party was talking to colleagues about trying to replace its nominee during the general election because of health concerns, and none of the thousands of journalists covering the campaign got wind of it?
It’s not possible — if the media had been playing it down the middle and holding both candidates to the same standard of scrutiny. But big media missed a big story because so much campaign “news” coverage was tilted toward defeating Trump and electing Clinton.
Anything that could possibly suggest Trump was unfit for the Oval Office — bingo, front page, top of the broadcast.
On the other hand, anything that could hurt Clinton was downplayed or ignored. Nothing to see here, move along.
The NY Post continues…
The truth was dangerous, so the Praetorian Guard sprung to Clinton’s defense. The NBC reporter, Andrew Rafferty, was mocked and insulted, first by the campaign, and then by journalists, including some MSNBC commentators who turned on their colleague as if he had violated a secret oath.
CNN joined the Clinton amen chorus and at the Washington Post, political writer Chris Cillizza denounced the topic of Clinton’s health as “a totally ridiculous issue” and declared it a “sure-fire loser” for Trump.
“It’s hard to plausibly insist, based on the available data, that Clinton is ill,” insisted Cillizza, who is now at CNN.
Five days later, Clinton was unable to walk on her own and collapsed at the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan as she tried to get into a van. The campaign insisted she was just “dehydrated” until a short video of the incident aired, then admitted the candidate had been diagnosed with pneumonia days earlier.
In Part 1 of this series, I detailed the recent aggressive power plays initiated by 30-something Saudi princeling Mohamed bin Salman (MBS), who is effectively the absolute leader of Saudi Arabia at this time. I also highlighted how 30-something U.S. princeling Jared Kushner, son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, may have been involved in MBS’s scheming during an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia a little over a week before the purge hammer dropped. Today’s post will focus on what I think this means for the future of the Middle East, as well as U.S. imperial ambitions.
Before I get started, I want to make something clear. I don’t think I’m Nostradamus or anything. These posts are based on the assumption that certain realities remain in place in the months and years ahead. The first is that Mohamed bin Salman’s attempt to consolidate power will prove successful, at least long enough for him to make more extremely stupid mistakes. The second assumption is that Donald Trump will continue to foolishly give this princeling a blank check when it comes to whatever insane aggressions he pursues within the region.
It’s perfectly clear that MBS views recent setbacks in Syria, where Saudi ISIS forces were routed by Russia and Assad, as unacceptable. As such, he’s looking for another place to fight a proxy war with Iran. Never mind the fact that his war in Yemen has been a total failure and humanitarian disaster, MBS doesn’t appear to be someone who lets one failure get in way of future failures. He appears to have chosen Lebanon as the place for his next chaotic adventure.
In that regard, I found a post published at Moon of Alabama extremely informative. Here’s an excerpt from that piece: