Noam Chomsky agrees with Sarah Palin....

The esteemed linguist and philosopher examines one of America's most insidious breeds of political corruption 

"...with the public marginalized."

April 12, 2016

By Alexander Rosenmann

Elections are rigged by many factors. (click here) But as Noam Chomsky explains, policy plays only a small role in electing candidates.

“Right after the election, President Obama won an award from the advertising industry for the best marketing campaign and the International Business Press executives were euphoric,” Chomsky recalls in the 2015 documentary Requiem for the American Dream. They said, We’ve been marketing candidates like toothpaste since Reagan. This is the greatest achievement we have.”

The 2008 election marked a turning point in social media strategy and Facebook users bombardment of posts that used the new “I Voted” app was just one aspect of this phenomenon. President Obama, in fact, used Twitter to announce that he won – similarly to how 2016’s candidates engage with voters on Snapchat.

“Regardless of your political affiliation, one can’t help but admire the Obama campaign’s relentless and successful marketing strategy,” said World Wildlife Fund senior strategist Brigid Milligan, after Obama was reelected in 2012....

April 14, 2016

Washington, DC -- Voters will "rise up" in opposition (click here) if Republican power brokers try to take the presidential nomination away from Donald Trump or Ted Cruz at the GOP convention this summer, Sarah Palin said Thursday in a wide-ranging interview.

The 2008 vice presidential nominee told The Associated Press that GOP voters have the right to decide the party's nominee and will rebel if House Speaker Paul Ryan or some other "white knight" is chosen at a contested convention. Ryan said this week he will not seek or accept the nomination....               

Japan is experiencing repeated quakes. Aftershocks are usually lower in frequency than the main quake.

Time (click here)

1. 2016-04-14 12:26:36 (UTC)
2. 2016-04-14 08:26:36 (UTC-04:00) in your timezone

Nearby Places

• 7.0 km (4.3 mi) SW of Ueki, Japan
• 9.0 km (5.6 mi) SE of Tamana, Japan
• 12.0 km (7.5 mi) WNW of Kumamoto-shi, Japan
• 18.0 km (11.2 mi) N of Uto, Japan
• 620.0 km (385.3 mi) SSE of Seoul, South Korea
• 
  
• "Birth of Major Strike-Slip Fault" (click here)

There is a subduction zone under southwest Japan. (click here) It has a history of non-volcanic tremors. But, this higher frequency (By frequency I mean severity of the quake) is new. And it these quakes are all coming in between 6 and 6.4 there is movement in that subduction zone.

This is not to be taken lightly for the safety of the people. The quakes could continue. Buildings have already collapsed and there are injuries. 

• April 14, 2016
• By Reuters from USGS

Fresh quake of magnitude 6.4 strikes south west Japan - USGS (click here)

...At around 1503 GMT, another tremor struck the region, according to the USGS. It was initially measured at magnitude 6.4, before being revised down to 5.9. Again, there was no tsunami warning.
After the first tremor, the Nuclear Regulation Authority said there were no irregularities at three nuclear plants on the southernmost island of Kyushu and nearby Shikoku.
Some high-speed trains were halted as a precaution.
Japanese media showed watermelons falling from shelves at a supermarket in Kumamoto.
A quake of magnitude 9 struck offshore north of Tokyo in March 2011, causing tsunami waves along the coast which killed nearly 20,000 people and triggered a meltdown at a nuclear power plant.

Hawaii has an ocean power generator. It is not new. It is proven to provide power to Hawaii.

No American can be tried for the same crime twice.

Corey Lewandowski will never be held for criminal charges. Drop it. A citizen of the USA cannot be tried twice for the same crime. The prosecutor made a ruling and that is the end of the case and it cannot be reopen. 

A jury that cannot come to a decision is different. If the jury came back with "Not guilty," the charges could not be brought again. But, if the jury cannot decide on a guilty or not guilty, the case falls back to the prosecutor. 

The Florida State prosecutor got involved and ruled against any further charges. There is no more criminal charges against Mr. Lewandowsi. I still believe with the tensions that existed at the time it was a concern for Donald Trump's safety.

Donald Trump did indicate immediately after that brush with his staff and a journalist he would be on his tablet for further communication. It is unfortunate, but, the issue is not considered criminal and I think that is because of the circumstances and Donald Trump's safety. Circumstances matter.

April 14, 2016
By Steve Eder and Maggie Haberman Corey Lewandowski, (click here) the campaign manager for Donald J. Trump, will not be prosecuted on a battery charge, the Palm Beach County state attorney said Thursday.
Mr. Lewandowski had been charged by the police with a single count of misdemeanor battery, stemming from an incident in Jupiter, Fla., last month in which he was accused of forcibly grabbing Michelle Fields, then a reporter for Breitbart News, as she approached Mr. Trump with a question after a news conference.
The prosecutor, Dave Aronberg, explaining his decision not move ahead with a prosecution, said the burden for his office to proceed with a case was higher than for the police. A spokesman for the Jupiter police referred calls to the prosecutor’s office.
Mr. Aronberg said that politics played no role in how his office approached the case, saying simply that it would be “unethical” to move ahead when there is no “good faith basis to proceed.”

I still don't think the Florida governor understands women otherwise issues that have come up would have been handled better. I think he's afraid of women.

Both previously stated incidents happened in his state. The Florida Governor hid when he should have come out and/or stopped and talked to them. He should have addressed the issue with a PRESIDENTIAL candidate and he should have stopped his run through Starbucks to address the woman with a sincere and real complaint.

People have died in Florida because Rick Scott wanted nothing to do with the Medicaid Expansion. Lives could have been saved, children would still have both parents. The decision was pure politics. The expansion of Medicaid cost the states nothing. Refusing to protect the lives of people do to lack of health care insurance should be a prosecutable offense. 

Anti-capitalism, Chinese nationalism and exploitation of it's ? trading partners? .

Chinese nationalism in Africa is causing immense problems. A possible side effect is depriving the African rebels of natural resources. I have noted the disappearance of Boko Haram.

September 2, 2011
By Peter Wonacott

..."China's model (click here) is telling us you can be successful without following the Western example," said deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara, a member of an opposition party locked in awkward coalition with Mr. Mugabe, who has deep ties with Beijing.

The U.S. is the largest foreign donor to Zimbabwe, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which doesn't count China as a member. The U.S. funnels much of its assistance through nongovernmental organizations, some of which are critical of Zimbabwe's government. That hasn't gone down well with many officials. "China is my favorite country," said Mr. Mutambara a 45-year-old politician who attended U.S. universities....

When a country dives into nationalism it is usually for the country's flag, not allegiance to a foreign government. The flag that flies over Africa is China's flag. When the Chinese speak of the development of the middle class, it is about the Chinese middle class and not the Zimbabwe middle class. Quite the contrary, the poverty of Africa is even more profound as the people are ignored by their government only to have their natural resources exported to China's sovereign borders.

China's partnership in any trade comes with a very hard reality, the poor are getting poorer and there is no hope for the future.

When Bono made testimony to the USA Congress committee he stated the Chinese come to Africa with their own employees and the citizens don't have opportunity to move out of abjective poverty. For those Third World countries involved with Chinese businessmen there should be warning flags everywhere to realize the leaders are moving their citizens more deeply into poverty.  There will be no middle class development of the citizens of Third World Africa. They are digging themselves deeper into poverty not finding a path out of it. There are no jobs for the poor, the charity is only as permanent as China's exploitation of a country's natural resources.

On a continental scale, (click here) China’s deal-making pace far exceeds the U.S.’s, according to Mthuli Ncube, Chief Economist at the African Development Bank Group. He estimates Chinese firms accounted for 40% of the corporate contracts signed last year, to 2% for U.S. firms.

China is developing a middle class. That takes investment by the government in education and opportunity, however, in this case it would seem as though the Chinese are building their middle class on the deprivation of it's trading partners. This is not trade, this is pathetic.

Who is getting the money from the Chinese businessmen to provide an exploitative model to a country's natural resources? There has to be a pay off somewhere. 

This exploitation may be conducted without the knowledge of the Chinese government or it's permission. China is developing a very bad name in trade relationships by depriving foreign citizens in developing a middle class. The Chinese government is seeking  a strong middle class, but, I question whether unfair trading and labor practices are part of the picture the government expects. 

It has been obvious that Chinese businessmen get carried away with their profit margins, such as, fatal dog food to American consumers. China comes down hard on these businessmen, it would be a good idea if Bono and the US State Department make a humanitarian plea directly to the Chinese government. The solution may be far more easier than most expect.

Zika

April 14, 2016
By Judy Stone

News about Zika keeps getting worse. (click here) First is growing evidence that Zika causes of the serious birth defect, microcephaly (abnormally small brain and skull) and severe mental retardation. The CDC just announced their analysis that concludes Zika is the cause of many recent microcephaly cases, with CDC Director Dr. Thomas R. Frieden declaring, “There is no longer any doubt that Zika causes microcephaly.” He added, “Never before in history has there been a situation where a bite from a mosquito can result in a devastating malformation.” Studies supporting this conclusion were just published in the New England Journal of Medicine....

Guillain-Barre (click here) 
acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, or ADEM (click here)
neurotropism (click here)
encephalitis (brain inflammation) (click here)
myelitis (nerve inflammation) (click here)

"Shame on you Rick Scott..."

April 14. 2016
By Dylan Byers

(CNN) The state attorney's office(click here) in Palm Beach County, Florida, will not prosecute Donald Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski for battery, according to sources familiar with the case.

A former reporter for Breitbart, Michelle Fields, sought charges against Lewandowski after an incident in March where she said Lewandowski pulled her away from Trump as she was trying to ask him a question.

The Florida State's attorney's office said it will hold news conference at 2 p.m. Thursday to address the matter, according to a statement.

The news is a sigh of relief for both Lewandowski and the Trump campaign, which risked facing a major legal distraction during the heat of the competitive presidential campaign.

The incident at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on March 8, the night of the Michigan presidential primary, led to a weeks-long dispute between the Trump campaign, some media outlets and Fields, as to what actually happened....

Seems as though Florida's governor has a problem with understanding women.

April 12, 2016
By Tessa Stuart

Cara Jennings (click here) was sitting in a Gainesville, Florida, Starbucks last week, doing some work for the Service Employees International Union, where she's a contract recruiter, when she noticed Gov. Rick Scott and a gaggle of aides waiting in line for coffee.

Their exchange began with Jennings — who served as city commissioner of Lake Worth from 2006 to 2011 — asking the governor why he signed a law defunding Planned Parenthood, and ended with Scott scuttling out of the coffee shop empty-handed, Jennings calling after him, "Shame on you, Rick Scott. You're an embarrassment to our state!"

Scott was apparently embarrassed enough by footage that emerged of the encounter that on Friday his PAC, Let's Go to Work, released an attack ad characterizing Jennings as a latte-swilling, Internet-surfing welfare queen....

Isn't the segregation of NYC indicative of the USA? The poor, working poor, middle class, upper middle class and wealthy.

Isn't the cost of housing a segregation?

We always notice the segregation, but, we don't identify what causes it except the visuals. Isn't the cost of housing a significant division among people? With the cost of housing comes investment in schools, parks and community involvement.

The Democrats will always say it is a socio-economic dimension. Isn't the economics entering into this more than we should be comfortable with. There was a paradigm at one time that states if the poor and middle class were eliminated from the landscape who would work for the wealthy. Perhaps San Francisco can be testament to that, except, as the wealthy move in the shop owners sell upper class items that bring them wealth, too.

April 14, 2016

By the NYTimes

As officials work (click here) to expand the supply of affordable housing in New York City, the issue of residential segregation has received less attention. Highly segregated pockets exist in all five boroughs: Latinos in the Bronx and Manhattan; whites in Manhattan and on Staten Island; blacks and whites in Brooklyn; and Asians, blacks and Latinos in Queens.

The New York Times asked residents in community districts with the highest concentrations of each group, according to research from New York University’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, to tell us how they liked where they lived....

Language is huge. But, in communities where language is less of a barrier has mixed language spoken and I am thinking about Jewish communities where some of the most orthodox live. There is community involvement that carries to city hall and the greater society even though the ethnics are knee deep.

I remember the death of Leiby Kletzky. The outpouring didn't come from just the community, it came from the world. That level of recognition and respect for diversity comes from a compassionate society that embraces every person.

We have problems in the USA with ethnic identity. Not every American would be comfortable with strong cultural difference. But, I think the economic aspect of racism needs to be examined and remedied before we can say segregation is the outcome of an identity hated by others. I am not saying racism doesn't exist, but, to what extent and how much does it reach into segregation.

“You have more bars in a black neighborhood, more fast foods, more bodegas. In other neighborhoods you find stuff with nutrients, you find fat-free, sugar-free. Not here.”

That is economic and not choice. Americans are suppose to have choices in their life, that requires a way out of poverty. It is what is so frustrating about a corrupt Republican Congress, even our school children can't get away from garbage to eat.