Erich Bloodaxe BSN
Erich Bloodaxe BSN's JournalTia Oso nailed it - the Black Lives Matter question was total softball.
From Twitter:
Softball question #DemDebate #BlackLivesMatter . Way to let everyone off on the same old Dem political hook.
For being the burning issue even in our jaded media for most of the last year, that was a totally softball question, with no real follow-ups. 'GUNZ' got what, like 3-5 times as much airtime? Now admittedly, most of the black people being killed by cops (or cop wannabes) are being killed with guns, but that was not the focus of the 'GUNZ' question.
Black Lives Matter needs more substantive debate time in the remaining debates, and more than just a single question that basically lets candidates say 'Black Lives Matter' good or 'Black Lives Matter' bad. The CampaignZero points would be a good starting point for real debate. (The one on police issues, obviously, not the one about medical errors that also pops up on Google searches.)
(And btw, softball or not, Webb didn't even to be swinging at the ball, I wasn't even sure he'd picked up the bat.)
Bernie just had the lead 12 minutes or so of PoliticsNation with Rev Sharpton.
It was a great interview, and Sharpton at one point, when bringing up the pushed meme about Bernie being bad with minorities came out with something like 'You, out of all of the candidates have the best record on civil rights by far'. Bernie embraced the 'socialist' label, he didn't run from it. He talked about the need to reform the justice system, to get young minorities into further education and jobs, not jails. He put forth his economic message clearly and civilly, and said 'That's a fair question' a number of times as he led into his answers. And, it just occurred to me, he actually ANSWERED every single question he was asked. He didn't simply pull the usual political BS almost every candidate pulls of essentially ignoring the questions to pivot and simply spit out talking points that they wanted out. What he said was a direct response to what he was asked.
I hope somebody gets the segment up on YouTube soon, and someone here can link it.
(ETA: Ask and you shall receive - see comment #8 for link to video.)
Anybody else working on their winter garden?
I've been getting a bed ready to plant my garlic, and am just about ready. Dug the red clover under, expanded the bed and edged it with some of the 6 inch across or so maple logs left over from cutting down the tree last winter. Still going to scatter some fertilizer and maybe mix in some compost, then it's time for the garlic to go in.
Now that the bed's bigger, I'm thinking I'll have space to add some non-garlic, but I'm not sure just what I'll go with.
Who else is working on what?
Hillary Clinton's support from black voters plunges in a new poll.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/01/hillary-clintons-support-from-black-voters-plunges-in-a-new-poll/?postshare=4081443797590956That's one reason that Bernie Sanders's strength in Iowa and New Hampshire isn't as worrisome as it might otherwise be for Clinton backers; in states with less-heavily white populations -- a.k.a. most of the rest of the country -- Clinton should conceivably do better.
A new poll from Suffolk University and USA Today, though, suggests a big shift among African Americans that could undermine that confidence. We have to note up front that this is one poll, with large margins of error on black responses. That said, the shift is surprising.
Offered without comment.
Lawsuit: Your Candy Bar Was Made By Child Slaves
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/30/lawsuit-your-candy-bar-was-made-by-child-slaves.htmlWell worth a read, and a change in plans for Halloween. I was planning to hand out the usual snickers, kitkats, hershey's special dark and the like. I can't in good conscience now, I'd feel like a total ghoul, handing out candy made with child slave labour to other children. I'll have to rethink what I'm handing out.
Thanks to @rodimusprime on twitter for the link.
The boys’ stories are sickeningly graphic. Before beatings, the boys say they were stripped naked and tied up. They were then pummeled with a variety of weapons, from fists and feet to belts and whips. In the film, some of the boys get up and imitate the beatings. Others stand to reveal hundreds of scars lining their backs and torsos—some still bloody and scabbed. They get quiet when the filmmakers ask whether any are beaten today and say some are simply “taken away.”
Asked what he’d say to the billions who eat chocolate worldwide (most of the boys have never tried it), one boy replies: “They enjoy something I suffered to make; I worked hard for them but saw no benefit. They are eating my flesh.” Toward the end of the segment, the filmmakers meet with one of the “slave masters,” who admits he purchased the young boys and that some of his men routinely beat them. His reasoning: He is paid a low price for the cocoa and thus needs to harvest as much of it as he possibly can.
ETA: A link to a list of chocolate *probably* not made using exploitative labour. This site points out that most organic cocoa comes from Latin America, which does not have documented issues with slave labour on cocoa plantations.
http://www.foodispower.org/chocolate-list/
Rick Perry's latest 'ooops' moment!
This morning on Morning Joe, the hosts were talking to Rick Perry, who was saying sure, he'd support and vote for whoever came out of the Republican primary, because when you look at the other side, whether it's Bernie Sanders, or Joe Biden, or (pauses in thought) some other candidate, ...'
GoFundMe campaign for beagle probably hit by a car that needs corrective surgery.
Just sharing a campaign I just contributed to
https://www.gofundme.com/ky3aqfe8
Note that this is NOT one of my beagles, but I'm pro-beagle in general.
Bunny, the beagle in question, appears to have had a pretty tough time, having apparently been hit by a car and then left to heal on her own. It's a wonder she's alive at all, but her new caregivers have spoken to a surgeon who thinks he can get her front legs functional again, if of course, they can raise the money for the surgery. They seem to have gotten a good chunk of it together, but more is needed to get her across the finish line and into surgery. I know DU has plenty of kind hearts, so I thought I'd share this one here.
Well, MSNBC continues to play 'Smear the Sanders'.
Up w/ Kornacki on in the background, the last segment had a 'Do the Democrats need a White Knight?' chyron, talking about how Dems might need someone else to enter the race to 'save' them from Bernie Sanders since Hillary was tanking. Then they went on to 'Sanders plans for the high holy days'. To first make sure you knew he was a Jew, and then to have the Jewish guy on panel tell you that he was a 'bad Jew' because instead of spending Rosh Hashanah going to services, Bernie will be delivering a talk at a Christian university.
Nothing like being 'subtle', eh, guys?
11 year old shoots 16 year old "home invader", but neighbors say there was no break-in
http://gawker.com/11-year-old-shoots-16-year-old-home-invader-but-neig-1728746097?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenewsSo a day or two back, there was another of those supposed 'See? Good guys with guns save lives!' postings about how a heroic 11 year old fended off two 'home invaders' and protected his much younger sister.
Well, the story might not quite be that simple.
...
But neighbors say there’s no way there was a break-in in the middle of the day. One, Donna Jackson, says she saw a conversation between the two boys, then a point-blank shooting.
“It was not a break-in,” Jackson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “He shot him in the head.”
"lifttheexportban.com" commercials showing up on TV from 'DEPA'.
DEPA (The Domestic Energy Producers Alliance) is releasing ads on tv to get the public to harass Congress to 'Lift the ban' on exporting domestic crude oil, proclaiming that it leaves us at the mercy of countries that hate us, that they control our energy (gas) prices.
They point out that
and note that refiners are making enormous profits at US expense. Their solution? Allow them to sell American crude oil elsewhere, so they can keep more of that profit for producers, and shift the rest to 100% foreign owned refiners.
A better solution? Government-owned and run refiners, so that if anyone is making that profit, it's 100% Americans, and helps reduce our deficits. American natural resource exploitation, if it's going to exist, should serve the American people, not merely the Shells and Exxons and BPs.
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