March 29, 2019

Elizabeth Warren's plan to make farming great again, explained

A crackdown on agribusiness conglomerates, and more.

Continuing her streak as the 2020 presidential cycle’s most policy-rich candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) rolled out a package of proposals on Wednesday designed to boost the fortunes of America’s small farmers, instead of the agribusiness giants who increasingly control the sector.

With Iowa playing a perennially influential role in the US presidential nominating process, Midwestern farmers always get some love from candidates. But Donald Trump’s unusually strong electoral performance in the rural north and the collapse of the once-large bloc of Democratic Party senators from the Great Plains states has transformed the political geography of the United States to the GOP’s advantage.

This transformation has been driven by identity issues: Democrats are increasingly branded not just as the party of racial minorities, but more broadly as the party of people who enjoy the cosmopolitan lifestyles available in big metro areas and college towns, with the GOP representing the home-and-hearth values of smaller communities.

Warren’s pitch aims to inject a rural-specific economic clash into the political discourse that would fit neatly with her larger theme of attacking concentrated economic power and pit at least some farmers’ bottom-line economic interests against those of big corporate players in the farm sector.

How it works: VOX

March 27, 2019

House Democrats' health-care bill hurts Trump and Bernie

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) held a news conference Tuesday with fellow Democrats on Tuesday to roll out their new health-care proposal in the wake of the administration’s announcement that it supported complete invalidation of the Affordable Care Act in a 5th Circuit case. The court move came as an unexpected political gift to Democrats.

Pelosi reminded the media:

Last night, in federal court, the Justice Department of the Trump Administration – you’d think they have more to do – decided to not only try to destroy protections for preexisting conditions, but to tear down every last benefit and protection the ACA affords.

The GOP will never stop trying to destroy the affordable health care of America’s families. I always think of Mr. Clyburn and John Lewis when they quote Martin Luther King, when he talks about, ‘of all the injustices, the most inhumane is the inequality of health care.’

Washington Post

Considering the office BS is running for, he needs to be asked if he would veto progressive legislation. Would he veto a pathway to citizenship if he didn't like the Visa language in the legislation? Would he veto positive and progressive healthcare legislation if it isn't Medicare for All? Fair question considering he is lining up with Republicans in opposition to Pelosi and other Democrats when it comes to this healthcare push to protect and strengthen the ACA.

March 26, 2019

50 Totally Useless Facts That Are Too Entertaining for Words

Slideshow at link.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/did-you-know/50-totally-useless-facts-that-are-too-entertaining-for-words/ss-BBUdyX6?li=BBnb7Kz#image=4

The opposite sides of a dice cube will always add up to seven

The average adult spends more time on the toilet than they do exercising

Tesseradecades, aftercataracts, and sweaterdresses are the longest words you can type using only your left hand

March 26, 2019

Prize-winning show dog vanishes at airport

It's been three days since a prize-winning show dog disappeared at one of the world's busiest airports after being checked in for a flight.

Gale, a pure-bred American Staffordshire Terrier whose owners live in Amsterdam, was being shown in the United States by her handlers and had one final event in Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday before flying home.

The handlers brought Gale and another dog to Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where they checked in for their KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight and went through security. Not long after the handlers boarded the Amsterdam-bound plane in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon, they were informed that Gale's kennel was found empty when crews went to load her crate onto the aircraft. The handlers immediately called her owners.

"Me and my wife completely panicked," Gale's owner, Floris Van Essen, told ABC News in a telephone interview from the Netherlands’ capital on Monday. "We were out of our minds. You can imagine it's horrific to hear that a dog is gone and nobody knows where she is."

MSN.com

March 25, 2019

Lawyer Michael Avenatti arrested, faces wire fraud and bank fraud charges

Attorney Michael Avenatti has been arrested by federal law enforcement officials on fraud charges in Los Angeles and New York.

The U.S. attorney’s office said in a press release that details about the arrest would come at an 11 a.m. news conference in Los Angeles.

New York prosecutors accuse the attorney of “attempting to extract more than $20 million in payments from a publicly traded company by threatening to use his ability to garner publicity to inflict substantial financial and reputational harm on the company if his demands were not met.”

In court papers, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York claims Avenatti threatened to release damaging information about Nike to the public unless he received multi-million dollar payments.

MSN

March 22, 2019

Why aren't they ready? This was almost a month ago.

https://twitter.com/KaivanShroff/status/1100257926328057856

March 22, 2019

Chelsea Clinton visits Chicago laundromat to unveil reading space

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Chelsea Clinton visited a Northwest Side laundromat Wednesday morning to unveil a learning space that aims to encourage early childhood development.

"This is one of the first, but we hope to be in hundreds if not thousands of laundromats over the next few years," said Clinton, who also read a book to children.

The Family Read & Play Space will be a permanent fixture at the Wash Time laundromat as part of a partnership between the Clinton Foundation and the Laundry Literacy Coalition.

The foundation's Too Small to Fail program is working with the Chicago Public Library to maintain weekly story time programming at the laundromat. They currently visit twice a week.

ABC

Laundry Literacy Coalition

Promoting Early Literacy through Laundromats Nationwide

Three national non-profit groups, the LaundryCares Foundation, the Clinton Foundation’s Too Small to Fail initiative, and Libraries Without Borders have launched a new Laundry Literacy Coalition. This new alliance was formed as a collaborative effort to make early literacy resources available to underserved communities through local laundromats in communities nationwide. Three national non-profit groups, the LaundryCares Foundation, the Clinton Foundation’s Too Small to Fail initiative, and Libraries Without Borders have launched a new Laundry Literacy Coalition. This new alliance was formed as a collaborative effort to make early literacy resources available to underserved communities through local laundromats in communities nationwide.

Since 2015, the LaundryCares Foundation, Too Small to Fail, and Libraries without Borders have been focused on the role of laundromats in promoting children’s early literacy development. Initiatives have included:

Free Laundry & Literacy Day events at local laundromats throughout the United States hosted by the LaundryCares Foundation and Too Small to Fail;

“Wash Time Is Talk Time,” an assortment of early literacy tools and resources distributed to over 5,000 laundromats through a partnership between the LaundryCares Foundation and Too Small to Fail, and;

“Wash and Learn,” an initiative to extend library services to laundromats through a collaboration between LaundryCares Foundation and Libraries Without Borders.

LaundryCares.org

The Clinton Foundation

Building on a lifetime of public service, President Clinton established the Clinton Foundation on the simple belief that everyone deserves a chance to succeed, everyone has a responsibility to act, and we all do better when we work together. For nearly two decades, those values have energized the work of the Foundation in overcoming complex challenges and improving the lives of people across the United States and around the world.

As an operating foundation, we work on issues directly or with strategic partners from the business, government, and nonprofit sectors to create economic opportunity, improve public health, and inspire civic engagement and service. Our programs are designed to make a real difference today while serving as proven models for tomorrow. The goal of every effort is to use available resources to get better results faster – at the lowest possible cost.

We firmly believe that when diverse groups of people bring resources together in the spirit of true cooperation, transformative ideas will emerge to drive life-changing action.

Clinton Foundation

March 21, 2019

Elizabeth Warren has some serious issues.

END WASHINGTON CORRUPTION

Washington works great for the wealthy and the well-connected, but it isn’t working for anyone else. Companies and wealthy individuals spend billions every year to influence Congress and federal agencies to put their interests ahead of the public interest. This is deliberate, and we need to call this what it is—corruption, plain and simple. That’s why Elizabeth has proposed the most ambitious set of anti-corruption reforms since Watergate to fundamentally change the way Washington does business.

ElizabethWarren.com

REBUILD THE MIDDLE CLASS

After decades of largely flat wages and exploding household costs, millions of families can barely breathe. For generations, people of color have been shut out of their chance to build wealth. It’s time for big, structural changes to put economic power back in the hands of the American people.

ElizabethWarren.com

STRENGTHEN OUR DEMOCRACY

Our democracy faces serious threats at home and abroad. Strengthening it will require dramatic changes. That starts with a constitutional amendment to protect the right of every American citizen to vote and to have that vote counted. But it’s just the beginning.

ElizabethWarren.com

EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW

Four words are etched above the Supreme Court: Equal Justice Under Law. That’s supposed to be the promise of our justice system. But today in America, there’s one justice system for the rich and powerful, and another one for everybody else.

ElizabethWarren.com

A FOREIGN POLICY FOR ALL

From endless wars that strain military families to trade policies that crush our middle class, Washington’s foreign policy today serves the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone else.

ElizabethWarren.com

Elizabeth Warren takes her policy-packed campaign to Deep South

CLEVELAND, Miss. — Joseph Henderson, 60, was taking in some sun outside a faded white house on Monday morning when an unusual thing happened. A presidential candidate walked right up to his porch to say hello.

“My name’s Elizabeth Warren and I’m running for president,” the senator from Massachusetts, flanked by about a dozen reporters and photographers, announced.

As has become her calling card as a candidate, Warren dispensed with the pleasantries and cut straight to the policy. “I’ve got a bill about housing, trying to get more money into housing,” she told Henderson, who sat in front of windows covered in sheets of plastic. “And I thought this would be a good place to come.”

Boston Globe

Keep it up Warren!

March 19, 2019

Bernie Sanders never stopped running for President.

What he has been doing is pretty smart, politically.

He created "fellowships" for media personalities and future campaign staff. He has been holding these people closer to the vest than we've seen historically. This is why the Sanders institute is being shut down. If they didn't it would create conflict as it always has been a part of his four year campaign.

https://www.sandersinstitute.com/about/fellows

Then there is Our Revolution. There is a lot of overlap with The Sanders Institute.

Nina Turner
Claire Sandberg had a falling out with Our Revolution but is now on team Sanders.
Kenneth Pennington was with Our Revolution and is now on the Sanders campaign.
Barry Brendel, Chair of OR NJ is now on team Sanders.

Briahna Joy Gray is now a top person in the Sanders campaign. She has bee working for The Intercept writing disparaging pieces on Harris and Democrats in general while writing glowingly of Sanders. She was just hired but has recently written some really shady opinion pieces on Harris.

https://theintercept.com/staff/briahnagray/

I think someone is going to pick up on how Sanders has been doing this for the last four years and write a piece on it. Many of these people have spent the last four years going after Democrats and asking "honest" questions about possible Democratic contenders. Many are now paid staff and influential people in his campaign. I'm not the only one who has noticed but it isn't being widely discussed. We are talking about groups Sanders started and the Sanders Institute itself.

I don't find any of this to be shocking. He is a career politician and is good at campaigning. He has been dreaming about being President for some time now. One look at the Sanders Institute makes that perfectly clear. This goes much deeper than I've outlined.

March 19, 2019

Sanders brings on senior politics editor from The Intercept as his National Press Secretary.

https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/1108014590019948544