News Items

U.S. Military Adds Jeff Bezos and Cass Sunstein to Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Advisory Board

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Earlier this year, when I found out Google’s Eric Schmidt had been named head of a newly created Pentagon board I thought that was creepy enough. It’s gotten creepier.

The Washington Post reports:

The Pentagon’s increasingly eclectic Defense Innovation Advisory Board has reached full strength, with celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and Amazon.com founder Jeffrey P. Bezos among the latest named to a group that includes some of the private sector’s most successful leaders.

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Nobody Knows Who’s Paying for the Privately Funded Democratic National Convention

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Earlier this week, in my article titled, Hillary Clinton is in Deep Trouble – “Hordes of Wall Street Executives” Descend Upon Philly, I highlighted how all the Wall Street executives and lobbyists who avoided the RNC were excitedly flooding into the Democratic Convention. Here’s an excerpt:

Lobbyists are being welcomed back into the fold of the Democratic Party as the Obama era draws to a close.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has accepted more than $9 million in bundled donations from registered lobbyists, while the DNC has rolled back the lobbyist bans that Obama put into place.

“In 2008 and 2012, there was no integration with the [Obama] campaign,” said Al Mottur, a senior Democratic lobbyist at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, adding that he would have liked to have helped. “Now, the campaign is welcoming — they’re open to us. That’s why I’ve done as much work for her as I’ve done on her behalf.”

For 2016, the DNC reversed the prohibition on lobbyist cash entirely, both for the party and the convention, giving corporations and lobbyists the opportunity to participate fully. 

Clinton’s candidacy is also a draw for those on K Street, many of whom have been involved with the family for years.

“The community is supporting her, there is no question about that,”said David Castagnetti of Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas. His firm is also kicking off the convention with a party on Monday…

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Interview with Wikileaks’ Julian Assange – Hillary Clinton Expands the Overton Window of Corruption

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The other day, Julian Assange sat down with Democracy Now to discuss Wikileaks’ recent release of the DNC leak emails. It’s a very interesting and worthwhile 15 minute interview.

Enjoy.

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Hillary Clinton is in Deep Trouble – “Hordes of Wall Street Executives” Descend Upon Philly

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Political pundits throughout the land are tripping over each other to compose the latest bland, uninsightful screed proclaiming the death of the Republican Party. This makes sense, because the primary purpose of a political pundit is to state the obvious years after it’s already become established fact to everyone actually paying attention.

Yes, of course, Trump winning the GOP nomination marks the end of the party as we know it. After all, some neocons are already publicly and actively throwing their support behind Hillary. While this undoubtably represents a major turning point in U.S. political history, many pundits have yet to appreciate that the exact same thing is happening within the Democratic Party. It’s just not completely obvious yet.

– From February’s post: It’s Not Just the GOP – The Democratic Party is Also Imploding

I believe Hillary Clinton lost the Presidency this past week. While the explosive DNC leaks will undoubtably have a long lasting effect, this post will barely reference the leaks. Rather, it will explain how recent decisions by the Hillary campaign played right into Trump’s hands by essentially waving a gigantic middle finger to the 73% of Americans who think the country is headed in the wrong direction.

What Hillary Clinton did in selecting Tim Kaine as VP was send a clear signal that not only is she the status quo candidate, she is proud of it. She didn’t just double down on being the establishment candidate, she tripled and quadrupled down. There is now no denying that Hillary Clinton is implicitly running on only two themes.

1. Trump is scary. I am not Trump.
2. Things aren’t really bad. I’ll continue along the path we’ve been on.

This message will result in a guaranteed loss against an opponent who is telling the American public “I know you’re angry, I’m angry too, and I’m going to blow up the status quo.” Recall that 73% of the U.S. public thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction. As the Wall Street Journal noted:

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Thoughts on Trump’s Speech (Why I Can’t Vote for Him and Why He Could Win)

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It is in the social sphere, in the realm of politics and economics, that the Will to Order becomes really dangerous. Here the theoretical reduction of unmanageable multiplicity to comprehensible unity becomes the practical reduction of human diversity to subhuman uniformity, of freedom to servitude. In politics the equivalent of a fully developed scientific theory or philosophical system is a totalitarian dictatorship. In economics, the equivalent of a beautifully composed work of art is the smoothly running factory in which the workers are perfectly adjusted to the machines. The Will to Order can make tyrants out of those who merely aspire to clear up a mess. The beauty of tidiness is used as a justification for despotism.

In Hitler’s words, the propagandist should adopt “a systematically one-sided attitude towards every problem that has to be dealt with.” He must never admit that he might be wrong or that people with a different point of view might be even partially right. Opponents should not be argued with; they should be attacked, shouted down, or, if they become too much of a nuisance, liquidated. The morally squeamish intellectual may be shocked by this kind of thing. But the masses are always convinced that “right is on the side of the active aggressor.”

– From Aldous Huxley’s, Brave New World Revisited, published 1958

I just finished watching Trump’s entire acceptance speech and I have all sorts of thoughts to share. Let’s start with the overall picture. First, the speech confirmed all the reasons I cannot support Trump, but also further solidified why I think it’s very possible that he will win and become President. The speech was disturbing on multiple levels, while at the same time brilliant from a manipulative and salesmanship standpoint. He held my attention for the entire 75 minutes. Can you imagine for a moment Hillary doing the same thing? Yes, it matters.

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How to Actually Make America Great Again

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Earlier this week, I published a lengthy thought piece titled, America is Being Divided and Conquered Into Oblivion. I ended it with the following paragraphs:

All that said, I don’t want to end this post on a negative note. I think the real thing that’s missing from the equation is too many good, talented people are doing nothing. I’m not trying to be judgmental here. I personally had the ability and resources to quit my job and do what I do. I didn’t have a family at the time and didn’t have to provide for anyone else. That’s not the point. You don’t have to do what I did to make a difference and influence people. You don’t have to quit your job and fight the status quo with every breath you take. Life doesn’t need to be seen as an all or nothing endeavor in everything you do. Nevertheless, I think it’s important to consider the following (as an aside, I try to ask myself these questions all the time).

Think about your everyday life. What are you doing to push forward the decentralization of power and unite people? How are you being potentially divisive in life, and how can you bring people together as opposed to tearing others down? If you were brought up privileged and financially well off, you arguably have a greater responsibility to society. What are you doing to give back? Is it sufficient? Is what you do for a living accretive or extractive to society? What are you doing to make the world a better place than you found it? If nothing, why not?

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Unarmed Behavioral Therapist Shot by Florida Police Despite Laying on Back with Hands in the Air

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I’m speechless. Absolutely speechless.

You need to watch the video below.

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The Real Reason Pharma Companies Hate Medical Marijuana (It Works)

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Former Federal Judge Nancy Gertner was appointed to the federal bench by Bill Clinton in 1994. She presided over trials for 17 years. And Sunday, she stood before a crowd at The Aspen Ideas Festival to denounce most punishments that she imposed.

Among 500 sanctions that she handed down, “80 percent I believe were unfair and disproportionate,” she said. “I left the bench in 2011 to join the Harvard faculty to write about those stories––to write about how it came to pass that I was obliged to sentence people to terms that, frankly, made no sense under any philosophy.”

She went on to savage the War on Drugs at greater length. “This is a war that I saw destroy lives,” she said. “It eliminated a generation of African American men, covered our racism in ostensibly neutral guidelines and mandatory minimums… and created an intergenerational problem––although I wasn’t on the bench long enough to see this, we know that the sons and daughters of the people we sentenced are in trouble, and are in trouble with the criminal justice system.”

– From the post: Federal Judge of 17 Years Repents – Compares Damage Done by “War on Drugs” to Destruction of World War II

Whenever an irrational and inhumane law remains on the books far longer than any thinking person would consider appropriate, there’s usually one reason behind it: money.

Unsurprisingly, the continued federal prohibition on marijuana and its absurd classification as a Schedule 1 drug is no exception. Thankfully, a recent study published in the journal Health Affairs shows us exactly why pharmaceutical companies are one of the leading voices against medical marijuana. It has nothing to do with healthcare and everything to do with corporate greed.

So is it a war on drugs, or a war on cheap medicine. Decide for yourself.

The Washington Post reports:

There’s a body of research showing that painkiller abuse and overdose are lower in states with medical marijuana laws. These studies have generally assumed that when medical marijuana is available, pain patients are increasingly choosing pot over powerful and deadly prescription narcotics. But that’s always been just an assumption.

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GOP Includes Reinstatement of Glass-Steagall Into Party Platform

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I remain unconvinced that Donald Trump will be as hard on Wall Street as many of his supporters think he’ll be if elected President, but some of the following from the Washington Post certainly represents a breath of fresh air.

CLEVELAND — Donald Trump is adding fuel to Wall Street anxiety about his candidacy, jabbing directly at big banks this week with new language in the official Republican party platform that calls for the restoration of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, a move that would force the break-up of large financial institutions.

The embrace of the controversial law, long championed on the left, is deepening the estrangement of the financial services sector from the presumptive Republican nominee, according to industry leaders and lobbyists, who are now struggling to assess what role and influence they would have in a Trump administration.

Absolutely none would be the right amount.

Tony Fratto, a former Treasury and White House official in the George W. Bush administration, called the embrace of Glass-Steagall “really dumb.” He suggested it could push pragmatically-oriented bankers toward Democratic contender Hillary Clinton.

“Push” bankers to Clinton. Are you kidding me? If they were pushed any closer together they’d be fused at the hip

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America is Being Divided and Conquered Into Oblivion

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Or take the right to vote. In principle, it is a great privilege. In practice, as recent history has repeatedly shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you wish to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society’s merely functional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily co-operating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government.

-Aldous Huxley, in Brave New World Revisited (1958) 

The single event that changed my life more than any other was TARP, aka the banker bailout. The unfairness, extreme greed and selfishness with which the status quo bailed out financial criminals while leaving the public high and dry changed me forever. When it comes to shaping American history, it is equal in importance to the attacks of 9/11.

As someone who grew up privileged, I never really questioned the criminality of the status quo system. Like so many others who are beneficiaries of the way things are, there’s not much incentive to look behind the curtain. Nevertheless, the banker bailouts shook me to my core and opened my mind in ways that no other event could. At the time, I was happily earning a very large income at a young age while doing absolutely nothing to benefit society. As such, I couldn’t contemplate why government officials were putting so much money and energy into bailing out people like me, while ignoring everyone else. It felt irrational, unethical and dirty. I wrote about all this for over a year while still working in the financial sector, before concluding that it was time to part ways in early 2010. Even back then, I was incessantly warning that tremendous anger from the banker bailouts would ultimately bubble to the surface and create the sort of backdrop in which authoritarians, demagogues and fascists thrive.

The following years have felt like a tremendous rollercoaster ride. My emotions have vacillated significantly from pessimism to optimism, and now reside in a bizarre state in which the two inhabit an uncomfortable coexistence. I’ve previously defined the monumental struggle of our time as: Liberty and Decentralization vs. Authoritarianism and Centralization. For example, I noted in the post, The Comcast/Time Warner Merger and the War Between Centralization and Decentralization:

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