Stephenson Billings, fantasizing in Did Leonard Nimoy Have Antonin Scalia Killed to Give Obama Enough Supreme Court Votes to Cancel the 2016 Election? writes:

The wild card in this equation is likely Leonard Nimoy, who various leaked reports have identified as the newest leader of the Illuminati [:), JH]. While there is much debate about that secretive group’s ultimate motives, many citizen journalists suspect that they are expanding their control through both European-style socialism and Bilderberg-group branded international cooperation schemes. The recent Climate Change summit is the perfect example of this, as it gives foreign authorities the power to override both Congressional and Constitutional protections. As many know, the presence of the United Nations on American soil will lead to gun seizures and restrictions on Christian freedom of speech.

Illuminati supporters such as gun control activists, marijuana propagandists and the recruiters of sodomy are likely to immediately benefit from the Justice’s death. They will now have more room to promote their disturbing agendas on a national legal front.

Coincidentally enough, Marfa, Texas—the site of Scalia’s death—is reputedly a hotbed of radical liberal activity. Not only is the town well known for its alien contact and shrine to anti-figurative artist Donald Judd, the locale is also home to the International Woman’s Foundation, a communist front group. In addition, it was here that socialist novelist Ben Lerner wrote his infamous paean to out-of-wedlock childbirth, “10:04.”

Nimoy, the crowned “Pinnacle of the Draco,” has been consolidating power over liberal groups ever since he faked his own death last February. He has been commended in some quarters for brilliantly out-maneuvering the old guard of Rockefellers and the Rothschilds as he plots a technology-savvy future for the New World Order. It’s well known that Nimoy’s own radical liberalism was threatened by Scalia’s commitment to American exceptionalism, as best exemplified in his passionate defense of the court’s Citizens United ruling.

*Nemoy’s yahrzeit (do your homework) is next week.

I give Ta-Nehisi Coates major chops for not ducking the question and for so clearly articulating the stance, in a politics rendered dichotomous by so many, that we can support a candidate with whom we are not in 100 percent agreement.

Coates goes on to explain his discomfort in Against Endorsements where he writes:

Amy Goodman, being an excellent journalist, did exactly what she should have done—she asked if I were going to vote for Senator Sanders.

I, with some trepidation, answered in the affirmative. I did so because I’ve spent my career trying to get people to answer uncomfortable questions. Indeed, the entire reason I was on the show was to try to push liberals into directly addressing an uncomfortable issue that threatens their coalition. It seemed wrong, somehow, to ask others to step into their uncomfortable space and not do so myself. So I answered.

Coates continued, putting his response in a broader context:

My first duty, as a writer, is to myself. In that sense I simply hope to ask all the questions that keep me up at night. My second duty is to my readers. In that sense, I hope to make readers understand why those questions are critical. I don’t so much hope that any reader “agrees” with me, as I hope to haunt them, to trouble their sense of how things actually are.

It’s really no different with Senator Sanders. The idea that anyone would cast a vote because of how I am casting my vote makes my skin crawl. It misses the point of everything I’ve been trying to do in my time at The Atlantic. The point is to get people to question, not to recruit them into a religion. Citizens are not sheep. They do not need shepherds….

He concludes:

I know what I know, and not much more. And one thing I learned while The Horde was active was to never confuse the perch I enjoy here, one that is as much a matter of chance as anything else, with broad knowledge. So I am no position to offer an “endorsement” to Sanders—one he did not seek, and does not need.

It is important to say this not just as a writer, but as a black writer. Too often individuals are appointed to speak for black people. I don’t want any part of it. Black voters deserve to be addressed in all of their beautiful and wonderful complications, not through the lens of unelected “thought-leaders.” I was asked a question. I tried to answer it honestly. And that’s really all I have.

You can watch the second part of Goodman’s interview with Coates here.

So, yesterday I got into a fairly heated debate with a co-worker about Hilary Clinton vs. Bernie Sanders. At one point I said that there were plenty of women I would happily vote for as our next president. (In 2012 I voted for two women running for President/Vice President: Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala). Clinton just wasn’t on my list.

My list, off the top of my head, included Maria Cantwell, Christine Gregoire, Patti Murry, Jill Stein, Elizabeth Warren and Nina Turner. Turner has never been to Washington, but she is a political force. I met her briefly at a Cleveland State event a few years back and I’ve always been impressed with her. Because my attention is too often drawn to the national and international scenes (I depend upon Roldo to keep me grounded locally), I totally missed Turner’s support of Bernie Sanders. My bad.

This morning, while reading about Erica Gardner I followed a thread to Every Bernie Sanders Supporter Should Read This Today where Terrell Jermaine Starr writes:

Without Black women like former Ohio state Senator Nina Turner, I wouldn’t be giving Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders the time of day. If you don’t know who Turner is, you should. Turner served in the Ohio State Senate from 2008 to 2014. She made national news in 2012 when she introduced a men’s reproductive health bill that would have required men to undergo psychological counseling before getting prescriptions for medications like Viagra.

“Even the FDA recommends that doctors make sure that assessments are taken that target the nature of the symptoms, whether it’s physical or psychological,” Turner said at the time. “I certainly want to stand up for men’s health and take this seriously and legislate it the same way mostly men say they want to legislate a woman’s womb.”

Since November, Turner has been volunteering her time doing Black voter outreach for Sanders’ campaign, a crucial base of supporters he must win if he is to have a real shot at beating former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Though the Senator continues to trail her in crucial primary states where Black people make up huge voting blocs, Turner said during an hour-long phone conversation last week that once more Black people, like her, Tezlyn Figaro of Sanders’ African-American outreach team, and others get out and stump for Bernie just as Clinton’s supporters are going hard for her, we will see a shift in Black support.

As I read through Starr’s interview with Turner, this was the response that made me sit up:

STARR: When you decided to support Sen. Sanders, did you catch any heat?

TURNER: “Oh, my god yes. I’ve had white Hillary supporters saying to me that I betrayed the Clintons and saying I’m not going to have a future in politics. I mean, they marked me for life, and I’m sitting back thinking: The Clintons never helped me to do a thing in my life, and all of a sudden they control my destiny? [Emphasis in original, JH], That was very condescending to me.

“I had a white woman here in Ohio who supported my Secretary of State run in 2014. I’ll never forget this. I was at a Planned Parenthood lecture a couple of months ago and she came up to me and said how disappointed she was in me. Very condescending. And I let her know that I really didn’t care about her disappointment and I’m not on the plantation. That’s exactly what I told her.

“Then she said, ‘After all we’ve done for you.’ Now, see. That was it for me. I interpreted that as, ‘After all we’ve done for you, Black girl, you owe us.’ They would never say that to anyone else, but the fact you feel you can say that to a Black woman? I thought she was supporting me because I was the best candidate to be Secretary of State, because I was trying to protect access to the ballot box for all people — not because you own me or I owe you.”

That is the kind of fire we need in the White House. I won’t presume to guide Bernie, but I think Nina Turner would make an excellent vice presidential candidate.

Erica Gardner writes in Black lives like my father’s should matter. That’s why I’m endorsing Bernie Sanders. for The Washington Post writes:

When I talk to other black voters about this year’s presidential election, some seem ready to dismiss it. Why, they ask, should we continue to put our faith in a system that continues to fail us? And why trust leaders who don’t care about our lives?

I understand.

A year and a half ago, New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo barbarically choked my father, Eric Garner, on a Staten Island sidewalk in broad daylight. My father died that day. His death was ruled a homicide. Despite viral video footage of the incident, international media attention and widespread protests, our justice system failed to find Officer Pantaleo guilty of any crime. In fact, until a few weeks ago, the only person indicted in relation to the case was Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed it all.

As a daughter, I was devastated. As a citizen, I remain outraged—my father’s death was an absolute injustice, but not an uncommon one. By now, we know many of the other names all too well: Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Rekia Boyd. But it’s only thanks to the tireless work of organizers and protesters, who take to the streets and disrupt business as usual, that we know their names at all.

That’s why I resent politicians who speak their names without confronting the underlying problem: a banned chokehold was used on my father, several officers on the scene let it happen, my father is dead and Pantaleo is still on NYPD’s payroll because black lives don’t necessarily matter to everyone in America.

If our lives really mattered, we’d have equal access to decent jobs, good schools and affordable housing. If our lives mattered in this country, we’d have equal access to clean air, clean water and real investment in black neighborhoods. If black lives mattered in America, those who routinely brutalize us wouldn’t be the ones paid, with our tax dollars, to keep us safe. [Emphasis mine, JH]

I trusted establishment Democrats who claimed to represent me, only to later watch them ignore and explain away the injustice of my father’s death. I trusted the system; then I watched as politicians on both sides of the aisle—from Chicago’s Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel to Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder—disregard the will of the people they were elected to represent and abdicate their responsibility to protect them. I’ve watched as our system criminalizes blackness while allowing Wall Street to bilk the American people with impunity.

Even with my own heartbreak, when I demand justice, it’s never just for Eric Garner. It’s for my daughter; it’s for the next generation of African Americans. When I think about this presidential election, I’m not just thinking about the next four years—I’m thinking about the next 40.

Who will address the criminalization of our people? Who understands that we’re experiencing an economic crisis made worse by structural barriers to jobs and education? Who will bring us closer to real safety, freedom and power? Who has clearly shown us where they stand?

The answer is someone who started this work well before campaign season, who understands our deaths as tragedies — not political talking points — and someone who will speak out against the wars being waged against our communities. Not someone who only pays attention to our concerns when it’s time to collect our votes. Not someone who gives us bread crumbs and expects us to be full.

Black Americans—all Americans—need a leader with a record that speaks for itself. And to me, it’s clear. Of all the presidential candidates, Sen. Bernie Sanders is our strongest ally.

When protesters challenged Sanders last summer, that relationship was tested. They publicly questioned whether the most progressive candidate in the field viewed racial justice as a nonnegotiable demand. The optics were messy, but he heard us. He prioritized a racial justice platform. He spoke out, in speeches and debates, about Sandra Bland and declared that black lives do matter. He heard us, and I believe he’ll continue to listen.

We aren’t the first generation of black Americans to rise up and demand our human right to life, and we won’t be the last. But I know a better world is possible. I know that once we come together, we are powerful beyond imagination. Sen. Sanders knows this too. He’s learning from us, working with us and respecting the power of we, the people, over the established political machine.

I remember another candidate who dared me to believe in hope and change. His opponents said he wasn’t ready for leadership. They said he couldn’t win. He said, “Yes, we can.” And we did.

I still believe we can. That’s why I endorse Bernie Sanders for president.

Related:

So, Bernie was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, again. For some odd reason, only the first part of the interview is available from the show, but you can find a pretty crappy captured version of the bit after the commercial break here. Colbert also gave Bernie a bit in the opening and featured Bernie in the segment on the broader look at the New Hampshire primary. (Colbert’s take on Clinton’s disappointed-mom speech was perhaps the funniest political riff of the night.)

Has Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson lost his fucking mind?

I think so. Sam Levin, reporting for The Guardian in Tamir Rice: Cleveland says family owes $500 for EMS after fatal police shooting writes:

The city of Cleveland wants the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy killed by police, to pay hundreds of dollars to the government to cover “emergency medical services” for the child’s “last dying expense”, according to records.

The city’s attorneys filed a claim on Wednesday against Rice’s estate alleging that the family owes $500 for an unpaid EMS bill from the boy’s death, sparking outrage from Ohio supporters of the family who described it as a particularly cruel legal maneuver.

“The callousness, insensitivity, and poor judgment required for the city to send a bill after its own police officers killed a 12-year-old child is breathtaking,” Subodh Chandra, the family’s attorney, said in an email. “This adds insult to homicide.”

This will be Frank Jackson’s legacy.

Jim Sheehan writes:

You may have heard that, working with our advocacy partners at Bike Cleveland, OCBC is helping the Cleveland Metropolitan School District institute a Safe Routes To School program to encourage students to walk or bike to school for their health, better grades, reduced traffic congestion, and improved air quality (among many other reasons, right?!). One of the first things we are doing (besides attending lots of meetings), is a very exciting pilot program in six schools to train Physical Education teachers how to teach bicycle handling skills and traffic safety to 2nd grade students, thanks to funding from the St. Luke’s Foundation.

This program is starting next month, and will require a fleet of 20-35 bikes for each school. So OCBC is refurbishing 150 coaster brake, 16 and 20” wheel bikes from the many kids’ bikes we have donated. So,

From The Guardian:

The call for Sanders came early: with nearly 60% of precincts reporting, he had 59.3% of the votes to Clinton’s 38.9%. At the Sanders results party in Concord, supporters were turned away before polling had even closed. Few were doubting he would win; the question was only by how much.

Senior Sanders staff see this decisive win in New Hampshire as their ticket to the genuine national campaign momentum that has so far proved difficult to achieve.

Chief adviser Tad Devine told the the Guardian he is increasingly confident of securing union support to help the campaign in Nevada, the scene of their next and perhaps most important showdown with Clinton.

“People need to understand something,” said a passionate Devine. “We are a better campaign. We are a better resourced campaign. We have more people on the ground. We are demonstrating that resource superiority by going on television all across this country. We are redeploying hundreds of people who worked on this campaign [in New Hampshire]. We are happy to compete with them in the air and on the ground anywhere in this country.”

In the 24 hours since the New Hampshire primary, Bernie raised an amazing $7,365,600!

Bernie’s name may be on the banners, but this is a people’s revolution.

Previously…

It was great news that headlined the Plain Dealer recently.

“Convention center complex costing taxpayers less, officials say,” read the headline.

Hey, another downtown success story. Cheer now!

And, of course, we believe “officials” because they make it “Official.” Why else would they be called officials?

Cuyahoga County, led by executive Armond Budish and the 11-raise-seeking County Council, only spent $2.3 million in 2015 on the Global Center for Health Innovation, really the Medical Mart that never was and never will be.

But officials say that was $2 million less than they expected to pay. It only cost $2 million.

You may remember that Tim Hagan (who did such a fine job with Gateway financing) helped the old County Commission vote, with a thumb to the nose to voters, a quarter percent increase in the sales tax. To 8 percent, the highest, of course. To finance the deal. For 20 years. They seem to like that number. It’s so nice and round.

It’s expected to bring in another round number over the 20 years: $800 million.

They’re going to need it no matter what attorney Jeffery Applebaum tells the media.

Because it makes me wonder about the hotel the County is building. Why are they going into the hotel business? I guess the Greater Cleveland Partnership, Continue Reading »

It’s another easy tax hike the Plain Dealer can cheerlead. And push it onto ordinary people. They do it all the time. Thoughtlessly.

They’ll tell Clevelanders that they won’t be paying the tax. Ha!

Suburbanites will pay it. As if all people in the suburbs had excess resources ready to give to whatever new or extended tax is desired. As if costs aren’t passed on in unseen ways. As if others won’t follow Cleveland’s lead.

Have they examined public spending? No. Don’t expect it either.

Have they accepted that 87 percent would not be paid by residents? Of course. Politicians have said so. Who is more believable?

It’s bad, knee-jerk, dishonest journalism.

And it’s worse government policy.

It is happening with incredible consistency. Tax after tax.

—When it came to welfare for sports, the solution was the same. Go after the same taxpayers with the same regressive tax. So we extended the sin tax for 20 years, longer than the original or its first extension. Now a 45 year regressive tax.

—When it came to the arts, the solution was the same. Go with another regressive tax for 10 years. That’s 20 long years of tens of millions of tax dollars. So what? Only a few pay it. Smokers.

The Pee Dee backed both taxes with gleeful enthusiasm. You must do it, they Continue Reading »

My government once trusted me around nuclear weapons. Granted, they were small, only a few kilotons, not the city busters we really worry about, but still, they were fully functional nuclear missiles. The U.S. Navy did so because of an interlocking web of safeguards any reasonable intelligent individual could have circumvented.

Those safeguards ultimately depended upon a belief that I, and those who worked with me, weren’t crazy or evil. We weren’t and nothing happened. Ever.

I’m reminded of all this this morning because I’m reading a piece by Oliver Burkeman from a couple of years ago that asks the question: Do you feel a fraud?

Burkeman’s thesis is that we all (excepting frauds and idiots) suffer, at some level, from impostor syndrome, the feeling that you’re a fraud, and any day now you’ll be exposed.

(“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt,” said Bertrand Russell.)

I’m fascinated.

Arguably the worst [frustrating irony of impostorism], though, is that getting better at your job won’t fix it. Achieve promotions, or win accolades, and you’ll just have more cause to feel like a fake. Enhance your knowledge, and as you expand the perimeter of what you know, you’ll be exposed to more and more of what you don’t. Impostorism, as Pacific Standard magazine put it recently, “is, for many people, a natural symptom of gaining expertise”. Move up the ranks and if your field’s even vaguely meritocratic, you’ll encounter more talented people to compare yourself negatively against. It never stops. “I have written 11 books, but each time I think, ‘Uh-oh, they’re going to find [me] out now,'” as some low-profile underachiever named Maya Angelou once said.

There have been, and continue to be, times when impostorism looms in my life. I’ve even warned those I felt were being hoodwinked by my inexpertise that they should not so happily follow me down the garden path. Yet, they persist, I now think, out of fear of the exposure of their own impostorism.

Scary, huh?

Mano Singham offers one of the best reasons yet to vote for Bernie Sanders:

The fact that Sanders and his young following scare people like [Lloyd] Blankfein is a good reason to vote for him.

Then there is the matter of Mano’s stance on Hillary Clinton:

Clinton, along with her husband, is a fully paid up member of the neoliberal movement and has raked in huge sums of money by giving speeches to Goldman Sachs and other banks and corporations, getting $675,000 from that bank alone. She realizes that she cannot plausibly claim to be more progressive than Sanders, however much she now pivots to embrace the label. So she describes herself as a ‘progressive who gets results’, which is a wink and a nod to those opposed to progressivism that she will sell progressives down the river to placate the oligarchs.

Yes, Hillary gets results, for those who pay for them.

Cuyahoga County paid bondholders for the 1990 construction overruns of the Quicken (then Gund) arena another $8,321,713 on Jan. 15th.

Yes, we’re still paying on 1990 debts for Gateway.

The County does it every Jan. 15th and will through to 2023.

So far the bonds—thanks to Tim Hagan, Mary Boyle and Jim Petro—have cost taxpayers here $163 million. Old County Commissioner, same as the new. Giving it away.

That’s not peanuts, folks. That’s real cold cash. Your cash.

I warned back in 1992 that the bonds could cost some $300 million. We’re getting there. With 16 more years to pay at about $8.3 plus million a year it would bring the cost to County taxpayers to more than $295.8 million. So call me wrong. It’s not $300-million.

I’ve tried to get the Plain Dealer and the Cleveland Scene to cover this money loss. They apparently don’t see it. They’re busy with Johnny Whoever. And new restaurants downtown.

(Brent Larkin in his latest column on line squawks bitterly about Continue Reading »

On Monday Cuyahoga County’s new reformed part-time Council will be voting.

To give themselves a raise. Of course, they work hard. They told us so.

They want raises from $45,000 to $52,000, a 15.5 percent raise. You’ve heard plenty about how hard they work.

Part-time work suggests you have time for other work or play.

They haven’t told us what they earn outside the County pay
.
A reporter friend provided me with the 2015 Ethics filings of the 11 County Council members. The Ohio Ethics Commission is a pretty lame monitor but office holders must at least file. They aren’t very forthcoming with pertinent information.

But there’s enough evidence on the County Commissioner. They DO NOT NEED A RAISE!

A 15.5 per cent raise when the earnings of their constituents are lagging, according to all studies.

Previously…

From The Guardian:

With more than 99% of the precinct results in, Clinton led 49.9% to 49.5% over Sanders after seeing an apparently comfortable lead slip. The Associated Press and multiple outlets said the race was simply too close to call.

Both candidates will now move on to New Hampshire buoyed up, Clinton with a “sigh of relief” that her bid to be the first female president of the United States is alive, and Sanders believing that his revolution against the “billionaire classes” truly began in the snowy cornfields of Iowa.

With half of the results in across the rural midwest state, Clinton appeared to be easing to victory, three points up on the Vermont senator, whose relatively ramshackle campaign seemed to be no match for her mighty political machine.

But as the night wore on, Clinton’s lead shrank to two and then one point, until she was locked in a virtual tie with the 74-year-old whose passion has ignited a fervour among young Americans.

Appearing onstage in Des Moines before the final tally arrived, Clinton hailed “a contest of ideas” and appeared battle-ready for the fight of her political life.

She congratulated her opponent, saying: “I am excited about really getting into the debate with Senator Sanders about the best way forward to fight for us in America.”

The democratic socialist, though, had clearly stolen the momentum heading into the New Hampshire primary on 9 February – and a prolonged fight appears inevitable, a far cry from what had been envisaged as a graceful procession toward the nomination for Clinton.

We are finally revolted enough, the political revolution has begun.

So, Henry David Thoreau was my first non-familial, hero. I have tried to emulate him in many ways and, for the most part, fallen short.

Like many before me, I became obsessed with the 16th paragraph of Walden’s second chapter:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.

If we don’t understand ourselves, which I believe is why I write, then we do not understand the filter through which we try to understand the world. I’ve always felt a little squinky about Thoreau’s weekly trips back into town to get his laundry done during his two years in the woods. That detail never sat right with me. Reading Oliver Burkeman’s conclusion this morning in the Guardian—Too busy to focus? Try this—puts a different spin on that knowledge.

What emerges most powerfully [in Cal Newport’s new book, Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success In A Distracted World,] is the sense that it’s wrong to think of deep work as one more thing you’ve got to try to cram into your schedule. Truly committing to it, Newport suggests, transforms the rest of your time—so you’ll crank through shallow work faster, be more present in your home life, and eliminate time wasted switching between tasks. Depth, in short, isn’t at odds with a full life—it facilitates it. I’m persuaded. I still want one of those soundproofed chambers, though.

Me too, Oliver, me too. For now, however, I’m going to try creating a system to live deep my default.

You should have expected it. It’s back to the same old political mentality: Taxpayers swallow.

Cuyahoga County Council members want to raise their pay by a whopping 15.5 percent. This is the reform Council, remember.

Let’s not be cheap about it. But that’s what you might expect for corporate executives pay raises. Not public servants.

Not only that – they want to insure themselves raises in the future.

This is for a part-time job, no less.

Council President Dan Brady would have been to raised his to $62,000. However, he backed off and proposed it remain at $55,000 in a hearing that moved the legislation along this afternoon. He also could already be receiving a pension from the City of Cleveland where he was councilman for 10 years (1986-96). His wife, Dona Brady is now a city councilwoman. She makes $76,159.

It looks as if the Bradys could be taking well more than $125,000 a year at the two public jobs. Or maybe a lot more with a city pension.

That doesn’t put them with the average Clevelander or Cuyahoga County resident they supposedly serve.

But then that may be why our national election has a whole lot of Americans upset enough to be backing Presidential candidates out of the mainstream, as we’ve known it.

They are fed up. And you cannot blame them. They have lost control.

Even the Plain Dealer editorial calls this one “preposterous.” Wow!

Brady called it “fair.”He also declared he was not “greedy.” Some may dispute that even with his move to keep his pay at $55,000.

The committee passed it on to the full council in a unanimous vote. So they are sticking to the guns. They want the money.

These people don’t understand who they are supposed to be serving as the new REFORM county government. They protested that they aren’t “rubber stamps.” But Continue Reading »