June 22, 2015

Dem Strategist: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised if Sanders Beats Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire

June 21, 2015 10:20 am

Democratic strategist Maria Cardona posed the idea Sunday that frontrunner Hillary Clinton could lose critical early-state nomination races in Iowa and New Hampshire to socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).

Cardona, a self-described Clinton supporter, said on ABC’s This Week that no one should be surprised if Sanders wins both races.

This could be a sign of just how worried Clinton’s camp is about Sanders, who has garnered huge enthusiasm among the left-wing base of the party.

Host Jonathan Karl teased the discussion with clips of Sanders supporters crowing about their man. He polled well in a recent survey of New Hampshire voters, just 10 points behind the woman expected to coast to the nomination.

“I don’t think we’ve seen more enthusiasm for any candidate, Democrat or Republican, than we’ve seen for Bernie Sanders,” Karl said. “Maria, what is going on … Hillary Clinton, supposed to be a coronation here. She now finds all the energy in the Democratic primary right now is with a 73-year-old self-described socialist from Vermont.”

more

http://freebeacon.com/politics/dem-strategist-we-shouldnt-be-surprised-if-sanders-beats-clinton-in-iowa-and-new-hampshire/

June 22, 2015

CEO pay more than 300 times average workers in 2014

The United States' chief executive officers made 303 times as much as the average worker in 2014, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute to be released Monday.

The report from the left-leaning think tank found that average CEO compensation for the largest firms was $16.3 million in 2014, an increase of 3.9% from last year and 54.3% since the end of the financial crisis in 2009.

But not only are CEOs making more money than the average worker, they're also making more money than other top wage earners. CEO compensation in 2013 was almost six times higher than others in the top 0.1% of earners, according to the report.

"The claim is that high CEO pay is a marker for talent," says Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute and co-author of the report, who disagrees with the notion that the extraordinarily high compensation of executives is proportional to the skill required to run a large, publicly traded company.

"This data would suggest that executives are not only 300 times more talented than the average worker, but also six times more talented and valuable than other people in the top one-thousandth of earners."

more

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/06/21/epi-report-ceo-pay-303-times-average-2014/29000333/

June 22, 2015

Toon: National Conversations

June 22, 2015

"Here, Sheldon, Take our Dog Scott for a Walk"

June 21, 2015

Tom the Dancing Bug Toon: Attention, Subjects of the Global Corporatocracy

June 21, 2015

Weekend Toon Roundup- Charleston

June 15, 2015

Colorado high court rules employees can be fired for smoking pot outside of work

Pot may be legal in Colorado, but you can still be fired for using it.

The state Supreme Court ruled Monday that a medical marijuana patient who was fired after failing a drug test cannot get his job back. The case has big implications for employers and pot smokers in states that have legalized medical or recreational marijuana.

Colorado became the first state to legalize recreational pot in 2012. Though the case involves medical marijuana, the court's decision could also affect how companies treat employees who use the drug recreationally.

Brandon Coats is a quadriplegic who was fired by Dish Network after failing a drug test in 2010. The company agreed that Coats wasn't high on the job but said it has a zero-tolerance drug policy.

more

http://mashable.com/2015/06/15/colorado-employees-smoking-pot/

June 15, 2015

Paul Krugman- Democrats Being Democrats

On Friday, House Democrats shocked almost everyone by rejecting key provisions needed to complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement the White House wants but much of the party doesn’t. On Saturday Hillary Clinton formally began her campaign for president, and surprised most observers with an unapologetically liberal and populist speech.

These are, of course, related events. The Democratic Party is becoming more assertive about its traditional values, a point driven home by Mrs. Clinton’s decision to speak on Roosevelt Island. You could say that Democrats are moving left. But the story is more complicated and interesting than this simple statement can convey.

You see, ever since Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, Democrats have been on the ideological defensive. Even when they won elections they seemed afraid to endorse clearly progressive positions, eager to demonstrate their centrism by supporting policies like cuts to Social Security that their base hated. But that era appears to be over. Why?

Part of the answer is that Democrats, despite defeats in midterm elections, believe — rightly or wrongly — that the political wind is at their backs. Growing ethnic diversity is producing what should be a more favorable electorate; growing tolerance is turning social issues, once a source of Republican strength, into a Democratic advantage instead. Reagan was elected by a nation in which half the public still disapproved of interracial marriage; Mrs. Clinton is running to lead a nation in which 60 percent support same-sex marriage.

At the same time, Democrats seem finally to have taken on board something political scientists have been telling us for years: adopting “centrist” positions in an attempt to attract swing voters is a mug’s game, because such voters don’t exist. Most supposed independents are in fact strongly aligned with one party or the other, and the handful who aren’t are mainly just confused. So you might as well take a stand for what you believe in.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/15/opinion/paul-krugman-democrats-being-democrats.html

June 15, 2015

Stunning images of abandoned Soviet space shuttles

by Jonathan M. Gitlin



Thanks to reddit, we discovered this amazing photo essay by Ralph Mirebs from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan. A lot of Mirebs' photography has been documenting the industrial decline that followed the disintegration of the USSR at the end of the Cold War, and this most recent post starkly illustrates this via the fate of the Soviet shuttle program, Buran. We've included some of our favorites in the gallery above, but be sure to check Mirebs' post for the whole set.

Buran (Blizzard) was a reaction to NASA's Space Shuttle and closely resembled the American reusable orbiter, but without the latter's main engines (Buran was powered into orbit by the Energia heavy lift rocket). It only made a single (unmanned) space flight, in November 1988. Orbiter (OK)-1K1 Buran made two orbits before returning to earth (unlike the Space Shuttle, Buran was capable of autonomous flight from the outset). A lack of funds saw the program suspended shortly after its return to earth, and Boris Yeltsin cancelled it in 1993. It got worse from there; in 2002 an earthquake caused the roof of the MIK building in which OK-1K1 was being stored collapsed, destroying the orbiter and killing eight people.

Following that tragedy, the second orbiter, OK-1K2 (Ptichka, or Little Bird) was moved to the slightly smaller (but still huge) facility we see here. This building, known as MZK (Russian for Assembly and Fueling Complex, we think), was specially designed to contain the massive shockwave that would follow a catastrophic explosion during fueling (to prevent damage to other parts of the Baikonur complex. While that may seem like overkill, a failed launch of the USSR's N1 heavy lifter in 1969 was equivalent to almost 7kT, about half that of the Hiroshima bomb.

In addition to K2, the huge building also contains OK-MT, an earlier static test model used for testing and training. Mirebs vividly highlights a significant philosphical difference between USSR and US space programs. NASA built its rockets upright, you see. That's why Kennedy Space Center's defining landmark is the massive Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB; a giant blocky structure taller than a Saturn V with an enormous American flag on the side. But from the days of Korolev on, the Soviets kept everything at ground level until they got to the launch pad. Launch systems were assembled horizontally and transported by train to the launch pad; only then would they be raised vertical.

more
http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/06/stunning-images-of-abandonded-soviet-space-shuttles/

June 15, 2015

Bernie Sanders Is Building an Army to Take D.C.

Bernie Sanders is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. That’s why he's running for president. He’s filled with righteous anger about a lot of things, and lots of people agree with him. Close to a thousand people turned out to see him in New Hampshire; 750 in Iowa, one of the largest crowds for any of the candidates. He’s “bulking up” now in terms of his campaign staff and he’s doing pretty well fundraising, too: With 200,000 contributors at 40 bucks a piece, that's $8 million dollars.

“We’re going to be outspent, but it doesn’t matter,” he says. “We can run the kind of campaign I want.” His kind of campaign is about the big challenges facing the country, income inequality, climate change, the unaffordability of college, a disappearing middle class. He speaks about these issues with an ever present edge of outrage, what he calls “from my heart,” that lets you know he’s not just spouting briefing papers, these are his causes.

The reception he's gotten in the four or five weeks since he announced his candidacy has persuaded him that maybe the country's disgust with politics as usual has created an opening for somebody like him, a 73-year-old self-described "democratic socialist" who calls out the excesses of Wall Street and stands up for working families. "It is not a radical agenda," he told reporters at a breakfast organized by The Christian Science Monitor.

He wants to expand Social Security, move away from Obamacare to Medicare for all, and make tuition free at public universities. He would pay for these expanded benefits with a tax on Wall Street speculative trading, and he would end the loopholes that allow corporations to store their profits tax-free offshore. He doesn't expect support from the Business Roundtable, the Chamber of Commerce, or Wall Street, he says with delight, treating their opposition like a badge of honor.

more

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/15/bernie-sanders-is-building-an-army-to-take-d-c.html

Bernin!