November 17, 2016

Something is wrong with the Democratic Party

It's the same thing wrong with all the progressive parties in liberal democracies that have abandoned their convictions and become RW light. I know a man who represents a leading party here. Even after the party lost a shocker he thought remaining in a particular position for 25 years was more important that taking responsibility for the loss. We talk about others' egos but our parties have the identical problem even if they are more subtle.

The first step is to get back to the party's core philosophical convictions and at the same time abandon all third way/ Blue dog folks.

I'd love to see how many of them voted for the Con. .

November 17, 2016

Rmoney for SOS

Just saw that on GEM$NBComcast

November 17, 2016

Presidential Medal of Freedom

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/16/president-obama-names-recipients-presidential-medal-freedom
President Obama Names Recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Barack Obama named 21 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors. The awards will be presented at the White House on November 22nd.

President Obama said, "The Presidential Medal of Freedom is not just our nation's highest civilian honor - it's a tribute to the idea that all of us, no matter where we come from, have the opportunity to change this country for the better. From scientists, philanthropists, and public servants to activists, athletes, and artists, these 21 individuals have helped push America forward, inspiring millions of people around the world along the way."

This event will be streamed live at: www.whitehouse.gov/live.

The following individuals will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the National Basketball Association’s all-time leading scorer who helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to five championships and the Milwaukee Bucks to another. During his career, Abdul-Jabbar was a six-time NBA Most Valuable Player and a 19-time NBA All-Star. Before joining the NBA, he was a star player at UCLA, leading the Bruins to three consecutive championships. In addition to his legendary basketball career, Abdul-Jabbar has been an outspoken advocate for social justice.

Elouise Cobell (posthumous)

Elouise Cobell was a Blackfeet Tribal community leader and an advocate for Native American self-determination and financial independence. She used her expertise in accounting to champion a lawsuit that resulted in a historic settlement, restoring tribal homelands to her beloved Blackfeet Nation and many other tribes, and in so doing, inspired a new generation of Native Americans to fight for the rights of others. Cobell helped found the Native American Bank, served as director of the Native American Community Development Corporation, and inspired Native American women to seek leadership roles in their communities.

Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen DeGeneres is an award-winning comedian who has hosted her popular daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, since 2003 with her trademarked humor, humility, and optimism. In 2003 Ellen lent her voice to a forgetful but unforgettable little fish named Dory in Finding Nemo. She reprised her role again in 2016 with the hugely successful Finding Dory. Ellen also hosted the Academy Awards twice, in 2007 and 2014. In 1997, after coming out herself, DeGeneres made TV history when her character on Ellen revealed she was a lesbian. In her work and in her life, she has been a passionate advocate for equality and fairness.

Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro has brought to life some of the most memorable roles in American film during a career that spans five decades. His first major film roles were in the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly and Martin Scorsese's crime film Mean Streets. He is a seven-time Academy Award nominee and two-time Oscar winner, and is also a Kennedy Center honoree.

Richard Garwin

Richard Garwin is a polymath physicist who earned a Ph.D. under Enrico Fermi at age 21 and subsequently made pioneering contributions to U.S. defense and intelligence technologies, low-temperature and nuclear physics, detection of gravitational radiation, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computer systems, laser printing, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He directed Applied Research at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center and taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and Harvard University. The author of 500 technical papers and a winner of the National Medal of Science, Garwin holds 47 U.S. patents, and has advised numerous administrations.

Bill and Melinda Gates

Bill and Melinda Gates established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, the foundation focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, the mission is to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. The Gates Foundation has provided more than $36 billion in grants since its inception.

Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry is one of the world’s leading architects, whose works have helped define contemporary architecture. His best-known buildings include the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Dancing House in Prague, and the Guggenheim Museum building in Bilbao, Spain.

Margaret H. Hamilton

Margaret H. Hamilton led the team that created the on-board flight software for NASA's Apollo command modules and lunar modules. A mathematician and computer scientist who started her own software company, Hamilton contributed to concepts of asynchronous software, priority scheduling and priority displays, and human-in-the-loop decision capability, which set the foundation for modern, ultra-reliable software design and engineering.

Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks is one of the Nation’s finest actors and filmmakers. He has been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role five times, and received the award for his work in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump. Those roles and countless others, including in Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, and Cast Away, have left an indelible mark on American film. Off screen, as an advocate, Hanks has advocated for social and environmental justice, and for our veterans and their families.

Grace Hopper (posthumous)

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, known as “Amazing Grace” and “the first lady of software,” was at the forefront of computers and programming development from the 1940s through the 1980s. Hopper’s work helped make coding languages more practical and accessible, and she created the first compiler, which translates source code from one language into another. She taught mathematics as an associate professor at Vassar College before joining the United States Naval Reserve as a lieutenant (junior grade) during World War II, where she became one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer and began her lifelong leadership role in the field of computer science.

Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan is one of the greatest athletes of all time. Jordan played 15 seasons in the NBA for the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards; he is currently a principal owner and chairman of the Charlotte Hornets. During his career, he won six championships, five Most Valuable Player awards, and appeared in 14 All-Star games.

Maya Lin

Maya Lin is an artist and designer who is known for her work in sculpture and landscape art. She designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. and since then has pursued a celebrated career in both art and architecture. A committed environmentalist, Lin is currently working on a multi-sited artwork/memorial, What is Missing? bringing awareness to the planet's loss of habitat and biodiversity.

Lorne Michaels

Lorne Michaels is a producer and screenwriter, best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live, which has run continuously for more than 40 years. In addition, Michaels has also produced The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and 30 Rock, among other popular, award-winning shows. He has won 13 Emmy Awards over the course of his lengthy career.

Newt Minow

Newt Minow is an attorney with a long and distinguished career in public life. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Minow served as a Supreme Court clerk and counsel to the Governor of Illinois. In 1961, President Kennedy selected Minow, then 34, to serve as Chairman of the Federal Communications Committee (FCC), where he helped shape the future of American television and was a vigorous advocate for broadcasting that promoted the public interest. In the five decades since leaving the FCC, Minow has maintained a prominent private law practice while devoting himself to numerous public and charitable causes.

Eduardo Padrón

Eduardo Padrón is the President of Miami Dade College (MDC), one of the largest institutions of higher education in the United States. During his more than four decade career, President Padrón has been a national voice for access and inclusion. He has worked to ensure all students have access to high quality, affordable education. He has championed innovative teaching and learning strategies making MDC a national model of excellence.

Robert Redford

Robert Redford is an actor, director, producer, businessman, and environmentalist. In 1981, he founded the Sundance Institute to advance the work of independent filmmakers and storytellers throughout the world, including through its annual Sundance Film Festival. He has received an Academy Award for Best Director and for Lifetime Achievement. Redford has directed or starred in numerous motion pictures, including The Candidate, All the President's Men, Quiz Show, and A River Runs Through It.

Diana Ross

Diana Ross has had an iconic career spanning more than 50 years within the entertainment industry in music, film, television, theater, and fashion. Diana Ross is an Academy Award nominee, inductee into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and recipient of the Grammy Awards highest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award. Ross was a recipient of the 2007 Kennedy Center Honors. Diana Ross’s greatest legacy is her five wonderful children.

Vin Scully

Vin Scully is a broadcaster who, for 67 seasons, was the voice of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. In Southern California, where generations of fans have grown up listening to Dodger baseball, Scully's voice is known as the "soundtrack to summer." In 1988, he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Scully's signature voice brought to life key moments in baseball history, including perfect games by Sandy Koufax and Don Larsen, Kirk Gibson's home run in the 1988 World Series, and Hank Aaron's record-breaking 715th home run.

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen is a singer, songwriter, and bandleader. More than five decades ago, he bought a guitar and learned how to make it talk. Since then, the stories he has told, in lyrics and epic live concert performances, have helped shape American music and have challenged us to realize the American dream. Springsteen is a Kennedy Center honoree and he and the E Street Band he leads have each been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson has performed on the stage, on television, and on the silver screen. She has won two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award, and is known for her performances in Sounder, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, and The Help. In 2013, she returned to the stage with The Trip to the Bountiful, and was awarded the Tony Award for best leading actress. Tyson received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2015.

November 16, 2016

Watch this and smile - smart brother

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/florida-9-year-old-catches-saves-infant-brother-fromfall-article-1.2876237

November 16, 2016

Bob Dylan tells Nobel prize committee he will not go to Sweden for ceremony

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/nov/16/bob-dylan-tells-nobel-prize-committee-he-will-not-go-to-sweden-for-ceremony
<snip>

Bob Dylan has told the Nobel prize committee he will not be attending the ceremony in Sweden to pick up his accolade.

Dylan was named winner of this year’s Nobel prize for literature in October for his vast body of lyrics and poetry but has since been reluctant to publicly acknowledge the honour.

The 75-year-old’s silence led him to be labelled “arrogant” by one member of the Nobel academy, and a brief message on his website that he was the “the winner of the Nobel prize for literature 2016” was taken down the next day.

It took two weeks for the singer and songwriter, who has a notoriously troubled relationship to his own fame, to accept a call from the permanent secretary of the academy, Sara Danius. He told them he had been left “speechless” by the honour and later said in an interview he would “absolutely” attend an award ceremony “if it’s at all possible”.
Fascinating, infuriating, enduring: Bob Dylan deserves his Nobel prize
Read more

However, in a personal letter to the academy, Dylan told them “he wishes he could receive the prize personally, but other commitments make it unfortunately impossible.”

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I just knew he wouldn't go.

November 16, 2016

Dylann Roof may not be mentally competent enough for his federal death penalty case, judge says

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/dylann-roof-not-mentally-competent-murder-trial-article-1.2869794
<snip>
The judge in the death penalty trial of Dylann Roof believes it's possible the white man charged with gunning down nine black parishioners in Charleston last year may not be mentally competent to stand trial, according to newly unsealed court documents.

A defense motion unsealed Friday mentions U.S. Judge Richard Gergel's finding that it's reasonable to believe Roof "may presently be suffering from a mental disease or defect." The motion says the judge's finding doesn't alter Roof's constitutional rights.

Gergel ordered another competency exam for Roof earlier this week, one day after halting jury selection, because of the defense motion. He held a hearing with only himself, Roof and defense lawyers present to consider the defense motion.

"The court is mindful that this delay in jury selection may be disappointing to some," reads Tuesday's order. But "under the present circumstances, the court finds this brief delay in jury selection to serve the ends of justice."
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Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

November 16, 2016

Looks like loyalty trumps competence

for Don the Con's appointments.

November 16, 2016

Delish! After a hit by the Donald, Chris Christie has become a mob of one

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/11/after_a_hit_by_by_the_donald_chris_christie_has_be.html
<snip>
I suspect one reason mob movies are so popular is that they mirror what happens in real life, just on a more brutal scale.

Typical was the scene (see below) in the 1990 classic "Goodfellas" in which the character played by Jersey's own Joe Pesci is told that he is going to become a made man in the Mafia.

He is instead summarily dispatched with a shot to the back of the head because he did something that displeased the big boss.

That's what happened to our governor last week - on a symbolic level of course.

Chris Christie didn't cross the Don, but he did cross the Donald. So soon after celebrating Trump's election Tuesday as the capo di tutti capi of America, Christie learned that he was unceremoniously dispatched as head of the Trump transition team.

Exactly what Christie did to upset Trump was not made public, but my sources inside the Republican Party say that it was a collection of offenses.

Among the offenses was Christie's effort to put some space between himself and Trump after that "Access Hollywood" video came out with all of those rude remarks about women by the Donald. At a time when Trump needed defenders, Christie called those remarks "indefensible."

Then there was the Bridgegate trial, which took up most of the final month of the campaign.
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It's fun watching this scumbag destroyed - Bridgegate will haunt him to the grave or the prison -whichever comes first.

November 16, 2016

Congrats to Maggie Hassan and Kamala Harris

Beating Kelly Ayotte was no easy task.

New Hamp­shire Gov. Maggie Hassan, a grad­uate of Northeastern’s School of Law, was elected to the U.S. Senate last week, unseating Repub­lican Sen. Kelly Ayotte in a tightly con­tested race that drew the nation’s attention.

“I am deeply grateful to the people of New Hamp­shire for the great trust that they have once again bestowed upon me, and I will work every day to honor it as their United States sen­ator,” Hassan said.

Well done California. Kamala's father is Jamaican and her mother is from India.

By the way there is a run off in December for the Senate seat in Louisiana

Missing entry