April 11, 2016

News And Views

http://www.stirjournal.com/2016/04/01/i-know-why-poor-whites-chant-trump-trump-trump/

STIR
I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump
Apr 1, 2016 By Jonna Ivin

Photograph -- Headshot-Jonna-100
Photograph -- Poor People's Campaign -- Demonstrators on the National Mall. Oliver F. Atkins Photograph Collection. Photo © SEPS

This is really a humongous article – too long for me to try to analyze here, but a very good one. If you don’t remember your American history from school, go to the following website and read the whole clear, detailed and compelling story of how we got from poor whites and black slaves in the 1700s to equally poor whites and blacks today, with the top economic tier still skimming the cream off the top for themselves, while the government aids and abets them in their activity.

One caution, if you fear or hate the word “revolution,” don’t read the last few paragraphs. Needless to say, this writer is 100% behind Sanders. It really cheered me to read this. I personally don’t believe that we will see a violent bloody revolution nor that Sanders or anyone else among us wants that. However we all want a thorough change in the economic and social system that we have now. The rich can still get rich, they’ll just have fewer houses and cars and furs and diamonds.

Jonna Ivin says as part of her summary, “If poor and working class whites who chant, “Trump, Trump, Trump,” believe they have little in common with these “enemies,” they are mistaken. We are all sides of the same coin, a coin that has been held in the pocket of the elite class since the first settlers arrived in the American colonies. …. “Other poor people aren't the enemy, no matter how they look, how they pray, or who they love.” Trump supporters believe he’s different. They believe that he cares about us, that he tells it like it is, that he gives us a voice, that he can’t be bought because he’s already rich, that he’s railing against politics as usual. But does Trump care about the white underclass, or does he still think poor people are “morons”? From the era of slavery to the rise of Donald Trump, wealthy elites have relied on the loyalty of poor whites. All Americans deserve better.”


EXCERPTS -- “. . . . “The Revolution is coming and it is a very beautiful revolution.”

“There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”

One of these quotes is from Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966; the other is from Bernie Sanders in 1969.

Bernie Sanders was born into a working-class home. His father dropped out of high school and supported the family as a paint salesman after coming to the U.S. from Poland and struggling through the Great Depression. Later, after the war, they would find out most of his family died in the Holocaust. From this, Bernie Sanders learned a life lesson, “An election in 1932 ended up killing 50 million people around the world.”

By the time Bernie graduated from college, he was alone. His brother had moved to England for work, and both of his parents had died. He moved to Vermont and held a variety of low-wage jobs, spending many of the following years broke. He is quoted in a New Yorker article as saying, “I do know what it’s like when the electric company shuts off the electricity and the phone company shuts off the phone — all that stuff. So, for me, to talk to working-class people is not very hard.”

He bootstrapped his way into politics and has remained loyal to the poor and working class for more than thirty years. He is not a millionaire. He has not built a fortune from his position holding office. He doesn’t make money by keeping others poor or sending them to war. He doesn’t gain power by keeping people silent. Donald Trump would have you believe Sanders is a “loser” for not taking financial advantage of his position. I prefer to call him one of our own.

Bernie Sanders doesn’t say that if you are poor, it’s your own damn fault. He says if you are poor, take my hand. Together we can lift you up. His campaign isn’t about freebies or handouts. It’s about opportunity. It’s about believing that, given a chance and an even playing field, the poor and working class can achieve their dreams. He knows this because he has lived it.

Sanders’ revolution is about lifting the hand of oppression so we can all move forward in equality. It is about everyone having the same opportunity to paint their walls in shades of possibility.”

Jonna Ivin is STIR’s founder. Read her riveting bio. Follow her on Twitter.




CLINTON DIRTY TRICKS? – TWO ARTICLES, SAME STORY


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-static-noise-speech_us_570930dae4b0836057a16748

Hillary Clinton Accused Of Using Static Noise To Conceal Fundraising Speech
A local reporter says the campaign turned a noise machine out onto the street just before Clinton started speaking.

Hilary Hanson, Viral News Editor, The Huffington Post
04/09/2016 01:12 pm ET

Photograph -- THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES, Hillary Clinton rides the subway in New York City.
Photograph -- CYRUS MCCRIMMON VIA GETTY IMAGES, Hillary Clinton waves to neighbors as she leaves a fundraising party at Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper’s home.


A local reporter in Denver says Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton used a “static noise machine” at a fundraising event to prevent the press and public from hearing her speech.

The fundraiser was Thursday at the residence of Colorado gov. John Hickenlooper. The event was private, but since it took place outside — in a tent in Hickenlooper’s yard — anyone nearby would be able to hear much of what was going on.

But apparently the Clinton campaign wanted to make sure that didn’t happen, according to CBS Denver reporter Stan Bush, who tweeted that the campaign pointed a white-noise machine at the street just before Hillary Clinton spoke.

Bush also provided short videos demonstrating what the acoustics sounded like before and after the static noise started. He wrote that the noise came from “a large speaker pointed out into the street.”

Press-free fundraisers were an issue of contention in the 2012 presidential elections, when transparency advocates took both then-Republican nominee Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama to task for barring reporters from private events, or portions of events. The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Bernie Sanders campaign seized on the allegations in a Friday email to supporters, with the subject line “Wild story from Clinton fundraiser last night.”

BERNIE SANDERS CAMPAIGN

Though the Sanders campaign has also held fundraisers at private residences, all of them have been open to some press coverage, Sanders campaign spokesman Michael Briggs told The Huffington Post.

“There have been three fundraisers in Los Angeles at private homes,” Briggs said in an email. “Two were covered by The Hollywood Reporter and local press. One was covered by a pool reporter, John Wagner of The Washington Post. In that instance, as other pooled events, we distributed the unedited report to our entire press list.”

It’s unclear if any reporters were allowed into the Clinton event at Hickenlooper’s home, though The Denver Post noted that her campaign “would release no details to the press in advance.”

Also on HuffPost

Bernie Sanders And Hillary Clinton Face



http://www.thewrap.com/did-hillary-clinton-use-a-noise-machine-to-keep-journalists-from-hearing-her-fundraising-speech-video/

Did Hillary Clinton Use a Noise Machine to Keep Journalists From Hearing Her Fundraising Speech? (Video)
MEDIA | By Itay Hod on April 8, 2016 @ 11:48 am


Video -- Watch Clinton’s rope debacle

As former secretary of state took to the mic at a donor event Thursday, her team reportedly turned on a static noise device preventing journalists outside from being able to hear her

Here’s a brilliant idea: Don’t want reporters to hear what you’re telling donors with deep pockets? Just blast them with a white noise machine while you talk. Problem solved.
That’s what apparently Hillary Clinton’s campaign is accused of doing as she spoke at a fundraiser in Denver, Colorado, on Thursday. As the former secretary of state took to the mic, her team allegedly turned on a static noise device to prevent journalists outside from being able to hear her.

Only one wrinkle in that plan. It seems those sneaky reporters came prepared with a special recording device that allows you to, well, record. Who knew?

Also Read: Hillary Clinton Laughs Off Bernie Sanders' Claim She's 'Not Qualified' to Be President

Stan Bush, a reporter for local CBS affiliate KCNC covering the event, tweeted out video of what it sounded like when Clinton was speaking (think old TV’s showing that snowy static) and what it sounded like without the machine (what you’d expect background party noise to sound like).

Let’s face it, nothing says, “trust” like a special device hauled in to a fundraiser ahead of a presidential candidate’s speech.
One has to wonder what exactly was said that needed that kind of unusual preparation.
We tried to find out but Clinton’s campaign did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.


Also Read: Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton Bad Blood Turns Toxic Over Sandy Hook

This isn’t the first time Clinton’s team has been accused of exercising poor judgment when it comes to reporters on the campaign trail.

Clinton’s campaign came under fire last year after reporters were corralled behind a moving rope line as the former secretary of state marched in an Independence Day parade in New Hampshire.


Do other politicians use dirty tricks on a daily basis? Probably, but for a Democrat to do it discourages me. This is more than merely "poor judgement," in my view. It's cheating outright. The press has a right to have access to information in general, and in this case I really want to know what she said. What promises is she making to the 1%? She is apparently hiding information.




http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/11/473816332/tiger-numbers-seen-rising-for-first-time-in-100-years

Number Of Wild Tigers Increases For First Time In 100 Years
BILL CHAPPELL
April 11, 2016 11:59 AM ET

Photograph -- Tiger populations are on the rise, after years of losses, according to a new survey. Here, a tiger cub explores its nature reserve for the first time in England last year. Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images


The number of tigers in the wild has risen from an estimated 3,200 in 2010 to about 3,890 in 2016 — a gain of more than 20 percent after a century of decline, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The group says the tiger populations have grown in at least four countries: India, Russia, Nepal and Bhutan.

Early in the 20th century, the world had more than 100,000 tigers in it, as the author Caroline Fraser wrote in a report for Yale University back in 2010.

The population increase "is a pivotal step in the recovery of one of the world's most endangered and iconic species," said Ginette Hemley, senior vice president of wildlife conservation at WWF.

The findings are being praised as a key step toward a lofty goal that was set in 2010: to double the number of wild tiger populations worldwide by 2022. The survey gives a progress report at that initiative's halfway mark.

The WWF cites factors such as better survey processes and enhanced protections in explaining the gains. But it adds that the world's tigers remain threatened by shrinking habitats in Asia and that they are also a prime target for poachers.

"Every part of the tiger — from whisker to tail — is traded in illegal wildlife markets, feeding a multi-billion dollar criminal network," the organization says.



EXCERPT -- “The group says the tiger populations have grown in at least four countries: India, Russia, Nepal and Bhutan. Early in the 20th century, the world had more than 100,000 tigers in it, as the author Caroline Fraser wrote in a report for Yale University back in 2010. …."


I’m glad to see that the numbers have risen by 20%, but to go from 100,000 to something over 3,000 is still deeply saddening to me. Tigers are so beautiful and majestic. Take a moment and read the famous poem that so fully encapsulates their being.

http://www.famousliteraryworks.com/blake_the_tiger.htm

The Tiger
William Blake

Tiger Tiger. burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye.
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat.
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp.
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile His work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger Tiger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?



http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/04/11/473801506/just-like-human-skin-this-plastic-sheet-can-sense-and-heal

Just Like Human Skin, This Plastic Sheet Can Sense And Heal
Heard on All Things Considered
JOE PALCA
April 11, 20162:59 PM ET


Photograph -- Zhenan Bao, a chemical engineer at Stanford University, is working to invent an artificial skin from plastic that can sense, heal and power itself. The thin plastic sheets are made with built-in pressure sensors. Bao Research Group
Video -- YouTube, Bao builds her devices from a plastic she has specially designed that mimics the electrical properties of silicon, the element semiconductor chips are made from.
GOATS AND SODA -- An Artificial Limb Can Bring Hope — But Who's Going To Make It? An athlete with a prosthetic leg in trains for the paralympics. 13.7: COSMOS AND CULTURE
Physical Disability And Engineering Of Environments
Photographs -- SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS, Fashionable Prostheses Trade Realistic Color For Personal Pizazz
Photograph -- A pressure sensor is sandwiched inside layers of plastic. It senses the pressure unleashed on the plastic and changes its electrical properties. Bao Research Group
Video -- https://youtu.be/DfenfqtG5X4 Bao: On a quest to develop artificial skin



Artificial limbs have come a long way since the days of peg legs and hooks for hands. But one thing most of these prosthetics lack is a sense of touch.

Zhenan Bao intends to change that.

Bao is a chemical engineer at Stanford University. Her long-term goal is to make an artificial skin out of plastic that can do most — if not all — of the things real skin can do.

Skin is pretty remarkable stuff. It keeps dangerous bacteria and germs out and our innards in. It's flexible, it can sense when we touch things and it can heal itself when cut.

Bao has to make a pretty remarkable material if she's going to mimic all that — and she's getting there.

She recently took me on a tour of her lab in Shriram Center for Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering.

"This is where we make some of the devices," says Bao as we enter one of her lab spaces. We're standing next to a large sealed chamber with a clear window. There are long black gloves sticking straight out from the bottom of the box as if there were someone inside trying to reach out. But it's actually just the air pressure in the box. You use these gloves to reach into the box.

This "nitrogen box" is where new devices are tested before they're exposed to the air.

She takes a small, clear square of plastic from a container on her desk. It's about the thickness of a piece of skin and it contains a nano-scale pressure sensor.

It looks to me like an ordinary piece of plastic. You can't really see it, but there's a pressure sensor sandwiched inside layers of plastic. It changes its electrical properties depending on how hard you press on it.

But it's not enough to just make a plastic with a built-in pressure sensor. You need to build an electrical circuit into the plastic that can relay what the pressure sensor is sensing. Bao shows me how they've done that.

"So you can see there are some really fine lines," she says. "These are electrodes that can turn the touch signal into electrical pulses."

Ultimately, the idea is to feed those electrical impulses to nerve bundles that can transmit them to the brain.

Skin will heal if you scratch it. To mimic that property, Bao and her colleagues made a plastic that repairs itself when it's torn.

Teacher Kim Song Bo lectures at a new school that is training students to make prosthetic limbs. Classes are held at the Center for the Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

"Depends on how we design the molecules," she says. "Some can repair very quickly, within a minute, some take hours or days to recover."

Making a flexible, stretchable plastic was also a problem at first. "But now we also have a new version that can stretch to eight times its original length," Bao says.

Another problem Bao and her colleagues are working to crack is how to power their artificial skin.

One idea is to use light. Postdoctoral scholar Xiaodan Gu shows me a polymer that can turn light into electricity. This also doesn't look too different from an ordinary plastic wrap.

He holds a piece of the plastic out so I can see it. "Those shiny things are electrodes, and on the top side you can see these tinted color ... they absorb light and transfer the light into the electricity," he says.

Gu hopes to be able to use a version of his polymer to manufacture cheaper solar panels. Bao says there'll be other spinoffs as her lab works to build plastics with a variety of electrical properties. She has already started a company that plans to sell a version of her plastic for touch screens.

Create Prosthetics' 3-D printers give anyone in the world access to a design operation in Lake Placid, N.Y., that, for $500, creates a personalized cover for a prosthetic device.

"Our really long term goal is to use this to help patient(s) who lost their limb(s) to recover their sense of touch," Bao says.

Bao says there is still a lot of work before she'll have a version of her skin to test on patients. But with all the progress she's making, it seems that day might not be far off.



EXCERPTS -- "To mimic that property, Bao and her colleagues made a plastic that repairs itself when it's torn. …. He holds a piece of the plastic out so I can see it. "Those shiny things are electrodes, and on the top side you can see these tinted color ... they absorb light and transfer the light into the electricity," he says. Gu hopes to be able to use a version of his polymer to manufacture cheaper solar panels. Bao says there'll be other spinoffs as her lab works to build plastics with a variety of electrical properties. She has already started a company that plans to sell a version of her plastic for touch screens.”


This is a really impressive discovery, especially the connection of electrical impulses directly to nerves and eventually to the brain. This plastic will also repair itself when torn. Prosthetic limbs are in the future, but what about humanoid robotics as in “I, Robot” – or Mary Shelly’s classic Frankenstein. see below. There was also a great TV production called “Murder and the Android.” That android had the capacity to feel and fell in love with a human woman. It’s interesting that science fiction has come up with a number of stories that bear a resemblance at least to scientific fact by the time a hundred years or so passes.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Robot_(film)
I, Robot (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Excerpt: “In 2035, humanoid robots serve humanity. Humans are protected from the robots by the Three Laws of Robotics. Del Spooner (Smith), a Chicago police detective, hates and distrusts robots because one of them rescued him from a car crash, leaving a young girl to die because her survival was statistically less likely than his.”




http://www.cbsnews.com/news/goldman-sachs-to-pay-5-1-billion-for-deceptive-mortgage-practices/

Goldman Sachs to pay $5.1 billion for deceptive mortgage practices
CBS/AP
April 11, 2016, 11:40 AM


WASHINGTON- Goldman Sachs (GS), which famously bet against the U.S. housing market ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, will pay $5.06 billion to settle federal charges of deceptive mortgage practices in the years leading up to the meltdown.

The deal announced Monday resolves state and federal probes into the sale of shoddy mortgages before the housing bubble and economic meltdown.

"This resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail," said Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery in a statement.

The Justice Department said Goldman admitted in the settlement that it made "false and misleading representations to prospective investors" about mortgage-backed securities it was selling.

In a statement of facts outlined in the agreement, Goldman acknowledged that "significant percentages" of the mortgages it packaged in securities sold between 2005 and 2007 did not conform with it had told investors about the loans.

The Justice Department said that senior executives in Goldman's mortgage unit, along with credit and legal department employees, were required to approve every residential mortgage-backed security (RMBS) issued by the bank. Goldman's so-called Mortgage Capital Committee approved every RMBS that it reviewed between December 2005 and 2007 despite knowing that many home loans in the securities had credit and compliance defects, the agency said.

The settlement also makes clear that Goldman suspected that many of the subprime loans it was rolling up into securities were potentially deficient. The Justice Department cites a security Goldman created in 2006 with loans made by Countrywide Financial, at the time the country's biggest provider of subprime loans.

"In April 2006, while Goldman was preparing an RMBS backed by Countrywide loans for securitization, a Goldman mortgage department manager circulated a 'very bullish' equity research report that recommended the purchase of Countrywide stock," the agency said. "Goldman's head of due diligence, who had just overseen the due diligence on six Countrywide pools, responded 'If they only knew....' "

With Countrywide in deep financial distress, Bank of America bought the lender in 2008 for $4.1 billion.

The deal requires the bank to pay a $2.4 billion civil penalty and an additional $1.8 billion in relief to underwater homeowners and distressed borrowers, along with $875 million in other claims.

Under the law, Goldman could partially ease the financial pain from the settlement by deducting roughly $2.7 billion from its taxes, equivalent to the combined relief for homeowners and borrowers, along with the money for the other claims. The bank may not deduct any part of the $2.4 billion civil penalty.

The agreement is the latest multi-billion-dollar civil settlement reached with a major bank. Other banks that settled in the last two years include Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC).

Goldman had previously disclosed the settlement in January, but federal officials laid out additional allegations in a statement of facts.



EXCERPTS -- “Goldman Sachs (GS), which famously bet against the U.S. housing market ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, will pay $5.06 billion to settle federal charges of deceptive mortgage practices in the years leading up to the meltdown. The deal announced Monday resolves state and federal probes into the sale of shoddy mortgages before the housing bubble and economic meltdown. "This resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail," said Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery in a statement.” …. Goldman Sachs (GS), which famously bet against the U.S. housing market ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, will pay $5.06 billion to settle federal charges of deceptive mortgage practices in the years leading up to the meltdown. The deal announced Monday resolves state and federal probes into the sale of shoddy mortgages before the housing bubble and economic meltdown. "This resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail," said Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart Delery in a statement.


“The Justice Department said that senior executives in Goldman's mortgage unit, along with credit and legal department employees, were required to approve every residential mortgage-backed security (RMBS) issued by the bank.” One reason why I only vote for Democrats, and prefer Sanders over Clinton, is that the bigger the company the more likely it is to follow no rules of ethics of legality at all in its’ attempts to make every more money. As the popular song from a decade or so goes, “Mo money, mo money, mo money!!” This huge and highly respected company threatened the very employees against challenging the faulty loans. “ … $5.06 billion to settle federal charges of deceptive mortgage practices in the years leading up to the meltdown.” This $5.06 billion dollars should go to all investors who were scammed in this shameful “business decision.” When Republican politicians brag that they are not professional politicians, but businessmen, it doesn’t impress me at all. Too many of these “self-made men” are really cheats, thieves and liars.