Discontinuity

Why do Greeks make the best Pizza?

Next week’s guests-

• Monday 7/27: Ted Cruz
• Tuesday 7/28: Tom Cruise
• Wednesday 7/29: Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Thursday 7/30: J.J. Abrams

Ta-Nehisi Coates will be on to talk about Between the World and Me.

“Between the World and Me” (which takes its title from a Richard Wright poem) offers an abbreviated portrait of the author’s life at home, focusing mainly on the fear he felt growing up. Fear of the police, who he tells his son “have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body,” and who also possess a dominion of prerogatives that include “friskings, detainings, beatings, and humiliations.” And fear of the streets where members of crews – “young men who’d transmuted their fear into rage” – might “break your jaw, stomp your face, and shoot you down to feel that power, to revel in the might of their own bodies,” where death might “billow up like fog” on an ordinary afternoon.

The “need to be always on guard” was exhausting, “the slow siphoning of essence,” Mr. Coates writes. He “feared not just the violence of this world but the rules designed to protect you from it, the rules that would have you contort your body to address the block, and contort again to be taken seriously by colleagues, and contort again so as not to give police a reason.”

Mr. Coates – a national correspondent for The Atlantic – contrasts this world of the streets with the “other world” of suburbia, “organized around pot roasts, blueberry pies, fireworks, ice cream sundaes, immaculate bathrooms, and small toy trucks that were loosed in wooded backyards with streams and glens.” He associates this clichéd suburban idyll with what he calls “the Dream” – not the American dream of opportunity and a better life for one’s children; not Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of freedom and equality (which the Reverend King observed was “a dream deeply rooted in the American dream”), but instead, in Mr. Coates’s somewhat confusing use of the term, an exclusionary white dream rooted in a history of subjugation and privilege.

Those Dreamers, he contends, “have forgotten the scale of theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them their suburbs. They have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful Dream and force them to live down here with us, down here in the world.”

Yeah Ta, I was raised in the world and it ain’t all “pot roasts, blueberry pies, fireworks, ice cream sundaes, immaculate bathrooms, and small toy trucks that were loosed in wooded backyards with streams and glens.”.  It’s different, not better.  Bullies will be and we all “live down here with us, down here in the world.”  Freedom and equality mean strife and struggle.  Revolution has no color except blood.

Nipsey Russell

Tonightly the topic is Sandra Bland.  The panel is Christina Greer, Jordan Carlos, and Mark deMayo.

The real news below.

The whole show. You can watch it if you can stand it.  Here are the standard links (1, 2, 3) and the web exclusive extended (1, 2).  At least it’s out of the way and we can concentrate on what makes Jon good and not on what makes him suck.

This week’s guests-

• Wednesday 7/22: Jake Gyllenhaal
• Thursday 7/23: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Jake Gyllenhaal will be on to talk about Southpaw, a kind of grittier Rocky (Adrian dies).

The Whitely Show

Tonightly our special guest is Felonious Munk talking about #BlackLives vs. #AllLives.  The panel is Lavell Crawford, Gary Owen (not the one you are thinking of), and Uzo Aduba.

The real news below.

Why Progressives Must Stay United

Robert Reich

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

It’s impossible to overcome widening economic inequality in America without also dealing with the legacy of racial inequality.

And it is impossible to overcome racial inequality without also reversing widening economic inequality.

They are not the same but they are intimately related.

Racial inequalities are baked into our political and economic system. Police brutality against black men and women, mass incarceration disproportionately of blacks and Latinos, housing discrimination that has resulted in racial apartheid across the nation, and voter suppression in the forms of gerrymandered districts, voter identification requirements, purges of names from voter registration lists, and understaffed voting stations in black neighborhoods – all reveal deep structures of discrimination that undermine economic (in)equality.

…

For decades Republicans have exploited the economic frustrations of the white working and middle class to drive a wedge between races, channeling those frustrations into bigotry and resentment.

The Republican strategy has been to divide-and-conquer. They want to prevent the majority of Americans – poor, working class, and middle-class, blacks, Latinos, and whites – from uniting in common cause against the moneyed interests.

We must not let them.

Our only hope for genuine change is if poor, working class, middle class, black, Latino, and white come together in a powerful movement to take back our economy and democracy from the moneyed interests that now control both.

Without addressing widening economic inequality, the legacy of racism and social injustice cannot be corrected.  Why, you may ask, were LGBTQ issues advanced during this Administration after languishing for decades and in the face of vociferous and concerted opposition?

It’s not that I begrudge my otherly oriented comerades their victories, they were hard fought and well deserved, but they came at the point of a privileged gun.  The LGBTQ demographic is politically active, has disposable income for contributions, and looks just like me- white and upper middle-class.  1%ers if not .001%ers.

Women (not a minority) and minorities (not for much longer) face the additional problems of being distinguishable in their physical characteristics.  They’re women or their skin is browner.  To argue that these are not the basis of discrimination is to ignore Italian/Irish/Jewish assimilation (separate culture/language?  Check!  African-Americans are native English speakers.).

What we can learn from the LGBTQ victories is that economic pressure works!  Not just in terms of direct contributions though those are a very visible aspect, but also in shaping markets.  The reason Bus Lines were such a vulnerable target during the Civil Rights movement is that their ridership was overwhelmingly African-American and boycotts cut deep.

As citizens we must use the levers of the market to punish the traitors and reward the patriots if we wish to promote our agenda.

You can watch it if you can stand it.  My position is that at least it’s out of the way and we can concentrate on what makes Jon good and not on what makes him suck.  My activist brother was worried that it will be just another one of these love fests where Jon decides not to burn his Rolodex by asking only softball questions, big and fat and right over the heart of the plate (oh, and he’s bi-partisany about it too, anyone remember John McCain?).

My brother was exactly right.

Obama on The Daily Show: ‘Executive order: Jon Stewart cannot leave’

by Rory Carroll, The Guardian

Tuesday 21 July 2015 19.54 EDT

With Obama approaching his final year in the White House and Stewart nearing the end of his 16-year-run as host of the Comedy Central flagship, the encounter had a valedictory air.

The Iran nuclear deal, as expected, featured prominently. Obama joked that critics of the deal seemed to think that “if you had brought Dick Cheney to the negotiations everything would be fine”.

Stewart noted his guest’s recent run of victories: “It appears that you’re feeling it a little bit right now. Do you feel like seven years in ≥”

“I know what I’m doing,” Obama interrupted. “A lot of the work that we did early starts bearing fruit late. The way I’m feeling right now is, I’ve got 18 months.” He vowed to tackle climate change and fuel-efficiency standards before leaving power.

…

Obama said he felt strongly that “stuff gets better if we work at it and we stay focused on where we are going”. He said the “Hope” posters from his 2008 election run gave some the impression that everything would be fixed right away.

“We didn’t make those. You made those,” Stewart noted.

The president conceded many goals will remain unmet when he leaves office in 2017. “You’re always going to fall short, because if you’re hitting your marks, that means you didn’t set them high enough. We don’t score a touchdown every time, but we move the ball forward.”

Hmm… what would Dr. King have to say about that?

As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained.

As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community.

…

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides–and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history.

…

I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

In a democratic system our representatives are not without agency and power, to pretend otherwise is a lie.

And the Party Platform?  A broken promise.

It’s not about the morality of the victim, it’s about the motivation of the rapist and consent

Tonightly we’ll be talking about the Ashley Madison hack and, of course, the Cos.  Our panel will be 50 Cent, Judd Apatow, and Rachel Feinstein.

Discontinuity

Not just a step, a giant leap for ass kind

This week’s guests-

• Tuesday 7/21: Barack Obama
• Wednesday 7/22: Jake Gyllenhaal
• Thursday 7/23: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Paul Rudd’s web exclusive extended interview and the real news below.

I’m not quite geeky and paranoid enough to claim that this really is a Sontaran plot to take over the Earth or that the Skynet is falling, but I know a bad idea when I hear one and ‘driverless’ cars is a bad idea.

Jeep owners urged to update their cars after hackers take remote control

by Samuel Gibbs, The Guardian

Tuesday 21 July 2015 10.30 EDT

Security experts are urging owners of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles vehicles to update their onboard software after hackers took control of a Jeep over the internet and disabled the engine and brakes and crashed it into a ditch.

A security hole in FCA’s Uconnect internet-enabled software allows hackers to remotely access the car’s systems and take control. Unlike some other cyberattacks on cars where only the entertainment system is vulnerable, the Uconnect hack affects driving systems from the GPS and windscreen wipers to the steering, brakes and engine control.

The Uconnect system is installed in hundreds of thousands of cars made by the FCA group since late 2013 and allows owners to remotely start the car, unlock doors and flash the headlights using an app.

The hack was demonstrated by Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, two security researchers who previous demonstrated attacks on a Toyota Prius and a Ford Escape. Using a laptop and a mobile phone on the Sprint network, they took control of a Jeep Cherokee while Wired reporter Andy Greenberg was driving, demonstrating their ability to control it and eventually forcing it into a ditch.

Unlike the majority of hacking attempts on cars, the vulnerability within the Uconnect system allows cybercriminals to take control of the car remotely, without the need to make physical contact with the car.

The security researchers notified Fiat Chrysler nine months ago, allowing the car manufacturer to release a security update to fix the problem, which it did on 16 July.

However the update requires users to manually update their cars by visiting the manufacturer’s site, downloading a programme onto a flash drive and inserting it into the car’s USB socket. FCA dealers can update the car for owners, but the company is apparently unable to automatically update the cars over the internet.

Newsflash: Car Network Security Is Still A Horrible, Very Dangerous Joke

by Karl Bode, Tech Dirt

Tue, Jul 21st 2015 10:33am

As we’ve noted for years, the security on most “smart” or “connected” cars is aggressively atrocious. And in fact it’s getting worse. As car infotainment systems get more elaborate, and wireless carriers increasingly push users to add their cellular-connected car to shared data plans, the security of these platforms has sometimes been an afterthought. Hackers this week once again made that perfectly clear after they demonstrated to a Wired reporter that they were able to manipulate and disable a new Jeep Cherokee running Fiat Chrysler’s UConnect platform.

…

The exploit appears to work on any Chrysler vehicle with Uconnect from late 2013, all of 2014, and early 2015. Chrysler/Fiat posted a notice to its website last week informing users that they need to update their in-car software either via USB stick (you can download the update here) or by taking it in to a dealer. Of course like many patches, most users won’t be paying much attention to the warning. And we’re only talking about Chrysler’s UConnect; there’s a bounty of half-assed security measures implemented in infotainment systems from automakers worldwide just waiting to be tinkered with by pranksters (or worse).

It’s a real word, it means third to last.

I suppose I ought to be writing brilliant little essays about Jon and what he’s meant to me personally and my career (such as it is) as a blogger, but that’s too hard and I’m too tired and besides- I’m already maximally depressed by the prospect and I understand the great hidden mystery of continuity.

It was just a matter of knowing the secret of all television: at the end of the episode, everything is back to normal.

And I like it.  Why do you think I’m in therapy?  You know how long February 2nd lasts?  Thirty four years.

Bree Newsome

What makes you think we’re not going to talk about Cos tonightly?  The panel is Kerry Coddett, Sunny Hostin, and Mike Yard.

Discontinuity

First they came for our team names, and I said nothing

This week’s guests-

• Monday 7/20: Paul Rudd
• Tuesday 7/21: Barack Obama
• Wednesday 7/22: Jake Gyllenhaal
• Thursday 7/23: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Paul Rudd will be on to talk about Ant Man which I’m given to understand is modest and quirky for a Marvel movie, though I wouldn’t feel compelled to fork out $14 just so I could set up Captain America: Civil War.

The real news (Donald Trump) below.

By NY Brit Expat

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only (Charles Dickens, 1859, A Tale of Two Cities, Book I, Chapter 1).”

Sometimes the radical is the only responsible thing to do.

Lapavitsas Calls for Exit as the Only Strategy for Greek People

Interview with Costas Lapavitsas

How Goldman Sachs Profited from the Greek Debt Crisis

Robert Reich

Friday, July 17, 2015

Blankfein and his Goldman team helped Greece hide the true extent of its debt, and in the process almost doubled it. And just as with the American subprime crisis, and the current plight of many American cities, Wall Street’s predatory lending played an important although little-recognized role.

…

Goldman Sachs came to the rescue, arranging a secret loan of 2.8 billion euros for Greece, disguised as an off-the-books “cross-currency swap”-a complicated transaction in which Greece’s foreign-currency debt was converted into a domestic-currency obligation using a fictitious market exchange rate.

As a result, about 2 percent of Greece’s debt magically disappeared from its national accounts. Christoforos Sardelis, then head of Greece’s Public Debt Management Agency, later described the deal to Bloomberg Business as “a very sexy story between two sinners.”

For its services, Goldman received a whopping 600 million euros ($793 million), according to Spyros Papanicolaou, who took over from Sardelis in 2005. That came to about 12 percent of Goldman’s revenue from its giant trading and principal-investments unit in 2001-which posted record sales that year. The unit was run by Blankfein.

Then the deal turned sour. After the 9/11 attacks, bond yields plunged, resulting in a big loss for Greece because of the formula Goldman had used to compute the country’s debt repayments under the swap. By 2005, Greece owed almost double what it had put into the deal, pushing its off-the-books debt from 2.8 billion euros to 5.1 billion.

In 2005, the deal was restructured and that 5.1 billion euros in debt locked in. Perhaps not incidentally, Mario Draghi, now head of the European Central Bank and a major player in the current Greek drama, was then managing director of Goldman’s international division.

…

Greece was in the worst shape, and Goldman was the biggest enabler. Undoubtedly, Greece suffers from years of corruption and tax avoidance by its wealthy. But Goldman wasn’t an innocent bystander: It padded its profits by leveraging Greece to the hilt-along with much of the rest of the global economy.

…

Even with the global economy reeling from Wall Street’s excesses, Goldman offered Greece another gimmick. In early November 2009, three months before the country’s debt crisis became global news, a Goldman team proposed a financial instrument that would push the debt from Greece’s healthcare system far into the future. This time, though, Greece didn’t bite.

As we know, Wall Street got bailed out by American taxpayers. And in subsequent years, the banks became profitable again and repaid their bailout loans. Bank shares have gone through the roof. Goldman’s were trading at $53 a share in November 2008; they’re now worth over $200. Executives at Goldman and other Wall Street banks have enjoyed huge pay packages and promotions. Blankfein, now Goldman’s CEO, raked in $24 million last year alone.

Meanwhile, the people of Greece struggle to buy medicine and food.

Goldman’s Blankfein joins the 3-comma club

By Bill McColl, Yahoo

July 17, 2015 10:28 AM

Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index finds Blankfein’s net worth is at $1.1 billion, thanks to a surge in the company’s stock price, which is up about 9% so far this year. Bloomberg notes Blankfein is the largest individual owner of Goldman shares, with a value of half a billion dollars. The rest of his wealth comes from real estate and an investment portfolio boosted by cash bonuses and payouts from the firm’s private-equity funds.

…

“Lloyd Blankfein has gotten a lot of criticism in the last couple of years for doing ‘God’s work,’ and Goldman is the ‘vampire squid’ and all that bad stuff,” he notes. “But he’s the son of a postal worker. He did not grow up with a silver spoon in his mouth and he made it to the pinnacle of Wall Street society at Goldman Sachs through will, determination, skill and intelligence. That is a great American story for him as an individual.”

…

Monica Mehta, Managing Principal at Seventh Capital, tells Yahoo Finance she finds it interesting the Blankfein news comes as we approach the fifth anniversary of the signing of the Dodd-Frank law, which was enacted after the financial crisis specifically to rein in the big banks.

“Aspects of Dodd-Frank in the name of consumer protection are actually making it difficult for people like small-business owners to get mortgages because it’s become tough for banks to lend off of W-2 income,” she adds. “But at the same time banks keep rolling along producing billionaires.”

C’mon, you know I had to.

Michael Grimm, Former Congressman, Gets 8-Month Sentence

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, The New York Times

JULY 17, 2015

Michael G. Grimm, a former New York congressman who resigned from office after pleading guilty to tax fraud, was given an eight-month sentence on Friday.

A federal investigation that initially focused on Mr. Grimm’s campaign fund-raising turned into a 20-count indictment related to his running of a restaurant in Manhattan, Healthalicious. Prosecutors said he underreported wages and revenue to the government and filed false tax documents as a result.

…

Prosecutors had requested a sentence of 24 to 30 months, while defense lawyers argued for no prison time. Judge Chen, who said that federal sentencing guidelines called for a term of 18 to 24 months, described the crime as “sustained fraud.”

“That this type of crime is common does not lessen its significance,” the judge said. “Your moral compass, Mr. Grimm, needs some reorientation.”

Mr. Grimm was a former Marine and Federal Bureau of Investigation agent. He was elected in 2010 to represent Staten Island and part of Brooklyn in Congress, and resigned after he pleaded guilty in December to one count of tax fraud, a felony.

…

Mr. Grimm had been punished enough, Mr. Rashbaum added, saying that he “suffered this humiliation” publicly: He left Congress and forfeited his pension; his law license has been suspended in New York and Connecticut; and he faces likely disbarment.

…

An assistant United States attorney, James D. Gatta, argued that Mr. Grimm had not taken responsibility for his crime. “He wants the court to accept that he is remorseful, but still, even today, he is trying to shift the blame for his conduct to others,” he said.

…

“He wraps himself in the oaths that he has sworn when it suits him, and turns his back on those oaths when it suits him,” Mr. Gatta said.

Mr. Grimm is scheduled to surrender Sept. 10 and begin his sentence. Once he serves his term, he must perform 200 hours of community service.

Judge Chen said that Mr. Grimm’s work for the F.B.I., as an agent investigating white-collar crime, meant that “he of all people knew better.”

Such a nice guy–

On January 28, 2014, NY1-TV political reporter Michael Scotto was interviewing Grimm in a balcony hallway of the U.S. Capitol building about the recently concluded 2014 State of the Union Address. He then tried to question Grimm about a campaign finance investigation. Grimm said he would not discuss the investigation. As Scotto started to mention the investigation again, Grimm walked off. Scotto then turned to the camera and implied that Grimm didn’t want to face the issue on camera. Grimm then appeared to threaten Scotto, saying that he would “break [Scotto] in half,” as well as threatening to throw Scotto over the balcony.

Grimm issued a statement defending his behavior, saying that he was annoyed by what he called a “disrespectful cheap shot” from Scotto.[67][68] The next day, Grimm contacted Scotto to offer an apology for his behavior, which Scotto deemed sincere.[69] Grimm also issued a written apology, saying, “I shouldn’t have allowed my emotions to get the better of me and lose my cool.”[70] An unnamed former staffer for Grimm and NY1-TV political director Bob Hardt reported that Grimm had behaved in a similar manner to other reporters on previous occasions.