Ron's News

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[This basically says that Trump could sink the Republicans if he stays with them or if he leaves them. Of course, all that means is they would wind up with another President Clinton (though Sanders is actually ahead of her in the polls at this moment). *RON*]

—By Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, 25 August 2015

Gallup posted a pretty dramatic chart today. It shows net favorability among Hispanics for the Republican presidential candidates, and for 16 of them it ranges from +11 (Jeb Bush) to -7 (Ted Cruz).

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[Pseudoscience and the corporatocracy. Short version: corporate lies and regulatory capture. Corporate funding is producing oceans of questionable information when it comes to health. *RON*]

By Marty Kaplan, AlterNet, 25 August 2015

You might think an outfit calling itself an academy would be, you know, academic. But as Jon Stewart put it, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is as much an academy as the “Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product” called Kraft Singles is cheese.

The last time the academy was in the news, it was for taking an undisclosed amount of money from Kraft in exchange for giving Kraft permission to put the academy’s “Kids Eat Right” logo on Kraft Singles. When nailed for this, the academy denied that this amounted to putting a stamp of approval on Singles. What it really was, they claimed, was an ad for the academy’s Kids Eat Right initiative. If this were true, it would be the first time in the history of the world that an…

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[Burns recommended that Americans read South Carolina’s Articles of Secession to get the real story on why the states went to war against each other. *RON*]
By David Edwards, Raw Story / AlterNet, 24 August 2015


Historian Ken Burns reminded supporters of the Confederacy on Sunday that the Civil War had been primarily about slavery, and not states’ rights as many conservatives have claimed.

“You know, when the Constitutional Convention happened, there was a man named John J. Chapman, who said slavery was like a sleeping serpent,” Burns told CBS host John Dickerson. “It lay coiled under the table during the deliberations; thereafter, slavery was on everyone’s mind, if not always on his tongue.”

“You know, we’ve grown up as country with a lot of powerful symbols of the Civil War in popular culture that would be ‘Birth of a Nation,’ D.W. Griffiths’ classic, and ‘Gone with the Wind,’ of course,” he explained. “And in that, it postulates, among other thi…

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By Tom Tomorrow, The Nation, 26 August 2015.

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[Doctors Without Borders says medics treated four patients in Aleppo whose symptoms point to exposure to chemical agents. You can't tell who did it, since both ISIS and Assad have been accused of using chemical weapons. The comments on the original article are as rabidly psychotic as you'd expect them to be. *RON*]

Al Jazeera, 25 Aug 2015

An international medical organisation has said its doctors treated four patients last week in the Syrian city of Aleppo who were exhibiting symptoms of exposure to chemical agents.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Tuesday that the patients were all from one family - two parents, a three-year-old girl and a five-day-old baby girl.

In a statement on Tuesday, MSF said the four family members had arrived at one of its hospital one hour after an attack occurred on August 21.

The organisation said the patients were suffering from respiratory difficulties, inflamed skin, red eyes and conjunctivitis.

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[Sanders is separated from all the other candidates by an old-fashioned thing called 'democracy.' *RON*]

By Eric Lichtblau, New York Times, 25 August 2015

WASHINGTON — Donna Mae Litowitz, a Miami Beach retiree, likes Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont so much that three months ago she sent his presidential campaign $10,000. His campaign sent back all but $2,700 because it was more than he was allowed to take under federal election law, but she wishes he had kept it all.

“I like what Sanders stands for, and he says what needs to be said,” said Ms. Litowitz, who gave money in 2008 to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. “And I don’t like Hillary Clinton.”

In an election dominated by million-dollar donations to “super PACs,” Ms. Litowitz qualifies in Mr. Sanders’s insurgent campaign as a big donor. Unlike almost all of the other major Democratic and Republican candidates this year, Mr. Sanders has refused to accept support from super P…

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["Trust us, we're experts." *RON*]
By Jessica Mason, PR Watch / Truthout, 25 August 2015

David Koch may once have called Koch Industries "the biggest company you've never heard of," but facing increasing scrutiny - as the Koch brothers' plan to inject nearly a billion dollars in into the 2016 election cycle through their "Freedom Partners" dark money operation - the company seems to be on a spin doctor hiring spree.

The privately-held corporation now has hired a cadre of PR flacks with experience defending toxic clients like the tobacco industry as the Kochs struggle to refashion their public image.

Starting last year, the Kochs' PR blitz has included a $20 million ad campaign called "We Are Koch" featuring Koch employees and bucolic landscapes, which touts the company's "American values." One of its ads was famously mocked by Jon Stewart.

The Koch …

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[Conservative media claim Seattle’s $15/hour minimum wage is hurting business. The latest evidence proves they couldn’t be more wrong. See also 10 reasons to raise the minimum wage (with charts) and The minimum wage: myths and facts. *RON*]
James Woods, US Uncut, 25 August 2015
In 2014, Seattle became the first major metropolitan city in America to begin increasing their minimum wage to $15 an hour, and instantly became the litmus test for the rest of the country. While labor unions and working class Americans applauded the decision, conservative politicians and supporters of trickle down economic theory began a campaign of “doom and gloom” reporting that such a drastic increase would destroy the Seattle economy.

Major news outlets such as Fortune, Forbes, and Fox News were quick to jump on short-term employment and economic data to proclaim that higher wages were leading to business closures and increased unemployment, while ignoring seasonal tren…