Hillary Clinton Concedes And Endorses Our Nominee

Although she arrived late to her concession speech, supporters in attendance and Democrats everywhere were not disappointed by the Junior Senator from New York today. She ran a great race, trail-blazed for women in this country like no one has before and even though she ran the campaign with many questionable practices, she gave hope to millions that America can break through its misogyny and elect a woman to the highest office in the land just like the rest of the world. Unfortunately for her, this just wasn't the particular time for this particular candidate. Now, despite the bad blood between the two campaigns in the last few months, both Barack and Hillary can lead the way for the rest of us in the party.

From The Huffington Post:

Clinton backers described themselves as sad and resigned. "This is a somber day," said Jon Cardinal, one of the first in line. Cardinal said he planned, reluctantly, to support the Illinois senator in the general election. "It's going to be tough after being against Obama for so long," he said.

Aides said Clinton would be unequivocal in her praise for Obama, her rival in an epic, 50-state nominating contest pitting the first serious female candidate for president against the most viable black candidate.

"I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party's nominee and I intend to deliver on that promise," Clinton told supporters in an online message late this week.

She said her speech would focus on "how together we can rally the party" behind Obama as he prepares for the general election against Arizona Sen. John McCain. "The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise."

The two had a face-to-face meeting Thursday evening at the Washington home of a Senate colleague, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, where they discussed the campaign to come. They spoke alone for about an hour. Both were laughing when they finished.

Thank you Senator Clinton for your fantastic speech this afternoon and your new and continuing support for Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee. Nothing is more important than coming together as a party so that we beat John McCain this fall so that we can start to put the country back on the right track.

P.S.: I must say, this speech today was better than anything I could have imagined. Hillary Clinton is truly an incredible woman politician Senator American.

McCain Uses ABBA To Attract Clinton Supporters

This past Tuesday's speech didn't go over so well and probably turned back a large portion of the disaffected Clinton supporters to the Democratic side. So what is John McCain to do? Even if all the Republicans come out and vote for him (which isn't likely) he still won't have enough votes. Well it seems that he has enlisted the help of ABBA to do the job he clearly cannot.

From John McCain's blog:

(Warning: this is an actual ABBA music video)

DoB Senior Official And Crane Companies Found To Be Corrupt

The title may not be so shocking to many New Yorkers, considering all of the accidents that occur in construction. Speed has always concerned the industry more than the safety of the workers, although you would hope that the Department of Buildings would be on their side. Well guess again. James Delayo, a senior inspector making $74,000 a year has been padding his salary with bribes from the crane companies to help them skirt regulations.

From The Gothamist:

The Department of Buildings' acting Chief Inspector for Cranes and Derricks was arrested today. James Delayo was accused of taking thousands of dollars in bribes from a crane company and falsifying reports. WNBC reports, "The city's Department of Investigation also says Delayo tampered with licensing exams by providing the answers for crane operator exams to a crane company for a fee."

Delayo's actions allegedly had nothing to do with last week's East 91st Street crane collapse or the March 15 crane collapse at East 51 Street. An official told City Room, "The long and short of it is that between 2002 and 2007 he accepted money — bribes for passing individual test-takers in order to get a crane operating license." Delayo, 60, earns a little over $74,000 annually. Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said:

"DOI's (Department of Investigation) investigation revealed the profoundly disturbing and sobering realization that a senior inspector responsible for ensuring that cranes operating in New York City are in proper condition and are operated by qualified individuals is charged with selling out his own integrity in a way that compromised public safety, leaving it in the hands of the individuals who paid him bribes, and rendered his inspectional job meaningless."

It seems that the entire Department is meaningless. Michael Bloomberg's outrage at this is also meaningless. His legacy for New York is an unprecendented building and development boom that prefers speed over safety without funding the Department of Buildings properly so that inspectors are plentiful, well-paid and looked after by well-trained hawks. Bloomberg can offer his stern warnings now, but where has he been in the last seven years?

Sec'y Chao: Lazy Young'ins Causing High Unemployment

Government officials say the darndest things and when you are a Cabinet Secretary in the Bush Administration, that goes double. Idiotic moron Secretary Elaine Chao told the press yesterday that the giant leap in unemployment numbers has nothing to do with Bush's failure of a Presidency, horrific foreign policy or environmental record. Instead, it's those damn kids fault.

From ThinkProgress:

According to new Department of Labor data released today, the U.S. unemployment rate rose from 5.0 to 5.5 percent in May, which was higher than the expected 0.1 percent jobless rate increase. It was also the largest jump in unemployment since 1986. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao put out a statement today, attempting to explain the jump. Her answer? Blame America’s youth:

Today’s increase in the unemployment rate reflects the fact that unusually large numbers of students and graduates are entering the labor market.

Chao is just trying to hide bad news. These unemployment numbers are not good, nor are they normal. As Center for American Progress Director of the American Worker Project David Madland told ThinkProgress, unemployment isn’t just for young people:

The unemployment rate for prime-working age adults – people from 25 to 54 – also increased in May, rising from 4.2 percent to 4.4 percent. In addition, the share of this age group that was employed fell slightly from 79.6 percent to 79.5 percent.

Similarly, Jared Bernstein at EPI noted that “even if we take teenagers out of the data, unemployment still rises from 4.5% to 4.8%, a considerable 0.3% increase, and well above the 4.0% adult rate of one year ago.”

Elaine Chao, like her boss is running out of excuses and this one is just pathetic. If she were more competent, both as a Cabinet member and a caring human being, creating a stronger labor force would have fought back against the demands of Corporate America to exploit as many workers as possible. Also, since this is Chao's Labor Department, who knows if the numbers in the study actually reflect the true scope of the problem?

Best Advertisement For War, Inc.

This is an army base in Iraq. Now look at the photo, beyond the soldier and below the American flag, can you tell what that flag is representing?



From Crooks and Liars:

I think the above picture says it all. Sgt. Brent Sammann took this from his overseas Army base, location not divulged, where he wrote in to congratulate Cusack and Co. about the movie. NOTICE THE KBR FLAG, just under the American flag. You gotta be kidding me. On an ARMY BASE? And a very humble thank you for your service, Brent. It took a lot of courage to do this, but hey, you’re a soldier. A very excited John Cusack emailed C&L from London yesterday to thank us bloggers and readers, for supporting War, Inc. in NY and LA. The ticket giveaway really helped. Apparently the movie is, so far, a phenomenal success that is shocking both the film’s distributor and the industry. The film had no real advertising, just bloggers and it ran all viral baby–and yet the per screen numbers of War, Inc. have consistently been close behind the two big budget blockbuster movies of the summer. The producers emailed me this info:

For instance, the per screen average of the new Indiana Jones movie, which also opened last weekend, was approximately $24K, War, Inc. was $18K and the next closest per screen average trailed behind at $7K. This weekend was the same with Sex and the City opening huge at around $18K, Indiana Jones at $11K and War Inc at $10K.

This is a film C&L has gotten solidly behind, as did with MoveOn, because it aims right at the core of the corruption in Cheney/Bush enterprises. Plus—it’s very funny, even though nothing can totally lift the spirits about the whole Iraq debacle. I’ve supported the movie because I thought it was important to talk about the Blackwater-type militias winning multi-million dollar contracts. As I said, the film industry is taking notice.

While the big-budget, large studio movies about the Iraq war all have tanked, John Cusack’s intensely personal film, “War, Inc.,” has survived bad reviews to find an audience in its very limited theatrical release.

Since “War, Inc.” opened May 23 in Los Angeles and New York on only two screens in each city, the film about the privatization of war has been briskly attended, prompting First Look Studios, a small independent company, to expand the movie’s release. It’s adding 10 theaters in both cities Friday, as well as opening the film June 13 in Chicago; Boston; Seattle; Austin, Texas; Berkeley and San Francisco. And it will open June 20 in Washington, D.C.

If you haven't seen this movie, go see it soon. Before you know it that will be our reality unless we wake up and do something about it.

K-Mart Caught Lying About Their Abstinence Pants

The PR folks over at K-Mart must not be very bright. They are currently dealing with flak caused by the retail giant selling pro-life anti-choice clothing to our nation's youth. To those that didn't do so well in their communication classes at K-Mart, you might want to read what the fore-mentioned product said on it before trying to respond.

From Feministing:

Via Consumerist, we find out that Kmart is claiming their True Love Waits sweatpants have absolutely nothing to do with abstinence.

A spokeswoman for Sears Holdings Corp., which owns Kmart, told The Buzz the pants have absolutely nothing to do with taking any kind of position, either way, on abstinence. "It was not associated with any group or any cause," said Amy Dimond. "It was just a graphic put on the pants."

Piper & Blue, Kmart's private label brand, designed the sweatpants as part of its summer collection that hit stores in late April.

Although the pants were not designed to make a statement, Dimond admitted that "there may be some (customers) who made the (abstinence association), but it was not the intention."

Oh, wow. How stupid of me! When I saw the description of the pants on Kmart (right after "drawstring waist) as having a "bold abstinence screen print," I must have been hallucinating. Oh wait, no. There it is.

Perhaps it was just intended until it was not intended? Intended for some but not for all? Does K-Mart think their shoppers are that stupid to believe their lies?

The answers to those questions are no, no and yes.

Scanning Your Body At An Airport Near You

Airport security in America is an interesting topic to be sure. Some don't mind being scanned, searched, poked and prodded. If they think it keeps them safe then more power to the ill-trained men and women with shirts that have "TSA" embroidered on them. Taking your shoes off is standard here, but laughed at in most of the world's airports. The thing is, most people just don't know if the TSA is doing a good job or merely acting like it. Well now they get a new piece of equipment to play with.

From USA Today:

BALTIMORE — Body-scanning machines that show images of people underneath their clothing are being installed in 10 of the nation's busiest airports in one of the biggest public uses of security devices that reveal intimate body parts.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) recently started using body scans on randomly chosen passengers in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Denver, Albuquerque and at New York's Kennedy airport.

Airports in Dallas, Detroit, Las Vegas and Miami will be added this month. Reagan National Airport in Washington starts using a body scanner today. A total of 38 machines will be in use within weeks.

"It's the wave of the future," said James Schear, the TSA security director at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, where two body scanners are in use at one checkpoint.

Schear said the scanners could eventually replace metal detectors at the nation's 2,000 airport checkpoints and the pat-downs done on passengers who need extra screening. "We're just scratching the surface of what we can do with whole-body imaging," Schear said.

Security people love this because they can look more intimately at passengers and call it "more advanced." The reality is that the machines can be fooled by someone that would want to do harm, while for the most part all it does is strip (no pun intended) innocent people of their privacy, allowing TSA personnel (some of whom have questionable personal backgrounds) to see private parts of people (albeit in black and white imaging). Their spokesman says its no big deal and people don't mind, but that is to be expected from a biased source.

Green Screens For McCain Are Bad Across The Board

You just never know what may appear behind you:

George Bush Hits A New Low: Using Tortured U.S. Vets As Pawns

One thing that I know is a constant about George Bush is that he will always find a new low to sink to. The latest news is almost hard to fathom and as usual the traditional media outlets in the U.S. are not reporting it. Thankfully the International press is so that word can get out, outlets like the U.K. Independent do not care for simple soundbites. Oh, did you want to know what I'm making a ruckus about?

From The U.K. Independent:

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.

Iraq's foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq's funds would lose this immunity.

That money is supposed to go to settle the claims of U.S. troops that were tortured under Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War. George Bush's Administration is threatening the Iraqis with this for one major reason, that is to be able to stay in Iraq indefinitely. This would keep feeding our Military-Industrial complex in an enormous way and falls right in line with Bush and his father lucrative relationship with the Carlyle Group (among others).

Sickening? Oh yes.

I only wish it were January 20, 2009 already so this nightmare would be over.

Ratner Manufactures Rally In Support Of His AY Failure

The Atlantic Yards Project envisioned by developer Bruce Ratner has fallen on hard times. With the lackluster support and energetic opposition, he has had to scale back his plans and hasn't done much except petition for more of Brooklyn's tax dollars to pay for the start-up costs. That is why he held a "Brooklyn Day" to conjure up community support of his massive plan to redevelop downtown Brooklyn. He even helped sponsor last weekend's "Jazz 'n' Roses" at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, perhaps to show that he cares about the borough or something like that. Yesterday's spectacle though, was a little more over the top than just sponsoring a nice event.

From The Atlantic Yards Report:

Despite decent weather, free t-shirts, a full-page ad in the Daily News, an E-newsletter, requests from union bosses to attend, and promises of free food, free transportation, and “international recording artist Maxi Priest,” the disparate and soon-diminished crowd was often subdued, even bored, and a passel of Forest City Ratner operatives monitoring the event looked somber, despite the billing as a “fun day.”

3500 attendees?

At the event’s peak, with union members streaming in from Downtown Brooklyn job sites, seniors and kids (who had a day off from school) bused in from throughout Brooklyn, and downtown office workers and Greenmarket visitors mingling during their lunch hour, there were probably more than 2000 people present. (Note that a similar event in 2004 drew 1500, according to the developer, though it's hard to tell from the photo if it was more crowded.)

WNYC and the New York Post suggested 3500 people were at the rally--that Forest City Ratner overestimate may apply to the number of people on the plaza, as I don’t disbelieve that 5000 sandwiches and 3000 t-shirts disappeared. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle estimated there were more than 1000 attendees (and noted that some seniors were just there for a day out), while the New York Observer counted “hundreds” and the New York Daily News cautiously stuck with “scores.” The Daily News, which has cheered for the project on its editorial page, bluntly stated in the lead that the rally was "paid for by the developer" and headlined the article Ratner cooks up rally for Brooklyn project. The New York Times, not surprisingly, ignored the event. The New York Sun wrote a tough preview piece.

Many attendees, however, didn’t stay for the speeches, and as the hour-long program of speakers proceeded, the crowd diminished, with fewer than 500 listening until 1:20 p.m., when the speeches ended and the music began. (The event was billed as from 11 am to 3 pm.) By comparison, at the counter-protest May 3, where AY supporters at least had visible antagonists in those calling for a “Time Out” rally, the energy was much greater. In this case, only a few project opponents were spotted in the audience, though Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein, in press coverage, called attention to the self-serving, even “desperate” nature of the rally. The Brooklyn Paper ran a scathing editorial questioning Forest City Ratner's correlation between "Brooklyn's renaissance" and the development of Atlantic Yards.

Check out the rest of their post for more details and lots of pictures.

On one hand, it is sad to see that quite a few local politicians are on board this sinking ship and that they have to try and engineer community support for something that clearly has next to nothing of the kind. On the other though, I'm glad to see these crooks going down in flames and on the defensive. For a while I was pessimistic about the fate of downtown Brooklyn and had almost given up on Ratner & Co.'s abuse of eminent domain to profit off of the borough. Gladly I can say I was wrong and hopefully all of this will be behind us soon enough.

Pop-Up Video: Now For John McCain

No, this isn't John McCain's music video. I wouldn't want to give anyone any nightmares (unless you click on the link above). This is much better, and it is already the third episode of taking John McCain's words and putting little bits of truth in a "pop-up."

McCain Gets "Mavericky" On The Fourth Amendment

John McCain talked on Tuesday about how he disagreed with the President to try and convince his critics that he won't be Bush's third term. He backed that up with dissing a Bush fundraiser for Congressional candidates (not money for him of course). Political theater aside, John McCain really is another George Bush. He wants to continue his tax cuts, his wars and now he wants to continue shredding the Constitution by making it a-ok to illegally wiretap American citizens without a warrant.

From The NY Times:

WASHINGTON — A top adviser to Senator John McCain says Mr. McCain believes that President Bush’s program of wiretapping without warrants was lawful, a position that appears to bring him into closer alignment with the sweeping theories of executive authority pushed by the Bush administration legal team.

In a letter posted online by National Review this week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain believed that the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required court oversight of surveillance.

Mr. McCain believes that “neither the administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the A.C.L.U. and trial lawyers, understand were constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001,” Mr. Holtz-Eakin wrote.

And if Mr. McCain is elected president, Mr. Holtz-Eakin added, he would do everything he could to prevent terrorist attacks, “including asking the telecoms for appropriate assistance to collect intelligence against foreign threats to the United States as authorized by Article II of the Constitution.”

I guess in their minds, Article II trumps the Bill of Rights, especially the one that prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures." Just like under George Bush, Article II trumps everything, including the checks and balances system set up to prevent the President from becoming too powerful. Our Congress has failed recently to rein in George Bush's abuses of the Constitution, but now it is the people's turn to ensure that another Bush-like Presidency with John McCain does not occur. This year the people want change and there is nothing to believe in when you have John McCain up in front of an audience....unless perhaps if they were a bunch of telecom executives.