Thursday, February 6th, 2014
ANDY KROLL and DANIEL SCHULMAN, - Mother Jones
Stephan: This report makes it clear we are seeing a blatant Fascist attempt by a small group of corporatists to take over the government... and they are well on their way to doing it. If you are not voting for the most compassionate life-affirming politicians then you are part of the problem. These Koch brothers and their associates are dead serious about what they are trying to do, and the only thing that can stop them is voters voting and the choices they make.
Click through to see the photocopies.
There’s one main rule at the conservative donor conclaves held twice a year by Charles and David Koch at luxury resorts: What happens there stays there.
The billionaire industrialists and their political operatives strive to ensure the anonymity of the wealthy conservatives who fund their sprawling political operation-which funneled more than $400 million into the 2012 elections-and to keep their plans private. Attendees of these summits are warned that the seminars, where the Kochs and their allies hatch strategies for electing Republicans and advancing conservative initiatives on the state and national levels, are strictly confidential; they are cautioned to keep a close eye on their meeting notes and materials. But last week, following the Kochs’ first donor gathering of 2014, one attendee left behind a sensitive document at the Renaissance Esmeralda resort outside of Palm Springs, California, where the Kochs and their comrades had spent three days focused on winning the 2014 midterm elections and more. The document lists VIP donors-including John Schnatter, the founder of the Papa John’s pizza chain-who were scheduled for one-on-one meetings with representatives of the political, corporate, and philanthropic wings of Kochworld. The one-page document, provided to Mother Jones by a hotel guest who discovered […]
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Wednesday, February 5th, 2014
, nom de plume - Daily Kos
Stephan: Here's a follow-up on the story I ran a few days ago on an attempt by the Theocratic Right to limit internet access in that state. This is an excellent example of why citizen action is so important.
Click through to see the video.
I often put up diaries highlighting dumb policies, foolish planning and bad ideas coming out of a statehouse. Last week, when the State of Kansas submitted legislation proposing that cities could not help invest in growth of the internet in any community, I was shocked at the level of attention. 10k+ Shares, Hundreds of tweets, and I was contacted by media sources and others, did a few call ins to local (conservative) radio talk shows to discuss the problem with this kind of legislation.
So, I thought I’d let you know how this turned out:
http://www.kansas.com/…
Facing public backlash over a Senate bill that would outlaw community broadband services statewide, Sen. Julia Lynn, R-Olathe, announced on Monday the postponement of hearings set to take place this week.
Senate Bill 304 would prohibit cities and counties from building public broadband networks. The Commerce Committee, which Lynn chairs, was scheduled to have a hearing Tuesday, but Lynn released a statement that hearings have been postponed indefinitely.
‘Based on the concerns I heard last week, I visited with industry representatives and they have agreed to spend some time gathering input before we move […]
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Wednesday, February 5th, 2014
Elaine Jarvik, - Deseret News
Stephan: You will remember the story I ran the other day about the creepy sick anti-masturbation film they are showing to students at Brigham Young University. This report may explain why the Mormon Church is so agitated about masturbation. Perhaps I should also add that the highest use of anti-depressant medications in the U.S. is by women in Utah.
Note also the correlation between those states that are obsessed with conservative family values, that are anti-LGBT, and report high religiosity and, high porn usage. The distorted sexual dysfunctionality of the Theocratic Right is spelled out in these numbers.
Utahns, famous for their wholesomeness and frugality, buy online pornography at higher rates than the rest of America.
That’s the conclusion of a Harvard economics professor who tracked subscriptions to online porn sites. Utah ranks No. 1 in subscriptions, according to Benjamin Edelman, who reported his findings in the article “Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?,” published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.
The most porn-watching ZIP codes in Utah, “with unexpectedly high subscriptions relative to their population and broadband usage,” are 84766 in Sevier County, 84112 in Salt Lake County, 84018 in Morgan County, 84006 in southwest Salt Lake County, and 84536 in San Juan County.
A color-coded map in the journal article shows only two states with subscription rates higher than 3.6 per thousand home broadband users: Utah and Mississippi. Utah topped the list, with 5.47 users per 1,000. (Edelman says he took into account the amount of broadband access available in various regions and adjusted his data accordingly; porn users tend to favor high-speed data transfer that can download lots of the steamy visuals quickly.)
“Subscriptions are slightly more prevalent in states that have enacted conservative legislation on sexuality,” Edelman writes. In the 27 […]
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Wednesday, February 5th, 2014
Stephan: Years ago I was speaking at the Salk Institute along with a number of prominent psychologists and psychiatrists. At dinner one night they began talking about how they had all participated, during the Nixon Administration, with the closing of mental hospitals all over the country. They had deep regrets about this because the out-patient facilities that were supposed to replace those residential facilities were never actually built. The conclusion of all of them was that "the prison system is going to end up being the mental health system," which they universally regarded as a sick and Dickensian outcome. Well, the years have gone by and, as this report makes clear, that is exactly what has happened.
When Lockinvar Jacobs stepped off the bus at L.A.’s Union Station last summer, he wasn’t quite sure where to go. The 49-year-old schizophrenic had just been released from state prison, where he’d done a five-year bid for felony drug sales. It wasn’t his first time getting out of the big house; he told me, when we spoke recently, that he’s spent between 16 and 20 years of his life behind bars for drugs and other nonviolent felonies, such as burglary. He couldn’t be sure of the exact number, he said, because the Haldol and other meds have clouded his memory. What he was sure about was that this last time, he was released without his medication.
Jacobs had less than 48 hours to report to a county probation officer; if he failed to appear, he could face ‘flash incarceration,” meaning he’d get tossed into L.A. County Jail for a week or two. California prisons provide up to $200 gate money for releasees, but Jacobs needed clothes before he left the prison, for which the state had charged him $43. With $157 left over, his first stop would be a Skid Row shelter he knew well. There, he was told the probation […]
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Wednesday, February 5th, 2014
, - Agence France-Presse (France)
Stephan: Nothing stimulates and nurtures corruption as much as a social order that considers profit as the only meaningful priority. It has happened in the U.S., now it is clear it is entrenched in the EU, and it pervades both Russia, China, and the economies of Latin America.
Corruption across the European Union’s 28 countries costs some €120 billion ($162 billion) per year – a “breathtaking” sum equal to the bloc’s entire annual budget, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem said Monday.
“The extent of the problem in the EU is breathtaking,” Malmstroem wrote in an op-ed piece in Swedish newspaper Goeteborgs-Posten.
Malmstroem said the estimate, amounting to a little less than 1 percent of the bloc’s total economic output, could be “much higher”.
In presenting the first such European Commission report, Malmstroem emphasised the figure was “an estimation” and said the actual amount is “probably … much higher”.
“Corruption undermines faith in democratic institutions, drains the legal economy of resources and is a breeding ground for organised crime,” she wrote.
Malmstroem called on member states to do more to stamp out the problem, saying: “The price of not acting is simply too high.”
The report does not rank countries nor suggest legal remedies, with Malmstroem saying that steps actions could follow talks with member states.
“No ‘corruption-free’ zone in EU”
But “one thing is very clear – there is no ‘corruption-free’ zone in Europe”, she said.
While Malmstroem refused to point the finger at any particular country, the EU has had longstanding concerns about corruption in […]
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