Joe Biden Asks Ecuador To Turn Down Edward Snowden Asylum Request

So, you think that the NSA is a criminal operation???? The NSA sole purpose is to protect the American People

=====================

That is a sweet, naive perception that bears no resemblance to the reality.  It's sweet that you believe that you're one of those that the NSA is protecting; only if you're one of the 1% is that true.

The NSA and the rest of the intelligence organizations, along with the entire U.S. government, military included, work on behalf of the interests of the 1% and to further multinational corporations' aims.  Corporations' designs aren't to protect, defend or serve your or the others of the 99%'s best interests; they're to make a profit.

I yearn for leadership in all branches of government that protects and defends living, breathing human beings' needs and interests instead of legal fictions (corporati­ons) that, if they were people, would be diagnosed as sociopathi­c character disorders.   

Back at the founding of the U.S., a corporatio­n's charter was required to be dissolved after 40 years, so suspicious and cautious were the earliest Americans about corporatio­ns.  They exist for no other purpose than to profit, no matter what.  That wasn't always the case.

Now, corporatio­ns are immortal, which is another abzurdity about their being considered 'persons' under the law.

Following the reducto ad absurdum of corporatio­ns as people, if you look at them as people, the vast majority of them could be diagnosed as sociopaths­. They're completely self-absor­bed, their only motivation is profit and destroying competitio­n (other corporatio­ns or by the same legal definition other people), they have no conscience­, no capacity for empathy. The only time they do something that could be construed as generous or for the greater good is when their consultant­s tell them it's good for business. It's like they display all of the lower qualities of human beings - greed avarice predatory nature. The same behavior in a flesh and blood human being would elicit cries of shame in the community and considered appalling, but somehow it's just fine for a corporatio­n to behave that way.   And they can't be criminally prosecuted­.

We're not going to get the kind of leadership to end this travesty from either the Democratic or Republican parties.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Read more...

Joy Reid’s ‘ReidOut’ Debut Wins Time Slot for MSNBC in Total Viewers, but Loses in Key Demo CNN’s Erin Burnett is No. 1 among adults 25-54 in 7 p.m. hour

“The ReidOut,” Joy Reid’s new 7 p.m. MSNBC program, topped the time slot in total viewers with its Monday debut. Unfortunately, the new show still settled for a fairly distant third place among adults 25-54, which is the key demographic for companies advertising on news programming.

Erin Burnett on CNN won the demo in the hour, when 384,000 of her 1.332 million total viewers were between the ages of 25 to 54, according to Nielsen estimates.

Reid drew 2.627 million total viewers last night, with 285,000 of those coming from the key demo. That key-demo tally would technically not be last place on cable news if you counted HLN, but this is generally considered a three-horse race.

Reid’s overall audience sum made the “ReidOut” launch the second most-watched regularly scheduled episode in the MSNBC time slot ever. A “Hardball” episode from Sept. 27, 2018 drew 2.77 million total viewers.

On Fox News Channel, “The Story” at 7 received 2.142 million total viewers, with 334,000 of them coming from the key demo. For the most recently completed quarter, Fox News won the hour in both the key demo and among total viewers.

Monday’s “ReidOut” debut featured presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Mayors Keisha Lance Bottoms and Lori Lightfoot. Tuesday’s episode will feature Sen. Kamala Harris and former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Reid, the host of MSNBC’s weekend morning talk show “AM Joy,” took over at 7 p.m. for Chris Matthews, who resigned from the channel in March after being accused of sexual harassment.

Matthews resigned March 3 following a week of bad press that began when he held a combative interview on Feb. 26 with then-Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren that was widely criticized as sexist. Among other things, Matthews was criticized for disregarding accusations of sexually inappropriate comments against Mike Bloomberg by a former employee and appearing to chastise Warren for saying she believed the accuser, whose account was corroborated by a coworker.

But things got worse two days later, when journalist Laura Bassett publicly accused Matthews of making repeated sexist comments to her when she appeared on his show in 2016. Matthews apologized on-air to Bassett on the March 2 episode of “Hardball,” then abruptly announced his retirement. In April, he told Vanity Fair “I thought it was very credible and certainly within the person’s rights to write that article, of course. That was highly justified. Basically, as I said, to repeat myself, it’s inappropriate in the workplace to compliment somebody on their appearance, this is in the makeup chair, and I did it.”

 The question now is, what will the numbers look like the rest of the week?
 

Read more...

Bernie Sanders Told Chris Hedges He Didn't Want To Be Ralph Nader

Read more...

Chris Hedges: "Bernie just wanted to be part of the club" & "failed us."

Read more...

Chris Hedges - Bernie Sanders & The Squad Support the Corporate State "Club"

Read more...

Election Meltdown: A Book Talk with Author Rick Hasen

Richard Hasen, Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine -- and author of "Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy." Ash Center Democracy Fellow Tova Wang moderates. Written before the current coronavirus pandemic, Election Meltdown has taken on an even deeper meaning. Hasen talks about the major new challenges the virus is creating for the elections of 2020 and what election officials can do, all on top of the significant issues revealed in the 2016 and 2018 elections. 

These include efforts at voter suppression, incompetence in administration, and of course the vulnerability of US election systems to foreign interventions of misinformation and cyberattacks. All of these affect the critical issue of Americans having trust in our democratic system, and Hasen has a wide and deep knowledge to bring to this discussion.

Read more...

Election Fraud, 2020 Style

Over on Twitter, @PartyOfReason wrote:

Ok I need the trusted news sources I lean on to tell me how real this is: https://tdmsresearch.com A website that has up-to-date extensive data indicating Dem #electionfraud based on actual vote total differentials to exit polls in almost every state WAY outside accepted range
It indicates the potential for vote flipping, plus is always in Biden’s favor and shows a lower percentage for Bernie - almost across the board. There is no state in which it works in Bernie’s favor (ie Bernie outperformed the exit poll by the acceptable range.
MI - where Biden won, but not by nearly as big a margin. If you believe the Buzzfeed “glitch” was really a glitch. https://tdmsresearch.com/2020/03/14/michigan-2020-democratic-party-primary/
CA - Bernie won in exit polls by 15%, but actuals showed him at 7.5? No way. https://tdmsresearch.com/2020/03/09/california-2020-democratic-party-primary/
MA - where it’s quite possible Bernie actually won, as the exit polls showed him winning by 3 - but then losing by 7? Again, suspect. #mapoli https://tdmsresearch.com/2020/03/04/massachusetts-2020-democratic-party-primary/
TX - where exit polls indicated a tie, but actuals gave Joe a “close win” aided by state officials closing 1/3 of all polling sites for this primary https://tdmsresearch.com/2020/03/07/texas-2020-democratic-party-primary/
SC - Joe still won big, but they shaved a little off most of the other candidates & it magically ended up working in Joe’s favor - look at that! Once again, Bernie is “underperforming” the exit poll. https://tdmsresearch.com/2020/03/02/south-carolina-2020-democratic-party-primary/
VT - where Bernie won big, like CA, it was even bigger than the actual results showed. Biden outperformed the exit polls, Bernie “underperformed” once again...https://tdmsresearch.com/2020/03/08/vermont-2020-democratic-party-primary/
NH - where exit polls showed Bernie’s win to be 3-4%, Mayor Pete was within 1%. https://tdmsresearch.com/2020/02/17/new-hampshire-2020-democratic-party-primary-exit-poll-versus-reported-vote-count/
ND - unprecedented hour long wait times in Grand Forks pop 57k“The limited locations & the eight-hour window 4 voting — less time than a traditional election & with no ability for people to vote before work — meant increased pressure on the caucus sites”https://apnews.com/40dda2bcef716f58c648dabd44a084a6
Start at around 10:00 -

https://twitter.com/PartyofReason/status/1239052738496991232
@jeremyscahill @mtaibbi @kthalps @AnaKasparian @LeeCamp @lhfang @ggreenwald it has to be a statistical impossibility that this “happens” to always short change Bernie & “underreport” Biden. Their Twitter acct has almost no followers (how?) but the data, if true, is compelling...

Read more...