Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Suzanne Moore: Stop telling women they're doing feminism wrong (The Guardian)
Calling out Robin Wright or Beyoncé for flaunting the wrong kind of feminism won't bring us closer to equality. This is the politics of purity.
Aagam Shah: The only permanent and constant thing in the world is change (Medium)
In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they got bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 year - and most people don't see it coming.
Reihan Salam: The Koch Brothers Were Supposed to Buy the 2016 Election (Slate)
What happened?
L.V. Anderson: Ethics Trainings Are Even Dumber Than You Think (Slate)
They waste everyone's time and don't prevent any real problems.
Henry Barnes: Park Chan-wook on relocating Sarah Waters' Fingersmith to Korea (The Guardian)
He made his name with the hyperviolent Oldboy. Now Park Chan-wook has turned Sarah Waters' novel into a swooningly erotic thriller. The director talks about vengeance and finding his feminine side.
Thomas Chatterton Williams: A Blues for Albert Murray (The Nation)
His name was never household familiar. Yet his complex, mind-opening analysis of art and life remains as timely as ever-probably more so.
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David Bruce has over 80 Kindle books on Amazon.com.
"Doug's Most Shared Facebook Post" Today
wrote:
took the day off.
has returned to semi-retired status.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
MOBBED UP!
KEEP YOUR NUCLEAR HANDS OUT OF OUR WATER SUPPLY!
THE OTHER "RED, WHITE AND BLUE".
"DIRT CANDY".
MAKING A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL!
ENJOY THE RIDE!
"DO YOU FEEL LUCKY PUNK…"
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Lovely May gray.
Taxpayers Paid For Military Tributes
NFL
Some of the tear-jerking moments honoring U.S. heroes at sporting events may have been paid for, the NFL admitted today.
ABC News first reported last November on documents it exclusively obtained showing more than 70 contracts with specific mentions of patriotic moments for which major league sports received taxpayer money to stage, totaling more than $6 million in taxpayer money.
In a letter released exclusively by ABC News to the senators investigating the practice, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell admits, following an independent audit of "contracts between NFL clubs and the military," that more than $700,000 in payments may not have been used for recruitment activities, but instead for honoring troops.
Last year, the leagues and teams denied they charged for patriotic displays, saying these events were free add-ons to big marketing contracts. In addition, the Department of Defense told ABC News last year that military tributes, such as color guards, military bands and troop formations, are a "no-cost addition to the agreements."
NFL
Investments
T-rump
Donald Trump (R-Pinche Pendejo) has invested in some of the companies that he uses as punching bags on the campaign trail, according to new financial documents he submitted to the U.S. government.
In his 104-page public financial disclosure report, the presumptive Republican nominee reported holding investments in companies like Ford Motor Co., Apple Inc. and the parent company of the maker of Oreo cookies - all businesses that he's assailed for outsourcing or, in Apple's case, not agreeing to crack into iPhones for police or federal law enforcement in criminal cases. Trump also has invested in other companies that have outsourced jobs but escaped his public shaming.
One of Trump's main talking points during his campaign rallies is that as president he would stop the outflow of American jobs. He often calls out companies and their products by name. The investments make up only a tiny fraction of Trump's reported net worth, and a comparison with his previous filings show he's reduced his holdings in some of the companies he targets.
"Who do they think they are?" Trump said of Apple in February, when the company balked at hacking an iPhone used by one of the two people in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. More recently, Trump pledged to make Apple "build their damn computers and things in this country." Trump holds multiple investments in Apple, which combined are worth between $1.1 million and $2.25 million.
Trump so far hasn't attacked all the companies he listed on his financial records that have outsourced jobs. Trump listed investments in V F Corp. and Thermo Fisher Scientific, both of which moved jobs out of the U.S. in high-profile outsourcing deals last year.
T-rump
Pervy Maryland Delegate
T-rump
A Maryland Republican Party official says one of the state's Donald Trump delegates probably won't go to the national convention following his federal indictment on child pornography, explosives and firearm charges.
U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein in Baltimore announced the indictment of 30-year-old Caleb Bailey on Thursday.
State Republican Party Executive Director Joe Cluster predicts Bailey will resign as one of the 38 Maryland delegates elected last month, and be replaced with an alternate. Otherwise, Cluster says, the state party's Central Committee will likely vote to remove him.
The indictment says Bailey produced and possessed child pornography, transported explosives without a license, and illegally possessed a machine gun.
T-rump
Ends Mandatory Water Conservation
California
California moved on Wednesday to dramatically roll back strict mandatory water conservation rules imposed at the height of the state's multi-year drought, after a wet winter eased conditions in parts of the state.
The state Water Resources Control Board voted to end mandatory conservation of up to 36 percent in many communities, moving instead to a system under which only regions where a shortage of supply is anticipated will have to conserve.
The wet weather has eased but not ended a four-year drought that has led farmers to idle land, made rivers too warm for salmon and caused wells to run dry.
Under an order by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown last year to cut water use by 25 percent statewide, Californians saved enough to supply 6.5 million people for an entire year.
California
June 22
Hastert
Former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Serial Molester), once one of the country's most powerful politicians, will report to a federal prison next month for a financial crime linked to sexual abuse of wrestlers he coached decades ago, a federal judge said on Thursday.
In a one-page court order, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Durkin said Hastert is to "surrender to the designated institution" no later than 2 p.m. local time to begin serving a 15-month sentence.
The name of the prison where Hastert will serve time was not identified. A Bureau of Prisons spokesman could not be immediately reached to identify the prison.
Hastert, the longest-serving Republican House speaker in history, pleaded guilty last October to the crime of structuring. That involves withdrawing a large sum of money in small increments to avoid detection.
He needed the money after he reached a secret agreement with one of his five sexual abuse victims to pay him $3.5 million in compensation for pain and suffering.
Hastert
Police Chief Resigns
San Francisco
San Francisco's police chief resigned Thursday at the request of the mayor hours after an officer fatally shot a young black woman driving a stolen car - the culmination of several racially charged incidents in the past year.
Pressure had been mounting for the resignation of Chief Greg Suhr since December, when five officers fatally shot a young black man carrying a knife. Mayor Ed Lee stood behind the chief then and after it was disclosed in April that three officers had exchanged racist text messages.
The mayor and the chief had announced a series of reforms aimed at reducing police shootings. The two also called in the U.S. Department of Justice to review the department's policy and procedures.
The mayor said Thursday that the changes weren't coming fast enough and that he asked for and received Suhr's resignation.
Suhr resigned a few hours after a sergeant shot and killed a 27-year-old woman as he and another officer tried to pull her out of a stolen car she had crashed into a parked truck.
San Francisco
Moves To The Right
Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looked set on Thursday to form the most right-wing government in Israeli history, with Avigdor Lieberman, a hardliner loathed by Palestinians, expected to become defence minister.
Netanyahu aides were in talks with officials of Lieberman's hawkish Yisrael Beitenu party on terms for its entry to the ruling coalition, which would boost its currently wafer-thin majority in parliament.
The return of Lieberman, who served as foreign minister under Netanyahu from 2009 to 2012 and again from 2013 to 2015, could raise international concern about his government's policies -- especially on the conflict with the Palestinians.
As defence minister, Lieberman, who himself lives in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, would oversee military operations in the Palestinian territories and have a major say in policy towards the settlements.
The international community considers the settlements illegal and regards their persistent expansion by successive Netanyahu governments as one of the biggest obstacles to peace.
Israel
New Felony
Oklahoma
An Oklahoma bill that could send any doctor who performs an abortion to jail headed to the governor on Thursday, with opponents saying the measure is unconstitutional and promising a legal battle against the cash-strapped state if it is approved.
The bill to make abortion a felony punishable by up to three years in prison was approved by the Republican-dominated Senate on Thursday. Governor Mary Fallin, a Republican opposed to abortion, has not indicated whether she will sign it.
The bill also calls on state medical boards to revoke licenses for the "performance of an abortion" but allows an exemption for abortion necessary to preserve the life of the mother.
Democratic Senator John Sparks said the bill would not stand up in court and would lead to expensive legal battles.
Lawmakers have faced criticism for not doing enough to plug a projected $1.3 billion state budget shortfall next year, which has caused Oklahoma to cut back on funding for schools and services.
Oklahoma
Bungled Executions
Oklahoma
An Oklahoma grand jury looking into the state's troubled executions said in a report released on Thursday that jail staff did not verify what drugs they were using for lethal injections and were unaware when the wrong drugs were administered.
The report, running more than 100 pages, offered a stinging rebuke of state officials, especially those in the Department of Corrections, for their handling of executions, which are currently on hold in Oklahoma due to the troubles in the death chamber.
Oklahoma drew international condemnation following a troubled execution in 2014 in which medical staff did not properly place an intravenous line on a convicted murderer, Clayton Lockett.
"The Director of the Department of Corrections orally modified execution protocol without authority," the report said.
"The pharmacist ordered the wrong execution drug," it added.
Oklahoma
In Memory
Morley Safer
Viewers didn't need to see Morley Safer's reporting to feel its effects.
They could have almost heard the yowling from the Oval Office and the Pentagon after Safer's 1965 expose of a U.S. military atrocity in Vietnam that played an early role in changing Americans' view of the war.
They may have felt a flush of gratitude on learning that Safer's 1983 investigation of justice gone awry resulted in the release of a Texas man wrongfully sentenced to life in prison.
Perhaps they headed to their wine shop with a heightened sense of purpose after word spread of Safer's story that quoted medical experts who said red wine can be good for you.
Safer's far-flung journalism got reactions and results during a 61-year career that found him equally at home reporting on social wrongs, the Orient Express, abstract art and the horrors of war.
That career came to an end this week, with a "60 Minutes" tribute on Sunday and, then, with Safer's death, at age 84, on Thursday.
He is survived by his wife, the former Jane Fearer, and his daughter Sarah Safer.
Safer, who had been in declining health, watched Sunday's program from his Manhattan home, CBS said, and shortly thereafter tweeted what would be his last dispatch: "It's been a wonderful run, and I want to thank the millions of people who have been loyal to our 60 Minutes broadcast. Thank you!"
During his 46 years on "60 Minutes," Safer did 919 stories, from his first in 1970 about U.S. Sky Marshals to his last this March, a profile of Danish architect Bjarke Ingels.
Along the way, he exhibited style, toughness and, when it suited, a bit of mischievous wit, such as with his 1993 essay, "Yes, But Is It Art?", which examined the relative merits of representational and abstract art, and outraged the contemporary art world.
He famously said, "There is no such thing as the common man; if there were, there would be no need for journalists."
It was in 1970 that Safer joined "60 Minutes," then just two years old and far from the national institution it would become. He claimed the co-host chair alongside a talk-show-host-turned-newsman named Mike Wallace.
During the next four decades, Safer's rich tobacco-and-whiskey-cured voice delivered stories that ranged from art, music and popular culture, to "gotcha" investigations, to one of his favorite pieces, which, in 1983, resulted in the release from prison of Lenell Geter, the engineer wrongly convicted of a holdup at a fast food restaurant and serving a life sentence.
Safer won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for his 2001 story on a school in Arizona specifically geared to serve homeless children.
Other honors include three George Foster Peabody awards, 12 Emmys and two George Polk Memorial Awards.
Safer, who was born in Toronto in 1931, insisted he was "stateless" and, as a reporter chasing stories around the globe, claimed, "I have no vested interests." He eventually became an American citizen, holding dual citizenship.
He began his career at several news organizations in Canada and England before being hired by Reuters wire service in its London bureau. Then, in 1955, he was offered a correspondent's job in the Canadian Broadcasting Company's London bureau, where he worked nine years before CBS News hired him for its London bureau.
In 1965 he opened CBS' Saigon bureau.
Safer rotated in and out of Vietnam three times, then, in 1967, began three years as London bureau chief.
In 1970, he was brought to New York to succeed original co-host Harry Reasoner (who was moving to ABC News) on an innovative newsmagazine that, in its third season, was still struggling in the ratings, and would rely on Safer and Wallace as its only co-anchors for the next five years.
In 1971, Safer won an Emmy for his "60 Minutes" investigation of the Gulf of Tonkin incident that began America's war in Vietnam.
He quickly became a fixture at "60 Minutes" - and part of that show's rough-and-tumble behind-the-scenes culture as the stature and ratings of the show took off.
By 2006, Safer had reduced his output, accepting half-time status. But he remained after the departures of Wallace - who retired in 2006 at age 88, and died in 2012 - as well as Don Hewitt, who stepped down in 2004 at 81, and died in 2009, and Andy Rooney, who, at 92, ended 33 years as the resident essayist in October 2011, and died a month later.
"60 Minutes" carries on, but now the legends are gone.
Morley Safer
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