Daily Kos

Puerto Rico: Symbols and songs from the island of Borikén

Sunday Oct 22, 2017 · 6:01 AM PDT

2017/10/22 · 06:01

As the desperate post-Maria crisis in Puerto Rico continues and worsens, support efforts for our beleaguered fellow citizens often use the Puerto Rican flag as a logo. Wherever you find Puerto Rican Americans, whether on the island or mainland, you will see Puerto Rican flags alongside the United States flag. The flag is one of many symbols of Puerto Rican identity and is probably the most important, for a variety of historical reasons.

The island we know of today as Puerto Rico, which Christopher Columbus dubbed “San Juan Bautista,” was originally named Borikén, in the language of its inhabitants who were Taino-Arawak.

It then became a Spanish colony.

Christopher Columbus arrived at Puerto Rico in 1493. He originally called the island San Juan Bautista, but thanks to the gold in the river, it was soon known as Puerto Rico, or "rich port;" and the capital city took the name San Juan. Soon, Puerto Rico was a Spanish colony on its way to becoming an important military outpost.

Puerto Rico began to produce cattle, sugar cane, coffee and tobacco, which led to the importation of slaves from Africa. As a result, Puerto Rican bloodlines and culture evolved through a mixing of the Spanish, African, and indigenous Taíno and Carib Indian races that shared the island. Today, many Puerto Rican towns retain their Taíno names, such as Utuado, Mayagüez and Caguas.

Over the years numerous unsuccessful attempts were made by the French, Dutch, and English to conquer the island. To guard against these incursions, the Spanish constructed the many forts and ramparts still found on the island. Puerto Rico remained an overseas province of Spain until the Spanish-American war, when U.S. forces invaded the island with a landing at Guánica. Under the Treaty of Paris of 1898, Spain ceded Puerto Rico (along with Cuba, the Philippines and Guam) to the U.S.

Puerto Ricans have continued to use the original Taino name to identify themselves. Puerto Ricans refer to themselves as Boricuas or Borinqueños, as well as using Puertorriqueños.

Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: The politics of being above politics

By Greg Dworkin

Sunday Oct 22, 2017 · 4:31 AM PDT

2017/10/22 · 04:31

This is when military officers present themselves as above politics - but using that itself as a political stance, to be beyond criticism /2
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 21, 2017

NY Times:

Kelly, in Defending Trump Call, Holds Up Military as an Elite Class

After his remarks, Mr. Kelly permitted only those reporters who knew families of dead service members, called Gold Star families, to ask questions.

Phil Klay, a Marine veteran and the author of “Redeployment,” a collection of short stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he had little problem with most of Mr. Kelly’s remarks, but took umbrage at his restrictions on the questioning.

“If the problem is that most Americans aren’t engaged, then saying that only those who are engaged can ask about this, then that is deeply counterproductive,” Mr. Klay said in an interview. “This is deeply critical to us as a nation, and war is a huge part of what this country does.”

If you think journalists should never challenge statements of generals, IÃ¢ÂÂve got a great documentary series for you https://t.co/4QuzXyw0OX
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 20, 2017

Cartoon: Heckuva job, brownies!

By laloalcaraz

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 7:01 PM PDT

2017/10/21 · 19:01

Trump vs. Puerto Rico

Nuts & Bolts: The DNC meets in Las Vegas

By Chris Reeves

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 6:01 PM PDT

2017/10/21 · 18:01

Frank LaMere, an activist Winnebago of Nebraska, speaks to Christine Pelosi about the new Native American caucus of the Democratic National Committee.

Welcome back, Saturday Campaign D.I.Y.ers! For those who tune in, welcome to the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic campaign. Each week we discuss issues that help drive successful campaigns. If you’ve missed prior diaries, please visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.

This series has been focused on how to build and develop campaigns and successful activism efforts. A few times a year, though, I break from that to talk about the inner workings of the party, and to help people understand how things work. A more informed Democratic base is good for all of us; and in an era where outside forces love to manufacture over the top drama and rancor, sometimes cutting through all the noise can be helpful.

This week we’re in Las Vegas, as the DNC holds our Fall meeting. With a lot to be discussed—and a lot already discussed online, let’s get into it and discuss what happens at these meetings!

DNC meetings are, like many state and local functions, divided into groups, caucus, council as well as ancillary organizations. No organization has a larger impact on ASDC than the state parties, and as a result of this, every DNC meeting features a second meeting that normally starts earlier hosted and held by ASDC—the Association of State Democratic Chairs. These meetings are aimed at discussing how to better improve practices by our state parties, local outreach efforts, and a free exchange of information between state organizations about best practices.

Ken Martin, current chair of ASDC and chair of the Minnesota Democratic Party, has called each meeting hosted by ASDC this year thus far with a similar tone: we cannot take for granted Democratic wins in 2018; we cannot assume that Trump’s bad behavior nets us wins, we must work as hard as we have ever worked in order to guarantee good results. “Don't get ahead of overconfident in the slightest” he tells his first audience.

Martin, who took over for New Hampshire chair Ray Buckley, kicks off what many see as the DNC main event on the Wednesday, with DNC member functions beginning on Thursday.

DNC member functions will always begin with councils, caucus, and informational programming. Members are free to attend or participate in the functions they find worthwhile. Each council or caucus provides regional opportunities at leadership as well as national opportunities for leadership should someone decide to take those tasks on.

This week in creepy science: Halloween edition

By Steven Andrew

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 5:02 PM PDT

2017/10/21 · 17:02

Interviews with people who were brought back from the brink of death combined with some basic neurophysiology lead to a rather macabre conclusion: in some cases it may be possible to perceive, feel, and perhaps even think after you are technically dead, or so close to being dead there’s little difference. Which sounds perfectly horrible, just in time for tricks and treats:

A significant number of participants in the study report being aware of their surroundings during the period in which they were pronounced dead. Though most were unable to recall specific memories, 39 percent of the study’s participants could describe “a perception of awareness.” A small percent say they were also able to hear full conversations, even see things happening around them. Lest you think these accounts a hoax, medical professionals and staff who were present at the patient’s time of death were also able to verify these stories.

Since the brain might still have a few networks capable of firing, as it goes not-so-gently into that final goodnight, it might be able to zing out a few thoughts that would allow you to, in effect, know you are dead. So yeah, thanks, science.

Last week the Gulf of Mexico saw the largest oil spill since the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010

By Walter Einenkel

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 4:01 PM PDT

2017/10/21 · 16:01

BARATARIA BAY, LA - JULY 14: Fishermen collect boom used to contain the oil spill July 14, 2010 in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. BP's project of capping the Gulf of Mexico spill was halted today after the federal government questioned whether the operation could pressure the broken well and make the leak worse. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

On Wednesday, Oct. 11, the Delta House oil production facility began spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico, about 40 miles southeast of Louisiana. While not widely reported, this may be the largest oil spill since the BP Deepwater Horizon in 2010. As Bloomberg Business explains, the initial reports are conservative at best.

The Delta House floating production facility about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of Venice, Louisiana, released 7,950 to 9,350 barrels of oil from early Wednesday to Thursday morning, according to closely held operator LLOG Exploration Co. That would make it the largest spill in more than seven years, data from the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement show, even though it’s a fraction of the millions of barrels ejected in the 2010 incident.

The LLOG spill was triggered by a fracture in a flowline jumper, Rick Fowler, the company’s vice president for deepwater projects, said in an email. That’s a short pipeline used to connect nearby subsea structures. Multiple barriers placed on either side of the fracture stopped the release, but the the flowline jumper hasn’t yet been repaired, Fowler said.

So while the Deepwater Horizon oil spill oozed more than 3 million barrels (over 200 million gallons) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, this recent event is believed to have “leaked” a little less 10,000 barrels (under 400,000 gallons), according to Mississippi’s The Sun Herald. There have also been no deaths reported at Delta House, compared to the 11 people killed during the Deepwater Horizon event.

This week in the war on workers: Millions of women lack legal protection from the Harvey Weinsteins

By Laura Clawson

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 3:01 PM PDT

2017/10/21 · 15:01

Sexual harassment and assault has been in the headlines, thanks/no thanks to serial offender Harvey Weinstein, and many reasons have been offered for why women wouldn’t or couldn’t come forward. Bryce Covert offers an additional one: actresses have no federal protections against workplace sexual harassment, and they’re not alone.

Any who were working on a Weinstein film were almost certainly classified as independent contractors, not regular employees. And that means that the anti-discrimination and sexual-harassment protections of federal law didn’t apply to them. [...]

Workplace discrimination and harassment based on sex are prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which outlaws “employment practice[s] [that] discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” If an employee feels she is being harassed at work, she can file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the first step in taking legal action. But the catch is that she has to be an employee for Title VII protections to apply. Independent contractors, temp workers, and those employed by contracting companies are not covered under the law. “Title VII has to be related to employment,” explained Catherine Ruckelshaus, program director at the National Employment Law Project. Anyone who’s not a traditional employee can’t easily bring claims under it. “The more attenuated you get from an employment relationship, the harder it is under Title VII.”

That means that not just actors and other movie industry workers but truck drivers and Uber drivers and home healthcare workers and an increasing number and type of workers lack protections.

Leaked memo shows the Trump admin has a new birth control plan for women: the rhythm method!

By Jen Hayden

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 2:01 PM PDT

2017/10/21 · 14:01

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a baby during a rally in the Special Events Center of the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa, Florida on November 5, 2016. / AFP / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Crooked Media got their hands on an internal Trump administration memo that outlines the goals of the worst president in history, from the "travel ban to the budget process." But the document also revealed plans to drastically slash federal funding for family planning and pregnancy prevention programs. Instead of providing actual birth control and accurate information, low-income women will now be told to either abstain or use the “rhythm method.”

And they hope to halve federal funding for Title X, the grant program that provides family planning and prevention services to the poor, and divert the money into programs to promote “fertility awareness” methods of birth control—popular among socially conservative contraception foes—which fail annually for a quarter of couples.

Members of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council (DPC) transmitted these and other priorities and concerns, as part of their longer wish list, to the Office of Management and Budget, seeking their inclusion in the budget the president will submit to Congress next year, according to a source who provided the memo to Crooked Media.

Crooked Media goes on to note the people behind these recommendations have been pushing this half-baked agenda for quite some time:

Each of the document’s repeated references to fertility awareness, including as a preferred remedy for teenage pregnancy, can be found in subsections that identify DPC staffers Katy Talento and Alexandra Campau as points of contact for OMB officials. Talento, a former adviser to Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), attracted the attention of the health news service STAT earlier this year, after Trump selected her to help shape the administration’s health policy, for expressing “strong rhetoric against birth control and abortion.”

North Carolina Republicans keep losing in the courts, now they want to change the referees

By Kerry Eleveld

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 1:01 PM PDT

2017/10/21 · 13:01

FILE - In this July 28, 2014 file photo, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper addresses the North Carolina Sheriff's Association training conference at the Riverfront Convention Center in downtown New Bern, N.C. The North Carolina Republican Party — Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper says state Republicans are trying to "rig" the judicial system in their favor.

No lawmakers epitomize this truth more than those in the state of North Carolina: When Republicans lose, they cheat. Ever since Tar Heel Republicans lost the state's gubernatorial race in 2016 while the rest of the country went red, GOP lawmakers have worked diligently to undermine the will of the voters. They have tried to strip the new Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, of his power to restore voting rights, appoint judges, and even legally challenge GOP legislation.

In the meantime, the raft of conservative laws they've passed have largely been turned back by federal and state courts alike.

Now, since North Carolina Republicans have proven themselves unable to pass legislation that's constitutional, they've decided to game the system by changing the referees. The New York Times writes:

Judges in state courts as of this year must identify their party affiliation on ballots, making North Carolina the first state in nearly a century to adopt partisan court elections. The General Assembly in Raleigh reduced the size of the state Court of Appeals, depriving Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, of naming replacements for retiring Republicans.

And this month, lawmakers drew new boundaries for judicial districts statewide, which critics say are meant to increase the number of Republican judges on district and superior courts and would force many African-Americans on the bench into runoffs against other incumbents.

“Instead of changing the way they write their laws, they want to change the judges,” Mr. Cooper said as he sat in a 19th-century, high-ceiling library at the Executive Mansion, which he has occupied uneasily since succeeding Pat McCrory, a Republican. The legislature has overridden nearly a dozen of his vetoes. The latest was on Monday, when lawmakers sustained a bill to eliminate judicial primary elections, which Mr. Cooper called part of an effort to “rig the system.”

Mitch McConnell gamed the system and won when he denied Barack Obama the chance to fill a Supreme Court seat last year and then gifted it to Donald Trump by changing the Senate rules. He’s currently in the process of working to pack the lower courts now.

North Carolina lawmakers must figure, why not? God forbid they start passing laws that might pass constitutional muster.

Air, water pollution linked to the deaths of nearly 9 million people annually worldwide

By Craig Hunter

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 12:01 PM PDT

2017/10/21 · 12:01

People wear masks on a polluted day in Beijing on November 18, 2016. .Beijing is currently under an orange alert for air pollution, the second highest level in a four-tier warning system. Heavy pollution is expected to hang over the city until November 19. / AFP / GREG BAKER (Photo credit should read GREG BAKER/AFP/Getty Images) — People wear masks on a polluted day in Beijing on Nov. 18, 2016.

A new study paints a bleak picture of the state of pollution around the globe, with poor air quality, water pollution and other environmental factors contributing to nearly one in six deaths annually worldwide.

The study, published this week in the Lancet, relied on data from researchers in more than 130 countries who looked at the causes of premature deaths in recent decades. It found that poor air quality was the most significant factor in pollution-related deaths, accounting for an estimated 6.5 million deaths in 2015 from heart disease, strokes, lung cancer and other respiratory problems.

“Going into this, my colleagues and I knew that pollution killed a lot of people. But we certainly did not have any idea of the total magnitude of the problem,” said Philip Landrigan, dean of global health at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and co-chair of the commission behind the report. “I think all of us were really surprised when we saw this.”

It’s estimated that 2.5 million deaths in India were attributable to pollution in 2015, with another 1.8 million deaths in China. Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kenya were also significantly affected by pollution-related deaths that year.

Beyond the massive human toll, the authors of Thursday’s report also focused on the financial toll caused by pollution-related health problems.

“Until now, people haven’t recognized what an incredible hit pollution makes on the economy of a country,” Landrigan said. “Pollution control can stimulate the economy because it reduces death and disease.”

They estimated the hit to national budgets at about 1.3 percent of gross domestic product in low-income countries, compared to about 0.5 percent in developed, high-income countries. In addition, nations facing crippling pollution tend to spend much more on health care to treat diseases related to the problem.

View from the Left: John Kelly now just a tool of the 'deranged animal' in the White House

By Kerry Eleveld

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 11:02 AM PDT

2017/10/21 · 11:02

When Donald Trump heard the words he spoke this week to a grieving pregnant widow repeated back to him, even he seemed to grasp how horrific they were.

“Didn't say what that congresswoman said—didn't say it at all," Trump charged Wednesday, his arms crossed defiantly at a White House meeting. "She knows it and she now is not saying it."

She, otherwise known as Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida, was indeed still saying it—that Trump had called the family of fallen soldier Sgt. La David Johnson to say, "he knew what he signed up for ... but when it happens, it hurts anyway." And in Trump’s days-long campaign to discredit the congresswoman’s account, he even claimed he had "proof" that she was wrong.

Since White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later told reporters there was no recording of the call, the only "proof" left would have to come from the other people listening on both ends of the phone line—Trump's aides on one side and friends and family of the widow, Myeshia Johnson, on the other.

Guess what? They both confirmed Wilson's account. When the White House sent chief of staff John Kelly into the briefing room on Thursday to quell the fury Trump had stoked over the last several days, he didn't refute Wilson's story. Instead, Kelly gave an explanation for why Trump had delivered the words Wilson said he did, an apparent attempt by Trump to parrot what Gen. Joe Dunford had told Kelly in 2010 when Dunford informed Kelly that his son had been killed in action in Afghanistan.

"He said, Kel, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining that 1 percent. He knew what the possibilities were, because we're at war," Kelly said, recalling that day in 2010 when one of his closest friends showed up on his doorstep in his dress blues to relay the news. "When he died he was surrounded by the best men on this Earth: his friends. That's what the president tried to say to four families the other day."

Kelly's poignant explanation, along with his assertion that such a moment between a president and the family of a fallen soldier, however clumsy, should be "sacred," might have been a moment of national reprieve—an invitation to ponder our common humanity and check our jabs at one another. Might have been. Except that Kelly entirely shattered that opportunity by launching a broadside attack on Rep. Wilson that not only proved to be riddled with lies, but also undercut his entire premise that we as a nation needed to restore a lost sense of decency. In one breath, Kelly yearned for a return to certain sacred ideals while in the next breath he slandered a congresswoman in service of providing cover to his commander in chief—the originator of this entire race to the bottom on Gold Star families. In other words: Do as we say, not as we do.

The NFL dispute isn't the first time Trump has weaponized the American flag against a community

By Kerry Eleveld

Saturday Oct 21, 2017 · 10:01 AM PDT

2017/10/21 · 10:01

When Donald Trump decided to accuse NFL players protesting police brutality of "disrespecting" the American flag, it wasn't his first turn with using nationalistic jingoism to divide a community against itself for his own benefit. In fact, the case of a 70-foot flagpole he illegally erected at one of his golf courses in 2006 likely served as a dry run for the way he has weaponized the American flag against people of color in his ongoing attack on First Amendment rights.

NPR's Embedded podcast takes us back to the war Trump waged in the mid-aughts against a California city where he was building the new golf course. It will surprise no one to learn that in the process of developing his course on the stunning bluffs of Rancho Palos Verdes along the southern California coast line, Trump did everything from publicly calling a respected attorney an "obnoxious asshole" to telling homeowners with properties lining his links that their houses looked "like shit." Trump also sued the local public school in a dispute over how and when he would pay the district for the land parts of his course occupied.

But it was the dispute over a flag pole he erected against city code, dwarfing everything else in sight, where Trump used patriotism to turn neighbor against neighbor in a cozy town of about 40,000 residents.

Here's an excerpt from the story reported by several NPR journalists:

We're taking a left on a road called Trump National Drive—you're looking out over this completely unobstructed beautiful view of the ocean and of Catalina and there is one thing that sticks up ... the American flag, a 70-foot flag pole. [...]

There's sort of here in Ranchos Pales Verdes an absolutist view—like, nothing over a certain height. Don't block anybody else's views. In the 1980s they passed a law basically that said, if you're going put up anything over a certain height that could conceivably disrupt someone else's view then you have to go to the city and get a permit because people's views are so important to them and so important to the value of their properties.

Now what Donald Trump would say, and has said is, I don't think you need a permit to put up the American flag.

That was his entire argument. Even when he refused to pay the $10,000 fee to have the flag pole assessed by the City Council, he said, "Since when do you have to pay to put up the American flag?" A flag that also happened to be the "size of a studio apartment ... towering 54 feet over the city's 16-foot limit on ‘accessory structures.’"

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