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Hillary Clinton Lays Out the Case Against Donald Trump

by Julie Plunkett Posted on June 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton gave a “big” foreign policy speech yesterday, but it wasn’t really a foreign policy speech. That is, its purpose wasn’t to spell out a “Hillary Doctrine” or reprise her well-known positions on various global issues. Its purpose was to clearly expose Donald Trump as the ignorant cretin he is. And it did!

He is not just unprepared — he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility. Applause This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes — because it’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.

….He has said that he would order our military to carry out torture and the murder of civilians who are related to suspected terrorists — even though those are war crimes. He says he doesn’t have to listen to our generals or our admirals, our ambassadors and other high officials, because he has — quote — “a very good brain.” Laughter He also said, “I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me.” You know what? I don’t believe him.

….It’s no small thing when he suggests that America should withdraw our military support for Japan, encourage them to get nuclear weapons, and said this about a war between Japan and North Korea — and I quote — “If they do, they do. Good luck, enjoy yourself, folks.” I wonder if he even realizes he’s talking about nuclear war?

….And I have to say, I don’t understand Donald’s bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America. He praised China for the Tiananmen Square massacre; he said it showed strength. He said, “You’ve got to give Kim Jong Un credit” for taking over North Korea — something he did by murdering everyone he saw as a threat, including his own uncle, which Donald described gleefully, like he was recapping an action movie. And he said if he were grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, he’d give him an A.

Now, I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants. Applause I just wonder how anyone could be so wrong about who America’s real friends are. Because it matters. If you don’t know exactly who you’re dealing with, men like Putin will eat your lunch.

….Just look at the few things he’s actually said on the subject of ISIS. He’s actually said — and I quote — “maybe Syria should be a free zone for ISIS.” Oh, okay — let a terrorist group have control of a major country in the Middle East. Then he said we should send tens of thousands of American ground troops to the Middle East to fight ISIS. He also refused to rule out using nuclear weapons against ISIS, which would mean mass civilian casualties. It’s clear he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

….It also matters when he makes fun of disabled people, calls women pigs, proposes banning an entire religion from our country, or plays coy with white supremacists. America stands up to countries that treat women like animals, or people of different races, religions or ethnicities as less human. Applause What happens to the moral example we set — for the world and for our own children — if our President engages in bigotry?

….Imagine Donald Trump sitting in the Situation Room, making life-or-death decisions on behalf of the United States. Imagine him deciding whether to send your spouses or children into battle. Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account at his disposal when he’s angry, but America’s entire arsenal. Do we want him making those calls — someone thin-skinned and quick to anger, who lashes out at the smallest criticism? Do we want his finger anywhere near the button?

Very nice! Hillary’s remarks seem to have left Trump relatively speechless.1 The best he could do was to claim he is “the opposite of thin-skinned”;2 that Hillary’s temperament is bad; that she read her speech badly; that she is “pathetic”; and that she killed four people in Benghazi. By Trump’s standard, this is very weak tea. All he could do was stutter the equivalent of “I know you are, but what am I?”

Apparently this speech really did get under his skin. But what can he do? His own record over the past few months shows that he’s abysmally ignorant of foreign affairs. He doesn’t know what the nuclear triad is.3 He favors Britain leaving the EU but has never heard of “Brexit.”4 He doesn’t know where Iraq’s oil is.5 He doesn’t know the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas.6 He’s blissfully unaware that Germany cares a great deal about Ukraine.7 He was taken by surprise when he learned that US companies aren’t allowed to sell planes to Iran.8 He thinks Iran is the main trading partner of North Korea.9 These are all howling bloopers. Anyone who had so much as perused a daily newspaper over the past couple of decades would be familiar with all this stuff.

Apparently Trump hasn’t done that. What’s more, over the past year, while he was running for president, he still didn’t bother. This is inexplicable, even for Trump. How is it that he hasn’t picked up more stuff just by osmosis? It’s not only scary, it’s genuinely puzzling. He obviously cares so little about foreign affairs that he actively resists learning anything about it. I guess that might ruin his prized ability to say anything he wants without letting facts get in the way.

1Note that “relatively” is the key word here. Nothing actually shuts the guy up.

2Just spitballing here, but I think the word he’s searching for is “thick-skinned.”

3Missiles, airplanes, and submarines.

4Brexit = Britain Exit.

5Pretty much all over the country.

6Hezbollah operates in Lebanon; Hamas operates in Israel (the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Territories).

7For example: “From the start, Merkel has played an impressive role in responding to the Ukraine crisis. In fact, her actions have allowed Germany to assume geopolitical leadership of Europe for the first time since 1945.” Or this: “In the course of the Ukraine conflict that erupted in 2014, Germany has for the first time taken the lead on a major international crisis. The main center of Western action and coordination hasn’t been Washington, Brussels, Paris, or London, but Berlin.” Or this from last year’s G7 meeting: “Germany, Britain and the US want an agreement to offer support to any EU member state tempted to withdraw backing for the sanctions on Moscow, which are hurting the Russian economy.” Etc.

8From his March New York Times interview: “Did you notice they’re buying from everybody but the United States? They’re buying planes, they’re buying everything, they’re buying from everybody but the United States.” NYT: “Our law prevents us from selling to them, sir. ” Trump: “Uh, excuse me?” NYT: “We still have sanctions in the U.S. that would prevent the U.S. from being able to sell that equipment.”

9From the same interview: “Mr. Trump with all due respect, I think it’s China that’s the No. 1 trading partner with North Korea.” Trump: “I’ve heard that certainly, but I’ve also heard from other sources that it’s Iran.” Actually, it’s China.

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Hillary Clinton Lays Out the Case Against Donald Trump

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Ohio purges thousands of black voters from voting rolls

by JaimeTeeter Posted on June 2, 2016

Ohio purges thousands of black voters from voting rolls

By on Jun 2, 2016Share

Reuters reports that Ohio officials have purged tens of thousands of voters who haven’t cast a ballot since the 2008 presidential election from the rolls.

While purging inactive voters is fairly common, doing it on this scale — and after only eight years of inactivity — is an exception. Although the statewide total of impacted voters isn’t known, Reuters found that 144,000 voters had been purged in the three biggest counties, and black and Democratic-leaning districts were twice as likely to be affected as white and Republican-leaning districts.

When kicked off the rolls, voters have to register again. Not only is this a hassle, there are reports of voters not finding out until they get to their polling places. Then, it’s already too late.

Because Ohio is a swing-state, this could have a huge impact on pro-climate candidates in the election, as well as potential state-wide measures for clean energy, raising the minimum wage, and legalizing medical marijuana and industrial hemp.

Civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, filed suit against Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted in April, alleging that the rule targets minority and low-income voters and violates a federal law saying states can only purge voters from rolls upon death, request, or if they move out of state.

This isn’t the first time Husted has faced allegations of misconduct, as Think Progress points out: In 2012, Husted defied a court order to restore early voting hours, and in March, the Bernie Sanders campaign filed suit against him after Husted barred 17-year-olds who will turn 18 before the general election from voting in the primary. A judge agreed with the Sanders camp that this was unconstitutional, and blocked Husted’s decision.

Husted has called the recent suit “politically motivated, election-year politics,” that “opens the door for voter fraud in Ohio.”

Except voter fraud, according to experts, isn’t actually a problem. In fact, an investigation of more than 1 billion votes cast between 2000 and 2014 found all of 31 incidences of fraud.

Stories of voter suppression have been rampant this election season. Part of this is because its the first presidential election after the 2013 Supreme Court decision that kneecapped the Voting Rights Act. The decision allows state to enact ID requirements, shorten voting periods, and end same-day registration. There have also been a few mysterious incidences this go-round, like the purging of 120,000 people from voter rolls in New York and Arizona Democrats claiming that Latino and working class districts had insufficient polling places for their primary.

Now, it’s up to the courts to decide if it will be allowed to go on in Ohio.

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Ohio purges thousands of black voters from voting rolls

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Today’s Dose of Liberal Heresy: Campaign Finance Reform Isn’t That Big a Deal

by CindyParkhill Posted on May 28, 2016

Mother Jones

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I was musing the other day about something or other, and for some reason it occurred to me that there are several subjects near and dear to progressive hearts that I flatly disagree with. I’m not talking about, say, charter schools, where there’s a robust, ongoing intra-liberal debate and both sides already have plenty of adherents. Nor am I talking about things like Wall Street regulation, where everyone (including me) thinks we need to do more but we disagree on technical issues (Bernie wants to break up big banks, I want to double capital requirements).

I’m thinking instead of things that seem to enjoy something like 90+ percent liberal support—and which I think are basically a waste of liberal time and energy. So if I write about them, a whole lot of people are going to be pissed off. Something like 90+ percent of my readership, I’d guess. Who needs the grief? After all, for the most part there’s usually not much harm in spending time and energy on these things (though there are exceptions).

But let’s give it a go anyway. Maybe this will be the first entry in a periodic series. Maybe I’ll discover that I’m not quite as alone on these issues as I think. Here’s my first entry.

Campaign Finance Reform

Liberals love campaign finance reform. Citizens United is our Roe v. Wade, and it’s become an even more central issue since Bernie Sanders began his presidential run last year. As near as I can tell, Bernie—along with most liberals—thinks it’s the key foundational issue of modern progressivism. Until we seriously reduce the amount of money in political campaigns, no real progressive reform is possible.

I’m pretty sure this is completely wrong. Here are seven reasons that have persuaded me of this over the years, with the most important reason left to the end:

  1. Half a century has produced nothing. Liberals groups have been putting serious effort into campaign finance reform for about 40 years now. The only result has been abject failure. Ban union donations, they create PACs. Ban hard money, you get soft money. Ban soft money, you get Super PACs. Etc. None of the reforms have worked, and even before Citizens United the Supreme Court had steadily made effective reform efforts harder and harder. What’s even worse, the public still isn’t with us. If you ask them vaguely if they think there’s too much money in politics, most will say yes. If you ask them if they really care, they shrug. After nearly half a century, maybe it’s time to ask why.
  2. Other countries spend less. Most other rich countries spend a lot less on political campaigns than we do. Are they less in thrall to moneyed interests because of this? Some are, some aren’t. I’ve never seen any convincing evidence that there’s much of a correlation.
  3. Billionaires are idiots. Seriously. The evidence of the last decade or so suggests that billionaires just aren’t very effective at using their riches to win elections. This is unsurprising: billionaires are egotists who tend to think that because they got rich doing X, they are also geniuses at Y and Z and on beyond zebra. But they aren’t. This stuff is a hobby for them, and mostly they’re just wasting their money.
  4. The small-dollar revolution. Starting with Howard Dean in 2004, the internet has produced an explosion of small-dollar donations, accounting for over a third of presidential fundraising in 2012 and 2016. This year, for example, Hillary Clinton has so far raised $288 million (including money raised by outside groups). Bernie Sanders has raised $208 million, all of it in small-dollar donations averaging $27. Ironically, at the same time that he’s made campaign finance reform a major issue, Bernie has demonstrated that small dollars can power a serious insurgency.
  5. Money really is speech. Obviously this is an opinion, and a really rare one on my side of the political spectrum. But why should political speech be restricted? My read of the First Amendment suggests that if there’s any single kind of speech that should enjoy the highest level of protection, it’s political speech.
  6. We may have maxed out anyway. There’s increasing evidence that in big-time contests (governors + national offices), we’ve basically reached the point of diminishing returns. At this point, if billionaires spend more money it just won’t do much good even if they’re smart about it. There are only so many minutes of TV time available and only so many persuadable voters. More important, voters have only so much bandwidth. Eventually they tune out, and it’s likely that we’ve now reached that point.

    In the interests of fairness, I’ll acknowledge that I might be wrong about this. It might turn out that there are clever ways to spend even more; billionaires might get smarter; and Citizens United has only just begun to affect spending. Maybe in a couple of decades I’ll be eating my words about this.

  7. Campaign spending hasn’t gone up much anyway. I told you I’d leave the most important reason for the end, and this is it. It’s easy to be shocked when you hear about skyrocketing billions of dollars being spent on political campaigns, but billions of dollars aren’t that much in a country the size of the United States. In 2012, Obama spent $1.1 billion vs. Mitt Romney’s $1.2 billion. That’s about 1 percent of total ad spending in the US. Hell, in the cell phone biz alone, AT&T spent $1.3 billion vs. Verizon’s $1.2 billion. If you want to look at campaign spending, you really need to size it to the growth in GDP over the past half century or so.

So here it is. These two charts show our skyrocketing spending on presidential campaigns as a percent of GDP. Data for the chart on the left comes from Mother Jones. The chart on the right comes from the Center for Responsive Politics. Total presidential spending is up about 18 percent since 2000. I supposed I’d like to see this reduced as much as the next guy, but it’s hard to see it as the core corrupter of American politics. It’s a symptom, but it’s really not the underlying disease. There really are problems with the influence of the rich on American politics, but campaigns are probably the place where it matters least, not most.

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Today’s Dose of Liberal Heresy: Campaign Finance Reform Isn’t That Big a Deal

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Dungeness crabs threatened by, you guessed it, climate change

by LupitaPrior Posted on May 25, 2016

Dungeness crabs threatened by, you guessed it, climate change

By on May 25, 2016

Cross-posted from

Climate CentralShare

When it comes to American culinary institutions, the Dungeness crabs that are hauled ashore from California to Washington state every winter season are the crustacean equivalents of apple pie.

The bountiful crab meat is a holiday staple in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. When crabbing was suspended in the fall by an algae outbreak, journalists flocked to docks to produce lead news stories — just as they did when crabbing was restricted following a 2007 oil spill.

Research published this month could give a crab connoisseur a case of acid reflux.

Dungeness crabs for sale in Seattle.

erikzen

Scientists reported in the journal Marine Biology that ocean acidification, which is caused when carbon dioxide pollution dissolves into oceans, can kill and stunt young crabs, potentially jeopardizing whole populations.

“It’s something that’s projected into the future, but you don’t want to wait until a crisis,” John Mellor, a Dungeness crab fishermen who docks his boat in San Francisco, said during an interview last week in Washington, D.C., where he was meeting with lawmakers and others. “I’m here to try to convince people to give money for research.”

Scientists grew eggs and larvae from Puget Sound crabs in water containing pH resembling current and future conditions. They reported that more acidic seawater slowed the development of embryos and larvae and caused an “appreciable” number of larvae to die.

Ocean acidification is caused by carbon dioxide pollution — the same pollutant from fuel burning and deforestation that changes the climate. After carbon dioxide dissolves into seawater, it undergoes chemical reactions that change the pH and remove chemicals needed by corals, shellfish, and other creatures to produce rigid body parts.

West Coast waters are more prone to acidification than other regions. As the threat of acidifying waters weighs on the minds of crabbers, those who grow shellfish are already being directly affected. The Pacific Northwest’s oyster growing industry has been experiencing substantial losses of young shellfish linked to acidification since 2005.

“The really tough situation with the shellfish industry on the West Coast was the first major alarm bell,” said Jeff Watters, director of government relations at the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy. “That was the first moment where you literally had an industry who said, ‘Holy cow, this could shut us down.’”

Seth Miller, a Smithsonian Environmental Research Center scientist who wasn’t involved with the new study, said it added Dungeness crabs to the “long list of crustaceans and other invertebrates that will likely be negatively impacted” by ocean acidification during their larval stages.

“If Dungeness larvae develop slowly under acidified conditions, they’re likely going to struggle even more when you layer on other climate-related stressors like rising temperatures,” Miller said.

Miller said the research provides a “first look” at how acidification could affect crab populations. Scientists don’t know whether acidification is affecting crab populations already — nor do they precisely know how it could affect them in the future.

Dungeness crabs caught off California.

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

“We don’t have any direct evidence that they’re currently being affected, except that in some places we see a decreased survival under conditions that currently exist in some places,” said Paul McElhany, a NOAA ecologist who participated in the new study.

“We’re completely into new territory,” McElhany said. “Carbon dioxide has never changed this rapidly as far as we can tell.”

The West Coast’s crab population is a large one, occupying vast territory in the Pacific Ocean, raising hopes that it may harbor enough genetic variety to help it withstand environmental tumult, such as acidification. But how resilient it will actually be remains unknown.

“We’re only able to do experiments on a few life stages for a certain amount of time,” McElhany said. “So the question of the role that diversity might play in potential evolutionary response — that’s something that’s really just unknown at the moment.”

The coastal Washington state district of Rep. Derek Kilmer, a Democrat, contains thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on shellfish. He has introduced legislation designed to spur more research through federal grants and innovation prizes.

“I think there’s a real concern that, as you see changing ocean chemistry, that that’s a threat to their livelihood,” Kilmer said. “We’re trying to shine a bright light on the problem.”

Further research could help determine whether the crabs could evolve quickly enough or learn to adapt to changing pH concentrations. Such research may provide clues as to whether anything could be done to help crabs withstand acidification — apart from drastically curbing fossil fuel burning and deforestation, which is the goal of a new United Nations climate change treaty.

“This bill is not going to solve all the world’s problems,” Kilmer said. “To me, this is one of many things that have to happen.”

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Dungeness crabs threatened by, you guessed it, climate change

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Your Favorite Artisanal Food Brand Is Probably Owned by a Huge Company

by ChandaEager6519 Posted on May 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Big Food is in a pickle. Its core business—packaged, pre-cooked fare—remains profitable, but sales are shrinking. Consumer distrust is mounting. One response has been to maintain profits by slashing expenses. Conagra, the behemoth behind such one-time powerhouses as Chef Boyardee canned spaghetti and Pam spray oil, recently announced it would cut $300 million in annual costs and lay off 1,500 workers.

Another time-tested strategy is to snap up smaller, independent companies operating in niches of the industry that are actually growing, like organics, for example. That means that what started as your favorite local organic food brand—Naked Juice, Dagoba chocolate, LaraBar—now belongs to a much larger, much less local company.

Last week alone, three much-loved small players succumbed to the appetites of larger players:

• Spam king Hormel gobbles up an organic peanut butter player. It might seem bizarre that Hormel—the topic of Ted Genoways’ excellent 2011 exposé on working conditions on the slaughterhouse floor—would drop $286 million on nut-snack company Justin’s, which started as a stand in the Boulder Farmers Market in 2004. But Hormel has been diversifying away from canned pork for a while. It spent $700 million to take on supermarket peanut butter titan Jiffy in 2013. By broadening its portfolio to include Justin’s—probably most famous for its organic peanut butter cups—Hormel is adding rapid sales growth. Hormel had already displayed its taste for the sweeter growth prospects and profit margins offered by organic and “natural” foods when it spent $775 to buy niche meat player Applegate a year ago.

• A very European-like midsize cheese-maker gets snapped up by a European giant. Switzerland-based Emmi is a globe-spanning cheese titan with $3.3 billion in annual sales. Its offerings now include those of Cowgirl Creamery, which sells about $20 million per year of cheeses from cows raised on the lush rolling hills of Northern California’s Marin County. For US cheese lovers like me, the thought of Cowgirl falling into the maw of a large company is like seeing your favorite local coffeehouse get bought by Starbucks. Although, to be fair, Emmi isn’t exactly Kraft—it sells some pretty high-quality cheeses in the United States, like gruyere. And as the San Francisco Chronicle notes, Emmi has already demonstrated its fondness for Northern California cheese—it bought Redwood Hill Farm and Creamery last year and Cypress Grove Chevre in 2010. Another European behemoth, Heineken, also bought a bit of Northern California chic when it gulped up a 50 percent stake in craft-beer maker Lagunitas last year.

• A great Sonoma County niche winery gets swallowed by a California-based titan. Full disclosure: I can’t afford to drink them very often, but I love the lean, light, pretty wines of Sonoma County’s Copain, which makes about 20,000 cases per year. I don’t love the big, high-alcohol ones favored by Kendall Family Wines, which are cranked out at the rate of 5.6 million cases annually, from wineries that span the globe from California to Chile to South Africa. So I won’t be toasting this deal (the price of which has not been disclosed.) But I do hope it signals a shift away from the “jammy fruit bomb” style that has dominated the wine world for decades, a stubborn trend ably skewered by Jonathan Nossiter’s excellent 2014 documentary Mondovino.

In all three of these deals, the charismatic founder(s) of the smaller company has vowed to maintain full control of the brand’s quality and vision as it moves forward under the shadow of a conglomerate. Here’s hoping they do.

Originally posted here: 

Your Favorite Artisanal Food Brand Is Probably Owned by a Huge Company

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Finally You Can See How Much Added Sugar Is Hidden in Your Food

by HomerSevttp Posted on May 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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After years of delay, the Food and Drug Administration finalized new nutrition facts labels on Friday. The label you’re used to seeing on processed foods was more than 20 years old; the government says the new one reflects updated scientific information and “will make it easier for consumers to make better informed food choices.”

The changes include a magnified calorie count and the addition of a line showing added sugar (highlighted below).

Food and Drug Administration

It’s a big deal that companies will now have to identify the added sugar in their food. Once corn-syrup-filled sodas and cheap processed snacks started overtaking our supermarkets in the 1960s, added sweeteners infiltrated nearly every corner of the American diet. As I’ve written in the past:

Naturally occurring sugars (the kind in fruit, for example) come with fiber, which helps us regulate the absorption of food. Without fiber, sugar can overwhelm your system, eventually leading to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems.

Given these risks, experts have warned that no more than ten percent of your daily calorie intake should come from added sugar, or around 12 teaspoons a day; Americans wolf down 30 teaspoons on average by some estimates. It doesn’t help that three-quarters of processed snacks include such added sweeteners. But until now, consumers had no real way of knowing how much of the sugar in their food was naturally occurring, and how much was added in manufacturing. Adding to shoppers’ confusion is how tricky it can be to determine whether sugar is an ingredient in a food: it goes by at least 57 names.

With the new labels, manufacturers will have to reveal more about how they use this ubiquitous ingredient. Time will tell whether the transparency spurs big food companies to look past adding sugar and find new ways to make their food palatable.

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Finally You Can See How Much Added Sugar Is Hidden in Your Food

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How to Harvest and Cook Fiddlehead Ferns

by TamieJ55dxlffb Posted on May 20, 2016

Fiddlehead ferns are a telltale sign that spring is coming to a close. Always appearing around the month of May, these delicious yet fleeting vegetables are the apples of many a forager’s eye. Even if youre not a forager yourself, you might want to buy these delicious, asparagus-like ferns from the store if you spot them. Theyre delicious, with a bright, lively taste and a versatile texture. Heres what you need to know about these tricky little delicacies.

What are Fiddlehead Ferns?

Most of the fiddleheads we associate with eating are ostrich ferns. This is important to note, because there are other varieties that may look similar, but are actually known to be toxic. They are the fronds of a young fern that has just begun to sprout. We pick them in the spring before theyve had the chance to mature and unfurl into what we usually recognize as a fern. As a result, they look, well, kind of like a curled-up green bean.

Where and When Do They Grow?

Fiddlehead ferns grow best on the Eastern side of the country, usually running from New England all the way up through Eastern Canada. They tend to sprout up in wet, marshy areas, so theyre kind of off the beaten path (this is one of the reasons theyre so expensive to buy in stores). They grow in clumps of two to three all the way up to the hundreds, and only hang around for a couple of weeks in mid-Spring.

Forage or Buy?

If you live in an area where fiddlehead ferns grow and youre an experienced forager, these little guys would be fun items to look for. However, its important to be careful about this. Similar plant species may look very similar to the fiddlehead, but are in fact toxic. Fearless eating recommends the book A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants if youre interested in foraging for fiddleheads. You could also go out on the hunt with a credible guide who could show you the ropes.

If you decide to pick these up at the grocery store, time is of the essence! Blink and you might miss them. Be prepared that theyre also expensive roughly $14-19 per pound.

How to Cook Fiddlehead Ferns

The Kitchn advises that you shouldnt eat these ferns raw. Theyve been known to cause illness when eaten raw in large quantities. However, that shouldnt be a problem, because cooking these guys is easy! You can cook them any way youd cook asparagus: sauteed, steamed, boiled, etc.

My personal favorite idea is to blanch and then saute them. Bring your water to a roaring boil, add your fiddleheads, and allow the water to return to a boil. Then let the boil continue for about four minutes before placing the fiddleheads in a bowl of ice water. After theyve cooled a bit, sautee them with some butter, coconut oil or olive oil. Delish!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How to Harvest and Cook Fiddlehead Ferns

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The Rhythm of Life – Matthew Kelly

by Myrna Posted on May 15, 2016

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

The Rhythm of Life

Living Everyday With Passion and Purpose

Matthew Kelly

Genre: Self-Improvement

Price: $9.99

Publish Date: June 26, 2015

Publisher: Beacon Publishing

Seller: BookBaby


In The Rhythm of Life Matthew Kelly exposes the lifestyle challenges and problems that face us in this age obsessed with noise, speed, and perpetual activity. Kelly’s message rings out with a truth that is challenging and unmistakably attractive—“Who you become is infinitely more important than what you do, or what you have.” Are you ready to meet the-best-version-of-yourself? The Rhythm of Life is a brilliant and clear-eyed rejection of the chaotic lifestyle that has captured the world, written with common sense, humor, and extraordinary insight. This book is destined to change lives!

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The Rhythm of Life – Matthew Kelly

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Humans and Mastodons Coexisted in Florida, New Evidence Shows

by Myrna Posted on May 13, 2016

The discovery of an unmistakable human artifact proves that humans colonized northern Florida by 14,550 years ago. Continue reading –  Humans and Mastodons Coexisted in Florida, New Evidence Shows ; ; ;

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Humans and Mastodons Coexisted in Florida, New Evidence Shows

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On Facebook, Trump’s Longtime Butler Calls for Obama to Be Killed

by AdelineTunstall Posted on May 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Anthony Senecal, who worked as Donald Trump’s butler for 17 years before being named the in-house historian at the tycoon’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, has repeatedly published posts on his Facebook page that express profound hatred for President Barack Obama and declare he should be killed.

On Wednesday, Senecal put up a post that read:

To all my friends on FB, just a short note to you on our pus headed “president” !!!! This character who I refer to as zero (0) should have been taken out by our military and shot as an enemy agent in his first term !!!!! Instead he still remains in office doing every thing he can to gut the America we all know and love !!!!! Now comes Donald J Trump to put an end to the corruption in government !!!! The so called elite, who are nothing but common dog turds from your front lawn are shaking in their boots because there is a new Sheriff coming to town, and the end to their corruption of the American people (YOU) is at hand !!!! I cannot believe that a common murder is even allowed to run (killery clinton) OR that a commie like bernie is a also allowed to also run !!!! Come on America put your big boy pants on—this election you have a choice—GET YOUR ASS OUT AND VOTE !!!! Thank you !!!!

Though Senecal’s Facebook page is public, this message could only be read by his Facebook friends. In an interview with Mother Jones, Senecal confirms that those were his words: “I wrote that. I believe that.”

Here’s a screen shot of the missive:

A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign says, “This individual has not worked at Mar-a-Lago for many years.”

Senecal, who is 84, says he has been employed at Mar-a-Lago since about 1959. Trump acquired the property in 1985, and Senecal remained on staff. “As Trump says, I came with the furniture,” Senecal remarks. About seven years later, he became the butler for the celebrity mogul who is now the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee. In 2009, Senecal informed Trump he wanted to resign as butler, and Trump persuaded him to stay on as the in-house historian at Mar-a-Lago. There is no salary for the job, Senecal says, but he makes money leading tours of the estate.

Senecal regularly posts screeds on his Facebook page from a far-right perspective in which he decries Obama and his wife—along with Hillary Clinton, other Democrats, and Republican leaders. He often refers to Obama as “zero,” and several times he has called for the president’s execution. He confirms that he has written all the posts on the page that have appeared under his name. “It’s all me,” he says.

On April 21, 2015, Senecal railed:

Looks like that sleezey bastard zero (O) is trying to out maneuver Congress again, if the truth be known this prick needs to be hung for treason!!!

On May 23, 2015, he published a post saying:

I feel it is time for the SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION !!!!! The only way we will change this crooked government is to douche it !!!!! This might be the time with this kenyan fraud in power !!!!! …With the last breath I draw I will help rid this America of the scum infested in its government–and if that means dragging that ball less dick head from the white mosque and hanging his scrawny ass from the portico–count me in !!!!!

On June 6, 2015, one of his Facebook friends wrote a comment on Senecal’s page saying, “We need to send the seals to SOROS and ROTHCHILD and REMOVE them and their cronies–then HANG BO and most of Washington–and we’ll have a CHANCE to get things straightened out.” This person added, “everyone knows they’re CRIMINAL – HANG ALL OF THEM.” Senecal replied, “I love the idea.”

On May 26, 2015, a commenter on the page excoriated Obama and his wife, Michelle (referring to the First Lady as “Sasquatch”): “If he gets hung, then Sasquatch does too.” Senecal responded, “Amen….Two of the most DISGUSTING individuals on the face of God’s Green Earth !!!! Puke !!!!!!”

Here are screen shots of these posts:

Asked why he has posted messages calling for Obama to be killed, Senecal says, “I cannot stand the bastard.” He continues: “I don’t believe he’s an American citizen. I think he’s a fraudulent piece of crap that was brought in by the Democrats.” Trump’s historian is a birther. Senecal notes that he has been suspended in the past on Facebook for publishing material that violated the service’s guidelines.

One recurring theme in Senecal’s messages is that Obama is a secret Muslim bent on destroying the United States. On September 18, he wrote, “Our current ‘president’ is a rotten filthy muzzie !!!!! Period !!!!!! He continues his war on Christians !!!!!! …zero is against the people of America !!!!!” Months earlier, he declared of Obama, “look at the number of goat screwing muzzies he is degrading our government with !!!!!” (One of Senecal’s Facebook associates replied, “We need to LYNCH that NIG — NOW!!”) In another post that day, Senecal suggested Obama was preparing to impose martial law on the United States.

On June 6, a commenter on Senecal’s page wrote, “I will gladly fight…to get rid of the commie muzzie and his vp in the white house…and we need to get rid of his whole administration and those that support and those muzzies he has put in highly senative positions in our government.” Senecal answered, “Exactly, Ruth !!!!!”

In a June 23 message, Senecal complained, “there are to sic many fkn muzzies in America !!!!!” Two days later, he wrote on Facebook, “muzzie shits…are invading our country.”

On August 12, he published a photo of Obama with this caption: “If ALLAH HAD AN ASSHOLE IT WOULD LOOK LIKE THIS.” On June 18, he referred to Obama as an “unfeeling sack of camel feces.”

Senecal’s Facebook timeline is loaded with assorted extremism. A year ago, he derided Clinton: “Stop the LYING BITCH OF BENGHAZI, NOW—killery clinton !!!!!! She should be in prison awaiting hanging !!!!!!!” Last summer, Senecal posted an image comparing Obama to Hitler and Lenin. On September 11, he groused about the Iran nuclear deal and assailed “the treachery of zero, the pig ‘president’ and traitor ketchup kerry.” And Senecal has taken shots at the GOP establishment. In a September 7 post, Senecal denounced then-House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and said both were “FKN CROOKS and should be run out of D.C, on a rail and covered in hot tar.” A few months prior to that, he proclaimed, “revolt and hang all of the a-holes in Congress and the crooked government !!!!! Let’s get ‘er done !!!!!!”

Senecal often has included links to articles about various right-wing conspiracies. On September 14, he cited an article that claimed that Obama “is leading the Muslim Brotherhood.” The day before, he had linked to a story from a conservative site claiming that nearly half of Americans would support a military coup against Obama.

He has regularly published images of the Confederate flag on his Facebook page. And in a May 10, 2015, post, he exclaimed, “Call me biased, racist…call me anything you want–I could care less !!!!!” The following month, he wrote on the page that once Obama leaves office, “only a FEW Negroes and josh earnest will even remember him.”

A lengthy and flattering New York Times profile of Senecal in March noted, “Few people here can anticipate Mr. Trump’s demands and desires better than Mr. Senecal…He understands Mr. Trump’s sleeping patterns and how he likes his steak (‘It would rock on the plate, it was so well done’).” The story reported that in 1990, Senecal “took a sabbatical to become the mayor of a town in West Virginia, where he gained some notoriety for a proposal requiring all panhandlers to carry begging permits.” The article did not mention his Facebook page.

The Times did point out that “Senecal’s admiration for his longtime boss seems to know few limits.” On June 16, Senecal exclaimed on his Facebook page, “Today, my employer and friend Donald J Trump announced he was running for the Office of President of the United States… NO ONE deserves to run for and be elected to this GREAT office, than Mr. Trump. !!!!!”

Here is a roundup of screen shots from Senecal’s Facebook page:

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On Facebook, Trump’s Longtime Butler Calls for Obama to Be Killed

Posted in alo, Anchor, bigo, Citizen, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on On Facebook, Trump’s Longtime Butler Calls for Obama to Be Killed