Bloomberg-Trump-- Same-Same

Trump and Bloomberg had a dysfunctional relationship that goes back decades-- friends, rivals, allies, enemies. The used to play golf together, although Bloomberg is still whining that Trump always cheated, something Mini-Mike has in common with everyone else who ever played golf with Trump. Bloomberg wound up with 20 or 30 times more money than Trump, so he won. He became mayor of the city they both lived in. He won. Then Trump became president and Bloomberg flipped out. He has been driven insane by his incompetent, laughable, moron-competitor beating him. So he decided to run himself. This has nothing to do with our country or our people, other than the potential to ruin everything that is America as we know it.

The two are mirror images of each other-- although Trump seems crazier... at least so far.

Tactically, they are too similar for comfort. Yesterday, I tweeted that since Trump's understanding of government doesn't go further than Louis XIV's most famous quote, "L'etat c'est moi," he has decreed that John Bolton's embarrassing new book will not be published before the election... since it could harm national security ("national security" meaning his reelection bid). Trump will stop at nothing to win since he identifies and conflates national interest with self-interest. Bloomberg is that same kind of character. What billionaire isn't? (Note: Bernie is right; there should be no billionaires.)


Yesterday, Shaun Hussain and Jeff Bercovici, writing for the L.A. Times reported that Twitter is suspending 70 pro-Bloomberg accounts, citing "platform manipulation". It's another example of two things:

1- Bloomberg's unawareness that the rules apply to him
2- Bloomberg trying to deceive voters into thinking he has grassroots support through social media manipulation

According to Hussain and Bercovici one of Bloomberg's strategies-- "deploying a large number of Twitter accounts to push out identical messages-- has backfired. On Friday, Twitter began suspending 70 accounts posting pro-Bloomberg content in a pattern that violates company rules. 'We have taken enforcement action on a group of accounts for violating our rules against platform manipulation and spam,' a Twitter spokesman said. Some of the suspensions will be permanent, while in other cases account owners will have to verify they have control of their accounts."

As part of a far-reaching social media strategy, the Bloomberg campaign has hired hundreds of temporary employees to pump out campaign messages through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These “deputy field organizers” receive $2,500 per month to promote the former New York mayor’s candidacy within their personal social circles, in addition to other, more conventional duties. They receive campaign-approved language that they can opt to post.

In posts reviewed by The Times, organizers often used identical text, images, links and hashtags. Many accounts used were created only in the last two months. Bloomberg officially entered the presidential race on Nov. 24.

After The Times inquired about this pattern, Twitter determined it ran afoul of its “Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy.” Laid out in September 2019 in response to the activities of Russian-sponsored troll networks in the 2016 presidential election, the policy prohibits practices such as artificially boosting engagement on tweets and using deliberately misleading profile information.

By sponsoring hundreds of new accounts that post copy-pasted content, Twitter said the campaign violated its rules against “creating multiple accounts to post duplicative content,” “posting identical or substantially similar Tweets or hashtags from multiple accounts you operate” and “coordinating with or compensating others to engage in artificial engagement or amplification, even if the people involved use only one account.”

The suspensions may sweep up accounts belonging to unpaid Bloomberg supporters or campaign volunteers. While the Bloomberg’s campaign’s practice of paying Twitter users was a factor in the suspensions, a company spokesman said accounts behaving in substantially the same manner will receive the same treatment, regardless of who controls them.

...Facebook’s response to the Bloomberg campaign’s novel social strategy has also been evolving. The social network views the campaign’s activity as falling under its rules for branded content, not the rules against “coordinated inauthentic behavior” devised largely in response to Russian election meddling.

Coincidence? Oh sure

Facebook’s rules for branded content “require disclosure of paid partnerships anytime there has been an exchange of value between a creator or publisher and a business partner.” In 2018, the company began to require more detailed disclosure for political ads to discourage state-sponsored influence operations.

The software tool created for buying political ads on Facebook did not allow for branded content campaigns by influencers. Earlier this month, after the Bloomberg campaign bypassed the tool entirely to mount a large-scale paid influencer campaign, Facebook lifted that ban.

I get between 100 and 200 spam e-mails a day and I've become adept at identifying spam and deleting it unopened. The other day I received an e-mail from the New Republic and opened it. But Bloomberg had paid them for the right to send out his propaganda to their list. Once I opened it, I found this box at the top and at the bottom of the e-mail:

The body of the e-mail purported to be a survey of "top supporters," without identifying what they were top supports of-- until read a little further and realized that Bloomberg hadn't just bought out the New Republic but also a scam-PAC called Stop Republicans, run by Harry Pascal who tries passing his operation off as "progressive." So far this cycle-- before the payoff from Bloomberg-- they had taken in $3,781,486, not a nickel of which has gone to candidates.

The "survey" was just a slick push-poll for Republican oligarch Michael Bloomberg, pretending to be a Democrat in his personal feud with Señor Trumpanzee. I bet Bloomberg could offer Trump a couple of billion dollars to dump Pence and name him his running mate with an agreement that he'd resign after the election. Do you doubt Trump would agree?

Right after the Nevada caucuses, Elizabeth Warren absolutely eviscerated Bloomberg up in Seattle in no uncertain terms. She began talking about a "threat that is coming our way. And it's a big threat-- not a tall one, but a big one." Apparently someone told her that Mini-Mike goes absolutely berserk when anyone comments on his physical stature. But she was just getting started. Watch this classic clip:

If You Were A Democratic Candidate, Who Would You Most Want On The Top Of The Ticket?

Newt Gingrich, once House speaker, was driven out of Congress in 1997 by his fellow-Republicans who joined the Democrats in voting for one of the 84 ethics charges against him. He was formally reprimanded and forced to reimburse the House for the $300,000 he had embezzled. Only 28 Republicans voted no, the reprimand passing 395-28. He was the first-ever speaker to be reprimanded on an ethics charge. House Republicans told him he would be ousted as speaker if he didn't resign, so he called the Republicans in Congress "cannibals" and he not only resigned as Speaker, but also told his constituents, who had reelected him the day before to go do-- and pay for-- another election because he was to embarrassed to go back to Congress as a regular-- albeit disgraced-- member.

Newsweek doesn't see him as a disgraced pariah and allowed him to weigh in on the Democratic primary yesterday, where he wrote that Biden is dead meat and Republican Mike Bloomberg would take over the conservative lane of the Democratic contest. His starts by reminding his readers that the big loser in Iowa was Biden and then reminding Biden that you can't claim to be the front-runner and the one person with the electoral strength to beat Señor Trumpanzee when you come in a distant fourth in Iowa. "Biden may stay in through South Carolina, but with each passing day, he will have less money and momentum."

There's no arguing with his next assertion, that "Biden is going to have an extraordinarily difficult time raising money going forward. He has run a tremendously expensive campaign and burned through a lot of funds. Furthermore, he has tended to raise his money from large donors, so many have already given him the legal maximum. By contrast, Sanders has the largest number of small donors and can go back to them month after month for $10 and $20 donations. These add up to millions. It is hard to imagine Biden competing on Super Tuesday in expensive states like California and Texas, because he simply won't be able to buy statewide ads."

The B team

Gingrich noted that as he was writing, "Bloomberg has announced that (in light of the Iowa caucus results), he is going to double the amount of money he is spending. He will certainly start picking up support just from the sheer weight and quality of his advertising. No one in politics should underestimate Bloomberg's understanding of public opinion and his willingness to use the best experts that money can attract. Bloomberg made part of his billions out of Bloomberg News. He won the mayoral race in New York City three times (the last time spending an estimated $200 per vote). He has more than $60 billion in net worth. This means he could spend $2 billion or $3 billion on a presidential campaign and not even notice it.

[T]he Democrats have a proportional representation beginning at 15 percent. This means that every candidate who can get 15 percent or more of the vote will have an incentive to stay in the race.

Furthermore, Bloomberg has some weaknesses that will be hard to overcome in a Democratic primary. His stop-and-frisk policing policy was seen as racist and was deeply resented. Large parts of the black community may go to Warren or Sanders rather than Bloomberg (Buttigieg seems to have a similar problem and gets little support from African Americans). Bloomberg was a registered Republican when he ran the first time for mayor and later ran as an independent. Yet he tends to dictate what people can do (he proposed outlawing Big Gulp cups in New York when he was mayor). He has been so aggressively anti-gun that in some areas there will be moderate Democrats deeply opposed to him.

Finally, Bloomberg carries the burden of being a big billionaire. He is so wealthy, he is almost a model for the kind of rich person Sanders and Warren dislike. For the increasingly radical Democratic Party to nominate a former Republican billionaire purely because he is willing to spend what it takes to buy the nomination would probably lead to a massive revolt at their convention in Milwaukee this summer. It is a little hard to imagine Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad passively accepting Bloomberg as their standard bearer.

If everyone who can get 15 percent (and therefore some delegates) stays in the race-- and if an assault on Bloomberg keeps him from breaking 50 percent-- then it is entirely possible the Democrats are headed toward a wide-open convention. This means the super delegates (who are incumbents and officials with no real legitimacy except their titles) could come into play on the second ballot.

He concludes by telling whoever reads his stuff to buckle their seat belts because, as is the hope of the White House and the Kremlin, "The Democratic race could become incredibly turbulent."

Of course, the people Biden is paying-- immensely-- to run his campaign are not taking this lying down and are not ready to see their fat pay checks and expense accounts dry up. One especially annoying staffer, who most of the country is ready to never hear yammering again, is floating conspiracy theories about the data.

"This is shockingly irresponsible. Biden’s staff is essentially trying to foster unreasonable doubts in order to cover for the fact that he didn’t do well there," wrote Mother Jones news editor Patrick Caldwell. "Despite technical issues with that app that was supposed to transmit results to the state party, there is absolutely zero reason to believe that the final results will have been skewed. There are many, many problems with how caucuses are conducted, but one upside is that they are near-foolproof when it comes to preventing election-rigging, because the process unfolds entirely in public, giving each side’s supporters a chance to call foul if any numbers don’t add up. When I was in Iowa earlier this week, I watched more than 1,000 voters in downtown Des Moines gather into clusters on different sides of the room designated for each candidate, assess how many voters were in each camp, redivide amongst themselves, and then call it a night. Not only that, each person had to fill out a card marking their preference, creating a lengthy paper trail. If that site-- which elected delegates only for Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg-- magically was reported as electing a ton of delegates for Andrew Yang, there would be hundreds of witnesses who could flag the irregularity."

Status Quo Joe was in New Hampshire, where he is also polling terribly-- and with negative momentum. So he decided to go negative against Mayo Pete and Bernie. The huge loss in Iowa has made Biden desperate and shrill. Tara Golshan wrote that he's sharpened his "tone on the campaign trail. He questioned rival Buttigieg’s credentials, and dared the former mayor to directly criticize the Obama administration."

“Is he really saying the Obama-Biden administration was a failure? Pete, just say it out loud,” Biden said at the rally. “I have great respect for Mayor Pete and his service for this nation, but I do believe it’s a risk-- to just be straight up with you-- for this party to nominate somebody who’s never held office higher than mayor of a town of 100,000 people in Indiana. I do believe it’s a risk.”

His campaign reiterated the sentiment on Twitter, responding to a common Buttigieg talking point about the “old failed Washington.”

Buttigieg’s relatively short resume has been easy fodder for rival Democratic presidential campaigns to question his qualifications for office. (Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota went after the former Indiana mayor on the debate stage over it.) But Biden hasn’t notably engaged in the criticism until now, largely shying away attacking his fellow Democratic presidential candidates.

That strategy might be changing. Biden also went after Sanders at the New Hampshire rally, questioning whether Sanders’ self-proclaimed belief in democratic socialism is a risk for the party.

“If Senator Sanders is the nominee for the party, every Democrat in America, up and down the ballot-- blue states, red states, purple states, easy districts, competitive ones-- every Democrat will have to carry the label Senator Sanders has chosen for himself,” Biden said. “So what do you do about who is going to be at the top of the ticket? Donald Trump is desperate to pin the label ‘socialist, socialist, socialist’ on our party. We cannot let him do that.”

Sanders has long come under scrutiny for identifying as a democratic socialist-- which he has more recently defined as a continuation of a Franklin Delano Roosevelt, New Deal kind of politics. The label has certainly become a bogeyman on the right.

Trump repeatedly invoked socialism the State of Union address Tuesday night, saying “socialism destroys nations” and censuring lawmakers who “have endorsed legislation to impose a socialist takeover of our health care system”-- a not-so-veiled jab at “Medicare for All,” Sanders’ most central policy proposal to move every American onto a single government-run health care system.

But the label hasn’t hurt Sanders with primary voters yet. He is looking well-positioned to win the popular vote in Iowa, and has widened the lead in New Hampshire. Sanders’ and Buttigieg’s campaigns did not respond for comment.

Biden has long made his electability the centerpiece of his presidential campaign, focusing his campaign speeches more on Trump-- and his belief that he is the best positioned to beat him-- than any policy platform. Coming in fourth in the first contest, however, isn’t the best look for a candidate making the pitch that they can win elections."

I asked some top congressional candidates who they would rather see on the top of the Democratic ticket this fall. The first candidate I spoke with was Eva Putzova, the progressive in the huge Arizona district that takes up most of the state. "As far as I am concerned," she told me, "the candidate at the top of the Democratic ticket must be Bernie Sanders or we face the prospect of losing to the most corrupt, incompetent President in our history. Only Sanders has the ability to gain the support of Trump voters in the key swing states that we must win to prevail in November. Sanders is winning the support of the diverse coalition of voters we need to transform the country-- workers, people of color, youth, climate activists, and seniors worried about losing their Social Security and Medicare from Republican efforts to privatize those programs. Elizabeth Warren is also a champion for many of the same progressive issues as Bernie, but Bernie has the longer and more consistent track record and is my first choice. None of the other candidates have inspired much enthusiasm in the Democratic base and are unlikely to do so."

Two top-notch candidates from the opposite ends of New York, Shaniyat Chowdhury from southeast Queens and Robin Wilt from Rochester, each had perspectives not unlike Eva's Neither is eager to see a status quo candidate like Biden at the top of the ticket. Shan, who is running against a corrupt New Dem, very much like Biden-- Gregory Meeks-- told me that in his district,"If Bernie Sanders is not the Democratic nominee, there will be hell to pay. If Bernie Sander is indeed the nominee, then there still is hell pay against the democratic establishment. They just don’t get it. The people want Bernie because he’s the only one fighting for the working class in blue and red states. If anyone can bring the country together, it would be him. The people see it. The corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle do not.

Robin Wilt, a former Bernie DNC delegate, said that  "For me, it is an easy choice whom I would like to see at the top of the Democratic ticket. Biden is a problematic candidate not just for his dubious policy decisions-- such as his support for the Iraq war or for the repeal of Glass-Stegall-- nor simply for his cynical relationship with wealthy donors, nor for just his notorious verbal gaffes. Biden’s biggest problem is that he does not inspire. In Monroe County, a local NPR radio host has spent weeks trying to identify enthusiastic Biden supporters and come up empty-handed. If Democrats are to defeat Donald Trump in the general election, we must energize young voters. Already burdened with tremendous student debt, young Americans will be inheriting the sins of our past: an exorbitantly expensive and dysfunctional health care system, a deeply schismed political dialogue, a climate crisis, unsustainable income inequality... Whom do they look up to? Who inspires them? Bernie Sanders does, and with good reason. Bernie has held durable sway among the vast majority of voters under 35. Senator Sanders stands out for his unwavering support for everyday Americans, and that is the allure for youthful voters, who see the bedrock of our democratic institutions under threat as they come of age. Despite what may be politically expedient, Bernie has the political courage to stand up for social and economic justice. His message clearly resonates and has inspired a movement. The ultimate demise of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign was an enthusiasm gap among a critical bloc of young voters. We cannot afford to make the same mistake in 2020. That’s why I support the only Democrat who can generate enough enthusiasm to take back the White House. I support Bernie Sanders.

Indiana progressive Jennifer Christie told us that the policies that she supports-- a Green New Deal, Medicare For All, Wealth Tax for Income Equality, Education For All-- "all of these are Bernie’s policies too. So having a progressive, like Bernie, at the top of the ticket would give us the opportunity to advance on these important issues. We know that Bernie will deliver on his key policies because he has consistently said so for many years. I also believe that progressive solutions are appealing to working people across the entire political spectrum. The notion of electability is not about how 'moderate' one is; it’s about how much bold vision you have to inspire real change. The politicos didn’t think Trump was 'electable' in 2016 either... they are out of touch."

Historian Liam O'Mara is the progressive Democrat opposing Trump puppet Ken Calvert in Riverside County. This morning he told us that "The question facing Democrats, and the nation, is whether we continue to repeat the mistakes of the past, or listen to history and learn from those mistakes. Trump will be extremely hard to beat, and might win against anyone we run, but there is no excuse for giving him a major advantage by running an easy target." Liam continued:

When was the last time Democrats won the White House more than twice in a row? Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the chief model for Bernie Sanders's political persona. Contrast that with how badly Democrats have been doing since they turned conservative in the 1990s. Bill Clinton, who was farther to the right than Eisenhower, failed to get more than half the vote in either of his elections. Far from being a great success story, Clinton's entire presidency may come down to Ross Perot's presence as a spoiler.

It is worth noting something important about Perot-- he was running as a populist, and his time in the spotlight was the beginning of a major realignment in US politics. Obama later managed to win two terms largely on the basis of attracting a sufficient number of populist swing voters. Hillary Clinton's failure to win in the key MidWest states was down to, you guessed it, the populists, some of whom voted for Trump, and others of whom stayed home.

This populist swing vote is what matters in choosing our standard-bearer. Biden was never the "electable" choice-- his earlier campaigns for president collapsed because he is a blatantly sub-par candidate, and he is in even worse shape now because so much of the electorate is aware of his history with mass incarceration, foreign wars, and systemic racism. Buttigieg is hardly better in this area, and benefits mainly from one of his greatest weaknesses-- a very short résumé. In that time, though, he has antagonized minority communities in South Bend, and sketched out a blandly "centrist" vision which again leaves him at best an Eisenhower Republican.

Bloomberg, on the other hand, is an off-the-charts disaster of epic proportion for the Democratic party. Do we really want to run an oligarch with no interest in speaking to or courting the voters? Do we want to let someone runs advertisements and buy the White House? Bloomberg chose not to contest the early states. He chose not to solicit donations so that he could debate-- and thus be vetted by the electorate. He is running as a nakedly authoritarian figure, comfortable with by-passing our most sacred democratic traditions. This, too, fits a historical pattern-- does anyone remember how he dealt with Occupy Wall Street? Hint: It involved ignoring court orders and using overwhelming force.

If the Democrats want to win in November, they need both to energize non-voters, and to bring on board those populist swing voters who took a chance on Obama but were disappointed by how little he actually did for them. We cannot afford to run another all-talk candidate, and we cannot afford to run another conservative. Taking out Trump will be a hard fight, and the candidate best positioned to mobilize enough voters to do that is Bernie Sanders.

Peskin Election Restores Balance Of Power To Progressives On San Francisco Board of Supervisors

photo by Linda Champagne

-by Denise Sullivan

The mood was upbeat as the party thanking supporters and celebrating victory for District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin got under way Tuesday night at North Beach's historic Club Fugazi, otherwise known as the home of San Francisco's longest running show, Beach Blanket Babylon.

Though the margin was slight in the early hours of reporting confidence was high that Peskin would handily defeat Mayor Ed Lee appointee Julie Christensen. Fellow Supervisor David Campos called it from across town, live at the Mission's El Rio and on Twitter when he said, "Looks like we will have a progressive majority at the Board of Supes for first time in years!"

What San Francisco won't have-- for now, that is-- is a new mayor. Lee's win was by no means a mandate, as candidates Francisco Herrera, Amy Farrah Weiss and Stuart Schuffman, also known as the 1-2-3 Anyone But Lee ticket, along with Kent Graham and Reed Martin, took in an impressive 45 percent of the vote. As of this morning, 1-2-3 supporters seem to be in favor of running a recall election, confident they could collect the 40-50,000 signatures required.

There was a disappointing though not unexpected defeat of beleaguered Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi by insider and Lee favorite Vicki Hennessy, and there were victories for Legacy Business Legislation, an affordable housing bond, the development of contested space on the Bay at Mission Rock and use of surplus public land, but it was Peskin's victory that served as the best news of the night for progressives whose two most important ballot measures, Prop F, regarding homesharing regulations, and Prop I, concerning a moratorium on development in the Mission District were defeated by the monied interests that support them. An eleventh hour protest on Monday at the Airbnb headquarters was not enough to persuade fence-sitting voters that a no vote on F means more for Airbnb and its illegal home-sharers, and less housing for actual San Franciscans. Though undoubtedly the protest and other Yes on F efforts got a few more people out to vote, the problem in general was as ever, low voter turn out (about 25 percent) for the local election. Those who do vote local, traditionally swing to the conservative side, even within the Democratic party (recommendations from the DCCC didn't help).

Nevertheless, Peskin's victory remains a galvanizing force in the movement to "take back San Francisco" from the greedy and corrupt forces that have long-occupied San Francisco City Hall and which have officially grown viral and poisonous with downtown tech interests, an ill-equipped and complicit media, and city governance, joined at the hip. The hope is, this is the beginning of the change, or as Supervisor Campos tweeted last night, "A year from now we'll be looking at tonight as the beginning of the end of corporate greed in San Francisco!"




UPDATE: How Did Airbnb Win?

Glad you asked. Conor Dougherty and Mike Isaac addressed just that in a NY Times piece yesterday, Airbnb and Uber Mobilize Vast User Base to Sway Public.Their point is that both companies fight back against the legitimate concerns of local citizens by "turning their users into a vast political operation that can be mobilized at any sign of a threat."

Airbnb offered the latest and most vociferous example of this on Wednesday. Fresh off defeating a San Francisco measure that would have severely curtailed the company’s business in its hometown, Airbnb staged a news conference that functioned as a warning shot to other cities thinking about proposing new regulations.

[Shady ex-Clinton Administration double-talker, AKA- "the Master of Disaster"] Chris Lehane, a Washington political operative who now serves as Airbnb’s head of global policy and public affairs, framed Proposition F as a hotel-industry-led attack on the middle class.

In this city of about 840,000 people, roughly $8 million was raised by groups opposed to Proposition F-- about eight times the amount raised by the proposition’s backers, according to records filed with the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

Much of that money was spent mobilizing Airbnb hosts and users, Mr. Lehane said. Still, he repeatedly homed in on one of the company’s most important talking points: Airbnb’s victory was a win for the middle class.

“Cities recognize where the world is going, right, they understand that you’re either going to go forward or you’re going to go backward,” he said. “They understand that in a time of economic inequality, this is a question of whose side are you on: Do you want to be on the side of the middle class, or do you want to be opposed to the middle class?”

Airbnb is preparing for more fights. Mr. Lehane said the company was working to organize voting blocs in other cities where it operates. By the end of next year, he said, the company has a goal of creating 100 “clubs” made up of Airbnb home-sharers-- sort of like local unions.

Companies like Airbnb and Uber have become multibillion-dollar companies by employing a kind of guerrilla growth strategy in which they set up a modest team of workers in a city and immediately start providing their services to the public, whether local laws allow them to or not.

...Mr. Lehane and Mr. Plouffe have both tried to frame their companies as middle-class saviors in a moment of economic anxiety and income inequality-- themes that are playing out in the presidential election as well. Jeb Bush and other Republicans have bragged about their Uber rides on the campaign trail, praising these companies as the future of self-sufficient employment.

Democrats have taken a more cautious approach. Hillary Rodham Clinton has repeatedly questioned what such employment means for workers’ rights. Liberal economists who advise Mrs. Clinton have criticized such part-time labor as yet another means to chip away at workers’ benefits.

But such companies have a potent tool in the form of their platforms and smartphone apps, and they have shown little hesitation in using it to encourage their users to protest or vote.

...[I]t is unlikely the Airbnb debate in San Francisco has ended with the election.

On Tuesday, San Franciscans also elected Aaron Peskin, a longtime San Francisco progressive, to its Board of Supervisors. In an interview, Mr. Peskin promised the Airbnb issue would not go away.

“I think Airbnb would be well served to negotiate a workable, enforceable compromise” to curb “the most egregious excesses that result in the loss of permanent, affordable rental housing stock,” he said. “Or this is likely to be a perennial issue at the ballot.”

Note: Denise Sullivan is an author/journalist/culture worker tuned into where the arts meet political and social movement

Central African Republic President Michel Djotodia Resigns

Americans don't know much about the Central African Republic. Until the last couple of weeks it hadn't been in the American news cycles since 1979 when French paratroopers ousted self-proclaimed Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa, who had been eating school children. He was found guilty of related charges but they never proved the cannibalism charges-- nor did they try very hard since it was seen as a national embarrassment-- and he served 7 years of his life-in-prison sentence. He was posthumously pardoned in 2010.

One of Africa's most brutal dictators, accused of cannibalism and feeding his opponents to animals, has received a posthumous pardon from his country. Jean-Bédel Bokassa was the self-crowned emperor of the Central African Republic (CAR) until he was ousted in 1979. He fathered 62 children and his coronation, based on that of Napoleon, cost his country's entire GDP. He was rehabilitated this week by the CAR's president, François Bozizé, who said Bokassa had "given a great deal for humanity" and would have "all his rights" returned, the BBC reported.

"This rehabilitation of rights erases penal condemnations, particularly fines and legal costs, and stops any future incapacities that result from them," said a presidential decree issued to mark the CAR's 50th anniversary of independence from France.

Bokassa was "a son of the nation recognised by all as a great builder", the president added. "He built the country but we have destroyed what he built."

Bozizé, who seized power in a coup in 2003, awarded Bokassa's widow, Catherine, a state medal of honour. Bokassa's children said they would set up a fund to compensate victims of his tyranny.

The CAR's decision took Africa experts by surprise. Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society, said: "To celebrate someone who came to power in a coup and ruled so brutally is not what you expect in a democracy."

He added: " Elections in the CAR have been postponed and postponed. Presumably François Bozizé is trying to shore up support and he needs to get the family on board. But that's just speculation."

Dowden recalled seeing Bokassa on a visit to Uganda. "He had come to meet Idi Amin. He was a fanatical collector of medals, but so was Amin, and Amin had the bigger chest so he could wear more medals."

Backed by France, Bokassa came to power in a coup in 1965 and ruled with an iron fist, torturing and killing political rivals and cutting off the ears of thieves. Accusations of cannibalism were widespread but unproven, triggered by photographs in Paris-Match magazine that apparently showed a fridge containing the bodies of schoolchildren. It was also claimed his political rivals were cooked and served to visiting foreign dignitaries or fed to lions and crocodiles in his personal zoo.

Bozizé staged a pantomime election in 2011 and was "reelected," sparking a low-grade civil war which eventually led to a power-sharing deal between the rebels and Bozizé which didn't last very long. Bozizé fled the country and Michel Djotodia took over last year, sparking a Muslim/Christian civil war and genocide. Today, after 9 months of contentious rule, Djotodia resigned and fled to Benin, amid reports of… cannibalism.

Deadly violence including reports of cannibalism and widespread looting gripped the capital of the Central African Republic on Saturday after the resignation of its ex-rebel president and with stranded foreigners waiting to be airlifted out of the country.

Sporadic gunfire was heard overnight in Bangui with the shooting leaving three people dead-- a Christian vigilante, a former rebel and a civilian-- the head of the Central African Red Cross, pastor Antoine Mbaobogo, told AFP.

There has also been looting throughout the city with crowds breaking down the doors of shops, many of them belonging to Muslims, reflecting the sectarian nature of the strife that has wracked the country, AFP correspondents reported.

"Those who were looted when the (mainly Muslim) Seleka (rebels) arrived (in March last year) are now looting in turn," Mbaobogo said.

One resident of the capital, still in shock, related an incident on Tuesday when a Muslim man was attacked by a group who cut him up with a machete.

"One of the individuals took hold of an arm and went and bought some bread and starting chewing on the flesh, along with his bread," said 35-year-old Jean-Sylvestre Tchya.

"The scene made many people vomit, and some cried out in horror," he said.

Another witness, Alain Gbabobou, said he saw a man pick up the head and wrap it up carefully, saying he would "feast on it" later.

Meanwhile, the International Organisation for Migration said it would begin Saturday to airlift thousands of foreigners out of the strife-torn country following appeals from neighbouring countries.

More than 60,000 people from other African nations have asked for help at their embassies in the Central African Republic, an IOM statement said, adding that requests had come from Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo to aid their stranded nationals.

Some of the thieves allegedly committed acts of cannibalism, witnesses told AFP.

Sarah Palin Is The Bridge To Nowhere

My friends Rachel and Scott started an synthpunk band in San Francisco late in the 70s, The Units. I signed them to my indie label, 415 Records and we released a groundbreaking record, Digital Stimulation. I never met Rachel's mom, the artist Helen Webber. For all the talk of woman of a certain age in states like Pennsylvania, I don't think anyone was thinking about Helen Webber, who is 80 and lives in Exton, PA. Rachel and Scott sent me this from Helen today:

SARAH 
PALIN
IS 
THE 
BRIDGE
TO 
NOWHERE.

Nowhere is a place where woman have no choice regarding their bodies,
and are forced to bear babies even if their pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.

Nowhere is a place where wolves, bears and other wildlife are hunted and killed
without mercy, at the whim of gun toting hunters.  

Nowhere is a place where we can spread lies about our political opponents without
regret or shame.

Nowhere is a place where we don't worry or care about global warming and the health of
our oceans, lands, and creatures because we are assured that whatever happens is "God's will".

Nowhere is a place where separation of state and church does not exist.

Nowhere is a place where government has the right to decide what books are in our public libraries.

Nowhere is a place 
from the Dark Ages,
where the rich and 
the powerful rule at 
their whim, where lip 
service is given to 
helping all the people, 
when in fact the powerful
help the powerful.

While you think about a Palin world view imposed on America, consider, to the sound of some of The Units' music, what we've just come through and ask yourself if you want more of this: