With safety concerns growing and more students choosing to play soccer and other sports, the football team at a suburban St. Louis high school was disbanded.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Where Tragedies Spur the End of Football
With safety concerns growing and more students choosing to play soccer and other sports, the football team at a suburban St. Louis high school was disbanded.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Stunning supermoon views from around the world
<p>A total lunar eclipse, coinciding with the supermoon, is being observed in the United States, Canada, and Central and South America and Western Europe on the evening of Sept. 27, and a partial eclipse in the rest of Europe, South-East Asia and Africa on Sept. 28. Click through to see the latest images of the supermoon around the world.</p>
Saturday, September 26, 2015
What is Sciatic Nerve Pain
A large percentage of people with sciatica are eventually able to lead happy, pain-free, healthy lives.Sciatica describes the symptoms of leg pain as well as weakness, tingling or numbness that usually willoriginate in the lower back and travel through the buttock and down the large sciatic nerve in the back of the leg.
http://funnysupernaturalcaptions.tumblr.com/post/129874154709/how-to-properly-take-care-of-sciatica
What is Sciatica
Many people with sciatic nerve pain are eventually able to lead healthy, happy, pain-free lives.The term sciatica describes the symptoms of leg pain as well as numbness, weakness and tingling that typically willoriginate in the lower back and travels through the buttock region and down the large sciatic nerve in the back of the leg.
http://wolfram-alpha.tumblr.com/post/129874158419/how-to-effectively-deal-with-sciatic-nerve-pain
Friday, September 25, 2015
Donald Trump Sees in Marco Rubio a New Rival to Taunt, but Gets Plenty of Salvos in Return
After training his fire for much of the summer on former Gov. Jeb Bush, Donald J. Trump has found a new favorite Republican rival to taunt: Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.
What is Sciatic Nerve Pain
A large percentage of people with sciatica are eventually able to lead happy, healthy, pain-free lives.Sciatica describes the leg pain symptoms as well as tingling, numbness or weakness that typically willoriginate in the lower back and moves through the buttock and down the large sciatic nerve in the back of the leg.
What is Sciatic Nerve Pain
A large percentage of people with sciatica are eventually able to lead healthy, happy, pain-free lives.Sciatica describes the symptoms of leg pain and possibly weakness, tingling or numbness that willoriginate in the lower back and travels through the buttock and down the large sciatic nerve in the back of the leg.
How To Tell Sciatica
Many people with lower back pain are eventually able to lead happy, pain-free, healthy lives.The term sciatica describes the symptoms of leg pain and possibly numbness, weakness and tingling that willoriginate in the lower back and travels through the buttock and down the sciatic nerve behind the leg.
http://girlpushedtothebrink.tumblr.com/post/129874139836/how-to-properly-take-care-of-sciatica
What is Sciatica
A large percentage of people with lower back pain are eventually able to lead healthy, happy, pain-free lives.Sciatica describes the leg pain symptoms as well as numbness, weakness and tingling that willoriginate in the lower back and travels through the buttock and down the sciatic nerve behind the leg.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Pope skipped section of Congress speech by mistake
Pope Francis lost his place and accidentally skipped four lines warning politicians not to be a ‘slave’ to the economy or finance, Vatican says
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Xi Jinping Pledges to Work With U.S. to Stop Cybercrimes
The president faced a crowd concerned over China’s barriers to market access, rampant commercial cybertheft and the imposition of intrusive security measures.
Monday, September 21, 2015
GOP candidates hurry to court Walker’s donors
Republican presidential candidates moved aggressively Monday to court the donor base of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whose abrupt exit from the race left his large national network of financial backers suddenly up for grabs. Walker had...
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Muslim group slams Carson's comment, calls for repudiation
<p>Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says Islam is antithetical to the Constitution, and he doesn't believe that a Muslim should be elected president.</p>
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Thousands Flood Into Austria as Migrants Are Bounced Around Europe
Thousands of migrants poured into Austria on Saturday after being bounced around the Balkans, as Hungary grudgingly allowed at least 11,000 to enter from Croatia.
What You Should Do If You Own A Volkswagen That Was Just Recalled
If you are an owner of one of the nearly half a million diesel-power vehicles the Obama administration ordered Volkswagen to recall on Friday, do not panic.
You may have heard that wait times for replacements or repairs in several recent car recalls have taken as long as years.
But there is something you can do right away: Ask your car dealership for a loaner vehicle.
As HuffPost reported in May, many automakers offer loaner vehicles, but they are not always forthcoming about their availability. As a result, many car owners never bother trying to get them, and may be risking their health and safety.
Of course, the recalled Volkswagen vehicles are not being pulled from the road because of the danger they pose to drivers directly. The Environmental Protection Agency has recalled them for having software that turned on an emissions control system when the cars were being inspected, but otherwise allowed the cars to emit 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide, a chemical linked to respiratory illnesses. (The EPA is now collaborating with the Department of Justice and the state of California on an investigation of wrongdoing that could result in criminal charges.)
But that does not diminish the urgency of getting a loaner vehicle. Rather than risking the safety of their drivers alone, these cars harm the health of the entire public.
Here are the models and years of the recalled diesel-power vehicles:
- Volkswagen Jetta, 2009-15
- Volkswagen Beetle, 2009-15
- Volkswagen Golf, 2009-15
- Volkswagen Passat, 2014-15
- Audi A3, 2009-15
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
The Sanders Saga: Why Is "A Half-Baked Version of Tom Hayden" Beating the Clintons?
Last month, with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders leading Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire primary polls and getting closer but still well behind in first-in-the-nation caucus state Iowa, I asked an old Clintonista how it could be that "a half-baked version of Tom Hayden" had a shot at beating the Clintons. Hey, he e-mailed back, Sanders has a good chance of winning both states. I asked if he really thought that. No, he admitted, he was just managing my expectations.
Well, manage these expectations.
Now Sanders is ahead in both states, and is much closer in national polls. His renown has spread so dramatically that James Bond star Daniel Craig, whom he's never met and is about to begin heavy promotion of Spectre, gave nearly $50,000 to a pro-Sanders super PAC (which Sanders disavows) and Sanders is on the cover of Time Magazine. "I never expected this to catch on so fast," Sanders marveled as he discussed Craig's surprise support in a network TV interview.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders says he is "stunned" that he is doing so well at this stage in the Democratic presidential race.
It's an extraordinary situation. Sanders was a '60s radical who made his way from New York City to tiny rural Vermont as part of the back-to-the-land kick, with an inconclusive sojourn at the University of Chicago in between. But compared to the brilliant, impactful Hayden -- who, not incidentally, is a big Sanders supporter now -- Sanders was a decidedly lesser, local light in his movement days.
I met him a few years back when curmudgeonly California Democratic Party chairman John Burton, who's made a point of not featuring Obama administration officials, had now U.S. Senator Sanders keynote the state Democratic convention. It was all intelligent and passionate stuff, with self-proclaimed socialist Sanders making his expected left-wing points on the increasingly inegalitarian financialized economy and the decidedly ill-starred post-9/11 conflicts. But I never got the impression I was with a potential President of the United States.
But something, to borrow a phrase from Stephen Stills, is happening here.
While Brit Craig, who is able to contribute to American campaigns as a permanent resident, was flashing his support for Sanders, the British Labour Party was turning overwhelmingly to its most left-wing candidate to lead the party, longtime hard left parliamentary backbencher Jeremy Corbyn. Call it part of the ongoing profound disappointment and anger many feel with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, a longtime ally of the Clintons, for his championing of the invasion of Iraq and acquiescence to the primacy of the investment class in the British economy. With the rise of Sanders, it seems that something much like that is taking place here as well.
I think socialism is becoming popular sooner than I expected. With technology inexorably solving scarcity as it eliminates good-paying jobs, a push for a more socialist approach has seemed to me to be inevitable. But it's happening faster than I thought, probably because the Obama recovery has been so uneven and, for most, rather hollow, disappointing many Democrats even more than his Afghan War escalation and amorphous secret global war on terror. I also think the voters are less acquiescent than I expected in general with regard to the usual political palaver, in small part accounting for the Donald Trump nonsense in the Republican Party.
The reality is that a lot of what Hillary Clinton has been doing this year as a candidate is good, better than before. Trying to link her candidacy not just with the history of being the first woman president -- which of course is largely about her -- but also with the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt is well considered. But folks, at least in hyper-sensitive Iowa and New Hampshire, where they take their role as early presidential arbiters oh-so-seriously, aren't buying it all that much.
Hillary has always tried to be inevitable, until earlier this year. She is really suffering from that very insipid memoir of her tenure as US secretary of state, which she followed up notoriously with a big buck-raking lecture tour. And then there is the ongoing controversy about her private e-mail system as secretary of state. No smoking gun has been found, and I doubt there is one, but the endless nature of it all keeps spurring underlying concerns about her authenticity.
There are major elements underlying the rise of Sanders.
Veteran Democratic pollster Paul Maslin, an old friend and colleague who did polling and strategy for another Vermonter, former Governor Howard Dean, who blazed like a comet across the firmament of Democratic presidential presidential politics in 2004, was kind enough to compare and contrast the two:
"Dean filled a void--caused mainly by the party's sell-out and timidity on Iraq--though it went well beyond that. But it was definitely a reaction to the four years of Bush and some hangover from the Clinton years. In the end, however, he was fairly easily shunted aside and coopted by the likes of Kerry and Edwards. The truth is he wasn't burning to be President.
"This is much more of a pure HRC dynamic in one sense. Everyone knows she is the big frontrunner and is supposed to win. And Sanders is exploiting both anger with the GOP congress and some of the disappointment with Obama. So in some ways Sanders has a deeper well to draw from though he is coming from a much more extreme place than Dean and is facing a more capable, perhaps, adversary in Hillary."
Now for more of the downside for Sanders.
Why is it that Tom Hayden himself isn't in this position to run for president? The short answer is that Hayden was too famous for his radicalism when he started out in electoral politics. While he liked to say that "the radicalism of the '60s is the common sense of the '70s," that was not exactly right. And Hayden certainly wasn't sneaking up on anyone.
The long answer is that Sanders benefits from not being nearly so visible as Hayden in the '60s and '70s radical movements. His radicalism is not so well known. And when Hayden sought public office, he didn't go away to a little state to do it, he did it in the biggest state of all.
I don't know if Sanders made as incendiary statements as Hayden did back in the day. (Though I suspect he made statements that won't fly today and bet the Republican opposition researchers already know about them.) If he did not, it's probably only because he didn't have the opportunity to do so, since he was not one of the national leaders of the movement.
Sanders also had the benefit of being able to fail repeatedly in a low-risk environment. Hayden, famous as he was, in California, married to Jane Fonda, had limited room for error. He couldn't afford to get six percent of the vote in statewide races as Sanders did before finally becoming mayor of tiny Burlington, Vermont, less than half the size of micro-people's republics in Santa Monica and Berkeley.
When Hayden ran for the U.S. Senate, it was a big deal. And it was a big deal when he got a big primary vote in 1976, leading in the view of some to the crippling of incumbent Senator John Tunney, who went on to lose to Republican university president S.I. Hayakawa.
Though Sanders had a more risk-free environment in Vermont, Hayden's struggles may yet prefigure long-term trouble for Sanders.
Because you know he said and wrote some radical things that may be hard to explain away.
Hayden certainly did. In fact, it nearly prevented him from winning elective office at all.
Hayden, a terrific writer, had gotten to know Jerry Brown early on, penning an excellent late 1974 Rolling Stone profile of the young California governor called "The Mystic and the Machine". A few years later, Hayden became a high-profile and useful part of the Brown administration, promoting renewable energy and energy conservation policies as chairman of SolarCal.
So Hayden had a mainstream record to run on when he sought a seat in the California Assembly in 1982. But the going proved to be extremely tough, even in one of the most liberal districts in the state on the West Side of Los Angeles.
After a relatively narrow win in the Democratic primary -- despite being very well-financed by Fonda and a good fundraising base developed for his statewide Campaign for Economic Democracy organization -- Hayden received what might be described as a full visitation of the ghost of Christmas past. Voters were suddenly paying a lot of attention to billboards which sprung up all over the West Side emblazoned with incendiary Hayden quotes.
Things like ... "If blood is going to flow, let it flow all over this city - Tom Hayden." "Property is theft - Tom Hayden." ... Like that. Maybe out of context, or not entirely accurate, they were nonetheless impossible to miss. It was so wild that it was funny. But it was also devastating, as it pointed to a not unlikely conclusion in which Hayden ended up seeming too much the illegitimate anti-American extremist even for a liberal Democratic district.
The late media maven Sidney Galanty prepared an excellent humanizing 60-second TV ad (which would air throughout the LA media market) in which Hayden talked about why he wasn't "the same angry young man I used to be." But there was an ominous silence from many name Democrats.
In little-known Bill Hawkins, Hayden faced a very dangerous Republican opponent, a cipher, a man with no record to run against, one who espoused rather liberal views in tune with the district.
Something special needed to be done.
Despite some past statements I would not have made, I knew that Hayden and Fonda, with whom I did not always agree, were not only not traitors, they were patriots. Patriots, that is, who in the white hot heat of the Vietnam War protests had done incredibly incautious things. I also knew that Hayden and Fonda had been among the most spied-upon of American citizens. (Dick Cheney began his Sith Lord duties, as Gerald Ford's deputy White House chief of staff 40 years ago, trying to shut down a New York Times story revealing that the CIA had violated its charter by spying on the anti-war movement here in America.)
So it only seemed fair that Hayden should at last get some spycraft working on his behalf.
Sitting in a rather morose meeting at Hayden's Santa Monica headquarters, surrounded by works from Fonda's blue-chip Pop Art collection, I had an idea. I would get Hayden's opponent on tape espousing policies directly contrary to what his campaign said his positions were. Posing as a Republican contributor, I was able to do just that.
When the Hayden campaign finally revealed that Hawkins was simply lying about his positions -- I had gone on to do opposition research for LA Mayor Tom Bradley's near-miss (read: blown) campaign for governor -- the Republican's campaign was shocked and staggered.
Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda discussed their plans to travel here in the US and throughout Europe to expose Nixon's bombing of Hanoi and other Vietnam War moves in the early 1970s. Bernie Sanders was nowhere near as high-profile as that.
In normal circumstances, the race would have ended then and there. But, and here's the ominous point for Sanders and his enthusiasts, these were not normal circumstances. The campaign was not yet over. While Hawkins never recovered from the shock of revelation, Hayden still had to run flat out to convince enough voters that he was not too extreme to serve in public office.
With help from his new campaign chairman, revered former Governor Pat Brown -- who said: "I'll take Tom Hayden over those phonies any day" -- and some others, Hayden won by nine points in a district that normally went Democratic by a couple of times that. He spent what was then by far a national record amount for a state legislative race, $1.75 million. Hayden's opposition spent more than that, mostly in independent expenditures.
In subsequent elections, Hayden won by much more, though he had to win a squeaker over an incumbent to move to the Senate after his Assembly district was gutted in reapportionment. During 10 years in the state Assembly and eight years in the Senate before term limits caught up with him, Hayden proved a great champion of the clean energy path and other worthy things. But statewide office proved beyond his reach.
Now, with regard to Sanders, there just might not be someone able to get whomever the Republican presidential nominee turns out to be to admit that he's really Darth Vader. And there's no widely-revered Pat Brown type figure on the national scene to reassure swing voters that Sanders is really a neat-o fellow despite all this crazy stuff you're hearing about him.
It's just four-and-a-half months before the voting starts in Iowa and New Hampshire, with Nevada and South Carolina rounding out the early spate of contests. Yet there is still plenty of time for many things to happen.
For example, we'll soon see if Vice President Joe Biden enters the race. My guess is no. Biden staying out helps Hillary, making it easier for her to retain more of the vote that is pleased with the Obama years.
But the fact that she's behind in Iowa and New Hampshire as the fall before the voting begins has to be alarming for the Clintons. No Democrat who has not won Iowa or New Hampshire has gone on to victory. Not that it can't be done, but that's not the sort of first a candidate heading to the White House is looking to garner.
There's clearly a growing rejection of the notion of accepting bland political mush, of settling for a politics which acquiesces in if it does not accelerate the further empowerment of the 0.1 percent and a future of unaccountable war stretching beyond the foreseeable horizon.
I suspect the Clintons, once joined at the hip to Tony Blair and all too cognizant of his woes, know this. They might even be willing to do something about it. But is their credibility elastic enough to bounce back?
Facebook comments are closed on this article.
William Bradley Archive
Well, manage these expectations.
Now Sanders is ahead in both states, and is much closer in national polls. His renown has spread so dramatically that James Bond star Daniel Craig, whom he's never met and is about to begin heavy promotion of Spectre, gave nearly $50,000 to a pro-Sanders super PAC (which Sanders disavows) and Sanders is on the cover of Time Magazine. "I never expected this to catch on so fast," Sanders marveled as he discussed Craig's surprise support in a network TV interview.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders says he is "stunned" that he is doing so well at this stage in the Democratic presidential race.
It's an extraordinary situation. Sanders was a '60s radical who made his way from New York City to tiny rural Vermont as part of the back-to-the-land kick, with an inconclusive sojourn at the University of Chicago in between. But compared to the brilliant, impactful Hayden -- who, not incidentally, is a big Sanders supporter now -- Sanders was a decidedly lesser, local light in his movement days.
I met him a few years back when curmudgeonly California Democratic Party chairman John Burton, who's made a point of not featuring Obama administration officials, had now U.S. Senator Sanders keynote the state Democratic convention. It was all intelligent and passionate stuff, with self-proclaimed socialist Sanders making his expected left-wing points on the increasingly inegalitarian financialized economy and the decidedly ill-starred post-9/11 conflicts. But I never got the impression I was with a potential President of the United States.
But something, to borrow a phrase from Stephen Stills, is happening here.
While Brit Craig, who is able to contribute to American campaigns as a permanent resident, was flashing his support for Sanders, the British Labour Party was turning overwhelmingly to its most left-wing candidate to lead the party, longtime hard left parliamentary backbencher Jeremy Corbyn. Call it part of the ongoing profound disappointment and anger many feel with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, a longtime ally of the Clintons, for his championing of the invasion of Iraq and acquiescence to the primacy of the investment class in the British economy. With the rise of Sanders, it seems that something much like that is taking place here as well.
I think socialism is becoming popular sooner than I expected. With technology inexorably solving scarcity as it eliminates good-paying jobs, a push for a more socialist approach has seemed to me to be inevitable. But it's happening faster than I thought, probably because the Obama recovery has been so uneven and, for most, rather hollow, disappointing many Democrats even more than his Afghan War escalation and amorphous secret global war on terror. I also think the voters are less acquiescent than I expected in general with regard to the usual political palaver, in small part accounting for the Donald Trump nonsense in the Republican Party.
The reality is that a lot of what Hillary Clinton has been doing this year as a candidate is good, better than before. Trying to link her candidacy not just with the history of being the first woman president -- which of course is largely about her -- but also with the legacy of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt is well considered. But folks, at least in hyper-sensitive Iowa and New Hampshire, where they take their role as early presidential arbiters oh-so-seriously, aren't buying it all that much.
Hillary has always tried to be inevitable, until earlier this year. She is really suffering from that very insipid memoir of her tenure as US secretary of state, which she followed up notoriously with a big buck-raking lecture tour. And then there is the ongoing controversy about her private e-mail system as secretary of state. No smoking gun has been found, and I doubt there is one, but the endless nature of it all keeps spurring underlying concerns about her authenticity.
There are major elements underlying the rise of Sanders.
Veteran Democratic pollster Paul Maslin, an old friend and colleague who did polling and strategy for another Vermonter, former Governor Howard Dean, who blazed like a comet across the firmament of Democratic presidential presidential politics in 2004, was kind enough to compare and contrast the two:
"Dean filled a void--caused mainly by the party's sell-out and timidity on Iraq--though it went well beyond that. But it was definitely a reaction to the four years of Bush and some hangover from the Clinton years. In the end, however, he was fairly easily shunted aside and coopted by the likes of Kerry and Edwards. The truth is he wasn't burning to be President.
"This is much more of a pure HRC dynamic in one sense. Everyone knows she is the big frontrunner and is supposed to win. And Sanders is exploiting both anger with the GOP congress and some of the disappointment with Obama. So in some ways Sanders has a deeper well to draw from though he is coming from a much more extreme place than Dean and is facing a more capable, perhaps, adversary in Hillary."
Now for more of the downside for Sanders.
Why is it that Tom Hayden himself isn't in this position to run for president? The short answer is that Hayden was too famous for his radicalism when he started out in electoral politics. While he liked to say that "the radicalism of the '60s is the common sense of the '70s," that was not exactly right. And Hayden certainly wasn't sneaking up on anyone.
The long answer is that Sanders benefits from not being nearly so visible as Hayden in the '60s and '70s radical movements. His radicalism is not so well known. And when Hayden sought public office, he didn't go away to a little state to do it, he did it in the biggest state of all.
I don't know if Sanders made as incendiary statements as Hayden did back in the day. (Though I suspect he made statements that won't fly today and bet the Republican opposition researchers already know about them.) If he did not, it's probably only because he didn't have the opportunity to do so, since he was not one of the national leaders of the movement.
Sanders also had the benefit of being able to fail repeatedly in a low-risk environment. Hayden, famous as he was, in California, married to Jane Fonda, had limited room for error. He couldn't afford to get six percent of the vote in statewide races as Sanders did before finally becoming mayor of tiny Burlington, Vermont, less than half the size of micro-people's republics in Santa Monica and Berkeley.
When Hayden ran for the U.S. Senate, it was a big deal. And it was a big deal when he got a big primary vote in 1976, leading in the view of some to the crippling of incumbent Senator John Tunney, who went on to lose to Republican university president S.I. Hayakawa.
Though Sanders had a more risk-free environment in Vermont, Hayden's struggles may yet prefigure long-term trouble for Sanders.
Because you know he said and wrote some radical things that may be hard to explain away.
Hayden certainly did. In fact, it nearly prevented him from winning elective office at all.
Hayden, a terrific writer, had gotten to know Jerry Brown early on, penning an excellent late 1974 Rolling Stone profile of the young California governor called "The Mystic and the Machine". A few years later, Hayden became a high-profile and useful part of the Brown administration, promoting renewable energy and energy conservation policies as chairman of SolarCal.
So Hayden had a mainstream record to run on when he sought a seat in the California Assembly in 1982. But the going proved to be extremely tough, even in one of the most liberal districts in the state on the West Side of Los Angeles.
After a relatively narrow win in the Democratic primary -- despite being very well-financed by Fonda and a good fundraising base developed for his statewide Campaign for Economic Democracy organization -- Hayden received what might be described as a full visitation of the ghost of Christmas past. Voters were suddenly paying a lot of attention to billboards which sprung up all over the West Side emblazoned with incendiary Hayden quotes.
Things like ... "If blood is going to flow, let it flow all over this city - Tom Hayden." "Property is theft - Tom Hayden." ... Like that. Maybe out of context, or not entirely accurate, they were nonetheless impossible to miss. It was so wild that it was funny. But it was also devastating, as it pointed to a not unlikely conclusion in which Hayden ended up seeming too much the illegitimate anti-American extremist even for a liberal Democratic district.
The late media maven Sidney Galanty prepared an excellent humanizing 60-second TV ad (which would air throughout the LA media market) in which Hayden talked about why he wasn't "the same angry young man I used to be." But there was an ominous silence from many name Democrats.
In little-known Bill Hawkins, Hayden faced a very dangerous Republican opponent, a cipher, a man with no record to run against, one who espoused rather liberal views in tune with the district.
Something special needed to be done.
Despite some past statements I would not have made, I knew that Hayden and Fonda, with whom I did not always agree, were not only not traitors, they were patriots. Patriots, that is, who in the white hot heat of the Vietnam War protests had done incredibly incautious things. I also knew that Hayden and Fonda had been among the most spied-upon of American citizens. (Dick Cheney began his Sith Lord duties, as Gerald Ford's deputy White House chief of staff 40 years ago, trying to shut down a New York Times story revealing that the CIA had violated its charter by spying on the anti-war movement here in America.)
So it only seemed fair that Hayden should at last get some spycraft working on his behalf.
Sitting in a rather morose meeting at Hayden's Santa Monica headquarters, surrounded by works from Fonda's blue-chip Pop Art collection, I had an idea. I would get Hayden's opponent on tape espousing policies directly contrary to what his campaign said his positions were. Posing as a Republican contributor, I was able to do just that.
When the Hayden campaign finally revealed that Hawkins was simply lying about his positions -- I had gone on to do opposition research for LA Mayor Tom Bradley's near-miss (read: blown) campaign for governor -- the Republican's campaign was shocked and staggered.
Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda discussed their plans to travel here in the US and throughout Europe to expose Nixon's bombing of Hanoi and other Vietnam War moves in the early 1970s. Bernie Sanders was nowhere near as high-profile as that.
In normal circumstances, the race would have ended then and there. But, and here's the ominous point for Sanders and his enthusiasts, these were not normal circumstances. The campaign was not yet over. While Hawkins never recovered from the shock of revelation, Hayden still had to run flat out to convince enough voters that he was not too extreme to serve in public office.
With help from his new campaign chairman, revered former Governor Pat Brown -- who said: "I'll take Tom Hayden over those phonies any day" -- and some others, Hayden won by nine points in a district that normally went Democratic by a couple of times that. He spent what was then by far a national record amount for a state legislative race, $1.75 million. Hayden's opposition spent more than that, mostly in independent expenditures.
In subsequent elections, Hayden won by much more, though he had to win a squeaker over an incumbent to move to the Senate after his Assembly district was gutted in reapportionment. During 10 years in the state Assembly and eight years in the Senate before term limits caught up with him, Hayden proved a great champion of the clean energy path and other worthy things. But statewide office proved beyond his reach.
Now, with regard to Sanders, there just might not be someone able to get whomever the Republican presidential nominee turns out to be to admit that he's really Darth Vader. And there's no widely-revered Pat Brown type figure on the national scene to reassure swing voters that Sanders is really a neat-o fellow despite all this crazy stuff you're hearing about him.
It's just four-and-a-half months before the voting starts in Iowa and New Hampshire, with Nevada and South Carolina rounding out the early spate of contests. Yet there is still plenty of time for many things to happen.
For example, we'll soon see if Vice President Joe Biden enters the race. My guess is no. Biden staying out helps Hillary, making it easier for her to retain more of the vote that is pleased with the Obama years.
But the fact that she's behind in Iowa and New Hampshire as the fall before the voting begins has to be alarming for the Clintons. No Democrat who has not won Iowa or New Hampshire has gone on to victory. Not that it can't be done, but that's not the sort of first a candidate heading to the White House is looking to garner.
There's clearly a growing rejection of the notion of accepting bland political mush, of settling for a politics which acquiesces in if it does not accelerate the further empowerment of the 0.1 percent and a future of unaccountable war stretching beyond the foreseeable horizon.
I suspect the Clintons, once joined at the hip to Tony Blair and all too cognizant of his woes, know this. They might even be willing to do something about it. But is their credibility elastic enough to bounce back?
Facebook comments are closed on this article.
William Bradley Archive
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
5 Reasons People May Not Be Following Your Leadership
There are times throughout a leader's tenure that he/she must look behind them and see if anyone is following. Are the goals that have been set being accomplished? Is the organization moving in a positive direction? Are people working together to achieve the desired outcomes?
Losing your influence over the people that you lead often does not happen quickly...but, rather, happens over a period of time. People are forgiving at the beginning, but the longer you lead, the less they are willing to forgive your shortcomings. Those that you lead need to be led...want to be led.
We've probably all known "leaders" who were leaders in name only. The people who have been put in charge of a team, but they have no influence over those that they are leading. Or, maybe we've been involved in a group, a ministry, a task where we've been put in charge - but for some reason no one is following us.
There are lots of reason why people may not be following your leadership, but here are a few common reasons that I've discovered:
1. You're disorganized.
Organization leads to clarity. Clarity of mission, clarity of tasks to be completed, clarity of who does what, etc. When a leader is disorganized, he/she immediately loses credibility with the team. Being disorganized leads to confusion, missed deadlines, and a lack of care for the needs of the team. This is you if you find yourself late to appointments/meetings, misplacing documents, your unprepared for meetings, you forget who's supposed to do what, etc.
2. You're inconsistent.
Consistency helps people understand what is expected. When a leader is inconsistent, the team can be unsure of what is happening or what to do next. This is you if you change meeting times often and with very short notice, change your mind about how to accomplish the goals of the group, and/or you're moody and varied in your reaction to things, for example. Consistency gives people on the team a feeling of safety and security - which is vital to team success.
3. You don't follow up.
Answering emails, texts, and phone calls in a timely way. Following up on assignments that were assigned to you. When you don't follow up, people don't feel important and can interpret this behavior as a sign that they're not needed on the team. This is you if you don't have a system in place to follow up on communications/requests that you receive, you don't take minutes/notes at meetings that you lead, and/or you find yourself regularly saying that assigned items are not completed by the deadline.
4. You're a discourager, rather than an encourager.
As the leader, one of the primary responsibilities you have is to encourage those that you lead. This is a non-negotiable and extends to everyone under your leadership, regardless of position. It's enough for someone to stop following you if you simply do not encourage them, but when you also discourage those that you lead, it can be a deadly outcome. When you discourage those that you lead regularly, you are taking away the one thing that is most personal to them - the pride in their work. This is you if your first reaction to others' work is criticism, or you find it easier to tell others what they did wrong than what they did right, and/or you struggle to share the praise your team receives with the other people on the team.
5. You care more about your success than their's.
If you're on the team and leading the team because you want the accolades and to take the credit for the success, people will not follow you. One of the goals of leadership is to make those around you better. And, if they happen to surpass you in title, responsibility, and praise - so be it. That only looks good on you. But, if you are threatened by others who have better talent and ideas than you, you may want to reconsider your role as a leader. This is you if you regularly need to be praised for the progress of the team you lead, or you find yourself jealous when someone else's work is recognized or rewarded instead of your own, and/or you accept the praise when the team wins and quickly point fingers at everyone else when the team fails.
This article originally appeared on timparsons.me.
Losing your influence over the people that you lead often does not happen quickly...but, rather, happens over a period of time. People are forgiving at the beginning, but the longer you lead, the less they are willing to forgive your shortcomings. Those that you lead need to be led...want to be led.
We've probably all known "leaders" who were leaders in name only. The people who have been put in charge of a team, but they have no influence over those that they are leading. Or, maybe we've been involved in a group, a ministry, a task where we've been put in charge - but for some reason no one is following us.
There are lots of reason why people may not be following your leadership, but here are a few common reasons that I've discovered:
1. You're disorganized.
Organization leads to clarity. Clarity of mission, clarity of tasks to be completed, clarity of who does what, etc. When a leader is disorganized, he/she immediately loses credibility with the team. Being disorganized leads to confusion, missed deadlines, and a lack of care for the needs of the team. This is you if you find yourself late to appointments/meetings, misplacing documents, your unprepared for meetings, you forget who's supposed to do what, etc.
2. You're inconsistent.
Consistency helps people understand what is expected. When a leader is inconsistent, the team can be unsure of what is happening or what to do next. This is you if you change meeting times often and with very short notice, change your mind about how to accomplish the goals of the group, and/or you're moody and varied in your reaction to things, for example. Consistency gives people on the team a feeling of safety and security - which is vital to team success.
3. You don't follow up.
Answering emails, texts, and phone calls in a timely way. Following up on assignments that were assigned to you. When you don't follow up, people don't feel important and can interpret this behavior as a sign that they're not needed on the team. This is you if you don't have a system in place to follow up on communications/requests that you receive, you don't take minutes/notes at meetings that you lead, and/or you find yourself regularly saying that assigned items are not completed by the deadline.
4. You're a discourager, rather than an encourager.
As the leader, one of the primary responsibilities you have is to encourage those that you lead. This is a non-negotiable and extends to everyone under your leadership, regardless of position. It's enough for someone to stop following you if you simply do not encourage them, but when you also discourage those that you lead, it can be a deadly outcome. When you discourage those that you lead regularly, you are taking away the one thing that is most personal to them - the pride in their work. This is you if your first reaction to others' work is criticism, or you find it easier to tell others what they did wrong than what they did right, and/or you struggle to share the praise your team receives with the other people on the team.
5. You care more about your success than their's.
If you're on the team and leading the team because you want the accolades and to take the credit for the success, people will not follow you. One of the goals of leadership is to make those around you better. And, if they happen to surpass you in title, responsibility, and praise - so be it. That only looks good on you. But, if you are threatened by others who have better talent and ideas than you, you may want to reconsider your role as a leader. This is you if you regularly need to be praised for the progress of the team you lead, or you find yourself jealous when someone else's work is recognized or rewarded instead of your own, and/or you accept the praise when the team wins and quickly point fingers at everyone else when the team fails.
This article originally appeared on timparsons.me.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
How To Deal With These 3 Difficult Managers At Work
One of the biggest challenges for any employee is learning how to work well with a manager. A good working relationship with your manager can increase productivity and engagement, while a bad working relationship can help inspire you to find a new job.
After all, a recent Gallup survey of 7,272 U.S. adults found one in two have left a job to get away from a bad manager and improve their overall life. That means building a working relationship with your manager is more important than ever.
When dealing with a difficult boss, understanding personality is key to identifying the best course of action to take. Here are three difficult managerial types you may encounter and what you need to know about dealing with them, so you'll never have to quit to get away from a difficult manager again:
1. Goal-Focused Gary
Goal-Focused Gary cares about only one thing: the goal he sets for himself. The problem is, he usually doesn't share that goal with his team, and that makes him difficult to deal with.
Since Gary thinks he's the most valuable employee in the company, he tends to ignore ideas he didn't come up with and rarely -- if ever -- will give you the recognition you deserve for a job well done.
Managers like Goal-Focused Gary like to be involved in every decision made in their group, so they get the credit for the team's success. In other words, you're probably going to be running all of your decisions by Gary first, no matter how experienced you are.
How to deal with Goal-Focused Gary: The trick to getting along with managers like Gary is understanding what drives them. According to Isabel Briggs Myers' theories of personality type, Goal-Focused Gary is a Thinking type, who is more focused on the task at hand than any relationships he could be building (or destroying).
Use this to your advantage. Find out what Goal-Focused Gary is trying to achieve and make sure what you do at work helps him achieve that goal. By doing so, you're showing Gary you're also interested in his success. When you show Gary you're interested in his success, your responsibilities will increase and you may end up climbing the corporate ladder with him.
2. Pleasing Patricia
Pleasing Patricia is agreeable. For her, management is all about being liked. Sounds great, right?
It is -- until you realize she's doing it because she doesn't like confrontation. When a manager is highly agreeable, it's actually pretty difficult to get things done.
Agreeableness is the "Big Five" personality trait that measures an individual's tendency toward empathy, affection, kindness, and its namesake, agreeableness. The problem is, Pleasing Patricia has it in spades. She's not just empathetic and affectionate, she's also afraid to hurt an employee's feelings or say no.
Since she's worried about hurting her employees' feelings, Pleasing Patricia will rarely give honest, constructive feedback, and she'll always avoid making decisions between competing ideas in a group setting. This lack of managerial instinct slows down productivity for the group and hurts your professional development.
How to deal with Pleasing Patricia: Your approach with a Pleasing Patricia needs to be two-pronged.
First, you've got to make an effort to assure Pleasing Patricia that, at least with you, honesty is the best policy. Explain how your goal is to be the best employee you can and how constructive feedback plays into achieving that goal. Balance your need for feedback with Pleasing Patricia's agreeable nature by encouraging her to always include one or two things you could do better when she gives you positive feedback.
Second, since Pleasing Patricia is most concerned with her employees liking her, work hard to make sure she knows you're on her side. Stop by to chat occasionally, ask about life outside of work, and generally try to be as nice as possible to help provide Pleasing Patricia with the support she needs.
3. Micromanaging Mitchell
Possibly one of the most difficult manager types to deal with, Micromanaging Mitchell is a handful. Whether he's hovering over you to make sure you're doing things his way or leaving out key information so you can't finish a project without getting him involved, he always finds ways to stay in the loop.
What psychologist David Keirsey called a "Guardian" type, Micromanaging Mitchell likes things in order and doesn't mind letting his employees know about it. He cares about deadlines and wants to be a part of every aspect of a project, so he constantly asks for updates and rarely delegates full responsibility to his employees.
How to deal with Micromanaging Mitchell: You can try to fight it, but the first thing you have to accept when your manager is Micromanaging Mitchell is that things are going to take you longer to finish, and they're going to include multiple interactions with your manager.
Instead of waiting for Mitchell to request your latest status update, be proactive. Adjust your workflow to include regular status updates (how often depends on the manager) and longer project meetings where you get as much information from your manager as possible. This will help you build your manager's trust and keep you from walking out of a meeting without the information you need to finish the job.
While this strategy may slow down your productivity, proactively keeping Micromanaging Mitchell in the loop ensures status report distractions come on your terms, not on his.
Dealing with a difficult manager is something we'll all have to at some point in our careers, but it doesn't have to keep us from being happy at work. Consider how your manager's personality drives his or her managerial style and find ways to build a productive working relationship by appealing to that personality.
Have you ever had one of these managers? How did you deal with him or her?
Molly Owens is the CEO of Truity, developer of the TypeFinder® personality type assessment and other scientifically validated, user-friendly personality assessments that connect people with powerful insights about their strengths, talents, and traits. Find Molly and Truity on Twitter and Facebook.
After all, a recent Gallup survey of 7,272 U.S. adults found one in two have left a job to get away from a bad manager and improve their overall life. That means building a working relationship with your manager is more important than ever.
When dealing with a difficult boss, understanding personality is key to identifying the best course of action to take. Here are three difficult managerial types you may encounter and what you need to know about dealing with them, so you'll never have to quit to get away from a difficult manager again:
1. Goal-Focused Gary
Goal-Focused Gary cares about only one thing: the goal he sets for himself. The problem is, he usually doesn't share that goal with his team, and that makes him difficult to deal with.
Since Gary thinks he's the most valuable employee in the company, he tends to ignore ideas he didn't come up with and rarely -- if ever -- will give you the recognition you deserve for a job well done.
Managers like Goal-Focused Gary like to be involved in every decision made in their group, so they get the credit for the team's success. In other words, you're probably going to be running all of your decisions by Gary first, no matter how experienced you are.
How to deal with Goal-Focused Gary: The trick to getting along with managers like Gary is understanding what drives them. According to Isabel Briggs Myers' theories of personality type, Goal-Focused Gary is a Thinking type, who is more focused on the task at hand than any relationships he could be building (or destroying).
Use this to your advantage. Find out what Goal-Focused Gary is trying to achieve and make sure what you do at work helps him achieve that goal. By doing so, you're showing Gary you're also interested in his success. When you show Gary you're interested in his success, your responsibilities will increase and you may end up climbing the corporate ladder with him.
2. Pleasing Patricia
Pleasing Patricia is agreeable. For her, management is all about being liked. Sounds great, right?
It is -- until you realize she's doing it because she doesn't like confrontation. When a manager is highly agreeable, it's actually pretty difficult to get things done.
Agreeableness is the "Big Five" personality trait that measures an individual's tendency toward empathy, affection, kindness, and its namesake, agreeableness. The problem is, Pleasing Patricia has it in spades. She's not just empathetic and affectionate, she's also afraid to hurt an employee's feelings or say no.
Since she's worried about hurting her employees' feelings, Pleasing Patricia will rarely give honest, constructive feedback, and she'll always avoid making decisions between competing ideas in a group setting. This lack of managerial instinct slows down productivity for the group and hurts your professional development.
How to deal with Pleasing Patricia: Your approach with a Pleasing Patricia needs to be two-pronged.
First, you've got to make an effort to assure Pleasing Patricia that, at least with you, honesty is the best policy. Explain how your goal is to be the best employee you can and how constructive feedback plays into achieving that goal. Balance your need for feedback with Pleasing Patricia's agreeable nature by encouraging her to always include one or two things you could do better when she gives you positive feedback.
Second, since Pleasing Patricia is most concerned with her employees liking her, work hard to make sure she knows you're on her side. Stop by to chat occasionally, ask about life outside of work, and generally try to be as nice as possible to help provide Pleasing Patricia with the support she needs.
3. Micromanaging Mitchell
Possibly one of the most difficult manager types to deal with, Micromanaging Mitchell is a handful. Whether he's hovering over you to make sure you're doing things his way or leaving out key information so you can't finish a project without getting him involved, he always finds ways to stay in the loop.
What psychologist David Keirsey called a "Guardian" type, Micromanaging Mitchell likes things in order and doesn't mind letting his employees know about it. He cares about deadlines and wants to be a part of every aspect of a project, so he constantly asks for updates and rarely delegates full responsibility to his employees.
How to deal with Micromanaging Mitchell: You can try to fight it, but the first thing you have to accept when your manager is Micromanaging Mitchell is that things are going to take you longer to finish, and they're going to include multiple interactions with your manager.
Instead of waiting for Mitchell to request your latest status update, be proactive. Adjust your workflow to include regular status updates (how often depends on the manager) and longer project meetings where you get as much information from your manager as possible. This will help you build your manager's trust and keep you from walking out of a meeting without the information you need to finish the job.
While this strategy may slow down your productivity, proactively keeping Micromanaging Mitchell in the loop ensures status report distractions come on your terms, not on his.
Dealing with a difficult manager is something we'll all have to at some point in our careers, but it doesn't have to keep us from being happy at work. Consider how your manager's personality drives his or her managerial style and find ways to build a productive working relationship by appealing to that personality.
Have you ever had one of these managers? How did you deal with him or her?
Molly Owens is the CEO of Truity, developer of the TypeFinder® personality type assessment and other scientifically validated, user-friendly personality assessments that connect people with powerful insights about their strengths, talents, and traits. Find Molly and Truity on Twitter and Facebook.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
3 Proven Ways To Help You Achieve Your Goals
It's sad to think how many people go their whole lives dreaming of goals that they will never hit. While many of us have aspirations we want to reach, few of us actually get to the final destination.
The main reason behind this is consistency. We lack the ability to stick through the changes we need to make to turn our visions into reality. This in part can be blamed on the way media portrays the successful. It's a common belief that some giant act of heroism is what catalyzes success to begin. In reality, this path to reach success is rare. For all the people who got lucky and hit a homerun his or her first time at bat, there are a million others who struck out and gave up.
Thus the true way to hit our goals is by working on them every damn day. Below, I'll go through 3 proven methods that will get you to your goals. This isn't some get rich quick scheme, or the type of advice you get from infomercials selling you the latest "Ab maker 3000." These are time-consuming and tedious habits that will get you to your goals the old fashioned way: through consistent and determined effort over a long period of time.
1. Focus on one habit to change and be consistent
The number one reason why people fail to hit their goals is because they don't keep up the routine they originally start. For instance, say you want to lose weight. Instead of going cold turkey, what if you just cut the ice cream sandwich at night. Lets say it's only 300 calories. You don't change anything but you just change that one tiny thing. By the end of a year, you just saved over 100,000 calories off your body.
This is a simple example, but it highlights how core consistency is to reaching your goals. Don't try and do a complete magical transformation overnight. Instead, focus on one thing, and execute it everyday for about 2 months. The change will lead to more and more habit changes, and soon you'll be well on your way to hitting your goal.
2. Track everything
From now on, write down everything throughout the day that you're doing in regards to the goals you set for yourself. If you want to get healthy, write down everything your eating everyday. Lets say you're a business owner. Write down everything that you did to move your business forward.
By the end of the day, the results will surprise you. You'll be able to look at what you did for the business and realize that many of your activities were unnecessary. Tracking what we do has such a profound effect on us because it forces us to measure our progress through tangible metrics. We also are unable to forget the 2 hours of TV we watched or the 3-layer cheesecake we scarfed down. The key to getting to our goals is tracking what's holding us back, and removing those distractions.
3. Write your goals down
Write down the 3 main things you want to accomplish. These should be major goals that you want to achieve. Until these goals are written down, they are just fantasies. Putting your goals on paper brings them to life. There are so many distractions in today's world, and we ignore 99% of them. But when we physically have our goals in front us everyday, we naturally start thinking about them much more. Force all your effort and time thinking about what you want to achieve, and you'll graviate in the right direction.
The main reason behind this is consistency. We lack the ability to stick through the changes we need to make to turn our visions into reality. This in part can be blamed on the way media portrays the successful. It's a common belief that some giant act of heroism is what catalyzes success to begin. In reality, this path to reach success is rare. For all the people who got lucky and hit a homerun his or her first time at bat, there are a million others who struck out and gave up.
Thus the true way to hit our goals is by working on them every damn day. Below, I'll go through 3 proven methods that will get you to your goals. This isn't some get rich quick scheme, or the type of advice you get from infomercials selling you the latest "Ab maker 3000." These are time-consuming and tedious habits that will get you to your goals the old fashioned way: through consistent and determined effort over a long period of time.
1. Focus on one habit to change and be consistent
The number one reason why people fail to hit their goals is because they don't keep up the routine they originally start. For instance, say you want to lose weight. Instead of going cold turkey, what if you just cut the ice cream sandwich at night. Lets say it's only 300 calories. You don't change anything but you just change that one tiny thing. By the end of a year, you just saved over 100,000 calories off your body.
This is a simple example, but it highlights how core consistency is to reaching your goals. Don't try and do a complete magical transformation overnight. Instead, focus on one thing, and execute it everyday for about 2 months. The change will lead to more and more habit changes, and soon you'll be well on your way to hitting your goal.
2. Track everything
From now on, write down everything throughout the day that you're doing in regards to the goals you set for yourself. If you want to get healthy, write down everything your eating everyday. Lets say you're a business owner. Write down everything that you did to move your business forward.
By the end of the day, the results will surprise you. You'll be able to look at what you did for the business and realize that many of your activities were unnecessary. Tracking what we do has such a profound effect on us because it forces us to measure our progress through tangible metrics. We also are unable to forget the 2 hours of TV we watched or the 3-layer cheesecake we scarfed down. The key to getting to our goals is tracking what's holding us back, and removing those distractions.
3. Write your goals down
Write down the 3 main things you want to accomplish. These should be major goals that you want to achieve. Until these goals are written down, they are just fantasies. Putting your goals on paper brings them to life. There are so many distractions in today's world, and we ignore 99% of them. But when we physically have our goals in front us everyday, we naturally start thinking about them much more. Force all your effort and time thinking about what you want to achieve, and you'll graviate in the right direction.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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