Ordinary Faces

3/12/2016

Notations From the Grid (weekend edition): On @realDonaldTrump; #Syria, #Iraq, Earth Day & Other Thoughts......

Welcome to the weekend here in #Outsiders.

We have been following developments on the US Campaign trail as news outlets throughout the World reported on the Trump Rally in Chicago:

Donald Trump's Rally in Chicago Canceled After Violent Scuffles

By MONICA DAVEY and JULIE BOSMAN

Protesters and supporters of Donald J. Trump confronted each other, screaming and shoving, at a campaign event Friday that was called off over security concerns.

At an airport rally in Ohio , someone rushed the podium and Mr. Trump later claimed the person had ISIS Affiliation. This is the latest on where things stand as 5 states go to the polls on March 15 as noted in +RealClearPolitics today:

Battle for the White HouseRCP Poll Averages

National	Delegates	Florida
Trump36.0	Trump460	Trump41.0
Cruz21.8	Cruz370	Rubio24.3
Rubio18.0	Rubio163	Cruz18.6

Ohio	North Carolina	Illinois
Trump36.5	Trump35.6	Trump31.0
Kasich34.0	Cruz23.8	Cruz19.0
Cruz16.3	Rubio13.0	Kasich16.3

National	Delegates	Florida
Clinton51.0	Clinton1231	Clinton62.5
Sanders39.6	Sanders576	Sanders29.3

Ohio	North Carolina	Illinois
Clinton57.0	Clinton54.2	Clinton60.0
Sanders37.0	Sanders33.6	Sanders27.3

General Election Match-Ups

GOP Delegate Count | Dem Delegate Count
Nomination Polls | General Election Polls | 2016 Calenda

We have also been assessing very disturbing reports on the war front in Syria and Iraq. #Daesh has attacked with Chemical Weapons and The Iraqi Prime Minister has vowed retaliation. Syria has apparently seen the downing of a plane by rebels.

As we are continuing our on-going assessment, we wanted to finish this edition of "Notations" with a more hopeful note as Earth Hour is before us. We hope all consider signing up for it as our team just did:

Less than three months ago, leaders from 196 nations signed a historic agreement in Paris to take collective action on climate change, clearly showing that we are at a turning point in our fight to cut carbon pollution.

Let's keep that momentum going with Earth Hour next week!

What is Earth Hour? Every year in March millions of people around the world celebrate Earth Hour by turning out their lights from 8:30 to 9:30 pm local time.

I'll be turning out my lights and hope you'll join me. Sign up for Mobile Action Team updates and get a text message reminder from me to turn off your lights on Earth Hour day.

Text HOUR to 69866 to sign up today.

You'll join our list of engaged mobile activists and opt in to receive text messages on the latest opportunities to help World Wildlife Fund protect wildlife and conserve nature.Standard messaging rates apply.

Sincerely,

Sara Thomas
Manager, Online Advocacy
World Wildlife Fund

3/11/2016

The Friday Musical Interlude: Kygo's "Stole the Show" :)))

Welcome to Friday in #Outsiders as we depart yet again from the "conventional" as we present a selection from our artist of the week, Kygo:

3/09/2016

Notations On Our World: On the latest from the US Campaign Trail.....

It has been a very interesting 24 hours on the US Campaign scene in the aftermath of the primaries yesterday. As we went to press with this special edition of "Notations", Carly Fiorina has come out in strong support of Ted Cruz and sent out a fundraising appeal earlier today:

Carly Fiorina carly.f@tedcruz.org

11:09 AM (1 hour ago)

From the Desk of Carly Fiorina

I'm endorsing Ted Cruz for President today, and I'm asking you to join me.

Ted Cruz is a fearless fighter for our constitutional rights. Unlike the status-quo political class in D.C., Ted Cruz didn't cower the moment he set foot in Washington. Instead, he stands unequivocally for the American people.

If you haven't already – I'm asking you to join me and commit to supporting Ted Cruz today.

If you are already supporting Senator Cruz – I'm asking you to stop what you are doing right now and contribute financially to his campaign.

In order for Ted to take on Donald Trump and win,

Here's the truth: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are two sides of the same coin. Trump has made billions buying politicians and their influence, and Hillary Clinton has made millions selling her influence to people like Trump.

That's why we need President Ted Cruz. Ted has spent his life protecting Americans' God-given liberties, and he always stands by his word.

I know Ted, and he'll do the same as president.

That's why my email is so important: I need you make a special contribution today. Your contribution will go directly to defeating Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton!

Yes, it's that important that you stop whatever you are doing and make a special contribution because in order for Ted to win...he must have the resources to compete in a state-by-state race for the nomination.

Before I sign off, one last thing.

There is good news...in the most recent polls Ted beats Donald Trump by 17 points in a one-on-one race.

And Ted, unlike Trump, defeats Hillary Clinton in a one-on-one race.

Again, I need you now to help me support Ted Cruz. He is our best hope to return a true conservative to the White House and reverse the disastrous eight years of Barack Obama's presidency.

But he can't do it without you.

Thank you,

Carly Fiorina

PAID FOR BY CRUZ FOR PRESIDENT
www.tedcruz.org

The Bernie Sanders win in Michigan will continue to drag out the Democratic Debate just a little while longer as what we view as the greatest show on Earth continues--with profound consequences for the United States and beyond. Bernie Sanders just sent out another fundraising appeal as he continues his fundraising juggernaut.

What we found especially poignant was this interesting observation was received at our studios on US Senate Prospects:

DEM Senate Takeover Probable, If Cruz Or Trump Nominee - Rothenblog
blogs.rollcall.com

With Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz seemingly positioned to fight it out for the Republican presidential nomination, Democrats are now poised to take over the Senate in November.

& this from "across the pond" In London:

America’s primaries: Here’s the beef

At a speech meant to celebrate winning three out of four states in primary elections last night, Donald Trump instead displayed stacks of meat and bottles of wine. “Trump steaks. Where are the steaks? Do we have steak? We have Trump steak,” he rambled. Yet his steak business seems to have been non-functioning since 2007. The stakes, for Mr Trump and America, have perhaps never been higher, writes our Washington correspondent

3/08/2016

Notations On Our World (Special Edition): An #Outsider Newsflash On the Latest on The US Political Scene (Updated)

The Trump juggernaut is continuing as we went to press. He has won a number of pivotal states and earlier tonight took the podium as one of his properties in Florida. It was interesting how he made it a point of showcasing the steaks, the Water and the Magazine in direct refutation of the pointers made by Mitt Romney in his speech. He also said he plans to resurrect Trump University after he wins his lawsuit. He also was in his element as he repeatedly referred to Ted Cruz as "Lying Ted".

Here is the breakdown as reported by Real Clear Politics within the past hour--Although Idaho and Hawaii had not come in yet, it is increasingly becoming a two-person race for the Republicans (Updated: Ted Cruz has Won the Idaho Republican Primary).

Truly interesting times.....

Michigan	Votes	Percent	Del.	(93%)
Trump	454,290	36.8	21
Cruz	305,478	24.7	12
Kasich	300,729	24.3	15
Rubio	114,303	9.3	0

Michigan	Votes	Percent	Del.	(93%)
Sanders	548,376	50.1	63
Clinton	524,927	48.0	53

Mississippi	Votes	Percent	Del.	(96%)
Trump	186,271	47.6	20
Cruz	142,331	36.3	0
Kasich	34,088	8.7	0
Rubio	19,660	5.0	0

Mississippi	Votes	Percent	Del.	(96%)
Clinton	176,325	82.9	28
Sanders	34,493	16.2	1

Idaho	Votes	Percent	Del.	(37%)
Cruz	31,332	41.7	0
Trump	21,745	28.9	0
Rubio	13,811	18.4	0
Kasich	5,424	7.2	0

Hawaii	Votes	Percent	Del.	(0%)
Trump	0	0.0	0
Cruz	0	0.0	0
Rubio	0	0.0	0

Notations On Our World: On the US Campaign Trail

Washington Constitutional Convention 1787

The voters in Michigan, Mississippi & Idaho are voting today. This is as the stop Trump movement continues to gather steam in a major way with all the others trying to be a viable second as the Republican National Convention comes closer.

The annual World Forums sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute was done at a private resort off the Cost of Georgia. There were tech giants there--including Apple's Tim Cook, Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame along with Elon Musk of Telsa and SpaceX. Karl Rove was apparently there along with Senator Mitch McConnel and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Based on reporting we saw, the topic of discussion was how to stop the Trump juggernaut. This is as Lindsay Graham has apparently come around to being behind Ted Cruz as an alternative to Mr Trump during an interview of NBC's Meet the Press over the weekend. Please click on here on the reporting done on this from
the Huffington Post.

As this was going on, Mr. Trump released this Tweet on his status in Idaho yesterday:

Thank you Idaho! I love your potatoes-
nobody grows them better. As
President, I will protect your market. pic.twitter.com/kqx8un1jnw
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 7, 2016

As Mr. Trump continues his ascent, though, this was just reported on the Daily Beast which is available by clicking here. It undermines what Senator Cruz noted about how certain media outlets are withholding reporting on Mr. Trump's Business Dealings. This was as the President of Mexico likened Trump to Hiter--although Mr. Trump was dismissive of the comparison.

Senator Graham was asked about Senator Cruz' achievements while in the Senate by the New York Times' David Brooks. The answer was interesting--only noting reitrating how Cruz was a "true conservative". Senator Graham was also asked about the Supreme Court Vacancy--and his response was quite curious: I am my favorite person and I would not vote for me.

It was in this context that our team found Professor Jonathan Turley's USA Today Column that was also published to his Website quite extra ordinary. Here is the link on the need for a new "Revolution" as he called it.

With Mr. Bloomberg noting he has no chance, the roadmap is becoming a bit clearer. Over 140 Delegates are at stake today as the pivotal March 15 comes about with Ohio and Florida.

What we find clear is this: Truly interesting times......

3/07/2016

Notations On Our World (Special Edition): How People Strive to Make a DIfference

It is a rainy day here in our HQ in Southern California as El Nino has come out "swinging" today. We wanted to begin the new week in #Outsiders with this very perceptive analysis from the Fortune's Geoff Colvin which we view as vital which we will work to explore further in the #Outsider Vision Property over the ensuing weeks and months:

Daily insights on leaders and leadership

By Geoff Colvin

FOLLOW

Sometimes – oftentimes – leaders face no good alternatives. An excellent example of how they cope is Brian O’Keefe’s extraordinary portrait of the world cocoa trade, which I urge you to read. It’s more than just a revealing look at a business you may not have known you cared about; it’s also a case study of leaders who want to do some good in the world and learn how extremely difficult that can be.
Imagine that you’re Mars chief Grant Reid or Mondelez CEO Irene Rosenfeld or Nestlé CEO Paul Bulcke. Your company sold between $12.5 billion and $14.7 billion of chocolate candy last year, and most of the cocoa you need comes from West Africa. Some 2.1 million children there do the exhausting, dangerous, machete-wielding work of harvesting it. Some of them – no one knows how many, but thousands – are “forced labor,” meaning slaves. You obviously don’t want your company to be supporting any of this. But how do you stop it?
As Brian reports, the big chocolate makers long ago agreed, after some prodding, to eradicate the worst forms of child labor by mid-2005. They missed that deadline, which got pushed back to 2008, then 2010. They missed those too. Now the industry has pledged to reduce child labor in Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s largest cocoa producers, by 70% by 2020.
Why on earth can’t the leaders of the world’s biggest cocoa-buying firms influence their suppliers? Because cocoa isn’t produced by big agri-business companies with which the major buyers could negotiate. It’s produced by nearly two million cocoa-growing households in Ivory Coast and Ghana on tiny farms (average size: less than ten acres). Those farmers are desperately poor; the average cocoa farmer in Ghana made 84¢ a day in the 2013-14 growing season, and in Ivory Coast 50¢. Which means that while many children in the industry are forced labor, far more are not. As Brian explains, “Hundreds of thousands of children are used as free labor by their own families and often asked to take on dangerous tasks like harvesting with machetes or hauling 100-pound bags of beans.” If those farmers didn’t employ their children, their families would be even poorer.
Ivory Coast has laws forbidding forced labor and last year enacted a law requiring all children age 6 to 16 to go to school. But if you’re President Alassane Ouattara, a Ph.D. economist from the University of Pennsylvania and a former senior official at the IMF, how can you defy your constituents’ unforgiving financial reality?
The big cocoa buyers have realized they can reduce child labor only by changing the basic economics of cocoa farming, which they’re trying to do by helping the farmers be more productive. That’s a very long-term project. For now, those unfortunate children are surrounded by at least some leaders who want to do the right thing. But each can manage only part of the solution. Sona Ebai, former chief of the Alliance of Cocoa Producing Countries, observes that the problem will be solved only when all sectors of the society work on it together. “And there,” he tells Brian, “you really need leadership.”
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3/05/2016

Notations On our World (weekend edition part II): On Turkey, @Malaysia, @BRICS & #Zimbabwe

Turkish Police @ Zaman HQ

As our team just finished the latest on our #Americas watch, we have also been assessing our World over a very challenging 24 hours in our World which we will be assessing.

The first profound challenge we've been witness to has been the continued attack on Freedom of the Press in Turkey. On orders of Istanbul Prosecutors, the Daily +Zaman Gazetesi was taken over by the police:

The world was witness to protesters being tear-gassed as the Police raided the offices. It is part of a concerted effort by the Turkish Government to suppress decent under its' policy of fighting the separatist PKK since Mr. Edrogan abrogated the peace treaty with the Kurds. It is an on-going developing story as we went to press.

Robert Mugabe with his Birthday cake

Beyond Turkey, we had been assessing another country of focus this week: Zimbabwe. The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, turned 92:

Our team agreed with the characterization by the opposition party in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change, that it was "obscene". The cake was 92 Kilograms, 50 heads of Cattle were slaughtered and some 800,000 dollars was spent on the birthday celebration. This is as the country continues to be suffering from a prolonged drought, civil servants cannot get paid and the estimated unemployment is around 80%. Mr. Mugabe latest' antics was to nationalize the diamond mines--and his latest antics was to threaten a reporter by punching him to the ground for daring to suggest that he should retire. We have also been assessing the latest out of Malaysia (a member of our "NASIIM" group we're studying) on the increased repression by the Malaysian Government as the corruption allegations against the Prime Minister continues to grow--there allegded corruption is now around 1.1 Billion Dollars.

One more focus for us has been @BRICS. We have been assessing the student protests in India as we captured this by the NDTv's Barka Dutt:

This is also a developing story and his eloquence and bravery is quite remarkable. This is a China is in the midst of the annual meeting of its' Parliament--The National People's Congress. Most of the decisions have already been made--but what is remarkable is a tacit acknowledgement of what the Chinese Premier has said is the "New Normal"--a slowdown as cutbacks loom in State Enterprises and there seems to be a major overhaul of the top leadership in the country. We are also continuing to assess how Brazil seems to be falling apart politically especially as former President Lula was detained especially as Rio 2016 is before us--and as Zika continues to take a profound toll on the Country. South Africa is also in the midst of profound challenges as well as underscored by the protests against Jacob Zuma.

It is indeed quite a challenging World.......