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Monday April 23, 2018

*Big Banks Are Raking in Record Profits Thanks to Trump's Supposedly 'Middle-Class' Tax Cuts
AlterNet | Cody Fenwick | 04/20/18

When President Donald Trump and the Republican Party pitched their bill to overhaul the American tax code, they promised voters that their plan was aa "middle-class tax relief." As the law goes into effect, though, most Americans are seeing little benefit, while the big banks are raking in record profits.

According to new analysis by the Associated Press, six big Wall Street banks made an additional $3.59 billion dollars so far this year thanks to the tax law. ... Read more
Republican Tax Cuts Are Saving Banks BILLIONS | TYT | 04/22/18 | 7:38

*Iran Deal: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) | 04/22/18 | 21:21
Junk Raft: An Ocean Voyage and a Rising Tide of Activism to Fight Plastic Pollution by Marcus Eriksen

News media brought the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"--the famous swirling gyre of plastic pollution in the ocean--into the public consciousness. But when Marcus Eriksen cofounded the 5 Gyres Institute with his wife, Anna Cummins, and set out to study the world's oceans with hundreds of volunteers, they discovered a "plastic smog" of microscopic debris that permeates our oceans globally, defying simple clean-up efforts. What's more, these microplastics and their toxic chemistry have seeped into the food chain, threatening marine life and humans alike.

Far from being a gloomy treatise on an environmental catastrophe, though, Junk Raft tells the exciting story of Eriksen and his team's fight to solve the problem of plastic pollution. A scientist, activist, and inveterate adventurer, Eriksen is drawn to the sea by a desire to right an environmental injustice. Against long odds and common sense, he and his co-navigator, Joel Paschal, construct a "junk raft" made of plastic trash and set themselves adrift from Los Angeles to Hawaii, with no motor or support vessel, confronting perilous cyclones, food shortages, and a fast decaying raft.

As Eriksen recounts his struggles to keep afloat, he immerses readers in the deep history of the plastic pollution crisis and the movement that has arisen to combat it. The proliferation of cheap plastic products during the twentieth century has left the world awash in trash. Meanwhile, the plastics industry, with its lobbying muscle, fights tooth and nail against any changes that would affect its lucrative status quo, instead defending poorly designed products and deflecting responsibility for the harm they cause.
JUNK RAFT film (trailer) | 07/20/17 | 1:11
JUNK sails from Long Beach to Hawaii | 07/20/17 | 9:59
Junk Raft: An Ocean Voyage and a Rising Tide of Activism to Fight Plastic | Google Book Review | Book

Know Your Plactics - Click to zoom
Know Your Plastics
Plastic Poison - Click to zoom
Plastic Poison
How Long Until They're Gone - Click to zoom
How Long Until They're Gone
Plastic Bags - Click to zoom
Plastic Bags
9 Tips for Living Without Plastics - Click to zoom
9 Tips for Living Without Plastics

Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency
New Yorker | Adam Davidson | 04/14/18

... I arrived in Baghdad on April 12th of that year, a few days after Saddam's statue at Firdos Square had been destroyed. There were a couple of weeks of uncertainty as reporters and Iraqis tried to gauge who was in charge of the country and what the general plan was. There was no electricity, no police, no phones, no courts, no schools. More than half of Iraqis worked for the government, and there was no government, no Army, and so no salaries for most of the country. At first, it seemed possible that the Americans simply needed a bit of time to communicate the new rules. By the end of April, though, it was clear: there was no plan, no new order. Iraq was anarchic.

We journalists were able to use generators and satellite dishes to access outside information, and what we saw was absurd. Americans seemed convinced things were going well in Iraq. The war--and the President who launched it--were seen favorably by seventy per cent of Americans. Then came these pictures of a President touting "Mission Accomplished"--the choice of words that President Trump used in a tweet on Saturday, the morning after he ordered an air strike on Syria. On the ground, we were not prophets or political geniuses. We were sentient adults who were able to see the clear, obvious truth in front of us. The path of Iraq would be decided by those who thrived in chaos. ... Read more

Trump Tries To Cover Up Corrupt Illegal Deals but The New Yorker Breaks Story | NY | older | 3:06

Inside Trump's Dirty Deals Abroad
New Yorker | Dorothy Wickenden | 02/22/18

What does the Trump Organization's unorthodox business conduct reveal about the Administration's political troubles with the special counsel Robert Mueller? Adam Davidson joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss how the Trump family's financial ties to Russian oligarchs led to extraordinarily risky behavior during the campaign, and the current questions about obstruction of justice and collusion with Putin's Russia. ... Read more

Trump's Business of Corruption
New Yorker | Adam Davidson | 08/21/17

President Donald Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow recently told me that the investigation being led by Robert Mueller, the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department, should focus on one question: whether there was "coördination between the Russian government and people on the Trump campaign." Sekulow went on, "I want to be really specific. A real-estate deal would be outside the scope of legitimate inquiry." If he senses "drift" in Mueller's investigation, he said, he will warn the special counsel's office that it is exceeding its mandate. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, April 23 [13:51]
Earth Day 2018: Ending Plastic Pollution in the Oceans, Land & Our Bodies | DN | 04/20/18 | 14:32
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, April 23 (FULL) | 59:02
Note: on the full 59:02 video look for small white (or black) circles on the Progressbar they denote the different news stories. You can move the pointer on the Progressbar to jump to each story, and around the video.
  1. Headlines
  2. How Black Students Helped Lead the 1968 Columbia U. Strike Against Militarism & Racism 50 Years Ago
*Trump, Corruption and the Crisis of the Global Elites | TRNN | 04/23/18 | 18:25
Infamous Mercenary Erik Prince Being Considered to Build Trump's Foreign Army for Syria | TRNN | 04/20/18 | 12:20
Is Donald Trump A Strategic Genius? | TYT | 04/22/18 | 6:37
Average US Taxpayer Spends $3,456 A Year On War | TYT | 04/22/18 | 5:48
Trump Mad Gorsuch Is Closet Liberal | TYT | 04/22/18 | 6:47
The1a.org
Ronan Farrow On #MeToo, Diplomacy, And The War On Peace | 1a.org | 04/23x/18 | 1hr
Ronan Farrow won a Pulitzer for his reporting on Harvey Weinstein. While he was investigating allegations of sexual harassment against the movie producer, Farrow was also working on a different project: a book about the U.S. Department of State.

The book is a political history and a personal one. Farrow worked at the department before his journalism career began. His writing combines interviews, reporting, and first-person experience to chronicle a turn away from diplomacy that began long before President Trump took office. (Scroll down to read an excerpt.)

Farrow is now reporting on the Trump administration and alleged payments to people with personal information on the president.
What Will Change In Cuba After Castro? | 1a.org | 04/23x/18 | 1hr
Cuba's culture is rich. Its economy remains poor. The island's new president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has promised to be faithful to the revolution, as millions of Cubans still struggle to make ends meet. Can communism prevail? And what will a new regime in Cuba mean for its relationship with the U.S. under America's President Trump?
DNC Files Lawsuit Against President Trump Camp And Others Over 2016 Hacking | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC | 04/20/18 | 21:26
Does President Donald Trump Have A Consistent Standard On Classified Intel? | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 04/23/18 | 13:04
*Tribe: Trump 'Orchestrating A Massive Cover-Up' Worse Than Nixon | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC | 04/20/18 | 6:32
'President Donald Trump May Throw Children Under Bus To Protect Himself' | AM Joy | MSNBC | 04/23/18 | 9:14
Michael Avenatti: Michael Cohen 'Is Going To Be Charged With Serious Crimes' | AM Joy | MSNBC | 04/23/18 | 13:42
Anchor, Conway spar over husband's tweets | CNN | 04/22/18 | 15:27
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Trump Is Bringing Back Abstinence-Only Education | Stephen Colbert | 04/21/18 | 4:31
The GOP Is Hesitating To Endorse Trump 2020 | Stephen Colbert | 04/21/18 | 5:10
Note: I add this just to expose you to what the Alt Right is listening to. Sometimes pretty scary.
*CIA Warns Of Impending Domestic Terror Attacks Meant To Derail Trump Agenda | Alex Jones | 04/21/18 | 28:36
EXCLUSIVE: Alex Jones' Ex-Wife Tells All, Conspiracies, Fake Supplements | David Pakman Show | 04/03/18 | 24:55

04.23.2018. 13:36



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Lindsey Graham Mashups
Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the quiet part aloud on why he’s still so close to former President Donald Trump: because we can use him for our goals. "President Trump has gotten people who wouldn't give me or Romney or anybody else the time of day. They believe he is on their side," the senator told the America First Agenda Summit crowd on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

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Environment & Climate Change
Environment

The term "climate change" is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change (also known as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning
AI - Artificial Intelligence

AIArtificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by animals including humans. AI research has been defined as the field of study of intelligent agents, which refers to any system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of achieving its goals.

The term "artificial intelligence" had previously been used to describe machines that mimic and display "human" cognitive skills that are associated with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem-solving". This definition has since been rejected by major AI researchers who now describe AI in terms of rationality and acting rationally, which does not limit how intelligence can be articulated.
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Quantum mechanics | AI - Artificial Intelligence
Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles.  It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale.
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Economy, Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or New York-based financial interests.

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis,.

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Jay explore Ellsberg's latest book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. In the introduction to the book, Ellsberg writes: "No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral or insane. The story of how this calamitous predicament came about and how and why it has persisted over a half a century is a chronicle of human madness".

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Nukes
Nukes

Nuclear weapons have come a long way and come in all types of different sizes. Some are relatively small while others are enormous, so big they boggle the mind at what they can be capable of, i.e. the Soviet 'Tsar Bomba' is/was 3,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business
Rana Foroohar

Ms. Foroohar says financialization delivers stagnant wages, inequality and economic crisis; the Financial Times columnist and author of "Makers and Takers" says the financial sector represents only 7 percent of the U.S. economy, but takes around 25 percent of all corporate profit while creating only 4 percent of all jobs.

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The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick | 2014 | 10 Episodes

Oliver Stone and American University historian Peter J. Kuznick began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham cowrote the script. It covers "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." Stone is the director and narrator of all ten episodes.

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

Historian Peter Kuznick says Eisenhower called for decreased militarization, then Dulles reversed the policy; the Soviets tried to end the cold war after the death of Stalin; crazy schemes involving nuclear weapons and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba put the world of the eve of destruction - with host Paul Jay

The Untold History of the United States by Kuznick, Peter.mobi | Book | 6.99 MB

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

A report written by a Georgetown University team led by Phillip Karber conducted a three-year study to map out China’s complex tunnel system, which stretches 5,000 km (3,000 miles). The report determined that the stated Chinese nuclear arsenal is understated and as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads may be stored in the underground tunnel network.

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911
911

On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists attacked the Unites States. They hijacked four airplanes in mid-flight. The terrorists flew two of the planes into two skyscrapers at the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact caused the buildings to catch fire and collapse. Another plane destroyed part of the Pentagon (the U.S. military headquarters) in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Officials believe that the terrorists on that plane intended to destroy either the White House or the U.S. Capitol. Passengers on the plane fought the terrorists and prevented them from reaching their goal. In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, THE VIETNAM WAR, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides--Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as combatants and civilians from North and South Vietnam. Ten years in the making, the series includes rarely seen and digitally re-mastered archival footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, and secret audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.

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Trump's Mashups
Trump's Mashups

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? VICE News' "Trump Talk" mashup series tries to answer that. And, we're happy to say, it was just nominated for two Webby Awards. Now you can watch all the nominated videos.

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Trump's Sexcapades
Trump's Sexcapades.

Jessica Leeds (1980s)
Kristin Anderson (1990s)
E. Jean Carroll (1995 or 1996)
Lisa Boyne (1996)
Cathy Heller (1997)
Temple Taggart McDowell (1997)
Karena Virginia (1998)
Mindy McGillivray (2003)
Jennifer Murphy (2005)
Rachel Crooks (2005)
Natasha Stoynoff (2005)
Juliet Huddy (2005 or 2006)
Jessica Drake (2006)
Ninni Laaksonen (2006)
Cassandra Searles (2013)
Allegations of pageant dressing room visits(1997)
Mariah Billado,
Victoria Hughes,
and three other Miss Teen USA contestants
Bridget Sullivan (2000)
Tasha Dixon (2001)
Unnamed contestants (2001)
Samantha Holvey (2006)

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews
Trump's Speeches | Rallys

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? Watch Trump at some of his rallys and see what you think.

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