Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Trump's N.Y. criminal trial: Who has testified and who hasn't
Axios | Jacob Knutson | 04/30/24

Former President Trump's first criminal trial in New York has so far featured witness testimony from a veteran tabloid publisher, former longtime Trump assistant and a former director at a bank.

The big picture: As Trump faces charges for 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over his alleged involvement in a hush money payment, some of the case's star witnesses including Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen and adult film actress Stormy Daniels have yet to take the stand.

The trial was set to resume Tuesday with testimony from a key document witness over the creation of an LLC allegedly used by Cohen to distribute payments in an alleged hush-money scheme in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

Daniels has said she was paid $130,000 to bury her claim that she and Trump had sex in 2006. ... Read more

Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: April 29 | Rachel Maddow | 04/29/24 | 20:16

UFOs: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 04/25/24 | 26:17

Mental health diagnoses jump among seniors
Axios | Tina Reed | 04/29/24

The share of patients with mental health diagnoses rose 40% nationally from 2019 to 2023, with the most significant jump among seniors, according to a FAIR Health analysis shared first with Axios.

Why it matters: While the data reflects the anxiety and stress of the pandemic era, it could also point to reduced stigma in seeking care and increased access via telehealth.

By the numbers: Mental health diagnoses rose across all age groups, according to the data from FAIR Health, which used a database of roughly 46 billion commercial insurance claims - including Medicare Advantage - to examine in-network claims between 2019 and 2023.

1. The largest increase (57%) was among those aged 65 and over. About 14% had a mental health diagnosis in 2023, up from 9% in 2019.
2. The second largest increases (about 44%) were among patients ages 23-40.
3. The share of patients ages 23-30 with a mental health diagnosis increased from 19% to 28%, while it increased from 18% to 25% for those 31-40.
... Read more
Elon Musk, The Tesla CEO received quick approval on expanding Tesla's business in the world's largest auto market, as the company's sales and stock prices have slumped.

Young Americans' wealth has soared since the pandemic
Axios | Emily Peck | 04/29/24

Read more
Their Starting to Post All the Old 'Last Week Tonight' Videos on YouTube. Kinda Confusing

Nuclear Weapons, Russian Geckos & Thailand | John Oliver
S1 E12: Nuclear Weapons, Russian Geckos & Thailand: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 04/28/24 | 30:06

DEI backlash pushes shell-shocked colleges to the right
Axios | April Rubin | 04/22/24

Big-name colleges are now cracking down more aggressively on pro-Palestinian protests, which they say are getting increasingly intense and disruptive.

Why it matters: Politicians exerting massive pressure on universities over protests, diversity efforts and curricula have started to push administrators to the right.

Congressional testimony by Columbia University's leadership and the school's subsequent aggressive posture toward student protesters this week spotlighted the increasing influence of conservatives on America's campuses. ... Read more

AI computer on your ears
Axios | Ina Fried | 04/22/24

In debuting a new wearable computer at the TED conference last week, Iyo CEO Jason Rugolo aims to follow in the footsteps of Humane's AI Pin while avoiding that company's missteps.

Why it matters: Many expect the AI era to inspire new types of hardware products, but there's little agreement what form they will take.

Driving the news: Rugolo on Wednesday demonstrated the Iyo One, a wearable computer featuring two large earbuds, custom-fit for the wearer and capable of pass-through and even augmenting sounds from the real world, while also responding quickly to a wide range of voice queries. ... Read more

The Greatest Book a Politician Ever Wrote
Politico | Michael Grumwald | 04/21/24

That's a story from Workdays, Graham's campaign book about his stints as a pooper-scooper at a horse auction, an orderly at a nursing home, a mechanic at a Toyota dealership and other humble jobs he worked on his way to the governorship. He won the race in a massive upset and went on to serve two terms as Florida's governor and three terms as its U.S. senator. He also served more than 400 days working in his constituents' jobs. After Graham died Tuesday at age 87, President Joe Biden celebrated the workdays in a statement, noting that his former Senate colleague "knew it matters to walk a mile in other folks' shoes."

Workdays is my favorite book by a politician, partly because Graham was probably my favorite politician - nerdy, funny, curious, courteous, compassionate, widely respected and magnificently weird. But it's mostly because Workdays is an amazing glimpse into what politics ought to be. ... Read more

Workdays: Finding Florida on the job by Bob Graham

But the workdays were never just political performance art. They really worked because Graham really worked. The cover of Workdays shows Graham gritting his teeth and spraying sweat as he struggled to wrap a steel cable around a logpile; he didn't look like a very talented "skidder operator," the job he was doing for a North Florida lumber company, but he was clearly trying his very hardest. Lots of politicians talk about "the dignity of work." Not so many back it up by picking tomatoes and shoveling manure.

Graham always put in a full day on whatever job he was doing, and his genuine respect for his co-workers and their craft comes across on every page. He spent his day at the nursing home feeding and bathing patients and changing their soiled bedsheets with Johnny Denton, "a 33-year-old Black man of Santa Claus shape and ebullience" who earned $2.45 an hour. He was clearly moved by Denton's dedication to his patients, by his belief that "these old folks must be good, because God let them live so long," by the care he took to fold the seams in the sheets under the bed so nobody would get sores.

How the strong U.S. dollar is rippling through the world economy
Axios | Neil Irwin | 04/19/24

With the world's finance ministers gathered in Washington this week, one topic is coming up over and over: A surge in the value of the U.S. dollar against most other major currencies is making life complicated for economic policymakers around the world.

Why it matters: The flip side of the stronger dollar is weakening in other major currencies, which tends to fuel inflation in countries that have already been struggling to bring price pressures down.

It also makes dollar-denominated debts overseas - especially common in emerging markets - more onerous, essentially throttling economic activity. ... Read more

Medicaid: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 04/18/24 | 28:12

Jon Stewart on Iran, Israel, and Trump's Hush Money Trial | The Daily Show | 04/15/24 | 14:46

Google fires 28 employees over protest of cloud contract with Israel
Axios | Jacob Knutson | 04/18/24

Google fired 28 employees on Wednesday after sit-ins at the company's offices in protest of its cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.

Why it matters: The protests stemmed from long-brewing discontent among a group of Google and Amazon workers over claims that Israel is using the companies' services to harm Palestinians.

Context: The group of workers, called No Tech For Apartheid, organized sit-in demonstrations earlier this week at Google locations in New York City, Seattle and Sunnyvale, California to protest Project Nimbus.

Nimbus, which went into effect in July 2021, is a $1.2 billion artificial intelligence and computing services agreement between Google, Amazon Web Services and the Israeli government. ... Read more

AI optimists crowd out doubters at TED
Axios | Ina Fried | 04/18/24

Some of the biggest names in tech took to the TED stage this week to reiterate the boundless possibilities of AI, with only brief nods to its risks and few new ideas for addressing them.

Why it matters: The technology industry is racing to create AI systems that could surpass human intelligence - and also believes they will somehow remain within our control.

Driving the news: Industry giants painted bold pictures of utopian breakthroughs.

1. Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis suggested that while today's science sees only a few limbs of the tree of knowledge, AI could allow us to see "the entire tree" one day.
2. Mustafa Suleyman, Hassabis' co-founder at DeepMind and now a top Microsoft executive, went further, contending that we should think of AI as "a new kind of digital species."
3. Investor Vinod Khosla, meanwhile, promised AI would deliver free medical advice and education to all.

The risk, known as a "Moloch trap," is that individuals or organizations will take actions that make sense for themselves but end up harming society. (Poker champion Liv Boeree traced this dilemma in a TED AI talk last year.) ... Read more

World braces for Iran-Israel cyberattacks following missile attack
Axios | Sam Sabin | 04/16/24

Cyberattacks are likely to be high on the list of options Israel and Iran are considering this week as they map out retaliatory actions, experts say.

Why it matters: Iran's drone and missile attack against Israel on Saturday brought the two nations into unprecedented territory.

Israel's military leaders have already vowed to respond to the attack.

"The overt hostility and the overt physical aspects of the state-on-state confrontation moved things into a different sphere," Andrew Borene, executive director for global security at Flashpoint, told Axios. ... Read more

The reality of being a criminal defendant on trial finally dawned on Trump. He didn't take it well.
Politico | Kyle Cheney | 04/16/24

Donald Trump is learning a hard lesson: Criminal defendants don't get to set their own schedules.

Three times on Monday the former president asked Justice Juan Merchan to cut him loose from his hush money trial to attend to other matters - some personal, some political and some legal. Three times the judge responded with, essentially, "eh, we'll see."

Could he attend his son Barron's high school graduation on May 17? I'll get back to you, Merchan said.

It's a jarring new reality for Trump, who has been accustomed to setting the agenda for most of his adult life - and, in the years since his presidency, has bounced between his sunny Florida resort and political rallies brimming with adoring fans. But this spring, he'll have to spend most weekdays in a drab 15th floor county courtroom in a city with very little MAGA. ... Read more

Powerful conservative funds hand out millions to pro-Trump far-right groups
TheGuradian | Peter Stone | 04/16/24

Two powerful conservative non-profits have donated millions of dollars to a number of pro-Trump groups led by key far-right allies Stephen Miller, Charlie Kirk and others that have promoted election denialism, extremist anti-immigrant policies and legal challenges to bolster the Maga movement.

Based in Wisconsin, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Bradley Impact Fund in 2022 separately doled out six- and seven-figure checks to groups such as Miller's America First Legal and Kirk's Turning Point USA, and other Trump-friendly bastions such as the Heritage Foundation and Michael Flynn's America's Future. ... Read more

Pittsburgh streets flooded as severe storms threaten Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic
Axios | Rebecca Falconer,Andrew Freedman | 04/12/24

Heavy, relentless rains flooded Pittsburgh-area streets and prompted water rescues Thursday night, as a severe storm system threatened parts of the eastern U.S. into Friday.

The big picture: A rare flash flood emergency, the National Weather Service's highest flood alert category, was issued for parts of Pittsburgh, where up to 4 inches of rain had fallen just before 9:30pm Thursday.

The heavy rains were triggered by the same storm system that unleashed tornadoes and heavy rains across much of the South and Southeast this week, with flood emergencies declared in three other locations.

On Wednesday, thunderstorms brought so much rain to New Orleans that the day ranked as the third-wettest April day on record there. ... Read more

FBI chief warns of "coordinated attack" threat to U.S. after Russia shooting
Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 04/12/24

The FBI is growing increasingly concerned about a potential attack in the U.S. similar to last month's Russia concert hall shooting, bureau director Christopher Wray said Thursday.

The big picture: "As I look back over my career in law enforcement, I would be hard-pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once," Wray told lawmakers as he urged Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Zoom in: "Our most immediate concern has been that individuals or small groups will draw twisted inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home," Wray told the committee.

"But now increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia concert hall" that killed more than 140 people, he added. ... Read more

Biden and Japanese PM forge closer ties to counter China in Pacific region
Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 04/11/24

President Biden pledged Wednesday closer ties with Japan and the Philippines to counter China's increasing influence in the Pacific.

The big picture: Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced in D.C. new military, economic and other agreements ahead of their trilateral summit on Thursday with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

"For the first time, Japan and the United States and Australia will create a networked system of air, missile, and defense architecture." ... Read more

Is It Inflation? Or Is It Greedflation? | Robert Reich | 04/10/24 | 5:06

Boeing: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 03/10/24 | 32:35

America the slot machine
Axios | Zachary Basu | 04/10/24

The explosion of legalized gambling has set the stage for a provocative new frontier in the world of risk-taking - betting markets for everyday events, ranging from Taylor Swift streams to hurricanes hitting major U.S. cities.

Why it matters: Americans' growing fixation with gambling has fueled a multibillion-dollar sports betting industry, meme stock mania on Wall Street, record Powerball jackpots and soaring casino spending. Prediction markets could be the next to cash in on the phenomenon.

Last week, the Trump-tied trading firm Susquehanna became Kalshi's first dedicated institutional market maker - a major milestone in the platform's ability to unlock consistent liquidity. ... Read more

Netanyahu's defense minister contradicts him, tells U.S. Rafah invasion date not set
Axios | Barak Ravid | 04/09/23

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Monday that Israel has not yet set a date for an operation in Rafah, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's public claim Monday that "there is a date," according to a source with direct knowledge.

Why it matters: The Biden administration is pushing Netanyahu not to proceed with an operation in Rafah, where more than one million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. Netanyahu has presented the plans as a done deal, but both U.S. officials and now Gallant are now contradicting him.

The U.S. is concerned that such an operation would cause massive civilian casualties and an even deeper humanitarian crisis. ... Read more

4.8-magnitude earthquake felt across eastern U.S.
Axios | Jacob Knutson | 04/05/24

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.8 hit the New York and New Jersey region on Friday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Why it matters: This appears to be the strongest earthquake to hit the New York area since a 5.2 magnitude quake in 1884, according to a tracker from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. ... Read more

Deadly Northeast storm disrupts travel and causes widespread outages
Axios | Andrew Freedman | 04/05/24

A powerful, deadly storm that's dumped several inches of snow across New England and other parts of the U.S. Northeast disrupted travel and caused widespread outages into Friday morning.

The big picture: Well over a foot of snow has fallen in parts of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Nearly 290,000 customers had no power in Maine alone, with nearly 116,00 in the dark in neighboring N.H. on Friday morning.

Thousands of flights were canceled and over 600,000 people were without power across six states Thursday. By Friday morning, an estimated 388,000 still had no electricity, according to poweroutage.us. ... Read more

SPY AGENCIES SKEWED INTEL TO PLEASE TRUMP, AND OBAMA TOO
TheIntercept | author | date

"Individuals looked to avoid conflict and please political masters," a Pentagon-backed RAND corporation study finds.

U.S. INTELLIGENCE SKEWS its findings to find favor with both Republican and Democratic policymakers, including former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama, a sweeping new study by the Pentagon-backed RAND Corporation finds. The study draws on interviews, some anonymous, with nearly a dozen current and former U.S. intelligence officials and policymakers.

Despite the popular "deep state" characterization of the intelligence community as a rogue army running roughshod over elected leaders, the study concludes the exact opposite. It portrays an intelligence community that naturally tilts its reports and forecasts to curry favor with presidents and their high-level policymakers in Washington, regardless of party or issue. ... Read more

Donald Trump and the United States of Amnesia
MotherJones | David Corn | updated 04/04/24

It is amazing-and an indictment of the American political system-that the fellow whose mishandling of the pandemic resulted in hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths could be in strong contention for a return to the presidency.

Donald Trump and his campaign are banking on the human inclination to cast aside or deemphasize ugly memories-to the extent that they have been absurdly asking voters, "Are you better off now than four years ago?" This is bonkers. Four years ago, we were in the middle of a pandemic that was killing thousands a week-by the end of April 2020, 60,000 Americans had died-and crushing the economy. It was a time of fear and food lines, as Trump downplayed and mismanaged the crisis. ... Read more

Behind the Curtain: How Trump's mind works
Axios | Jim VandeHei,Mike Allen | 04/04/24

Former President Trump thinks, talks and acts like no other politician in our lifetime. There's a Rosetta stone that demystifies how his mind works, his closest friends tell us: his Mar-a-Lago Spotify playlist.

At his oceanside retreat in Palm Beach, Trump controls the surround-sound stereo system on the breezy dining patio with his big iPad and its Spotify list. Regulars jokingly call it the "Deejay T" performance.

It's Trump's golden oldies: "Phantom of the Opera" ... "Jesus Christ Superstar" ... and Elvis, including "Suspicious Minds." Plus "Hello" by Lionel Ritchie ... Guns N' Roses' "November Rain" ... and the duet by James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti, "It's A Man's Man's Man's World." ... Read more

Inside the Movement to Ban Lab-Grown Meat
MotherJones | WYATT MYSKOW | 03/17/24

Across the nation, right-wing legislators have set their sights on the sale of protein cultured from animal cells.

Months in jail and thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees—those are the consequences Alabamians and Arizonans could soon face for selling cell-cultured meat products that could cut into the profits of ranchers, farmers and meatpackers in each state.

State legislators from Florida to Arizona are seeking to ban meat grown from animal cells in labs, citing a "war on our ranching" and a need to protect the agriculture industry from efforts to reduce the consumption of animal protein, thereby reducing the high volume of climate-warming methane emissions the sector emits. ... Read more

The ______ Secret Behind Lab-Grown Meat
MotherJones | Tom Philpott | 04/__/22

Lab meat-flesh grown in massive tanks instead of in the bodies of sentient animals-offers the promise of having our steak and eating it guilt-free, too. No vast amounts of water-polluting chemicals to grow feed crops; no low-paid, oft-injured slaughterhouse workers; no climate-warming gases from cow burps or manure lagoons, and no billions of animals slaughtered each year to satisfy our carnivory.

Once a staple only of science fiction, the stuff is poised to land on your dinner plate this year, at least according to boosters of the cultivated-meat industry (to use its preferred name). In Singapore-the only nation to approve lab meat for sale-you can already go to the JW Marriott South Beach hotel and order steamed chicken dumplings made with "real meat without slaughter" in the form of chicken cells grown by a US-based company called Eat Just. And other cell-meat startups vow to bring product to market in 2022, pending regulatory approval. ... Read more

At least 4 dead, hundreds injured after 7.5 magnitude earthquake | DW News | 04/03/24 | 4:13

State Medical Boards: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 03/21/24 | 22:55

Intense April storm threatens much of U.S. with severe weather
Axios | Rebecca Falconer,Andrew Freedman | 04/02/24

A "highly impactful, major Spring storm" that lashed parts of California with heavy snow and flooding rains over the weekend is bringing multiple severe weather impacts across the U.S. as it marches eastward in a multi-day outbreak.

The big picture: Tornado and severe thunderstorm watches on Monday evening stretched from Texas to Illinois, with flood watches from Illinois to West Virginia due to the storm that disrupted travel in parts of California and caused a major road slip on a section of the state's Highway 1.

The National Weather Service warned of potentially heavy rains and flash flooding into Tuesday from the lower Missouri Valley, across the mid-Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley and into the Central Appalachians.

"A substantial severe weather risk will exist Tuesday afternoon and evening across portions of the Ohio and Tennessee valleys and into the Mid-Atlantic states," the NWS noted in a Tuesday morning forecast discussion. ... Read more

Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: April 1 | MSNBC | 04/02/24 | 16:28

Jon Stewart On The False Promises of AI | The Daily Show | 04/02/24 | 14:54

Intense April storm to threaten much of U.S. with severe weather
Axios | Rebecca Falconer,Andrew Freedman | 04/01/24

A major storm that lashed parts of California with heavy snow and flooding rains over the Easter weekend is set to march from west to east across the U.S., sparking a multi-day severe weather outbreak this week.

The big picture: Parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois are most at risk on Monday from the storm that disrupted travel in parts of California and caused a major road slip on a section of the state's Highway 1.

"Severe thunderstorms with very large hail (2-3 inch diameter or greater), damaging gusts (60-80 mph) and a few tornadoes (potentially up to EF2) are expected this afternoon into tonight from north Texas and Oklahoma into the lower Ohio River Valley," the SPC stated in an online discussion. ... Read more

Extremist ex-adviser drives 'anti-white racism' plan for Trump win
TheGuardian | Martin Pengelly | 04/01/24

The former Trump White House adviser, anti-immigration extremist and white nationalist Stephen Miller is helping drive a plan to tackle supposed "anti-white racism" if Donald Trump returns to power next year, Axios reported.

Should Trump return to power, Axios said, Miller and other aides plan to "dramatically change the government's interpretation of civil rights-era laws to focus on 'anti-white racism' rather than discrimination against people of colour". ... Read more