Home · News · News Feb 2018 · Feb 20 2018
Tuesday February 20, 2018

A decade after meltdown, Senate moves to roll back bank rules
Politico | Zachary Warmbrodt | 02/20/18

U.S. senators are planning to mark the 10th anniversary of Wall Street's meltdown this year with a gift to the nation's banks: a bill that would unravel regulations put in place after the crisis.

The proposed rollback of some key post-crisis rules - which could advance in the coming weeks - is one of the few examples of bipartisanship in Washington since President Donald Trump's election.

On one side are moderate Democrats such as Sens. Heidi Heitkamp and Jon Tester from Republican-leaning states who support the legislation because they say it will provide relief to small and regional banks and boost rural economies.

On the other are progressives like Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and their activist allies, who argue that the bill will put consumers at risk. They're working to undercut the party's centrists before the vote, with several of the moderates -- as well as Brown -- facing tough reelection campaigns this year. ... Read more

Cancer drug Lomustine, at one point was being sold for around $50 a capsule, the same dose now costs $768.
TYT | author | 02/19/18

Lomustine has been used to treat brain tumours, lung cancer and Hodgkin's lymphoma for more than 40 years but is now seen by some patients as too expensive.

In 2013, production of the drug, which was previously called CeeNU, passed from pharma giant Bristol-Myers Squibb to a Miami-based startup called NextSource Biotechnology.

At that point it was being sold for around $50 a capsule. The same dose now costs $768 (£570).

NextSource has increased the price nine times in less than five years. A 20 per cent hike in August was followed by a further 12 per cent rise in November, according to analysis by the Wall Street Journal. Prices of other doses of the drug, which the company has renamed Gleostine, have also been increased exponentially.

Although the patent for lomustine has expired, there is no generic version being produced and so NextSource has no competitors to discourage it from raising prices.

Professor Henry Friedman, a neuro-oncologist at Duke University, said: "This is simply price gouging. People are not going to be able to afford it, or they're going to pay a lot of money and have financial liability."
Cancer Drug Price Raised 1400% | TYT | 02/19/18 | 9:05
Anderson Cooper: Trump is all about himself
Anderson Cooper: Trump is all about himself | 02/19/18 | 7:43
Trump has... spent 26% of his time out on the golf course spend 33% of his time at a Trump branded property cost US $43,000,000.00 in tax payer money for golf.

A Consensus Emerges: Russia Committed an "Act of War" on Par With Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Should the U.S. Response Be Similar?
TheIntercept | Glenn Greenwald | 02/19/18

IN THE WAKE of last week's indictments alleging that 13 Russian nationals and entities created fake social media accounts and sponsored political events to sow political discord in the U.S., something of a consensus has arisen in the political and media class (with some notable exceptions) that these actions not only constitute an "act of war" against the U.S., but one so grave that it is tantamount to Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Indeed, that Russia's alleged "meddling" is comparable to the two most devastating attacks in U.S. history has, overnight, become a virtual cliché.

The claim that Russian meddling in the election is "an act of war" comparable to these events isn't brand new. Senators from both parties, such as Republican John McCain and Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, have long described Russian meddling in 2016 as an "act of war." Hillary Clinton, while promoting her book last October, described Russia's alleged hacking of the DNC and John Podesta's email inbox as a "cyber 9/11." And last February, the always war-hungry Tom Friedman of the New York Times said on "Morning Joe" that Russian hacking "was a 9/11-scale event. They attacked the core of our democracy. That was a Pearl Harbor-scale event." ...

BUT ...
Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, February 20 [9:03]
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, February 20 (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. Mueller Probe Heats Up: 13 Russians Indicted, Ex-Trump Aide to Plead Guilty, Focus on Kushner Grows
  3. Robert Reich: Morality & the Common Good Must Be at Center of Fighting Trump's Economic Agenda
Why is a Russian Troll Farm Being Compared to 9/11? | TRNN | 02/20/18 | 16:11
Conservatives Attacking School Shooting Survivors Online | TYT | 02/19/18 | 6:36
Dan Rather Defends the Parkland Survivors | TYT | 02/19/18 | 26:36
The1a.org
The Columbine Generation | 1a.org | 02/20/18 | 1hr
In April 1999, two students killed 12 classmates, one teacher and themselves at Columbine High School in Colorado. Nineteen years later, a gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In between, an estimated 150,000 students experienced a shooting at their school.

The students at Parkland were born after Columbine. And now some of the survivors are taking action to try to ensure children born today won't grow up in a world where school shootings are common occurrences.
What's In The Gun Background Check Plan The President Endorsed? | 1a.org | 02/20/18 | 1hr
After a national outcry over gun violence in Florida last week, there are the early signs of compromise in Washington: President Donald Trump has endorsed a bipartisan proposal to strengthen gun background checks. But what is this legislation, and could it have helped prevent last week's bloodshed?


Joe: White House Makes Smart Move In Mitt Romney Support | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 02/20/18 | 8:36
Historian Says President Donald Trump Ignoring Worst US Attack Since 9/11 | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 02/20/18 | 12:50
Indictment Rings Alarms On Facebook, So What Can Be Done? | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 02/20/18 | 6:19
After Mueller Indictments Donald Trump Fails To Criticize Russia | The 11th Hour | MSNBC | 02/19/18 | 8:22
Lawrence: Advisers Held Off Donald Trump's Golfing, But Not His Tweeting | The Last Word | MSNBC | 02/19/18 | 7:46

02.20.2018. 12:34



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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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