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Friday January 10, 2020
The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory by Andrew J. Bacevich

A thought-provoking and penetrating account of the post-Cold war follies and delusions that culminated in the age of Donald Trump from the bestselling author of The Limits of Power.

When the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Washington establishment felt it had prevailed in a world-historical struggle. Our side had won, a verdict that was both decisive and irreversible. For the world's "indispensable nation," its "sole superpower," the future looked very bright. History, having brought the United States to the very summit of power and prestige, had validated American-style liberal democratic capitalism as universally applicable.

In the decades to come, Americans would put that claim to the test. They would embrace the promise of globalization as a source of unprecedented wealth while embarking on wide-ranging military campaigns to suppress disorder and enforce American values abroad, confident in the ability of U.S. forces to defeat any foe. Meanwhile, they placed all their bets on the White House to deliver on the promise of their Cold War triumph: unequaled prosperity, lasting peace, and absolute freedom.

In The Age of Illusions, bestselling author Andrew Bacevich takes us from that moment of seemingly ultimate victory to the age of Trump, telling an epic tale of folly and delusion. Writing with his usual eloquence and vast knowledge, he explains how, within a quarter of a century, the United States ended up with gaping inequality, permanent war, moral confusion, and an increasingly angry and alienated population, as well, of course, as the strangest president in American history.
Andrew Bacevich: Trump Sparked "Unnecessary Crisis" by Killing Soleimani, Barely Avoiding War | DN | 01/09/20 | 13:52
Andrew Bacevich: The U.S. Needs to Abandon "Militarized Approach" to Middle East and Build Peace | DN | 01/09/20 | 19:59
The Trump Administration Is Repeating Iraq War Talking Points

The Fed plans to keep pumping cash
Axios | Dion Rabouin | 01/10/20

The New York Fed added $83.1 billion in temporary liquidity to financial markets Thursday, and the U.S. central bank looks primed to keep pumping cash for at least the next few months.

Why it matters: The stock market's 30% gain in 2019 was in no small part backed by the Fed's decision to cut U.S. interest rates three times and inject more than $1 trillion of temporary financing into the repo market. It also added more than $400 billion to its balance sheet in the fourth quarter.

What we're hearing: Fed vice chair Richard Clarida told an audience assembled at the Council on Foreign Relations Thursday that the Fed was prepared to continue adding to its balance sheet and providing liquidity to the repo market "at least through April." ... Read more

Trump's Art of the Steal
Politico | Michael Kruse | 01/10/20

Sometime soon, Donald Trump, the third president in the history of the United States to be impeached, is expected to face a trial in the Senate, charged with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Traced back to its roots, this is a crisis entirely of his own creation: He came across a sketchy scrap of information, a debunked piece of Russian propaganda relating to Ukraine, and he saw it as something he could use, to help himself and to hurt an opponent. He latched onto it, pumped it up, and passed it along.

Anyone wondering how the president could make this kind of mistake has missed something important about Trump's rise. For as long as he has been in politics--in fact, for longer--he has been a ruthlessly effective practitioner of the art of parroting others' most provocative, salacious ideas. "There are a lot of people that think ..." "That's what I heard ..." "Some people even say ..." His gossipy M.O. was a staple of his campaign, propelling his historic victory, but it also has driven the scandal that has consumed his presidency--"I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike," he said on the now well-known call last July with President Volodymyr Zelensky. ... Read more

'Serious concerns' raised over integrity of Iran plane crash site
TheGuardian | Peter Beaumont | 01/10/20

Iranian authorities appear to have cleared plane's debris from site before outside investigators had made examinations

Air crash experts have raised serious concerns over the handling of the crash site of a Ukrainian airliner suspected to have been accidentally shot down by Iranian missiles, as fears grow that Tehran has sought to eliminate evidence from the area.

Graham Braithwaite, professor of safety and accident investigation at Cranfield University, said the Iranian handling of the crash site, including the apparent quick removal of evidence, raised "serious concerns over the integrity of the investigation." ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, January 10 [7:48]
The Weaponization of Data: Cambridge Analytica, Information Warfare & the 2016 Election of Trump | DN | 01/10/20 | 48:27
We continue our conversation with the directors of "The Great Hack," Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, as well as former Cambridge Analytica employee Brittany Kaiser and propaganda researcher Emma Briant, about Cambridge Analytica's parent company SCL Group's history as a defense contractor. "We're in a state of global information warfare now," Briant says. "How do we know if our militaries develop technologies and the data that it has gathered on people, for instance, across the Middle East ... how do we know when that is turning up in Yemen or when that is being utilized by an authoritarian regime against the human rights of its people or against us? How do we know that it's not being manipulated by Russia, by Iran, by anybody who's an enemy, by Saudi Arabia, for example, who SCL were also working with? We have no way of knowing, unless we open up this industry and hold these people properly accountable for what they're doing."
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, January 10 (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. "Democracy For Sale": Cambridge Analytica & Big Tech's History of Manipulating Elections
  3. The Weaponization of Data: Cambridge Analytica, Information Warfare & the 2016 Election of Trump
The Liars that Led Us to War | TRNN | 01/10/20 | 24:39
Right-Wingers In DENIAL About Australia Wildfires | TYT | 01/09/20 | 6:52
The1a.org
The News Roundup -- Domestic | 1a.org | 01/10/20 | 1hr
Iran launched missiles Wednesday that struck at least two military bases in Iraq that housed U.S. troops. Satellite photos of the sites show extensive damage as a result of the attack.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has taken the impeachment trial into his own hands by putting forward a set of impeachment trial rules without Democratic support. Whether or not the Senate will call witnesses and release documents will be determined after opening arguments are made.

Puerto Rico is waiting for billions of dollars in federal aid that was due after hurricanes that struck two years ago as it recovers from a major earthquake that struck Tuesday morning.
The News Roundup -- International | 1a.org | 01/10/20 | 1hr
Around the world, fallout continues over the assassination of Iranian military commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. After retaliatory ballistic missile attacks by Iran, President Donald Trump told the world that Iran seems to be standing down.

But after those comments, Iranian officials committed to "harsher revenge."

An Al-Shabab attack on a base in Kenya took the lives of three Americans.

Meanwhile, scientists estimate that wildfires in Australia have killed at least 25 people and around a billion animals during one of the worst fire seasons on record.
Donald Trump, Master Of Naming Things, Pitches "NATOME" At Presser | Stephen Colbert | 01/10/20 | 4:26
President Donald Trump, GOP Attempt To Re-Frame Democratic Criticism | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 01/10/20 | 6:29
Low Moment As Lindsey Graham Accuses Sen. Lee | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 01/09/20 | 6:02
On Trump Trial, Sen. McConnell Gets Fact-Checked By Six Of His Senate Colleagues At Once | MSNBC | 01/09/20 | 13:09
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
White House Officials "Shushed" Lawmakers Who Asked Questions During Iran Briefing | Stephen Colbert | 01/09/20 | 8:23
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
If You Don't Know, Now You Know: Australia's Wildfires | The Daily Show | 01/09/20 | 6:28
Late Night with Seth Meyers
Congress Votes to Limit Trump's War Powers After Iran Lies | Seth Meyers | 01/09/20 | 12:16
Jimmy Kimmel
No One Trusts Donald Trump | Jimmy Kimmel | 01/10/20 | 5:09

01.10.2020. 18:21



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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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