Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

It'd Be Pretty Easy For Trump To Pardon His Family Members. He Could Even Tweet It.
HP | Ryan J. Reilly | 07/31/17

There's a normal process for your average federal convict seeking a presidential pardon. There are petitions to prepare, letters to solicit, character affidavits to notarize, background checks to be conducted and federal prosecutors to be consulted. The whole process, controlled by the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney, can take years, and there's a very slim chance the president will ultimately grant a pardon.

However, if your dad is the president and you're hoping to head off a potential indictment, you could just ask him to send a tweet.

President Donald Trump has, via Twitter, floated the possibility that he'll use pardons as a means of shutting down indictments that may grow out of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference with the 2016 election. ... Read more

19 seconds of drama: Reaction to McCain's vote | CNN | 07/28/17 | 1:18

Can General Kelly Stop the Chaos Inside Trump's West Wing?
TheAtlantic | David A. Graham | 07/28/17

President Trump replaced his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, with the current secretary of Homeland Security, a retired Marine general.

For once, the rumors of Reince Priebus's demise were not exaggerated. President Trump announced late Friday afternoon that he had named John Kelly as chief of staff, replacing Priebus. Priebus had been the subject to whispers of imminent dismissal more or less since he took the job, but the arrival of communications director Anthony Scaramucci last week, over Priebus's objection, seems to have sped up his departure. ... Read more

At Our Own Peril: DoD Risk Assessment in a Post-Primacy World

'At Our Own Peril' is the product of a year-long U.S. Army War College (USAWC) research effort. The report was sponsored by Army G-3/5 (Strategy, Plans, and Policy Directorate), the Joint Staff, J-5 (Strategy Development Division), and the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development. The work is intended to add to the inevitable debates on risk and risk assessment accompanying forthcoming defense strategy development. The report endeavors to inform the defense strategy discussion by evaluating the components, high-level assessment, and articulation of risk by the Department of Defense (DoD) at the strategic and military levels of analysis, as well as across the operational and future challenges time horizon. Moreover, in doing so, it answers a single simple question: How should DoD adapt its current risk identification and assessment conventions to accommodate an environment defined by persistent, disruptive change? To arrive at actionable findings and recommendations, the USAWC study team examined DoD's risk assessment challenge in four principal areas of inquiry: describing risk, identifying risk, assessing risk, and effectively communicating risk. The study team found three clear vulnerabilities or shortcomings in current risk convention. First, it is excessively focused on near-term military threats. Second, it lacks a meaningful connection back to concrete defense objectives. Finally, third, it has proven to be an insufficient catalyst for essential post-primacy defense innovation and adaptation. These are reflected in a general dissatisfaction among many DoD stakeholders on the state of risk as it relates to corporate-level strategy.

Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky (Update) | | 07/28/17 | 49:22

Noam Chomsky - The Crimes of U.S. Presidents | old, 10/07/14 | 11:34

Allan Lichtman: Why President Trump will be impeached | BBC | 07/25/17 | 5:48

Anthony Scaramucci: First UK interview with Trump's new comms director | BBC | 07/26/17 | 11:23

Anthony Scaramucci, President Trump Bring Trash Talk To The West Wing | NYTimes | 07/28/17 | 2:55

Chris Wallace Destroys Anthony Scaramucci on Trump's Hypocrisy | Fox News | 07/24/17 | 16:50

Obamacare Repeal Flames Out In The Republican Senate
HP | Jeffrey Young , Matt Fuller | 07/28/17

... The Republican majority in Congress has voted dozens of times since 2011 to repeal all or part of the Affordable Care Act, and a central element of the GOP's pitch to voters during last year's election was that giving Donald Trump the keys to the White House and leaving Congress in the Republican Party's hands was all that was needed to bring an end to Obamacare.

But when presented with their first genuine opportunity to do so ? and to have to answer for the consequences ? enough Republican senators flinched that the effort failed, despite pressure from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and President Trump. Voting to dramatically increase the number of uninsured Americans is easier when you know it can't happen than when you know it will.

The final vote for the Health Care Freedom Act, designed to eliminate core components of the Affordable Care Act, went down on a 49-51 vote, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, John McCain of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joining with all 46 of the chamber's Democrats and both of its independents to defeat the measure. ... Read more

**Anthony Scaramucci Called Me to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon
NewYorker.com | Ryan Lizza | 07/27/17

He started by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. It escalated from there.

On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn't happy. Earlier in the night, I'd tweeted, citing a "senior White House official," that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question--for me.

"Who leaked that to you?" he asked. I said I couldn't give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. "What I'm going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we'll start over," he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about the staff he's inherited in his new job. "I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can't help themselves," he said. "You're an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I'm asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it." ... Read more
**Scaramucci Imploding Before Our Eyes | TYT | 07/27/17 | 10:00

Trump's hitman melts down: But is there method to Anthony Scaramucci's madness?
Salon | Heather Digby Parton | 04/28/17

I'm not sure how many more days like Thursday this country can take. The most important event was the defeat of the "skinny repeal" bill in the Senate -- which actually happened in the wee hours of Friday morning -- with Sen. John McCain casting a dramatic "no" vote to scuttle Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare one more time. Perhaps President Trump has learned that openly insulting people you need to support you isn't really such a great political tactic. (Nah.)

That brings us to the other big Trump administration story, revolving around new communications director Anthony Scaramucci, who imploded on CNN after having first exploded at New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza. The whole thing started with a tweet on Wednesday in which Scaramucci claimed he had gone to the FBI because someone had leaked his financial disclosure forms and strongly suggested that someone was White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. ... Read more

The Timeline In the Case Against Trump | Keith Obermann (#101) | 07/28/17 | 6:21

Anthony Scaramucci Suggests Reince Priebus Is Leaking Info To The Press
HP | Alana Horowitz Satlin | 07/27/17

White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci on Thursday suggested that White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus is sharing confidential information to the press

n the middle of CNN's "New Day" segment in which he also compared his relationship with Priebus to Cain and Abel, Scaramucci said that he and President Donald Trump have a "very good idea" of who the leakers are and that "if Reince wants to explain that he's not a leaker, let him do that." ... Read more

Jeff Bezos Surpasses Bill Gates - Becomes World's Richest Man

What Does Russiagate Look Like to Russians?
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 07/21/17

Russia isn't as strong as we think, but they do have nukes -- which is why beating the war drum is a mistake

"We were and are under attack by a hostile foreign power," he said. "We should be debating how many sanctions we should place on Russia, or whether we should blow up the KGB."

Begala's is the latest in a string of comments from prominent pols and pundits suggesting we are (or should be) in a state of war with nuclear-armed Russia. ... Read more

The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin by Kovalik Dan

Since 1945, the US has justified numerous wars, interventions, and military build-ups based on the pretext of the Russian Red Menace, even after the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991 and Russia stopped being Red. In fact, the two biggest post-war American conflicts, the Korean and Vietnam wars, were not, as has been frequently claimed, about stopping Soviet aggression or even influence, but about maintaining old colonial relationships. Similarly, many lesser interventions and conflicts, such as those in Latin America, were also based upon an alleged Soviet threat, which was greatly overblown or nonexistent. And now the specter of a Russian Menace has been raised again in the wake of Donald Trump's election.

The Plot to Scapegoat Russia examines the recent proliferation of stories, usually sourced from American state actors, blaming and manipulating the threat of Russia, and the long history of which this episode is but the latest chapter. It will show readers two key things: (1) the ways in which the United States has needlessly provoked Russia, especially after the collapse of the USSR, thereby squandering hopes for peace and cooperation; and (2) how Americans have lost out from this missed opportunity, and from decades of conflicts based upon false premises. These revelations, amongst other, make The Plot to Scapegoat Russia one of the timeliest reads of 2017.

Kristin Beck, transgender Navy SEAL hero: 'Let's meet face to face and you tell me I'm not worthy'
BusinessInsider | Paul Szoldra | 07/27/17

A retired Navy SEAL Team 6 hero who is transgender had a message for President Donald Trump after he announced the US military would bar transgender people from serving.

"Let's meet face to face and you tell me I'm not worthy," Kristin Beck, a 20-year veteran of the Navy SEALs, told Business Insider on Wednesday. "Transgender doesn't matter. Do your service." ... Read more

Lady Valor (Trailer) | TYT | older | 1:52
sIn Lady Valor: The Kristin Beck Story, former U.S. Navy SEAL Christopher Beck embarks on a new mission as Kristin Beck. Kristin's journey in search of the American ideals that she protected have a whole new meaning as she lives her life truthfully as a transgender woman.

Kristin served for over 20 years as a member of the elite special forces Navy SEALs on SEAL Team 1 as well as the United States Special Warfare Development Group what many in the public refer to as SEAL Team 6. She retired in 2011 with the rank of Senior Chief and continued high-level clearance work for the United States government and the Pentagon.

But Kristin hid her true identity throughout and after her service knowing she would lose it all if anyone were to know her secret. In 2013, a year and a half after retirement, Kristin came out publicly first on LinkedIn and on CNNs Anderson Cooper 360 soon thereafter. Many friends, colleagues and family were taken by surprise.

This film brings exclusive interviews from Kristins family and friends about her service, as well as their reactions to her coming out. It also includes exclusive footage of Chris Beck in training and combat. The documentary was filmed only a few months after the AC360 piece had aired, and the truth is still fresh and emotional for those closest to her. While many people have been supportive, some in the public have expressed more bigotry than she ever expected. After a lifetime of service, Kristin has learned that her fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness did not end on the battlefield.

Amazon | Lady Valor Kristin Beck Story (to-rent)

$350 Trillion In Securities In Limbo: LIBOR To Be Phased Out By 2021
ZeroHedge | author | 07/27/17

Unofficially, Libor died some time in 2012 when what until then was a giant conspiracy theory, namely that the world's most important reference index had been rigged for years, was confirmed. Officially, Libor died earlier today when the top U.K. regulator, the FCA announced that Libor would be phased out by the end of 2021. ... Read more

Joshua Green on the "Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump & the Storming of the Presidency" | DN | 07/26/17 | 13:05

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by Joshua Green

From the reporter who was there at the very beginning comes the revealing inside story of the partnership between Steve Bannon and Donald Trump--the key to understanding the rise of the alt-right, the fall of Hillary Clinton, and the hidden forces that drove the greatest upset in American political history.

Based on dozens of interviews conducted over six years, Green spins the master narrative of the 2016 campaign from its origins in the far fringes of right-wing politics and reality television to its culmination inside Trump's penthouse on election night.

The shocking elevation of Bannon to head Trump's flagging presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, hit political Washington like a thunderclap and seemed to signal the meltdown of the Republican Party. Bannon was a bomb-throwing pugilist who'd never run a campaign and was despised by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Yet Bannon's hard-edged ethno-nationalism and his elaborate, years-long plot to destroy Hillary Clinton paved the way for Trump's unlikely victory. Trump became the avatar of a dark but powerful worldview that dominated the airwaves and spoke to voters whom others couldn't see. Trump's campaign was the final phase of a populist insurgency that had been building up in America for years, and Bannon, its inscrutable mastermind, believed it was the culmination of a hard-right global uprising that would change the world.

Any study of Trump's rise to the presidency is unavoidably a study of Bannon. Devil's Bargain is a tour-de-force telling of the remarkable confluence of circumstances that decided the election, many of them orchestrated by Bannon and his allies, who really did plot a vast, right-wing conspiracy to stop Clinton. To understand Trump's extraordinary rise and Clinton's fall, you have to weave Trump's story together with Bannon's, or else it doesn't make sense.

John McCain Is Returning to the Senate for the Health-Care Vote
TheAtlantic | Aria Bendix | 07/24/17

The Arizona lawmaker, who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer, will serve as a critical participant in Tuesday's procedural vote.

... McCain's presence at the vote is critical, given that the GOP needs 50 senators to agree to begin formal debate on health care, in what's called a motion to proceed. McCain has told reporters he supports the legislative momentum to repeal Obamacare, but is unsure whether he will approve the final product. Last week, his office released a statement warning Congress not to "repeat the original mistakes that led to Obamacare's failure"--namely, "that it was written on a strict party-line basis and driven through Congress without a single Republican vote." Still, he's largely expected to vote "yes" along with most of the GOP conference. ... Read more
John McCain Makes Epic "No" Trumpcare Speech, Votes Yes | TYT | 07/25/17 | 13:37

Cruz being considered to replace Sessions: report
TheHill | Jacqueline Thomsen | 07/24/17

Who Will Trump Replace Jeff Sessions With? | TYT | 07/25/17 | 4:55

The Republicans Are Bailing on Trump (#100) | Keith Olbermann | 07/25/17 | 7:09

Trump's Russian Laundromat
NewRepublic | Craig Unger | 07/13/17

How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money, run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate developer into the White House.

Russian mobsters needed a lot of property from a sleazy businessman who never asks questions.

In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in New York City. The 38-year-old had arrived in America seven years before, with just $3 in his pocket. But for a former pilot in the Soviet Army -- his specialty had been shooting down Americans over North Vietnam -- he had clearly done quite well for himself. Bogatin wasn't hunting for a place in Brighton Beach, the Brooklyn enclave known as "Little Odessa" for its large population of immigrants from the Soviet Union. Instead, he was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower. ... Read more
BOMBSHELL: Trump's Been Laundering Russian Mob Money For Decades, Allegedly | TYT | 07/24/17 | 24:32

A Primer On The "Global Sharing Economy" In 20 Charts
ZeroHedge | author | 07/25/17

This morning, BofA has released a humongous, nearly 200-page "primer" on the global sharing economy which in the eyes of Wall Street and Silicon Valley is the biggest disruptor behind virtually all 21st century business models. Since it is impossible to summarize the report, which will be largely ignored by most of BofA's clients who will instead focus on the hundreds of charts scattered throughout, we will simply summarize the basics as laid out by BofA, and then present some of the more interesting charts, with the remainder to be published in subsequent thematic posts.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power by Al Gore

Vice President Gore, one of our environmental heroes and a leading expert in climate change, brings together cutting-edge research from top scientists around the world; approximately 200 photographs and illustrations to visually articulate the subject matter; and personal anecdotes and observations to document the fast pace and wide scope of global warming. He presents, with alarming clarity and conclusiveness (and with humor, too) that the fact of global climate change is not in question and that its consequences for the world we live in will be assuredly disastrous if left unchecked.

Follow Vice President Gore around the globe as he tells a story of change in the making. He connects the dots of Zika, flooding, and other natural disasters we've lived through in the last 10+ years?and much more.

The book also offers a comprehensive how-to guide on exactly how we can change the course of fate. With concrete, actionable advice on topics ranging from how to run for office to how to talk to your children about climate change, An Inconvenient Sequel will empower you to make a difference?and lets you know how exactly to do it.

Where Gore's first documentary and book took us through the technical aspects of climate change, the second documentary is a gripping, narrative journey that leaves you filled with hope and the urge to take action immediately. This book captures that same essence and is a must-have for everyone who cares deeply about our planet.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power (2017) (trailer) | TYT | 03/28/17 | 2:31

https://inconvenientsequel.tumblr.com website

Read Jared Kushner's Statement On His Meetings With Russians
HP | Hayley Miller | 07/24/17

"I did not collude," he tells congressional committees.

President Donald Trump's son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner is set to testify before congressional committees this week as part of their investigations into whether Trump associates had ties to the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Hours before facing closed-door questioning from the Senate Intelligence Committee on Monday, Kushner's camp released an 11-page written statement outlining four meetings with Russians during the 2016 campaign and transition.

"I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government," Kushner said in the statement. ... Read more

The Uninhabitable Earth
NYMagazine | David Wallace-Wells | current

I. 'Doomsday'
Peering beyond scientific reticence.
It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas -- and the cities they will drown -- have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.

Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century.

Even when we train our eyes on climate change, we are unable to comprehend its scope. This past winter, a string of days 60 and 70 degrees warmer than normal baked the North Pole, melting the permafrost that encased Norway's Svalbard seed vault -- a global food bank nicknamed "Doomsday," designed to ensure that our agriculture survives any catastrophe, and which appeared to have been flooded by climate change less than ten years after being built. ... Read more

You may have read -- as we did -- David Wallace-Wells's piece on climate change with a mixture of horror and fascination, and if you're interested in further reading, the annotated version is chockablock with citations and links to additional articles and studies. If, however, you're looking for some books on the subject, we asked our colleague to put together an extended list of titles he would recommend. Below, ten books for your "Uninhabitable Earth" reading list. ... Read more

The Media Must Fight Back (#98) | Keith Olbermann | 07/19/17 | 7:12

How Deranged Are Trump Supporters? New Poll Shows That It's Worse Than You Ever Imagined
AlterNet | News Corpse / DailyKos | 07/20/17

In the Era of Trump, Americans have been subjected to wild diversions from reality. Donald Trump and company have unleashed baseless accusations of "fake news," and the ceaseless dissemination of "alternative facts." They have violated constitutional protections of free speech and abused the media in an unprecedented manner. Trump called the media "the enemy of the American people." And his White House Press Office has discontinued on-camera briefings.

This overt hostility and flagrant assault on transparency has had an impact on a certain sector of the electorate. Trump voters have evolved into a breed of ill-informed, willfully ignorant yokels whose devotion to their Orange Julius Caesar borders on cult worship. This alarming descent into madness is frightfully illustrated in the results of a new survey by Public Policy Polling (PPP). The depth of the delirium of these lost souls is unimaginable. And yet, the data from the PPP pollsters is clear. Here are some examples from the study:

The Mega Rich Are Getting Mega Richer: A Former CEO Exposes the Corruption Behind Their Obscene Paychecks
AlterNet | Steven Clifford / Blue Rider Press | 07/20/17

The following is an excerpt from the new book The CEO Pay Machine: How It Trashes America and How to Stop It by Steven Clifford (Blue Rider Press, May 2017), available from Amazon and IndieBound:

In the long term, the indirect effect of the Pay ­Machine--?the increase in income inequality--is economically more injurious than the erosion of company earnings or a stock market downturn.

Income inequality in America has risen sharply since 1976. Economists and pundits point to multiple causes--globalization and competition from low-wage? countries; growing educational disparities that particularly affect men and minorities; technological changes that reward the highly skilled; decline of labor unions; changes in corporate culture that place stock price and earnings above employees; free market philosophy and the rise of winner-take-all economics; households with high-income couples; lower rates of marriage and of intact families; high incarceration levels; immigration of low­-skilled individuals; income tax and capital gains tax cuts and other conservative economic and tax policies; deregulation; and decreased welfare and antipoverty spending coupled with redistribution programs that disproportionately benefit the elderly. ... Read more

Elon Musk Says Humans Should Be Very VERY Concerned About Artificial Intelligence | C-Span | 07/20/17 | 59:31

Jeff Sessions Brushes Off Resignation Rumors After Scathing Trump Interview
HP | Alana Horowitz Satlin | 07/20/17

Attorney General Jeff Sessions dismissed speculation that he would be resigning from his position following scathing criticism from President Donald Trump. Sessions said it was an "honor" to serve as attorney general and that his team "wholeheartedly" shares the priorities of the Trump administration. "We love this job, we love this department," Sessions said. He added that he would continue to serve as attorney general "so as long as that is appropriate."

Trump told The New York Times on Wednesday that he wouldn't have chosen Sessions for the post if he had known Sessions was going to recuse himself from the FBI's probe into Russian election meddling. ... Read more

Trump goes off-script and fumes about Sessions and Russia probe
Politico | Josh Gerstein , Josh Dawsey | 07/20/17

The president's harsh criticism of his attorney general and the Russia probe came amid a last-ditch effort to salvage health care reform, and startled many in the West Wing.

President Donald Trump impressed senators Wednesday with a cogent, engaged pitch on health care that didn't veer wildly from the script.

Within an hour, without seeking advice from his lawyers or his senior aides, Trump was in the Oval Office telling reporters from the New York Times that he regretted hiring Jeff Sessions as his attorney general and discussing a sensitive investigation his lawyers have told him to keep quiet about -- a performance that once again left his most senior aides startled and scrambling to respond. ... Read more

Chasing Ice

Chasing Ice (trailer) | 2:23

Chasing Ice | Netflix

In the spring of 2005, acclaimed environmental photographer James Balog headed to the Arctic on a tricky assignment for National Geographic: to capture images to help tell the story of the Earth's changing climate. Even with a scientific upbringing, Balog had been a skeptic about climate change. But that first trip north opened his eyes to the biggest story in human history and sparked a challenge within him that would put his career and his very well-being at risk.

Chasing Ice is the story of one man's mission to change the tide of history by gathering undeniable evidence of our changing planet. Within months of that first trip to Iceland, the photographer conceived the boldest expedition of his life: The Extreme Ice Survey. With a band of young adventurers in tow, Balog began deploying revolutionary time-lapse cameras across the brutal Arctic to capture a multi-year record of the world's changing glaciers.

Chasing Ice website

Chasing Coral

Chasing Coral (trailer) | 1:51

Chasing Coral | Netflix

CHASING CORAL is a film directed by Jeff Orlowski and produced by Larissa Rhodes, as an Exposure Labs production. It was filmed over three years, with 650+ hours underwater, includes footage from over 30 countries, and was made with the support of over 500 people around the world.

Chasing Coral website

VICE - Greenland Is Melting

Greenland Is Melting | VICE on HBO | S2, E2 | 01/09/15 | 28:11

In this episode, Shane Smith travels to Greenland with climate scientist Jason Box to investigate why the glaciers are melting, and how the resulting rise in sea level will devastate our world sooner than expected.

VICE - Our Rising Oceans

Our Rising Oceans | VICE on HBO | S3, E1 | 01/11/16 | 42:52

Our oceans are rising. With human use of hydrocarbons skyrocketing, waters around the globe are getting hotter and, now, this warm sub-surface water is washing into Antarctica's massive western glaciers causing the glaciers to retreat and break off. Antarctica holds 90% of the world's ice and 70% of its freshwater, so if even a small fraction of the ice sheet in Antarctica melts, the resulting sea level rise will completely remap the world as we know it -- and it is already happening. In the last decade, some of the most significant glaciers here have tripled their melt rate.

VICE founder Shane Smith travels to the bottom of the world to investigate the instability of the West Antarctic ice sheet and to see first hand how the continent is melting -- and VICE follows the rising oceans to Bangladesh for a glimpse into the world's underwater future. From the UN Climate conference to the People's Climate March to the forces that deny the science of global climate change, this special extended episode covers all sides of the issue and all corners of the globe, ending with a special interview with Vice President Joe Biden.

The GOP Health Care Plan Is About To Fail. Republicans Don't Know What To Do Next.
HP | Matt Fuller , Jennifer Bendery | 07/18/17

After seven years of promises, Republicans just can't find the votes to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) appears to have exhausted his options for alternative GOP bills. Early next week, senators are expected to vote down an effort to begin debate on a bill to gut Obamacare without a replacement. The proposal is similar to one Republicans in the House and Senate sent to President Barack Obama's desk in early 2016.

The problems Republicans have decried about the Affordable Care Act, however, while often overstated, will persist. A handful of rural counties still don't have an insurer lined up to offer plans in 2018, and quite a few more counties ? about one-fifth of total exchange enrollment ? have only one option and have seen a spike in premiums in the last year or two. ... Read more

How the Trump administration's secret efforts to ease Russia sanctions fell short
Yahoo News | Michael Isikoff | older 06/02/17

In the early weeks of the Trump administration, former Obama administration officials and State Department staffers fought an intense, behind-the-scenes battle to head off efforts by incoming officials to normalize relations with Russia, according to multiple sources familiar with the events.

Unknown to the public at the time, top Trump administration officials, almost as soon as they took office, tasked State Department staffers with developing proposals for the lifting of economic sanctions, the return of diplomatic compounds and other steps to relieve tensions with Moscow. ... Read more
Trump's Been Trying To Lift Russia Sanctions Since Day One | TYT | 07/18/17 | 7:43

**Inside The 'Shakespearean Irony' Of Trump And Bannon's Relationship
FreshAir.org & NPR.org | author | 07/18/17

In August 2016, three months before the presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump was behind in the polls. Instead of staying on message, the candidate was engaged in a politically damaging fight with the parents of an Army captain killed in Iraq.

On Aug. 17, in an effort to change course, the Trump team appointed Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of the conservative Breitbart News, to lead the campaign. Journalist Joshua Green of Bloomberg Businessweek says the switch would prove to be a turning point.

Green argues that Bannon's experiences with Breitbart gave him a framework for mobilizing disaffected young white male voters who were attracted to Trump. Without such guidance, Green says, "I don't think that Donald Trump would have been elected president." ... Read more
**Inside The 'Shakespearean Irony' Of Trump And Bannon's Relationship | NPR FreshAir.org | | 07/18/17

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by Joshua Green

From the reporter who was there at the very beginning comes the revealing inside story of the partnership between Steve Bannon and Donald Trump--the key to understanding the rise of the alt-right, the fall of Hillary Clinton, and the hidden forces that drove the greatest upset in American political history.

Based on dozens of interviews conducted over six years, Green spins the master narrative of the 2016 campaign from its origins in the far fringes of right-wing politics and reality television to its culmination inside Trump's penthouse on election night.

The shocking elevation of Bannon to head Trump's flagging presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, hit political Washington like a thunderclap and seemed to signal the meltdown of the Republican Party. Bannon was a bomb-throwing pugilist who'd never run a campaign and was despised by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Yet Bannon's hard-edged ethno-nationalism and his elaborate, years-long plot to destroy Hillary Clinton paved the way for Trump's unlikely victory. Trump became the avatar of a dark but powerful worldview that dominated the airwaves and spoke to voters whom others couldn't see. Trump's campaign was the final phase of a populist insurgency that had been building up in America for years, and Bannon, its inscrutable mastermind, believed it was the culmination of a hard-right global uprising that would change the world.

Any study of Trump's rise to the presidency is unavoidably a study of Bannon. Devil's Bargain is a tour-de-force telling of the remarkable confluence of circumstances that decided the election, many of them orchestrated by Bannon and his allies, who really did plot a vast, right-wing conspiracy to stop Clinton. To understand Trump's extraordinary rise and Clinton's fall, you have to weave Trump's story together with Bannon's, or else it doesn't make sense.

Trump aides move on after health care loss
Politico | Annie Karni and Eliana Johnson | 07/18/17

As the president's biggest agenda item tanked on the Hill, his senior advisers busied themselves with their pet projects -- and looked ahead to tax reform.

The president's most senior aides appeared eager to move on from the health care loss, busying themselves with their own pet projects. Counselor Kellyanne Conway spent the morning in the Cannon House Office Building, participating in a two-hour-long bipartisan round table on veterans and the opioid crisis.

Ivanka Trump made an appearance at a global robotics competition celebrating girls from Afghanistan pursuing careers in STEM. Meanwhile, her husband, White House adviser Jared Kushner -- who has taken little interest in the health care bill since its early, troubled days in the House, when he went skiing in Aspen with his family -- was busy leading a meeting with his Office of American Innovation.

In the West Wing, chief strategist Steve Bannon took a meeting with Wayne Berman, a Republican operative and board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition whose name has surfaced as a potential future chief of staff. He also met with Kris Kobach, head of Trump's voter fraud commission, and former campaign operatives David Bossie and Corey Lewandowski, among others. But Bannon was conspicuously absent from senior staff meetings on trade and tax reform that brought Cabinet officials into the White House. ... Read more

A new round of polls shows that 6 months in to his term, Trump is the most unpopular president in the modern era
BusinessInsider | Maxwell Tani | 07/18/17

Six months into his presidency, Donald Trump remains as unpopular as ever, setting a course to become the most unpopular president at this point in his administration since the dawn of modern polling.

According to a Washington Post/ABC poll released on Sunday, the president's approval rating has dropped to 36%, while his disapproval rating rose to 58%. ... Read more
Trump Polling Worse Than Any US President EVER. | TYT | 07/17/17 | 15:19
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Report: Number Of Civilian Deaths In Trump's Air Strikes Will Soon Exceed Obama's Entire Presidency
airwars.org | author | current

Trump moves quickly when it comes to killing civilians. "A new investigation by Airwars for The Daily Beast has logged a massive escalation in civilian deaths caused by coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria against ISIS, as led by President Donald Trump's White House.

At least 2,200 civilians are estimated to have been killed up until July 13. That's over 360 a month since Trump's inauguration, or around 12 every day. By contrast, the Obama administration oversaw 2,300 civilian deaths in total over eight years.

(He was hardly a dovish president however -- Obama's legacy includes vastly expanding the military's use of drones which, in 2016, dropped some of an estimated 26,171 bombs on targets in majority-Muslim countries around the world.)" Read more
Trump About To Surpass Obama's EIGHT YEAR Civilian Death Toll | TYT | 07/17/17 | 13:23
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https://airwars.org/

Trump's 'Made In America' Week Is Already Backfiring Spectacularly
HP | Ed Mazza | 07/17/17

President Donald Trump is set to declare this week "Made In America" week to help promote products manufactured in the United States, according to The Hill. But he's already coming under fire for the move, given that Trump-branded products are often manufactured overseas.

Many of Trump's clothing items have been made in Mexico and China. During the campaign last year, his use of steel and aluminum from China became a campaign issue.

And just last week, The Washington Post reported on the fashion line of first daughter and White House aide Ivanka Trump, finding that much of it is made by low-wage workers in countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia and China. ... Read more
Trump's 'Made In America Week' Backfires BIGLY | TYT | 07/17/17 | 4:00

New U.S. Subprime Boom, Same Old Sins: Auto Defaults Are Soaring
Bloomberg | Gabrielle Coppola | 07/17/17

It's classic subprime: hasty loans, rapid defaults, and, at times, outright fraud. Only this isn't the U.S. housing market circa 2007. It's the U.S. auto industry circa 2017

A decade after the mortgage debacle, the financial industry has embraced another type of subprime debt: auto loans. And, like last time, the risks are spreading as they're bundled into securities for investors worldwide.

Subprime car loans have been around for ages, and no one is suggesting they'll unleash the next crisis. But since the Great Recession, business has exploded. In 2009, $2.5 billion of new subprime auto bonds were sold. In 2016, $26 billion were, topping average pre-crisis levels, according to Wells Fargo & Co. ... Read more

New U.S. Subprime Boom, Same Old Sins: Auto Defaults Are Soaring | Bloomberg | 07/17/17 | 3:14

Larry Fink Says Dark Clouds for U.S. Economy Aren't Waning
Bloomberg| Sabrina Willmer | 07/17/17

Laurence D. Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., said the U.S. economy is growing slower than expected and will expand modestly at 2.4 percent in the second quarter.

"There are still dark clouds we have to face," said Fink, in an interview with Bloomberg News on Monday. While corporate earnings have been good, "we aren't seeing that rise in personal income we would have thought," he said.

Fink reiterated his concern that a risk to the market is the White House's ability to quickly pass key reforms. "Are we going to see tax reform in the U.S.?" said Fink. ... Read more

How the White House and Republicans underestimated Obamacare repeal
Politico | Nancy Cook | 07/17/17

The Trump team thought Congress would scrap the health law by late February. Nobody expected the effort to drag into the summer months.

The longer Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare flounder, the clearer it becomes that President Donald Trump's team and many in Congress dramatically underestimated the challenge of rolling back former President Barack Obama's signature achievement.

The Trump transition team and other Republican leaders presumed that Congress would scrap Obamacare by President's Day weekend in late February, according to three former Republican congressional aides and two current ones familiar with the administration's efforts.

Few in the administration or Republican leadership expected the effort to stretch into the summer months, with another delay announced this weekend, eating into valuable time for lawmakers to tackle tax reform, nominations or spending bills. ... Read more

Stockman On Peak Bull: Fake Economy And Fake News
ZeroHedge | author | 07/17/17

The American economy has been mangled by decades of assault on capitalist prosperity. Growth is now dying because the Federal Reserve's hit on corporate America that has strip-mined its balance sheets to feed the halls of Wall Street. Trillions of dollars have been thrown into financial engineering (stock buybacks, M&A deals and leveraged recaps) while neglecting real investment and productivity in Flyover America. ... Read more

BLADE RUNNER 2049 - Official Trailer | Warner Bros | 05/08/17 | 2:21

New Health Care Bill Proves GOP Promises On Pre-Existing Conditions Were Never Serious
HP | Jonathan Cohn | 07/13/17

The big change in the new Senate Republican health care proposal is, as expected, an amendment that has the potential to undermine current protections for pre-existing conditions. Yes, that's despite the promises Republican leaders have made, over and over, to treat those protections as sacrosanct.

The amendment, based on a proposal that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been promoting and tweaking for weeks, would undermine the rules on what and who insurers cover in order to make insurance cheaper. These rules, which include prohibitions on charging higher premiums to people with severe medical problems, are a cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act. ... Read more

The Trump Family's Explanations Are Straining Credulity to Its Breaking Point
TheAtlantic | David Graham | 07/14/17

The story that Donald Trump Jr., his father, and their aides told about a June 9 meeting with a Russian lawyer made little sense--even before the latest revelations.

The account that the Trumps are offering is implausible on three counts. First, it is challenging to believe on its face, as I wrote earlier this week, that Trump Sr. would never have been told about the meeting. Second, the continued flow of new revelations itself suggests that whatever story the principals are peddling should be considered incomplete by default. Finally, the specifics of the string of new revelations about who attended the meeting and when it came to light make the story seem increasingly improbable.

Start with the original story--or rather, the story that Trump Jr. and others landed on on Tuesday, after he released emails about the June 9, 2016, meeting, in an attempt to get ahead of a New York Times story. (That in itself was already at least the fourth separate account Trump Jr. had offered.) Trump Jr. wanted the public to believe that he had a meeting with someone he believed to be a Russian government lawyer, offering information damaging to Hillary Clinton, because the government of Russia wished to aid his father; that he brought two other people heavily involved in the campaign to the meeting, Kushner and campaign chairman Paul Manafort; and that although his father was at Trump Tower, the site of the meeting that day, and although the family trumpets its closeness, no one told Donald Trump until he found out in recent days. Trump, through both his personal lawyers and White House staff, has said he only found recently. ... Read more

What's Actually Wrong With the U.S. Health System
TheAtlantic | Olga Khazan | 07/14/17

On the heels of the Senate's latest attempt at replacing the Affordable Care Act, the Commonwealth Fund has released its latest evaluation of what, exactly, ails the U.S. health-care system. Once again, the think tank found the U.S. medical system performed the worst among 11 similar countries, all while spending more.

The United States fared especially badly on measures of affordability, access, health outcomes, and equality between the rich and poor. The United Kingdom ranked first, and the other countries in the comparison were Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Germany, Canada, and France. ... Read more

The nation's cartoonists on the week in politics

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon Says Being an American Abroad Is 'Almost an Embarrassment'
Bloomberg | Hugh Son | 07/14/17

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, fresh from a work trip overseas, unloaded on everything that's holding back U.S. businesses.

"It's almost an embarrassment being an American traveling around the world," Dimon, 61, said on a conference call with analysts. He doesn't like listening to the "stupid shit" Americans have to deal with, expressing frustration over the nation's inability to invest in infrastructure and overhaul the tax code. "There would be much stronger growth if there were more intelligent decisions and less gridlock." ... Read more

Republicans Stare Down Failure On Health Care With No Real Plan B
HP | Matt Fuller | 07/12/17

Another map won't help if you don't know where you're headed.

Senate Republicans are still moving ahead with a vote on their health care bill next week, but barring some sudden changes of hearts, it looks like they will fall short of the votes ? and no one seems to have a real idea of what to do then.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to release the text of a revised bill Thursday, along with an amendment drafted by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that would dramatically undermine protections for people with pre-existing conditions in the name of lowering costs for healthy people. On Wednesday afternoon, Cruz suggested, but did not directly state, that he would vote against the motion to proceed on the bill if his amendment was not attached. ... ... Read more

Trump's lawyers try to control unruly White House
Politico | Josh Dawsey | 07/13/17

They are trying to remind the president and his aides that small indiscretions can spell big trouble.

The lawyers, people familiar with the internal discussions say, are reminding White House aides and the president that the stakes are higher now that a special counsel and Congress are scrutinizing their every move, that small indiscretions could turn into bigger issues, and that they have to follow rules they don't like.

Trump's legal team is attempting to separate the president from Donald Trump Jr. and the son's legal team on Russia matters, as well from Jared Kushner and his legal team, over concerns that the blurred lines could create unnecessary problems, according to these sources. They have tried to block Trump's warring band of aides from joining meetings with his lawyers, warning that they could become witnesses or be forced to hire lawyers if they attend. ... Read more

A New Sign of Fear for U.S. Drillers
Bloomberg | Ryan Collins | 07/13/17

... Earlier this year, while equity investors were killing them, the companies could bask in the warm glow of bondholders' confidence. Then the U.S. price of oil tumbled below $50 a barrel and kept sinking. Natural gas took a dive, too. That's when the warm glow turned cold.

Energy junk bonds have been hit especially hard. They slipped more than 2 percent in June, according to a Bloomberg index, after increasing 38 percent in 2016 -- a year when 89 energy companies filed for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 Energy Sector Index has slumped 16 percent since Jan. 3, while the S&P 500 is up nearly 8 percent in the same period. ... Read more

Visa Begins Bribing Merchants To Stop Taking Cash
ZeroHedge | author | 07/13/17

The war on cash is escalating. A big driver isn't central banks who want to be able to inflict negative interest rates on savers, or Treasuries who see cash transactions as hiding revenues from their tax collectors, but the payment networks that want to kill cash (and checks!) as competitors to their oh so terrific (and fee-gouging) credit and debit cards. ... Read more

40% Of The Fed's Interest On Excess Reserves Is Paid To Foreign Banks
ZeroHedge | author | 07/13/17

Now that Congress is finally scrutinizing the $4.5 trillion elephant in the room, it may be interested to know that approximately 40%, or $838 billion in reserves parked at the Fed belong to foreign banks. This means that the Fed is giving a $10 billion (and rising) annualized subsidy to non-US banks every year. ... Read more

Scientists Say Massive Iceberg Has Broken Off in Antarctica
Bloomberg | Climate Changed | 07/12/17

A vast iceberg with twice the volume of Lake Erie has broken off from a key floating ice shelf in Antarctica, scientists said Wednesday.

The iceberg broke off from the Larsen C ice shelf, scientists at the University of Swansea in Britain said. The iceberg is described as weighing 1 trillion tons (1.12 trillion U.S. tons).

The process, known as calving, occurred in the last few days, when a 5,800-square-kilometer (2,240-square-mile) section broke away. ... Read more

Climate Change Dilemma for Coastal America: How Much Flooding Is Too Much?
Bloomberg | Christopher Flavelle and Daniel Levitt | 07/12/17

... Local governments around the coastal U.S. will face variations on that dilemma, perhaps sooner than they realize. In a report released Wednesday, the Union of Concerned Scientists used federal data to project the year communities will become what it calls "chronically inundated." The group, which urges Congress to take action to address climate change, defined that threshold as any community that faced flooding an average of every two weeks across at least 10 percent of its area.

It's not just small towns along the beach. By 2100, a third of Savannah, Georgia could be flooded twice a month, including more densely populated parts of the city's historic downtown. ... Read more

The Everybody-Does-It Defense of Collusion
TheAtlantic | Mckay Coppins | 07/11/17

After months of vehement denials, Trump supporters and surrogates are trying a new tack: If collusion occurred, it was no big deal.

As evidence continues to mount suggesting the Trump campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election, the president's allies have shifted to a new defense. As former House Speaker Newt Gingrich put it: "You could argue it's dumb, but it's not illegal."

For months, the White House has fervently denied allegations of collusion, with President Trump routinely dismissing Russia stories in the press as "fake news," and calling himself the victim of an historically unprecedented "witch hunt." His Republican defenders have largely followed suit, rejecting the entire collusion narrative as a "hoax," or at least a partisan smear. ... Read more

Steve Bannon is back -- and while we're all distracted he wants to outsource the war in Afghanistan
Salon | Heather Digby Parton | 07/12/17

While Don Jr. implodes, Steve Bannon and Erik Prince have hatched a plan to privatize war and pillage Afghanistan

... Ever since President Trump's inauguration there has been a tremendous amount of palace intrigue with factions loyal to Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon fighting for influence alongside whichever policy advisers and cabinet officials happen to be relevant that particular week. The Russia scandal has implicated Kushner in ways that make him especially vulnerable, however, and Bannon appears to be filling the vacuum.

According New York Magazine's Joshua Green, who has been following Bannon for years and has a new book coming out on the subject called "Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency," Bannon is fully back in the fold after a few shaky months and he's advising Trump to fight and win by any means necessary. Green reports that the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, the recent moves on immigration and Trump's Warsaw speech are all signs that Bannon's influence is once again on the rise. He notes that Bannon, so far, is personally untouched by the Russia scandal: ... Read more

Emails reveal Donald Trump Jr. wanted to work with Russia to get Hillary Clinton dirt
Salon | Matthew Rozsa | 07/11/17

Donald Trump Jr. has just released emails on Twitter that may make his case look worse than it did prior to the scathing story by The New York Times over the weekend.

In a series of Twitter posts that he insisted were intended to be "totally transparent," Trump Jr. revealed a series of emails that he exchanged with former tabloid journalist Rob Goldstone. Perhaps the most damning exchange occurs on the fourth page, when Goldstone writes:

"The Crown prosecutor of Russia met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father." ... Read more

Sean Hannity blames Democrats for the Donald Trump Jr. problems
Salon | Taylor Link | 07/11/17

The Fox News host pre-taped his show Monday before news broke that there was emails about Russia's involvement

Fox News host Sean Hannity lives in an alternative universe and is begging his audience to join him. The right-wing commentator took his spin to towering new heights on Monday when he blamed everybody except the Trump administration for the growing Russia scandal.

Hannity, a mouthpiece for President Donald Trump, had the audacity to point his fingers at Democrats for the shady meeting that took place in June 2016 involving Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and a Russian attorney. ... Read more
Hannity RIPS Everyone! | Sean Hannity | 07/11/17 | 16:08

Read the Emails in Which Donald Trump Jr. Is Offered Clinton Dirt
MotherJones | James West | 07/11/17

New emails published by the New York Times Tuesday morning reveal that Donald Trump Jr. leapt at the chance to meet with a Russian lawyer who, he was told, was acting as an emissary from the Russian government and offering the Trump campaign negative information on Hillary Clinton.

The emails -- which Trump Jr. tweeted out when he learned the Times was going to reveal them -- show top Trump campaign advisers colluding, or attempting to collude, with Vladimir Putin's regime. This is a dramatic development in the Trump-Russia scandal and undercuts the many claims from the Trump camp that Donald Trump and his associates had no contacts with the Russian government during the campaign. ... Read more
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Trump Jr.'s Emails and a Question of Russian Collusion | Bloomberg | 07/11/17 | 2:27

Capitalism the Apple Way vs. Capitalism the Google Way
TheAtlantic | Mihir A. Desai | date

While lots of attention is directed toward identifying the next great startup, the defining tech-industry story of the last decade has been the rise of Apple and Google. In terms of wealth creation, there is no comparison. Eight years ago, neither one of them was even in the top 10 most valuable companies in the world, and their combined market value was less than $300 billion. Now, Apple and Alphabet (Google's parent company) have become the two most valuable companies, with a combined market capitalization of over $1.3 trillion. And increasingly, these two behemoths are starting to collide in various markets, from smartphones to home-audio devices to, according to speculation, automobiles.

But the greatest collision between Apple and Google is little noticed. The companies have taken completely different approaches to their shareholders and to the future, one willing to accede to the demands of investors and the other keeping power in the hands of founders and executives. These rival approaches are about something much bigger than just two of the most important companies in the world; they embody two alternative models of capitalism, and the one that wins out will shape the future of the economy. ... Read more

Quantum computers compete for "supremacy"
Salon | Neil Savage, Scientific American | date

But to realize those visions, scientists first have to figure out how to actually build a quantum computer that can perform more than the simplest operations. They are now getting closer than ever, with IBM in May announcing its most complex quantum system so far and Google saying it is on track this year to unveil a processor with so-called "quantum supremacy" -- capabilities no conventional computer can match.

Small systems exist, but the next steps in the race to make them bigger will have to determine whether quantum computers can deliver on their potential. Scientists and industry players have focused largely on one of two approaches. One cools loops of wire to near --273.15 degrees Celsius, or absolute zero, turning them into superconductors where current flows with virtually no resistance. The other relies on trapped ions -- charged atoms of the rare earth element ytterbium held in place in a vacuum chamber by laser beams and manipulated by other lasers. The oscillating charges (in both the wires and the trapped ions) function as quantum bits, or "qubits," which can be harnessed to carry out the computer's operations. .. Read more

Our first and last home
Salon | Jesse Soloff | 07/09/17

Five months before my young wife died of cancer, we bought our first home together. We knew it would be her last

We had bought our first home, in the Charlotte, North Carolina, neighborhood of NoDa, five months earlier, in the spring of 2016, knowing that it would likely be our last. Not because we would spend the rest of our lives there, but because that's where Taylor would spend the rest of hers. ... Read more

"I'm Gonna Unchain The Dogs" Bannon Warned Ailes During Trump-Fox Spat
ZeroHedge | author | 07/101/17

Amid the 2016 Presidential campaign, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon reportedly told late Fox News head Roger Ailes to "go fuck yourself" during the Trump campaign's battle with the news network.

New York Magazine reported that Ailes, who died in May, sent his personal lawyer, Peter Johnson Jr., to Breitbart headquarters in D.C. to tell Bannon to stop running stories against then-Fox News host Megan Kelly, who questioned to President Trump during a primary debate about his behavior and language about women.,

As The Hill reports, Bannon reportedly refused to call off the coverage, calling Kelly "pure evil" and saying that she would turn on Ailes one day. ... Read more

More Americans Trust Merkel Than Trump To Handle Foreign Affairs
HP | Ariel Edwards-Levy | 07/06/17

Residents of most G-20 countries ? including the United States ? have more faith in German Chancellor Angela Merkel than in U.S. President Donald Trump to handle world affairs, according to newly released data from Pew Research.

Fifty-six percent of Americans say they have some or a lot of confidence in Merkel to do the right thing regarding foreign affairs, according to the poll published Wednesday. Just 46 percent have a similar level of confidence in Trump. ... Read more
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Rachel Maddow Says Forged NSA Document Being Shopped Around To News Outlets
HP | Rebecca Shapiro | 07/07/17

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow said she had a "strange scoop" to share with audiences Thursday night after receiving what she believes is a meticulously forged document sent over her tip line with the intention to discredit her.

"I feel like I need to send this up like a flare for other news organizations in particular," Maddow said. "That's part of what I'm intending to do here with this story tonight."

Over the next 20 minutes, the MSNBC host discussed how her show received a document, purportedly from the National Security Administration, labeled as classified and filled with such bombshells about Russia that Maddow said if it were authentic, it would be a "gun still firing proverbial bullets." But after careful examination, which she describes in great detail, her show deemed the document a forgery. Read more

Maddow To News Orgs: Beware Of Forged Donald Trump Russia Documents! | MSNBC Rachel Maddow | 07/06/17 | 21:18

Here's How Trump Transferred Wealth to His Son While Avoiding the Usual Taxes
AlterNet | Derek Kravitz / ProPublica | 07/05/17

Donald Trump sold two condos to Eric in April 2016 at a steep discount. But he doesn't appear to be on the hook for gift taxes.

In April 2016, as Donald Trump was on the cusp of clinching the Republican nomination for the White House, he sold two luxury condos near Manhattan's Central Park for less than half the price his company had said they were worth. The lucky buyer: Trump's son, Eric

Such family-friendly deals would normally incur hundreds of thousands of dollars in gift taxes. ... Read more

At first, immigration is coming almost exclusively from Europe. | Metrocosm | 05/04/16 | 1:41

Noam Chomsky July 05, 2017 - Ralph Nader Interviews | | 07/05/17 | 54:35

Noam Chomsky July 2017 - The Emerging World Order | Cognitive Science | 07/02/17 | 1:00:06

What Jared's office actually does
Politico | Nancy Scola | 07/01/17

Its briefing is almost comically broad, but the innovation office run by the presidential son-in-law is starting to take shape. Now can it succeed where others have floundered?

When a dozen and a half CEOs of the world's biggest tech companies descended on the White House last month, it turned a spotlight on one of the bigger mysteries of a mysterious White House: They were convened by the Office of American Innovation, the new operation being run by presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner. Announced with much fanfare by the president in March, the office was set up to bring "new thinking and real change" to the country's toughest problems, according to Trump, in part by drawing on the lessons of the private sector.

Since then, observers have been wondering just what it was, or even if it was. It didn't help that the sweep of its briefing was almost comically broad, from upgrading federal government's $82 billion worth of information technology, to spurring the creation of new jobs, changing how the country thinks about apprenticeships and "unleashing American business." Not to mention working with sometimes-antagonist Chris Christie's commission on tackling the United States' opioid epidemic. (And all this while Kushner is also supposed to be tackling Middle Eastern peace.) ... Read more

The Flashpoints for World Leaders at the Hamburg G-20
Bloomberg | Alan Crawford and Sam Dodge | 07/06/17

The Group of 20 summit that starts in Hamburg on Thursday is the most anticipated -- and potentially turbulent -- meeting of global leaders in years. An unpredictable U.S. president with a protectionist bent, a Russian leader subject to international sanctions and a Chinese president looking to assert a greater global role are just a few of the factors that might stoke tensions.

Sparks could really fly over the policy agenda of free trade, climate change and migration put forward by the German host. Angela Merkel is determined to avoid a repeat of May's G-7 meeting in Italy, where it was six against one: Donald Trump. Yet she acknowledges that "the discord is obvious" and "it would be dishonest to paper over the confict." ... Read more

Trump's Warsaw, Poland Press Conference in 60 Seconds | Bloomberg | 07/06/17 | 1:00

Yes, the Mainstream Media Does Publish Fake News
A timeline of global warming denial in the media.
MotherJones | Rebecca Leber | 07/05/17

At the briefing, Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt was asked whether Trump thinks humans are warming the planet. After refusing to comment on the president's views, Pruitt said that the "degree of human contribution" to global warming remains uncertain. That uncertainty, Pruitt suggested, makes it difficult to decide how policymakers should respond. ...

... It's hardly surprising that a misleading New York Times column would be promoted by the administration of a president who sees global warming as a Chinese hoax. Skeptics have long sought to validate their views by injecting them into respectable media outlets. And they've frequently been successful. Here's a short history of climate misinformation infiltrating the mainstream news media: ... Read more

Bernie Sanders on Resisting Trump, Why the Democratic Party is an "Absolute Failure" & More | DN | 07/03/17 | 55:04

8 Years, 2 Presidents, And A Whole Different World
HP | S.V. Date | 07/03/17

CNN Has The 'Trust' Advantage Over President Trump In A New Poll
HP | Carla Herreria | 07/04/17/span>

Even as controversy continues over President Donald Trump's tweet of a video showing him beating up a personified version of CNN, a poll released Tuesday shows the cable news outlet edging him in trust among most Americans. The survey also showed the New York Times, Washington Post and the broadcast television networks faring better than Trump in trustworthiness. But the poll, conducted by Survey Monkey and published by Axios, also illustrates the stark political divide in the U.S. ... Read more

The Qatar Crisis
TRNN | Adam Hanieh | Republished

The June 5 decision by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt to suspend diplomatic ties with Qatar has sent shockwaves through the Middle East.

The ensuing blockade shut down much of the Gulf's maritime and land trade with Qatar, provoking fears that the tiny state would soon face food shortages. Major air carriers, including Emirates, Gulf Air, flydubai, and Etihad Airways, canceled flights, and Qatari citizens living in the participating nations had just two weeks to return home. Even immigrants with Qatari residency permits would be caught up in the expulsion.

The UAE outlawed any expression of sympathy for Qatar -- including on Twitter -- and threatened offenders with jail terms of up to fifteen years. ... Read more

Trump Wants a Do-Over in Europe
Politico | Thomas Wright | 07/04/17

President Donald Trump is hoping Europe will give him a second chance. This week, he heads to Poland at the invitation of its president and to participate in a regional infrastructure summit and to Hamburg, Germany, for the G-20 summit. The trip offers the chance for redemption after a catastrophic visit to Brussels in May that left the NATO alliance hanging by a thread because of his refusal to endorse Article 5, NATO's mutual defense clause.

G-20 summits are usually sleepy affairs, especially in recent years, but this occasion is replete with geopolitical intrigue. The trip is ambitious and difficult. I spoke with six serving officials, all off the record, and 10 recent officials and senior experts from the United States, Europe and Asia for this article. The overwhelming view is that the trip is finely poised between success and failure, with the outcome depending largely on whether Trump listens to his mainstream advisers or indulges his nationalist and America First impulses. The risks can be cast into three baskets--the Poland visit, the Trump-Putin meeting and the G-20 summit. ... Read more

4 Times Trump Has Inspired Widespread Speculation About His Cognitive Decline
Alternet | Kail Holloway | 07/05/17

Donald Trump has spent more than 20 percent of his presidency on the golf course, and this past weekend was no exception.

After three days of hitting balls around at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, the president finally decided to return to Washington, D.C. on Monday. Footage of Trump's arrival shows him exiting Air Force One, then descending the stairs leading from the plane to the tarmac, where a limousine festooned with American flag awaits. But instead of climbing inside, Trump wanders off in a different direction, taking several steps off course before a Secret Service agent can corral him. ... Read more

CASS ELLIOT (THE MAMAS & PAPAS) - A&E | | | 44:10

GOP Leaders Notably Silent As Trump Tweet Endorses Violence Against Journalists
HP | Marina Fang | 07/02/17

Following President Donald Trump's latest inflammatory tweet that essentially promoted violence against journalists, top GOP lawmakers so far have responded with silence, perpetuating their pattern of doing little as the nation's chief executive breaks more barriers in his war with the media.

Trump on Sunday tweeted what appeared to be an edited version of a 2007 clip of him beating up WWE founder Vince McMahon, with CNN's logo replacing McMahon's face. It was then retweeted by the president's official White House account, @POTUS, following a week of renewed attacks against CNN and other news outlets, which Trump has branded as "fake news" and "fraudulent."

"What about GOP leaders? What about Republican leaders?" CNN media reporter Brian Stelter asked Sunday about responses to the tweet. "Where's [House Speaker] Paul Ryan? Where's [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell? Are GOP leaders going to speak up about these attacks against the media?" ... Read more

How a Presidency Ends
New York | Frank Rich | 07/03/17

"Let others wallow in Watergate, we are going to do our job," said Richard Nixon with typical unearned self-righteousness in July 1973. By then, more than a year had passed since a slapstick posse of five had been caught in a bungled burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex. It had been nine months since Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein reported in the Washington Post that the break-in was part of a "massive campaign of political spying and sabotage" conducted by all the president's men against most of their political opponents. Now the nation was emerging from two solid months of Senate Watergate hearings, a riveting cavalcade of White House misfits and misdeeds viewed live by 71 percent of the public.

Even so, Nixon had some reason to hope that Americans would heed his admonition to change the channel. That summer, the Times reported that both Democratic and Republican congressmen back home for recess were finding "a certain numbness" about Watergate and no "public mandate for any action as bold as impeachment." ... Read more

Trump Will Not Be Cleared (#92) | Keith Olbermann | 06/30/17 | 6:59