Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Trump on trade: The EU "is possibly as bad as China, just smaller"
Axios | Erica Pandey | 07/01/18

President Trump slammed American allies in Europe on trade, telling Fox News' Maria Bartiromo during an exclusive interview on Sunday morning, "The European Union is possibly as bad as China, just smaller. It's terrible what they do to us."

Why it matters: It's conventional wisdom among economists that the U.S. needs allies' support to take on a powerful -- and growing -- China. Read more

By the numbers: Trump's White House has unprecedented staff turnover
Axios | Khorri Atkinson | 07/02/18

By the numbers:

1. 141 staffers who worked in the White House as of June 30 of last year have left.
2. 138 employees have been hired since then.
3. 61% of Trump's senior-most aides have departed.
4. At 42%, Bill Clinton is the only president in the last five administrations to have similar senior-staff turnover rate, reports the AP.

This Week Is off to a Hellish Start and It's Not Even Because of Politics
MotherJones | Nina Golgowski | 07/02/18

Thermometers are expected to soar 10 to 20 degrees above normal through Monday, with record highs potentially recorded from the Great Lakes region to New England, the National Weather Service said.

On Sunday, temperatures in parts of New York and Connecticut, were forecast to hit up to 100 degrees but appeared to settle in the high and mid-90s by the late afternoon. Monday is expected to see the searing heat and high humidity continue, with temperatures again nearing 100 in New York's capital of Albany.

"Temperatures have not reached 100 F in Albany since 1953," said AccuWeather Meteorologist Tony Zartman, "but the city will flirt with that mark both Sunday and Monday." ... Read more

'I'd like to kill 'em': GOP takes on Trump tariffs
Politico | Burgess Everett | 07/03/18

Republican lawmakers are losing their patience with the president's trade war, saying it's hurting their states and the party's chances in the midterms.

"I'd like to kill 'em," groused Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a close Trump ally, referring to the administration's expanding list of tariffs.

... But Republican senators say they can't get the president to comprehend that his tariffs offensive could upend all of that progress in short order. Commodity prices in the heartland are sagging, U.S. allies are retaliating with tariffs of their own -- and GOP leaders are fretting that the booming economy is about to go into a pre-midterms nosedive. ... Read more

They Reached In and Tore Out a Piece of My Heart'
Politico | Julia Preston | 07/01/18

On the border a father must choose between fighting for a new life and seeing his son again.

LOS FRESNOS, Texas -- The first day after they were caught hiding in tall grass near the Rio Grande, before they were separated, the Honduran father and his 7-year-old son were detained in an air-conditioned Border Patrol station. After a night in the thick heat of borderlands summer, the boy was shivering, and he asked his father insistently to hold him to keep him warm.

That was what the father, Mauricio Posadas Andrade, recalled in the days after border officers pried his son away from him on June 12, and after he was confined with dozens of other migrant parents in a detention center near Brownsville. For 10 days he had no communication with his namesake son, Mauricio, and no idea where he was. Seized with insomnia, Posadas imagined that the boy had been taken back to the Border Patrol "icebox" and was freezing there without him. ... Read more