Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Paul Manafort Was Just Sentenced to Four Years in Prison
MotherJones | Dan Friedman | 03/07/19

A federal judge in Virginia sentenced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, 69, to 47 months in prison on tax and bank fraud charges on Thursday.

The sentence follows Manafort's conviction last August on charges that he failed to pay taxes on at least $16 million he was paid in the early 2010s for consulting and lobbying work for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian leader who fled to Moscow after a 2014 uprising, and his allies. Manafort was also convicted of defrauding multiple banks to secure large loans after his consulting income dried up in 2015. ... Read more

U.S. trade deficit grows to 10-year high under Trump
Axios | staff | 03/08/19

The U.S. trade deficit grew to $621 billion in 2018, its highest level since 2008, according to a Commerce Department report released Wednesday that was delayed by the government shutdown.

The big picture: President Trump has made reducing the nation's trade deficit -- especially with China -- a major goal of his administration. However, the report showed a record-breaking $891.3 billion trade gap for the U.S. in goods and services and a trade deficit with China for goods that hit a record $419.2 billion. ... Read more

Is Sanders' Democratic Socialism ... Socialism? | TRNN | 03/08/19 | 21:21

Trump will submit NAFTA replacement to Congress 'very shortly'
Politico | Doug Palmer | 03/08/19

President Donald Trump today said he plans to send the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to Congress very soon, which would start a 90-day clock for lawmakers to approve or reject the plan without any changes.

"Mexico, Canada is done. We'll be submitting to Congress very shortly. And that's a great deal for the United States, so we're very happy about that," Trump told reporters at the White House before departing for an event in Alabama.

The comment came as many Democrats are demanding the Trump administration reopen the agreement to strengthen labor and environmental enforcement provisions and address concerns about pharmaceutical issues. ... Read more

The Making of the Fox News White House
See NPR Fresh Air in the right column
TheNation | Jane Mayer | 03/11/19

... But the photo op dramatized something else about the Administration. After members of the press pool got out of vans and headed over to where the President was about to speak, they noticed that Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, was already on location. Unlike them, he hadn't been confined by the Secret Service, and was mingling with Administration officials, at one point hugging Kirstjen Nielsen, the Secretary of Homeland Security. The pool report noted that Hannity was seen "huddling" with the White House communications director, Bill Shine. After the photo op, Hannity had an exclusive on-air interview with Trump. Politico later reported that it was Hannity's seventh interview with the President, and Fox's forty-second. Since then, Trump has given Fox two more. He has granted only ten to the three other main television networks combined, and none to CNN, which he denounces as "fake news."

Hannity was treated in Texas like a member of the Administration because he virtually is one. The same can be said of Fox's chairman, Rupert Murdoch. Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasn't existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center and the author of "Messengers of the Right," a history of the conservative media's impact on American politics, says of Fox, "It's the closest we've come to having state TV." ... Read more