Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Trump's Trip Was a Catastrophe for U.S.-Europe Relations
TheAtlantic | David Frum | 05/28/17

Angela Merkel has served formal notice that she will lead the German wandering away from the American alliance.

... The Soviet Union offered to withdraw the troops that then occupied eastern Germany and to end its rule over the occupied zone. Germany would be reunited under a constitution that allowed the country freedom to choose its own social system. Germany would even be allowed to rebuild its military, and all Germans except those convicted of war crimes would regain their political rights. In return, the Allied troops in western Germany would also be withdrawn--and reunited Germany would be forbidden to join the new NATO alliance.

Historians have long debated whether the note represented a genuine offer or a cynical ploy. (Current consensus: ploy.) There's no debate about what happened next. Determined to anchor Germany securely in the Western camp of nations, German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer rebuffed the "Stalin note." West Germany would enter NATO in 1955, build the European Union, and develop as an Atlanticist liberal democracy. ... Read more

Trump's communications director is out as larger shakeup looms
Salon | Daniel Lippman | 05/30/17

Mike Dubke, who was on the job a little over three months, resigned on May 18.

Mike Dubke, President Donald Trump's communications director, has resigned as Trump considers a larger personnel shakeup to confront the growing scandals weighing down his administration. ...

... Dubke, who spoke with POLITICO as he drove into the White House early Tuesday morning, said he expects to go back to Black Rock Group, his communications and public affairs firm. The White House has not announced a successor for Dubke, and it's unclear when exactly his last day will be. Axios first reported the news of his departure. ... Read more

Old World Order Alive But Unwell After Four Months of Trump
Bloomberg | Marc Champion | 05/30/17

Four months into Donald Trump's presidency, the sky has not fallen in on the system of global governance the U.S. did so much to construct since World War II. It is, however, in deep trouble.

Trump has not followed through on pre-election threats to declare the North Atlantic Treaty Organization obsolete, abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement, accept Russia's annexation of Crimea or declare China a currency manipulator. ... Read more

Report: Trump Tells 'Confidants' U.S. Will leave Paris Climate Deal
Reuters & HP | author | 05/27/17

U.S. President Donald Trump has told "confidants," including the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt, that he plans to leave a landmark international agreement on climate change, Axios news outlet reported on Saturday, citing three sources with direct knowledge.

"I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!" he tweeted on the final day of a Group of Seven (G7) summit in Italy at which he refused to bow to pressure from allies to back the landmark 2015 agreement. The summit of G7 wealthy nations pitted Trump against the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Japan on several issues, with European diplomats frustrated at having to revisit questions they had hoped were long settled. ... Read more

Trump Had Over 20 Chances To Address The Portland Attack On Twitter. He Didn't.
HP | Rebecca Shapiro | 05/29/17

Instead, the president tweeted about "fake news," attacked the media and congratulated Republicans on the congressional win in Montana.

President Donald Trump has been tweeting regularly throughout the weekend, but not once has he mentioned the fatal stabbing in Portland, Oregon, that left two men dead after they confronted a man spewing hatred to two Muslim girls.

On Friday, Ricky John Best and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche were stabbed to death while traveling on one of Portland's MAX trains. They both stood up to confront a man verbally attacking two girls, one of whom was wearing a hijab.

Police say Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, who has ties to white supremacist groups, targeted the girls for "religiously and racially motivated reasons." When confronted by Best, Namkai-Meche and a third man, 21-year-old Micah David-Cole Fletcher, Christian violently attacked them with a knife. Fletcher survived the stabbing but remains in the hospital with serious injuries. ... Read more

Sean Hannity Goes Off The Deep End | TYT | 05/28/17 | 4:47

Ex-CIA Director Slams Jared Kushner's 'Hubris' And 'Ignorance'
HP |Mary Papenfuss | 05/28/17

Former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said the reported plan by chief White House adviser Jared Kushner to arrange secret communications with the Russians during President Donald Trump's transition was "off the map" and like nothing he has seen in his lifetime.

Hayden wants to chalk up the stunning plan to "naivete" rather than evil intentions -- but that's not reassuring, he said in an interview on CNN. "Right now, I'm going with naivete, and that's not particularly comforting for me," he said. "What manner of ignorance, chaos, hubris, suspicion, contempt would you have to have to think that doing this with the Russian ambassador was a good or an appropriate idea?" ... Read more

*Kushner's reported actions suggest "we are in a really dark place as a society," Michael Hayden said | HP | 05/28/17 | 2:04

More information comes out on Manafort, Page, Flynn connections with Russia
Salon | Matthew Rozsa | 05/25/17/span>

After the infamous Steele dossier came out, Paul Manafort reached out to Team Trump

Roughly a week before Trump was inaugurated, former campaign manager Paul Manafort contacted Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus in order to cast aspersions on a controversial dossier compiled by former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, according to a report by Politico. Although he had kept in touch with the Trump team in the five months since he resigned due to reports of his connections with the Putin-associated politicians in Eastern Europe, and is reported to have talked to Trump himself at least twice during that period, those conversations had been either political or personal in nature.

... In related news, The New York Times reported that American spies learned last summer that senior Russian intelligence and political officials were trying to figure out how to shape Trump's views on Russia using Manafort and Michael Flynn, who was at that time an adviser to Trump and would serve as his national security adviser before resigning in disgrace in February. ... Read more

US On Track To Kill More Syrian Civilians Than Russia For 5th Straight Month
ZeroHEdge | author | 05/26/17

Coalition-led airstrikes in Syria killed a total of 225 civilians between April 23 and May 23, the highest 30-day death toll for U.S.-led forces since the campaign began, Agence France-Presse reported. That's nearly double the number of intended targets... Read more

Six to One Against Trump on Climate in 'Honest' Exchange at G-7
Bloomberg | Arne Delfs | 05/26/17

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Donald Trump was isolated on climate change at the Group of Seven, as the president said he's in no rush to decide whether to scrap U.S. involvement in the Paris Agreement.

A closed-door session on the first day of the G-7 summit in Sicily found unity on stepping up efforts to combat terrorism, but entered stormier waters on trade and on climate, Merkel said. At that stage it was six against one as leaders pressed Trump to hold to U.S. agreements made under the landmark Paris climate accord.

"We made it clear that we want the U.S. to stick to its commitments," Merkel told reporters after the meeting on Friday. "There were very different arguments from us all urging the president to hold to the climate accord." She said the discussion was conducted in a very "honest" atmosphere, leading to a "very intense exchange." ... Read more

As Markets Hit Record Highs, Stock Ownership Is Down (Except For Old & Rich People)
ZeroHEdge | author | 05/26/17

While mainstream media crows of the daily record highs in US equity market, overall stock ownership among US adults remains about 10 percentage points below its pre-crisis level. However, there are two demographic subgroups where ownership has held firm: Adults aged 65 and older and those with an annual household income of $100,000 or more. ... Read more

John Boehner Says Trump's Presidency Has Been Mostly A 'Disaster'
HP | Sam Levine | 05/26/17

Speaking at an energy conference in Houston on Wednesday, Boehner did praise Trump on foreign affairs and said he had stepped up the fight against the Islamic State militant group. But he generally gave a grim assessment of the president's first few months in office, according to energy publication Rigzone.

"Everything else he's done [in office] has been a complete disaster," Boehner said. "He's still learning how to be president." Boehner, who backed the businessman during the presidential campaign, criticized the Trump's late-night tweets and said he hadn't imagined him becoming commander-in-chief. ... Read more

More Than One in Three Black Students in the South Attend an Intensely Segregated School
MotherJones | Edwin Rios | 05/26/17

More than 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, the progress made toward dismantling segregated schools in the South, once the most integrated region in the country, seems to be steadily falling apart.

A report released this week by UCLA's Civil Rights Project and Penn State University's Center for Education and Civil Rights finds that in 2014, more than one in three black students attended a school in the South that was intensely racially segregated, meaning a school where 90 percent of students were racial minorities--a 56 percent rise from 1980. The report also finds that the number of Latino students enrolled in public schools in the South surpassed black enrollment for the first time ever, making up 27 percent of the student body. That's significant, as the percentage of Latino students in the South attending an intensely racially segregated school is also on the rise--42 percent in 2014, up from 37 percent in 1980. ... Read more

Betsy DeVos Testifies About Trump's Education Budget at Congressional Hearing (FULL) | FNN | 05/24/17 | 1:59:56

CBO says GOP healthcare bill would leave 23 million more uninsured, undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions
BuisnessInsider | Bob Bryon | 05/24/17

The Republican healthcare plan has been scored by the CBO. "The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday released an updated score for the American Health Care Act, the House GOP healthcare bill, that said it could leave millions more uninsured and undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions.

The CBO projected that 23 million more Americans would be uninsured by 2026 compared with the current healthcare system -- slightly lower than the 24 million more Americans it estimated would be uninsured under the previous iteration of the bill.

"Premiums would vary significantly according to health status and the types of benefits provided, and less healthy people would face extremely high premiums," the CBO's report said.

The report, conducted in the wake of two amendments to the bill before it passed the House earlier this month, projected that the AHCA would cut the federal deficit by $119 billion -- $32 billion less than the savings the CBO estimated in March. Read more
*CBO: Republican Healthcare Plan A Death Sentence | TYT | 05/24/17 | 7:49

The Trump Organization won't track foreign money because it's "impractical"
Salon | Matthew Rozsa | 05/24/17

The Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee is appalled at the Trump Organization

There is no way of knowing whether President Donald Trump is upholding his promise to donate all foreign profits earned by the Trump Organization back to the American treasury. Why? Because the Trump Organization isn't keeping track of them.

In response to a request by the House Oversight Committee for documents, the Trump Organization provided a pamphlet which argues that "to fully and completely identify all patronage at our Properties by customer type is impractical in the service industry and putting forth a policy that requires all guests to identify themselves would impede upon personal privacy and diminish the guest experience of our brand." ... Read more

Democrats cite CBO to slam health care bill | C-Span | 05/24/17 | 18:53

Bernie Sanders DISMANTLES Trump's "Budget For Billionaires" | C-Span | 05/25/17 | 4:52

Trump and Europe, trading places
Politico | Matthew Kaminski | 05/25/17

When Donald Trump won the American presidency last November, the European establishment slipped from deep funk (over Brexit, terrorism, euro troubles, migration, populism) into full depression. Six months later, the dark jokes about political suicide watches still resonate. They're just not directed at Continental Europeans.

This week, on his first trip abroad, the U.S. President is meeting a changed Continent. The mood has swung -- wildly, some might say manically -- to confidence veering toward giddiness. ... Read more

Barack Obamas Answer To Jake Tapper When Asked About Syria | CNN | 09/28/16 | 5:21

40 Shady Things We Now Know About Trump and Russia (#79) | Keith Olbermann | 05/24/17 | 8:56

Mick Mulvaney tries to sell Trump's draconian budget cuts as an act of "compassion" for the rich -- and even Republicans don't buy it
Salon | Sophia Tesfaye | 05/23/17

The White House delivered President Donald Trump's first full budget to Congress on Tuesday, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director Mick Mulvaney promptly tried to spin $4.1 trillion in proposed cuts to social services as an act of "compassion" for wealthy taxpayers. Yet Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman, apparently has little sway over his old Republican colleagues in the Senate, as many of them came out swinging against Trump's budget proposal only hours later.

"Terrible," is how Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham described Trump's proposed 2018 federal budget to reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. The sales pitch Mulvaney provided at a White House press briefing earlier evidently did little to impress his fellow South Carolina Republican, as Graham went on to blast Trump's proposed 29 percent decrease in funding to the State Department and USAID as "a lot of Benghazis in the making if we actually implemented the State Department cuts." ... Read more

Trump's Alleged Obstruction Of Justice Keeps Getting Worse
WashingtonPost | author | 05/23/17

Trump appears to be handing the FBI new obstruction charges left and right, on silver platters. "President Trump asked two of the nation's top intelligence officials in March to help him push back against an FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and the Russian government, according to current and former officials.

Trump made separate appeals to the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.

Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private communications with the president. ... Read more
Trump's Alleged Obstruction Of Justice Keeps Getting Worse | TYT | 05/23/17 | 9:10

Al Franken Breaks Down Trump's Health Care Scam | 05/23/17 | 27:08

Sean Hannity Clams Up On Live TV As His Conspiracy Theory Falls Apart
HP | Rebecca Shapiro | 05/24/17

Sean Hannity kicked off his Tuesday night show on Fox News by telling his audience that he will not discuss Seth Rich's death "for now," an announcement he teased hours before going on air. ...

.... He continued, "Out of respect for the family's wishes, for now, I am not discussing this matter at this time."

Then he went right into a rant about the "conspiracy" involving the Democrats and the media linking Russia to the Trump campaign. ... Read more
Sean Hannity Clams Up On Live TV As His Conspiracy Theory Falls Apart | Fox News | 05/23/17 | 7:49

So, What About Those Oval Office Tapes? (#78) | Keith Olbermann | 05/23/17 | 9:30

Trump Seeks Historic $3.6 Trillion In Spending Cuts, Including Selling Half The US Strategic Oil Reserve
ZeroHEdge | author | 05/23/17

More details of President Donald Trump's first budget proposal were reported Monday by Bloomberg and Reuters. The leaks add to the picture of what we know about Trump's budget, which also includes a flurry of leaks published by The Washington Post, the Associated Press and Bloomberg late Sunday, which fleshed out Trump's plans to slash entitlement spending.

In total, the budget plans to trim $3.6 trillion in spending over 10 years across all discretionary spending and non-discretionary spending lines, in order to enable tax reductions across the board: if enacted - and remember that the president's budget is just an initial blueprint which rarely passes in its original form - the Trump administration would implement the deepest cuts to government programs in a generation, delivering the opening salvo in a new round of budget battles in Washington.="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-05-23/more-trump-budget-details-200-billion-infrastructure-25-billion-paid-family-leave" ... Read more

The double count: Trump budget includes $2 trillion accounting gimmick
Salon | Matthew Rozsa | 05/23/17

Trump's budget gurus claim that the same $2.06 trillion will pay for both deficit reduction and tax reform

President Donald Trump's new budget seems to have a $2.06 trillion error. That is, it claims that the same $2.06 trillion can be used to both reduce the budget deficit and simultaneously pay for Trump’s proposed tax cuts, according to a report by Axios. When confronted about this during a press conference on Tuesday, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney argued that the administration "did [the double count] on purpose... I'm aware of the criticisms and would simply come back and say there's other places where we were probably overly conservative in our accounting. We stand by the numbers."

Economists interviewed by the Los Angeles Times seem to agree that Trump's figures are absurd. A senior vice president for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget named told the Times that “you can't use the same money twice.” Lawrence Summers, who served in economic policy positions for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, referred to the double-counting as an "egregious accounting error." ... Read more

Terror Strikes At Ariana Grande Concert, Leaving 22 Dead
HP | Mollie Reilly | 05/22/17

Moments after Ariana Grande finished performing her 2016 hit single "Dangerous Woman" Monday, a loud blast jarred thousands of British fans cheering the American pop star at the Manchester Arena.

Concertgoers, many of them Grande's young fans and their friends, parents and grandparents, scrambled to evacuate the enormous concert hall, filling the arena with screams. Some were still clutching pink balloons that had dropped from the rafters during Grande's encore. ... Read more

Inside Story - Was Trump convincing in Saudi Arabia? | Aljazeera | 05/22/17 | 25:05

This is How Low the Trump Apologists Will Stoop (#77) | Keith Olbermann | 05/22/17 | 9:37

Trump's Budget Will Slash $1.7 Trillion In Entitlements, Cut Food Stamps By 25%
ZeroHedge | author | 05/22/17

More details from President Donald Trump's first budget proposal are trickling out via a flurry of overnight reports from The Washington Post, Associated Press and Bloomberg News.

TRUMP BUDGET: DEAD ON ARRIVAL
Salon | Heather Digby Parton | 05/22/17

While the president exhausts himself on a brief overseas trip, his team drops the worst budget proposal ever

President Donald Trump is exhausted. At least that's what an aide told the press as an explanation for why he used the word "Islamic" rather than "Islamist" in his big speech in Saudi Arabia and ended up offending his hosts. After the speech, Trump canceled his appearance at the Tweeps Forum and had his daughter fill in for him. He did manage to handle a weird glowing orb and swayed along with a traditional all-male sword dance along with Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House adviser Steve Bannon on the first night but none of that looked very arduous. And the team brought home a major arms deal, with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner arranging a nice discount for the wealthy Saudi government which will undoubtedly give the war in Yemen a big boost. But the administration didn't come away empty by any means: Read more

Escalating probes rattle Trump and his aides
Politico | Josh Dawsey | 05/22/17

While Trump's foreign trip may lift his spirits, the president can't escape the intensifying investigations he's facing at home.

President Donald Trump seemed rattled before he left Washington Friday afternoon, two people who spoke with him last week said, as he wondered aloud how much investigations into Russia's involvement in the 2016 election might damage his presidency.

One adviser said Trump said in a conversation last week that he felt that "there are a lot of people out to get him," musing that he should not have attacked the intelligence community so vociferously. An administration official who spoke to the president said he "seemed down more than angry," even though Trump defiantly tweeted that he was facing a "witch hunt." ... Read more

Roger Stone On Trump's Saudi Award: 'Makes Me Want To Puke'
HP | Mary Papenfuss | 05/21/17

Trump "should have demanded Saudis pay for 9/11," the president's confidant argued.

Longtime Donald Trump pal and former campaign adviser Roger Stone says seeing the president receive an award from Saudi Arabia's King Salman "makes me want to puke."

Stone, like many other conservative Trump backers, believes the president may be softening his hard-line stand against Islamic terrorism. ... Read more

Breitbart Leaks Audio Of Paul Ryan Trashing Trump | TYT | older, I missed it | 15:00

Donald Trump Talked Michael Flynn Into White House Job -- and Wants Him Back in the Administration
Daily Beast | Lachlan Markay | 05/18/17

President Donald Trump pressured a "reluctant" Michael Flynn into accepting a job as the White House's top national security official even after Flynn warned the president that he was under investigation over undisclosed lobbying on behalf of a foreign government, The Daily Beast has learned. ...

... But Trump doesn't just hope that Flynn will beat the rap. Several sources close to Flynn and to the administration tell The Daily Beast that Trump has expressed his hopes that a resolution of the FBI's investigation in Flynn's favor might allow Flynn to rejoin the White House in some capacity -- a scenario some of Trump's closest advisers in and outside the West Wing have assured him absolutely should not happen. ... Read more
Trump's Lawyers: DUDE, STOP CALLING MIKE FLYNN!!! | TYT | 05/18/17 | 6:51

U.S. aircraft conduct strike on Syrian army convoy
ABC News & AP | author | 05/18/17

The U.S. sent aircraft to strike Syrian regime vehicles on Thursday that violated a deconfliction zone set up around al-Tanf, an army base where special forces are training Syrian militias, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.

American officials and Syrian activists said the strike hit the pro-Syrian government forces as they were setting up fighting positions in a protected area in the desert near the border with Jordan. A bulldozer and a tank were hit, although it was unclear if it struck the Syrian army or just militias allied with the government. ... Read more
Polls In The Gutter, Trump Tries Bombing Syria Again | TYT | 05/18/17 |3:53

Rush Limbaugh Remembers Roger Ailes: "Roger And I Were Passengers In History" | DailyRushbo.com | 05/18/17 | 28:17

El Niño May Be Over For Now, But Record-Breaking Heat Swelters On
HP | Dominique Mosbergen | 05/18/17

As CO2 in the atmosphere goes continues to rise, this hot sotrend isn't showing any signs of abating.

One of the strongest El Niño events in recorded history may now be behind us ? but if you thought its conclusion marked the end of record-breaking global average temperatures, think again.

Fueled by a freakishly warm Arctic, last month was the second-warmest April in 137 years, NASA said this week. This follows news that March and February were the second-warmest temperatures for those months respectively on record. ... Read more
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BREAKING: The Justice Department Has Named a Special Prosecutor for the Russia Investigation
Esquire | Jack Holmes | 05/17/17

In n a seismic event, the United States Department of Justice just announced a special prosecutor will lead the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, which includes a probe of whether associates of President Donald Trump colluded with Russian officials. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein selected former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who preceded James Comey in that role from 2001 to 2013 and served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The move follows months of damaging revelations, salacious leaks, and generalized uncertainty surrounding the investigation, which gradually lost the public's faith as a result. After all, Rosenstein made the selection because the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was forced to recuse himself after it emerged that he misled a Senate committee about whether he was in contact with Russian officials during the campaign. The Washington Post reported that Sessions met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on two separate occasions, something Sessions did not include in his testimony. ... Read more
BREAKING: Special Prosecutor To Investigate Trump And Russia | TYT | 05/17/17 | 6:49

When the World Is Led by a Child
NYTimes | David Brooks | 05/15/17

At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.

But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none of these things.

At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25. Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif.

First, most adults have learned to sit still. But mentally, Trump is still a 7-year-old boy who is bouncing around the classroom. ... Read more
Is the World Being Led By a Child? | ThomHartmann | 05/17/17 | 12:01

Chinese Insurer Warns Of "Mass Defaults, Social Unrest" Due To "Mass Redemption" Run
ZeroHedge | author | 05/18/17

Facing $9 billion in accelerated redemptions - or as some may call it, a "redemption run"- one of China's largest insurers has demanded regulatory relief, warning that the alternative is "mass defaults and social unrest." ... Read more

Star Trek: Discovery - First Look Trailer | 05/17/17 | 2:24

**Elizabeth Warren's BRILLIANT Speech At 2017 Center For American Progress Conference | C_Span | 05/16/17 | 19:11

Ryan tweet on classified info resurfaces after bombshell Trump report
TheHill | Paulina Firozi | 05/15/17

A 2016 tweet from House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) about being "careless" with classified data resurfaced on Monday afternoon soon after a report claiming that President Trump revealed highly classified information to top Russian officials.

"Individuals who are 'extremely careless' with classified information should be denied further access to such info," Ryan tweeted in July, referring to former FBI Director James Comey's statement on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's handling of sensitive information. ... Read more
Trump Is A Hypocrite On Leaking Classified Info, Everything | TYT | 05/16/17 | 3:54

Viral video that suggests Trump has Alzheimer's has conservative Roger Stone worried
RawStory | Travis Gettys | 05/16/17

Thhe whispers are growing louder that President Donald Trump may be suffering some sort of mental decline and cognitive impairment -- and his longtime pal Roger Stone thinks it's a conspiracy.

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, who has known the president for years, has been suggesting on air that Trump is suffering from mental decline and possibly even dementia.

The "Morning Joe" host and others -- including the bloggers Duncan "Atrios" Black and David Pakman -- have compared Trump's recent statements with his past comments, which they've cited as evidence the president may be in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. ... Read more
Trump Could Be Going Down Sooner Than You Think | TYT | 05/16/17 | 7:08

White House on edge: 'We are kind of helpless'
Politico | Josh Dawsey | 05/17/17

White House officials spent early Tuesday wondering who was leaking details of President Donald Trump's classified conversations with Russian officials about intelligence shared by the Israelis, and moving to contain the fallout ahead of Trump's planned trip to Jerusalem next week. They spent the evening facing a report that, before he fired FBI director James Comey, Trump directly asked him to stop investigating the Trump campaign's Russia ties -- and worrying what else might yet be revealed.

"Nobody knows where this really goes from here," the White House official said. "Everyone is walking around saying, 'What is next?'" ... Read more

Hannity and Fox News are in full meltdown over Trump's Comey scandal
Salon | Taylor Link | 05/17/17

... Sean Hannity, for example, tweeted early Wednesday morning that there are 5 groups, "trying to destroy the president": the media, Democrats, Deep State, "weak establishment Republicans," and "Never Trumpers."

The night before on "Hannity," the right-wing host led off his monologue with a paranoid rant claiming that "Trump-hating" Washington Post got its story about the president sharing highly classified intelligence with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister when they visited him in the Oval Office wrong. ... Read more
Hannity: 5 major forces are aligning to take down Trump | FoxNews | 05/16/17 | 13:32

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How Trump gets his fake news
Politico | Shane Goldmacher | 05/15/17

The president rarely surfs the web on his own, but his staff have made a habit of slipping news stories on to his desk -- including the occasional internet hoax.

Just days earlier, K.T. McFarland, the deputy national security adviser, had given Trump a printout of two Time magazine covers. One, supposedly from the 1970s, warned of a coming ice age; the other, from 2008, about surviving global warming, according to four White House officials familiar with the matter.

Trump quickly got lathered up about the media's hypocrisy. But there was a problem. The 1970s cover was fake, part of an internet hoax that's circulated for years. Staff chased down the truth and intervened before Trump tweeted or talked publicly about it. ... Read more
Trump Will Believe ANYTHING Put On His Desk | TYT | 05/15/17 | 10:47

GOP Senator: White House In A 'Downward Spiral'
HP | Igor Bobic | 05/15/17

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) issued a rare rebuke of President Donald Trump's administration Monday evening, telling reporters the White House must find a way to reverse its 'downward spiral.'

Corker, a Trump ally who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the criticism following reports that the president revealed 'highly classified' information during a meeting with Russian officials last week. ... Read more

Outraged Sean Hannity Wants White House To Seize More Control Over Media
HP | Ed Mazza | 05/16/17

Fox News host Sean Hannity urged the White House on Monday night to 'restructure' its daily briefings to limit the media's ability to ask questions.

On the same day The Washington Post reported that Trump leaked 'highly classified information' to Russian officials in the Oval Office, Hannity said: ... Read more

Trump's Mixed Signals on South China Sea Worry Asian Allies
NYTimes | Javier C. HernÁndez | 05/10/17

BEIJING -- South Korea wants to discuss unease about an American antimissile system on its soil. Taiwan is eager to buy weapons. The Philippines hopes to find out whether the United States plans to challenge China in the South China Sea.

Leaders across Asia are looking to Washington for guidance on a variety of pressing diplomatic issues. But President Trump's erratic approach to policy making and his focus on one issue -- North Korea's nuclear weapons program -- are creating anxiety and confusion in the region. ... Read more

NATO Allies FREAKING OUT About Trump | TYT | 05/15/17 | 3:31

Here's How Trump Could Already Be Prosecuted (#75) | Keith Olbermann | 05/15/17 | 9:03

Trump's Russia scandal keeps getting deeper: At this point, campaign collusion might be the least of his problems
Salon | Bob Cesca | 05/15/17

Firing Comey didn't end the collusion inquiry -- but Trump's clumsy coverup and financial ties are his real problem

With every passing day and every passing derp, President Donald Trump makes his campaign's possible collusion with Russia to hijack last year's election seem almost secondary. Surely that's not his intention -- indeed, it's exactly the opposite. But anyone, regardless of politics, who has observed Trump's reactions to the deepening Russia story can plainly see that the 45th president is way out of his depth.

Anyone with even a remedial understanding of politics and public relations understands that Trump is bungling the White House reaction to the ongoing investigation, turning an already harrowing treason probe into a harrowing treason probe made far more toxic by an obvious coverup. ... Read more

Afghanistan First? Trump mulls a mini surge for America's longest war.
Vox | Alex Ward | 05/11/17

In an effort to turn around the faltering Afghan war, Trump's top foreign policy and defense advisers, led by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, are recommending that the president send around 3,000 to 5,000 US troops into the country, reports the Washington Post.

They would primarily serve as trainers to Afghan forces who are currently fighting the Taliban, the hardline Islamist group that America and NATO set out to dislodge more than 15 years ago. ... Read more
Trump Sending More Troops To Afghanistan | TYT | 05/14/17 | 10:53

A Reverse-Trump Tax Plan Delivers an Economic Miracle in Sweden
Bloomberg | Johan Carlstrom | 05/07/17

High taxes, strong unions and an equal distribution of wealth. That's the recipe for success in a globalized world, according to Magdalena Andersson, the Social Democratic economist who's also Sweden's finance minister.

The 50-year-old has been raising taxes and spending more on welfare since winning power in 2014. She's also overseen an economic boom, with Swedish growth rates topping 4 percent early last year, that has turned budget deficits into surpluses. ... Read more
Sweden Got More Socialist, Economy Now BOOMING | TYT | 05/14/17 | 7:33

*Joe: President Trump Firing James Comey Is 'A Constitutional Crisis' | MSNBC Mornng Joe | 05/15/17 | 8:42

*President Donald Trump Might Eliminate Press Briefings, Challenging Free Press | MSNBC Mornng Joe | 05/15/17 | 6:46

Trump's deputy attorney general reportedly threatened to resign after being painted as the mastermind behind Comey's firing
BusinessInsider.com | David Choi | 05/10/17

... Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had written a three-page memorandum detailing the reasons behind his recommendation for Comey's dismissal, was painted by the White House as the main arbiter of the decision.

Trump had said he acted based on the recommendations of Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. But as Rosenstein was thrust into the spotlight shortly after news of Comey's dismissal broke, he was taken aback and even threatened to resign, according to an unnamed person close to the White House who was cited by The Washington Post. ... Read more
*"Stupid Watergate" Plot Thickens... | TYT | 05/11/17 | 13:24

*President Donald Trump On His Firing Of James Comey (Extended Exclusive) | NBC News | 05/11/17 | 13:15

*Conway reacts to Trump firing Comey (Full Interview) | CNN | 05/10/17 | 13:11

*Sen. Chuck Schumer addresses Comey firing | CBS | 05/10/17 | 4:21

*The American way of war is a budget-breaker
Salon | William D. Hartung, Tom Dispatch | date

Never has a society spent more for less

When Donald Trump wanted to "do something" about the use of chemical weapons on civilians in Syria, he had the U.S. Navy lob 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield (cost: $89 million). The strike was symbolic at best, as the Assad regime ran bombing missions from the same airfield the very next day, but it did underscore one thing: the immense costs of military action of just about any sort in our era.

While $89 million is a rounding error in the Pentagon's $600 billion budget, it represents real money for other agencies. It's more than twice the $38 million annual budget of the U.S. Institute of Peace and more than half the $149 million budget of the National Endowment of the Arts, both slated for elimination under Trump's budget blueprint. If the strikes had somehow made us -- or anyone -- safer, perhaps they would have been worth it, but they did not. ... Read more

George Will joins MSNBC, NBC News
TheHill | Mark Hensch | 05/08/17

MSNBC has hired professional moron George Will. "Washington Post columnist George Will has joined MSNBC and NBC News as a contributor, according to a spokeswoman for the networks.

Will's deal formalizes his relationship with MSNBC, where he has been an increasingly frequent guest since January. Will became a cable news free agent once Fox News declined to renew his contributor contract after the 2016 elections. ... Read more
MSNBC Used To Lean Forward. Now They Lean Stupid. | TYT | 05/11/17 | 13:32

Hanford's Dirty Secrets | | 07/17/14 | 29:26

Deputy Attorney General Reportedly Threatened To Quit Over Comey Backlash
HP | Nick Visser | 05/11/17

Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general tasked with drafting a memo to explain the removal Tuesday of FBI Director James Comey, threatened to resign after he was painted by the Trump administration as the mind behind the firing, according to The Washington Post.

The Post, citing an anonymous source close to the White House, said Rosenstein felt like he was "cast as the prime mover of the decision to fire Comey," when in fact he was asked by administration officials to draft the memo after President Donald Trump had already decided to fire the FBI director. ... Read more

"That Makes No Sense!" Anderson Cooper DUMBFOUNDED By Kellyanne Conoway AGAIN! | CNN | 05/10/17 | 13:37

Kellyanne Conway on Democrats ratcheting up scare tactics | FoxNews - Hannity | 05/05/17 | 8:55

Trump Once Again Invites Questions And Doubts About His Stability
HP | Sam Stein , Jessica Schulberg | 05/10/17

... For Trump's critics, the sequence of events ? from the firing to the tweeting ? was both dizzying and further cause to question the mental state of the man in the Oval Office. The decision to dismiss FBI Director James Comey sparked concerns about the president's flexing of executive power. The subsequent decision to dub Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer "Cryin'" Chuck and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) a joke who "cried like a baby" after exaggerating his wartime service read like the ravings of a man becoming unhinged.

"None of this is anywhere close to normal," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told HuffPost. "The danger is that every day this exhausting dysfunction continues, it feels less exceptional. This country has never been through this and it is getting more bizarre and more troubling every single day. At some point Republicans have to pull the plug and say, 'Enough is enough, this is a real threat to democratic norms.'" ... Read more

Evening Trump Fuckupery Roundup
MotherJones | Kevin Drum | 05/11/17

Here's a quick evening roundup of Trump fuckupery. First up, I'm sure you remember that the original White House story behind James Comey's firing was that deputy AG Rod Rosenstein had recommended it and Trump just went along. Well, it turns out there was a reason this story was abruptly retracted and revised today ...

... Finally, in non-Comey fuckupery, Trump refused to let US photographers into the Oval Office for his meeting with the Russians this morning. However, he did allow a TASS photographer in, apparently under the impression he was just taking snapshots for Vladimir Putin's grandkids ... Read more

FBI agent groups dispute Trump's rationale for Comey firing
'His support within the rank and file of the FBI is overwhelming.'
Politico | Josh Meyer | 05/10/17

As the White House scrambled to explain President Donald Trump's sudden firing of FBI Director James Comey, one of the main reasons given was that the nation's top law enforcement agent had lost the support of his own rank and file. At best, that assertion has little basis in reality, according to the two people in the best position to know. More likely, they said, available anecdotal evidence suggests that it's flat-out wrong.

In interviews with POLITICO, the heads of the two associations representing current and retired FBI agents, analysts and other personnel said Wednesday that by all available measures, Comey enjoys enormous support among the 35,000 people who worked for him, and the many thousands of others who have retired or left the bureau.

"His support within the rank and file of the FBI is overwhelming," said Thomas O'Connor, a working FBI special agent who is president of the FBI Agents Association. ... Read more

Trump Talks "Trumponomics" With The Economist
ZeroHedge | author | 05/11/17

President Trump sat down with The Economist last week to talk trade, immigration, taxes, and health care and the transcript is chock-full of 'Trumpisms' that should not go unnoticed. Here are just a few of our favorite exchanges:

On NAFTA, apparently 'big' is not an appropriate adjective to describe the renegotiation that will take place...'massive' and/or 'huge' are far better descriptors: Read more

HHS head Tom Price leaves Jake Tapper speechless by claiming $880 billion in Medicaid cuts will benefit patients
RawStory | Noor Al-Sibai | 05/07/17

On n Sunday morning's interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price asserted that the Congressional Budget Office's estimation that $880 billion would be cut from Medicaid spending would somehow empower states to "tailor" their Medicaid coverage to better suit its recipients.

In the beginning of the segment, Tapper asked Price whether President Donald Trump is keeping his campaign promise of no cuts to Medicaid by promoting a bill that will cut $880 billion in Medicaid. ... Read more
Republicans' TrumpCare Strategy: Just Keep Lying | TYT | 05/09/17 | 11:04

Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey
TheAtlantic | Matt Ford | 05/09/17

President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, a shocking dismissal that removes the top federal law-enforcement official overseeing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The firing comes less than a month after Comey told a congressional committee that the FBI is investigating whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian intelligence services to damage Hillary Clinton's campaign during the 2016 presidential election. ... Read more
BREAKING: Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey | TYT | 05/09/17 | 9:06

The Race To The Bottom: Why A Worldwide Worker Surplus And Uncontrolled Free Trade Are Sinking American Living Standards by Alan Tonelson

With the end of the 1990s economic boom, The Race to the Bottom deftly explores how the United States has entered a no-win global competition in which the countries with the lowest wages, weakest workplace safety laws, and toughest repression of unions win investment from the U.S. and Europe. Tonelson analyzes how the entry of such population giants as China, India, and Mexico into the global market has accelerated the erosion of wages and labor standards around the world. And he describes how an ever-larger share of this low-wage competition is hitting not just sectors like apparel and toys, but also many of America's highest wage industries like aerospace and software. Tonelson explains why the re-education and retraining programs touted by many political leaders offer little but false hopes to most U.S. workers as he outlines the real decisions Washington needs to make to ensure long-term prosperity for the U.S. and the rest of the world. Updated with a new prologue from the author.

President Trump fires FBI Director Comey
WashingtonPost | Devlin Barrett | 09/10/17

President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey on Tuesday, at the recommendation of senior Justice Department officials who said he had treated Hillary Clinton unfairly and in doing so damaged the credibility of the FBI and the Justice Department.

The startling development comes as Comey was leading a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether associates of Trump may have coordinated with Russia to interfere with the U.S. presidential election last year. It wasn't immediately clear how Comey's ouster will affect the Russia probe, but Democrats said they were concerned that his ouster could derail the investigation. ... Read more
The Real Reason Trump Fired Comey | TYT | 05/09/17 | 4:47

Donald Trump Fires James Comey As Investigations Into Russia Ties Heat Up | MSNBC Rachel Maddow| 05/10/17 | 22:51

Kushner Companies apologizes for using Trump's son-in-law to peddle visas to rich Chinese
Salon | Angelo Young | 09/08/17

The company was using its White House connections to promote so-called "golden visas"

The real estate development firm partly managed by the sister of White House senior adviser Jared Kushner has issued an apology over a weekend event in Beijing in which Kushner's name was used to attract wealthy Chinese to a cash-for-visa scheme commonly used by investment-hungry U.S. real estate developers.

Kushner Companies "apologizes if that mention of [Kushner] was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors," the company said in a statement emailed to NPR and other news outlets. The apology stops short of admitting that the company was leveraging Kushner's role in the White House and his relationship to the president, his father-in-law. ... Read more
Jared Kushner Caught Selling Golden Tickets To America | TYT | 05/08/17 | 8:40

'Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care,' GOP lawmaker says. He got booed.
WashingtonPost | Kristine Phillips | 05/07/17

A conservative Republican congressman from Idaho is drawing criticism for his response to a town-hall attendee's concerns about how his party's health-care bill would affect Medicaid recipients. "You are mandating people on Medicaid to accept dying," the woman said.

"That line is so indefensible," said Rep. Raúl R. Labrador, a member of the influential House Freedom Caucus. "Nobody dies because they don't have access to health care." ... Read more
Congressman: 'Nobody Dies' From Lack Of Healthcare | TYT | 05/08/17 | 5:03

Sally Yates Dismantled Ted Cruz, and Michael Flynn Seems Like a Hooked Fish
Esquire | Charles P. Pierce | 05/08/17

It t is not often that you see one woman demolish a state's entire delegation to the United States Senate, but Sally Yates did the Republic a great service on Monday afternoon by demonstrating that Texas has sent to Washington a remarkable pair of deuces. First, she slapped John Cornyn silly as regards her refusal to enforce the president*'s original travel ban, the issue over which she'd been fired. He pronounced himself disappointed, and she handed him his head. Read more
Ted Cruz Owned. Again. | TYT | 05/08/17 | 7:41

The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy by Peter Temin (03/17/17)

The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America, and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich and one for the poor.

Many poorer Americans live in conditions resembling those of a developing country -- substandard education, dilapidated housing, and few stable employment opportunities. And although almost half of black Americans are poor, most poor people are not black. Conservative white politicians still appeal to the racism of poor white voters to get support for policies that harm low-income people as a whole, casting recipients of social programs as the Other -- black, Latino, not like "us." Politicians also use mass incarceration as a tool to keep black and Latino Americans from participating fully in society. Money goes to a vast entrenched prison system rather than to education. In the dual justice system, the rich pay fines and the poor go to jail.

Sally Yates is an American Hero (#71) | Keith Olbermann | 05/08/17 | 5:18

Trump Accuses Sally Yates Of Leaking "Classified Information Into The Newspapers"
ZeroHedge | author | 05/08/17

Later today at 2:30PM EST, former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer more questions about "Russian Interference in the 2016 United States Election." As it turns out, President Trump has a couple of suggested additions to the question list for Ms. Yates, which he decided to share this morning over Twitter.

"Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how classified information got into the newspapers soon after she explained it to W.H. Council." -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2017 Read more

What's Killing The Middle Class? (Part 1)
ZeroHedge | author | 05/08/17

We all know the middle class that actually owns capital and wields political influence is shrinking. As I noted last week in Redefining the Middle Class: It Isn't What You Earn and Owe, It's What You Own That Generates Income, defining the middle class by household income alone is a misleading metric, as it leaves out the critical factors of debt and ownership of productive assets.

A household may have an income of $150,000 and appear well-off by that metric, but if they are mired in debt and own virtually no productive assets or wealth that can be passed on to future generations, they aren't middle class--they're well-paid proletariats. ... Read more

Fake News And Media Literacy - 2017 COLLISION Conference Panel | TYT | 05/07/17 | 27:49

GOP senators unveil bill to give Congress control of consumer bureau budget
TheHill | Sylvan Lane | 02/15/17

More than a dozen Republican senators are backing a bill to give Congress greater control and oversight of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) will introduce a bill Wednesday to let Congress control the CFPB's budget, his office told The Hill on Wednesday.

Called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Accountability Act of 2017, the bill would place the CFPB under the congressional appropriations process, letting lawmakers control its budget. That would give Congress the ability to drastically limit the scope and size of the bureau, regardless of who controls it. ... Read more
Republicans Busy Helping Banks Screw You | TYT | 05/07/17 | 7:55

Home Capital Bank Run Accelerates As Company Scrambles To Find Additional Liquidity
ZeroHedge| author | 05/08/17

Canada most troulbed non-bank lender Home Capital confirmed that the bank run at subsidiary Home Trust has failed to slowdown, and as of May 8 "deposit balances are expected to be approximately $192 million." According to the latest data, another 50% of deposits have been pulled in the past week, and are now down over 90% since March 28. ... Read more

"A Complete Mess" - China Stocks, Bonds, Commodities Crumble As Trade Data Disappoints
ZeroHedge | author | 05/08/17

The forced deleveraging of China's WMP-driven excess was not helped overnight by disappointing trade data as both import and export growth slumped.

April Imports grew at just 11.9% YoY (in USD terms), dramatically less than the 18.0% expectations and well down from March's 20.3% growth.

April Exports grew at 8.0% YoY (in USD terms), less than half the growth of March (16.4% YoY) and well below the 11.3% expectations. ... Read more

What's actually in the GOP health care bill
Politico | Brianna Ehley | 05/04/17

Peek under the hood of the GOP text and there are many changes that will have broad but unpredictable consequences for the American health care system.

Covering people with pre-existing conditions has been the hottest issue in the Obamacare repeal debate on the Hill. But peek under the hood of the GOP text and there are a whole lot of other changes -- including some surprises -- that will have broad but unpredictable consequences for the American health care system and the patients and families that rely on it. Many of the provisions don't take effect for several years.

What Trump Can Learn From Kansas' Tax Troubles
politico.com/magazine | Kyle Pomerleau | 05/04/17

Thhe one-page tax plan that President Donald Trump's administration released last week didn't offer much detail. But its proposal to lower taxes for certain types of smaller businesses stood out--because the idea has been tried before at the state level and backfired.

The president's plan proposes reducing the business tax rate to 15 percent, including for "pass-through" businesses such as LLCs, partnerships and sole proprietorships. Unlike C-corporations, which are taxed twice--at the corporate level and then again at the individual level, when earnings are distributed to shareholders--pass-through companies are taxed just once, when they "pass" their income "through" to their owners, who are taxed as individuals. ... Read more

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein BLAST Trump At 2017 WHCA Dinner | C-Span | 04/29/17 | 19:20

This Is The Horrific Violence Trump Is Forcing Central American Refugees To Return To
MotherJones | Bryan Schatz | 05/05/17

Brutal gangs and impotent governments are driving children to flee.

While President Donald Trump has squawked about "bad hombres" invading America, the reality is that many migrants seeking to settle in the United States are not importing violence but fleeing it. As detailed in a new report from Kids In Need of Defense (KIND), an nonprofit organization focused on protecting children who enter the US immigration system, many Central American migrants, especially children, who head north are trying to escape extreme sexual and gender-based violence.

Tens of thousands of unaccompanied child migrants reach the United States' southern border every year. In 2014, their numbers peaked at more than 68,500. Last year, Customs and Border Patrol apprehended nearly 60,000 unaccompanied kids, the vast majority of them from Central America. The reasons these children are trying to enter the United States are grim. The Northern Triangle of Central America, which includes El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, has some of the highest homicide rates in the world. In particular, girls, young women, and gay youth in the region face a barrage of sexual exploitation and violence, according to the KIND report. ... Read more

The Shame and Cruelty of the GOP (#69) | Keith Olbermann | 05/04/17 | 5:44

Republicans Are Rushing To Pass Their Health Care Bill Before You Find Out What's In It
HP | Jeffrey Young | 05/03/17

The American Health Care Act doesn't do what the GOP says it does. They're counting on you not to notice.

Once again, House Republicans are eyeing a vote on hastily cobbled together legislation to repeal and "replace" the Affordable Care Act.

They're on the verge of doing this despite the evident lack of enthusiasm among GOP lawmakers themselves, widespread opposition from the health care industry and patient groups, and still no Congressional Budget Office evaluation of just what this bill would actually do to the health care system. ... Read more

Trump set to sign religious liberty order: report
TheHill.com | Nikita Vladimirov | 05/02/17

President Trump has reportedly invited conservative leaders to visit the White House on Thursday for the signing of an executive order on religious liberty.

Politico reported Tuesday that two senior administration officials confirmed the plan. One source noted that the language of the order has not yet been finalized by the White House lawyers, but a draft leaked in February would give businesses and individuals the ability to claim broad religious objections. The Trump administration has been under fire since, with critics arguing that it would allow discrimination against the LGBT community. ... Read more

Steve Bannon Leaks His Own Master Plan
TYT | author | 05/03/17

Steve Bannon leaked out his own master plan for to make America great again. White House Senior Advisor Steve Bannon keeps a somewhat infamous whiteboard of his master plans in his office. In an age of constant hacking, writing your plans on an erasable whiteboard doesn't seem so crazy, but all that goes to hell if you or someone else takes a picture of that whiteboard and sends it to the masses on the web.

A man by the name of Rabbi Shmuley Boteach visited the White House on Tuesday in honor of Israel's Independence Day. A quick look at his Twitter feed will tell you he mostly spent the day taking photos with politicians and other folks associated with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. One of those folks was Bannon, and those photos took place in the senior advisor's office, in front of that whiteboard. ... Steve Bannon Leaks His Own Master Plan | TYT | 05/03/17 | 4:57

Kyle Bass Warns "All Hell Is About To Break Loose" In China
ZeroHedge | author | 05/04/17

China's credit system expanded "too recklessly and too quickly," and "it's beginning to unravel," warns Hayman Capital's Kyle Bass. "As soon as liabilities have problems - meaning the depositors decide to not roll their holdings - all hell breaks loose." ... Read more

*Fox News' problem is a lot bigger than Bill O'Reilly | Vox | 04/27/17 | 5:45

*Why Won't the Press Ask Trump Anything? (#68) | Keith Olbermann | 05/03/17 | 8:18

Try As He Might, Trump Struggles To Spin Government Spending Bill As A Victory
HP | Laura Barrón-López | 05/02/17

Republicans control the House, Senate and White House, but you wouldn't know it looking at the details of the government funding bill released in the early morning hours of Monday.

The bill, which will keep the government running until September, was immediately hailed by Democrats as a major legislative achievement and prima-facie evidence of their ability to out-negotiate and out-maneuver President Donald Trump.

GOP leaders did their best to claim victories on the margins and to hail the measure as a pleasant return to a collaborative status quo. But some top Republican lawmakers were also willing to concede that Trump got his clock cleaned -- with the bill containing no money for his border wall with Mexico, no major domestic spending cuts and no defunding of Planned Parenthood ... Read more

Trump transition staffers head to K Street despite lobbying ban
Politico | Theodoric Meyer | 05/03/17

Three months after Trump moved into the White House, at least nine people who worked on his transition have registered as lobbyists.

Donald Trump promised last year to "drain the swamp" of Washington, starting with barring people who worked on his presidential transition from lobbying for six months afterward. But three months after Trump moved into the White House, at least nine people who worked on his transition have registered as lobbyists, highlighting holes in the president's pledge to keep people from cashing in on government service.

Many are registered to lobby the same agencies or on the same issues they worked on during the transition, a POLITICO review of lobbying disclosures found. A former "sherpa" who helped to guide Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos through the Senate confirmation process is now registered to lobby her department. The former head of the transition's tax policy team has returned to his old company to lobby Congress on tax reform. One ex-member of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative team is now registered as part of a team lobbying on behalf of a major steelmaker. ... Read more

Jared Kushner Reportedly Omitted Ties To Soros, Goldman Sachs In Disclosure
Mediaite.com | Matthew Balan | 05/02/17

The Wall Street Journal revealed Kushner's omission in a Tuesday article. The senior advisor to the President founded a startup in 2014 called Cadre. Kushner's brother and a friend of his started the company, and it turns out Goldman Sachs and Soros are investors in Cadre, along with Trump supporter Peter Thiel. The newspaper disclosed that the enterprise "secured a $250 million line of credit from the family office of George Soros."

The Journal's report also points out that Kushner also neglected to disclose that he has "loans totaling at least $1 billion, from more than 20 lenders, to properties and companies part-owned by Mr. Kushner." ... Read more
OOPS! Jared Kushner Tried To Hide Soros Ties | TYT | 05/02/17 | 5:04

This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class by Elizabeth Warren (04/18/17)

Senator Elizabeth Warren has long been an outspoken champion of America's middle class, and by the time the people of Massachusetts elected her in 2012, she had become one of the country's leading progressive voices. Now, at a perilous moment for our nation, she has written a book that is at once an illuminating account of how we built the strongest middle class in history, a scathing indictment of those who have spent the past thirty-five years undermining working families, and a rousing call to action.

Warren grew up in Oklahoma, and she's never forgotten how difficult it was for her mother and father to hold on at the ragged edge of the middle class. An educational system that offered opportunities for all made it possible for her to achieve her dream of going to college, becoming a teacher, and, later, attending law school. But now, for many, these kinds of opportunities are gone, and a government that once looked out for working families is instead captive to the rich and powerful. Seventy-five years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal ushered in an age of widespread prosperity; in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan reversed course and sold the country on the disastrous fiction called trickle-down economics. Now, with the election of Donald Trump--a con artist who promised to drain the swamp of special interests and then surrounded himself with billionaires and lobbyists--the middle class is being pushed ever closer to collapse.

Written in the candid, high-spirited voice that is Warren's trademark, This Fight Is Our Fight tells eye-opening stories about her battles in the Senate and vividly describes the experiences of hard-working Americans who have too often been given the short end of the stick. Elizabeth Warren has had enough of phony promises and a government that no longer serves its people--she won't sit down, she won't be silenced, and she will fight back.

Trump On Senate: "A Very Rough System," "An Archaic System" That's "A Bad Thing For The Country"
realclearpolitics.com | Ian Schwartz |04/29/17

In an interview with FOX News Channel's Martha MacCallum, President Donald Trump weighed in on governing what he called the "archaic rules" of the Senate. MacCallum interviewed Trump on the final edition of her show, The First 100 Days. Beginning Monday, the name of her show will change to The Story.

"The rules of the Senate and some of the things you have to go through, it's -- it's really a bad thing for the country, in my opinion," the president said. "They're archaic rules." Trump warned, "at some point we're going to have to take those rules on." ... Read more
President Trump: Our Govt Follows "Archaic Rules" - Pres Donald J. Trump On First 100 Day | FoxNews | 04/28/17 | 16:46
Trump's NOT A Fan Of Checks And Balances | TYT | 05/01/17 | 8:51

Donald Trump Doesn't Know Why the Civil War Began. Most Americans Don't Know How It Ended.
MotherJones | Tim Murphy | 05/02/17

People deal with political trauma in different ways. After the 2016 election, yuppies who once scoffed at preppers found themselves stockpiling canned goods. Barack Obama went parasailing. Hillary Clinton hiked in the woods. Hundreds of thousands of people began meeting in small groups--"for the first time in my life," many told reporters -- to organize a resistance. Some people bought bourbon, some people bought dogs, and I found myself reading about Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

In the years before the Civil War, Higginson, the abolitionist scion of a powerful Boston Brahmin family, had run for Congress, dabbled as a Unitarian minister, bankrolled John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, and even sustained a sword wound to his face while breaking into a Massachusetts jail to rescue a fugitive slave. He prayed for a great cleansing war to rid the nation of slavery and when it came, he cheerfully enlisted. Then, in the fall of 1862, Higginson embarked on one of the most radical projects in American history. ... Read more

Schools superintendent: Students are harming themselves and citing '13 Reasons Why'
WashingtonPost | Valerie Strauss | 04/29/17

A Florida schools superintendent told parents in a letter that his district has seen a rapid rise in at-risk behavior at elementary and middle schools -- including self-harming and suicide threats -- in the wake of a graphic Netflix series about a 17-year-old girl's suicide called "13 Reasons Why."

The series, which debuted March 31, is based on a 2007 young adult novel and includes detailed scenes of young people harming themselves, including that of a teen who cuts her wrists with a razor in a bathtub and her blood is seen pouring out as she struggles to breathe. With the first episode released about a month ago, the series has sparked warnings from mental health counselors and others expressing concern about copycat behavior and the glorification of suicide by vulnerable young people. ... Read more
"13 Reasons Why" Glorifying Suicide? | TYT | 05/01/17 | 6:41

China Demands "Immediate Halt" Of US Missile Shield Deployment In South Korea
ZeroHEdge | author | 05/02/17

"We oppose the deployment of the US missile system to South Korea and call on all parties to immediately stop this process. We are ready to take necessary measures to protect our interests," China foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a briefing, adding that "China's position on the THAAD issue has not changed." ... Read more

**Bernie Sanders BRILLIANT takedown of Trump's First 100 Days In Office | Politics Video Channel | 04/28/17 | 18:46

Exclusive: Trump says he thought being president would be easier than his old life
Reuters | Stephen J. Adler | 04/29/17

"I loved my previous life. I had so many things going," Trump told Reuters in an interview. "This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier."

More than five months after his victory and two days shy of the 100-day mark of his presidency, the election is still on Trump's mind. Midway through a discussion about Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president paused to hand out copies of what he said were the latest figures from the 2016 electoral map. ... Read more
*Trump Shocked Being President Harder Than Sitting On Ass | TYT | 04/28/17 | 5:42

Climate March Brings Thousands of People to Protest Donald Trump
MotherJones | author | 04/29/17

The latest version of organized protest against President Donald Trump is officially underway with the third annual People's Climate March in Washington, D.C. The event is expected to draw thousands of participants both in the nation's capital and sister marches nationwide, where demonstrators plan to speak out against the Trump administration's plans to undo the federal regulations that are in place to fight climate change.

Coincidentally, Saturday's march also marks the first 100 days of Trump's presidency. During that period, the president has stacked his administration with prominent climate deniers, proposed eliminating billions in scientific research, and threatened to withdraw from the Paris climate treaty. ... Read more

Wall Street Firm Paying Obama $400,000 Faced Internal Controversy After Pocketing Huge 9/11 Settlement
TheIntercept | Jon Schwarz | 04/28/17

BARACK OBAMA will deliver a speech this September at a swanky healthcare conference for investors run by Cantor Fitzgerald. As Fox Business News first reported on Monday, the firm is paying him $400,000.

The ensuing criticism of Obama for cashing in on his presidency has been thunderous -- but has overlooked exactly whose money he is taking. Cantor Fitzgerald, a major Wall Street brokerage house, lost 658 of its 960 employees when the World Trade Center was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. But when it settled a long-running lawsuit against American Airlines for $135 million in 2013, the proceeds didn't go to the families of the dead. ... Read more

Fyre Festival attendee describes chaotic experience | CBC | 04/30/17 | 5:16

Fyre Festival canceled after guests allege "scam"
CBS | Andrea Park | 04/28/17

The Fyre Festival in the Bahamas, billed as a "luxury" event featuring big music acts and celebrity chefs, is now canceled after a chaotic false start, stranding angry visitors who shelled out thousands of dollars to attend.

"Due to unforeseen and extenuating circumstances, Fyre Festival has been fully postponed," the festival tweeted on Friday. "After assessing the situation this morning and looking at best options for our guests, we cannot move forward as we hoped we could. At this time, we are working tirelessly to get flights scheduled and get all travelers home safely." ... Read more

"Fyre Festival" Looked So Fun In The Pictures... | TYT | 04/30/17 | 8:55

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