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Wednesday May 16, 2018

The Birth of a New American Aristocracy
TheAtlantic | author | date

The gilded future of the top 10 percent -- and the end of opportunity for everyone else.

... By any sociological or financial measure, it's good to be us. It's even better to be our kids. In our health, family life, friendship networks, and level of education, not to mention money, we are crushing the competition below. But we do have a blind spot, and it is located right in the center of the mirror: We seem to be the last to notice just how rapidly we've morphed, or what we've morphed into.

The meritocratic class has mastered the old trick of consolidating wealth and passing privilege along at the expense of other people's children. We are not innocent bystanders to the growing concentration of wealth in our time. We are the principal accomplices in a process that is slowly strangling the economy, destabilizing American politics, and eroding democracy. Our delusions of merit now prevent us from recognizing the nature of the problem that our emergence as a class represents. We tend to think that the victims of our success are just the people excluded from the club. But history shows quite clearly that, in the kind of game we're playing, everybody loses badly in the end. ... Read more

Makers and Takers: How Wall Street Destroyed Main Street by

In looking at the forces that brought our current administration to power one thing is clear: much of the population believes that our economic system is rigged to enrich the privileged elites at the expense of hard-working Americans. This is a belief held equally on both sides of political spectrum, and it seems only to be gaining momentum.

A key reason, says Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar, is the fact that Wall Street is no longer supporting Main Street businesses that create the jobs for the middle and working class. She draws on in-depth reporting and interviews at the highest rungs of business and government to show how the "financialization of America" -- the phenomenon by which finance and its way of thinking have come to dominate every corner of business -- is threatening the American Dream.

Now updated with new material explaining how our corrupted financial sys­tem propelled Donald Trump to power, Makers and Takers explores the confluence of forces that has led American businesses to favor balance-sheet engineering over the actual kind, greed over growth, and short-term profits over putting people to work. From the cozy relationship between Wall Street and Washington, to a tax code designed to benefit wealthy individuals and corporations, to forty years of bad policy decisions, she shows why so many Americans have lost trust in the sys­tem, and why it matters urgently to us all.
Arms Industry Stocks Shoot up After Trump Withdraws from Iran Deal
This Is Why Evangelical Christians Love Israel | VICE | 05/15/18 | 12:28
The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics by Salena Zito

The history of the American electorate is not a litany of flukes; instead it is a pattern of tectonic plate-grinding, punctuated by a landscape-altering earthquake every generation or so. Donald Trump's electoral coalition is smashing both American political parties and its previously impenetrable political news media.The political experts called the 2016 election wrong and in the wake of the 2016 election surprise, the experts have continued to blow it - looking to predict the coming demise of the President without pausing to consider the durability of the trends and winds that swept him into office.

The Great Revolt delves deep into the minds and hearts of the voters the make up this coalition. What emerges is a group of citizens who cannot be described by terms like "angry," "male," "rural," or the often-used "racist." They span job descriptions, income brackets, education levels, and party allegiances. What unites them is their desire to be part of a movement larger than themselves that puts pragmatism before ideology, localism before globalism, and demands the respect it deserve from Washington.

Zito and Todd have traveled on over 27,000 miles of country roads to interview more than 300 Trump voters in 10 swing counties. What they have discovered is that these voters were hiding in plain sight--ignored by both parties, the media, and the political experts all at once, ready to unite into the movement that spawned the greatest upset in recent electoral history.

Gaza begins to bury its dead after deadliest day in years
BBC | author | 05/15/18

Funerals were held on Tuesday in Gaza for 58 Palestinians reported killed on Monday when Israeli troops opened fire during protests, in the deadliest day of violence there since a war in 2014.

... Monday's violence came as the US inaugurated its first embassy in Jerusalem, a controversial step by the Trump administration that broke with decades of US policy and incensed Palestinians. ... Read more
*When You Grew Up In An Open-Air Prison And Are All Out Of F*cks To Give | TYT | 05/15/18 | 11:08

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, May 16 [9:59]
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, May 16 (FULL) | 59:02
Note: on the full 59:02 video look for small white (or black) circles on the Progressbar they denote the different news stories. You can move the pointer on the Progressbar to jump to each story, and around the video.
  1. Headlines
  2. Norman Finkelstein: Outrage over Israeli Massacre Shows Power of Nonviolent Palestinian Resistance
  3. Norman Finkelstein: Palestinians Have the Right to Break Free of the "Unlivable" Cage That Is Gaza
  4. Key Democrats Back Gina Haspel's Confirmation as CIA Director, Despite Her Record on Torture
  5. A Wake-Up Call for Dems? 4 Women Running on Socialist Platforms Unseat Male Incumbents in PA Primary
  6. Koch Brothers-Backed Effort to Sabotage Unions Uses Secret "Tool Kit" to Encourage Members to Quit
Sociopaths Rise to the Top -- RAI with Rana Foroohar (Part 4/6) | TRNN | 05/14/18 | 11:21
*Iraq Elects Anti-US Insurgent | TYT | 05/15/18 | 12:24
*How China Bought Trump | TYT | 05/15/18 | 9:58
*Betsy DeVos Caught Getting Rich From FRAUD | TYT | 05/15/18 | 8:42
The1a.org
'The Great Revolt' In The Voting Booth | 1a.org | 05/16/18 | 1hr
Donald Trump's victory in 2016 may have surprised a lot of people, but that doesn't mean it was a fluke. Journalists, pundits, professors and political strategists have spent over a year analyzing how Trump won. In their new book The Great Revolt, columnist Salena Zito and Republican strategist Brad Todd look at who Trump won. Who are the voters who put them over the top?

Are they angry rural racists? Are they, as one study suggests, afraid of losing their status in a diversifying nation with an increasingly high-tech economy?

To find the answer, Zito and Todd talked with the people who helped put President Trump in the White House. We'll talk with the authors about their book, the forces that elected the president, and how this revolt might fare in future elections.
Trump Lawyer Blasts Giuliani, Asks If Cohen Was A "Mob" Fixer | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC | 05/15/18 | 13:57
Joe: North Korea Changing Course Is Not A Surprise | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 05/16/18 | 11:44
Congressman Criticizes President Donald Trump's 'China First' Agenda | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 05/16/18 | 9:20
White House caught off guard by North Korea, aides say | CNN | 05/15/18 | 13:24
North Korea Threatens To Scrap Donald Trump Summit Over U.S. Nuke Demands | The 11th Hour | MSNBC | 05/15/18 | 8:47
The Unintended Consequences Of President Donald Trump's Fox-Only Media Diet | All In | MSNBC | 05/15/18 | 2:37
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
What Happens In The White House, Leaks From The White House | Stephen Colbert | 05/16/18 | 7:44
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
The Trump Administration Is Plagued by Professional Leakers | Trevor Noah | 05/15/18 | 6:13
Late Night with Seth Meyers
Ronan Farrow on Interviewing Rex Tillerson | Seth Meyers | 05/16/18 | 5:30
Note: I add this just to expose you to what the Alt Right is listening to. Sometimes pretty scary.
White House Discovers Identities Of Leakers | Alex Jones | 05/16/18 | 11:40
BREAKING: Cell Phones Turn Cars Into Microwaves Ovens | Alex Jones | 05/15/18 | 15:45
The Shocking Doomsday Maps Of The World And The Billionaire Escape Plans
Click to zoom in

05.16.2018. 10:31



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Lindsey Graham Mashups
Lindsey Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said the quiet part aloud on why he’s still so close to former President Donald Trump: because we can use him for our goals. "President Trump has gotten people who wouldn't give me or Romney or anybody else the time of day. They believe he is on their side," the senator told the America First Agenda Summit crowd on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

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Environment & Climate Change
Environment

The term "climate change" is often used to refer specifically to anthropogenic climate change (also known as global warming). Anthropogenic climate change is caused by human activity, as opposed to changes in climate that may have resulted as part of Earth's natural processes.

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AI - Artificial Intelligence | Machine Learning | Deep Learning
AI - Artificial Intelligence

AIArtificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by animals including humans. AI research has been defined as the field of study of intelligent agents, which refers to any system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of achieving its goals.

The term "artificial intelligence" had previously been used to describe machines that mimic and display "human" cognitive skills that are associated with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem-solving". This definition has since been rejected by major AI researchers who now describe AI in terms of rationality and acting rationally, which does not limit how intelligence can be articulated.
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Quantum mechanics | AI - Artificial Intelligence
Quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles.  It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
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Economy, Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street is an eight-block-long street running roughly northwest to southeast from Broadway to South Street, at the East River, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial services industry (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or New York-based financial interests.

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, and foreign policy objectives. Means of information gathering are both overt and covert and may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis,.

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
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Nukes
Nukes

Nuclear weapons have come a long way and come in all types of different sizes. Some are relatively small while others are enormous, so big they boggle the mind at what they can be capable of, i.e. the Soviet 'Tsar Bomba' is/was 3,000 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb.

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business
Rana Foroohar

Ms. Foroohar says financialization delivers stagnant wages, inequality and economic crisis; the Financial Times columnist and author of "Makers and Takers" says the financial sector represents only 7 percent of the U.S. economy, but takes around 25 percent of all corporate profit while creating only 4 percent of all jobs.

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The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Petere Kuznick | 2014 | 10 Episodes

Oliver Stone and American University historian Peter J. Kuznick began working on the project in 2008. Stone, Kuznick and British screenwriter Matt Graham cowrote the script. It covers "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." Stone is the director and narrator of all ten episodes.

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Kuznick Interviews

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Historian Peter Kuznick says Eisenhower called for decreased militarization, then Dulles reversed the policy; the Soviets tried to end the cold war after the death of Stalin; crazy schemes involving nuclear weapons and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba put the world of the eve of destruction - with host Paul Jay

The Untold History of the United States by Kuznick, Peter.mobi | Book | 6.99 MB

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China Valley of Tunnels

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A report written by a Georgetown University team led by Phillip Karber conducted a three-year study to map out China’s complex tunnel system, which stretches 5,000 km (3,000 miles). The report determined that the stated Chinese nuclear arsenal is understated and as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads may be stored in the underground tunnel network.

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911
911

On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists attacked the Unites States. They hijacked four airplanes in mid-flight. The terrorists flew two of the planes into two skyscrapers at the World Trade Center in New York City. The impact caused the buildings to catch fire and collapse. Another plane destroyed part of the Pentagon (the U.S. military headquarters) in Arlington, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Officials believe that the terrorists on that plane intended to destroy either the White House or the U.S. Capitol. Passengers on the plane fought the terrorists and prevented them from reaching their goal. In all, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, THE VIETNAM WAR, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides--Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as combatants and civilians from North and South Vietnam. Ten years in the making, the series includes rarely seen and digitally re-mastered archival footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th Century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, and secret audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations.

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Trump's Mashups
Trump's Mashups

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? VICE News' "Trump Talk" mashup series tries to answer that. And, we're happy to say, it was just nominated for two Webby Awards. Now you can watch all the nominated videos.

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Trump's Sexcapades
Trump's Sexcapades.

Jessica Leeds (1980s)
Kristin Anderson (1990s)
E. Jean Carroll (1995 or 1996)
Lisa Boyne (1996)
Cathy Heller (1997)
Temple Taggart McDowell (1997)
Karena Virginia (1998)
Mindy McGillivray (2003)
Jennifer Murphy (2005)
Rachel Crooks (2005)
Natasha Stoynoff (2005)
Juliet Huddy (2005 or 2006)
Jessica Drake (2006)
Ninni Laaksonen (2006)
Cassandra Searles (2013)
Allegations of pageant dressing room visits(1997)
Mariah Billado,
Victoria Hughes,
and three other Miss Teen USA contestants
Bridget Sullivan (2000)
Tasha Dixon (2001)
Unnamed contestants (2001)
Samantha Holvey (2006)

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Trump's Speeches | Rallys |Interviews
Trump's Speeches | Rallys

Donald Trump talks a lot, but what is he actually saying? Watch Trump at some of his rallys and see what you think.

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