Home · News · News Nov 2018 · Nov 12 2018
Monday November 12, 2018
Drain the Swamp: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Drain the Swamp | John Oliver | 11/11/18 | 16:36

Ryan Zinke and the environment: a tragedy in three acts
THeGuardian | Joel Clemen | 11/12/18

At first I kept an open mind about Trump's interior secretary. But it soon became clear he put the oil, gas and mining industry above our agency's mission

Back in 2017, the staff at the interior department was not hoping for the best, we were hoping for the competent. A presidential transition can bring dramatic change to the leadership of a federal agency -- particularly the agency that manages the conservation and use of one fifth of America's land area and the seabed of our continental shelf.

Civil servants pledge to continue to serve the American people and the agency mission regardless of whether or not they agree with the political positioning of the president and his cabinet. So we watched the Ryan Zinke confirmation hearings carefully, listening for hints at his management style, his communications style, and his general understanding and respect for public lands and the mission of the agency. These were the qualities that mattered, not his ideology. We were hoping for competence.

What we heard in his hearing was a general respect for the notion of public lands, of science, and of the career staff who make the agency tick. There were some red flags for public land advocates and positive signs for industry, but for civil servants, he seemed competent and respectful enough. As so often happens in politics, however, looks can be deceiving. ... Read more

Most Democrats see Republicans as racist, sexist
Click to zoom in

Axios | Kim Hart | 11/12/18

Many Americans think people in the other party are ignorant, spiteful, evil and generally destroying the country, according to a new Axios poll by SurveyMonkey, aired on HBO on Sunday night. 61% of Democrats see Republicans as "racist/bigoted/sexist." 31% of Republicans say they view Democrats in the same light.

Why it matters: If Americans are this convinced that the other side isn't just wrong, but dumb and evil, they'll never be able to find enough common ground to solve real problems. And they're more likely to elect leaders who can't do it, either. ... Read more

Whose Boat Is This Boat?: Comments That Don't Help in the Aftermath of a Hurricane by Donald Trump

Whose Boat Is This Boat? Comments That Don't Help in the Aftermath of a Hurricane is a picture book made entirely of quotations from President Donald Trump in the wake of Hurricane Florence. It is the first children's book that demonstrates what not to say after a natural disaster.

On September 19, 2018, Donald Trump paid a visit to New Bern, North Carolina, one of the towns ravaged by Hurricane Florence. It was there he showed deep concern for a boat that washed ashore. "At least you got a nice boat out of the deal," said President Trump to hurricane victims. "Have a good time!" he told them. The only way his comments would be appropriate is in the context of a children's book--and now you can experience them that way, thanks to the staff of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Whose Boat Is This Boat? is an excellent teaching tool for readers of all ages who enjoy learning about empathy by process of elimination.

Democrats Should Remember Al Gore Won Florida in 2000 -- But Lost the Presidency with a Preemptive Surrender
TheIntercept | Jon Schwarz | 11/12/18

AT MIDNIGHT ON election day last Tuesday, vote tallies showed Republican candidates ahead in key races in Florida, Georgia and Arizona. However, many votes remained to be counted in all three states. The stakes are high: two Senate seats (Florida and Arizona) and two governorships (Florida and Georgia), plus some lower offices. And as the count has proceeded, the Democratic candidate in each case has gained more votes than the Republican, narrowing the margin or -- in the case of the Senate election in Arizona -- taking the lead.

Republicans, led by President Trump, have responded by declaring that counting these votes is somehow fraudulent. The GOP's rhetoric has been particularly preposterous in Florida, where Governor Rick Scott is attempting to switch offices by ousting incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. Scott's Tuesday night margin of 50,000 votes is now down to 15,000, and he's demanded that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigate some unspecified malfeasance. Each race now appears likely close enough to trigger a recount (or in the case of the Georgia governor's race, a run-off.) ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, November 12 [14:21]
A Century After End of WWI, Trump Snubs Peace Summit While Macron Warns of Growing Nationalism | DN | 11/12/18 | 8:28
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Monday, November 12 (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. A Century After End of WWI, Trump Snubs Peace Summit While Macron Warns of Growing Nationalism
  3. Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Jane Addams: Honoring Antiwar Resisters on the 100th Anniv. of WWI's End
  4. A Century After WWI's End, Adam Hochschild Cautions: "Think Long and Hard Before Starting a New War"
  5. On Veterans Day, Advocates Warn Against Pence & Trump-Led Attacks on VA Healthcare
  6. After Former Marine Kills 12 in Thousand Oaks, CA, a Discussion on Mental Health for Veterans
U.S. Refuses to Adopt a Nuclear Weapon No First Use Pledge -- Daniel Ellsberg on RAI (Part 7/8) | TRNN | 11/12/18 | 17:27
Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998", I'll give you a hint... 2053
Terrifyingly Powerful Nuclear Weapons
SEVEN Justice Democrats Are Heading To Congress | TYT | 11/11/18 | 14:03
Trump Attacks Three Black Female Journalists | TYT | 11/11/18 | 4:07
The1a.org
An American President In Paris | 1a.org | 11/12/18 | 1hr
The imagery may have been rooted in logistics, but as France and its European partners fret about the alliance forged with the United States in bloody conflict a century ago, it mattered. Trump has shown little appetite for strengthening the relationships that have underpinned transatlantic relations since the end of World War I, instead lambasting traditional US partners on trade and the cost of security.

He's shown more affinity for strongmen leaders who have eroded democracy in their countries, like Putin, with whom he spoke at a lunch on Sunday, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who sat alongside him at dinner on Saturday.

That's left leaders, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Macron, who put forth well-publicized displays of unity this weekend, to urgently warn of backsliding into history's darkest moments.
Impeachment Now | 1a.org | 11/12/18 | 1hr
Now, former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, D-NY, and former CIA officer David Priess have released their contributions to the genre.

In The Case for Impeaching Trump, Holtzman draws on her time as a member of the House Judiciary Committee during Richard Nixon's presidency.
NBC News: President Donald Trump Likely Faced Indictment But For Presidency | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC | 11/09/18 | 10:06
Joe: President Donald Trump Embarrassed Himself In France, Not America | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 11/12/18 | 14:14
Senator Chris Coons: Whitaker Should Recuse Himself From Russia Investigation | Morning Joe | MSNBC | 11/12/18 | 7:57
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Trump And Putin's Weekend In Paris | Stephen Colbert | 11/09/18 | 4:46
Whose Boat Is This Boat?: An Animated Holiday Classic | Stephen Colbert | 11/10/18 | 4:13

11.12.2018. 13:22



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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.
Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale.
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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
Daniel Ellsberg

Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Jay explore Ellsberg's latest book, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. In the introduction to the book, Ellsberg writes: "No policies in human history have more deserved to be recognized as immoral or insane. The story of how this calamitous predicament came about and how and why it has persisted over a half a century is a chronicle of human madness".

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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

Kuznick Interviews

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

China Valley of Tunnels

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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