Home · News · News Sep 2018 · Sep 14 2018
Friday September 14, 2018
Monarchy, tyranny, oligarchy, democracy -- these were all familiar to Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago. But the illiberal one-party state, now found all over the world -- think of China, Venezuela, Zimbabwe--was first developed by Lenin, in Russia, starting in 1917. In the political-science textbooks of the future, the Soviet Union's founder will surely be remembered not for his Marxist beliefs, but as the inventor of this enduring form of political organization. It is the model that many of the world's budding autocrats use today.

Americans Aren't Practicing Democracy Anymore
TheAtlantic | Yoni Appelbaum | current

Democracy is a most unnatural act. People have no innate democratic instinct; we are not born yearning to set aside our own desires in favor of the majority's. Democracy is, instead, an acquired habit.

Like most habits, democratic behavior develops slowly over time, through constant repetition. For two centuries, the United States was distinguished by its mania for democracy: From early childhood, Americans learned to be citizens by creating, joining, and participating in democratic organizations. But in recent decades, Americans have fallen out of practice, or even failed to acquire the habit of democracy in the first place.

The results have been catastrophic. As the procedures that once conferred legitimacy on organizations have grown alien to many Americans, contempt for democratic institutions has risen. In 2016, a presidential candidate who scorned established norms rode that contempt to the Republican nomination, drawing his core support from Americans who seldom participate in the rituals of democracy. ... Read more

A Warning From Europe: The Worst Is Yet to Come
TheAtlantic | author | date

Polarization. Conspiracy theories. Attacks on the free press. An obsession with loyalty. Recent events in the United States follow a pattern Europeans know all too well.

On december 31, 1999, we threw a party. The guests were various: journalist friends from London and Berlin, a few diplomats based in Warsaw, two friends who flew in from New York. But most of them were Poles, friends of ours and colleagues of my husband, who was then a deputy foreign minister in the Polish government. A handful of youngish Polish journalists came too -- none then particularly famous -- along with a few civil servants and one or two members of the government.

... You could have lumped the majority of them, roughly, in the general category of what Poles call the right -- the conservatives, the anti-Communists. But at that moment in history, you might also have called most of my guests liberals -- free-market liberals, or classical liberals -- or maybe Thatcherites. Even those who might have been less definite about economics certainly believed in democracy, in the rule of law, and in a Poland that was a member of nato and on its way to joining the European Union -- an integrated part of modern Europe. In the 1990s, that was what being "on the right" meant. Read more

Given the right conditions, any society can turn against democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all societies eventually will.
Anderson Cooper to Bob Woodward: This part of book was terrifying | CNN | 09/12/18 | 12:14
Hurricane Florence
Jimmy Kimmels Fall Reading List
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Trump's Friends Get Rich Off Oil Boom As Industry Limits Info on Pipeline Worker Injuries & Deaths | DN | 09/13/18 | 24:54
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, September 14 (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.
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As Hurricane Florence Batters Carolinas, Media Ignores Climate Change Connection | TRNN | 09/12/18 | 14:11
Billionaire, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, Takes Shots At Trump | TYT | 09/12/18 | 7:11
Trump's Tax Cuts Wreaking Havoc | TYT | 09/12/18 | 15:38
Trump Denies Hurricane Death Toll | TYT | 09/13/18 | 10:21
The1a.org
Friday News Roundup - Domestic | 1a.org | 09/14/18 | 1hr
  1. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that the number of migrant children being detained at the border has reached 12,800. That's five times as many detainees as last year.
  2. From the report: Even though hundreds of children separated from their families after crossing the border have been released under court order, the overall number of detained migrant children has exploded to the highest ever recorded -- a significant counternarrative to the Trump administration's efforts to reduce the number of undocumented families coming to the United States.

    [...] The huge increases, which have placed the federal shelter system near capacity, are due not to an influx of children entering the country, but a reduction in the number being released to live with families and other sponsors, the data collected by the Department of Health and Human Services suggests. Some of those who work in the migrant shelter network say the bottleneck is straining both the children and the system that cares for them.
  3. The latest assessment puts the death toll at 2,975. Last month, we discussed the updated numbers and the current state of Puerto Rico. You can hear that conversation here.
  4. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018 this week. Here, Vox explains what this legislation could mean for the epidemic.
Friday News Roundup - International | 1a.org | 09/14/18 | 1hr
  1. In southern Iraq, protests threaten the political career of the prime minister, Haider al-Abadi.
  2. Also, the Venezuelan government accused the United States of plotting a coup against President Nicholas Maduro. The New York Times reported that American officials met with members of the Venezuelan military who were plotting a coup, although nothing came out of the discussions.
  3. And Ethiopia and Eritrea re-opened the border between the two countries this week. Family and friends were reunited
Anonymous Nature Of Brett Kavanaugh Letter Complicates Vetting | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC | 09/13/18 | 7:52
What Is A Storm Surge? | Velshi & Ruhle | MSNBC | 09/13/18 | 2:40
Humanitarian Crisis: Trump Detains Record Number Of Migrant Kids | The Beat With Ari Melber | MSNBC | 09/13/18 | 2:16
Stephen Colbert
Donald Trump: The Storm Before The Storm | Stephen Colbert | 09/12/18 | 4:18
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
S**tstorm Donald Rages on Twitter While Hurricane Florence Hits the Carolinas | The Daily Show | 09/13/18 | 6:15
Late Night with Seth Meyers
Trump Lies About Puerto Rico Death Toll as GOP Braces for Midterms | Seth Meyers | 09/13/18 | 10:57
Jimmy Kimmel Live
Bob Woodward's Trump Book 1000% True | Jimmy Kimmel | 09/12/18 | 2:04

09.14.2018. 08:03



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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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