Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

The GOP must dump Trump
TheWashingtonPost | Joe Scarborough | 08/09/16

The Muslim ban, the David Duke denial, the "Mexican" judge flap, the draft dodger denigrating John McCain's military service, the son of privilege attacking an immigrant Gold Star mother and the constant revisionism and lying about past political positions taken are but a few of the lowlights that have punctuated Donald Trump's chaotic chase for the presidency.

Any one of these offenses would have disqualified any other candidate for president. But the Republican nominee remained competitive against a historically weak Democratic nominee on the promise of bringing radical change and dramatic disruption to Washington. ... Read more

*TYT | National Security Establishment Lines Up Against Donald Trump (08/09/16) [3:49]

How Much Damage Could Donald Trump Really Do, After All?
HP | Mark Kleiman | 08/09/16

Some of the people planning to cast protest votes in November have a bedtime story they love to tell themselves. In the story, Donald Trump's election wouldn't be such a bad thing because the diffusion of power in the American political system would prevent him from carrying out the worst of his lunatic schemes.

Now, there is a germ of an idea there: political and institutional constraints greatly limit the power of a President. But it's worth noting that the political constraints generally act through the perceptions of the President and those around him about what he can, and can't, get away with: that is, precisely the sort of thing that would have kept Trump-the-candidate from, e.g., hurling ethnic insults at a federal judge. A President unfazed by criticism, and willing to ignore advice about the limits of his lawful authority from the Office of Legal Counsel, actually can get quite a lot done. No President in the modern era -- even Nixon -- has dared to say what President Jackson said about a Supreme Court ruling: "Mr. Justice Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it." But what if we had a President who was willing to behave that way, surrounded by advisers egging him on to do so? Trump's power for evil might be substantially greater than (e.g.) Obama's power for good. ... Read more

Emails Renew Questions About Clinton Foundation and State Dept. Overlap
NYTimes | Eric Lichtblau | 08/09/16

A new batch of State Department emails released Tuesday showed the close and sometimes overlapping interests between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department when Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state.

The documents raised new questions about whether the charitable foundation worked to reward its donors with access and influence at the State Department, a charge that Mrs. Clinton has faced in the past and has always denied.

In one email exchange, for instance, an executive at the Clinton Foundation in 2009 sought to put a billionaire donor in touch with the United States ambassador to Lebanon because of the donor's interests there. ... Read more

*TYT | Newly Released Emails Don't Look Great For Hillary Campaign... (08/09/16) [8:19]

The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy by Michael E. Mann

The award-winning climate scientist Michael E. Mann and the Pulitzer Prize--winning political cartoonist Tom Toles have been on the front lines of the fight against climate denialism for most of their careers. They have witnessed the manipulation of the media by business and political interests and the unconscionable play to partisanship on issues that affect the well-being of billions. The lessons they have learned have been invaluable, inspiring this brilliant, colorful escape hatch from the madhouse of the climate wars.

The Madhouse Effect portrays the intellectual pretzels into which denialists must twist logic to explain away the clear evidence that human activity has changed Earth's climate. Toles's cartoons collapse counter-scientific strategies into their biased components, helping readers see how to best strike at these fallacies. Mann's expert skills at science communication aim to restore sanity to a debate that continues to rage against widely acknowledged scientific consensus. The synergy of these two climate science crusaders enlivens the gloom and doom of so many climate-themed books?and may even convert die-hard doubters to the side of sound science.

Proxy War in Syria: US vs Russia by Natalia V. Osipova and Mark Mazzetti (08/08/16) [2:52]

Vietnam Secretly Moves israeli Rocket Launchers To Disputed Islands To Counter China
ZeroHedge | author | 08/10/16

While over the last several months, tensions over the South China Sea territorial dispute have mostly focused on the diplomatic war of words between China and the US, Reuters reports that in a move that is likely to substantially "raise tensions with Beijing", Vietnam has secretly fortified several of its islands in the disputed territory with Israeli-made EXTRA mobile rocket launchers 'capable of striking China's runways and military installations across the vital trade route." ... Read more