Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Groups call for immediate shutdown of South Texas nuclear power station in advance of continued Harvey flooding
BeyondNuclear.org | author | 08/28/17

... Beyond Nuclear and Texas watchdog groups Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition and the South Texas Association for Responsible Energy had called upon the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the operators of the South Texas nuclear power plant to put the reactors into "in its safest condition, cold shutdown" in advance of predicted flood waters that prompted Bay City authorities to declare a "mandatory evacuation" before emergency evacuation routes flooded.

The unprecedented rainfall in the region broke a U.S. continental record. The groups had warned that the NRC and the South Texas Nuclear Operating Corporation have previously recognized that there is a credible threat from a nuclear accident initiated by a breach in a 12-mile long perimeter embankment wall that surrounds the 7,000 acre Main Cooling Reservoir for the two reactors. ... Read more

Houston, Before and After Harvey | Times | 08/28/17 | 1:17

Fire Rages At Texas Chemical Factory
HP | Ryan Grenoble , Alana Horowitz Satlin | 08/30/17

... "There were different organic peroxides that were released and created a pop in the containers where they were stored," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said. "Smoke initially emanated from it and that turned into black smoke."

... The factory lost power early Sunday, which it needs to refrigerate volatile chemicals. Those chemicals ignite if they get too warm, said the company's CEO, Richard Rowe. "Materials could now explode and cause a subsequent intense fire," Rowe said. "The high water that exists on site, and the lack of power, leave us with no way to prevent it." ... Read more

Horsemen of the Trumpocalypse: A Field Guide to the Most Dangerous People in America by John Nichols

Donald Trump has assembled a rogue's gallery of alt-right hatemongers, crony capitalists, immigrant bashers, and climate-change deniers to run the American government. To survive the next four years, we the people need to know whose hands are on the levers of power. And we need to know how to challenge their abuses. John Nichols, veteran political correspondent at the Nation, has been covering many of these deplorables for decades. Sticking to the hard facts and unafraid to dig deep into the histories and ideologies of the people who make up Trump's inner circle, Nichols delivers a clear-eyed and complete guide to this wrecking-crew administration.

The reality beneath Trump's tax reform talk
Politico | Brian Faler | 08/31/17

While he emphasizes benefits to regular taxpayers, much of the push is about cutting corporate rates.

Trump argued that his plans to cut the 35 percent corporate tax rate for the first time in 30 years would benefit regular wage earners by putting more money in corporate coffers, which he said business leaders would then use to hire more people and raise wages.

But most economists say companies' shareholders would be the primary beneficiaries of a corporate tax rate cut. That's because it would make companies more profitable, which would boost their stock price while also leaving them with more money to pay out dividends.

The official Joint Committee on Taxation, as well as the Treasury Department and the independent Tax Policy Center, all say shareholders bear roughly three-quarters of the burden of the corporate tax, and therefore would be the main winners were it cut. ... Read more

Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer by Dean Baker

There has been an enormous upward redistribution of income in the United States in the last four decades. In his most recent book, Baker shows that this upward redistribution was not the result of globalization and the natural workings of the market. Rather, it was the result of conscious policies that were designed to put downward pressure on the wages of ordinary workers while protecting and enhancing the incomes of those at the top. Baker explains how rules on trade, patents, copyrights, corporate governance, and macroeconomic policy were rigged to make income flow upward.

Naomi Klein: Face It, the Flooding Disaster Is Climate Change
AlterNet | Amy Goodman / Democracy Now! | 08/30/17

The World Meteorological Organization announced Tuesday that Hurricane Harvey's devastation is linked to climate change. All past U.S. rainfall records have been shattered, and the devastating storm is expected to bring even more rainfall to Louisiana and Texas in the coming days. Still, the corporate networks have avoided linking the record-breaking storm to the climate crisis. We examine storm coverage with Naomi Klein, best-selling author of several books, including "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate."

Read more
*Naomi Klein's Message to the Media Covering Houston: Now is the Time to Talk About Climate Change | DN | 08/30/17 | 8:57

"Rapidly Intensifying" Hurricane Irma Barreling Straight Toward The East Coast
ZeroHedge | author | 08/31/17

... In a few days, the hurricane will be moving over warmer waters with light shear shown by all of the model guidance. This should promote further strengthening of Irma, and the NHC forecast shows an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane next week, similar to the solutions provided by the HWRF and the ECMWF models. ... Read more

Models show BIG CAT 5, Tropical Storm IRMA, to form in Atlantic and threaten the East Coast by next Friday 09/08/17

Would Impeaching Trump Truly Lead to Civil War? (#114) | Keith Olbermann | 08/30/17 | 5:46

Trump Reportedly Pitched a Fit Over the Meager Attendance at His Phoenix Rally
AlterNet | Tom Boggioni / Raw Story | 08/29/17

The former organizer of President Donald Trump's rallies -- who now does the same for the Republican National Committee -- was reportedly fired after the president became enraged at a half-full hall for his Phoenix rally last week.

According to Bloomberg Politics, George Gigicos, the former White House director of advance events, was told in no uncertain terms that he would never organize another rally for the president after Phoenix. ... Read more

Trump is using the Hurricane Harvey tragedy to cover for his collapsing administration
RawStory |Michael Winship | 08/29/17

The latest news dump was the most brazen, a triple whammy, for not only did it fall on a Friday night, it happened in the face of a Category 4 hurricane that was just about to hit the Texas coast with a still-to-be-determined, massive loss of property and life. And we got not just one but two stories released as the storm's destruction loomed -- the signing of a ban on the transgendered serving in the military and the pardon of former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the scourge of Arizona law enforcement. ... Read more

Hurricane Harvey Is the Rainiest Atlantic Hurricane Ever Measured
TheAtlantic | Robinson Meyer | 08/29/17

"We woke up Sunday morning, and we were seeing the event unfold, and we knew that what we were seeing on TV -- it was not the end of the story," he told me on Tuesday. "Looking at our forecast models, and other information, we had confidence that there was more rain coming."

He consulted with his colleagues, who agreed with him that the agency needed to convey the scale of what was coming. "We felt we needed to say something," he said. "You kind of scramble to the record books to see, how does this compare to other events? We could not find something similar, in terms of the aerial coverage of the event. We were concerned we were going to have amounts near 50 inches." ... Read more

Hunker Down Or Head Out? When To Evacuate A City| 1a.org | 08/30/17 | 1hr

PBS NewsHour full episode Aug. 29, 2017 | PBS | 08/29/17 | 55:03

Caring Corrupted - The Killing Nurses of The Third Reich | UTHealth School of Nursing | 02/14/17 | 56:07

Texas Lawmakers Who Voted Against Relief for Hurricane Sandy Now Ask For Help With Harvey
MotherJones | Ashley Dejean | 08/28/17

All of a sudden, Ted Cruz is a big fan of disaster relief.

... "Given the potential catastrophic impact that the Hurricane may have on Texas communities," the senators wrote, "we strongly support this request and urge you to provide any and all emergency protective measures available by a major disaster declaration."

The irony of this request was not lost on lawmakers from states that had been devastated by hurricane Sandy in 2012. At that time, Texas lawmakers overwhelmingly voted against recovery assistance for New York and New Jersey. When asked about that hypocrisy today on MSNBC, Cruz dodged the question. "There's time for political sniping later," he said. "I think our focus needs to be on this crisis and this disaster." ... Read more

Harvey Is What Climate Change Looks Like
Politico | Eric Holthaus | 08/28/17

It's time to open our eyes and prepare for the world that's coming.

... But there's an uncomfortable point that, so far, everyone is skating around: We knew this would happen, decades ago. We knew this would happen, and we didn't care. Now is the time to say it as loudly as possible: Harvey is what climate change looks like. More specifically, Harvey is what climate change looks like in a world that has decided, over and over, that it doesn't want to take climate change seriously.

Houston has been sprawling out into the swamp for decades, largely unplanned and unzoned. Now, all that pavement has transformed the bayous into surging torrents and shunted Harvey's floodwaters towards homes and businesses. Individually, each of these subdivisions or strip malls might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but in aggregate, they've converted the metro area into a flood factory. Houston, as it was before Harvey, will never be the same again. ... Read more

Tidal Flooding and Sea Level Rise: The Growing Impacts of Global Warming | Union of Concerned Scientists | older | 3:29

Boomtown, Flood Town | PICTURES
Politico | author | date

Climate change will bring more frequent and fierce rainstorms to cities like Houston. But unchecked development remains a priority in the famously un-zoned city, creating short-term economic gains for some while increasing flood risks for everyone. ... Read more

Scoop: Trump frustration with Tillerson rising fast
Axios.com | Jonathan Swan | 08/27/17

There's a ticking problem with Rex Tillerson, and it's growing louder by the day, according to officials inside and close to the White House.

President Trump has been growing increasingly frustrated with his Secretary of State. One time recently, after Trump had returned from a meeting on Afghanistan, a source recalled Trump saying, "Rex just doesn't get it, he's totally establishment in his thinking." Tillerson's jaw-dropping comments on TV today will likely only worsen their relationship. ... Read more
Tillerson Likely Trump's Next Fire? | TYT | 08/28/17 | 6:37

Big bank insiders are selling off shares in their companies
Axios.com | author | date

Board members and executives at the top six banks in the U.S. have been consistently selling their own banks' shares this year, Financial Times reports, based on analysis of disclosures tracked by Bloomberg.

To get to the point: That's not a big vote of confidence for the economy from some of the people who know it best. This includes JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, which collectively have sold a net 9.32 million shares on open market since the beginning of this year. Stark contrast from last year, when they bought more than they sold. ... Read more

For Whom Has Trump Made America Great? (#112) | Keith Olbermann | 08/28/17 | 9:24

Houston Under Water
HP | Roque Planas | 08/28/17

HOUSTON ? Heavy rain pummeled the nation's fourth-largest city Monday morning as one of the worst flooding disasters in recent U.S. history was ongoing -- and poised to get worse.

At least 25 inches of rain have fallen in parts of Southeast Texas since Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Rockport on Friday evening, shattering several previous rainfall records. Many highways and streets throughout the region are flooded, making normal travel impossible and forcing first responders to perform over 1,000 rescues over the weekend, with even more expected on Monday. FEMA administrator Brock Long said he anticipates that at least 30,000 residents will be displaced to temporary shelters. ... Read more

Trump confronts unprecedented public rebuke by Gary Cohn after Charlottesville
WashingtonPost | Damian Paletta | 08/25/17

An unprecedented rebuke of President Trump by National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn reverberated through Washington on Friday, forcing the White House to respond to harsh, public criticism from one of the president's top advisers.

Cohn lashed Trump's comments earlier this month blaming the violence in Charlottesville on "both sides," saying in an interview with the Financial Times that "citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK." The adviser, who is Jewish and has long given to Jewish causes, said that the administration "must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning these groups." ... Read more

Sebastian Gorka, a fiery nationalist and Bannon ally, abruptly exits White House
WP | Philip Rucker | 08/25/17

Sebastian Gorka, a controversial White House staffer who served as a fiery spokesman for President Trump on national security matters, abruptly left the administration on Friday as his nationalist faction was being silenced, four people briefed on Gorka's exit confirmed.

Officials said it was widely known that White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, who has been restructuring the West Wing to stem infighting and chaos within the staff, was eager for Gorka to depart the administration. ... Read more
Sebastian Gorka, a controversial White House staffer who served as a fiery spokesman for President Trump on national security matters | WP | 08/25/17 | 2:14

James Clapper's Fear of Trump's Recklessness Should Set off Alarm Bells
Esquire.com | John Hendrickson | 08/23/17

When did you first feel the fear? Was it way back after his golden escalator ride, when Mexicans, at the group level, were deemed rapists and criminals? Was it when already-vetted refugees were getting off their planes on American soil and being detained at the border? Was it after he casually said he wanted an arms race? Was it after the Charlottesville press conference? Or was it last night, after yet another off-the-rails rally for the purpose of, what, exactly?

Tens of millions of Americans have come to fear the stability of their Commander-in-Chief in a way that seems legitimately unprecedented. You may have disagreed with Obama's progressive agenda regarding social programs, or Bush's decision to invade Iraq, but did you actually fear that those men would potentially lead you and your fellow Americans down the path of destruction? If you want to call that rhetoric alarmist and unwarranted, fine. ... Read more
James Clapper Shook After Trump's "Downright Scary" Speech | TYT | 08/27/17 | 6:50

The NRA's New Television Network Is Part Breitbart, Part InfoWars and Completely Deranged
AlterNet | Cydney Hargis / Media Matters | 08/28/17

Launched in late 2016, NRATV serves as the news outlet for the National Rifle Association, regularly defending President Donald Trump, slamming mainstream media outlets as "dishonest rags," and viciously criticizing any politician or activist who speaks out against the president and his policies. While some of the outlet's coverage focuses on gun policy, the newest developments in firearms technology, and tactical shooting, the programming has largely become a platform for far-right conservative talking points that are often unrelated to gun policy. As NRATV has strayed away from gun coverage, it has sparked a number of controversies and drawn widespread criticism in its inaugural year.

Launched in October 2016, NRATV is a rebrand of the National Rifle Association's long-running news outlet NRA News -- which began airing in 2004 -- with the aim of offering more live programming. NRATV broadcasts via online streaming at NRATV.com and satellite radio. ... Read more

Why People Still Support Trump
Bloomberg | Clive Crook | 08/28/17

There are two main theories of Trump's support. One is that a large minority of Americans -- 40 percent, give or take -- are racist idiots. This theory is at least tacitly endorsed by the Democratic Party and the mainstream liberal media. The other is that a large majority of this large minority are good citizens with intelligible and legitimate opinions, who so resent being regarded as racist idiots that they'll back Trump almost regardless. They may not admire the man, but he's on their side, he vents their frustration, he afflicts the people who think so little of them -- and that's good enough.

The first theory, if it were true, would be an argument against democracy. If tens of millions of Americans are racist idiots, how do you defend the popular franchise? That isn't a sliver of reprehensible people who'll be safely overwhelmed when elections come around. And there's plainly nothing, according to the first theory, you can say to change their minds. Why even go through the motions of talking and listening to those people?

The second theory -- the correct theory -- is a terrible indictment of the Democratic Party and much of the media. Why aren't the intelligible and legitimate opinions of that large minority given a hearing? Why must their views be bundled reflexively into packages labelled "bigotry" and "stupidity"? Why can't this large minority of the American people be accorded something other than pity or scorn? ... Read more

Another recession is coming, big banks warn
Salon | Michael Glassman | 08/24/17

Is it going to be 2008 all over again?

Stock market indices may be reaching record highs, but according to financiers, the good times may be coming to an end. Workers at major financial firms are predicting that another recession is on the horizon, Bloomberg is reporting:

Analysts at the Wall Street behemoths cite signals including the breakdown of long-standing relationships between stocks, bonds and commodities as well as investors ignoring valuation fundamentals and data. It all means stock and credit markets are at risk of a painful drop.

"Equities have become less correlated with FX [foreign exchange markets], FX has become less correlated with rates, and everything has become less sensitive to oil," Andrew Sheets, Morgan Stanley's chief cross-asset strategist, wrote in a note published Tuesday. ... Read more

Watch These Top Headliners at the Fed's Jackson Hole Conference
Bloomberg | Jeanna Smialek | 08/24/17

Janet Yellen, Mario Draghi and Haruhiko Kuroda will be among the monetary policy superstars donning western wear and puzzling over the global economy this week at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's annual summit in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

The trio gather together at the remote mountain resort for the first time since 2014, headlining a high-ranking guest list at the world's premier central banking event. It may also be Yellen's final appearance at Jackson Hole as Fed chair, unless President Donald Trump nominates her for a second stint when her current term expires in February. Most observers expect him to pick someone else. ... Read more

Exxon Dared Critics to Prove It Misled the Public. These Researchers Just Called the Company's Bluff.
MotherJones | Rebecca Leber | 08/22/17

Two years ago, Inside Climate News and Los Angeles Times investigations found that while Exxon Mobil internally acknowledged that climate change is man-made and serious, it publicly manufactured doubt about the science. Exxon has been trying unsuccessfully to smother this slow-burning PR crisis ever since, arguing the findings were "deliberately cherry picked statements." But the company's problems have grown to include probes of its business practices by the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Now, science historian Naomi Oreskes and Harvard researcher Geoffrey Supran have published the first peer-reviewed, comprehensive analysis of Exxon's climate communications that adds more heft to these charges. Exxon dared the public to "read all of these documents and make up your own mind," in a company blog post in 2015. The new paper, "Assessing ExxonMobil's Climate Change Communications," in the journal Environmental Research Letters, takes up the challenge. Oreskes and Supran systematically analyze nearly 40 years of Exxon's scientific research, reports, internal documents, and advertisements, and find a deep disconnect between how the company directly communicated climate change and its internal memos and scientific studies. ... Read more
InsideClimateNews.org website

*What Exxon Knew | YaleClimateConnections | 12/08/15 | 9:24

*Exxon Researched Climate Change in 1977 | PBS FrontLine | 09/16/15 | 3:20

The Foreign Fascination With Trump's White House
TheAtlantic | Yasmeen Serhan | 08/25/17

Here's what goes into a president's decision to launch nuclear weapons | PBS | 08/24/17 | 7:02

CNN Panel Openly Questions Whether Trump Is Fit For Office After Wild Arizona Rally
HP | Sam Levine | 08/23/17

*Don Lemon - BRILLIANT Reaction To Trump's 'Embarrassing' Speech (Phoenix Rally) | CNN | 08/23/17 | 13:22

*'Your behavior concerns the US' Tapper Calls Out Trump For Not Telling The Truth | CNN | 08/23/17 | 6:45

*Anderson Cooper's Magnificent Response To Trump After Another 'Shocking Speech' | CNN | 08/23/17 | 16:15

Exxon Mobil 'Misled' Public On Climate Change For 40 Years, Harvard Study Finds
HP | Dominique Mosbergen | 08/24/17

Exxon Mobil Corp. deliberately deceived the public about the dangers of climate change for four decades, a new Harvard University study finds.

For the peer-reviewed study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters Wednesday, two Harvard researchers analyzed nearly 200 documents related to Exxon Mobil's climate change communications. The researchers found that America's largest oil producer had repeatedly made "explicit factual misrepresentations" about global warming in advertisements aimed at the general public, while simultaneously acknowledging its risks behind closed doors.

"Our findings are clear: Exxon Mobil misled the public about the state of climate science and its implications," study authors Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran wrote in a New York Times op-ed this week. "Available documents show a systematic, quantifiable discrepancy between what Exxon Mobil's scientists and executives discussed about climate change in private and in academic circles, and what it presented to the general public." ... Read more
*What Exxon Knew | YaleClimateConnections | 12/08/15 | 9:24

Agitated Trump lashes out at McConnell, Ryan, Clapper, media
Politico | Matthew Nussbaum | 08/24/17

President Donald Trump escalated his war of words with congressional leaders on Thursday morning, accusing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan of provoking a "mess" over the debt ceiling, while also lashing out at the news media and former intelligence official James Clapper.

... For days, Trump has bounced wildly between scripted messages calling for unity in the wake of Charlottesville and enthusiastic attacks on his opponents and fellow Republicans alike, underscoring how difficult a packed legislative calendar could prove in September for a president yet to achieve any substantial legislative wins while rapidly alienating his own party leadership. ... Read more

Who's Backing Away From Trump? Everyone. (#111) | Keith Olbermann | 08/23/17 | 8:58

Sec'y of State Rex Tillerson takes questions after President Donald Trump's Afghanistan Announcement | ABC | 08/22/17 | 37:44

Phoenix mayor urges Trump to delay rally | CBS This Morning | 08/22/17 | 3:00

Donald Trump Spoke at Rally in Phoenix, condensed in to 2.5 minutes | WP | 08/23/17 | 3:00

Donald Trump Spoke at Rally in Phoenix | CNN | 08/22/17 | 1:15:47

Donald Trump Spoke at Rally in Phoenix | NYTimes | 08/22/17 | 1:42:30

Donald Trump speaks at Phoenix Rally | ABC 15 Arizona | 08/22/17 | 1:17:58

Trump Defends Charlottesville Remarks, Bashes Media, Talks Arpaio at Phoenix Rally | FOX 10 Phoenix | 08/22/17 | 1:18:44

Clapper's full interview on Trump's rally | CNN | 08/22/17 | 8:03

Defense hawks cheer Trump's Afghanistan speech
Politico | Austin Wright | 08/21/17

In going against his instincts on Afghanistan, President Donald Trump won the praise of some of his toughest critics -- defense hawks in Congress. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who've blasted Trump in the past over his nationalistic foreign-policy views, hailed the president's decision Monday to increase the U.S. footprint in the 16-year war against the Taliban.

"I commend President Trump for taking a big step in the right direction with the new strategy for Afghanistan," said McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I believe the president is now moving us well beyond the prior administration's failed strategy of merely postponing defeat. Read more
***Republicans THRILLED Trump's Never Leaving Afghanistan | TYT | 08/22/17 | 12:43

Why did Trump flip-flop on Afghanistan?
WashingtonPost | Daniel W. Drezner | 08/22/17

After years talking about what a stupid waste of money the Afghanistan war is, Trump flip-flops. In his televised speech last night, the president flip-flopped his position on the war in Afghanistan. We know this because, to his credit, Trump explicitly copped to it:

My original instinct was to pull out, and historically I like following my instincts. But all my life, I have heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office. In other words, when you are president of the United States. So I studied Afghanistan in great detail and from every conceivable angle. After many meetings over many months, we held our final meeting last Friday at Camp David with my Cabinet and generals to complete our strategy.

There's a lot to unpack in that paragraph. Watching it live, when he said "I studied Afghanistan in great detail and from every conceivable angle," I literally laughed out loud. Let's be blunt: The only printed material that Trump has studied in great detail from every conceivable angle are periodicals that contain glossy centerfolds. Read more
Trump Can't Tell You His Genius Plan To Win Afghanistan War. It's A Secret! | TYT | 08/22/17 | 17:16

The Trump Resignation End-Game? (#110) | Keith Olbermann | 08/22/17 | 1 hr

President Trump Gives a Presidential Address to the Nation | WH | 08/21/17 | 1 hr

'He is stubborn and doesn't realize how bad this is getting'
Politico | Nancy Cook | 08/16/17

Trump's temper has been a constant force in this eight-month-old White House. He's made policy decisions after becoming irritated with staffers and has escalated fights in the past few weeks with everyone from the Senate majority leader to the volatile dictator of North Korea.

The controversy over his response to the Charlottesville violence was no different. Agitated about being pressured by aides to clarify his first public statement, Trump unexpectedly unwound the damage control of the prior two days by assigning blame to the "alt-left" and calling some of the white supremacist protesters "very fine people." ... Read more
Trump Adviser: 'He Is Stubborn And Doesn't Realize How Bad This Is Getting' | TYT | 08/19/17 | 9:44

As The Trumps Travel, The Secret Service Can't Even Afford To Pay Some Agents
HP | Willa Frej | 08/21/17

It's no secret that President Donald Trump's penchant for weekend getaways has created added costs for the Secret Service. But the agency is in such dire straits that more than 1,000 agents have hit the caps for annual salary and overtime allowances, director Randolph "Tex? Alles told USA Today in an exclusive interview.

Part of the challenge for the Secret Service is the size of the Trump entourage. A total of 42 people receive Secret Service protection (including 18 family members), Alles said, up from 31 people during President Barack Obama's administration. And Secret Service protection details are required to accompany them, even on vacations to places like Aspen, Colorado, Germany and Hungary, or business trips that took Trump's two adult sons to Vancouver, Canada, and Dubai. ... Read more

Trump Administration Dissolves Federal Climate Advisory Committee
HP | Lydia O'Connor | 08/20/17

President Donald Trump's administration has dissolved a federal panel of scientists and other experts tasked with helping create and implement new policy based on the latest climate change research findings.

That decision, members of the 15-person committee told HuffPost on Sunday, does not bode well for the future of climate change preparation and prevention during Trump's time in office. ... Read more

Why Steve Bannon's Exit Means MORE White House Chaos
BusinessInsider | author | 08/21/17

Ousted White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is gearing up for battle and has set his sights on President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, according to Vanity Fair. Bannon and Kushner have a long history of disagreement, with the two frequently butting heads on the ideological plane, where Bannon's far-right nationalist instincts clashed with Kushner's more moderate views.

In the wake of his ouster, Bannon is looking to even the score with West Wing rivals like Kushner, Vanity Fair reported. In keeping with that, Bannon reportedly wants former chief of staff Reince Priebus to testify to special counsel Robert Mueller that Kushner was significantly involved in Trump's decision to fire former FBI director James Comey in May. ... Read more
Why Steve Bannon's Exit Means MORE White House Chaos | TYT | 08/21/17 | 9:53

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin just put out a statement about why he hasn't quit in disgust
Vox | Dara Lind | 08/20/17

Cabinet secretaries don't normally feel the need to put out statements explaining why they haven't quit their jobs in disgust. But the Trump administration is not normal. And so it is that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin put out a statement Saturday night, explaining why he's sticking around in the Trump administration.

Mnuchin responded to an open letter published Friday, signed by more than 300 people who graduated from Yale, alongside Mnuchin, in 1985. "We believe it is your moral obligation to resign your post as Secretary of the Treasury, effective immediately," the letter reads.

Liberals, moderates, and anti-Trump conservatives have been calling for people of conscience to resign from the Trump administration since Donald Trump was inaugurated on January 20. And each of the president's most shocking and worrisome moves -- firing FBI Director James Comey, banning trans service members from the military on Twitter against the advice of Defense Secretary James Mattis -- has inspired a new round of calls for administration officials to stop giving cover to an impulsive and divisive president. ... Read more
Trump's Cabinet: You Don't Wanna Know What He'd Do If We Resigned! | TYT | 08/21/17 | 9:05

Steve Bannon Readies His Revenge
VanityFair | Gabriel Sherman | 08/20/17

The war on Jared Kushner is about to go nuclear.

On the morning he was being ousted as Donald Trump's chief strategist last Friday, Steve Bannon had already turned the page. "Why do you sound unfazed?" a friend asked Bannon as news of his demise ricocheted across the web. "Because," Bannon replied, "we're going to war." Hours later, Bannon was calling into the editorial meeting at Breitbart News, rallying his troops to continue the battles he waged inside the White House. "We have a duty to the country to be the vanguard of 'The Movement,'" he told his staff, according to one person on the call. Bannon's main targets are the West Wing's coterie of New York Democrat "globalists"--Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn--as well as the "hawks," comprised of National Security Adviser H.R McMaster and his deputy, Dina Powell. "He wants to beat their ideas into submission," Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow told me. "Steve has a lot of things up his sleeve." ... Read more
Breitbart Going To War With Fox News? | TYT | 08/21/17 | 12:38

What Happened to Trump's Beef With North Korea? (#109) | Keith Olbermann | 08/20/17 | 8:07

How Evangelicals Support White Supremacy -- Even Though They Reject Racism
AlterNet | Chris Sosa | 08/16/17

Southern Baptists don't express any genuine interest in eradicating racism from the world ? just the denomination's own community.

... My Evangelical experience occured inside a large Southern Baptist Convention affiliated congregation called Spotswood Baptist Church in Virginia. The SBC is the largest Evangelical denomination in the United States, housing more than 15 million members. The only Christian body in the U.S. with more members is the Catholic Church.

Originally formed in partial defense of slavery, the SBC publicly rejects its racist roots. The apology and statement on race released by the SBC in the 1990s reads in part, "[W]e apologize to all African-Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime; and we genuinely repent of racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously (Psalm 19:13) or unconsciously (Leviticus 4:27)." It continues "[W]e ask forgiveness from our African-American brothers and sisters."

This is true across most of racism-rejecting Evangelicalism. This subset of Christians does not work toward racial equality in society in any organized way. Racial inequality outside the structure isn't an area of interest or concern. But the reason isn't always obvious to outsiders. ... Read more

Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook by Mark Bray


As long as there has been fascism, there has been anti-fascism -- also known as "antifa." Born out of resistance to Mussolini and Hitler in Europe during the 1920s and '30s, the antifa movement has suddenly burst into the headlines amidst opposition to the Trump administration and the alt-right. They could be seen in news reports, often clad all in black with balaclavas covering their faces, fighting police at the presidential inauguration, and on California college campuses protesting right-wing speakers, and most recently, on the streets of Charlottesville, VA.

Simply, antifa aims to deny fascists the opportunity to promote their oppressive politics -- by any means necessary. Critics say shutting down political adversaries is anti-democratic; antifa adherents argue that the horrors of fascism must never be allowed the slightest chance to triumph again.

In a smart and gripping investigation, historian and former Occupy Wall Street organizer Mark Bray provides a one-of-a-kind look inside the movement, including a detailed survey of its history from its origins to the present day -- the first transnational history of postwar anti-fascism in English. Based on interviews with anti-fascists from around the world, Antifa details the tactics of the movement and the philosophy behind it, offering insight into the growing but little understood resistance fighting back against the alt-right.

Trump to unveil Afghanistan strategy after struggling with decision
Politico | Matthew Nussbaum and Brent D. Griffiths | 08/20/17

The White House appeared to keep a tight hold on the details, but Trump is expected to approve sending more troops to Afghanistan.

The White House appeared to keep a tight hold on the details of what exactly Trump will say, but he is expected to approve sending more troops to Afghanistan, deepening U.S. involvement in the region and indicating a more traditional approach to foreign policy than he promised on the campaign trail.

The move comes after the dismissal Friday of chief strategist Steve Bannon, who voiced skepticism about an increased military footprint in the region and preferred outsourcing some of the duties to private contractors. Vice President Mike Pence and national security adviser H.R. McMaster were said to have encouraged Trump to accept his commanders' proposals to send more troops, though Pence's office said he remained neutral. ... Read more

Carl Icahn's Failed Raid on Washington
NewYork.com | Patrick Radden Keefe | 08/28/17

One day in August, 2016, the financier Carl Icahn made an urgent phone call to the Environmental Protection Agency. Icahn is one of the richest men on Wall Street, and he has thrived, in no small measure, because of a capacity to intimidate. A Texas-based oil refiner in which he had a major stake was losing money because of an obscure environmental rule that Icahn regarded as unduly onerous. Icahn is a voluble critic of any government regulation that constrains his companies. So he wanted to speak with the person in charge of enforcing the policy: a senior official at the E.P.A. named Janet McCabe.

Icahn works from a suite of offices, atop the General Motors Building, in midtown, that are decorated in the oak-and-leather fashion of a tycoon's lair in a nineteen-eighties film. During that decade, Icahn made his reputation as one of the original corporate raiders, pioneering the art of the hostile takeover and establishing himself as a human juggernaut--a pugnacious deal machine, all avarice and swagger. ... Read more

Where's The Venture Capital Funding For Women? | MSNBC Velshi & Ruhle | 08/21/17 | 2:47

Extremely Active Hurricane Season Is Forecast as Peak Lies Ahead
AlterNet | Andrea Thompson / WXshift | 08/18/17

Favorable water temperatures and winds mean there's "the possibility now that the season could be extremely active," featuring as many as five major hurricanes, Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Wednesday. ...

... NOAA is predicting eight to 13 more named storms to form during the rest of the season, for a total of 14 to 19. Of those, 5 to 9 are expected to become hurricanes and 2 to 5 major hurricanes, defined as those that reach Category 3 status or higher. An average season has 12 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 3 major hurricanes. ... Read more

Bannon Is 'Going Nuclear'
TheAtlantic | Rosie Gray |08/19/17

In firing Steve Bannon, President Trump has lost his chief ideologue, the man who channeled his base and advocated for the populist-nationalist policies that helped propel Trump to victory.

But he has gained an unpredictable and potentially troublesome outside ally who has long experience running a media organization, and an even longer list of enemies with whom he has scores to settle both outside the administration and inside. "Steve is now unchained," said a source close to Bannon. "Fully unchained." ...

... Bannon had in recent days mused about leaving, according to people who have spoken with him; he has expressed to friends that he feels the administration is failing and is a sinking ship. And last week, he told people in a meeting that he would have 10 times more influence outside the White House than inside it. ... Read more

Why Bannon Lost and the Globalists Won
Politico | Bill Scher | 08/18/17

... In a White House fond of superlatives, it would be insulting to call any of its mistakes "little." Bannon's mistakes were huge, and they not only led to his ouster, but also the collapse of his grandiose dream: a realigned American political map centered on economic populism.

Days after Trump's election, a giddy Bannon told the Hollywood Reporter that he was an "economic nationalist," and then went on to explain what he meant:

"The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia ... If we deliver ... we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years ... Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement. It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan ... It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution -- conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement." ... Read more

The politics of mean
Salon | Lucian K. Truscott IV | 08/19/17

... Bannon and Trump sounded last week like trolls in your comments trying to win points in an argument that was settled decades ago. They weren't just inviting a political war over race and white supremacy (!), they were taking childish delight in the prospect of such a war. It's the politics of mean. Notably absent from interviews given by Trump, Bannon or any other White House officials over the past week was any mention of what the President plans to do when he returns from his golfing sojourn in Bedminster, New Jersey. Congress faces an immediate need to pass a budget; a looming crisis over raising the debt ceiling; the need to renew the Children's Health Insurance Program; and about a gazillion foreign policy and military crises around the world, from terrorists attacks in Europe to an utterly failed war in Afghanistan to a restive, loony and nuclear armed North Korea. Not to mention the usual menu of pie-in-the-sky-we'll-get-it-done-someday legislative shit like health care, infrastructure, tax reform. ... Read more

Still Making Excuses for Trump? (#108) | Keith Olbermann | 08/18/17 | 7:02

Our Revolution: A Future to Believe by Bernie Sanders (2016)

When Bernie Sanders began his race for the presidency, it was considered by the political establishment and the media to be a "fringe" campaign, something not to be taken seriously. After all, he was just an Independent senator from a small state with little name recognition. His campaign had no money, no political organization, and it was taking on the entire Democratic Party establishment.

By the time Sanders's campaign came to a close, however, it was clear that the pundits had gotten it wrong. Bernie had run one of the most consequential campaigns in the modern history of the country. He had received more than 13 million votes in primaries and caucuses throughout the country, won twenty-two states, and more than 1.4 million people had attended his public meetings. Most important, he showed that the American people were prepared to take on the greed and irresponsibility of corporate America and the 1 percent.

In Our Revolution, Sanders shares his personal experiences from the campaign trail, recounting the details of his historic primary fight and the people who made it possible. And for the millions looking to continue the political revolution, he outlines a progressive economic, environmental, racial, and social justice agenda that will create jobs, raise wages, protect the environment, and provide health care for all?and ultimately transform our country and our world for the better. For him, the political revolution has just started. The campaign may be over, but the struggle goes on.

Van Hits Pedestrians in Deadly Barcelona Terror Attack
NYTimes | Anne-Sophie Bolon | 08/17/17

Spain was hit by its worst terrorist attack in more than a decade Thursday, when a van driver plowed into dozens of people enjoying a sunny afternoon on one of Barcelona's most famous thoroughfares, killing at least 13 people and leaving 80 bloodied on the pavement.

Hours later, the Catalan police said they foiled a second van attack, in the seaside town of Cambrils 70 miles to the south, fatally shooting at least four people who appeared to be wearing explosive belts, according to Spanish news reports. ... Read more

Gary Cohn stays put -- for now -- following Trump's comments on Charlottesville
WashingtonPost | Damian Paletta | 08/17/17

The White House on Thursday took the unusual step of saying that National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn would not resign, trying to contain the fallout from President Trump's controversial comments about the deadly riot in Charlottesville over the weekend and his assertion that "very fine people" were protesting alongside neo-Nazis.

Cohn, who funded the Cohn Jewish Student Center at Kent State University in 2009, was mortified by Trump's comments, three people close to him said, and he has been bombarded with calls from friends asking him if he will leave. ... Read more

President Trump on Aug. 15 said that "there's blame on both sides" for the violence that erupted in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 | 09/15/17 | 2:45

Trump's Longtime Business Partner Told Family He and POTUS Are 'Going to Prison': Report
AlterNet | David Edwards / Raw Story | 08/17/17

Felix Sater hinted last month that he's already flipped on the president.

Felix Sater, one of Donald Trump's shadiest former business partners, is reportedly preparing for prison time -- and he says the president will be joining him behind bars.

Sources told The Spectator's Paul Wood that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's deep dive into Trump's business practices may be yielding results. Trump recently made remarks that could point point to a money laundering scheme, Wood reported. ... Read more

"They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well guess what? You just magnified her." | CSpan | 08/16/17 | 6:58

**Bannon ridicules White House adversaries in wide-ranging interview
Politico | Louis Nelson | 08/17/17

White House chief strategist Steve Bannon pledged to shake up staffing at the Departments of Defense and State and said his adversaries, both inside and outside the White House, are "wetting themselves" at the prospect of his plans.

He also appeared to take on National Economic Council Chair Gary Cohn and said the U.S. must ready itself for an "economic war with China" that has already begun. ... Read more

Steve Bannon Accidentally Spills The Beans? | TYT | 08/17/17 | 10:28

CEOs to move their White House talks underground
Politico | Nancy Cook | 08/17/17

Chief executives no longer want to appear in photo-ops with President Donald Trump following his race comments about Charlottesville, but that doesn't mean they're giving up on trying to shape his agenda

There's simply too much money at stake with tax reform, infrastructure and health care in play -- billions of dollars in a tax overhaul alone -- for corporations to disengage entirely with the White House or official Washington.

So while companies will rely less on direct access to Trump through advisory councils and meetings at the White House, their advisers and lobbyists still plan to engage with top White House aides such as Vice President Mike Pence or National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, political appointees at agencies, and Congress to make their case for rolling back regulations, keeping specific tax breaks, or cutting the corporate tax rate. ... Read more

Markets Roiled on Trump Stance Tensions: Markets Wrap
Bloomberg | Eric J Weiner | 08/17/17

A sense of growing unease gripped financial markets as President Donald Trump exacerbated the controversy sparked by a racist rally in Virginia and terrorists struck a crowded street in Barcelona.

U.S. stocks retreated, with the S&P 500 Index posting its second biggest one-day decline of the year, and a measure of market volatility spiked higher. Treasuries rose with the yen as investors sought havens. Gold jumped. ... Read more

After Trump Hedges His Condemnation of Hate, C.E.O.s Organize a Mass Defection
NYTimes | David Gelles | 08/16/17

On Monday, Indra Nooyi, the chief executive of Pepsi, picked up the phone and began calling other prominent corporate chieftains who -- like her -- had agreed to advise President Trump. A rebellion was brewing.

Ms. Nooyi quickly reached Mary T. Barra, the head of General Motors, and Virginia M. Rometty, the chief of IBM, who were both similarly outraged with the president's response. Together, they agreed that it was time to step down from the Strategic and Policy Forum, an elite group formed late last year to advise the president on economic issues.

As these calls were occurring, the president's other main business advisory group, the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative, had begun to disintegrate. Early Monday, the chief executive of Merck stepped down from that group, followed by the chiefs of Intel and Under Armour, and representatives from a labor group and a nonprofit business alliance. ... Read more

Eclipsing the Sun | On August 21, the moon will paint a swath of North America in darkness. The Great American Eclipse. | 4:36

Bannon Mocks Colleagues and 'Alt-Right' in Interview
NYTimes | Michael D. Shear | 08/17/17

... Speaking on Tuesday, the same day that Mr. Trump was being assailed for his response to the Charlottesville protests, Mr. Bannon also dismissed the right-wing fringe as "a collection of clowns." He said the more liberals talk about "identity politics," the easier it will be for Mr. Trump to defeat Democrats by focusing on economic nationalism.

Mr. Bannon told friends that he did not believe that his conversation was an on-the-record interview. But Mr. Bannon is a savvy media operator who rarely speaks without a clear understanding of the rules. Mr. Kuttner said the issue of whether the call was on the record never came up. ... Read more

Analyst Lays Out China's "Doomsday" Scenario
ZeroHedge | author | 08/17/17

According to Autonomous analyst Charlene Chu, bad debt in China's financial system will reach as much as $7.6 trillion by the end of this year: an estimate which implies a staggering bad-debt ratio of 34%, orders of magnitude above the official number, and nothing short of a "doomsday scenario" for China's financial system if accurate. ... Read more

Trump blows up damage control as he blames 'both sides' for Charlottesville
Politico | Annie Karni | 08/15/17

'My head is spinning,' one White House aide says after the president also pins blame on the 'alt-left.'

It took President Donald Trump two days to explicitly call out the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who engaged in violent protests over the weekend that resulted in the death of a 32-year-old Charlottesville woman. ... Read more

Ryan, other Republicans outraged by Trump news conference
Politico | Austin Wright | 08/15/17

President Donald Trump sparked a barrage of Republican outrage on Tuesday after he blamed "both sides" for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia -- including from House Speaker Paul Ryan.

"We must be clear," Ryan said after Trump's remarks. "White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity." ... Read more

Trump's "frenemy of the week" campaign is starting to backfire: Which Republican will he try to humiliate next?
Salon | Bob Cesca | 08/13/17

First Sessions, then McMaster -- this week it's Mitch McConnell. These former loyalists will turn on him eventually

It appears as though Trump has decided to make McConnell his "Frenemy of the Week." You might recall previous frenemies in Trump's crosshairs. A few weeks ago, it was Jeff Sessions because the attorney general recused himself from the Trump-Russia investigation, and Trump basically admitted that Sessions was nominated exclusively in order to obstruct the probe. Then there was Trump's own national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, who was attacked over the situation in Afghanistan, as well as over the feud between McMaster and splotchy contortionist Steve Bannon. ... Read more

Scientists Fear Trump Will Dismiss Blunt Climate Report
NYT | Lisa Friedman | older, 08/07/17

The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration.

The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited. ... Read more
CLIMATE SCIENCE SPECIAL REPORT.pdf

Daily Caller Once Advised How to 'Plow Through' Liberal Protesters With a Car
Mediaite | Aidan McLaughlin | 08/15/17

The Daily Caller in January posted a video compilation of "cars plowing through protesters," instructing readers to "Study the technique" as "it may prove useful in the next four years."

The video was compiled by Mike Raust, the Daily Caller's video editor. It features a number of clips of people in cars and trucks driving through protestors blocking roads.

"If you are easily triggered, stop watching now," a text at the start of the video reads. "Too late," the next text says, as a truck drives through a protester. The compilation is set to a terrible acoustic rendition of Ludacris' 2002 hit "Move Bitch."... Read more
Conservatives Caught Sharing 'How-To Run Over People' Video | TYT | 08/15/17 | 8:37

China's Rising Debt Unnerves the IMF. The Alternative Is Worse.
Bloomberg | Daniel Moss | 08/15/17

With debt three times as large as GDP, the nation will represent a huge global risk. Anything less would be a risk as well.

Debt racked up by China's government, companies and households will likely balloon to almost 300 percent of gross domestic product by early next decade, the International Monetary Fund projected in its annual review of the country's economy. ... Read more

More Moral Than Trump: The Red Wings and the Torch Maker (#107) | Keith Olbermann | 08/15/17 | 4:25

Trump And Charlottesville: Too Little, Too Late (#106) | Keith Olbermann | 08/14/17 | 9:22

We Cannot Have A President Under Investigation (#105) | Keith Olbermann | 08/14/17 | 2:02

Trump's Threats Are Getting Out of Control (#104) | Keith Olbermann | 08/02/17 | 7:07

Three More CEOs Turn Backs on Trump as Merck, Intel Quit Council
Bloomberg | Jeff Green | 08/15/17

It was a question that came to the fore again Monday when first Merck & Co.'s Kenneth Frazier, then Under Armour Inc.'s Kevin Plank and Intel Corp.'s Brian Krzanich stepped down from a White House business group set up to advise Donald Trump.

While none mentioned the president, Frazier, one of the country's most-prominent black chief executive officers, quit the council as Trump was being assailed for failing to quickly condemn white supremacists for deadly violence at a rally Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia. Frazier said he was acting on a "matter of personal conscience." ... Read more

Adviser: Trump Didn't Want To 'Dignify' White Supremacy By Condemning It
TalkingPoint | Esme Cribb | 08/13/17

White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert on Sunday claimed President Donald Trump's failure to condemn white supremacists after violence broke out at a rally in Charlottesville was because he didn't want to "dignify" the movement. ...

... Trump on Saturday did not remark on the nature of the rally but called the clashes an "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides" and called for Americans to "love each other." ... Read more
Republicans Defend Trump's Charlottesville Response | TYT | 08/14/17 | 11:06

Anti-McMaster campaign is about to get uglier
Axios.com | Jonathan Swan | 08/13/17

Steve Bannon Plotting Behind Trump's Back | TYT | 08/14/17 | 14:12

On The Internet, Everyone Knows 'You're Racist': Twitter Account IDs Marchers
NPR.org | author | 08/14/17

When You Forget Your Klan Hood And The Internet Finds Out | TYT | 08/14/17 | 9:14

Wall Street Journal editorial rips Bannon for White House dysfunction
TheHill | John Bowden | 08/10/17

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board blamed senior White House aide Stephen Bannon for chaos in the West Wing, arguing that the top Trump ally's loyalty to the president is in question after his supporters vilified Trump's national security adviser, H.R. McMaster.

In an editorial Tuesday night, the conservative paper trashed the White House chief strategist for using his allies in the far-right media to disrupt the White House in favor of his own personal goals.

Citing the statement of support that Trump issued for McMaster last week, the paper writes that Trump's new chief of staff, John Kelly, should watch Bannon closely.

"Rather than question the general's loyalties, perhaps Mr. Kelly should question Mr. Bannon's," the Journal wrote. "The former Breitbart publisher has been a White House survivor, but his warring habits have also been responsible for much of the White House dysfunction. ... Read more
Steve Bannon: The White House's Leaker Outed? | TYT | 08/13/17 | 7:28

Steve Bannon Said He Learned To FeaR Muslims When He Visited Pakistan. Except He Was Probably In Hong Kong.
TheIntercept | Peter Maass | 08/11/17

IF YOU ASK Steve Bannon how he got the idea that Muslims in the Middle East are a civilizational threat to America, he will say that his eyes were first opened when he served on a Navy destroyer in the Arabian Sea. At least that's what he told the journalist Joshua Green, whose new book about President Donald Trump's senior counselor is a best-seller.

"It was not hard to see, as a junior officer, sitting there, that [the threat] was just going to be huge," Bannon said. He went on: ... Read more
The Comically Stupid Reason Bannon's Terrified Of Muslims | TYT | 08/13/17 | 5:07

**Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency by Joshua Green

From the reporter who was there at the very beginning comes the revealing inside story of the partnership between Steve Bannon and Donald Trump--the key to understanding the rise of the alt-right, the fall of Hillary Clinton, and the hidden forces that drove the greatest upset in American political history.

Based on dozens of interviews conducted over six years, Green spins the master narrative of the 2016 campaign from its origins in the far fringes of right-wing politics and reality television to its culmination inside Trump's penthouse on election night.

The shocking elevation of Bannon to head Trump's flagging presidential campaign on August 17, 2016, hit political Washington like a thunderclap and seemed to signal the meltdown of the Republican Party. Bannon was a bomb-throwing pugilist who'd never run a campaign and was despised by Democrats and Republicans alike.

Yet Bannon's hard-edged ethno-nationalism and his elaborate, years-long plot to destroy Hillary Clinton paved the way for Trump's unlikely victory. Trump became the avatar of a dark but powerful worldview that dominated the airwaves and spoke to voters whom others couldn't see. Trump's campaign was the final phase of a populist insurgency that had been building up in America for years, and Bannon, its inscrutable mastermind, believed it was the culmination of a hard-right global uprising that would change the world.

**The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny by William Strauss and Neil Howe (2009)

William Strauss and Neil Howe base this vision on a provocative new theory of American history. The authors look back five hundred years and uncover a distinct pattern: Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four eras--or "turnings"--that last about twenty years and that always arrive in the same order.

First comes a High, a period of confident expansion as a new order takes root after the old has been swept away. Next comes an Awakening, a time of spiritual exploration and rebellion against the now-established order. Then comes an Unraveling, an increasingly troubled era in which individualism triumphs over crumbling institutions. Last comes a Crisis--the Fourth Turning--when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history. Together, the four turnings comprise history's seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth.

Strauss and Howe locate today's America as midway through an Unraveling, roughly a decade away from the next era of Crisis. In a brilliant analysis of the post-World War II period, they show how generational dynamics are the key to understanding the cycles of American history. They draw vivid portraits of all the modern generations: the can-do G.I.s, the mediating Silent, the values-absorbed Boomers, the pragmatic 13ers, and the child Millennials. Placed in the context of history's long rhythms, the persona and role of each generation become clear--as does the inevitability of the coming Crisis. ...

Bannon Calls Jeffrey Lord After CNN Firing Over Nazi Salute Tweet
TalkingPoints | Nicole Lafond | 08/11/17

While House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon called pro-Trump commentator Jeffrey Lord after Lord was fired by CNN for tweeting a Nazi salute, according to a report from Penn Live.

"It's Stephen K. Bannon. I have to take this," Lord told the reporter, who was sitting in Lord's living room when he received the call. Bannon reportedly called Lord to show support and encourage him to keep fighting. Lord wouldn't provide details on what the two spoke about. ... Read more
Steve Bannon Called Fired Jeff Lord In Racist Solidarity | TYT | 08/13/17 | 11:50

TRUMP'S Enemies List Grows
Salon | Bob Cesca | 08/11/17

A few years ago, there was literally no way I would ever have favorably retweeted A-list conservatives like Bill Kristol, David Frum or George Will. And yet here we are. The Trump presidency has had one major unintended consequence: Reasonably-minded combatants on the right and left have joined together in opposition to the sack-full-of-monkeys that is our current White House. In the last year or so, I've also found myself applauding heretofore unheard-of allies like Sen. John McCain and Sen. Jeff Flake for putting nation over party and, at least when it counts, standing up to Trump and the destabilization he's precipitating. ... Read more

Peek-a-Boo
HP | Ed Mazza | 08/10/17
Read more

Trump Says Military Options 'Locked and Loaded' on North Korea
Bloomberg | Stuart Biggs | 08/11/17

U.S. President Donald Trump ramped up his war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after a week of tensions that has roiled global markets.

"Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely," Trump tweeted on Friday. Earlier, North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency said the U.S. president is "driving the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war." ... Read more

Trump's Legal Team Is No Match for Mueller's
Bloomberg | Tom Schoenberg | 08/10/17

When news broke on Aug. 3 that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had begun using a grand jury in Washington to gather evidence related to his Russia probe, it appeared to catch the White House off guard. Although many news outlets were reporting the story, Ty Cobb, just four days on the job as the president's lawyer, issued a statement saying he didn't know about it, even as Jay Sekulow, another member of Trump's legal staff, went on Fox News to say once again that the president himself wasn't under investigation.

As Mueller adds experienced prosecutors and broadens his investigation, Trump's legal team still appears disorganized and understaffed. An army of well-paid lawyers would help the president get in front of the investigation: preparing responses to allegations before hearing about them from prosecutors or reporters, anticipating where Mueller is going, and developing a counternarrative to stymie him. Junior staffers could spend all night researching case law or obstruction of justice and conspiracy statutes; they could be available at a moment's notice to draft pleadings challenging Mueller's requests to interview witnesses or gather documents.

This Country Is Rigged in 1,000 Directions to Protect the Wealthiest--Including the Idea That Most People 'Earned' Their Way to the Top
AlterNet | Donald Jeffries | 08/10/17

Unprecedented wealth disparity in America is driven by corrupt corporate practices and the myth of earned wealth.

... The wealthiest people in our society don't appear to be improving any lives but their own, and they don't seem to have special qualities or skills that explain why they're being compensated so much more extravagantly than the rest of us. Warren Buffet, like so many very wealthy people, made his fortune with investments. Multi-billionaire Mexican Carlos Slim Helú is another whose occupation is investor. When we examine any list of the richest Americans, we find names such as notorious corporate raider Carl Icahn, whose more polite title is investor, George Soros, who is yet another investor, hedge fund managers John Paulson and James Simons, and plenty of financiers, bond mavens, chairmen, and others with predictable titles that assure us, whatever they do, they aren't positively impacting the lives of the bulk of humanity. The very wealthy, in all reality, can generally be defined as those who are abnormally good at making money. ... Read more

Central Banks Are Hiding The True Price Of Risk
ZeroHedge | author | 08/11/17

If you invest your money, you will have to deal with numerous risks. For instance, if you buy a bond, you run the risk of the borrower defaulting or being repaid with debased money. As a stock investor, you face the risk that the company's business model will not live up to expectations, or that it, at the extreme, will go bankrupt. In an unhampered financial market, prices are formed for these and other risk factors.

For instance, a bond with a high default risk will typically carry a high yield. The same goes for debt denominated in an unsound currency. Stocks of companies that are deemed risky tend to trade at a lower valuation level than those considered low risk. All these risk premiums, if determined in the unhampered market, constitute a portion of an asset's price, be it a bond or a share. They play a vital role in the way capital is allocated in an economy. ... Read more

What Trump Needs to Know About North Korea's History
Politico | Sheila Miyoshi Jager | 08/09/17

The peninsula has a long record of risky games with great powers.

If it wasn't official before, North Korea is now the biggest foreign policy crisis the Trump administration is facing. "North Korea had best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," President Donald Trump said during a briefing on opioid addiction Tuesday at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. The Pyongyang regime responded with another threat of its own, saying its military "is examining the operational plan" for a missile strike around the U.S. territory of Guam. As the Pyongyang regime continues to defy international sanctions and presses on with its missile testing, the problem of war and peace on the peninsula becomes increasingly urgent. Should the United States risk war with North Korea that may ultimately lead to a bigger war and chaos in the region? Should it pursue a peace that keeps a dictatorial regime intact to fight another day? Washington's policy analysts, pundits and North Korea watchers have gone around this circle over the past 15 years. Yesterday's escalation jolted us out of the sense that it might go on indefinitely, unresolved. ... Read more
**72 Years After Bombing Nagasaki, US Threatens Another Nuclear War | TRNN | 08/09/17 | 10:26

Trump's indecision on Afghanistan leaves generals in lurch
Politico | Wesley Morgan | 08/10/17

The commanders missed early warning signs that the president might not immediately approve their plan for more troops.

U.S. and Afghan military commanders battling the Taliban and the Islamic State are encountering an obstacle they never expected, sources close to them say: months of indecision by President Donald Trump on whether to commit thousands of additional American troops.

Instead of approving their plan for more troops as anticipated, the president has caught his generals off guard by questioning whether the 16-year-long effort to stabilize Afghanistan is still worth it, according to current and former military officials familiar with the conversations. Meanwhile, news reports raise the prospects he might replace the top U.S. commander in the region or hand private contractors the day-to-day task of advising the flagging Afghan security forces. ... Read more

How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Atlantic City Casinos, but Still Earned Millions
NYTimes | Russ Buettner and Charles V. Bagli | older, 06/11/17

The Trump Plaza Casino and Hotel is now closed, its windows clouded over by sea salt. Only a faint outline of the gold letters spelling out T-R-U-M-P remains visible on the exterior of what was once this city's premier casino.

Not far away, the long-failing Trump Marina Hotel Casino was sold at a major loss five years ago and is now known as the Golden Nugget.

At the nearly deserted eastern end of the boardwalk, the Trump Taj Mahal, now under new ownership, is all that remains of the casino empire Donald J. Trump assembled here more than a quarter-century ago. Years of neglect show: The carpets are frayed and dust-coated chandeliers dangle above the few customers there to play the penny slot machines. ... Read more
How Donald Trump Bankrupted His Casinos, Left Contractors Unpaid, Ruined Investors & Made Millions | DN | 06/16/17 | 11:36

Manafort's Home Searched as Part of Mueller Inquiry
NYTimes | Michael S. Schmidt | 08/09/17

Investigators for the special counsel leading the Russia inquiry executed a search warrant late last month at the Northern Virginia home of President Trump's former campaign manager, Paul J. Manafort, for tax documents and foreign banking records, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The search is a sign that the investigation into Mr. Manafort has broadened, and is the most significant public step investigators have taken since the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, was appointed in May. Investigators are expected to deploy a wide array of similar measures -- including interviews and subpoenas -- in the coming months as they move forward with the intensifying inquiry. ... Read more
Paul Manafort's Home Raided By FBI | TYT | 08/09/17 | 5:22

Trump Threatens ‘Fire and Fury’ Against North Korea if It Endangers U.S.
NYT | Peter Baker | date

President Trump threatened on Tuesday to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea if it endangered the United States, as tensions with the isolated and impoverished nuclear-armed state escalated into perhaps the most serious foreign policy challenge yet of his administration.

In chilling language that evoked the horror of a nuclear exchange, Mr. Trump sought to deter North Korea from any actions that would put Americans at risk. But it was not clear what specifically would cross his line. Administration officials have said that a pre-emptive military strike, while a last resort, is among the options they have made available to the president. “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” ... Read more
Trump Threatens North Korea With 'Fire And Fury' | TYT | 08/08/17 | 12:12

FBI raided Manafort's Virginia home in Russia probe
Politico| Darren Samuelsohn | 08/09/17

article

"FBI agents executed a search warrant at one of Mr. Manafort's residences. Mr. Manafort has consistently cooperated with law enforcement and other serious inquiries and did so on this occasion as well," said Jason Maloni, a spokesman for the former Trump campaign chairman. Manafort is also under scrutiny from congressional investigators, and he has turned over 400 pages of documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee, a committee spokesman said Wednesday, including information on his foreign lobbying work. ... Read more

Fake news isn't going anywhere: It's hugely profitable -- and right-wingers love it
Salon | Amanda Marcotte | 08/08/17

Fake news: Conservatives love to share it, liberals love to hate it and social media companies rake in the cash

Eight months after a torrential campaign of disinformation, memorably christened "fake news" by BuzzFeed, helped hand Donald Trump his narrow electoral win, the state of objective truth, especially on the internet, is still up in the air. Despite all the negative press, fake news is as popular as ever, especially on the right, with bots and alt-right trolls spreading hoaxes to propel right wing values far and wide. If anything, the problem seems to be getting worse, not better.

Part of the problem is that Trump himself immediately appropriated the term "fake news," using it as a slur to demonize any and all fact-based journalism he finds displeasing, a move that further confused the public discourse over what is true and whether truth even matters. But the larger problem is simply that fake news is deeply appealing, particularly in online circles devoted to defending Trump's administration. It's hard to fight back against a phenomenon that is wildly popular.

A recent study out of Hohenheim University in Germany demonstrates, yet again, that the main propulsive element of a fake news story is the eagerness of audiences, particularly on the right, to believe it. ... Read more

***When a Candidate Conspired With a Foreign Power to Win An Election
Politico | John Farrell | 08/07/17

It took decades to unravel Nixon's sabotage of Vietnam peace talks. Now, the full story can be told.

Sometimes Nixon needed to blow off steam: demanding that a reporter from The Washington Post or The New York Times be banned from his campaign airplane for writing an offending story. ("Times and Post off," Haldeman recorded. "Times forever.") One such call came at midnight, from Nixon's co-op apartment on Fifth Avenue: Haldeman dutifully noted that the stirring score to the World War II documentary Victory at Sea, which Nixon so enjoyed, was playing on a phonograph in the background.

Other calls were steeped in intrigue. In one series of scribbles, Haldeman reported Henry Kissinger's willingness to inform on his U.S. diplomatic colleagues, and keep Nixon updated on President Lyndon Johnson's furious, eleventh-hour efforts to end the Vietnam War.

Sometimes Nixon needed to blow off steam: demanding that a reporter from The Washington Post or The New York Times be banned from his campaign airplane for writing an offending story. ("Times and Post off," Haldeman recorded. "Times forever.") One such call came at midnight, from Nixon's co-op apartment on Fifth Avenue: Haldeman dutifully noted that the stirring score to the World War II documentary Victory at Sea, which Nixon so enjoyed, was playing on a phonograph in the background. ... Read more

Forget Flash Floods. Flash Droughts Are Even More Terrifying.
MotherJones | Eric Holthaus | 08/07/17

An intense drought has quickly gripped much of the Dakotas and parts of Montana this summer, catching farmers and ranchers off-guard. The multi-agency U.S. Drought Monitor recently upgraded the drought to "exceptional," its highest severity level, matching the intensity of the California drought at its peak.

The Associated Press says the dry conditions are "laying waste to crops and searing pasture and hay land" in America's new wheat belt, with some longtime farmers and ranchers calling it the worst of their lifetimes. Unfortunately, this kind of came-out-of-nowhere drought could become a lot less rare in the future. "The damage and the destruction is just unimaginable," Montana resident Sarah Swanson told Grist. "It's unlike anything we've seen in decades." ... Read more

Why Republicans Can't Just Pivot to Tax Reform
TheAtlantic | Russell Berman | 08/07/17

The White House is promising swift action on the GOP's next priority. But Congress must first pass a budget, and the details are once again dividing the party.

Forget health care: Republicans are moving on to tax reform. With last month's collapse of their No. 1 legislative priority, the White House and GOP congressional leaders have made a nearly complete pivot to agenda item 1A -- rewriting the nation's tax code for the first time in more than 30 years.

... But the biggest immediate obstacle in the way of quick action on tax reform is a fundamental one: Republicans have been unable to pass a budget for 2018, and without that, they can't unlock the fast-track reconciliation process that would allow them to enact tax reform without Democratic votes in the Senate. It's that same mechanism the GOP used to advance health-care legislation that would have passed the Senate last month with just one more Republican vote. Ordinarily, the annual budget is a non-binding document that sets spending levels for the government, which only take effect once Congress passes appropriations bills. But a budget is a prerequisite for the reconciliation process: It contains formal instructions for the tax-writing committees in the House and Senate to draft legislation. ... Read more

The World's Most Feared Investor
Bloomberg | Nabila Ahmed, Scott Deveau | 08/07/17

Aggressive, tenacious and litigious to a fault, Paul Singer may be the most feared activist investor in the world--by hedge fund rivals, companies and even countries. Singer's Elliott Management Corp., which manages $34 billion of assets, has rarely been out of the headlines the past 18 months. And there's little indication that will change soon.

Singer has targeted the world's biggest mining company, taken on Warren Buffett in a battle for Texas's largest electricity distributor, ousted chief executive officers on both sides of the Atlantic and set off a chain of events that led to the impeachment of South Korea's president. ... Read more

Kushner subpoenaed for issuing green cards while the administration takes them away
ThinkProgress.org | Rebekah Entralgo | 08/03/17

It turns out government officials selling green cards to wealthy foreigners might not be okay.

Federal prosecutors in New York subpoenaed the company of President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner late Wednesday over their use of the EB-5 federal visa program. The program issues green cards to immigrants who invest $500,000 in U.S.-based developments, 85 percent of which are Chinese.

The irony of the subpoena is difficult to ignore. The Kushner family company is in trouble for essentially selling green cards at the same time the Trump administration is pushing a plan to curtail the number of green cards issued each year. The new immigration policy President Trump rolled out Wednesday would crack down on legal immigration in favor of English-speaking, "high-skilled" workers. EB-5 applicants do not have a way of proving their level of "skill," beyond the ability to finance projects for U.S. developers. ... Read more
Trump's Son-In-Law Jared Kushner Subpoenaed | TYT | 08/04/17 | 8:37

Europe Swelters Under a Heat Wave Called 'Lucifer'
NYT | author | 08/06/17

The meteorologists agree: The long hot spell gripping parts of Europe this past week is uncommon. People looking for relief from the heat in countries like France, Spain and Italy grappled for just the right name for the phenomenon -- and settled on "Lucifer."

... High temperatures this summer have brought punishing heat to regions in the United States like the Pacific Northwest -- where generations had shunned air-conditioning -- reaching as high as 104 in Seattle and 107 in Portland, Ore. In parts of Asia, like Pakistan, a blast of scorching weather this year also had people there reaching for comparisons to hell on earth as records fell. ... Read more

Trump doesn't believe in climate change, but it's going to drown Mar-a-Lago
Click to zoom in Vox.com | Sarah Frostenson | 06/02/17

President Donald Trump has called climate change a "hoax" and a very expensive "tax" on American businesses that make the US less competitive. He has signaled he will withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord, in which countries around the world pledged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to keep temperatures from rising past the critical 2°C mark.

And yet climate change is already imperiling Mar-a-Lago, the crown jewel of Trump's extensive real estate portfolio and his preferred location for carrying out many of his official presidential duties. Rising sea levels are causing more frequent and more damaging tidal floods on the Florida coast, and projections suggest that the risk to lives and property from climate change-related flooding events is only going to increase dramatically in the coming years. ... Read more
Mar-A-Lago Not Hiring American | TYT | 08/06/17 | 4:16

Trump hits new low in polls
Politico | Jake Lahut | 08/02/17

Quinnipiac and Gallup surveys show that only a third of American voters approve of the president's performance.

President Donald Trump has watched his ratings decline for months, but on Wednesday two respected polls showed that only a third of American voters view him favorably -- a new low less than 200 days into his presidency

A new Quinnipiac University Poll has the president's approval rating falling to 33 percent, while Gallup shows it at 36 percent. Quinnipiac's measurement is the lowest in the poll's tracking of the Trump administration thus far, and Gallup's is the lowest three-day average it has registered. ... Read more
Trump's Poll Numbers Won't. Stop. Falling. | TYT | 08/03/17 | 6:53

Trump Announces Three Week Vacation
mediaite.com | Faith Gates | 08/03/17

President Donald Trump recently called the White House a dump, and maybe that is why he is taking an almost three week vacation from "the swamp."

The president will begin his first "official" vacation since taking office Friday by heading to his private golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. According to the Associated Press, the reason behind the vacation may be because the White House West Wing needs to replace their 27-year-old heating and cooling system, which would require all residents to vacate during that work.

The planned 17-day-vacation is receiving a lot of attention because of Trump's past remarks on vacations. Most recently he told GOP senatorsthat they shouldn't take an August recess and "we shouldn't leave town" until they fix the health care system, something that has not happened yet. (And seems increasingly unlikely after the implosion of the Senate's latest effort to repeal Obamacare.) ... Read more
The Vacation President: Trump Taking Another THREE WEEKS Off | TYT | 08/03/17 | 5:32

Special Counsel Robert Mueller Impanels Washington Grand Jury in Russia Probe
WSJ | Del Quentin Wilber and Byron Tau | 08/03/17

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington to investigate Russia's interference in the 2016 elections, a sign that his inquiry is growing in intensity and entering a new phase, according to people familiar with the matter.

The grand jury, which began its work in recent weeks, signals that Mr. Mueller's inquiry will likely continue for months. Mr. Mueller is investigating Russia's efforts to influence the ... Read more
BREAKING: Special Counsel Mueller Impanels Grand Jury In Russia Probe | TYT | 08/03/17 | 7:33

Evangelical Christians and Donald Trump: They love him because they don't trust facts or reason
Salon | Chauncey Devega | 08/04/17

Evangelicals have been eager to look past Trump's vulgarity and immorality -- there are deeper things that bind them

Donald Trump is a man of many notable qualities. He is ignorant and a brute. He has bragged about sexually assaulting women by grabbing them by their genitals. He is a serial womanizer and has been divorced several times. He has also admitted to finding his own daughter sexually attractive. He is a serial liar who adores autocrats and dictators. He may even have gone so far as to collude with Russia and Vladimir Putin to steal the 2016 presidential election. Trump is also violent, moody, vain and impulsive. He does not read and is proudly ignorant.

Why would anyone support such a leader? More specifically, why would any supposed "Christian" support Donald Trump, who appears to represent the antithesis of Christian virtues in so many ways? ... Read more

Visual Capitalist
The Real Story Behind Donald Trump's Wealth | Visual Capitalist | 06/22/16 | 5:51

Donald Trump's $20 Trillion Problem | | 01/12/17 | 2:58

Trump: Boy Scouts thought my speech was "greatest ever made to them." Boy Scouts: No.
Vox.com | Ella Nilsen | 08/02/17

In the latest twist in the Trump/Boy Scout saga, the organization is pushing back after President Trump said the head of the Boy Scouts of America called his recent National Jamboree speech "the greatest speech ever made to them."

Now the Boy Scouts are saying that's not true. "The Chief Scout Executive's message to the Scouting community speaks for itself," a Boy Scout official told Time magazine on Wednesday, referring to a recent apology chief scout executive Michael Surbaugh made after Trump's speech. ... Read more
Trump: Boy Scouts Told Me It Was The Greatest Speech Ever! (They Didn't) | TYT | 08/02/17 | 6:10

A Chilling Theory on Trump's Nonstop Lies
MotherJones | Denise Clifton | 08/03/17

"26 hours, 29 Trumpian False or Misleading Claims."

That was the headline on a piece last week from the Washington Post, whose reporters continued the herculean task of debunking wave after wave of President Donald Trump's lies. (It turned out there was a 30th Trump falsehood in that time frame, regarding the head of the Boy Scouts.) The New York Times keeps a running tally of the president's lies since Inauguration Day, and PolitiFact has scrutinized and rated 69 percent of Trump's statements as mostly false, false, or "pants on fire." ... Read more

The Boston Neighborhood That Made John Kelly
DailyBeast | Mike Barnicle | 08/02/17

... Many have asked and wondered how or why such an exceptional guy like General Kelly would take the task of trying to turn the absurdly incompetent, chaotic Trump presidency into a functioning vehicle. And the answer is simple and obvious: because he loves this country and does not want to have it fail or falter at the gate of a future filled with both promise and peril. His only ambitions are for America.

And on those long days when he might wonder why he took the job he will, no doubt, think of how he was raised on Bigelow Street in Brighton with his father John at the kitchen table and his mother Joan making breakfast and he will think of the son he often visits who is quite close to the White House, just across Memorial Bridge, in Section 60, Grave 9480 at Arlington: 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, United States Marine Corps, who died in Afghanistan on Nov. 9, 2010. He was 29 years old. ... Read more

Trump Has Quietly Accomplished More Than It Appears
TheAtlantic | David A. Graham | 08/02/17

The actual government, the administration of Donald Trump, is coming off the worst week of his presidency, although there haven't been any smooth weeks. Trump's top legislative priority, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, seems dead for the moment. (Tax reform? Forget it.) His administration has set a new standard for chaos and dysfunction, rolling through staffers the way other administrations run through, well, legislative initiatives. Trump's foreign policy remains inchoate and ineffective. Meanwhile, a special counsel investigation looms over the entire administration, threatening both its legitimacy and legal jeopardy for some of its members.

Things are going considerably better for the shadow government. With the Trump administration's chaos sucking up all the attention, it's been able to move forward on a range of its priorities, which tend to be more focused on regulatory matters anyway. It is remaking the justice system, rewriting environmental rules, overhauling public-lands administration, and greenlighting major infrastructure projects. It is appointing figures who will guarantee the triumph of its ideological vision for decades to come. ... Read more

John Kelly Follows Orders. That's Exactly What Trump Critics Are Afraid Of.
HP | Jessica Schulberg , Elise Foley | 08/02/17

Even people who have worked with the retired Marine general for years -- people who like and respect him -- say they know little about his politics. What they do know is that Kelly follows orders, and that he's demonstrated a particular zeal for defending and aggressively executing some of President Donald Trump's most extreme policies.

Ultimately, these people say, Kelly's personal beliefs don't matter. In his new job, Kelly may succeed in stabilizing and professionalizing Trump's team. But there's no reason to believe he will change the president's views. ... Read more

If Everyone Ate Beans Instead of Beef
TheAtlantic | James Hamblin | 08/02/17

... Recently Harwatt and a team of scientists from Oregon State University, Bard College, and Loma Linda University calculated just what would happen if every American made one dietary change: substituting beans for beef. They found that if everyone were willing and able to do that--hypothetically--the U.S. could still come close to meeting its 2020 greenhouse-gas emission goals, pledged by President Barack Obama in 2009.

That is, even if nothing about our energy infrastructure or transportation system changed--and even if people kept eating chicken and pork and eggs and cheese--this one dietary change could achieve somewhere between 46 and 74 percent of the reductions needed to meet the target. ... Read more

Why The Mooch Lost His Cool
HP | Vicky Ward | 08/01/17

Anthony Scaramucci tells HuffPost about the highs and lows of his fiery stint at the White House and what that cuss-filled rant was really about.

I received a call Monday night from Roger Stone, the infamous political prankster and Donald Trump confidant. He wanted to talk about Anthony Scaramucci, whose 10-day tenure as White House communications director had just ended in ignominy.

Stone said that Scaramucci reminded him of "a suicide bomber," then switched centuries for his next metaphor. "The administration is like the French Revolution," Stone said. "You never know who will be beheaded next."

But Stone didn't believe that Scaramucci would stay far from the president for long. "As you know, none of us are ever really gone. He still has the president's cellphone, the president's private number. Just because he's not in the White House, no one should think his influence has gone." ... Read more

Trump dictated son's misleading statement on meeting with Russian lawyer
WashingtonPost | Ashley Parker ... | 08/01/17

On the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Germany last month, President Trump's advisers discussed how to respond to a new revelation that Trump's oldest son had met with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign -- a disclosure the advisers knew carried political and potentially legal peril.

The strategy, the advisers agreed, should be for Donald Trump Jr. to release a statement to get ahead of the story. They wanted to be truthful, so their account couldn't be repudiated later if the full details emerged. But within hours, at the president's direction, the plan changed. ... Read more
REPORT: Trump Dictated Don Jr.'s Excuse For Russian Meeting | TYT | 08/01/17 | 9:50

LINDSEY GRAHAM: Forget the nukes, we should destroy North Korea itself
businessinsider.com | Paul Szoldra | 08/01/17

... In a Tuesday interview on The Today Show, Graham said the US should not only take out the country's nukes, but "North Korea itself."

"[President Donald Trump] is not going to allow the ability of this madman to have a missile to hit America," Graham said. "If there is going to be a war to stop him, it will be over there. If thousands die, they are going to die there, they're not going to die here." ... Read more
Lindsey Graham Wants A North Korean Genocide, Says Trump Agrees | TYT | 08/01/17 | 8:08

Trump Linked To Fox News' Bogus Seth Rich Story, Lawsuit Alleges
HP | Michael Calderone | 08/01/17

The White House was briefed in advance about a baseless Fox News report claiming murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich provided documents to WikiLeaks, according to a new lawsuit that also alleges President Donald Trump encouraged the article's publication.

Rod Wheeler, an ex-police detective, private investigator and paid Fox News commentator, made the allegations in a suit filed against the network, parent company 21st Century Fox, Fox News reporter Malia Zimmerman and Trump supporter Ed Butowsky. In the lawsuit, first reported by NPR, Wheeler alleged that Zimmerman fabricated quotes as she and Butowsky worked to advance "a political agenda for the Trump administration." ... Read more
Trump Secretly Pushed Seth Rich Conspiracy Theory | TYT | 08/01/17 | 12:01

Trump Reportedly Calls White House 'A Real Dump'
HP | Lydia O'Connor | 08/01/17

"That White House is a real dump," Trump reportedly told members of his Trump National Golf Course in Bedminster, New Jersey, before teeing off recently. The remark was included in a lengthy Golf Magazine feature published Tuesday exploring Trump's complicated relationship with the sport. The article also appears in the Aug. 7 issue of Sports Illustrated.

t's no secret that Trump enjoys spending time away from the White House at his own resorts. He's taken four trips to the Bedminster club since his inauguration, the feature noted. Another site tracking Trump's leisure reports he has vacationed on 11 weekends out of the 28 in his presidency, costing taxpayers around $29 million. ... Read more

Why is Trump Reminding Us of the Pee Pee Tape? (#103) | GQ | 08/01/17 | 6:59

Trump Cranks Out Baffling Statement After Another Day Of White House Chaos
HP | Ed Mazza | 07/31/17

Amid the turbulence of White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci's ouster after only 10 days on the job, top Republicans fretting about a White House in "chaos," and Trump's continued plunge in the polls, the president called it a "great day." ... List of Teets ... Read more

John Kelly, Asserting Authority, Fires Anthony Scaramucci
NYTimes | Michael D. Shear | 07/31/17

John F. Kelly, President Trump's new chief of staff, firmly asserted his authority on his first day in the White House on Monday, telling aides he will impose military discipline on a free-for-all West Wing, and he underscored his intent by firing Anthony Scaramucci, the bombastic communications director, 10 days after he was hired.

Mr. Scaramucci was forced out of his post, with the blessing of the president and his family, just days after unloading a crude verbal tirade against other members of the president's staff, including Reince Priebus, Mr. Kelly's beleaguered predecessor, and Stephen K. Bannon, the chief White House strategist, in a conversation with a reporter for The New Yorker. ... Read more
Why The Media Worships John Kelly | TYT | 07/31/17 | 4:09

Report: Trump Cabinet members attend weekly Bible study
TheHill.com | Olivia Beavers | 07/31/17

Trump thinks setting up Bible studies for his cabinet and not attending them will play well with his evangelical base. He's probably right. "Many of President Trump's Cabinet members gather at a weekly session to study the Bible, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) reported Monday.

Ralph Drollinger, the founder of Capitol Ministries, says he leads a weekly Bible study with Cabinet members such as Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

"It's the best Bible study that I've ever taught in my life. They are so teachable. They're so noble. They're so learned," Drollinger told CBN. Vice President Pence, who is a sponsor of the faith sessions, reportedly joins the group when his schedule allows ... Read more
White House Now Has Weekly Bible Studies (Which Trump Skips) | TYT | 07/31/17 | 11:45

Down Goes the Mooch! (#102) | Keith Olbermann | 07/31/17 | 4:02

Sarah 'Huckabee' Sanders gets Crushed On Scaramucci Firing & EXPOSED On Trump's Lies | WH | 07/31/17 | 11:12