Home · News · News May 2016 · May 20 2016
Friday May 20, 2016
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Builders of the American Century: Bechtel and Crony Capitalism
HP | Jeremy Kuzmarov | 05/20/16

The Koch Brothers, Dick Cheney, and companies like Blackwater and Halliburton have become worldwide symbols of crony capitalism, war profiteering, environmental destruction and labor exploitation, which are driving the resurgence of social movements in the United States today.

Sally Denton's book The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World (Simon & Schuster, 2016), demonstrates that Bechtel Corporation, which spent an estimated $6.2 million in political contributions and $6.2 million in lobbying during the last election cycles, should be in the same class of villains. ... Read more

The Profiteers: Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World Hardcover by Sally Denton

The tale of the Bechtel family dynasty is a classic American business story. It begins with Warren A. "Dad" Bechtel, who led a consortium that constructed the Hoover Dam. From that auspicious start, the family and its eponymous company would go on to "build the world," from the construction of airports in Hong Kong and Doha, to pipelines and tunnels in Alaska and Europe, to mining and energy operations around the globe.

Today Bechtel is one of the largest privately held corporations in the world, enriched and empowered by a long history of government contracts and the privatization of public works, made possible by an unprecedented revolving door between its San Francisco headquarters and Washington. Bechtel executives John McCone, Caspar Weinberger, and George P. Shultz segued from leadership at the company to positions as Director of the CIA, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State, respectively.

Like all stories of empire building, the rise of Bechtel presents a complex and riveting narrative. In The Profiteers, Sally Denton, whom The New York Times called "a wonderful writer," exposes Bechtel's secret world and one of the biggest business and political stories of our time.
*TRNN | Americans must know 'shocking' details of 9/11 report classified pages (05/19/15) [5:12]

"Hillary Clinton Is A Danger To World Peace", French Presidential Frontrunner Le Pen Warns
ZeroHedge | author | 05/20/16

American media has repeatedly likened GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump to France's far-right Front-National party leader Marine Le Pen and while the forthright French politician has not explicitly named a "preferable" candidate for US president, her comments today suggest it is not Hillary Clinton. Stating that the "EU is in the brink of collapse," as two of its main 'pillars' are "crumbling" despite the billions of euros spent on keeping the structure from falling, Le Pen's gravest fear is Hillary Clinton winning the White House because it would constitute "a danger for the world peace," as she would continue to drag Europe into her"destructive policy" of conflicts. ... Read more

Business Loan Delinquencies Spike To Lehman Moment Level
ZeroHedge | author | 05/20/16

This could not have come at a more perfect time, with the Fed once again flip-flopping about raising rates. After appearing to wipe rate hikes off the table earlier this year, the Fed put them back on the table, perhaps as soon as June, according to the Fed minutes. A coterie of Fed heads was paraded in front of the media today and yesterday to make sure everyone got that point, pending further flip-flopping. Drowned out by this hullabaloo, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve released its delinquency and charge-off data for all commercial banks in the first quarter -- very sobering data. ... Read more
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Aljazeera | The Rise of the Superbug (05/19/16) [24:59]
Aljazeera | Inside Story - Could superbugs become deadlier than cancer? (05/19/16) [24:50]
Aljazeera | Head to Head - Climate change: Fact or fiction? (05/16/16) [47:32]
Aljazeera | UpFront - Top US general defends Donald Trump (05/19/16) [10:39]
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, May 20 [11:43]
DN | Canada's Indigenous & Black Lives Matter Activists Unite to Protest Violence & Neglect, Part 1 (05/20/16) [11:22], Part 2 [7:59]
DN | Canada Apologizes for Racist Incident 100 Years After Rejecting Komagata Maru Ship of 370 Immigrants (05/20/16) [21:22]
*TRNN | Col. Larry Wilkerson on Heightened Tensions in the South China Sea (05/20/15) [9:52]
Click picture to zoom in
TRNN | Republicans Would Rather Lose the 2016 Election than Win with Donald Trump (05/18/15) [10:44]
TYT | Cenk Interviews Bernie Sanders On Campaign Finance Reform (05/19/16) [3:48]
TYT | Barbara Boxer: Bernie Supporters Made Me Fear For My Safety (05/19/16) [10:22]
TYT | Trump Accuses Bill Clinton Of Rape (05/19/16) [3:25]
RT | CrossTalk: Universal Justice? (05/20/16) [24:43]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
*ThomHartmann | Is There Evidence To Go After the Saudis on 9/11? (05/19/16) [11:36]
*ThomHartmann | TPP Has Failed American Jobs - Here Are the Numbers... (05/19/16) [12:58]
*DR | Friday News - Domestic (04/20/16) [1hr]
Note: starts around 3:20 on the Progressbar
Bernie Sanders' campaign rebukes Hillary Clinton for claiming she will be the Democratic nominee. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party establishment is making plans to avoid an ugly conflict at their convention in Philadelphia this summer. A new poll shows a majority of Republicans want their party to unify behind Donald Trump, who showing some signs of a more traditional candidacy. President Obama ties another non-decision from the Supreme Court to a lack of action on his nominee, Merrick Garland. And Feds look for ways to shorten long airport security lines. A panel of journalists joins guest host Allison Aubrey of NPR News for analysis of the week's top national news stories.
*DR | Friday News - International (04/20/16) [1hr]
The latest on crash of the Egypt Air plane from Paris to Cairo. ISIS ramps up its bombings in Baghdad. And one of the Nigerian schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram returns home. A panel of journalists joins guest host Allison Aubrey for analysis of the week's top international news stories.
NPR (National Public Radio) - www.npr.org/
PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) - pbs.org/
MSNBC - Maddow/Hayes - www.msnbc.com/

05.20.2016. 13:15



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Lindsey Graham Mashups
Lindsey Graham

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

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Environment & Climate Change
Environment

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

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

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

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

Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles.  It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, quantum field theory, quantum technology, and quantum information science.
Classical physics, the collection of theories that existed before the advent of quantum mechanics, describes many aspects of nature at an ordinary (macroscopic) scale, but is not sufficient for describing them at small (atomic and subatomic) scales. Most theories in classical physics can be derived from quantum mechanics as an approximation valid at large (macroscopic) scale.
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Economy, Wall Street and Banksters

Wall Street and Banksters

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

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Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

Intelligence Agencies/Deep State?

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

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
Daniel Ellsberg

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

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Nukes
Nukes

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

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Rana Foroohar and Fall of American Business
Rana Foroohar

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

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

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

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

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Kuznick Interviews

Kuznick Interviews

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

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

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China Valley of Tunnels

China Valley of Tunnels

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

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911
911

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

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The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War

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

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Trump's Mashups
Trump's Mashups

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

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Trump's Sexcapades
Trump's Sexcapades.

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

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

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

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