Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Could a Footnote in the Papadopoulos Announcement Bring Down the Whole Trump Campaign?
AlterNet | Brad Reed / Raw Story | 10/30/17

Monday's revelation that former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI agents about his efforts to arrange meetings between the Trump campaign and the Russian government has delivered some explosive details about the Russian effort to help get Trump elected president.

However, buried within the announcement of Papadopoulos's guilty plea is a key footnote that may implicate the high-level officials within the Trump campaign in knowledge of collusion with the Russian government. ... Read more

Trump Twiter Archive

Donald Trump's Approval Rating Hits New Low In Latest Gallup Poll
HP | Mary Papenfuss | 10/30/17

... Gallup's tracking poll, based on a three-day rolling average ending Sunday, put Trump's average approval rating at 33 percent, the lowest of his presidency, with 62 percent disapproving of the job he's doing -- a new high.

The survey comes on the heels of a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted Oct. 23-26 and released Sunday that found that 38 percent of Americans approved of Trump's job performance while 58 percent disapproved. The poll found a fall off among independents and Trump's core supporters. ... Read more

Trump and allies dismiss Papadopoulos as the 'coffee boy'
Politico | Louis Nelson | 10/31/17

President Donald Trump and his allies fought back Tuesday against special counsel Robert Mueller's wave of indictments against former campaign aides, dismissing an ex-foreign policy adviser who cut a plea deal with prosecutors as a "liar" and nothing more than the "coffee boy."

The White House was rocked on Monday after Mueller's team went public with charges against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, another campaign aide, including money laundering and other crimes related to the pair's relationship with pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine. ... Read more

The sudden fall of Washington's ultimate power broker
Politico | Anna Palmer | 10/30/17

He has a home in Washington a few doors down from Barack Obama, a villa in Italy, an apartment in New York and a multimillion-dollar art collection. He's been a K Street rainmaker, holding fundraisers for the Democratic Party's top elected officials and mingling with the most powerful liberals in the country. Last week, he attended Hillary Clinton's 70th birthday party.

Some of the world's largest companies -- BAE Systems, Walmart and Lockheed Martin -- have paid him piles of cash to represent them in the Capitol. His firm's receipts reached nearly $30 million in 2010, and his company has swelled to nearly 60 employees. ... Read more

We Have Indictments. What Can We Expect Next? (#141) | Keith Olbermann | 10/31/17 | 9:35

Former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort Surrenders In Russia Probe
HP | Jesselyn Cook | 10/30/17

Paul Manafort, onetime campaign chairman to President Donald Trump, surrendered to the FBI Monday. Former Manafort business associate Rick Gates also has been told to turn himself in to federal authorities, multiple news outlets reported on Monday.

Manafort left his Virginia condo and, with his attorney, walked into the FBI field office in Washington early Monday.

Manafort and Gates are expected to be charged in an intensifying investigation into Russian meddling in the United States' 2016 presidential election. Read more

Hurricane Sandy Hit Five Years Ago Today. Here's What We Learned--And Forgot.
MotherJones | Jessica Leigh Hester | d10/30/17

... It's taken years to fully repair mass transit that was doused with water. Manhattan's South Ferry subway station, inundated with 15 million gallons, just reopened this June, after renovations topping $340 million. Storm-related repairs on the embattled L line--which shuttles 225,000 daily riders back and forth between Brooklyn and Manhattan--are slated to begin in April 2019, long after flooding snarled mechanical systems.

Housing repairs have been slow going, too. Renovations to buildings managed by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) have met with significant delays. The outfit received $2.9 billion in FEMA funding, plus an additional $317 million from HUD--but in a comprehensive accounting of where the money went, DNAInfo reports that 129 buildings are still under construction, and only one has been completely repaired. ... Read more

Alex Jones: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver | LastWeekTonight | older, 07/30/17 | 22:21

A Trump aide pleaded guilty, and it's worse than Paul Manafort's indictment
Salon | Matthew Sheffield | 10/30/17

Former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos says a Russian-connected professor told him about Hillary's emails

While the multiple-count indictment against President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner has dominated Monday's headlines, special counsel Robert Mueller also announced a guilty plea that will likely prove to be more significant because it discusses actions that took place during the presidential campaign.

The document presents clear evidence that Trump's former foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos was interested in collaborating with people affiliated with the Russian government and that he was informed about "thousands" of emails from the Clinton campaign before they were released on the web. ... Read more

Kushner took unannounced trip to Saudi Arabia
Politico | Annie Karni | 10/29/17

... Kushner was accompanied in the region by deputy national security adviser Dina Powell and Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt. Greenblatt continued from Saudi Arabia to Amman, Jordan; Cairo; the West Bank city of Ramallah; and Jerusalem, where he was on Sunday.

The Trump administration has said its strategy is to try to draw in neighboring Arab leaders to play a role in Middle East peace. "Jared has always been driven to try and solve the Israel-Palestinian dispute," said billionaire real estate investor Tom Barrack, a longtime friend and close Trump confidant. "The key to solving that dispute is Egypt. And the key to Egypt is Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia." ... Read more

UPS, FedEx Already Get Millions in Tax Benefits for a Mixed Bag on Job Creation
TYT | author | 10/25/17

... On CNN last week, Stephen Moore -- a senior economic adviser for Donald Trump's presidential campaign -- said that Smith told him during a private dinner that in the event of a corporate tax cut, FedEx would create "thousands" of jobs.

Moore told TYT that the conversation took place at a dinner hosted by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a group cofounded by Moore and other conservative economists, as well as Forbes Media CEO Steve Forbes. Moore said that Smith's remarks were made in the context of a 15 percent corporate tax rate, which President Donald Trump has publicly endorsed. The tax guidelines released by Republican congressional leadership call for a 20 percent corporate rate. ... Read more
Companies Not Delivering On Tax Cut Promises | TYT | 10/26/17 | 11:59

Lou Dobbs Tonight - Full Exclusive Interview With President Trump | FoxNews | 10/27/17 | 34:45

'Our Backyard Has Become A Graveyard': Saving Lives On The U.S.-Mexico Border
HP | Louise Roug | 10/26/17

Residents of Arivaca, Arizona, are stepping in to offer humanitarian aid to desperate people crossing from Mexico.

But Jacobson, a former librarian, is undeterred. With a group of fellow-retirees, she tries to prevent death and suffering in the borderlands around Arivaca, a community of about 695 people in southern Arizona.

Fewer people seem to be trying to cross the border today than in years past ? the number of people apprehended at the U.S. border has dropped to the lowest level in 50 years. Despite this, the number of deaths has remained fairly constant, with a recent uptick. More people died on the border in the first seven months of 2017 compared with the first seven months of 2016, according to the United Nations' migration agency. ... Read more

The Untold History of the United States - Bush & Obama - Age of Terror, Episode 10 | Oliver Stone | Youtube | 59:00

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick (all 10 Episodes)

Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick with Abby Martin - Debunk American Exceptionalism | RT | older, 10/27/17 | 24:06

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

Multiple Academy Award-winner Oliver Stone has directed such iconic movies as Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, Natural Born Killers, and W and is known for his often controversial point of view and probing exploration of weighty historical and political topics. Now, Stone collaborates with esteemed American University professor Peter Kuznick to present our country's "secret history," one that has been unearthed through recently discovered archives and newly declassified material.

Filled with poignant photos and little-known historical facts, this book covers the rise of the American Empire and national security state from the late nineteenth century through the Obama administration, revealing how deeply rooted the seemingly aberrant policies of the Bush-Cheney administration are in the nation's past -- and why it has proven so difficult for President Obama to significantly change course.

By discerning patterns that have previously gone unrecognized and examining the most recently released classified documents, Stone and Kuznick challenge prevailing orthodoxies and ask questions not normally raised. The result is not the kind of history taught in schools or represented on television or in popular movies, and it will come as a surprise to the vast majority of American and global citizens, shocking and astounding both experts and history-lovers alike.

Watch These Hard-to-Believe Multiple Effects of Climate Change on Earth | | 10/15/17 | 11:54

Edward Snowden Exposes Donald Trump | | 2017 | 52:46

JFK Assassination Records - 2017 Additional Documents Release | | 10/27/17 | list

Congress's Late-Night Vote to Protect Banks From Lawsuits
TheAtlantic | Gillian B. White | 10/25/17

In the final hours of Tuesday night, the Senate voted to nullify a rule that would've allowed customers of banks, credit-card companies, and other financial institutions to join together in class-action lawsuits if they felt they'd been wronged. The rule -- which was introduced in July by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), but was not yet in effect -- would have prevented financial institutions from forcing customers with legal grievances to resolve them out of court with the company's lawyers, in a process called arbitration.

After a split decision in the Senate, the deciding vote on Tuesday night was cast by Vice President Mike Pence. All Republican Senators, save for Lindsey Graham and John Kennedy, voted for the repeal. ... Read more
Congress Made It Easier For Big Banks To Steal From You | TYT | 10/25/17 | 7:53

Republicans Really Don't Think It's Their Job To Keep Trump In Check
HP | Jennifer Bendery | 10/25/17

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) stunned his colleagues when he announced on Tuesday he's not running for re-election and torched his party for not having the spine to call out President Donald Trump for his destructive comments and actions.

"I will not be complicit or silent. When the next generation asks us, 'Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you speak up?' What are we going to say?" Flake said in a blistering speech on the Senate floor.

He urged his colleagues to "respect each other again in an atmosphere of shared facts and shared values," while calling Trump's behaviors "outrageous" and "dangerous to democracy." ... Read more

Blood, Money, & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK by Barr McClellan (2003, 2011)

Blood, Money, & Power exposes the secret, high-level conspiracy in Texas that led to President John F. Kennedy's death and the succession of Lyndon B. Johnson as president in 1963. Attorney Barr McClellan, a former member of L.B.J.'s legal team, uses hundreds of newly released documents, including insider interviews, court papers, and the Warren Commission, to illuminate the maneuvers, payoffs, and power plays that revolved around the assassination of Kennedy and to expose L.B.J.'s involvement in the murder plot.

In addition to revealing new information, McClellan answers common questions surrounding the assassination of our thirty-fifth president. Who had the opportunity, motive, and means to assassinate J.F.K.? Who controlled the investigation and findings of the Warren Commission? This historically significant book is proof that absolute power, money, blood, corruption, and deception were at the heart of politics in the early 1960s, and it represents the very best investigative journalism has to offer.

How LBJ Killed JFK: Money, Attorneys, and the Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theory (2003) | BookTV/C-Span/The Film Archives | 01/10/14 | 55:06

Southern California Is Breaking Heat Records By Alarming Margins
HP | Lydia O'Connor | 10/25/17

At one coastal airport, the 1983 record was shattered by 15 degrees.

According to the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles, heat records for Oct. 25 were shattered in a number of places Wednesday. The most notable record was set at the Camarillo Airport in Ventura County, where a high of 103 degrees broke the previous record, 88 set in 1983, by a jaw-dropping 15 degrees.

Scientists have long warned that these types of heat waves will become the new normal. "If we continue with business-as-usual burning of fossil fuels, and warm the planet by [3 degrees Celsius] by the end of this century, then what we today call 'extreme heat' we will instead call 'midsummer,'" Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist and professor of meteorology at Penn State University, told HuffPost during a heat wave plaguing the Midwest and Northeast last summer. ... Read more
Climate Change Costs A Fortune | TYT | 10/24/17 | 7:32

How Betsy DeVos Became The Most Hated Cabinet Secretary
HP | Amanda Terkel | 10/24/17

Cabinet secretaries are rarely household names. For every Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton, there are 10 Ann Venemans and Anthony Foxxes. If an official does gain wider name recognition, it's usually someone in a higher position like the attorney general or secretary of state.

Under President Donald Trump, however, something different is happening: Everyone hates the education secretary, the person who is 16th in line to the presidency and controls only 3 percent of the federal budget. Lawmakers and activists say they've heard more about Betsy DeVos than any other Cabinet secretary ever ? often from people who aren't usually politically engaged.

"All the time," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). "This is true in town halls, when I'm walking down the sidewalk in my neighborhood, when I go into the grocery store. People come up to me to talk about Betsy DeVos. There's just no comparison. I've never had this happen with any other Cabinet secretary."... Read more

Sen. Jeff Flake announces he won't seek re-election | PBS | 10/24/17 | 17:28

The Fourth Shattering: How Donald Trump Is Breaking America Apart
AlterNet | John Feffer / TomDispatch | 10/24/17

When the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., published his bestseller The Disuniting of America in 1991, he didn't seriously entertain the worst-case scenario suggested by the title. At the time, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were imploding, while separatist movements in Quebec, East Timor, Spain's Basque country, and elsewhere were already clamoring for their own states. But when it came to the United States, Schlesinger's worries were principally focused on the far smaller battlefield of the American classroom and what he saw as multiculturalism's threat to the mythic "melting pot." Although he took those teacup tempests seriously, the worst future Schlesinger could imagine was what he called the "tribalization of American life." He didn't contemplate the actual dismemberment of the country. ... Read more

Is Donald Trump Paying Hush Money? (#139?) | Keith Olbermann | 10/24/17 | 6:56

America Has Slid So Far Off the Chart That George W. Bush Has Just Received a Character Award at West Point
AlterNet | Vijay Prashad | 10/23/17

The West continues to throw gasoline on its fires.

News comes like a hurricane. Iraqi forces take Kirkuk, while Syrian Democratic Forces seize Raqqa. Ai Weiwei releases a film about refugees, while refugees continues to trek across the Sahara Desert and across the lip that divides Myanmar from Bangladesh. Puerto Rico still has no power, while a cyclonic storm hits Ireland. U.S. troops die in Niger, a massive bomb kills hundreds in Mogadishu (Somalia), the Taliban attacks in Paktia and Ghazni (Afghanistan). A sensation of dread fills the air over the potential of another illegal American war, this time against Iran or North Korea or both. ... Read more

9/11: Explosive Evidence -- Experts Speak Out | 12/03/16 | 1:28:57

Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World by David Ray Griffin

The events of September 11, 2001, set off a chain of global crises and civil perils that have normalized a climate of fear and conflict. Starting with assaults on the U.S. Constitution, Griffin reviews various ways in which the world has been made worse over the past fifteen years by the Bush-Cheney reaction to the attacks and by power plays for global influence enabled by 9/11. These include the disastrous effects of regime-change operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya; the war on terror, the rise of ISIS, the Syrian conflict and European refugee crisis; the explosion of Islamophobia and the American acceptance of extrajudicial murder-by-drone; and the growing existential threats of ecological and nuclear holocaust. Looking back, it is clear that the story of 9/11 has been used to legitimize and manufacture support for disastrous policies.

In Bush and Cheney, Griffin analyzes what Noam Chomsky, Paul Craig Roberts, and many others across the political spectrum consider the most serious threat today the threat to global survival. He argues that ripple effects of 9/11 have become so destructive and dangerous that the press, policy elites, and citizens should finally confront what we have allowed to happen. A national reckoning has become essential, in the words of William Rivers Pitt, to stop the dominoes of September from continuing to fall.

Donald Rumsfeld 2.3 Trillion Dollars Just Gone | 2001 | 1:48

Over a mere two decades, the Pentagon lost track of a mind-numbing $10 trillion -- that's trillion, with a fat, taxpayer-funded "T" -- and no one, not even the Department of Defense, knows where it went or on what it was spent.

"Over the last 20 years, the Pentagon has broken every promise to Congress about when an audit would be completed," Rafael DeGennaro, director of Audit the Pentagon, told The Guardian recently. "Meanwhile, Congress has more than doubled the Pentagon's budget."

Worse, President Trump's newly-proposed budget seeks to toss an additional $54 billion into the evidently bottomless pit that is the U.S. military ... Read more

Catherine Austin Fitts: We Need Our $40 Trillion In Stolen Cash Back | Gregg Hunter//USA Watchdog | 07/24/17 | 30:20

John Kelly and Sarah Huckabee Sanders Must Resign (#138) | Keith Olbermann | 07/23/17 | 7:43

If you're a black man, expect police brutality under U.S. law and policy
WashingtonPost | Paul Butler | 10/19/17

'The police department is like a crew. It does whatever they want to do." Those words -- from an old-school hip-hop song by the group Boogie Down Productions -- were the soundtrack in my head as I read "I Can't Breathe," journalist Matt Taibbi's gut-wrenching account of the death and life of Eric Garner.

As the whole world knows, Garner died in 2014 after being placed in an illegal chokehold by a New York City cop who was trying to arrest him for supposedly selling a "loosie" tobacco cigarette on a Staten Island street. The book is a deep dive into every aspect of the case, including its legal impact, which is minimal, and its cultural and political impact, which has been profound. ... Read more
Author Matt Taibbi: Eric Garner Death Symptom Of "Bad Politics And Bad Policy" | MSNBC | 10/23/17 | 4:45

The REAL Leaders Of The World | History Repeats Itself | | 2:17:46

9/11 Trillions: Follow The Money | corbettreport | 59:34

Trump Promises to Release Secret JFK Files, But Let's Hold the Applause
AlterNet | Jefferson Morley | 10/21/17

The tweet was probably sincere in expressing Trump's instinct that all of the government's long-secret records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should be made public. The president knows public opinion favors a conspiratorial explanation of the mysterious assassination of the popular liberal president on November 22, 1963.

He knows, too, that the bogus conspiracy theory he floated during the 2016 campaign, smearing the father of Ted Cruz, was effective in attracting attention and harming a rival.

Trump has also heard from friend and confidante Roger Stone, the hard-right political operative who blames the assassination on Lyndon B. Johnson. Stone told conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of Infowars this week that he personally lobbied Trump to release all of the documents. ... Read more

How Airbnb Affects Home Prices and Rents
WSJ | Lisa Ward | 10/22/17

Could the use of Airbnb increase home prices and rental rates? A new, not-yet-published working paper suggests the popular home-sharing service might do just that. The researchers looked at rents and home prices in the 100 largest metro areas in the U.S. between 2012 and 2016. They found that a 10% increase in Airbnb listings leads to a 0.39% increase in rents and a 0.64% increase in house prices.

"That may sound minuscule, but between 2012 and 2016, rents rose by about 2.2% annually [on average in the 100 areas], so a 0.39% increase in that context isn't very small at all," says Edward Kung, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California Los Angeles and one of the study's authors. The same is true for home prices, which rose by an average of about 4.8% annually in the 100 areas, he adds. ... Read more

*Debate Recap: Sanders Vs. Cruz on Trump's Tax Plan | TRNN | 2017/17 | 9:29

Steve Mnuchin Says It's 'Very Hard' Not To Cut Rich People's Taxes
HP | Arthur Delaney | 10/18/17

WASHINGTON ? It's just too tricky to reform the tax code without delivering a windfall to the wealthy, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in an interview published Wednesday.

Mnuchin is right in one sense: Because of the way the tax code adds layers of higher marginal tax rates as income rises, wealthy people automatically benefit if the lower rates are reduced, since they pay both the lower and higher rates.

But Mnuchin is wrong that it would be difficult to devise a tax plan that doesn't make up for lost revenue with higher marginal rates for the wealthy. ... Read more
Mnuchin: "It's Very Hard Not To Give Tax Cuts To The Wealthy" | TYT | 10/18/17 | 7:41

Trump on health care: 90 seconds of talk, 5 fact checks
Politico | Politico Staff | 10/19/17

The president released another 90-second stream of thoughts on health care reform -- one of several this week. After a meeting Thursday on Puerto Rico hurricane recovery, he was asked about the bipartisan Obamacare fix proposed by Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray. He's flipped back and forth on that bill several times. Here's POLITICO's annotated guide to his latest remarks: ... Read more

Alaska Is Warming At Twice The Rate As The Rest Of The Planet | Journeyman Pictures | older, 08/30/16 | 16:39

Trump: Obama-era uranium deal is 'real Russia story'
TheHill | Max Greenwood | 10/19/17

President Trump said Thursday that an Obama-era uranium deal with Moscow is "the real Russia story," and again dismissed allegations that his campaign colluded with Russia as "a hoax."

The comments came hours after Trump tweeted Thursday morning that the so-called "Fake Media" did not want to cover news about the 2010 uranium sale, which gave Moscow control of more than 20 percent of the U.S. uranium supply.

"The problem is mainstream media does not want to cover that story because that affects people they protect," Trump claimed. "So they don't like covering that story. But the big story is uranium and how Russia got 20 percent of our uranium and, frankly, it's a disgrace and it's a disgrace that the fake news won't cover. It's so sad." ... Read more
Trump Actually Telling The Truth About Clinton-Russia Uranium Scandal? | TYT | 10/19/17 | 13:01

Why Did Paul Manafort Need to Get to Trump? (#137) | Keith Olbermann | 10/19/17 | 7:00

The Big Lie pays off: Trump voters believe fake news (about the news being fake)
Salon | Heather Digby Parton | 10/19/17

Nearly half the public believes the media makes up stories about Trump -- and the media is partly to blame for that

Sometimes I think Donald Trump is trying to drive us all crazy. The relentlessness of the lies, the bizarre behavior and the overall chaos are just plain nuts. We've never experienced anything like this. Well, actually, there might be one precedent in "mad" King George, the monarch who was on the throne of England when America declared its independence. But that was a long time ago. Since then we've had good leaders and bad leaders: Some were even great while others were actual criminals. But this nonstop presidential pandemonium is unprecedented. And it's downright discombobulating.

In order to keep a grip on reality, it's tempting to look for a guiding logic behind all the activity and ascribe the confusion to some sort of underlying strategy. You observe a wily character like Steve Bannon and read about his bizarre fringe philosophy of "disruption" to bring on some sort of global denouement -- he literally called Donald Trump "a blunt instrument for us" -- and you figure this might just be a big act in service of his ominous vision. ... Read more

Poll: 46 percent think media make up stories about Trump
Politico | Steven Shepard | 10/18/17

But voters diverge from the president on whether the federal government should be able to punish news organizations that he believes make up stories about him

Nearly half of voters, 46 percent, believe the news media fabricate news stories about President Donald Trump and his administration, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. Just 37 percent of voters think the media do not fabricate stories, the poll shows, while the remaining 17 percent are undecided.

More than three-quarters of Republican voters, 76 percent, think the news media invent stories about Trump and his administration, compared with only 11 percent who don't think so. Among Democrats, one-in-five think the media make up stories, but a 65 percent majority think they do not. Forty-four percent of independent voters think the media make up stories about Trump, and 31 percent think they do not. ... Read more
Poll: Scary Amount Of Americans Believe Media Is Lying | TYT | 10/18/17 | 13:34

The Secretive Family Making Billions From the Opioid Crisis
Esquire | Christopher Glazek | 10/18/17

The Sackler name is no less prominent among the emerald quads of higher education, where it's possible to receive degrees from Sackler schools, participate in Sackler colloquiums, take courses from professors with endowed Sackler chairs, and attend annual Sackler lectures on topics such as theoretical astrophysics and human rights. The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science supports research on obesity and micronutrient deficiencies. Meanwhile, the Sackler institutes at Cornell, Columbia, McGill, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Sussex, and King's College London tackle psychobiology, with an emphasis on early childhood development.

The Sacklers' philanthropy differs from that of civic populists like Andrew Carnegie, who built hundreds of libraries in small towns, and Bill Gates, whose foundation ministers to global masses. Instead, the family has donated its fortune to blue-chip brands, braiding the family name into the patronage network of the world's most prestigious, well-endowed institutions. The Sackler name is everywhere, evoking automatic reverence; the Sacklers themselves, however, are rarely seen. ... Read more

How Harvey Weinstein And Kenneth Cole Covered Up A Shady Deal
HP | Yashar Ali | 10/18/17

... Weinstein was meeting with two attorneys. One, he was trying to undermine: Thomas Ajamie, a Texas trial lawyer, was investigating a highly unusual financial transaction involving Weinstein and the American Foundation for AIDS Research, a nonprofit founded in the early '80s to help find a cure for AIDS. The other, he'd recently managed to co-opt: Lisa Bloom, a lawyer known for representing victims of sexual harassment. Weinstein had recently agreed to option Bloom's book about the Trayvon Martin case. But what Ajamie, and the public, didn't know at the time was that Bloom was also one of Weinstein's lawyers. Bloom, who had become known for parading victims of sexual harassment out in front of cameras, was now working with a man who would soon be exposed as a sexual predator. ... Read more

Professor Abdi Samatar of the University of Minnesota dicusses -> Somalia Bombing an Outgrowth of Foreign Meddling | TRNN | 10/18/17 | 13:47

U.S. Stood by as Indonesia Killed a Half-Million People, Papers Show
NYT | Hannah Beech | 10/18/17

BANGKOK -- It was an anti-Communist blood bath of at least half a million Indonesians. And American officials watched it happen without raising any public objections, at times even applauding the forces behind the killing, according to newly declassified State Department files that show diplomats meticulously documenting the purge in 1965-66.

In one of the documents, released on Tuesday, an American political affairs counselor describes how Indonesian officials dealt with prisons overflowing with suspected members of the Indonesian Communist Party, known by the acronym P.K.I. ... Read more
The Act Of Killing (Trailer) | | 09/07/12 | 3:03

Treasury secretary: Pass a tax bill or markets will tank
Politico | Ben White | 10/18/17

Steven Mnuchin has a stern warning for Congress: You could blow up the stock market if you fail to cut taxes.

The Treasury secretary, in the first episode of the "POLITICO Money" podcast, said Wall Street's big runup following the election of President Donald Trump is largely based on expectations of Congress passing a major tax-relief bill, and failure to do so could have significant consequences. The Dow is now up about 25 percent since the election, a fact Trump tweets about frequently.

"There is no question that the rally in the stock market has baked into it reasonably high expectations of us getting tax cuts and tax reform done," Mnuchin said in the interview. "To the extent we get the tax deal done, the stock market will go up higher. But there's no question in my mind that if we don't get it done you're going to see a reversal of a significant amount of these gains." ... Read more

Get Me Roger Stone (Trailer) | Netflix | 03/29/17 | 2:09

Get Me Roger Stone | Netflix | | 1:41:00

Donald Trump is the Harvey Weinstein of Washington (#135) | Keith Olbermann | 10/17/17 | 5:27

John McCain Scorches Trump's 'Half-Baked' Nationalism in Fiery Liberty Medal Speech
AlterNet | Chris Sosa | 10/17/17

McCain is a strong critic of Steve Bannon's so-called "economic nationalism," which has strongly informed the isolationist policy decisions of the Trump administration.

"To fear the world where we have organized and led for three-quarters of a century, to abandon the ideals we've advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of international leadership and our duty to remain 'the last best hope of Earth' for the sake of some half-baked, spurious nationalism cooked up by people who had rather find scapegoats than solve problems is as unpatriotic as an attachment to any other tired dogma of the past that Americans have consigned to the trash heap of history," McCain said amid cheers from the audience. ... Read more

Thom Hartmann: The America I knew has almost disappeared
Salon & AlterNet | Thom Hartmann | 10/17/17

President Jimmy Carter took it head on when he told me on my radio program that the Citizen's United decision:

This "complete subversion of our political system" grew, in large part, out of Richard Nixon's 1972 appointment of Lewis Powell to the Supreme Court. Powell, in 1971, had authored the infamous Powell Memo to the US Chamber of Commerce, strongly suggesting that corporate leaders needed to get politically involved and, essentially, take over everything from academia to our court system to our political system. ... Read more

North Korea Says Nuclear War 'May Break Out Any Moment'
HP | Nick Visser | 10/16/17

The rhetoric is typical for Pyongyang but adds to an uptick in tensions with the U.S.

North Korea warned a United Nations committee on Monday that a nuclear conflict "may break out any moment," continuing a bombastic war of words between the East Asian country and the United States that has only increased in recent months.

Kim In Ryong, North Korea's deputy ambassador to the U.N., told the General Assembly's disarmament committee that his country was now a "full-fledged nuclear power which possesses the delivery means of various ranges, including the atomic bomb, H-bomb and intercontinental ballistic rockets," according to The Associated Press. ... Read more

Gregg Popovich Goes Full Throttle On 'Soulless Coward' Donald Trump
HP | Lee Moran | 10/17/17

"We have a pathological liar in the White House: unfit intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically to hold this office."

San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich did not hold back in his latest criticism of President Donald Trump. The five-time NBA champion coach has a history of tearing into Trump, but on Monday he took his condemnation of the commander in chief to the next level by calling him a "soulless coward." ... Read more

Deficit hawks trampled in GOP tax cut stampede
Politico | Rachael Bade | 10/16/17

But Republicans are still squabbling over the rising red ink, potentially jeopardizing Trump's tax plan.

Republicans' unified control of Washington is triggering an identity crisis within the party over what it means to be a fiscal conservative in the age of Donald Trump: Do deficits even matter, or do tax cuts trump all? If the White House and GOP lawmakers can't come to terms on the matter soon, it could very well doom Trump's cherished tax reform initiative.

Conservatives have long railed against the nation's now-$20 trillion debt. But now that they're desperate to pass a tax bill, many Republicans' repulsion to red ink is fading fast. Yet some deficit hard-liners are holding the line, insisting that tax cuts be paid for, either by axing deductions or with stiff spending cuts. ... Read more

Bomb Blasts Kill At Least 300 People In Somalia's Capital
HP | Reuters | date

The deadliest attack since the Islamist insurgency began in the country.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - More than 300 people died after twin bomb explosions in Mogadishu, an official said on Monday, as locals packed hospitals in search of friends and relatives caught up in Somalia's deadliest attack in a decade.

"We have confirmed 300 people died in the blast. The death toll will still be higher because some people are still missing," Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of the city's ambulance service, told Reuters on Monday. ... Read more

John Oliver discusses the massive impact of the cybersecurity breach at Equifax and their massively misguided attempts to mitigate the damage. | John Oliver | 10/15/17 | 15:21

*How the Iran nuclear deal works, explained in 3 minutes | Vox | 07/15/15 | 3:05

*The Middle East's cold war, explained | Vox | 07/17/17 | 10:18

Rex Tillerson full State of the Union interview | CNN | 10/15/17 | 17:33

Can the relationship between President Trump and Capitol Hill be repaired? | Face The Nation | 10/15/17 | 10:21

John Kelly lets loose
Politico | Annie Karni | 10/12/17

He's not quitting or getting fired (at least not today). He's not frustrated in his position. The viral photos of him looking existentially troubled when President Donald Trump speaks? That's just his thinking face. And he does not want to be judged by his ability to control the president -- or the president's Twitter feed.

... Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary to President George W. Bush, said he couldn't remember an example of a Bush-era chief of staff conducting the daily briefing. Another former White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said he couldn't recall a similar situation unfolding in the Obama White House. ... Read more

John Kelly takes questions from media | CNN | 10/12/17 | 29:58

Watch For What John Kelly Didn't Say In White House Briefing | MSNBC Last Word | 10/12/17 | 16:24

Trump will scrap critical Obamacare subsidies
Politico | Josh Dawsey | 10/12/17

Cutting off the payments to insurers, which could happen almost immediately, is likely to provide another jolt to Obamacare markets.

President Donald Trump plans to cut off subsidy payments to insurers selling Obamacare coverage in his most aggressive move yet to undermine his predecessor's health care law.

The subsidies, which are worth an estimated $7 billion this year and are paid out in monthly installments, may stop almost immediately since Congress hasn't appropriated funding for the program.

The decision -- which leaked out only hours after Trump signed an executive order calling for new regulations to encourage cheap, loosely regulated health plans -- delivered a double whammy to Obamacare after months of failed GOP efforts to repeal the law. With open enrollment for the 2018 plan year set to launch in two weeks, the moves seem aimed at dismantling the law through executive actions. ... Read more

President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Sean Hannity Oct 11, 2017 | 10/11/17 | 18:46

For Facts Sake: Fact Check President Donald Trump's Tax Plan | MSNBC | 10/12/17 | 4:50

Officials Couldn't Believe How Botched Jared Kushner's Clearance Forms Were
HP | Willa Frej | 10/13/17

His paperwork contained more than 100 errors and omissions.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, made so many omissions on the security clearance forms he submitted that the governmental body responsible for reviewing them is incredulous. "I have never seen that level of mistakes," Charles Phalen, the director of the National Background Investigations Bureau, told a House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.

The initial SF-86 form Kushner submitted left out about 100 contacts with foreigner nationals, including his June 2016 meeting he and Donald Trump Jr. had with Kremlin-linked lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. He had to update it twice.

He also omitted ownership of a real estate tech business, which enabled him to "enrich himself" in the meantime while the company raised millions of dollars, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) said in the hearing.

Kushner's attorney Jamie Gorelick said Thursday in a statement that the omissions were the result of an "administrative error." Read more

Global Capitalism: Trump's/GOP's Tax Plan and a Changing US Economy | Democracy At Work | 10/11/17 | 1:17:10

Is Mueller Trying to Stop Trump From Pardoning People? (#134) | Keith Olbermann | 10/12/17 | 7:05

California Authorities Say Wildfires Are Only Getting Worse
HP | Sarah Ruiz-Grossman | 10/11/17

Three days after catastrophic wildfires first began scorching Northern California's wine country, authorities say the conditions are likely to deteriorate still further.

"It's actually getting worse," Sonoma Sheriff's Office spokesman Sgt. Spencer Crum said on Wednesday afternoon. "The winds have picked up today, and we have more evacuations."

Since late Sunday evening, wildfires in Sonoma, Napa and neighboring counties have spread rapidly, killing at least 23 people, injuring more than 100 and leaving hundreds missing, according to the Sonoma Sheriff's Office. Thousands have been forced to flee their homes after mandatory evacuations.

"I've been in the fire service for over 30 years, and I'm horrified at what I've seen," said Cal Fire public information officer Jerry Fernandez, who grew up in the Sonoma area. He explained that the fire is at "zero percent containment," meaning it is not controlled, is continuing to spread, and that greater winds could make the situation worse in the coming hours and days. ... Read more

"I Hate Everyone In The White House!": Trump Seethes As Advisers Fear The President Is "Unraveling"
Vanity Fair | Gabriel Sherman | 10/11/17

In recent days, I've spoken with a half dozen prominent Republicans and Trump advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a president that seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods.

At first it sounded like hyperbole, the escalation of a Twitter war. But now it's clear that Bob Corker's remarkable New York Times interview--in which the Republican senator described the White House as "adult day care" and warned Trump could start World War III--was an inflection point in the Trump presidency. It brought into the open what several people close to the president have recently told me in private: that Trump is "unstable," "losing a step," and "unraveling."

The conversation among some of the president's longtime confidantes, along with the character of some of the leaks emerging from the White House has shifted. There's a new level of concern. NBC News published a report that Trump shocked his national security team when he called for a nearly tenfold increase in the country's nuclear arsenal during a briefing this summer. One Trump adviser confirmed to me it was after this meeting disbanded that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a "moron." ... Read more
Steve Bannon Warned President Donald Trump About The 25th Amendment | MSNBC Last Word | 10/11/17 | 12:52

Trump: We can't keep FEMA, military in Puerto Rico forever
Politico | Louis Nelson | 10/12/17

President Donald Trump warned Thursday that there is a limit to how much federal aid he is willing to expend on Puerto Rico and that "we cannot keep" federal response workers on the island "forever."

"'Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making,' says Sharyl Attkisson. A total lack of accountability say the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes," Trump wrote on Twitter Thursday morning in a series of posts. "Congress to decide how much to spend. We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!" ... Read more

President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Sean Hannity Oct 11, 2017 | 10/11/17 | 18:46

Why the Vegas Shooter Did It
Politico | Daniel Benjamin | 10/12/17

In today's fame-obsessed world, mass killings have become a bloody route to immortality.

Why did he do it? A week after the worst mass killing in modern American history, the search for the motive behind Stephen Paddock's murderous spree in Las Vegas has become a national obsession. Remarkably, though, there appears to be not a scintilla of evidence to support the explanations that have been proposed so far--from the claim that he had secretly become a soldier for ISIS to the possibility that his gambling had led him into a financial mess. The latest theory -- that he had a deep, serious but secret mental illness -- seems less like a diagnosis than a tautology.

Absent a pathologist's determination, though, it's worth considering the message embedded in the Vegas killer's actions even if there is no trail leading to a specific grievance or hatred: Stephen Paddock was determined to make his mark as the most effective mass murderer in American history. A man whose existence was unremarkable, even forgettable, wanted to immortalize himself as a champion in an event that has become in recent years horrifyingly competitive, with six new records since Whitman's shooting and three in just the past decade. ... Read more

Deadly California Wildfires Rip Through Once-Safe Areas
WSJ | Erin Ailworth | 10/11/17

Fire officials on Tuesday issued grim tallies as more than a dozen wildfires ripped through Northern California: at least 17 people dead, more than 100 missing, 20,000 evacuated, 115,000 acres charred, and at least 2,000 homes and businesses destroyed. 356 ... Read more

Trump attacks report he wanted massive increase in nuclear arsenal
magazine | author | date

President Trump attacked NBC News on Wednesday, dismissing as "pure fiction" an explosive report that he had sought a massive increase in the nation's nuclear arsenal.

On Twitter, Trump also raised the possibility that he would support stripping the broadcast licenses of news networks that report what he believes to be inaccurate information. The tweets came after NBC News reported that Trump purportedly told senior national security advisers during a meeting last summer that he favored what amounted to nearly a tenfold increase in nuclear weapons. ... Read more

Are Trump's Feuds With Tillerson and Corker a Prelude to War?
TheAtlantic | David A. Graham | 10/10/17

While it's tempting to view the spats as just more palace intrigue, they reveal a president impatient with diplomacy and drawn toward military force.

It is natural to see Donald Trump's latest feuds, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Senator Bob Corker, as just the most recent outbursts from a president who is only comfortable amid feuding. This is, after all, the guy who spent weeks humiliating his attorney general (but never cut him loose) and who runs his Oval Office on the same terms as his reality show, encouraging rivalries and backstabbing. What's new is the targets.

There's certainly some slapstick to the latest round. It includes Trump claiming Corker begged for an endorsement before deciding to retire (all reporting suggests that is untrue), and Corker referring to the White House as an "adult day care" while all but calling the president a liar: "I don't know why the president tweets out things that are not true. You know he does it, everyone knows he does it, but he does." A headline in the national paper of record states, accurately and forthrightly, "Trump Mocks Bob Corker's Height, Escalating Feud with a Key Republican." ... Read more

Cotton to the Defense
Politico | Susan Glasser | date

Tom Cotton is no Bob Corker. At least not yet. And he has a message for Tillerson and Mattis: If you can't get with the Trump program, quit.

This is a moment of truth for President Trump's national security team. He is set to overrule both his secretaries of State and Defense on the Iran nuclear deal this week, declaring it no longer in the U.S. "national interest" in explicit contradiction to their public position. And if they don't like it, Senator Tom Cotton says, then they should get out.

Their "job is now to move out and execute," Cotton, the Arkansas Republican and national security hawk who is one of Trump's closest remaining congressional advisers on foreign policy, says in a new interview for The Global Politico, our weekly podcast on world affairs. Or, "if you feel strongly enough, then you have to resign."

Cotton, who has personally advised Trump in recent days about the new Iran strategy he is set to release this week, stopped short of saying either embattled Secretary of State Rex Tillerson or Defense Secretary Jim Mattis should in fact resign. ... Read more

Clinton chief of staff compares Trump White House 'chaos' to 'telenovelas'
TheHill | author | 08/06/17

Mack McLarty, former White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, slammed the Trump administration Sunday, comparing its "chaos" to the drama in "telenovelas." "President Trump needs to regroup. This White House really needs to not have these telenovelas," McLarty told radio host John Catsimatidis in an interview that aired Sunday on AM 970 in New York.

"The President kind of thrives on chaos. It is one thing to do that in a campaign. This president… needs to pivot from the campaign to governing," he continued. "There's too much drama, there's way too much partisanship, and there's not enough focus on the people's business that is making this economy stronger and working for everybody." ... Read more

NBC Meet The Press Full Show | Meet The Press | 10/08/17 | 47:36

Trump’s Russian Laundromat
NewRepublic | Craig Unger | 07/13/17

How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money, run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate developer into the White House.

A monument to celebrity and conspicuous consumption, the tower was home to the likes of Johnny Carson, Steven Spielberg, and Sophia Loren. Its brash, 38-year-old developer was something of a tabloid celebrity himself. Donald Trump was just coming into his own as a serious player in Manhattan real estate, and Trump Tower was the crown jewel of his growing empire. From the day it opened, the building was a hit—all but a few dozen of its 263 units had sold in the first few months. But Bogatin wasn’t deterred by the limited availability or the sky-high prices. The Russian plunked down $6 million to buy not one or two, but five luxury condos. The big check apparently caught the attention of the owner. According to Wayne Barrett, who investigated the deal for the Village Voice, Trump personally attended the closing, along with Bogatin.

If the transaction seemed suspicious—multiple apartments for a single buyer who appeared to have no legitimate way to put his hands on that much money—there may have been a reason. At the time, Russian mobsters were beginning to invest in high-end real estate, which offered an ideal vehicle to launder money from their criminal enterprises. “During the ’80s and ’90s, we in the U.S. government repeatedly saw a pattern by which criminals would use condos and high-rises to launder money,” says Jonathan Winer, a deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement in the Clinton administration. “It didn’t matter that you paid too much, because the real estate values would rise, and it was a way of turning dirty money into clean money. It was done very systematically, and it explained why there are so many high-rises where the units were sold but no one is living in them.” When Trump Tower was built, as David Cay Johnston reports in The Making of Donald Trump, it was only the second high-rise in New York that accepted anonymous buyers. ... Read more
Trump's Been Laundering Russian Mob Money For Decades, Allegedly | TYT | older 07/24/17 | 24:32

Married to the Mob: Investigative Journalist Craig Unger on What Trump Owes the Russian Mafia | DN | older 07/20/17 | 10:11

Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs Exposed | USA News | older 05/13/17 | 45:14

Donald Trump grab her in the Pussy (#132) | Keith Olbermann | 10/09/17 | 6:53

Donald Trump grab her in the Pussy | | 10/08/16 | 6:37

The Enormous Emotional Toll of Trumpism
TheDailyBeast | Joy-Ann Reid | 10/07/17

At a certain point, the distaste becomes exhaustion. Donald Trump's presence in our national life has been alternately infuriating, embarrassing, revolting, gross and bizarre. His non-stop assaults on our political norms are testing our capacity to sustain constant outrage without giving in to despair.

I meet victims of Trump fatigue everywhere. They stop me in airports and restaurants and on the street and ask how long we'll have to put up with this madness -- when will Bob Mueller finally bring him down, and how much more can our systems bend before they break. When I tell them Trump is likely to clamor on until either the 2018 election slows him down or the 2020 election stops him (or if Russian interference, non-white voter suppression and liberal perfectionism succeed again, 'til he terms out in 2024), the look on their faces is something akin to terror.

Try as you might to put him out of your mind, he blunders back into your consciousness. He lumbers across your television and cellphone screens in his giant Trump suits, squinting and pouting with his silent, sullen wife or exhausted looking cabinet members in tow. One minute he's tearing up international agreements. The next, he's tweeting out his inner demons, mocking people of color, taunting unstable dictators with stupid nicknames and generally wreaking havoc. ... Read more

White House believes Kelly's personal phone possibly compromised at transition office
Politico | Josh Dawsey | 10/08/17

Officials have tried to determine whether Kelly signed onto an insecure wireless network or whether a hacker, foreign government or some other outside force could have accessed the phone there.

White House officials have homed in on President Donald Trump's Washington transition headquarters as a likely location where chief of staff John Kelly's personal cellphone could have been compromised in late 2016, two U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.

Kelly, who first served as Trump's secretary of homeland security, reported the phone had stopped working properly in December after he entered the transition office space, which was made available by the General Services Administration, the officials said. Kelly said it functioned well before that time.

Although many of Trump's high-profile meetings with lawmakers and potential Cabinet members before his inauguration occurred in New York at Trump Tower, much of his transition staff worked out of the office space about three blocks from the White House. ... Read more

Which country does the most good for the world? | TED Talk | 07/02/14 | 17:54

Kellyanne Conway: Bob Corker's tweeting is "incredibly irresponsible"
Salon | Matthew Sheffield | 10/09/17

White House counselor denounces Tennessee Republican for doing exactly what her boss does

These Are the Tax Issues Threatening to Divide Republicans
Bloomberg | Sahil Kapur | 10/09/17

President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders unveiled a framework in September for far-reaching changes to the U.S. tax code. Now it's up to the House and Senate tax-writing committees to turn the framework into legislation that can pass both houses. They can do that without Democratic support because of a Senate procedure that lets them avoid a filibuster on bills related to taxing and spending. But first they have to reach agreement within their own ranks. With Republicans holding 52 seats in the 100-member Senate, only a few defections could sink a bill -- as happened to their failed efforts to repeal Obamacare. Here are issues that might divide Republicans. ...

The Roots of Trump's Prejudice (#131) | Keith Olbermann | 10/06/17 | 5:45

John Kelly's personal cellphone was compromised, White House believes
Politico | Josh Dawsey | 10/05/17

White House tech support discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to tech support staff this summer.

White House officials believe that chief of staff John Kelly's personal cellphone was compromised, potentially as long ago as December, according to three U.S. government officials. The discovery raises concerns that hackers or foreign governments may have had access to data on Kelly's phone while he was secretary of Homeland Security and after he joined the West Wing.

Tech support staff discovered the suspected breach after Kelly turned his phone in to White House tech support this summer complaining that it wasn't working or updating software properly.

Kelly told the staffers the phone hadn't been working properly for months, according to the officials. ... Read more
TRMS Exclusive: Secret Service Bans Mobile Devices In West Wing | MSNBC Rachel Maddow | 10/05/17 | 11:42

Trump to 'decertify' Iran nuclear deal next week: report
TheHill | Rebecca Kheel | 10/05/17

President Trump plans to "decertify" the Iran nuclear deal next week and announce that it is not in the United States' national interest, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Such an announcement would leave the next move up to Congress, which would have 60 days to use a fast-track process to reimpose sanctions and deliver a potentially fatal blow to the deal, which Tehran agreed to in 2015 with the U.S. and five other nations.

Trump faces an Oct. 15 deadline to tell Congress whether Iran remains in compliance with the Obama-era nuclear accord, which gave Tehran billions of dollars of sanctions relief in exchange for limits on its nuclear program. Read more
How Trump Is Sabotaging Iran Nuclear Deal | TYT | 10/05/17 | 17:49

'Calm before storm': Trump warns he'll 'put an end to Iran's aggression & nuclear ambitions' | RT | 10/06/17 | 2:12

Donald Trump Says Cryptically 'It's The Calm Before The Storm' | MSNBC Last Word | 10/06/17 | 8:45

The Himalayan Glaciers Are Melting Faster Than Anywhere On Earth | Journeyman Pictures | 09/07/16 | 8:27

Glacier melt in B.C. at 'shocking' levels | The National | 10/21/15 | 10:18

World's fastest glacier. Calving enormous iceberg in Greenland. | Ruben poulsen | 09/02/15 | 11:21

World's fastest glacier, calving enormous iceberg. Captured in a plane, by me, Ruben Wernberg Poulsen. I was only 12 years old and i filmed this with an iPad. Sorry for the unstable camera

'Death spiral': Tillerson makes nice but may not last long with Trump
WashingtonPost | Anne Gearan | 10/04/17

The moment was as remarkable as it was unprecedented: A sitting U.S. secretary of state took to the microphone to pledge his fealty to the president -- despite his well-documented unhappiness in the job and the growing presumption in Washington that he is a short-timer.

Rex Tillerson said Wednesday he would stay as long as President Trump wants him to, and Trump said he has "full confidence" in the former ExxonMobil chief executive. Shortly afterward, Tillerson's spokeswoman also felt compelled to publicly deny an NBC News report that Tillerson had called the president a "moron," and she said he was determined to remain in his job.

But Tillerson's move on Wednesday to reassure Trump of his convictions may well be too little and too late for the long term, according to the accounts of 19 current and former senior administration officials and Capitol Hill aides, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer candid assessments.... Read more

Mystery Deepens on Las Vegas Shooter's Motive as Police Quiz Girlfriend
WSJ | Kate King | 10/05/7

The girlfriend of the Las Vegas shooter said she will cooperate with investigators, who see her as the key to understanding the motives behind one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

Marilou Danley said through her lawyer she returned to the U.S. voluntarily to help with the investigation, but she never witnessed anything that led her to believe that Stephen Paddock was preparing an attack that so far has resulted in 59 fatalities, including his own. ... Read more

NRA: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver | John Oliver | 10/04/15 | 12:37

The Problem With Trump's Madman Theory
TheAtlantic | Tim Naftali | 10/04/17

It didn't work for Nixon. It's even less likely to work now.

Last weekend, President Donald Trump reportedly told the U.S. trade representative to scare South Korean negotiators by telling them he was a madman. "You tell [the South Koreans] if they don't give the concessions now, this crazy guy will pull out of the deal," he said, referring to the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement. That report came at the end of a day in which the president's tweets about another issue on the Korean peninsula evoked comparisons to the Nixon-era "madman theory" that you can scare an opponent into concessions by cultivating an image of recklessness. "I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man," the president wrote. "... Save your energy Rex, we'll do what needs to be done!"

Although President Trump credits himself with breaking every presidential norm, in choosing to intimidate foreign opponents through feigned (or real) recklessness, he is borrowing from the playbook of a predecessor. ... Read more

Every "None-Violent" Person Has a Place in this World. We Just Got To Find It.

Man plays piano in street, people were shocked | Valeriy W. | 04/18/17 | 8:03

Homeless Man Plays Piano Beautifully (Sarasota, FL) | Sly Dylan | 06/30/15 | 2:25

Homeless 'Piano Man' Performs National Anthem at NFL Game | Inside Edition | 09/09/15 | 1:27

How The Las Vegas Massacre Unfolded
HP | Mollie Reilly | 10/04/17

It was just after 9:40 p.m. when Donny Lee, his wife and some friends watched country superstar Jason Aldean take the stage to close out the Route 91 Harvest festival, a three-day country music celebration that drew fans from around the country to the famed Las Vegas Strip

Lee's group was among the 22,000 people packing the 15-acre open-air venue for three days of country-tinged revelry in the nation's most prominent party city. Held in a former parking lot near the Luxor and Mandalay Bay resorts, the festival known as the "neon sleepover" billed itself as a relatively intimate chance for country fans to see some of their favorite artists in one place. For many attendees, the early fall gathering -- this year celebrating its fourth anniversary -- had become an annual tradition. It was the last night of the festival, and the grounds were packed. ... Read more

Bernie Sanders: Trump's Puerto Rico tweets are unspeakable | CNN | 10/01/17 | 8:03

Leaked Talking Points Reveal White House Plan to Spin Las Vegas Massacre
AlterNet | Bob Brigham | 10/04/17

NBC news has revealed secret White House talking points on the mass shooting massacre at the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas.

The talking points produced by the White House communications department add context to the comments President Trump's administration has made since the shooting.

Early Tuesday President Donald Trump vowed to look at gun laws, "as time goes by." The secret White House talking points have a similar message, stating, "let's gather the facts before we make sweeping policy arguments for curtailing the Second Amendment." ... Read more

Rex Tillerson, Trump's Secretary of State, Reaffirms Support for President
NYTimes | Eileen Sullivan | 10/04/17

Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, in a hastily convened news conference on Wednesday, denied that he had ever considered resigning and dismissed an NBC News article reporting that he had called President Trump a "moron."

Mr. Tillerson said that Vice President Mike Pence had never had to persuade him to remain as secretary of state, as the NBC News story had reported, "because I have never considered leaving this post." Mr. Tillerson refused to address whether he had called the president a "moron." ... Read more

Mongolia's nomadic herders | Aljazeera | 10/03/17 | 1:17

Inside the Rugged Lives of Mongolia's Nomads | NatGeo | 02/28/16 | 6:27

A Journey Through Mongolia | NatGeo | 01/30/17 | 31:05

Tillerson Says He's Not Quitting After Report He Called Trump a 'Moron'
Bloomberg | Nick Wadhams | 10/04/17

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he's "never considered" leaving his job, rejecting news reports that he had denigrated President Donald Trump and weighed resigning.

"My commitment to the success of the president and the country is as strong as it was the day I accepted his offer to serve as secretary of state," Tillerson, 65, told reporters Wednesday at the State Department in Washington. "I have never considered leaving this post." ... Read more

Trump is Not Planning to Rebuild Puerto Rico (#130) | Keith Olbermann | 10/03/17 | 7:33

What We Know About The Las Vegas Shooting Victims
HP | Jenna Amatulli | 10/02/17

The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history took place on Sunday, when a gunman opened fire at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. At least 59 people were killed and over 500 wounded. The suspect, Stephen Paddock, was later found dead in his hotel room.

This is what we know about the victims whose names have been released. ... Read more

Stephen Paddock, Las Vegas Suspect, Was a Gambler Who Drew Little Attention
NYTimes | Jose A. Delreal | 10/02/17

He was a high-stakes gambler recognized in the casinos of Nevada. He dabbled in real estate investments in Texas. His last known full-time employment was 30 years ago. He was twice divorced. He had a pilot's license and had owned two single-engine planes.

While his motive for the mass shooting outside a Las Vegas casino on Sunday night is unknown, details of Stephen Paddock's history pointed to an unmoored and highly unconventional life.

From his neighbors in a quiet retirement community in Mesquite, Nev., he drew little attention, unless it was for his extreme propensity to keep to himself. He displayed no strong religious or political views, his relatives said, and was not known for angry outbursts. ... Read more

DOJ releases overruled memos finding it illegal for presidents to appoint relatives
Politico | Josh Gerstein | 10/03/17

The legal opinion that cleared the way for Kushner and Ivanka Trump appointments reversed earlier advice.

The Justice Department has released a series of recently overruled legal memos concluding that presidents cannot appoint their relatives to the White House staff or presidential commissions, even to unpaid posts.

In January, a career Justice Department official essentially declared the earlier opinions erroneous or obsolete, clearing the way for President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner to take a senior adviser position in the White House. First daughter Ivanka Trump later took a similar official but unpaid slot under the same legal rationale.

The newly-disclosed opinions, issued to the Nixon, Carter and Reagan White House and obtained by POLITICO Monday through a Freedom of Information Act request, detail how Justice Department lawyers concluded for decades that such appointments of family members were illegal under an anti-nepotism law passed in 1967. ... Read more

Trump brings harsh edge to Puerto Rico trip
Politico | Matthew Nussbaum | 10/03/17

President Donald Trump brought a jarring tone to Puerto Rico as he was briefed on the hurricane devastation, appearing to blame the U.S. territory for having "thrown our budget a little out of whack" and complimenting officials for sustaining only 16 deaths, compared with the much higher human toll of Hurricane Katrina.

"I hate to tell you, Puerto Rico, but you've thrown our budget a little out of whack because we've spent a lot of money on Puerto Rico," Trump said Tuesday in his first public remarks from the island, which declared a form of bankruptcy in May. "And that's fine."

"Sixteen people versus in the thousands," the president said, overstating Katrina's death toll. "You can be very proud of all of your people, all of our people working together," he told Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. "Sixteen versus literally thousands of people. You can be very proud. Everybody around this table and everybody watching can really be very proud of what's taken place in Puerto Rico." ... Read more

Trump's "Condolences and Sympathies" Won't Cut It (#129) | Keith Olbermann | 10/02/17 | 5:18

At Least 50 Dead, Hundreds Wounded In Shooting At Las Vegas Country Music Festival
HP | Ed Mazza | 10/02/17

At least 50 people were killed and hundreds wounded after a gunman opened fire on a country music festival in Las Vegas late Sunday night, police said. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Stephen Craig Paddock, 64, shot at over 22,000 concertgoers from a room on the 32nd floor of the nearby Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino around 10 p.m., Clark County Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said. Las Vegas Police said SWAT team members found Paddock dead after they breached his room and that they found at least 10 firearms in the room, including "long rifles." ... Read more

Trump to unleash more global arms sales
Politico | Bryan Bender | 09/29/17

The easing of restrictions on international weapons deals could create U.S. jobs, but critics fear it will inflame war zones.

President Donald Trump is preparing to ease some restrictions on U.S. weapons sales overseas, sparking concerns about further flooding the international market with high-tech weapons and inflaming feuds in hot spots like the Middle East.

The changes, which could include enlisting the State Department and Pentagon to more actively advocate on behalf of American arms manufacturers, are set to be included in an executive order or presidential memorandum that Trump will issue this fall, according to three administration officials involved in the deliberations.

The U.S. is already the global leader in weapons exports, accounting for more than half the world's annual arms deals. The new "arms transfer initiative," being run out of the White House National Security Council, aims to make U.S. companies more competitive when allies are shopping for fighter jets, ground vehicles, warships, missile defenses and other military gear in an intensely competitive market, the officials told POLITICO. ... Read more

*Ken Burns and Lynn Novick: The Vietnam War Is the Key to Understanding America | ReasonTV | 09/13/17 | 41:02

Episode 01: Déjà Vu (1858-1961) | PBS | 1:25:46

The Vietnam War is a ten-part, 18-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick - The Vietnam War | Netflix

Hearts and Minds (Vietnam) (1973) | Peter Davis | 1973 | 1:52:01

Sir No Sir (2005) | | 2005 | 49:27

My Father's Vietnam (2015) | | 2015 | 1:18:42

PBS - Vietnam War Stories | 03/25/17 | 55:41