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Tuesday June 16, 2015
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Elizabeth Warren
Mother Jones | Inae Ohr | 06/02/15

Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren participated in a conference hosted by tech website Re/Code, where she was asked a policy question about infrastructure spending. What followed was an incredibly powerful response that touched upon the Massachusetts senator's signature issues--student loans, misplaced Washington interests, and the systematic problems hurting middle class Americans.

"The only way we get change is when enough people in this country say, 'I'm mad as hell and I'm fed up and I'm not going to do this anymore,'" Warren said. "'You are not going to represent me in Washington, DC, if you are not willing to pass a meaningful infrastructure bill. If you are not willing to refinance student loan interest rates and stop dragging in billions of dollars in profits off the backs of kids who otherwise can't afford to go to college. If you don't say you're going to fund the NIH and the NISF, because that is our future.' We have to make these issues salient and not just wonky." ... Read more
Senator Elizabeth Warren on big money in Washington (current) [2:22]

Jeb Bush Is Officially Running for President. Here's What You Need to Know About Him.
MotherJones | Allie Gross | 06/15/15

Well, today's the day. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is expected to finally announce that he is running for president. After months of mounting a not-very-shadow campaign and raising money (almost $100 million since January for his super-PAC Right to Rise), his official leap into the crowded Republican field is no surprise. As the third Bush to run for president in 35 years, he is already considered the top choice for the GOP establishment.

But the GOP establishment no longer rules the party as it once did, so the road to the nomination, much less to the White House, is filled with land mines for Bush. Tea partiers and the Christian right are powerful Bush antagonists. Before he made his candidacy official, a tea party-aligned group called Constitutional Rights PAC started promoting the website EndJeb2016.com, which accuses Bush of being "anything but a 'conservative.'" ...
| Bush Baggage

  1. ...
  2. The fortunate son: Cuban American real estate developer Armando Codina was the Florida chair of George H.W. Bush's unsuccessful 1980 bid for the GOP presidential nomination. He loved the Bush family so much that when Jeb first moved to Miami in the early 1980s, he made Bush a partner in his real estate company and gave him 40 percent of the profits--even though Jeb had no real estate experience or money to invest. In 1985, Bush and Codina bought an office building partially financed by a savings and loan that later failed. The $4.56 million loan went into default, but federal regulators gave Bush and his partner a pass. Instead of foreclosing, they merely asked them to repay $500,000 of the loan. Taxpayers picked up the rest. In 1991, Bush and Codina sold the building for $8 million.
  3. The shady company: In 2007, Bush joined the board of InnoVida, a building materials-manufacturing startup founded by a businessman whose previous company had gone bankrupt under suspicious circumstances. Bush and his fellow board members subsequently failed to notice that InnoVida officials had used forged documents to fake solvency, hidden the company's financial problems, and misappropriated $40 million. The company's Maserati-driving founder eventually went to jail for money laundering, and investors lost their shirts when the company went bankrupt in 2011. Last year, Bush agreed to repay the $270,000 he was paid by the company as a consultant to reimburse defrauded investors.
  4. The Big Finance fail: Bush signed on as a paid adviser to the financial giant Lehman Brothers in 2007, just as the firm was on the brink of collapse. The company hoped he would use his political ties to rescue it, but he couldn't even convince Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim to throw some money into that pit.
  5. The terrorist: In 1989, Bush successfully lobbied his father, who was then serving as president, for the release of Cuban terrorist Orlando Bosch, who allegedly orchestrated the bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people in 1976 and other terrorist attacks. Bosch, who was in a federal prison on an immigration violation and dubbed an "unrepentant terrorist" by then-Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, was a cause célèbre for Miami's influential Cuban population--a voting bloc that Jeb needed to launch his political career.
  6. The black vote: During his first failed campaign for governor in 1994, Bush was asked in a debate what he would do to help African Americans. "Probably nothing," he replied. In 2000, his administration purged 12,000 eligible voters from the rolls because they were incorrectly identified as convicted felons. More than 40 percent of them were African Americans.
  7. The welfare wife: During his 1994 campaign, Bush said that women on welfare "should be able to get their life together and find a husband."
  8. The Playboy bunny: In 1999, Bush appointed Cynthia Henderson as his secretary of business regulation. Bush later transferred Henderson, who had worked her way through law school as a bunny at the St. Petersburg Playboy club, to another job in his administration, after she got caught taking a trip to the Kentucky Derby on a corporate jet owned by a company she regulated and accepting lodging and tickets to the event from an association of race track regulators. (Henderson's boyfriend, a Florida real estate developer, eventually paid the cost of the trip.) Rumors that Henderson and Bush were having an affair forced him to publicly deny philandering.
  9. The socialist: While at the elite prep school Andover, Bush was briefly a member of the socialist club. He also smoked pot.
  10. The failed charter school: After wining just 4 percent of the black vote in his first failed run for governor, Bush teamed up with the Greater Miami Urban League to start Florida's first charter school. In 1999, the state implemented a school grading system at Bush's insistence. His own charter school received a D. By 2008, the school had earned a C- and was $1 million in debt; the state shut it down that year.
  11. The shady charter school operator: In 2010, Bush gave the commencement speech for the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, an Ohio online charter school owned by William Lager, a big GOP donor who has served on Bush's Digital Learning Council, which promotes for-profit online schools like ECOT. (Lager's companies have also sponsored conferences hosted by Bush's education foundation.) The school was far from a model for the future. At the time Bush gave his speech, ECOT's graduation rate had never exceeded 40 percent. A 2001 state audit found that though the state had paid the school tuition for more than 2,000 students one month, only seven students had logged on to ECOT's computer system. When state auditors couldn't find the rest of the school's alleged student body, ECOT was forced to repay Ohio $1.7 million. School founder William Lager's private companies have earned more than $100 million from online schools that perform worse than any of Ohio's worst brick-and-mortar public schools.
  12. The cheaters: In 2010, Bush and his education reform organization, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, created a group of school superintendents and other high-ranking officials called "Chiefs for Change" to advance the Florida model of education, which emphasizes accountability and emphasized giving schools letter grades based on performance, especially standardized test scores. One of the original eight chiefs was accused of inflating the grade of a lackluster charter school funded by a Republican donor. The office of another was caught manipulating test score data.
  13. The IRS complaint: In October, a New Mexico advocacy group filed a complaint with the IRS alleging that Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education failed to disclose thousands of dollars it paid to bring public school superintendents, education officials, and lawmakers to the group's events, where they had private "VIP" meetings with the foundation's for-profit ed-tech company sponsors. The complaint alleges that Bush's foundation disguised travel payments as "scholarships" to hide the fact that the nonprofit was facilitating lobbying between big corporations and public officials. The IRS has not commented on the complaint. Bush's foundation issued a statement dismissing the allegations as politically motivated.
  14. The immigration book: Last year, Bush published Immigration Wars, a book that took a hardline position against a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. After going on TV to push the book's anti-path-to-citizenship position--and being accused of having changed his position to avoid offending the tea party--he quickly reverted to his previous stance of supporting citizenship.
  15. The Reagan comment: In 2012, Bush said publicly that Ronald Reagan would have had trouble getting his party's presidential nomination today--meaning that the tea party had driven the GOP too far too the right. He told editors at Bloomberg, "Back to my dad's time and Ronald Reagan's time--they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support." Reagan "would be criticized for doing the things that he did."
  16. The mother: In April, former First Lady Barbara Bush appeared on the Today Show and said that her son would be "by far the best qualified man, but...we've had enough Bushes."
Read more

Bush Family Legacy
Gulf War 1 - Wikipedia
Operation Desert Shield (08/02/90-02/28/91)
*The Gulf War 1991 () [6:09]
Gulf War 2 - Wikipedia
Iraq War (2003 - 2011) - WMD
*George W. Bush & Administration Lie about WMD () [9:00]
The Bush Administration's 935 LIES about Iraq war, Part 1 (2008) [9:53], Part 2 [8:34]
A STUDY from the Center for Public Integrity has revealed President Bush and top administration officials made a total of 935 false public statements about Iraq's alleged national security threat in the two years following the 9/11 attacks. President Bush made the most false statements -- 260. Colin Powell, his then-secretary of state, made 254 false statements. We speak with the founder of the Center for Public Integrity, Charles Lewis.
*George W. Bush - jokes about WMD () [0:28]
*Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy [1:01:10]
*Michael Moore | Farenheit 911 [1:58:29]
*Truthloader | What you're not being told about Booz Allen Hamilton and Edward Snowden (10/07/13) [11:47]
*Truthloader | Who are The Carlyle Group, and what is their relationship with Booz Allen Hamilton? (08/16/13) [9:18]
The Carlyle Group, the Bush family and 9/11 [25:43]

Five Million Reasons Why China Could Go to War
Bloomberg | David Tweed | 06/16/15

With five million citizens to protect and billions of investment dollars at stake, China is rethinking its policy of keeping out of other countries' affairs.

China has long made loans conditional on contracts for its companies. In recent years it has sent an army of its nationals to work on pipelines, roads and dams in such hot spots as South Sudan, Yemen and Pakistan. Increasingly, it has to go across borders to protect or rescue them. ... Read more
Reasons Why China Could Go to War (06/16/15) [3:46]

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Tuesday, June 16 [8:54]
*DN | As Yemenis Suffer from Strikes, Conflict and Siege, Will Geneva Peace Talks Offer Any Relief? (06/16/15) [20:11]
*DN | Bombing the Arctic: US Navy War Games in Gulf of Alaska Threaten One of World's Most Pristine Areas (06/16/15) [11:53]
John Oliver
HBO | John Oliver: Torture (06/14/15) [15:12]
*TRNN | UMKC professor of economics Michael Hudson explains: Should Fed Taper QE If Banks Get Most of the Benefits? (06/15/15) [10:44]
TRNN | Dimitri Lascaris and Leo Panitch discuss: Drip Feeding Greece Will End in Default (06/16/15) [25:33]
*TYT | Billionaires Unite To Bribe Their Way To Even More Power (06/15/15) [14:51]
TYT | Hillary Clinton Populist Speech Hides Who She Really Is (06/15/15) [9:01]
TYT | California Drought Is God's Punishment For Abortion Laws (06/15/15) [5:34]
It's Time to Start Sweating Climate Change (06/15/15) [5:54]
GOP Trash Economics Send Kansas Back To Dust Bowl Era (06/15/15) [4:24]
Thom Hartmann - www.thomhartmann.com/
ThomHartmann | Caller: The Public Needs to Know the Real Reason for the Iraq War... (06/15/15) [2:09]
ThomHartmann | Tax the Rich! How Minnesota Fixed it's Economy... (06/15/15) [8:21]

06.16.2015. 11:24



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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.
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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?

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Daniel Ellsberg | Pentagon Papers
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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

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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

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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)
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Tasha Dixon (2001)
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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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