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Wednesday November 22, 2017
No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes by Anand Gopal

In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander, who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent; a US-backed warlord, who uses the American military to gain personal wealth and power; and a village housewife trapped between the two sides, who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality.

Through their dramatic stories, Gopal shows that the Afghan war, so often regarded as a hopeless quagmire, could in fact have gone very differently. Top Taliban leaders actually tried to surrender within months of the US invasion, renouncing all political activity and submitting to the new government. Effectively, the Taliban ceased to exist -- yet the Americans were unwilling to accept such a turnaround. Instead, driven by false intelligence from their allies and an unyielding mandate to fight terrorism, American forces continued to press the conflict, resurrecting the insurgency that persists to this day.

With its intimate accounts of life in war-torn Afghanistan, Gopal's thoroughly original reporting lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony. A heartbreaking story of mistakes and misdeeds, No Good Men Among the Living challenges our usual perceptions of the Afghan conflict, its victims, and its supposed winners.
How Russia Helped Trump Win The White House | Fresh Air | 11/21/17 | 1hr
"The constellation of Russian connections circling around Planet Trump is quite extraordinary," says 'Guardian' reporter Luke Harding. His new book is 'Collusion.'
Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win by Luke Harding

December 2016. Luke Harding, the Guardian reporter and former Moscow bureau chief, quietly meets former MI6 officer Christopher Steele in a London pub to discuss President-elect Donald Trump's Russia connections. A month later, Steele's now-famous dossier sparks what may be the biggest scandal of the modern era. The names of the Americans involved are well-known -- Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner, George Papadopoulos, Carter Page -- but here Harding also shines a light on powerful Russian figures like Aras Agalarov, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Sergey Kislyak, whose motivations and instructions may have been coming from the highest echelons of the Kremlin.

Drawing on new material and his expert understanding of Moscow and its players, Harding takes the reader through every bizarre and disquieting detail of the "Trump-Russia" story--an event so huge it involves international espionage, off-shore banks, sketchy real estate deals, the Miss Universe pageant, mobsters, money laundering, poisoned dissidents, computer hacking, and the most shocking election in American history.
60 Minutes
60 Minutes Australia: No winners (2017) Part 1 | 60 Minutes | 11/19/17 | 13:29 || Part 2 | 8:25 || Part 3 | 7:50
If anyone thought the insults hurled between North Korea and the United States couldn't get any more ridiculous, then this week set a new standard in farce. The rogue nation imposed the death sentence on President Donald Trump because he apparently called their leader, Kim Jong-un, short and fat. Ordinarily this kind of behaviour would be quickly dismissed, but 2017 has seen tensions on the Korean peninsula rise to the most dangerous level ever. The threat of nuclear war is real and experts calculate Kim Jong-un's regime has now amassed as many as 60 nuclear warheads. As well, advances in the North's ballistic missile program mean it can target not only mainland USA but also northern Australia. After months of negotiations, Nine News correspondent Tom Steinfort was given rare permission to travel to North Korea. There he worryingly discovered a country whose people are ready for conflict, and bizarrely, almost gleeful that a consequence of it could be the end of the world.

Reporter: Tom Steinfort
Producer: Garry McNab
60 Minutes Australia: The Russian connection (2017) | 11/12/17 | 13:06

This Is What It's Like to Be the Only Trump Fan at Thanksgiving Dinner
Politico | Mark Bauerlein | 11/22/17

In my household, when the holidays come, the usual family members plus a friend or two gather. We have three generations at the table: two female 80-year-olds, some 50-year-olds and the millennials. Only one of us is a Trump supporter. This is, after all, a family of professionals in a northeastern coastal city.

But it only takes one Trumper to turn a genial dinner into an emotional contest of wills. It doesn't matter that the holidays call for love and gratitude. We may try to talk about other things--our lives, our jobs, the weather--but Trump won't go unmentioned. The feelings he arouses are too stormy. This week, we should expect lots of politics along with our turkey and stuffing. ... Read more

Singer David Cassidy, 1970s Teen Idol, Dies At 67

New Tax Plan Contains Even More Bad News for Student Borrowers
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 11/22/17

The headline in the New York Times seemed sympathetic: "The House Just Voted To Bankrupt Graduate Students".

The piece by Erin Rousseau, a graduate student at M.I.T., detailed an insidious little virus buried in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, just passed by Republicans in the House. The law would repeal section 117(d)(5) of the tax code, which exempts graduate students' tuition waiver from taxation.

In the case of M.I.T. grad students like Rousseau -- who work as teachers or lab assistants -- the new law would tax over $50,000 of tuition they don't actually pay. It would increase such students' taxable income from the area of $33,000 to over $80,000. In most cases, that would add about $10,000 to their annual tax burden. ... Read more

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, November 22 [12:19]
*Iraqi Civilian Describes U.S. Airstrike on His Home That Killed His Wife, Daughter, Brother & Nephew | DN | 11/22/17 | 12:18
*The Uncounted: New York Times Finds US Airstrikes Kill Far More Iraqi Civilians Than Pentagon Admits | DN | 11/22/17 | 28:18
*Anand Gopal: As US Continues Strikes in Afghanistan & Syria, Where is Coverage of Civilian Deaths? | DN | 11/22/17 | 12:36
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, November 22 (FULL) | 59:02
Note: on the full 59:02 video look for small white (or black) circles on the Progressbar they denote the different news stories. You can move the pointer on the Progressbar to jump to each story, and around the video.
  1. Headlines
  2. Expert: President Trump Calling His Accusers "Liars" Confirms Women's Fears of Not Being Believed
  3. Rebecca Solnit: Ending Sexual Harassment Means Changing Masculinity & Undermining Misogynist Culture
  4. FCC Moves to Gut Net Neutrality, Ignoring Public Support & Laws Upholding Equal Internet Access
  5. Haitians Denied Protected Status Face Deportation to "Nation in Turmoil" After Earthquake, Hurricane
*Col. Larry Wilkenson -> Why is the US Media and Foreign Policy Establishment Targeting Russia? | TRNN | 11/22/17 | 1:06:48
*Report: Civilian Death Toll in Iraq 31 Times Higher Than US Claims | TRNN | 11/22/17 | 1:06:48
The1a.org
Working In A World After Weinstein | 1a.org | 11/22/17 | 1hr
The list of powerful men accused of sexual assault or harassment grows longer. A workplace should be safe for everyone, but far too often it is not. And that becomes clearer each day, with each new story.

What will it take to persuade people with power and influence to make the changes made at organizations where harassment has been revealed to be permanent?
How Temporary Is Temporary Protected Status For Immigrants? | 1a.org | 11/22/17 | 1hr
The Trump Administration is ending a humanitarian program that has let almost 60,000 Haitians live and work in the U.S., giving them until summer of 2019 to leave the country -- willingly or not.

Temporary Protected Status is just that -- temporary. But it covers hundreds of thousands of others living in America. How long can they stay? And if natural disasters have left them with no home to go back to, what then?


Donald Trump Aims To Boost GOP Gerrymandering Advantage With Census Pick | MSNBC Rachel Maddow | 11/21/17 | 15:39
Trump Ignores Nixon lesson With Department of Justice Pressure | MSNBC Rachel Maddow | 11/21/17 | 12:28
WSJ: Robert Mueller Investigating Jared Kushner's Foreign Contacts With Russia | MSNBC Morning Joe | 11/22/17 | 8:53
The Big Takeaway Of President Donald Trump And Vladimir Putin's Phone Call | MSNBC Morning Joe | 11/22/17 | 11:14
President Donald Trump Support Of Roy Moore A 'Huge Gift' For Democrats | MSNBC Morning Joe | 11/22/17 | 14:03
What Donald Trump & Vladimir Putin Talked About On Their 90-Minute Call | MSNBC 11th Hour | 11/21/17 | 8:10
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Trump Even Made Pardoning Turkeys About Obama | Stephen Colbert | 11/22/17 | 2:17
Trump On Roy Moore: 'You Have To Listen To Him' | Stephen Colbert | 11/22/17 | 2:48
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Exclusive - Alabama Reacts to the Roy Moore Accusations | Trevor Noah | 11/22/17 | 2:30
Late Night with Seth Meyers
Trump Pardons a Turkey, Single Dad Thanksgiving | 11/22/17 | 2:42
Jimmy Kimmel Live
Jimmy Kimmel on Roy Moore Scandal | Jimmy Kimmel | older, 11/16/17 | 5:23
Note: I add this just to expose you to what the Alt Right is listening to. Sometimes pretty scary.
SPECIAL REPORT with Alex Jones • Nuclear Disaster In Russia Poisons Europe | Infowars | 11/21/17 | 23:26
Roger Stone Discusses Latest News and Current Events | Infowars | 11/20/17 | 36:40
Roger Stone Discusses Trump Administration, H.R. McMaster Latest News & Current Events | Infowars | 11/21/17 | 37:28

11.22.2017. 12:29



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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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