Home · News · News Oct 2017 · Oct 12 2017
Thursday October 12, 2017

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

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, October 12 [8:29]
Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Thursday, October 12 (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.
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  1. Headlines
  2. Tomi-Ann Roberts on Her Encounter with Harvey Weinstein & the Shame Women Feel After Assault
  3. Louise Godbold: "My Encounter with Harvey Weinstein and What It Tells Us About Trauma"
  4. NBC Reportedly Axed the Harvey Weinstein Story as Hollywood Made Rape Survivors the Butt of Jokes
'Unprecedented' California Wildfires: 21 Dead, More than 500 Missing | TRNN | 10/11/17 | 3:36
Trump Wants INSANE Amount Of Nukes | TYT | 10/11/17 | 11:57
Can Trump Shut NBC Down? | TYT | 10/11/17 | 5:52
Wildfire Aftermath Is Haunting | TYT | 10/11/17 | 5:52
The1a.org
*On Fire, Out West | 1a.org | 10/12/17 | 1hr
Wildfires continue to spread in the western United States, blazing through nearly every state west of the Rockies and leaving at least 17 people dead in California.

Every year, the wildfire season seems to get longer, to the point where it seems less like a season and more like a constant. If this is a new fact of life for the West, what can be done about it? Homeowners, farmers and a significant portion of the nation's economy may need to adapt.
*China: How A Superpower Sets Its Agenda | 1a.org | 10/12/17 | 1hr
It's an event that comes around every five years, and it sets the stage for political leadership of the world's most populous country. The national congress of China's Communist Party will convene on October 18, 2017 in Beijing. Chinese president Xi Jinping is likely to secure another five-year term, but there are questions about changing party policies.

China's economy is closing in on the United States' in size and while talk of China replacing the U.S. as the world's largest superpower is still just talk, some experts say more and more nations are looking to China as a viable strategic partner.

We preview the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and ask whether the country's status in the world will be markedly different by the time the next one rolls around.
Bad Leadership Turned Puerto Rico Crisis Into Catastrophe | MSNBC Rachel Maddow | 10/11/17 | 19:13
Vanity Fair Report Paints Troubling White House Picture | MSNBC Morning Joe | 10/12/17 | 11:08
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., discusses -> 'Put The Phone Down,' Donald Trump | MSNBC Morning Joe | 10/12/17 | 6:44
Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., of the Foreign Relations Committee -> What Guardrails Can Congress Set For Donald Trump? | MSNBC Morning Joe | 10/12/17 | 7:46
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
A Penis PSA, October 11, 2017 | 10/11/17 | 2:06
Finnish Fake News | 10/11/17 | 7:11
Listen Up, Creeps: Weinstein Edition | 10/11/17 | 5:56
When you're president, you can tell whatever lies you want. They just let you do it. | older, but entertaining 12/05/16 | 6:47
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
We've Reached A New Level Of 'Angry Trump' | Stephen Colbert | 10/12/17 | 5:09
Trump Doesn't Agree With 'We The People' | Stephen Colbert | 10/12/17 | 5:14

10.12.2017. 11:34



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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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