Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

The New Face of American War Is a Robot
TheNation | Allegra Harpootlian | 04/30/19

Here's a question worth asking about America's seemingly endless global conflicts: If you kill somebody and there's no one there (on our side anyway), is the United States still at war? That may prove to be the truly salient question when it comes to the future of America's war on terror, which is now almost 18 years old and encompasses significant parts of the Greater Middle East and North Africa. Think of it, if you want, as the artificial intelligence, or AI, question.

It's not, however, the question that Washington is obsessing over. Retired military officials, defense outlets, and pundits alike have instead been pontificating about what it means for the Department of Defense and key Trump officials to regularly insist that the country's national security focus is shifting--from a struggle against insurgent groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State to the growing influence of what are termed "near-peer" enemies, a fancy phrase for China and Russia. Speculation about what this refocusing will look like has only grown in the wake of President Trump's various tweets and statements declaring that America's endless wars will be coming to a "glorious end" and how "now is the time to bring our troops back home." ... Read more

The return of synthetic CDOs
Axios | Dion Rabouin | 04/30/19

Left for dead in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), one of the most notorious agents in the collapse of the financial system, are starting to gain favor again on Wall Street.

The big picture: Synthetic CDOs, seen as particularly risky, both for a bank's balance sheet and its reputation, also have seen a wave of fresh investment this year as investors look for ways to bet on corporate defaults and generate yield.

What's happening: Since 2009, after the Fed began its quantitative easing program, investors have piled out of bonds and into riskier assets in an effort to replicate returns of the past. Portfolio managers have tried buying stock options, investing in hedge funds, private equity and alternatives. CDOs look to be the latest pick. ... Read more

Japan's Emperor Akihito Announces Abdication, Marks End Of Era
HP | A/P | Mari Yamiguchi |04/30/19

"Today, I am concluding my duties as the emperor," Akihito said as he stood in front of the throne, as other members of the royal family and top government officials watched.

"Since ascending the throne 30 years ago, I have performed my duties as the emperor with a deep sense of trust in and respect for the people, and I consider myself most fortunate to have been able to do so. I sincerely thank the people who accepted and supported me in my role as the symbol of the state," Akihito said in his last official duty as emperor. ... Read more

Trumps suing Deutsche Bank, Capital One over congressional subpoenas
Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 04/30/19

President Trump, his elder children and his private businesses are suing Deutsche Bank and Capital One over congressional subpoenas issued to the organization, court papers filed Monday show.

Details: The lawsuit, first reported by The New York Times, was filed in the Southern District of New York. The move is in response to subpoenas from the House Financial Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee seeking to obtain Trump's financial records.

What they're saying: In the lawsuit, Trump's lawyers argue the subpoenas were issued to harass him; "to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses, and the private information of the President and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage." "No grounds exist to establish any purpose other than a political one," it says. ... Read more

America's majority minority future
Axios | staff | 04/29/19

By 2045, the U.S. as a whole is projected to become majority minority. And the changes are already underway: non-white Americans are now the majority of the population in four states, as well as in the most prosperous and powerful U.S. cities.

Why it matters: The U.S. faces two possible futures: A thriving nation that embraces its new demographic makeup, or an escalation of fighting, racism and xenophobia. ... Read more

Non-white share of population by county | Axios | 04/29/19 | article

The NRA's Annual Meeting Has Descended Into Infighting and Chaos
MotherJones | Hannah Levintova | 04/27/19

After spending the last two days leveling allegations of financial impropriety against one another, both the CEO and the President of National Rifle Association are facing uncertain futures for their posts helming the nation's most powerful gun rights group. Oliver North announced on Saturday that he had been forced to step down as the group's president after the NRA board prevented him from seeking a second term as president, marking his resignation after more than two decades serving on the NRA's board. Meanwhile, CEO and Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre faced a vote by members to remove him from the leadership job he's held since 1991. (The vote failed.)

That internal chaos has been aired out in full public view during the NRA's annual meeting in Indianapolis over the last few days, as the organization has struggled in recent months, facing financial problems, threats to its nonprofit status, calls from congressional Democrats for a federal investigation of its role in political advertising, and growing federal scrutiny of the NRA's ties to Kremlin-linked Russian operatives, the Trump campaign, and possible campaign finance violations, spread across five different congressional probes and the FBI. ... Read more

Why So Many Violent White Supremacists Aren't Charged With Domestic Terrorism
MotherJones | Samantha Michaels | 04/26/19

A federal judge on Thursday announced that Christopher Hasson, a US Coast Guard lieutenant accused of plotting to kill politicians and journalists, may be released from jail ahead of his trial. US District Judge Charles B. Day said that while he had "grave concerns" about Hasson, a 50-year-old white supremacist from Maryland who had been stockpiling weapons for at least a decade, he could not fairly deny bond because Hasson had only been charged with gun and drug offenses and not a crime like terrorism.

Given the scope of Hasson's plotting, his case has reopened a debate about why it's difficult to prosecute violent white supremacist schemes as terrorism. Federal prosecutors say Hasson, who was arrested in February, had been planning to "murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country"; his hit list included prominent Democratic officials like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Chuck Schumer, along with journalists like MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and CNN's Don Lemon. He allegedly wrote that he wanted to establish "a white homeland," and he searched online for the "best" gun to kill black people and the home addresses of two Supreme Court justices. He'd been reading the manifesto of Anders Breivik, who murdered dozens of people in Norway in 2011. ... Read more

Greenland melting nearly 6 times faster than in 1980s
Axios | Andrew Freedman | 04/26/19

A rare, long-term record of Greenland ice melt reveals the world's largest island shed ice nearly 6 times faster in the past decade when compared to the 1980s, an increase that is already contributing to sea level rise and altered ocean currents, a new study finds.

Why it matters: Greenland's fate will help determine the future viability of coastal megacities around the world, from New York to Shanghai, as sea levels rise in response to added freshwater.

What they found: The acceleration of Greenland's melt, which is happening due to warming air and ocean temperatures, has contributed nearly 14 millimeters in global sea level rise since 1972. Half of this increase has occurred in just the past 8 years.... Read more

Capitalism is failing. People want a job with a decent wage -- why is that so hard?
TheGuardian | Richard Reeves | 04/24/19

The workings of capitalism have been challenged both from the populist right and the socialist left. At the heart of the discontent in the US is faltering wages

Before capitalism, there was work. Before markets, before even money, there was work. Our remotest ancestors, hunting and gathering, almost certainly did not see work as a separate, compartmentalized part of life in the way we do today. But we have always had to work to live. Even in the 21st century, we strive through work for the means to live, hence the campaign for a "living wage".

Industrial capitalism sliced and diced human time into clearly demarcated chunks, of "work" and "leisure". Work was then bundled and packaged into one of the most important inventions of the modern era: a job. From this point on, the workers' fight was for a job that delivered maximum benefits, especially in terms of wages, in return for minimum costs imposed on the worker, especially in terms of time.

For Karl Marx, the whole capitalist system was ineluctably rigged against workers. Whatever the short-run victories of the trade unions, the capitalist retained the power; the ultimate control, over workers' time. And the worker would remain forever alienated from their work. The goal was to assert sovereignty over our own time, free of the temporal control of the capitalist, able "to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner".... Read more

Being Rupert Murdoch: How the Founder of Fox News Spreads His Brand of Destruction
A scene from the play "Ink," featuring Jonny Lee Miller as Larry Lamb, left, and Bertie Carvel as Rupert Murdoch. Photo: Joan Marcus/Courtesy of the Manhattan Theater Club

TheIntercept | Peter Maass | 04/25/19

"I like moving around, never in one place long enough," he says, a napkin tucked into his collar to catch the drippings from a nearly raw steak he consumes. There is a flash of steel from the knife, which he points with menace at a dining companion. "Isn't that the joy of a hotel? You can check in, turn it over, spill a glass of wine, take a shit in the toilet, fuck in the bed, make a mess, and then leave. And someone else cleans it up after; isn't that wonderful?"

This conversation is taking place 40 feet from where I sit, though I should clarify that an actor is playing Murdoch, and another actor is playing the editor of one of his British tabloids, The Sun. The relationship between the two -- the powerful master and his willing surrogate -- is explored in a play called "Ink" that opens this week on Broadway. If you want to understand the mentality of the multibillionaire who has done more than any other person to spread far-right extremism in America, you should see this play, though it stumbles before the considerable task of exposing in its fullness the harm machine that is Keith Rupert Murdoch. ... Read more

How Trump can stall House Democrats
Axios | David Nather, Jonathan Swan | 04/25/19

President Trump's White House appears to have figured out the secret of congressional oversight: there's not much Democrats can do if they say no to everything.

The big picture: The millions of voters who elected a Democratic House in November are about to find out how hard it is for one party -- with just one chamber of Congress and without the cooperation of the other party -- to investigate a president who's determined to run out the clock. ... Read more

What Would an Open-Borders World Actually Look Like?
TheNation | John Washington | 04/24/19

... After three and a half centuries of brutal and exploitative involvement in the region, the last 90 years as official imperial overlord of the British Raj, the United Kingdom was officially abdicating colonial rule. Deeply in debt from two world wars, and facing pressure from increasingly militant anti-colonial movements, the UK was to cede control of the crown jewel of the British Empire to its inhabitants. It was left to Radcliffe to sort out the borderlines of the new territories.

What Radcliffe and his commission contrived was to divide the subcontinent according to religion: The so-called "Radcliffe line" separated a Hindu-majority India in the center from Muslim-majority East and West Pakistan on its wings, with a smattering of independent princely states throughout. But neat division wasn't remotely possible, and what resulted was a labyrinthine confusion of over 100 enclaves (a portion of a nation entirely inside another nation), counter-enclaves (an enclave within an enclave), and even a counter-counter-enclave, in which a little pocket of India sat in a little pocket of East Pakistan which sat in a bigger pocket of India which was entirely enisled in East Pakistan. His carving done, and the heat of the subcontinent not agreeing with him, Radcliffe returned to England. ... Read more

Trump's "run out the clock" legal strategy
Axios | Mike Allen | 04/24/19

Facing a multi-front war in the post-Mueller world, President Trump is turning to litigation strategies that he long used in business -- resist, delay and sue.

What they're saying: "Trump can run out the clock by taking a hardline position," a source familiar with the president's legal strategy told me. "The president thinks it's in his political interest to keep the fight going, and make it harder for the Democrats to have a coherent message." ... Read more

Giants: The Global Power Elite by Peter Phillips

Who holds the purse strings to the majority of the world's wealth? There is a new global elite at the controls of our economic future, and here former Project Censored director and media monitoring sociologist Peter Phillips unveils for the general reader just who these players are. The book includes such power players as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Warren Buffett.

As the number of men with as much wealth as half the world fell from sixty-two to just eight between January 2016 and January 2017, according to Oxfam International, fewer than 200 super-connected asset managers at only 17 asset management firms -- each with well over a trillion dollars in assets under management -- now represent the financial core of the world's transnational capitalist class. Members of the global power elite are the management--the facilitators--of world capitalism, the firewall protecting the capital investment, growth, and debt collection that keeps the status quo from changing. Each chapter in Giants identifies by name the members of this international club of multi-millionaires, their 17 global financial companies -- and including NGOs such as the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission -- and their transnational military protectors, so the reader, for the first time anywhere, can identify who constitutes this network of influence, where the wealth is concentrated, how it suppresses social movements, and how it can be redistributed for maximum systemic change.

*China's road to global dominance
Axion | staff | 04/23/19

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expecting upwards of 40 world leaders to join him in Beijing later this week for the second international gathering on the Belt and Road Initiative -- China's plan to build a massive network of ports, roads and railways across some 65 countries.

Why it matters: Belt and Road is just one element of China's plan to supplant the U.S. as the dominant global superpower within the next three decades. By the time Beijing's ambitions were widely understood in Washington, China's success had already begun to feel inevitable. ... Read more

Bernie Sanders on Socialism's Failures | TYT | 04/22/19 | 9:49

How Elizabeth Warren Will Pay For Her Student Loan Forgiveness Plan | TYT | 04/22/19 | 13:31

Sri Lanka minister: Bombings were in retaliation for New Zealand attacks
Axion | Rebecca Falconer | 04/23/19

A Sri Lankan official said Tuesday an initial investigation shows the Easter Sunday bombings were in retaliation for a terrorist attack on in New Zealand, Reuters and AFP first reported.

The latest: Police have arrested 40 suspects but no group has claimed responsibility for the church and hotel bombings, which killed 321 people. Sri Lanka's Junior Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardene told parliament they were carried out by 2 extremist groups, National Thawheed Jama'ut (NTJ) and Jammiyathul Millathu Ibrahim, in response to the March shootings inside 2 Christchurch mosques. ... Read more

Trump unleashes on the media in morning tweetstorm
Politico | Caitlin Oprysko | 04/23/19

The president tweeted or retweeted more than 50 times in 24 hours.

President Donald Trump went on a tear on Twitter on Tuesday morning, demanding an apology from The New York Times, complaining he doesn't get enough credit for the economy, claiming Twitter discriminates against him and ripping into the "Radical Left Democrats."

It was a dizzying burst from Trump, who has bounced from claiming victory after the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report to seeking revenge on the media, Democrats and even his own aides. In all, Trump tweeted or retweeted more than 50 times in a 24-hour period.

"Paul Krugman, of the Fake News New York Times, has lost all credibility, as has the Times itself, with his false and highly inaccurate writings on me," Trump wrote in his first post of the day, attacking the economic columnist who is often critical of the White House. "He is obsessed with hatred, just as others are obsessed with how stupid he is. He said Market would crash, Only Record Highs!" ... Read more

Trump, Trump Organization sue House Oversight's Elijah Cummings to block subpoena
Axios | staff | 04/22/19

President Trump and The Trump Organization filed suit against House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings in federal court on Monday in an attempt to block Cummings' subpoena of Trump's longtime accountant, Mazars USA LLP.

The big picture: Cummings wrote last week that the subpoena -- for all of Trump's financial records -- is a result of testimony from Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen, who claimed that the president "altered the estimated value of his assets and liabilities on financial statements."

Trump's suit claims that Cummings and House Oversight are "assuming the powers of the Department of Justice, investigating (dubious and partisan) allegations of illegal conduct by private individuals outside of government" solely to dig up dirt ahead of the 2020 presidential election. ... Read more

President Trump and The Trump Organization filed suit against House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings | | 04/22/19 | text

Behind the scenes of Trump's infamous Lester Holt interview
Axios | Jonathan Swan | 04/22/19

Unending gold is buried in the Mueller report. As the Washington Post's book critic Carlos Lozada writes, "the Mueller report is the best book by far on the workings of the Trump presidency ... special counsel Robert Mueller has it all under oath, on the record, along with interviews and contemporaneous notes backing it up."

Flashback: The Lester Holt interview became infamous because Trump told the NBC anchor that when he fired FBI Director James Comey, "I said to myself -- I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story." ... Read more

Lester Holt's Extended Interview With President Trump | NBS News | 05/11/19 | 13:00

*Mueller Report: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver (HBO) | 04/21/19 | 15:09

Rudy Giuliani: Nothing wrong with taking info from Russians | CNN | 04/21/19 | 9:40

Annotating Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Redacted Report
TheIntercept | James Risen, Robert Mackey, Trevor Aaronson | 04/18/19

A redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's "Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Election," was released to Congress and the public by Attorney General William Barr on Thursday. The text of the report appears below, with redactions Barr said were made mainly "to prevent harm to ongoing matters and to comply with court orders prohibiting the public disclosure of information bearing upon ongoing investigations and criminal cases."

Special counsel Robert Mueller considered whether to charge Trump campaign officials with crimes in connection with an infamous June 9, 2016 meeting at the Trump Tower in New York, according to the report. Mueller ultimately decided not to prosecute anyone in connection with the meeting. ... ... ... Read more

Mueller Report | 04/18/19 | pdf

Mueller Report, first review | 04/19/19 | pdf

The other Don: McGahn is one of the Mueller report's biggest stars
Axios | Jonathan Swan | 04/19/19

Late in Don McGahn's tenure as White House counsel, President Trump became so suspicious that he wondered aloud whether McGahn was wearing a wire, a source familiar with the president's private conversations told Axios.

Why it matters: We have no evidence that Trump's suspicions have any basis in reality. But they reveal the depth of his paranoia about his former counsel, who sat for many hours with Robert Mueller's team of prosecutors.

... ... ... Read more

Mueller whacks Trump with evidence of obstruction
Politico | Josh Gerstein | 04/18/19

Special counsel Robert Mueller's long-awaited report is more damning than President Donald Trump has publicly claimed, detailing Trump's aggressive efforts to interfere in the Justice Department's Russia probe and declining to rule out that Trump obstructed justice.

Far from the "complete and total exoneration" the president has declared in recent weeks, the report depicts a president who made repeated moves to thwart the investigation into his campaign and presidency, possibly because Trump was trying to hide other, potentially criminal behavior -- although Mueller found no evidence of a criminal conspiracy to help Russia influence the 2016 election.

The report, which riveted Washington Thursday, recounts Trump's repeated attempts to fire Mueller and his anger when those efforts became public. It also details an effort to pressure staffers to send an email exonerating him and notes that the president had more knowledge of an aide's potentially criminal behavior than he may have let on. ... Read more

Bernie Sanders Gives CEO Panic Attack | TYT | 04/17/19 | 12:29

William Barr: Donald Trump Potential Obstruction Probed, Disagreed On Mueller Legal Theory | MSNBC | 04/18/19 | 22:21

7 takeaways from the Mueller report
Axios | Shane Savitsky | 04/18/19

The 448-page redacted Mueller report that was released Thursday is a sprawling document based on hundreds of witness interviews and thousands of subpoenas -- and its deeply sourced conclusions have already been subject to spin attempts from President Trump's legal team and administration as well as congressional Democrats.

What you need to know: The report largely refrains from making any grand, sweeping conclusions about Trump's conduct -- especially on possible obstruction of justice, where Mueller's investigators made a point of not absolving him completely. It's not a great outcome for the president -- but it also doesn't seem to contain any unexpected bombshells that might end his presidency, either. ...

Updates On The Release Of The Mueller Report | 1a.org | 04/18/19 | 1hr

Mueller Report | 04/18/19 | pdf

Mueller cannot confidently state Trump didn't obstruct justice
Politico | Josh Gerstein | 04/18/19

Special counsel Robert Mueller's report lays out in great detail how President Donald Trump repeatedly tried to interfere in the Russia probe and states that investigators could not confidently conclude that Trump did not obstruct justice.

Far from the "complete and total exoneration" the president has claimed in recent weeks, the report describes unflattering behavior that is likely to fuel Democratic investigations and shape the 2020 campaign narrative. It recounts Trump's repeated attempts to fire Mueller and his anger when those efforts became public, details an effort to pressure staffers to send an email exonerating him, notes that the president had more knowledge of an aide's potentially criminal behavior than he may have let on and stresses that the president seemed fearful that FBI investigators may uncover crimes -- even if they weren't related to Russian collusion. ... Read more

*Secret Report Reveals Saudi Incompetence and Widespread use of U.S. Weapons in Yemen
TheIntercept | Alex Emmons | 04/15/19

SINCE THE BRUTAL murder of Saudi dissident and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi last October, Congress has increasingly pressured the Trump administration to stop backing the Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting in Yemen and halt U.S. arms sales to Riyadh. In response, President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that if the U.S. does not sell weapons to the Saudis, they will turn to U.S. adversaries to supply their arsenals.

"I don't like the concept of stopping an investment of $110 billion into the United States," Trump told reporters in October, referring to a collection of intent letters signed with the Saudis in the early months of his presidency. "You know what they are going to do? They're going to take that money and spend it in Russia or China or someplace else."

But a highly classified document produced by the French Directorate of Military Intelligence shows that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are overwhelmingly dependent on Western-produced weapon systems to wage their devastating war in Yemen. Many of the systems listed are only compatible with munitions, spare parts, and communications systems produced in NATO countries, meaning that the Saudis and UAE would have to replace large portions of their arsenals to continue with Russian or Chinese weapons. ... Read more

Step inside Notre-Dame cathedral [VR/360] | Targo | 02/28/19 | 8:09

Denver schools close due to Columbine-related threat
Axios | Marisa Fernandez | 04/17/19

Denver-area public schools announced they would close on Wednesday after a Florida woman known to be infatuated with the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School flew to Colorado and purchased a gun, the AP reports.

The big picture: The FBI considers 18-year-old Sol Pais a credible threat after she "made threats to commit an act of violence in the Denver metropolitan area." The decision to close all Denver-area schools comes just days before the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting. ... Read more

Economic predictors are ignoring politics at their peril
Axios | Dion Rabouin | 04/17/19

When it comes to making predictions about the world economy, policymakers and asset managers are whiffing because they are failing to account for the increasingly dysfunctional state of global politics.

The big picture: The world's top economic concerns -- Brexit, the U.S.-China trade war -- are the result of policy decisions rather than unavoidable shocks. ... Read more

Trump striking out on coal and nuclear energy
Axios | Amy Harder | 04/15/19

President Trump is coming up empty handed on his promises to bolster America's ailing coal and nuclear power industries.

The big picture: For a president who has aggressively pushed the legal and political boundaries to make good on policy priorities, particularly immigration, the lack of action in this area is striking two years into Trump's administration. ... Read more

Opioids II: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 04/14/19 | 21:20

Sackler vs Commonwealth of KY, Deposition

On Tax Day, Trump tax cuts remain deeply unpopular
Politico | Ben White | 04/15/19

President Donald Trump boasted in Michigan last month that he signed into law "massive tax cuts, the biggest in the history of our country." As Americans rush Monday to finish with their own tax filings, their judgment on Trump's beloved tax cut bill is pretty clear: Most really don't like it.

Multiple polls show a majority of Americans don't think they got a tax cut at all -- even though independent analyses show they did. And only about a third of the country approves of the legislation itself, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by Congress at the end of 2017.

So as Trump moves closer to full-time reelection mode later this year, he will have to battle a stark reality: ... Read more

Assange Arrested and Charged with Conspiracy | Trevor Noah | 04/15/19 | 6:48

Inside the room: King of Jordan left in the dark on Trump's peace plan
Axion | Jonathan Swan | 04/15/19

In a closed-door meeting with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month, King Abdullah II of Jordan said the White House had given him zero visibility into the most fraught part of their peace plan: how it proposes to divide Israeli and Palestinian territory.

Behind the scenes: The king seemed dissatisfied with the level of consultation and was pessimistic about the plan's prospects, two sources in the room told Axios. King Abdullah has privately told people he is frustrated by the fact that despite having numerous meetings with senior Trump administration officials, he's never been given any detail about the core political issues, in which Jordan has a huge interest. ... Read more

McConnell Won't Say If Senate Would Confirm Herman Cain For Federal Reserve Board
HP | AP/Alan Fram | 04/12/19

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to say Thursday whether he thinks his chamber would confirm Herman Cain to join the Federal Reserve board, casting doubt on the former Republican presidential candidate's prospects should President Donald Trump advance him for the post. ...

... Trump's interest in potentially nominating Cain along with another political ally, conservative commentator Stephen Moore, has sparked questions among lawmakers from both parties in Congress about the president's influence on the central bank. ... Read more

Alaska is feeling the effects of the Arctic's changing climate
Axios | Andrew Freedman | 04/12/19

The Arctic region has been pushed into an entirely new climate, one that's outside the experience of longtime residents and native wildlife, shows a new report in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Why it matters: The far north is undergoing profound changes that are affecting the rest of the world -- from the melting of permafrost, which releases greenhouse gases, to the disappearance of sea ice.

The big picture: To understand how unusual and consequential Arctic warming is, one need only to look at recent events in Alaska, which this year experienced its warmest March on record, and warmest October through March. The state has had its warmest 6 years on record, too. ... Read more
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Coupon-Cutting Congresswoman Stumps Big Bank CEO | The Last Word | MSNBC | 04/11/19 | 7:27

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner with Daniel Ellsberg

From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, an eyewitness exposé of the dangers of America's Top Secret, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that continues to this day.

Here, for the first time, former high-level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking firsthand account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that the legacy of this most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization--and its proposed renewal under the Trump administration--threatens our very survival. No other insider with high-level access has written so candidly of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era.

Framed as a memoir--a chronicle of madness in which Ellsberg acknowledges participating--this gripping exposé reads like a thriller and offers feasible steps we can take to dismantle the existing "doomsday machine" and avoid nuclear catastrophe, returning Ellsberg to his role as whistle-blower. The Doomsday Machine is thus a real-life Dr. Strangelove story and an ultimately hopeful--and powerfully important--book about not just our country, but the future of the world.

Stephen Miller's Uncle: Trump's Anti-Immigrant Comments Demonize Asylum Seekers & Stir Racist Hatred | DN | 04/10/19 | 10:38

Paralyzing blizzard slams the Plains, Midwest with 2 feet of snow
Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 04/11/19

A ferocious and sprawling spring storm is dumping heavy snowfall on the central U.S., leading to paralyzing blizzard conditions from northeastern Colorado into extreme southwestern Minnesota.

Why it matters: This is the second intense, large storm to strike the central U.S. in a month. The first one, which qualified as a bomb cyclone due to its rapid intensification, led to at least $4 billion in damage, mainly from widespread flooding. One major concern centers on what happens after the storm abates, as the new snow cover will melt in an already flood-ravaged region.

The National Weather Service expects records to be set for snowfall and for the lowest atmospheric pressure reading observed during the month of April in particular states. The agency is also warning of major flooding to follow the storm as the new snow cover melts into already swollen rivers. ... Read more

Julian Assange charged by U.S. with conspiracy to hack government computer
Axios | staff | 04/11/19

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested Thursday at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London after Ecuador withdrew its offer of asylum, according to the Metropolitan Police, who later confirmed that his arrest was under a U.S. extradition warrant.

Details: The Justice Department charged Assange with "a federal charge of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer," per its press release announcing the indictment. The charge, which carries a maximum sentence of five years, alleges that Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning in 2010 to crack a password on Defense Department computers. ... Read more

Israeli settlements, explained, Part 1 | Vox | 09/19/16 | 8:05

Why Israeli settlements don't feel like a conflict zone, Part 2 | Vox | 09/26/16 | 10:55

Trump has unleashed Stephen Miller to inflict horrors on immigrants
The Guardian | Lawrence Douglas | 04/11/19

It is a deformity of the Trump presidency that Stephen Miller has the power that he currently wields. A little over a decade ago, Miller was writing vaguely obnoxious columns for the Duke student newspaper, complaining about the excesses of multiculturalism and identity politics. Now he is instrumental in transforming US immigration policy into a national disgrace, a cruel exercise in xenophobia.

Miller has emerged as the ultimate, Trump "survivor." Having been with the president since the day he took office, Miller has managed to weather the periodic purges that have claimed an unprecedented number of senior White House officials and executive appointees. Far from simply surviving, Miller has thrived in the Trump White House. ... Read more

How your health care would change under "Medicare for All"
Axios | Sam Baker | 04/10/19

Bernie Sanders' "Medicare for All" push has upended Democratic politics almost as thoroughly as it would upend the health care system.

Why it matters: The coverage most of us are used to -- private insurance through the workplace -- would change or even disappear under Medicare for All. The only question Democrats are really debating is how far to go, and how quickly.

Driving the news: Sanders will introduce a new version of "Medicare for All" today that's even more ambitious than his last one -- which was already more ambitious than any other health care system on Earth.

1. If something like Sanders' bill did become law, it would "leapfrog the rest of the world," as the Kaiser Family Foundation's Larry Levitt put it.
2. It would be the most robust system in the world, and one of the most centralized -- a sea change from today's largely privatized patchwork.

What it would mean for you:... Read more

Mnuchin: White House lawyers have spoken with Treasury about Trump tax returns
Axios | Marisa Fernandez | 04/10/19

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin told a congressional subcommittee that the Treasury Department was in contact with the White House general counsel's office before the House Democrats' formal request to obtain Trump's tax returns.

Why it matters: House Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) requested 6 years of Trump's tax returns from the IRS last week. It's now up to Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, to decide whether to comply. According to the New York Times, this is "the first public acknowledgment of communication between the White House and the Treasury Department related to Mr. Trump's tax returns." ... Read more

Trump's 'truly bizarre' visit to Mt. Vernon
Politico | Eliana Johnson | 04/10/19

President Donald Trump had some advice for George Washington. During a guided tour of Mount Vernon last April with French president Emmanuel Macron, Trump learned that Washington was one of the major real-estate speculators of his era. So, he couldn't understand why America's first president didn't name his historic Virginia compound or any of the other property he acquired after himself. ...

... The VIPs' tour guide for the evening, Mount Vernon president and CEO Doug Bradburn, told the president that Washington did, after all, succeed in getting the nation's capital named after him. Good point, Trump said with a laugh. ... Read more

Mobile Homes: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 04/07/19 | 15:38

Michael Cohen attorneys release new Trump allegations
Axios | Orion Rummler | 04/05/19

Michael Cohen's legal team has released a 12-page memo it provided to House Democrats Thursday. The memo outlines evidence of what his team describes as "Trump's involvement in a conspiracy to collude with Russian government intervention in his favor during the 2016 presidential campaign" and "other felony crimes committed by Trump before and after he became president."

The other side: Trump responded to the new allegations from Cohen, saying "he's old news. He lied numerous times during his last testimony. They've had that for many months." ... Read more

Barr's legacy on the line as Mueller team fumes
Politico | Darren Samuelsohn | 04/05/19

William Barr is just seven weeks into his new job and he's already in the middle of a gathering political storm over special counsel Robert Mueller's 400-page report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

His career legacy could be on the line. This isn't Barr's first stint as attorney general, after all. And before returning to the Justice Department in February, he became an elite private lawyer and fixture of conservative legal circles. So many in Washington expected the 68-year-old former George H.W. Bush appointee to shore up a Justice Department reeling from the president's verbal assaults on his own senior appointees, seasoned career federal prosecutors and FBI agents. ... Read more

Glenn Greenwald Debates Cenk On Mueller Investigation | TYT | 04/04/19 | 40:20

Extreme debt is rewriting the rules of economics
Axios | Dion Rabouin | 04/04/19

Driving the news: Following a substantial increase of $21 trillion in 2017, debt accumulation rose by just $3.3 trillion in 2018, bringing "the global debt mountain to $243 trillion," the Institute of International Finance reported this week.

The big picture: Over the past 10 years the money supply has increased significantly and wealthy businesses have used the wellspring of free cash to buy back shares and acquire rivals to inflate their stock price and reward executives.

But real wage growth has been flat in developed countries and largely capped in developing nations. That has meant a growing number of people have to take on more debt to finance the increasing cost of middle class necessities like a mortgage, medical bills and college tuition.

What it means for the market: The traditional tools of monetary policy by central banks no longer function as they once did. ... Read more

Jared Kushner: power hungry and intent on enriching himself? | Channel 4 News | 03/19/19 | 7:20

Why did Trump say his dad was German? He lies so much he doesn't know the truth
TheGuardian | Richard Wolffe | 04/04/19

It is a particularly Trumpian move to deny your father's Bronx birth while also denying your predecessor's Hawaiian birth

There are so many countries, some of them of the shithole variety, some less so. It can be fiendishly hard to keep track of all the comings and goings, of all the people who just show up at the door of your golf club or your border, claiming to have a good reason to enter.

This is, after all, a president who struggles to locate his own father's place of birth: the Bronx, New York City. On Tuesday, Trump declared in the presence of the Nato secretary general that this was just one more alternative fact in a universe of unknowable infinities.

"My father is German," he said in the Oval Office. "Right? Was German. And born in a very wonderful place in Germany, and so I have a great feeling for Germany." ... Read more

Anti-Anti-Vaxxers | Samantha Bee | 04/03/19 | 7:15

Donald Trump Is Apparently the Expert on Everything (According to Him) | TYT | 04/02/19 | 2:10

Turns Out That Trillion-Dollar Bailout Was, in Fact, Real
Rolling Stone | Matt Taibbi | older, 03/18/19

"Not one major Wall Street executive went to jail for destroying our economy in 2008 as a result of their greed, recklessness and illegal behavior. No. They didn't go to jail. They got a trillion-dollar bailout."

Last summer, Washington Post "Fact-checker" columnist Glenn Kessler wrote that the Medicare for All plan favored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would cause "providers" to face an "immediate cut of 40 percent in their payments." The piece was quickly amended to reflect that the cuts only referred to private insurance payments, leaving Medicare recipients untouched. A few days later, Kessler would repeat -- and later correct again -- the same error.

On the question of whether or not anyone went to jail for crimes related to the crisis, Kessler is right that one executive, Kareem Serageldin, did get sentenced to 30 months for offenses that could be construed as having contributed to the crash. That his case took place in 2013, well after reporters like Gretchen Morgensen, Louise Story and myself made noise about the conspicuous absence of prosecutions, is beside the point. Serageldin was indeed prosecuted for overvaluing mortgage bonds, and though he wasn't one of the important players in the scandal by any stretch, he had a title you could technically call "major." ... Read more

Trump flips: For now, GOP is no longer the "party of health care"
Axios| Sam Baker | 04/03/19

GOP leaders are trying their best to put a lid on President Trump's talk of a new and wonderful health care plan that would define the Republican Party for 2020.

Driving the news: "Not any longer," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said yesterday when asked whether he and Trump differ on health care. ...

... "I wanted to delay it myself," Trump said in the Oval Office yesterday, denying that McConnell forced his hand. "I want to put it after the election, because we don't have the House." ... Read more
Mitch McConnell FINALLY Flips Out On Trump | TYT | 04/02/19 | 14:38 Click to zoom in

The American Empire Is the Sick Man of the 21st Century
foreignpolicy.com | David Klion | 04/02/19

Failure at the center has left the United States up for sale to the highest bidder.

... How did a decadent ruling class become a national security risk, an existential threat to the American empire? The answer lies in the 1970s, when the weaknesses of the midcentury American social contract were exposed through stagflation, the energy crisis, and the disastrous Vietnam War.

In response, America's political elites embraced privatization, deregulation, massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the outsourcing of industrial jobs, and the financialization of the economy. Inequality has skyrocketed ever since, and much of the United States has experienced a steady decline while a handful of major cities, including Washington, have become hyperwealthy and almost unaffordable through the concentration of financial, tech, and media monopolies and their affiliated lobbyists. By now, many Americans know this story--but few think about what it means for their place in the world. ... Read more

Trump: No GOP healthcare replacement of ACA until after 2020 elections
Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 04/02/19

President Trump said in a series of tweets Monday night Republicans were developing a "really great" replacement for the Affordable Care Act, but it would not happen until after the 2020 elections.

Details: Trump did not give any details of the Republican plan, but he tweeted it would be "truly great HealthCare that will work for America." "Republicans will always support Pre-Existing Conditions," he said.

The big picture: Trump's Twitter declaration comes after the Justice Department said last week the courts should strike down the entire Affordable Care Act -- not just its protections for pre-existing conditions. It announced the move in a legal filing, part of a lawsuit challenging the law's individual insurance mandate. ... Read more

Kushner reacts to security clearance accusations | Fox News | 04/01/19 | 7:59

Trump's Security Clearance Scandal, Ivanka and Jared In Trouble? | TYT | 04/01/19 | 7:29

Who Wants A White House Security Clearance? | Stephen Colbert | 04/01/19 | 3:51

Anderson Cooper on speaking about mass shootings | 60 Minutes | 03/31/19 | 5:19

Trump's post-Mueller policy wars
Axios | Mike Allen, Jonathan Swan | 03/31/19

President Trump is cutting against historical and political norms on a trifecta of big issues at the heart of U.S. domestic, economic and security policy. Driving the news:

1. Trump is seeking to kill "Obamacare" through the courts over the objection of his own attorney general and top GOP congressional leaders.
2. The White House is publicly pushing the Fed to cut interest rates, something prior administrations never contemplated doing.
3. The president is again publicly threatening to close ports of entry on the U.S. southern border. "I'm not playing games," Trump said Friday in Florida.

The Green New Deal With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez | All In | MSNBC | 04/01/19 | 47:09

Taibbi: On Russiagate and Our Refusal to Face Why Trump Won
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 03/29/19

Last weekend, I published a book chapter criticizing the Russiagate narrative, claiming it was a years-long press error on the scale of the WMD affair heading into the Iraq war.

Obviously (and I said this in detail), the WMD fiasco had a far greater real-world impact, with hundreds of thousands of lives lost and trillions in treasure wasted. Still, I thought Russiagate would do more to damage the reputation of the national news media in the end.

A day after publishing that excerpt, Attorney General William Barr sent his summary of the report to Congress, containing a quote filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller: "[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." ... Read more

Trump plans to cut U.S. aid to 3 Central American countries in fight over U.S.-bound migrants
WP | Mary Beth Sheridan | 03/31/19

MEXICO CITY -- President Trump plans to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to three Central American countries in retaliation for what he called their lack of help in reducing the flow of migrants to the U.S. border.

The move was one of Trump's harshest yet as he escalates a confrontation with Mexico and Central America over a surge in irregular migration, largely involving children and families seeking asylum.

Trump has already warned that he could close the U.S.-Mexico border -- or at least large stretches of it -- in the coming week unless Mexico takes further steps to halt the northward flow of migrants. ... Read more
Trump plans to cut U.S. aid to 3 Central American countries in fight over U.S.-bound migrants | WP | 03/31/19 | 2:35

WWE: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 03/31/19 | 23:06

Stormy Daniels tell-all interview | 60 Minutes (Australia) | 10/08/18| 23:49