The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    In the News

    ‘I must be doing something right’: Billionaire George Soros faces renewed attacks with defiance

    By Michael Kranish @ WashingtonPost.com, June 9

    [....] Soros himself has emerged as a political target in elections from Hungary to California, where his donations have been used as a cudgel against the causes he supports.

    The 87-year-old Holocaust survivor, who has poured much of his fortune into promoting liberal values around the globe, is now confronting a wave of nationalist sentiment washing against issues he has championed.

    But rather than recede from public life in his twilight years, Soros has decided to push even harder for his agenda, he told The Washington Post in a rare interview.

    “The bigger the danger, the bigger the threat, the more I feel engaged to confront it,” Soros said Thursday [....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    Chief of Staff Kelly's phone hacked... but Hillary's emails!!!
    PeraclesPlease 6 years 7 months ago

    Trump says Russia should be reinstated in group of leading industrialized nations

    No shame? Doesn't get it, the whole thing? Nothing? I cannot imagine what it's like being there.

    @ CNN.com, June 8, 4:07 pm ET

    [....] "Russia should be in this meeting," Trump told reporters upon leaving the White House for the summit, which is being held in Charlevoix, Canada. "They should let Russia come back in, because we should have Russia at the negotiating table."

    Asked in an interview earlier this week about what would need to happen for Russia to return Crimea to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Austria's ORF broadcasting corporation that "there are no such conditions and there can never be." [....]

    Sen. John McCain blasted Trump for his comments, saying "The President has inexplicably shown our adversaries the deference and esteem that should be reserved for our closest allies."

    The Arizona Republican, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that Putin "chose to make Russia unworthy of membership in the G-8 by invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea. Nothing he has done since then has changed that most obvious fact. Every day, Russian-led separatist forces are killing Ukrainians in the Donbass. Every day, Putin's forces are helping the Assad regime slaughter the Syrian people. And every day, through assassinations, cyber-attacks, and malign influence, Russia is assaulting democratic institutions all over the world."

    The statement added, "Those nations that share our values and have sacrificed alongside us for decades are being treated with contempt. This is the antithesis of so-called 'principled realism' and a sure path to diminishing America's leadership in the world."

    Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Nebraska, also a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement, "Putin is not our friend and he is not the President's buddy. He is a thug using Soviet-style aggression to wage a shadow war against America, and our leaders should act like it."

    Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump was turning US foreign policy "into an international joke, doing lasting damage to our country." [.....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    How drug companies sell treatments by inventing diseases

    Adriane Fugh-Berman, a professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University Medical Center, said the pharmaceutical industry medicalizes normal life by positing that a vague, highly relatable, everyday condition is symptomatic of a newly invented disease. In other cases, pharma exaggerates the prevalence or severity of an existing condition to entice more customers.

     

    Lisa Schwartz and Steven Woloshin, co-directors of the Center for Medicine and Media at Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, said disease-awareness campaigns may seem caring or educational but are often just marketing in disguise. The campaigns often follow three basic steps: lower the bar for diagnosis, raise the stakes so people want to get tested and spin the evidence about a drug’s benefits and risks. These steps were seen in campaigns on testosterone deficiency, bipolar disorder and restless leg syndrome.

     

    wabby 6 years 7 months ago

    Ex-Senate Aide Charged in Leak Case Where Times Reporter’s Records Were Seized

    A former Senate aide was arrested as part of a leaks investigation that also involved the seizure of a New York Times reporter’s records

    By Adam Goldberg, Nicholas Fandos & Katie Benner @ NYTimes.com, June 7

    WASHINGTON — A former Senate Intelligence Committee aide was arrested Thursday in an investigation of classified information leaks where prosecutors also secretly seized years’ worth of a New York Times reporter’s phone and email records.

    The former aide, James A. Wolfe, 57, was charged with lying repeatedly to investigators about his contacts with three reporters. According to the authorities, Mr. Wolfe made false statements to the F.B.I. about providing two of them with private information related to the committee’s work. They did not say whether it was classified.

    Mr. Wolfe was slated to appear before a federal judge on Friday in Washington. Reached Thursday evening before his arrest, Mr. Wolfe declined to comment. Mr. Wolfe’s case led to the first known instance of the Justice Department going after a reporter’s data under President Trump.

    The seizure — disclosed in a letter to the reporter, Ali Watkins — suggested that prosecutors under the Trump administration will continue the aggressive tactics employed under President Barack Obama [....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    House passes Trump's plan to claw back $15 billion in spending

    By Juliegrace Brufke & Niv Ellis @ TheHill.com, June 7

    The House voted along party lines late Thursday to pass a White House proposal that would claw back nearly $15 billion in previously approved government funding.

    The House approved the measure in a vote of 210-206, with conservatives calling it a step in the right direction after they ripped into the price tag of the $1.3 trillion spending bill President Trump signed earlier this year.

    Trump had pushed lawmakers earlier this week to vote in favor of the plan, known as the Spending Cuts to Expired and Unnecessary Programs Act, which GOP leaders have been working on for two months [.....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    The Trump administration believes Obamacare’s preexisting conditions protections are now unconstitutional

    Insurers could once again deny people coverage based on their medical history, undoing the law’s most popular provisions.

    By Dylan Scott @ Vox.com, June 7

    The Trump administration argued in a court brief filed on Thursday that Obamacare’s protections for preexisting conditions should be ruled unconstitutional, opening up another front in the White House’s crusade to roll back the law’s core insurance reforms.

    The brief was filed in a case brought by several conservative states, led by Texas, which argued that because Republicans in Congress repealed Obamacare’s individual mandate penalty in their tax bill, the mandate is now unconstitutional — and so is the rest of the law.

    The lawsuit argued that without an actual monetary fine for not having health insurance, the mandate should be considered illegal under the rationale used by Chief Justice John Roberts to uphold the law in the famous 2012 lawsuit, [....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    America’s gig economy is smaller now than before Uber existed, official data show

    By Danielle Paquette & Heather Long @ Wonkblog @ WashingtonPost.com, June 7

    [....] That is a clear takeaway from a new report out Thursday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that assessed the size of America’s “gig economy" for the first time since 2005.  The report found that the share of American workers in these types of jobs fell in the past 13 years and that it's about the same as it was in 1995, long before Uber and its brethren even existed.

    In 2017, 6.9 percent of U.S. workers were independent contractors, meaning their primary job wasn’t direct employment at a company. That was down from 7.4 percent in 2005 and is barely higher than the 6.7 percent of workers who were independent contractors in 1995.

    Experts cautioned that tracking the gig economy is a uniquely difficult task, but they say the findings suggest traditional employment remains the principal driver of economic activity in the United States. The BLS surveyed 60,000 households last year for the report, making it by far the largest and most comprehensive look at non-traditional workers.

    “What this says to me is the vast majority of workers in the United States still have traditional jobs as their main source of income,” said Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Labor Department. “We should be spending most of our time thinking about boosting wages in traditional jobs so people don’t need a side hustle."

    That said, there are profound shifts that appear to be happening in the labor force that are not captured by the report, including outsourcing and the rise of the “side hustle.”[.....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: DoJ malware malfeasance
    PeraclesPlease 6 years 7 months ago

    Trump aide who derided McCain over Haspel opposition has left the White House

    A White House aide who dismissed Sen. John McCain’s opposition to President Trump’s CIA nominee as irrelevant because he was “dying anyway” no longer works for the president. 

    Kelly Sadler’s comments about the Arizona Republican, who has been at home fighting brain cancer, sparked a weeks-long saga after they were made public last month.

    “It doesn’t matter, he’s dying anyway,” she said during a well-attended White House communications meeting on May 10, shocking some staffers, according to a White House official with knowledge of the comment.

    “Kelly Sadler is no longer employed within the Executive Office of the President,” White House principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah said in a statement Tuesday evening.

    Sadler could not be reached for comment. 

    An official said the departure was not spurred by her McCain comments but instead was fueled largely by an internal dispute with the White House director of strategic communications, Mercedes Schlapp, over the fallout from the comment about McCain. It was not clear whether Sadler was fired or forced to resign.

    ........

    Josh Dawsey, WaPo this morning

    AmericanDreamer 6 years 7 months ago

    LeBron James, Stephen Curry agree that next NBA champs won't visit the White House

    CLEVELAND -- In light of President Donald Trump uninviting the 2018 Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles to the White House, LeBron James said neither his Cleveland Cavaliers nor the Golden State Warriors would accept a visit as a winner of the NBA Finals.

    "I know no matter who wins this series, no one wants an invite anyway. It won't be Cleveland or Golden State going," James said during an off-day news conference on Tuesday.

    Trump rescinded the Eagles' invitation to the White House on Monday after learning that many of the players did not plan on attending. ESPN's Adam Schefter previously reported that "a large group of Eagles players had decided not to attend, including most -- if not all -- of the black players." The NFL Network reported that fewer than 10 players were expected to attend.

    James was very vocal when the 2017 champion Warriors were uninvited to a possible trip to the White House by Trump. A three-time Finals MVP, James described Trump's rescinding of an invite to the Eagles as "typical of him."

    "As long as he's in office, then the communication and things like that are going to continue to happen," James said about Trump. "It's a lot of things that we believe in as Americans that we don't feel that he's for. There are a lot of people that believe that he's not for the people or doing things that's right by the people. 

    .........

    Marc J. Spears, ESPN.com.

     

    AmericanDreamer 6 years 7 months ago

    Trump & the Media: The Tangled Web that Never Unweaves
    PeraclesPlease 6 years 7 months ago

    Hawaii Lava Flow Map -Google

    Kapoho going the way of Kalapana, which was buried under lava in the 90s. Map shows lava flows, active and recent but not moving (different shades), overlapping roads, structures, commercial sites and parks. Map updated daily. See USGS site also here.

    NCD 6 years 7 months ago

    Imran Khan’s rise is a metaphor for a changing world the west has failed to see

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    Bolton sidelined as Trump readies for North Korea

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    Mueller Accuses Paul Manafort of Attempted Witness Tampering

    By Matt Apuzzo @ NYTimes.com, June 4

    WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors on Monday accused President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, of attempting to tamper with witnesses in his federal tax and money laundering case.

    In court documents, prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, said that violated the terms of Mr. Manafort’s release while he awaits trial. They asked a federal judge to revise those terms or send him to jail until trial.

    Prosecutors said that Mr. Manafort tried to contact witnesses by phone, through an intermediary and through an encrypted messaging program. One witness told the F.B.I. that Mr. Manafort was trying to “suborn perjury,” prosecutors said. Two witnesses [....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    Bernie vs. Hillary war fizzles in Iowa

    No one’s talking about the rivalry ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary for governor — a sign of how much the political landscape will have changed by 2020.

    By Edward Isaac-Dovere @ Politico.com, June 4

    Democratic presidential wannabes, take note: Iowa politics looks nothing like it did just two years ago during the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders smackdown.

    Ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary for governor — the first and only statewide Democratic race before the 2020 caucuses — the Clinton-Sanders dynamic has been a non-factor [....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    Trump’s Travel Ban Is in Trouble at the Supreme Court

    This article convinced me: Trump conservatives probably won't be able to have their cake and eat it, too!

    Justice Kennedy’s ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case suggests the court’s next big decision might go badly for the president.

    By Richard Primus @ Politico Magazine, June 4

    [....] by framing the case as it did, the Court made its limited decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission a warm-up act for another decision expected later this month—one at least as anticipated as Monday’s wedding-cake decision. That other case is Hawaii v. Trump, the case about the executive order banning entry into the United States by nationals of several countries, most of them majority-Muslim. That case, like the wedding-cake case, is about the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. The author of Monday’s decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy, is generally assumed to be the swing vote in the entry-ban case. And over and over in Monday’s decision, Justice Kennedy articulated positions directly relevant to the entry ban—all of them running against the Trump administration’s position [....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    Trade War: Killing the Golden Goose
    PeraclesPlease 6 years 7 months ago

    CBS poll: Health care is the top issue for midterm voters, followed by jobs/wages and immigration.

    The Russia probe ranks far behind.

    CBS poll: Health care is the top issue for midterm voters, followed by jobs/wages and immigration.

    The Russia probe ranks far behind. pic.twitter.com/hb5EwvolmD

    — Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 3, 2018
    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    'This is the weirdest race in the country'

    Quarreling millionaires and a crowded ballot in Orange County have threatened to erase a key House district from the Democratic target map.

    By Elena Schneider @ Politico.com, June 3

    FULLERTON, Calif. — Gil Cisneros and Andy Thorburn, two millionaire Democratic candidates for a battleground House district in Southern California, had been attacking each other so ruthlessly that party leaders encouraged them to meet at an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles earlier this month to force a truce: Play nice, or risk forfeiting a top district to Republicans.

    The armistice, brokered by California Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, altered the course of one of the stranger primaries of 2018, replete with party meddling and nasty attacks but few policy differences. Looming above it all is the possibility that two Republicans would advance to the general election to replace Republican Rep. Ed Royce in a district Hillary Clinton carried in 2016 [....]

    artappraiser 6 years 7 months ago

    Suits: a quick traipse down tabloid lawyer lane
    PeraclesPlease 6 years 7 months ago

    Like our politics? Rap's version of Taylor v Katy
    PeraclesPlease 6 years 7 months ago

    It's on: Russia prepares to hack 2018 election
    PeraclesPlease 6 years 7 months ago

    *Before* Spygate: Refusenik - Trump's Nixon-in-a-Brief
    PeraclesPlease 6 years 7 months ago

    Pages