Chuck Schumer resurrects a tried-and-true-(and-tired) catchphrase to drive Democrats economic agenda.

Americans are clamoring for bold changes to our politics and our economy. They feel, rightfully, that both systems are rigged against them, and they made that clear in last year’s election. American families deserve a better deal so that this country works for everyone again, not just the elites and special interests. Today, Democrats will start presenting that better deal to the American people.

If you thought grownups like Mattis, McMaster and Tillerson were secretly running the administration, think again.

Op-ed column by Eli Lake @ Bloomberg.com, July 21

(Before Bloomberg: He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.)

[....] In the case of McMaster, administration officials tell me he is perceived not to be a reliable messenger of the president's wishes. What's more, administration figures tell me, principals including Tillerson, Mattis and CIA director Mike Pompeo have a direct line to Trump. They can go around McMaster and make their case on interagency disputes directly to the commander in chief,

For a national security adviser, this dynamic is deadly. Traditionally, this job is supposed to coordinate policy throughout the government to meet the directives of the president. That job is next to impossible if the adviser isn't seen as speaking for the president. While all administrations experience infighting, rarely has a national security adviser been this weak. 

Some of this has made its way into the press [....]

The government has seized more than 950 companies, from a baklava chain to a major construction firm, over suspected ties to a coup attempt last year.

By David Segal @ Nytimes.com, July 22

LONDON — Akin Ipek, one of Turkey’s richest men, was staying in the Park Tower Hotel in London when the police raided his television network in Istanbul. The raid was national news, so Mr. Ipek opened his laptop and watched an unnerving spectacle: an attack on his multibillion-dollar empire, in real time.

It was an oddly cinematic showdown [....]

About $11 billion worth of corporate assets — from small baklava chains to large publicly traded conglomerates — have been grabbed by the government, a systematic taking with few precedents in modern economic history. Several thousand dispossessed executives have fled overseas to cities as far-flung as Nashville and Helsinki. The less fortunate were imprisoned [....]

Not from global warming as feared but from tourist fatigue... A requiem for the great age of exploratory tourism as adventure? Not with a bang, but with the rumble of cheap rolling suitcases?

Jill having twitter meltdown over Russian collusion "witch hunt". Beautiful, doctor -disprove collusion by quoting back the exact words of your collusion-mates. You always seemed like a xut-out. Makes it easier to believe.

By David Rohde @ News Desk @ NewYorker.com, July 22

Last July, John Brennan, then the head of the C.I.A., [....] told the audience at the annual Aspen Security Forum that the United States faced the most complex set of threats that he had seen in his thirty-six-year intelligence career, [....] James Clapper, then the director of national intelligence, delivered a similarly grim assessment.

On Friday, Brennan and Clapper returned to the forum, an annual gathering held by the Aspen Institute far from Washington to foster bipartisan consensus regarding national security. Sitting shoulder to shoulder onstage, the two former intelligence chiefs unleashed a blistering and highly unusual public critique of a sitting President by two former intelligence chiefs. Brennan urged members of Congress to resist President Trump if he fires Robert Mueller, the special counsel. “I hope, I really hope, that our members of Congress, elected representatives, are going to stand up and say, ‘enough is enough,’ and stop making apologies and excuses for things that are happening that really flout, I think, our system of laws and government.”

Brennan added that he thought it was “the obligation of some executive-branch officials to refuse to carry out some of these orders that, again, are inconsistent with what this country is all about.” [.....]

By Laura Smith-Spark, Antonia Mortensen & Paul P. Murphy @ CNN.com, July 22

Warsaw, Poland - Protests spread to more than 100 cities in Poland on Saturday after a bill that would give its populist government the power to push all the nation's Supreme Court judges into retirement passed the upper house of the National Assembly.

President Andrzej Duda appears likely to sign the controversial bill into law. He has 21 days to sign or veto the legislation, which would also give the justice minister the power to pick the judges' replacements  [....]

A poll conducted by CNN affiliate TVN found that 55% of Poles said Duda should veto the court laws; 29% said he should not [....]

Seems the subject of race relations in our country keeps coming up here at Dag and around the country, as it rightfully should.  Does make one wonder why there's so much talk and so little understanding, though.  I like this story of a small town with an unexpected decision to make, and how it drew them together even as it exposed long silenced differences.