Someone embed this Twitter thread as a Youtube/embedded link - cant do it from my phone
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
![]() |
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Someone embed this Twitter thread as a Youtube/embedded link - cant do it from my phone
By Madeline Sheehan Perkins @ BusinessInsider.com, June 23
In response to the White House's recent trend of prohibiting cameras at press briefings, CNN on Friday said it sent its in-house Supreme Court sketch artist, Bill Hennessy, to Sean Spicer's latest press briefing.
CNN said it "equated press briefings to a Supreme Court argument -- an on-the-record event at which cameras are banned." The network argued sketches of the briefing had news value in the same way courtroom sketches do.
News organizations and the White House Correspondents' Association have protested the Trump administration's decision to scale back on-camera press briefings to unprecedented levels [....]
We have catalogued nearly every outright lie the president has told publicly since taking the oath of office.
Sources: Politifact; Factcheck.org; The Washington Post Fact Checker; The Toronto Star
By Rachel Weiner @ WashingtonPost.com, June 22
A former CIA officer sold top secret and other classified documents to Chinese intelligence officials, according to charges filed Thursday in Alexandria federal court.
Kevin Patrick Mallory, 60, of Leesburg, Va., was arrested Thursday and appeared briefly in front of Judge Theresa Buchanan on counts of delivering defense information to aid a foreign government and making false statements. He asked to be represented by a public defender.b Mallory had a top secret security clearance until he left the government in 2012, prosecutors say, having worked at various government agencies and defense contractors [....]
Prosecutors say Mallory sent three documents containing classified information, one of which was labeled top secret, to a Chinese intelligence operative in May. “Your object is to gain information, and my object is to be paid for it,” Mallory wrote to the Chinese contact at around the same time, according to an affidavit from FBI agent Stephen Green filed in federal court. Mallory allegedly added that he would “bring the remainder of the documents” on a June trip.“My current object is to make sure your security (sic) and try to reimburse you,” the operative allegedly replied [...]
By Adam Entous @ NYTimes.com, June 23
WASHINGTON — In the early days of the Trump administration, national security officials began exploring ways to free Austin Tice, an American journalist and former Marine officer believed to be held by the Syrian government. His case has frustrated investigators and diplomats since he disappeared while on assignment nearly five years ago.
White House officials decided, because of the sensitivity of the situation, to set up a back channel. Given the deteriorated relations between the United States and Syria, options were limited. So in early February, Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, spoke with Ali Mamlouk, the head of Syria’s National Security Bureau intelligence service, a man accused of human rights abuses during the country’s civil war and slapped with sanctions by the United States. The call was the highest-level contact between the governments in years.
Though Mr. Pompeo’s discussion with Mr. Mamlouk prompted further communications that renewed hope that Mr. Tice would be freed, the operation fizzled out after the Syrian government’s nerve gas attack in rebel-held northern Syria in April. and the American missile strike in response, according to several former United States officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the efforts to free Mr. Tice remain secret. [....]
this story taking up entire top of home page at the Washington Post right now, the lede:
In political terms, Russia’s interference was the crime of the century. It was a case that took almost no time to solve and was traced to Russian President Vladimir Putin. But because of the ways President Barack Obama and President Trump handled it, the Kremlin has yet to face severe consequences. Through interviews with more than three dozen current and former U.S. officials, The Post tells the inside story of how the Obama administration handled the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
lots of subsidiary links below the story, video and audio, haven't checked them all out
Can He Do That?’
Putin’s instructions: Damage Clinton, help elect Trump
The Post's national security team goes inside the Obama administration's decision-making after the CIA captured Putin issuing specific orders to influence the 2016 U.S. election.
28:37 AUDIO: ROUNDING UP THE REVELATIONS
-------
Stunning intelligence: U.S. intelligence agencies had sourcing deep inside the Russian government capturing Vladimir Putin’s direct instructions to damage Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning and help elect Donald Trump.
------
Graphic: The new findings in Russia’s bold campaign to influence the U.S. election
[....] Yemen is in the grip of a vicious cholera outbreak and a near famine that have coincided to create one of the worst humanitarian crises on the planet.
But you won't find the story splashed on front pages and leading news bulletins around the globe -- Yemen's grinding two-and-a-half-year civil conflict, between Houthi militants and a Saudi Arabian-led coalition of Arab states that support the former Hadi government, is often called "the silent war" because it receives relatively little attention in the media.
Yet that's not for want of trying: for the past two months CNN and dozens of other journalists have been actively pushing to gain access to the hardest-hit parts of the country.
The only way to get into these areas is on humanitarian aid flights, primarily run by the UN. Based on conversations with multiple sources, CNN has found that the Hadi government of Yemen and its Saudi Arabian-led backers are actively seeking to block journalists and human rights organizations from flying in on aid flights
A UN humanitarian worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed this with CNN: "The people who can let journalists into the country aren't letting them in -- that is the Yemeni government and their Saudi-led coalition backers."
Sources tell CNN the UN fears allowing journalists onto aid planes could lead to a complete block by Saudi authorities of their future flights into Sana'a.
Houthi forces have also reportedly sought to block access to news outlets and have been accused of arresting journalists randomly [....]
Obamacare created an exception to the general corporate rules that applied specifically to the insurance industry. Under the law, companies are only be allowed to deduct up to $500,000 for each executive — including stock options and other forms of payment. By undoing that change, insurance companies would return to the same rules as other firms, and have a stronger incentive top offer big money to their top executives.
The Justices said that the government must prove that the lie is relevant to the case in order to strip someone of citizenship.
By Robert Barnes @ WashingtonPost.com, June 22
The government may not strip someone’s citizenship for lying during the naturalization process without proving the falsehood is relevant, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The court unanimously rejected the government’s view that simply proving that someone lied during the process was enough.
Justice Elena Kagan said that would give the government too much power. “The government opens the door to a world of disquieting consequences,” Kagan wrote, adding that it would “give prosecutors nearly limitless leverage — and afford newly naturalized Americans precious little security.”
The position is a long-held one by the federal government, but it has taken on new importance with the Trump administration’s focus on deportation [.....]
By Robert Pear & Thomas Kaplan @ NYTimes.com, 12:39 pm
- The Senate bill, once promised as a top-to-bottom revamp of the health bill passed by the House, instead looks a lot like it.
- It is likely to come to the Senate floor next week. If it passes, Republicans would be on the edge of a major overhaul of the American health care system.
It’s helpful to describe what “the movement” is in the most basic terms: There’s no way to tell how many people call themselves Black Lives Matter activists in the United States. Activists, largely dispersed across the country but concentrated in some cities or regions more than others, largely communicate online. There is a large coalition of groups called the Movement for Black Lives; some of the activists whose names you might recognize (like Garza) lead that coalition, but others (like Campaign Zero’s DeRay Mckesson, Brittany Packnett, Samuel Sinyangwe, and its army of loyalists) aren’t involved in it. There are no universal meetings. There is no centralized, national organization called Black Lives Matter.
"We do know, according to the state's reported results, that Democrat Jon Ossoff defeated Republican Karen Handel in GA-06 by a nearly 2 to 1 on the only verifiable ballots used in the race, the paper absentee mail-in ballots."
By Keith Bradsher @ NYTimes.com, June 21
HONG KONG — After years of predictions that cars sold in the West would bear the “Made in China” label, the time has finally come. Ford Motor’s plans to build its popular Focus compact cars in China, rather than Michigan or Mexico, is a milestone in China’s automotive rise. Chinese auto industry leaders praised the move as long-awaited confirmation that the country’s factories have become as efficient and high-quality as those in the United States and Europe.
The question now is how political leaders greet the development, amid rising skepticism in the United States over Chinese trade policies and the benefits of free trade in general. Though the White House so far has been muted in its reaction to Ford’s move, President Trump in particular was strongly critical of Chinese trade policies during his campaign last year. China’s high tariffs on imported cars and auto parts have already emerged as a potential trade issue.
“Ford’s moving production to China shows China’s competitiveness in manufacturing is continuously increasing and our industrial supply chain is improving,” said Cui Dongshu, the secretary general of the China Passenger Car Association, a government-backed trade group in Beijing. “But this is obviously against Trump’s policies — it is quite complicated and may cause some friction in Sino-American trade in the future.” [.....]
Trump also told the crowd that he is contemplating putting solar panels on the wall that he has pledged to build on the U.S.-Mexico border. "The higher it goes, the more valuable it is,” Trump said. “Pretty good imagination, right? . . . We could make it really look beautiful, too."
He's got such an imagination, and so much free time to indulge himself with it!
Why do all the corporate media stories describe Republican senators as "wary?" I think they're all eager and enthusiastic about getting about the business of screwing average Americans and giving the rich plutocrats pulling the Republican strings yet another tax cut. Their only hesitancy is figuring out how to do it while keeping their victims voting Republican.
-from a commenter at link.
The Wall Street Journal has fired Jay Solomon for becoming involved with an arms dealer, but reporters have often been unable to resist getting their hands dirty with the topics they cover.
“I clearly made mistakes in my reporting and entered into a world I didn’t understand.” Solomon told the AP. “I never entered into any business with Farhad Azima, nor did I ever intend to. But I understand why the emails and the conversations I had with Mr. Azima may look like I was involved in some seriously troubling activities. I apologize to my bosses and colleagues at the Journal, who were nothing but great to me.”
Trump administration officials, anticipating the defeat of the Islamic State in its de facto Syrian capital of Raqqa, are planning for what they see as the next stage of the war, a complex fight that will bring them into direct conflict with Syrian government and Iranian forces contesting control of a vast desert stretch in the eastern part of the country.
FLINT, MI (WNEM) -
The suspect accused of stabbing an officer at the Bishop International Airport on Wednesday will be charged with terrorism.
The FBI is investigating the stabbing.
Officials said the suspect, Amor Ftouhi, acted alone.
Ftouhi is about 50-years-old and a Canadian citizen, the FBI said.
This is breaking out of Flint, MI.
By Tal Kaopan @ CNN.com, June 21
Russian government-linked hackers potentially targeted as many as 21 states' election systems last year, a Homeland Security official warned Congress on Wednesday. None of those systems were involved in vote counting, however.
DHS' acting Director of Cyber Division of the department's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, Samuel Liles, said that by late September the intelligence community concluded that 21 states "were potentially targeted by Russian government-linked cyber actors" with scanning of Internet-connected election systems. The comments came during a hearing of DHS and FBI cybersecurity officials before the Senate intelligence committee.Liles said of the 21, a small number were attempted for an intrusion unsuccessfully, "as if someone rattled the door knob and was unable to get in," and in a small number "they made it through the door." But Liles said the intelligence community concluded that a variety of factors "made it likely that cyber manipulation of the US election system designed to change the outcome of the US election would be detected."
He added the community has a "very high level of confidence" in that conclusion.A second DHS official, Acting Director of Undersecretary, National Protection and Programs Directorate Jeanette Manfra, backed up Liles' testimony [....]