Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Trump, the defendant, confronts courtroom reality
Axios | Zachary Basu | 04/17/24

Two days into his historic criminal trial, former President Trump is confronting the same rare feeling that fueled his erratic behavior in the wake of the 2020 election: a loss of control.

Why it matters: Trump is quickly learning that Manhattan's criminal courthouse is not like the court of public opinion, where he's broken every rule of politics and bulldozed his way to total Republican dominance.

Trump's campaign has been marked by choreographed rallies in front of adoring crowds, a few interviews mostly with sympathetic media, and angry rants outside courtrooms and on social media. ... Read more

World braces for Iran-Israel cyberattacks following missile attack
Axios | Sam Sabin | 04/16/24

Cyberattacks are likely to be high on the list of options Israel and Iran are considering this week as they map out retaliatory actions, experts say.

Why it matters: Iran's drone and missile attack against Israel on Saturday brought the two nations into unprecedented territory.

Israel's military leaders have already vowed to respond to the attack.

"The overt hostility and the overt physical aspects of the state-on-state confrontation moved things into a different sphere," Andrew Borene, executive director for global security at Flashpoint, told Axios. ... Read more

The reality of being a criminal defendant on trial finally dawned on Trump. He didn't take it well.
Politico | Kyle Cheney | 04/16/24

Donald Trump is learning a hard lesson: Criminal defendants don't get to set their own schedules.

Three times on Monday the former president asked Justice Juan Merchan to cut him loose from his hush money trial to attend to other matters - some personal, some political and some legal. Three times the judge responded with, essentially, "eh, we'll see."

Could he attend his son Barron's high school graduation on May 17? I'll get back to you, Merchan said.

It's a jarring new reality for Trump, who has been accustomed to setting the agenda for most of his adult life - and, in the years since his presidency, has bounced between his sunny Florida resort and political rallies brimming with adoring fans. But this spring, he'll have to spend most weekdays in a drab 15th floor county courtroom in a city with very little MAGA. ... Read more

Powerful conservative funds hand out millions to pro-Trump far-right groups
TheGuradian | Peter Stone | 04/16/24

Two powerful conservative non-profits have donated millions of dollars to a number of pro-Trump groups led by key far-right allies Stephen Miller, Charlie Kirk and others that have promoted election denialism, extremist anti-immigrant policies and legal challenges to bolster the Maga movement.

Based in Wisconsin, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and the Bradley Impact Fund in 2022 separately doled out six- and seven-figure checks to groups such as Miller's America First Legal and Kirk's Turning Point USA, and other Trump-friendly bastions such as the Heritage Foundation and Michael Flynn's America's Future. ... Read more

Pittsburgh streets flooded as severe storms threaten Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic
Axios | Rebecca Falconer,Andrew Freedman | 04/12/24

Heavy, relentless rains flooded Pittsburgh-area streets and prompted water rescues Thursday night, as a severe storm system threatened parts of the eastern U.S. into Friday.

The big picture: A rare flash flood emergency, the National Weather Service's highest flood alert category, was issued for parts of Pittsburgh, where up to 4 inches of rain had fallen just before 9:30pm Thursday.

The heavy rains were triggered by the same storm system that unleashed tornadoes and heavy rains across much of the South and Southeast this week, with flood emergencies declared in three other locations.

On Wednesday, thunderstorms brought so much rain to New Orleans that the day ranked as the third-wettest April day on record there. ... Read more

FBI chief warns of "coordinated attack" threat to U.S. after Russia shooting
Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 04/12/24

The FBI is growing increasingly concerned about a potential attack in the U.S. similar to last month's Russia concert hall shooting, bureau director Christopher Wray said Thursday.

The big picture: "As I look back over my career in law enforcement, I would be hard-pressed to think of a time where so many threats to our public safety and national security were so elevated all at once," Wray told lawmakers as he urged Congress to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

Zoom in: "Our most immediate concern has been that individuals or small groups will draw twisted inspiration from the events in the Middle East to carry out attacks here at home," Wray told the committee.

"But now increasingly concerning is the potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, akin to the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russia concert hall" that killed more than 140 people, he added. ... Read more

Biden and Japanese PM forge closer ties to counter China in Pacific region
Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 04/11/24

President Biden pledged Wednesday closer ties with Japan and the Philippines to counter China's increasing influence in the Pacific.

The big picture: Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced in D.C. new military, economic and other agreements ahead of their trilateral summit on Thursday with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

"For the first time, Japan and the United States and Australia will create a networked system of air, missile, and defense architecture." ... Read more

Is It Inflation? Or Is It Greedflation? | Robert Reich | 04/10/24 | 5:06

Boeing: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 03/10/24 | 32:35

America the slot machine
Axios | Zachary Basu | 04/10/24

The explosion of legalized gambling has set the stage for a provocative new frontier in the world of risk-taking - betting markets for everyday events, ranging from Taylor Swift streams to hurricanes hitting major U.S. cities.

Why it matters: Americans' growing fixation with gambling has fueled a multibillion-dollar sports betting industry, meme stock mania on Wall Street, record Powerball jackpots and soaring casino spending. Prediction markets could be the next to cash in on the phenomenon.

Last week, the Trump-tied trading firm Susquehanna became Kalshi's first dedicated institutional market maker - a major milestone in the platform's ability to unlock consistent liquidity. ... Read more

Netanyahu's defense minister contradicts him, tells U.S. Rafah invasion date not set
Axios | Barak Ravid | 04/09/23

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Monday that Israel has not yet set a date for an operation in Rafah, despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's public claim Monday that "there is a date," according to a source with direct knowledge.

Why it matters: The Biden administration is pushing Netanyahu not to proceed with an operation in Rafah, where more than one million displaced Palestinians are sheltering. Netanyahu has presented the plans as a done deal, but both U.S. officials and now Gallant are now contradicting him.

The U.S. is concerned that such an operation would cause massive civilian casualties and an even deeper humanitarian crisis. ... Read more

4.8-magnitude earthquake felt across eastern U.S.
Axios | Jacob Knutson | 04/05/24

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.8 hit the New York and New Jersey region on Friday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Why it matters: This appears to be the strongest earthquake to hit the New York area since a 5.2 magnitude quake in 1884, according to a tracker from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. ... Read more

Deadly Northeast storm disrupts travel and causes widespread outages
Axios | Andrew Freedman | 04/05/24

A powerful, deadly storm that's dumped several inches of snow across New England and other parts of the U.S. Northeast disrupted travel and caused widespread outages into Friday morning.

The big picture: Well over a foot of snow has fallen in parts of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Nearly 290,000 customers had no power in Maine alone, with nearly 116,00 in the dark in neighboring N.H. on Friday morning.

Thousands of flights were canceled and over 600,000 people were without power across six states Thursday. By Friday morning, an estimated 388,000 still had no electricity, according to poweroutage.us. ... Read more

SPY AGENCIES SKEWED INTEL TO PLEASE TRUMP, AND OBAMA TOO
TheIntercept | author | date

"Individuals looked to avoid conflict and please political masters," a Pentagon-backed RAND corporation study finds.

U.S. INTELLIGENCE SKEWS its findings to find favor with both Republican and Democratic policymakers, including former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama, a sweeping new study by the Pentagon-backed RAND Corporation finds. The study draws on interviews, some anonymous, with nearly a dozen current and former U.S. intelligence officials and policymakers.

Despite the popular "deep state" characterization of the intelligence community as a rogue army running roughshod over elected leaders, the study concludes the exact opposite. It portrays an intelligence community that naturally tilts its reports and forecasts to curry favor with presidents and their high-level policymakers in Washington, regardless of party or issue. ... Read more

Donald Trump and the United States of Amnesia
MotherJones | David Corn | updated 04/04/24

It is amazing-and an indictment of the American political system-that the fellow whose mishandling of the pandemic resulted in hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths could be in strong contention for a return to the presidency.

Donald Trump and his campaign are banking on the human inclination to cast aside or deemphasize ugly memories-to the extent that they have been absurdly asking voters, "Are you better off now than four years ago?" This is bonkers. Four years ago, we were in the middle of a pandemic that was killing thousands a week-by the end of April 2020, 60,000 Americans had died-and crushing the economy. It was a time of fear and food lines, as Trump downplayed and mismanaged the crisis. ... Read more

Behind the Curtain: How Trump's mind works
Axios | Jim VandeHei,Mike Allen | 04/04/24

Former President Trump thinks, talks and acts like no other politician in our lifetime. There's a Rosetta stone that demystifies how his mind works, his closest friends tell us: his Mar-a-Lago Spotify playlist.

At his oceanside retreat in Palm Beach, Trump controls the surround-sound stereo system on the breezy dining patio with his big iPad and its Spotify list. Regulars jokingly call it the "Deejay T" performance.

It's Trump's golden oldies: "Phantom of the Opera" ... "Jesus Christ Superstar" ... and Elvis, including "Suspicious Minds." Plus "Hello" by Lionel Ritchie ... Guns N' Roses' "November Rain" ... and the duet by James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti, "It's A Man's Man's Man's World." ... Read more

Inside the Movement to Ban Lab-Grown Meat
MotherJones | WYATT MYSKOW | 03/17/24

Across the nation, right-wing legislators have set their sights on the sale of protein cultured from animal cells.

Months in jail and thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees—those are the consequences Alabamians and Arizonans could soon face for selling cell-cultured meat products that could cut into the profits of ranchers, farmers and meatpackers in each state.

State legislators from Florida to Arizona are seeking to ban meat grown from animal cells in labs, citing a "war on our ranching" and a need to protect the agriculture industry from efforts to reduce the consumption of animal protein, thereby reducing the high volume of climate-warming methane emissions the sector emits. ... Read more

The ______ Secret Behind Lab-Grown Meat
MotherJones | Tom Philpott | 04/__/22

Lab meat-flesh grown in massive tanks instead of in the bodies of sentient animals-offers the promise of having our steak and eating it guilt-free, too. No vast amounts of water-polluting chemicals to grow feed crops; no low-paid, oft-injured slaughterhouse workers; no climate-warming gases from cow burps or manure lagoons, and no billions of animals slaughtered each year to satisfy our carnivory.

Once a staple only of science fiction, the stuff is poised to land on your dinner plate this year, at least according to boosters of the cultivated-meat industry (to use its preferred name). In Singapore-the only nation to approve lab meat for sale-you can already go to the JW Marriott South Beach hotel and order steamed chicken dumplings made with "real meat without slaughter" in the form of chicken cells grown by a US-based company called Eat Just. And other cell-meat startups vow to bring product to market in 2022, pending regulatory approval. ... Read more

At least 4 dead, hundreds injured after 7.5 magnitude earthquake | DW News | 04/03/24 | 4:13

State Medical Boards: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 03/21/24 | 22:55

Intense April storm threatens much of U.S. with severe weather
Axios | Rebecca Falconer,Andrew Freedman | 04/02/24

A "highly impactful, major Spring storm" that lashed parts of California with heavy snow and flooding rains over the weekend is bringing multiple severe weather impacts across the U.S. as it marches eastward in a multi-day outbreak.

The big picture: Tornado and severe thunderstorm watches on Monday evening stretched from Texas to Illinois, with flood watches from Illinois to West Virginia due to the storm that disrupted travel in parts of California and caused a major road slip on a section of the state's Highway 1.

The National Weather Service warned of potentially heavy rains and flash flooding into Tuesday from the lower Missouri Valley, across the mid-Mississippi Valley, Ohio Valley and into the Central Appalachians.

"A substantial severe weather risk will exist Tuesday afternoon and evening across portions of the Ohio and Tennessee valleys and into the Mid-Atlantic states," the NWS noted in a Tuesday morning forecast discussion. ... Read more

Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: April 1 | MSNBC | 04/02/24 | 16:28

Jon Stewart On The False Promises of AI | The Daily Show | 04/02/24 | 14:54

Intense April storm to threaten much of U.S. with severe weather
Axios | Rebecca Falconer,Andrew Freedman | 04/01/24

A major storm that lashed parts of California with heavy snow and flooding rains over the Easter weekend is set to march from west to east across the U.S., sparking a multi-day severe weather outbreak this week.

The big picture: Parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois are most at risk on Monday from the storm that disrupted travel in parts of California and caused a major road slip on a section of the state's Highway 1.

"Severe thunderstorms with very large hail (2-3 inch diameter or greater), damaging gusts (60-80 mph) and a few tornadoes (potentially up to EF2) are expected this afternoon into tonight from north Texas and Oklahoma into the lower Ohio River Valley," the SPC stated in an online discussion. ... Read more

Extremist ex-adviser drives 'anti-white racism' plan for Trump win
TheGuardian | Martin Pengelly | 04/01/24

The former Trump White House adviser, anti-immigration extremist and white nationalist Stephen Miller is helping drive a plan to tackle supposed "anti-white racism" if Donald Trump returns to power next year, Axios reported.

Should Trump return to power, Axios said, Miller and other aides plan to "dramatically change the government's interpretation of civil rights-era laws to focus on 'anti-white racism' rather than discrimination against people of colour". ... Read more

Trump Bibles make a mockery of Christianity — and that's exactly why MAGA will eat them up
Salon | Amanda Marcotte | 03/28/24

Earlier this week, Donald Trump unveiled his newest grift to squeeze money out of his cult followers: Trump-branded Bibles. Claiming the book contains the "King James version" and "also includes the Founding Father [sic] documents," Trump promised "you have to have it for your heart, for your soul." The screenshots of the video are funny by themselves, but I highly recommend watching the ad Trump cut for these Bibles. Trump radiates total contempt for Christianity.

This is Trump in his angry-bored mode, letting viewers know with his listless tone and posture that he thinks all this Bible stuff is dumb. The not-at-all subtle message of the video is that Trump doesn't believe any of this faith-in-God crap, but he definitely believes in using Christian identity as a weapon to make money and dominate his foes.

Many Trump opponents on social media replied with video clips underscoring how Trump may be the single most ignorant person in the country about the contents of the Bible. ... Read more

Since Trump is now selling Bibles, here is a montage of clips of Trump giving us his vast and extensive knowledge of the Bible.

Americans continue to lose their religion as GOP pushes it
Axios | Russell Contreras | 03/29/24

Americans increasingly are calling themselves "unaffiliated" with any religion - or rejecting religion altogether - at a time when influential Republicans are leaning into Christian nationalism to shape public policies, a new survey finds.

Why it matters: The survey found that 26% of Americans now consider themselves unaffiliated with a religion. That's up 5 percentage points from 2013, and reflects a widening gap between how citizens and lawmakers see religion's role in society.

The GOP is dominated by white evangelicals who have successfully pushed to limit abortion, ban books and restrict some LGBTQ+ rights. But the general public - especially younger Americans - is rapidly moving away from religions that endorse such policies.

Just a slim majority of Americans (53%) now say that religion is important in their lives, down from 72% in 2013, the survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute says. ... Read more

The Biggest Economic Lies We're Told | Robert Reich | 02/21/23 | 7:30

Trump's Bibles and the evolution of his messianic message
Axios | Zachary Basu | 03/28/24

Few politicians have commanded the loyalty of the religious right like former President Trump, whose decision to begin selling $60 Bibles for Holy Week has outraged his critics - but drawn little reaction from evangelical leaders.

Why it matters: Trump has developed a sense of impunity when it comes to religious messaging, forged through a grand compromise with Christian conservatives who see him as a flawed - but effective - champion of their movement.

Hawking Bibles is just the latest example. ... Read more

Grab Her By The Pussy: Donald Trump Political Quotes Notebook Journal

Grab Her By The Pussy Notebook Journal

Book Features:
College Ruled Lined
100 Pages
6" x 9"
price $8.05

Buy at Amazon.com

Jordan Klepper On How We Should Deal with Jan 6th Rioters | The Daily Show | 03/27/23 | 9:23

Trump's Low-Quality USA Bibles | Ronna McDaniel Is Terrible | RNC's Big Lie Litmus Test | The Late Show | 03/27/23 | 11:11

Extreme heat summit to urge leaders to act on threat from rising temperatures
TheGuardian | Jonathan Watts | 03/27/24

Two of the world's biggest aid agencies will host an inaugural global summit on extreme heat on Thursday as directors warn that the climate crisis is dramatically increasing the probability of a mass-fatality heat disaster.

The conference will highlight some of the pioneering work being done, from tree-planting projects to the development of reflective roof coverings that reduce indoor temperatures.

After last year's record-shattering temperatures, when 3.8 billion people - half the world's population - sweltered in extreme heat for at least one day, the organisers hope the event will prompt governments to prepare for a "silent killer" that rarely gets the attention it deserves when compared with hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes. ... Read more

Jordan Klepper on Trump's Bible Grift and GOP Reaction to Baltimore Bridge Collapse | The Daily Show | 03/26/24 | 10:48

Student Loans: Last Week Tonight | John Oliver | 03/21/24 | 30:01

Truth Social faces harsh reality as a public company
Axios | Sara Fischer | 03/27/24

Truth Social - the Trump-owned social media platform that started trading yesterday - currently has far fewer users and less income than any social network that has gone public before.

Why it matters: While the app does sell some ads, its business is practically non-existent.

Truth Social earned $3.4 million in revenue for the first nine months of 2023 and it lost around $49 million.

By comparison, Facebook (now Meta) earned $3.71 billion in revenue the year before it went public and was profitable. ... Read more

In photos: Baltimore bridge collapses after cargo ship collision
Axios | Ivana Saric | 03/26/24

First responders are combing the water for survivors after a container ship collision caused a major bridge in Baltimore to collapse Tuesday morning.

The big picture: Several vehicles were on the Francis Scott Key bridge when it was struck at about 1:30 am ET. Search and rescue efforts are currently underway for "upwards of seven people," Baltimore fire chief James Wallace told reporters. ... Read more

"MAN-MADE HELL ON EARTH": A CANADIAN DOCTOR ON HIS MEDICAL MISSION TO GAZA
The Intercept | Jeremy Scahil | 03/23/24

"I saw scenes that were horrific and I never want to see again," said Yasser Khan, a surgeon from Toronto.

THROUGHOUT THE PAST five and a half months, Israel has waged a full-spectrum war against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. The United States and other Western nations have supplied not only the weapons for this war of annihilation against the Palestinians, but also key political and diplomatic support.

The results of the actions of this coalition of the killing have been devastating. Conservative estimates hold that more than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed, including 13,000 children. More than 8,000 people remain missing, many of them believed to have died in the rubble of buildings destroyed in Israeli attacks. Famine conditions are now present in large swaths of the Gaza Strip. The fact that the International Court of Justice has found grounds to investigate Israel for plausible acts of genocide in Gaza has not deterred the U.S. and its allies from continuing to facilitate Israel's war. ... Read more

Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: March 25 | MSNBC | 03/26/24 | 20:30

With TikTok creator program, AI-sped misinformation pays
Axios | Megan Morrone | 03/26/24

TikTok's cash-for-creators program could speed the spread of spammy misinformation on the platform as video makers lean on AI to hook viewers with outlandish images, conspiracy theories and hokum.

Why it matters: The crazier the video, the higher the engagement - and now, more engagement directly translates to more dollars. ... Read more

UN Security Council passes Gaza ceasefire resolution, U.S. doesn't veto
Axios | Barak Ravid | 03/25/24

The UN Security Council passed on Monday morning a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during the month of Ramadan and calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.

Why it matters: This is the first resolution demanding a ceasefire to pass at the council after four previous failures. The U.S. abstained rather than using its veto. All other members voted in favor.

Between the lines: The most recent failure was on Friday, when China and Russia vetoed a U.S. proposal. The dispute was over the U.S. insistence on linking the ceasefire call to a hostage deal and condemnation of Hamas.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a visit by his senior advisers to the White House later this week to protest the U.S. decision not to block the resolution, which he claimed did not condition the ceasefire call on the release of hostages. ... Read more

Putin blames radical Islamists for Moscow concert hall attack but claims it is part of Ukraine's attacks on Russia
TheGuardian | Gloria Oladipo | 03/25/24

Putin added that the Moscow concert hall attack fits into a larger trend of intimidation from Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Here are more of Putin's remarks: This atrocity may be just a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014 by the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime ... ... Read more

Trump arrives for key hearing in New York hush money case
Axios | Erin Doherty | 03/25/24

Former President Trump arrived Monday at a Manhattan courthouse for a key hearing in his New York hush money case.

Why it matters: Judge Juan Merchan may determine whether to keep April 15 as the trial's tentative start date or push the proceeding back further. It's expected to be the first of Trump's four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in the case, which stems from a 2016 payment he allegedly made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. ... Read more

Screens are poisoning kids' minds
Axios | Erica Pandey | 03/22/24

This is the indisputable and alarming trend among American children, based on the latest polling and deep research by an NYU professor in a book out next week.

The big picture: The pandemic is often cited as a driver of the teen mental health crisis, but it was brewing long before then. A growing body of research links the acceleration of the crisis to one of this century's biggest events: the arrival of the smartphone.

Rates of depression and anxiety among U.S. adolescents were "fairly stable in the 2000s" but "rose by more than 50% in many studies from 2010 to 2019," Haidt writes in The Atlantic.

The suicide rate for kids between the ages of 10 and 14 tripled between 2007 and 2021, according to the CDC.

The share of U.S. high school girls who seriously considered attempting suicide jumped from 19% in 2011 to 30% in 2021, per the CDC. The share of boys who considered suicide rose from 13% to 14%. ... Read more

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt, Sean Pratt

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on most measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the "play-based childhood" began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the "phone-based childhood" in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this "great rewiring of childhood" has interfered with children's social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Trump world allies sentenced to prison
Axios | Ivana Saric | 03/22/24

Even as former President Trump wades through a complex web of legal woes to avoid prison, some of his allies and associates are already facing that fate.

The big picture: A striking number of people closely associated with the former president have been sentenced to prison for an array of crimes that include contempt of Congress and campaign finance violations.

The latest: Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to perjury charges earlier this month, becoming the latest member of the Trump world to face legal consequences. ... Read more

Blinken: U.S. submitted draft resolution to UN calling for Gaza ceasefire
Axios | Rebecca Falconer | 03/21/24

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday the U.S. has submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council that calls "for an immediate ceasefire" in Gaza that's "tied to the release" of hostages held by Hamas.

Why it matters: Both Israel and Hamas are facing pressure to reach a deal to free the hostages and start a truce in Gaza, where over 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, per Axios' Barak Ravid, who noted this week that the first detailed negotiations in months were underway.

Now Blinken has said in an interview with Al-Hadath in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, that an agreement was "getting closer" and "the gaps are narrowing," according to a transcript released by the State Department Wednesday. "I think an agreement is very much possible," he added.

The big picture: Blinken said during the interview that the Biden administration was "pressing for an immediate ceasefire" tied to freeing the hostages. ... Read more

Fossil fuel firms could be tried in US for homicide over climate-related deaths, experts say
The Guardian | author | date

Each year, extreme temperatures take 5 million lives, while 400,000 people die from climate-related hunger and disease and scores perish in floods and wildfires.

Now, researchers are promoting a new legal theory that says fossil fuel companies - which, data show, are the leading contributors to planet-heating pollution - could be tried for homicide for climate-related deaths.

The radical idea, first proposed last year by consumer advocacy non-profit Public Citizen, may sound far-fetched, but it's gaining interest from experts and public officials. ... Read more

Carbon-Majors-Report-2017.pdf

Groundbreaking 'Carbon Majors' research finds 100 active fossil fuel producers including ExxonMobil, Shell, BHP Billiton and Gazprom are linked to 71% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988.

1. Carbon Majors Database is the most comprehensive dataset of historic company greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions ever compiled;
2. 100 active fossil fuel producers are linked to 71% of global industrial greenhouse gases (GHGs) since 1988, the year in which human-induced climate change was officially recognized through the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC);
3. Almost a third (32%) of historic emissions come from publicly listed investor-owned companies, 59% from state-owned companies, and 9% from private investment;
4. Over half of global industrial emissions since 1988 can be traced to just 25 corporate and state producers;
5. Fossil fuel companies and their products have released more emissions in the last 28 years than in the 237 years prior to 1988;
6. Over half (52%) of all global industrial GHGs emitted since the start of the industrial revolution in 1751, have been traced to these 100 fossil fuel producers;
7. Low carbon tipping point in reach if investors and carbon majors take urgent climate action.

Top U.S. & World Headlines - March 21, 2024 | 03/21/24 | 11:52

"Humanitarian Violence" in Gaza: Architect Eyal Weizman on Mapping Israel's "Genocidal Campaign" | DM | 03/21/24 | 25:14

How Trump is Following Hitler's Playbook | Robert Reich | 03/19/24 | 5:48

MUST-SEE: Jamie Raskin drops BOMB on Republicans | btc | 03/21/24 | 8:04

Jim Jordan stumbles into BRUTAL trap at public hearing | btc | 03/21/24 | 8:05

How DOJ paved the way for the NAR (National Association of Realtors) home-selling settlement
Axios | Emily Peck | 03/21/24

For decades, the Department of Justice pushed for more competition in the real estate market - now the agency might be getting its way.

Why it matters: Pressure from the DOJ's antitrust division likely played a role in getting to the game-changing class action settlement announced by the National Association of Realtors last Friday.

Between the lines: "We've been in their crosshairs for as long as I've been involved at the National Association of Realtors," NAR president Kevin Sears, a licensed Realtor for 20+ years, told hundreds in the industry at a conference in February. ... Read more