Thursday, November 16, 2017

Reading archive 2017-11-16

John Raines, accomplice in 1971 burglary that revealed FBI abuses, dies at 84

The GOP plan to kill Obamacare’s least popular provision could backfire on some in the middle class

Republicans: Enrage your colleagues - "Then there is this sleight of hand: While the Senate bill makes the corporate tax cut permanent, it sets all the proposed reductions for individuals to expire at the end of 2025. This artificially decreases the short-term costs of the bill. If those tax cuts did expire, Americans in large numbers would eventually see their taxes go up under this deal. (ed. note: that is, up compared to what they pay right now, or way up compared to what they pay the next ten years)

"Let’s take a step back and ponder the exceptional irresponsibility of what’s transpiring here. The same people who complained that more than a year of hearings, analysis and debate around Obamacare constituted “rushing” the bill are now recklessly spiriting through the system a gigantic piece of legislation that would touch all corners of the American economy."

Mother's boyfriend guilty of murder in torture death of 8-year-old Palmdale boy - "The prosecutor told jurors in closing arguments this week that the 6-foot-2, 270-pound Aguirre clearly enjoyed torturing the small boy and had systematically brutalized him in the months leading to his death, forcing him to eat cat litter and feces and making him sleep bound and gagged in a small cabinet overnight.

"Hatami said Aguirre couldn't blame either drugs or mental health problems for his actions, and he added that Aguirre hated Gabriel because he suspected the boy was gay."

Homeland Security official resigns after comments linking blacks to ‘laziness’ and ‘promiscuity’ come to light

Monday, November 13, 2017

Reading archive 2017-11-13

The love of his life was lured into a deadly trap. Then so was he.

Yes, the G.O.P. Can Block Roy Moore

Security Breach and Spilled Secrets Have Shaken the N.S.A. to Its Core: A serial leak of the agency’s cyberweapons has damaged morale, slowed intelligence operations and resulted in hacking attacks on businesses and civilians worldwide.

National Museum of African American History's program digitizes old family memories

Digital Is More Than a Department, It Is a Collective Responsibility

New woman accuses Moore of sexual misconduct when she was a minor

The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks

Bill Clinton: A Reckoning: Feminists saved the 42nd president of the United States in the 1990s. They were on the wrong side of history; is it finally time to make things right? - "When more than a dozen women stepped forward and accused Leon Wieseltier of a serial and decades-long pattern of workplace sexual harassment, he said, 'I will not waste this reckoning.' It was textbook Wieseltier: the insincere promise and the perfectly chosen word. The Democratic Party needs to make its own reckoning of the way it protected Bill Clinton. The party needs to come to terms with the fact that it was so enraptured by their brilliant, Big Dog president and his stunning string of progressive accomplishments that it abandoned some of its central principles. The party was on the wrong side of history and there are consequences for that. Yet expedience is not the only reason to make this public accounting. If it is possible for politics and moral behavior to coexist, then this grave wrong needs to be acknowledged. If Weinstein and Mark Halperin and Louis C.K. and all the rest can be held accountable, so can our former president and so can his party, which so many Americans so desperately need to rise again."

Locals Were Troubled by Roy Moore’s Interactions with Teen Girls at the Gadsden Mall

Saturday, November 11, 2017

Reading archive 2017-11-11

Trump Says Putin ‘Means It’ About Not Meddling - "Mr. Trump heaped disdain on the former leaders of three American intelligence agencies — John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director; James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence; and James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director he fired this year — appearing to suggest that they were less trustworthy than Mr. Putin. 'I mean, give me a break — they’re political hacks,' Mr. Trump said. 'You have Brennan, you have Clapper, and you have Comey. Comey's proven now to be a liar, and he’s proven to be a leaker, so you look at that. And you have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he had nothing to do with that.'" (ed. note: U.S. intelligence report says Putin targeted presidential election to 'harm' Hillary Clinton's chances)

The Vacuity of the Vice President

Trump says U.S. won’t be ‘taken advantage of anymore.’ Hours later, Pacific Rim nations reach deal on trade without America.

Bannon is right: It’s no coincidence The Post broke the Moore story

I did a stand-up set about Louis C.K.’s offenses. It wasn’t enough.

Trump’s intentional behavior in Japan was much worse than his etiquette mistakes