News Dump

David Koch, Billionaire Who Fueled Right-Wing Movement, Dies at 79
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/us/david-koch-dead.html

George Conway: 'I hearby order White House staff' to admit Trump to 'Walter Reed'
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/458565-george-conway-i-hearby-order-white-house-staff-to-admit-trump-to

Don't forget. Trade wars are 'good' and 'easy to win'? How's that working out with China today?
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/remember-when-trump-said-trade-wars-were-good-and-easy-win

Nebraska’s highest court approved the Keystone XL oil pipeline’s planned path through that state on Friday, resolving a permitting battle that has stretched on for more than a decade as the project became a proxy for a national debate between environmentalists and the energy industry. | The Nebraska Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday was not the final word on the pipeline. A federal lawsuit in Montana still seeks to block construction, and several landowners along the route have refused to sign easements. Protesters, including from Native American tribes in Nebraska and South Dakota, have promised to mobilize if construction begins.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/us/keystone-xl-pipeline-nebraska.html
https://www.kxlf.com/news/montana-news/2019/07/02/environmental-groups-file-new-lawsuit-to-block-proposed-keystone-xl-pipeline/
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/us/grass-roots-push-in-the-plains-to-block-the-keystone-pipelines-path.html

When tribal concerns have conflicted with corporate profits or resource extraction, tribes lose. This has to change. When I’m president, energy projects that impact Indian Country won’t proceed without consent. That means revoking Trump’s KeystoneXL and DAPL permits.
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1162363451349622785

Right-wing courts have ruled that religious freedom laws allow corporations to deny employees birth control, but don’t protect tribes that object to dumping sewage water on sacred sites. Absurd. Congress should pass a new law protecting tribal religious interests in sacred sites.
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1162363453161574400

Here's what we know so far about the fires raging in the Amazon: – Brazil’s space research center said it detected thousands of fire – A majority of the fires were set by farmers – The blazes could jeopardize the Earth’s “lungs"
https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1164918992026427393
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/world/americas/amazon-fire-brazil-bolsonaro.html

French President Emmanuel Macron has said the record number of fires in the Amazon rainforest is an "international crisis" that needs to be on the top of the agenda at the G7 summit.  By then the Amazon rainforest will have been burnt to the ground.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49443389

Macron says France will block EU trade deal with Brazil over Amazon forest fires
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/macron-amazon-forest-fires-veto-mercosur-eu-trade-deal-brazil-a9076181.html

Feeling Sad About the Amazon Fires? Stop Eating Meat
https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/bjwzk4/feeling-sad-about-the-amazon-fires-stop-eating-meat

Finland urges EU to consider banning Brazilian beef over Amazon fires
https://uk.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKKCN1VD17R

Two Weeks Ago, A Small Brazilian Newspaper Reported That Farmers Were Planning A ‘Day Of Fire’ In The Amazon
https://www.inquisitr.com/5594380/two-weeks-ago-a-small-brazilian-newspaper-reported-that-farmers-were-planning-a-day-of-fire-in-the-amazon/

Trump tweeted idiotically illegal order ordering American companies in China and elsewhere abroad to immediately return to the US and hire American only and do business with Americans only
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/23/trump-says-hes-ordering-american-companies-to-immediately-start-looking-for-an-alternative-to-china.html


It's hard to imagine how people think he's winning when he's flailing around frothing at the mouth and trying to order American companies around. It shows he doesn't understand how his own country works. Xi knows Trump's "orders" are ineffective and if Trump is resorting to this, he has nothing else up his sleeve. This is a huge gift to China and Xi. Xi comes out looking like the clear winner just by being patient and giving Trump rope. It's embarrassing. Xi has officially won the trade war.

Boris Johnson is a “known liar” who is copying Vladimir Putin’s approach to the media, according to Channel 4’s head of news and current affairs, who called on broadcasters to aggressively challenge the prime minister’s falsehoods.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/aug/21/boris-johnson-media-strategy-vladimir-putin-channel-4-news-chief-dorothy-byrne

Seth Moulton to end 2020 presidential campaign
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/politics/seth-moulton-drops-out-2020-race/index.html

Kremlin dismisses doctors' complaints they were exposed to radiation after blast - Doctors who treated the victims of a military test explosion have accused Russian authorities of carelessly exposing them to radiation and then forcing them to keep silent.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/08/22/kremlin-dismisses-doctors-complaints-exposed-radiation-blast/

Democrats are spending millions to take back state legislatures
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democrats-are-spending-millions-to-take-back-state-legislatures

Colorado Becomes First State To Cap Insulin Costs
https://www.yahoo.com/news/colorado-diabetics-insulin-price-cap-170616356.html

A special election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District will be held on September 10, 2019, and early voting began Wednesday. Voters will be able to cast early ballots until September 6.
https://news.ballotpedia.org/2019/08/21/early-voting-begins-in-nc-09-special-election/

Trump announces increase in tariffs on China for billions of dollars of products, as Wall Street reacts to an intensifying trade war
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/business/china-tariffs-trump.html

Dow closes down more than 600 points after Trump orders U.S. companies to leave China
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dow-closes-down-more-than-600-points-after-trump-orders-us-companies-to-leave-china-2019-08-23
Emails Show Monsanto Orchestrated GOP Effort to Intimidate Cancer Researchers
https://theintercept.com/2019/08/23/monsanto-republicans-cancer-research/

Drivers in Idaho keep harassing busloads of immigrants' children on their way to pre-school
https://news.yahoo.com/drivers-idaho-keep-harassing-busloads-192317750.html

'It's devastating'. End of GM in Ohio town as Trump fails to bring back midwest jobs
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/23/general-motors-factory-ohio-lordstown

GOP Says Michigan Panel To Limit Partisan Gerrymandering Against Democrats Discriminates Against Them
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michigan-republicans-gerrymandering-lawsuit_n_5d5f05d9e4b0dfcbd48abcae

Dow set to drop more than 150 points after China retaliates with new tariffs
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/23/us-stocks-wall-street-monitors-speech-from-fed-chair-jerome-powell.html

Michigan city council candidate Jean Cramer wants to keep community as white "as possible"
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michigan-city-council-candidate-jean-cramer-wants-to-keep-community-as-white-as-possible/

AG William Barr promotes immigration judges with high asylum denial rates
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/AG-William-Barr-promotes-immigration-judges-with-14373344.php

China using youtube to fight back.....: Google announced Thursday that it had disabled 210 YouTube channels that were uploading videos "in a coordinated manner" about the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. The announcement came three days after Twitter and Facebook announced they had shut down a network of hundreds of accounts that were posting content aimed at undermining pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. Some of the accounts posed as news organizations and independent entities but in fact had links to the Chinese government, both companies said. Google (GOOG) said in a blog post Thursday that the discovery of the 210 YouTube channels "was consistent with recent observations and actions related to China announced by Facebook and Twitter."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/22/tech/youtube-china-hong-kong/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/19/tech/china-social-media-hong-kong-twitter/index.html

Trump Really Wanted A$AP Rocky to Personally Thank Him. But Rocky Stopped Returning his Texts.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvg8qp/trump-really-wanted-adollarap-rocky-to-personally-thank-him-but-rocky-stopped-returning-his-texts

Facebook learned about Cambridge Analytica as early as September 2015 | Facebook employees knew voters were targeted in 2016
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/23/facebook-releases-new-cambridge-analytica-documents.html

@KatarinaSos asks, why did it take the El Paso shooting for O'Rourke to start condemning Trump's rhetoric? O'Rourke: maybe it took the El Paso shooting for you to notice. You can check the tapes from after shootings in NZ and Pittsburgh.
https://twitter.com/IowaPress/status/1164588877392306176

Responding to Trump, UPS, FedEx say they already fight illegal drug shipments
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-fentanyl/responding-to-trump-ups-fedex-say-they-already-fight-illegal-drug-shipments-idUSKCN1VD20O

Sigh....Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent treatment for tumor on pancreas, Supreme Court says | The 86-year-old justice has suffered a number of health setbacks in recent months.
Supreme Court | The three-week radiation treatment, performed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, was administered after doctors discovered a "localized malignant tumor" on her pancreas on July 31, a statement from the court said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1045891

Oversight Subcommittee Investigates Trump Administration’s Decision to Resume Federal Executions
https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/oversight-subcommittee-investigates-trump-administration-s-decision-to-resume

A federal employee turned over “credible” evidence to House Democrats of possible “inappropriate efforts to influence” the IRS presidential audit process, House lawyers said in a court filing Tuesday.
https://www.salon.com/2019/08/23/whistleblower-gives-house-dems-evidence-of-inappropriate-conduct-on-trump-tax-returns/

Lawyers for Deutsche Bank and Capital One repeatedly refused Friday to tell an appellate court in New York whether the banks are in possession of President Donald Trump's tax returns, citing "contractual obligations" not to disclose the information and drawing the ire of a panel of judges. The three-judge panel was so frustrated by the lawyers' refusal to answer that at one point one of the judges suggested the appellate court might seek an order for the information. After several minutes of argument on the subject, the panel directed the lawyers to file letters under seal within 48 hours saying whether the banks have Trump's tax returns. But while the banks' lawyers indicated they would respond in writing, it wasn't clear that they agreed to provide that information.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/politics/trump-tax-return-hearing/index.html

Beto NEVER said he was Born to Run or to be President. Here is the Vanity Fair quote in context:
https://i.redd.it/q7ux5rhh67i31.png

Beto: This is the fight of our lives. Not the "fight-of-my-political-life" kind of crap. But, like, this is the fight of our lives as Americans, and as humans, I'd argue. I want to be in it. Man. I'm just born to be in it, and want to do everything I humanly can for this country at this moment.

This quote and his actions are worthy of praise and not mockery.  And I'd argue that all of us should be born to be in this fight. 

Beto: If we, at this moment, do not wake up to this threat - then we, as a country, will die in our sleep.

Trump’s economic advisers include: a top aide best known for his stint as a TV commentator; a trade adviser whose pro-tariff views are outside the mainstream; and a treasury secretary who made millions off the housing crisis.
https://apnews.com/ae2070e1b65d4573bb916932fe675ef3

Trump Jokes About Making the Dow Fall Nearly 600 Points
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/donald-trump-dow-seth-moulton

Leaked Trump Administration Memo: Keep Public in Dark About How Endangered Species Decisions Are Made
https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-endangered-species-decisions-2613623876.html

When a president calls immigrants rapists and criminals, When a governor tells his supporters to “take matters into their own hands” against them, When our leaders spew hatred, ignorance, and bigotry, We cannot be surprised when it leads to violence.
https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1165037363615027200

Federal Agencies Have Been Sending Employees Links To White Nationalist And Conspiracy Websites For Months
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/vdare-doj-dol-epoch-times

The Justice Department has canceled a news-clip service for employees in its immigration review office after Monday’s edition included a link to and summary of a blog post from a white nationalist website that used an anti-Semitic slur, officials said Friday. In an email Friday, employees at the department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) were told “the Communications and Legislative Affairs Division will no longer distribute a daily news briefing within EOIR,” and then gave the employees instructions for how to sign up for a different departmentwide briefing service if they wish to receive those notifications. Justice Department spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly said that after a review of the daily news aggregation emails, “we have determined that the sampling was over inclusive and contained non-news sources. EOIR will no longer be distributing a daily news briefing to its staff. EOIR strongly condemns anti-Semitism and white nationalism. Those hateful beliefs do not reflect the views of EOIR employees and the Department of Justice.” She said the office will not renew its contract with the private company, TechMIS, that provided the service.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-dept-cancels-internal-news-briefing-after-judges-sent-link-to-anti-semitic-blog-post/2019/08/23/2700dd42-c5d0-11e9-b72f-b31dfaa77212_story.html

“North Korea fired two unidentified projectiles from Sonduk area in south Hamkyung province in North Korea into the East Sea this morning,” South Korea Joint Chief of Staff’s Office tells @NBCNews.
13 replies 33 retweets 33 likes
https://twitter.com/NBCNewsWorld/status/1165034496204398597

North Korea on Saturday morning continued with weeks-long campaign of test launches, firing unidentified projectiles into East Sea, Yonhap and NHK news agencies report.
https://twitter.com/NBCNewsWorld/status/1165032689306652672

If the estate tax were still its 1941-1976 rate, David Koch would have just contributed $45 billion to the national treasury.
https://twitter.com/climatebrad/status/1165027396376059905

In an interview with the DMRegister, Joe Biden admits to gaffes — like when he said he was vice president during the Parkland shooting — but says his misstatements are nothing like President Trump’s. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/08/23/joe-biden-iowa-caucuses-2020-donald-trump-electability-gaffes-prole-urbandale-newton/2052008001/

Trump admin told Supreme Court it's legal to discriminate against workers for being gay, lesbian, or bisexual, saying Title VII of Civil Rights Act 1964 cannot apply to sexual orientation. This follows brief targeting trans workers. Full story:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dominicholden/trump-scotus-gay-workers

YEP (Better than Bernie’s “I lost only because the crooked DNC rigged the primaries” spiel): A Warren line that you don't hear much but obviously kills with this crowd: "I gave $11 million to Democratic campaigns around this country. I gave donations to all 50 state parties."
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1165022483046490113

Lakes in the middle of Mexico’s jungles in the south are drying up and disappearing
https://apnews.com/8720ae7b4c9a4149b459fefbf44eba88

Russian state medical agency claims the Cesium-137 isotope found in a doctor's muscle tissue is from food he ate, possibly "Fukushima crabs"
https://meduza.io/en/news/2019/08/23/russian-doctors-announce-that-cesium-137-in-colleague-s-tissues-was-from-food-not-the-nyonoksa-nuclear-explosion

U.S.-Denmark Relations Are Now in the Hands of a Conspiracy-Loving, Climate-Denying Ex-Actress Carla Sands, who heads U.S. mission to the kingdom of Denmark, has no diplomatic experience and now is in charge of patching things up with the Danes.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/carla-sands-us-denmark-relations-are-now-in-the-hands-of-a-conspiracy-loving-climate-denying-ex-actress?

Complex quantum teleportation achieved for the first time: "Austrian and Chinese scientists have succeeded in teleporting three-dimensional quantum states for the first time. High-dimensional teleportation could play an important role in future quantum computers."
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-complex-quantum-teleportation.html

Ruth Bader Ginsburg completes radiation for tumor, supreme court says. No evidence of disease remains after treatment for cancerous tumor on justice’s pancreas.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/23/ruth-bader-ginsburg-cancer-tumor-treatment