turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalGreek bailout drama 'in last throes' but the hardship is not over yet
Final €15bn loan brings new era, says Tsipras, though IMF views GDP growth forecasts as ‘very ambitious’
After nearly nine crisis-filled years, relentless austerity and four governments, Greece will next week exit its third bailout programme – in contrast to the economic crisis enveloping Turkey.
On 20 August, at midnight, Athens will reclaim its sovereignty in what the prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, has called a transcendent moment for the debt-stricken nation.
“Greece has managed to stand on her feet again,” his office said last week describing receipt of a final as the “last act in the drama. Now a new page of progress, justice and growth can be turned”.
Athens’ battle to keep bankruptcy at bay took Europe into unchartered waters. From the beginning, the crisis not only exposed the rot in Greece but the flaws in the EU’s incomplete architecture. Under threat of seeing the bloc torn apart and the common currency broken up, Brussels was forced to devise a new tool kit to deal with what soon developed into a profound existential crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/12/greece-bailout-drama-curtain-falls-hardship-over
I have two items that explain how this country got fucked, right along with Spain, and other European countries and how this country is being ratfucked just type in :
Matt Taibbis' .............Vampire Squid................
Robert Kutter.................Can Democracy Survive Globalization?
Orca mother finally abandons dead calf she carried for more than two weeks
Researchers say endangered killer whale who lives off the coast of Seattle is back to feeding and frolicking with her pod
Researchers say an endangered killer whale thatcarried her dead calf on her head for more than two weeks has finally abandoned the calf’s body and is back to feeding and frolicking with her pod.
The Center for Whale Research in Washington state says it watched the orca, known as J35, chase a school of salmon in Haro Strait west of San Juan Island, between the US mainland and Vancouver Island, on Saturday afternoon.
J35’s calf died soon after birth on 24 July. The mother carried the baby on her head for at least 17 days, in an image of grief that struck an emotional chord worldwide.
She finally abandoned the carcass as it decomposed.
Center for Whale Research founder Ken Balcomb said he was immensely relieved to see J35 returning to typical behavior.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/13/orca-mother-finally-abandons-dead-calf-she-carried-for-more-than-two-weeks
-snip-
“The larger environmental question reflected in the J35 story is that both the USA and Canada must redouble efforts to restore wild salmon … for a food supply for the [southern resident killer whales] in this region,” Balcomb said Friday. “Hatchery fish are inferior and non-sustainable, and farm fish of course are not available for whale consumption.”
There are no words to say how stupid the homospaiens species really is...................
The Shadow Rulers of the VA
Isaac Arnsdorf 1 hr ago
Last February, shortly after Peter O’Rourke became chief of staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs, he received an email from Bruce Moskowitz with his input on a new mental health initiative for the VA. “Received,” O’Rourke replied. “I will begin a project plan and develop a timeline for action.”
O’Rourke treated the email as an order, but Moskowitz is not his boss. In fact, he is not even a government official. Moskowitz is a Palm Beach doctor who helps wealthy people obtain high-service “concierge” medical care.
More to the point, he is one-third of an informal council that is exerting sweeping influence on the VA from Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida. The troika is led by Ike Perlmutter, the reclusive chairman of Marvel Entertainment, who is a longtime acquaintance of President Trump’s. The third member is a lawyer named Marc Sherman. None of them has ever served in the U.S. military or government.
Yet from a thousand miles away, they have leaned on VA officials and steered policies affecting millions of Americans. They have remained hidden except to a few VA insiders, who have come to call them “the Mar-a-Lago Crowd.”
Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman declined to be interviewed and fielded questions through a crisis-communications consultant. In a statement, they downplayed their influence, insisting that nobody is obligated to act on their counsel. “At all times, we offered our help and advice on a voluntary basis, seeking nothing at all in return,” they said. “While we were always willing to share our thoughts, we did not make or implement any type of policy, possess any authority over agency decisions, or direct government officials to take any actions… To the extent anyone thought our role was anything other than that, we don’t believe it was the result of anything we said or did.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-shadow-rulers-of-the-va/ar-BBLDicl?ocid=spartandhp
Hey Wilkie , who do fucking work for, the American taxpayers, that funds the VA, or are you a fucking lackey, shining fascist corporate elites ....................remember one thing..................
November 2018 cannot get here fast enough.......................we are voting.............
Think Confederate Monuments Are Racist? Consider Pioneer Monuments
by Cynthia Prescott
The Conversation
In San Francisco, there is an an 800-ton monument that retells California history, from the Spanish missions to American settlement. Several bronze sculptures and relief plaques depict American Indians, white miners, missionaries and settlers. A female figure symbolizing white culture stands atop a massive stone pillar.
The design of the “pioneer monument” was celebrated in newspapers across the country when it was erected in 1894. Today, however, activists argue that the monument – particularly its depiction of a Spanish missionary and Mexican “vaquero,” or cowboy, towering over an American Indian – is demeaning to American Indians.
Should the city take down part of this 125-year-old monument?
Many cities are removing or reinterpreting their Confederate monuments, with the understanding that they commemorate racism. But few Americans realize that pioneer monuments placed across the country are also racist.
https://truthout.org/articles/think-confederate-monuments-are-racist-consider-pioneer-monuments/
Hackers accessing PayPal via voicemail? Security expert says it's possible
Voicemail systems have had some of the same weaknesses for decades, and hackers could use those to break into PayPal and WhatsApp accounts
With just a simple script and a $40 virtual phone number, a hacker could automatically break into voicemail accounts at scale, and parlay that access into control over online accounts including WhatsApp or PayPal, or even track someone’s every move.
Martin Vigo, a Spanish hacker who works in mobile security, presented new research at the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas, demonstrating how easy it could be for a motivated attacker to break into phone voicemails, and how much more damaging that security breach could be than simply letting an attacker listen to messages.
Voicemails are still poorly secured, Vigo said, with many of the same weaknesses first documented more than 30 years ago largely unchanged in the back-ends of mobile carriers. All four major US carriers, for instance, have easily-guessable default pins protecting the inbox (most use the last few digits of the phone number the account is associated with, while one simply uses the same four digit code for every account).
Even for users who change their passwords, there’s little extra security. Most carriers limit protection to short numeric codes, with the minimum being just four digits; they don’t have any prevention against brute force attacks, letting hackers exhaustively try every possible code; and they even make brute force attacks easier by allowing callers to enter three pins at once, separated with a hash symbol.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/10/hackers-accessing-paypal-via-voicemail-security-expert-says-its-possible
And hows those voting machines doing................not much............they can still be hacked...........and they can even be owned by a Russian Firm, just my state of Maryland......................we need Paper Ballots.................
2006 Brett Kavanugh / Bybee Memo / Grassley does not want the National Archives to release
https://www.c-span.org/video/?192420-1/brett-kavanaugh-testifies-dc-circuit-confirmation-hearing-2006Bybee memo
https://supreme.findlaw.com/legal-commentary/the-torture-memo-by-judge-jay-s-bybee-that-haunted-alberto-gonzaless-confirmation-hearings.html
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a22551530/brett-kavanaugh-torture-george-w-bush-administration/
November 2018 cannot get here fast enough....................vote
Please call the senators on the Judaical Committee and demand that this be part of the record and the confirmation process of this Federalist Society (judge) that Grassley and the turtle are trying to suppress, what did Kavanugh say and do while in the Bush white house........the public has a RIGHT to KNOW...................
Did this nominee LIE to Durbin and Leahy...................they have been awaiting over ten years for a response, they sent a letter to this Federalist Society "guy" and still no response..................what the hell gives..................
(202) 224-3121
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/about/members
Actual farmer sues Devin Nunes for claiming to be a farmer on ballot
By Caroline Orr - August 10, 2018
Devin Nunes' constituents say he's forgotten about the farmers in his district and has no business calling himself one of them.
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) is not a farmer, but he likes to call himself one. Now, an actual farmer — who also happens to be one of Nunes’ constituents — is taking court action to stop Nunes from claiming to be something he’s not.
Paul Buxman, a California stone fruit farmer from the town of Dinuba, filed a petition with the Sacramento Superior Court asking the courts to remove the occupation “farmer” from Nunes’ description on the state’s ballots before this year’s midterm elections.
In California, candidates have the option of listing an occupation next to their name on the ballot. Nunes apparently decided that owning stake in a few wineries across the state qualifies him to be called a farmer, but Buxman isn’t having it.
“I don’t believe [he] has had any income from farming for at least 10 years,” Buxman told The Fresno Bee. “He has some interest in a few wineries, but he’s distanced himself from those and says he has no involvement in their day-to-day management.”
https://shareblue.com/devin-nunes-sued-farmer-ballot/
He should correctly put beside his name Traitor
A little-noticed Trump rule would give $2.5 billion tax cut to big bank fat cats
COMMON DREAMS - COMMENTARY
10 AUG 2018 AT 13:36 ET
As Wall Street banks continue to enjoy record profits thanks to President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax scam, Trump’s Treasury Department—headed by former Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin—quietly moved to hand big banks yet another major gift on Wednesday by hiding a $2.5 billion tax cut in the fine print of an “esoteric” new rule proposal (pdf).
At first glance, the Trump administration’s rule appeared to be little more than a mundane set of regulations aimed at providing owners of so-called pass-through businesses everything they “need to comply with the Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” as Reuters put it.
But Capital & Main journalist David Sirota decided to take the radical step of actually reading the proposal in its entirety, and he found that the White House’s rule also seeks to exclude banking from the “financial services” category—a move that would allow thousands of large banks to take advantage of the controversial tax cut for pass-through income included in Trump’s tax bill.
As they were hashing out the details of their tax bill behind closed doors, Sirota notes, Republican lawmakers included a provision that prohibited businesses in the “financial services” sector from qualifying for the tax cut in an effort to counter “assertions that the bill could enrich big banks.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/little-noticed-trump-rule-give-2-5-billion-tax-cut-big-bank-fat-cats/
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