Category Archives: Viva!

Coup From The Top?

All the dangerous rhetoric by the babbling Right is getting dangerous.  The hatchet job that Trump, some mindless Congresspeople and the Right wing news is doing on the very foundation of this republic is just screaming pathetic.

Seven months ago there was an article on the Alternet site about the chances of Trump trying a coup……

American democracy is in crisis. The election of Donald Trump feels like a state of emergency made normal.

Trump has threatened violence against his political enemies. He has made clear he does not believe in the norms and traditions of American democracy — unless they serve his interests. Trump and his advisers consider a free press to be enemies of his regime. Trump repeatedly lies and has a profoundly estranged relationship with empirical reality. He uses obvious and naked racism, nativism and bigotry to mobilize his voters and to disparage entire groups of people such as Latinos and Muslims

http://ift.tt/2BAWwfJ

I found the article interesting and included in a post that I was writing…..but the author did not foresee the whole picture…..the real story is so much more fascinating…….

Tensions between the White House and Robert Mueller’s investigative team appear to be on the rise, so much so that reporters asked President Trump on Sunday night whether he’s considering firing the special counsel. “No, I’m not,” he said, per CNN. But Trump added that his legal team is “very upset” with how Mueller obtained thousands of emails from the Trump transition team—the president’s lawyers think it was unlawful, but Mueller says it was all above-board. Either way, Trump says the emails will show nothing damning because there was “no collusion whatsoever” with Russia. Details and developments:

  • Cooperation wanes: The New York Times has a front-page look at the situation, observing that the “image of cooperation has begun to fracture” between Trump’s lawyers and Mueller as the inquiry digs ever deeper into Trump’s circle. The story notes that GOP Sen. John Cornyn over the weekend became the latest prominent Republican to suggest that Mueller’s team might be biased, thanks to now-public text messages.
  • Allegations of a ‘coup’: Fox News host Jesse Watters drew attention over the weekend by suggesting that those texts may be “proof the investigation was weaponized to destroy (Trump’s) presidency,” adding, “Now, if that’s true, we have a coup on our hands in America,” per Mediaite. Guest Kellyanne Conway, appearing with a chyron of “A Coup in America?” declared that “the fix was in against Donald Trump from the beginning.”
  • Charged language: The Washington Post looks at how Fox News hosts and guests have been leading the charge against Mueller with similar language. Another common theme is to compare his tactics to those of the KGB. The story also notes that GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida said on the House floor that “we are at risk of a coup d’etat in this country.”
  • It might be working: At Axios, Mike Allen suggests that the “rising conservative drumbeat” against Mueller is gaining more and more converts. As one source close to the White House puts it, “You’re starting to win over mainstream conservatives to the backlash over overreach.”
  • ‘Feedback loop’: An analysis at CNN by media writer Brian Stelter sees a “vicious circle” at play. “The TV hosts encourage Trump, then Trump supplies sound bites for their shows, and then the hosts are even more emboldened.”
  • Risky Mueller move? Mueller’s office has defended how it obtained the Trump transition emails from the General Services Administration, but Georgetown law professor Jonathan Turley argues in the Hill that it was “legally unprecedented and strategically reckless.” Turley warns that the move could come back to haunt Mueller in any later trial, if the investigation is found to have relied on contaminated evidence. (In the Times story cited earlier, legal experts disagree with the assertion that Mueller, who has wide leeway to obtain documents, did anything improper.)
  • Feeling confident: Trump is privately telling people that he expects to be exonerated relatively soon, reports CNN. The story, based on interviews with three dozen mostly anonymous sources, says Trump predicts he will have a letter from Mueller in a matter of weeks clearing him of any collusion. One person warned of a Trump “meltdown” if that doesn’t happen, which could lead to him firing Mueller.
  • Holder warning: Former Attorney General Eric Holder warned over the weekend that the president would be crossing an “ABSOLUTE RED LINE” by firing the special counsel. He called for mass protests if that happens, per the Hill.

Comparing the FBI to the KGB is ridiculous and insulting and Trump minions are playing a dangerous game……this all sounds like the groundwork being laid for martial law by Trump lackeys.

– Lebanese police violence at protest on Jerusalem

“I remember officers just stampeding people and just starting to beat people who were already on the floor, they were going after everyone,” said one witness. “They weren’t differentiating between people who were part of the protest and media.”

Witnesses and journalists also said that police told them they were not allowed to film or take photos. One journalist said that police fired a rubber bullet directly at him from less than five meters away, for which he was treated at a hospital. He said police hit journalists, knocked their cameras to the ground, and told them they were not allowed to photograph the protest. Another journalist said that a police officer hit her with a baton as she was trying to film. Demonstrators had gathered to protest the United States decision on December 6 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Abbas signs 22 international treaties to boost legal status of Palestine

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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed 22 agreements and international treaties that strengthen the legal status of the State of Palestine on a global scale.

These important agreements would make the State of Palestine a key partner in discussing and addressing the fundamental issues facing the whole world.

Leaf shedding as an anti-bacterial defense in Arabidopsis cauline leaves

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by O. Rahul Patharkar, Walter Gassmann, John C. Walker

Plants utilize an innate immune system to protect themselves from disease. While many molecular components of plant innate immunity resemble the innate immunity of animals, plants also have evolved a number of truly unique defense mechanisms, particularly at the physiological level. Plant’s flexible developmental program allows them the unique ability to simply produce new organs as needed, affording them the ability to replace damaged organs. Here we develop a system to study pathogen-triggered leaf abscission in Arabidopsis. Cauline leaves infected with the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae abscise as part of the defense mechanism. Pseudomonas syringae lacking a functional type III secretion system fail to elicit an abscission response, suggesting that the abscission response is a novel form of immunity triggered by effectors. HAESA/HAESA-like 2, INFLORESCENCE DEFICIENT IN ABSCISSION, and NEVERSHED are all required for pathogen-triggered abscission to occur. Additionally phytoalexin deficient 4, enhanced disease susceptibility 1, salicylic acid induction-deficient 2, and senescence-associated gene 101 plants with mutations in genes necessary for bacterial defense and salicylic acid signaling, and NahG transgenic plants with low levels of salicylic acid fail to abscise cauline leaves normally. Bacteria that physically contact abscission zones trigger a strong abscission response; however, long-distance signals are also sent from distal infected tissue to the abscission zone, alerting the abscission zone of looming danger. We propose a threshold model regulating cauline leaf defense where minor infections are handled by limiting bacterial growth, but when an infection is deemed out of control, cauline leaves are shed. Together with previous results, our findings suggest that salicylic acid may regulate both pathogen- and drought-triggered leaf abscission.

US outnumbered 14 to 1 as it vetoes UN vote on status of Jerusalem

Weak as water.

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Nikki Haley furious over resolution, describing it as an ‘insult’ and saying the US won’t be told where it can put its embassy

A UN security council resolution calling for the withdrawal of Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has been backed by every council member except the US, which used its veto.

The unanimity of the rest of the council was a stark rebuke to the Trump administration over its unilateral move earlier this month, which upended decades of international consensus.

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End of the smashed phone screen? Self-healing glass discovered by accident

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New type of polymer glass that can mend itself when pressed together is in development by University of Tokyo after a student discovered it

Japanese researchers say they have developed a new type of glass that can heal itself from cracks and breaks.

Glass made from a low weight polymer called “polyether-thioureas” can heal breaks when pressed together by hand without the need for high heat to melt the material.

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Panthers’ Jerry Richardson’s exit from ownership ranks is a sign of the times

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The Panthers are 10-4 and a team no one wants to face in January, but they’ve lost an owner in an era where the old harassment game is no longer played

When one of the NFL’s most stable and respected owners is forced to sell his team the rest of sports should know there is no room for creepy comments, lurid stares and strange requests to come to the owner’s suite. The harassment game, long accepted with knowing smiles and smarmy smirks, has been shut down. As hashtags embolden women to talk about the dignity that has been stripped from their lives, there are plenty of players, coaches, executives and owners holding their breath wondering if past crimes will catch up to them.

Related: NFL round-up: Patriots shock Steelers at the death while Eagles keep winning

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Scientists have beaten down the best climate denial argument | Dana Nuccitelli

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Clouds don’t act as a climate thermostat, and they’re not going to save us from global warming

Climate deniers have come up with a lot of arguments about why we shouldn’t worry about global warming – about 200 of them – but most are quite poor, contradictory, and easily debunked by consulting the peer-reviewed scientific literature. The cleverest climate contrarians settle on the least implausible argument – that equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS – how much a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will increase Earth’s surface temperature) is low, meaning that the planet will warm relatively slowly in response to human carbon pollution.

But they have to explain how that can be the case, because there are a lot of factors that amplify global warming. For example, a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, which is itself a greenhouse gas, adding further warming. Warming also melts ice, leaving Earth’s surface less reflective, absorbing more sunlight. There are a number of these amplifying ‘feedbacks,’ but few that would act to significantly slow global warming.

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