"The border is seen by the government as a civil rights-free zone where U.S. citizens are being increasingly treated like criminals and subject to the exact same sort of degrading abuse as my brother’s girlfriend. This is something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, and this recent experience inspired me to do so today. Many of you have no idea how bad things already are."
"Recent reports suggest the US is considering a 'bloody nose' strike — highly visible but materially limited — on North Korea to make a statement, and that President Donald Trump's secretaries of state and defense are the key figures holding him back. Experts have panned the idea of a strike on North Korea with near unanimity, but the Trump administration has consistently touted the use of force as a potential tool."
"The worsitude comes in the flimsiest but all too familiar of forms: a yellow sticky note, spotted in an Associated Press photo from July, at the agency’s headquarters at Diamond Head, bearing a password and stuck to a computer screen. While there’s a press photographer in the room, obviously. Richard Rapoza, a spokesman for HI-EMA, told Hawaii News Now that the password is authentic and was actually used for an 'internal application.'"
"The strategy, the first such document to be issued by the Pentagon in roughly a decade, represented an historic shift from the ostensible justification for US global militarism for nearly two decades: the so-called war on terrorism. 'Great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus of US national security,' Mattis said in his speech, which accompanied the release of an 11-page declassified document outlining the National Defense Strategy in broad terms. A lengthier classified version was submitted to the US Congress, which includes the Pentagon’s detailed proposals for a massive increase in military spending."
"Secretary of State Rex Tillerson blamed both Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and Russia for carrying out a purported new chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta. In the same sentence Tillerson leveled the accusation against Russia, while simultaneously pointing the finger at Assad, [thus admitting] that he really doesn't know much at all about 'whoever conducted the attacks'."
"American forces went to Syria with the declared objective of pushing the ISIS terror gang out of territory it had seized there. This has been accomplished. It is an ideal moment for the U.S. to declare victory and depart. That, however, would be hauling down our flag. By Roosevelt’s logic — and evidently Tillerson’s — American soldiers should not be withdrawn from any country where they have ever been deployed."
"Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan: This trifecta of semi-permanent US military engagements reflects the extraordinary power of the Pentagon to sway even a president who had made opposition to such policies a central element of his campaign."
"On both English and Japanese social media, Coincheck promised users it would provide full details in due course, while in the meantime apologizing for the abrupt cut to services. Notably, Coincheck is not registered with Japan’s Financial Services Authority - a regulator responsible for overseeing exchanges in the country - unlike several other prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, such as bitFlyer and Quoine."
"A former personal assistant to Goldman Sachs co-president David Solomon has been indicted in federal court for allegedly taking hundreds of bottles of wine worth an estimated $1.2 million from his boss' Manhattan cellar, and reselling them. One of his tasks was accepting wine deliveries at the finance executive's Manhattan apartment, and then transporting them to Solomon's East Hamptons house. According to the indictment, for a period of at least two years, De-Meyer sold hundreds of the bottles to an unnamed wine dealer based in North Carolina."
"Several major Indian banks have suspended the accounts of top Bitcoin exchanges in India. State Bank of India, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Yes Bank cited suspicious payments in their decisions. The move comes after tax authorities sent notices to cryptocurrency investors warning that they must pay capital gains on their income from the virtual currency. For the few accounts still open, the banks have asked for more collateral, and have capped cash withdrawals."