5: Real Stories from This Month That Are Too Weird to Be Believed
We’re living in a bad cartoon.
It’s been brewing for a while: a Trump presidency was a punchline on The Simpsons; it was prefigured in 1989’s Back to the Future Part II; it was always a warning, a piece of unsubtle and un-nuanced satire. The absolute worst-case scenario, the dumbest thing that could possibly happen.
Late last year, Glamour magazine named Bono – Bono – one of its Women of the Year. (Bono, for the record, is not a woman.) Surely that was the high-water mark; surely nothing as momentously dumb as that could ever happen again. Of course it could. Reality is now always, at every point, exactly as stupid as it’s possible to conceive of it being.
Last week, Donald Trump Junior attempted to rebuff accusations that his father’s presidential campaign was willing to collude with the Russian government by publishing emails that demonstrated how his father’s presidential campaign was willing to collude with the Russian government. He then hired a layer best known for defending mob bosses.
Vice News
4: GOP Budget Redistributes Money to the Rich & Helps Make U.S. a “Police State”
On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House Budget Committee approved its 2018 budget resolution. The budget aims to rewrite the tax code to favor the wealthy and to slash funding for Medicare and Medicaid. It would also add another $30 billion to Trump’s record-setting $668 billion request for Pentagon spending. The budget faces opposition from both moderate and conservative Republicans. We speak with David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and founder of DCReport.org.
Democracy Now
3: Qatar says cyberattack ‘originated from the UAE’
Qatar’s Ministry of Interior say experts now have evidence showing that the cyberattack on the country’s official media originated from the United Arab Emirates.
During a news conference in Doha on Thursday, officials said the planning for the hacking of Qatar News Agency (QNA) started as early as April.
Investigators also reportedly traced the IP (internet protocol) address linked to the hacking to the UAE.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Captain Othman Salem al-Hamoud said that the level and the quality of the hacking was so professional that it had to have “state resources” behind it.
Aljazeera
2: CAMEROONIAN TROOPS TORTURED AND KILLED PRISONERS AT BASE USED FOR U.S. DRONE SURVEILLANCE
TROOPS IN THE West African nation of Cameroon have tortured prisoners at a remote military base that is also used by U.S. personnel and private contractors for drone surveillance and training missions.
As the U.S. military has fortified the Cameroonian site, known as Salak, and supported the elite local troops based there, the outpost has become the scene of illegal imprisonment, brutal torture, and even killings, according to a new investigation by The Intercept and the Goldsmiths, University of London-based research firm Forensic Architecture, based on extensive research by Amnesty International. Nearly 60 victims held at Salak described to Amnesty International how they were subjected to water torture, beaten with electric cables and boards, or tied and suspended with ropes, among other abuses.
The Intercept
1: Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park, dies of suspected suicide at age 41
Police have confirmed that Chester Bennington, the lead singer of band Linkin Park, has died.
His death at his private residence in Palos Verdes Estates in Los Angeles County at approximately 9am Thursday morning was confirmed by the coroner and is being treated as a suspected suicide.
The Guardian
