Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Josh Marshall: "There Is No 'Bipartisan Path'" (TPM)
So I'm quite skeptical of all of this. There's no 'bipartisan path' in effect now. What I do think there's a chance of is that Democrats can use his desire to be loved and adored - or at least not so wildly hated - to cut deals that drive further wedges between him and his party and thus set them up for more internal chaos and a worse 2018 midterm election.
Henry Rollins: Thankfully, Americans Can Still Cut the Partisan Crap and Get Things Done (LA Weekly)
Can Trump handle any of the challenges he currently faces? Of course not. But thankfully, those who came before us realized that checked power cuts down on the potential danger of only one person in charge of everything. It's time for all senators and representatives to act their age and not the number of years before their next election campaign.
David Roberts: politics enters the realm of farce (Vox)
Climate denial is less credible, but more powerful, than ever.
Lee Moran: "Bill Maher: It's An 'Inconvenient Truth' That Climate Change Deniers' Homes Are In Irma's Path" (Huffington Post)
"I'm not gloating."
Hadley Freeman: My interview with James Cameron prompted outrage - but is Wonder Woman worth the fuss? (The Guardian)
Look, I liked Wonder Woman. You'd have to be as heartless as the Terminator not to enjoy it, and I'm glad that if Hollywood's focus is now superheroes, then someone finally got round to making a movie about the one well-known female superhero. But I can also say that a movie in which an objectively gorgeous woman, played by a former Miss Israel, kicks ass in her underwear isn't exactly breaking down the barriers in terms of representations of women on screen.
This is how your world could end (The Guardian)
In an extract from his book Ends of the World, Peter Brannen examines mass extinction events and the catastrophic outcome of rising temperatures for all the world's population.
Jonathan Jones: Is it time for the arts to start saying no to oil money? (The Guardian)
An artist has given away part of his winnings to protest against BP's role in climate change. The company's money has helped an unfashionable artform, but what's at stake is far more important.
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Presenting
Michael Egan
answered:
has returned to semi-retired status.
In memory.
Reader Suggestion
Michelle in AZ
Bonus Links
Jeannie the Teed-Off Temp
from Marc Perkel
Patriot Act
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
A GOOD BIRD OR A BAD BIRD?
'LIBERAL DUNG'.
ANN-THRAX IS BORED.
"IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT AND I FEEL FINE!"
GO AWAY ASSHOLE.
A LETTER FROM PYONGYANG
WHO IS TO BLAME?
Visit JD's site - Kitty Litter Music
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
This is the front page of yesterday's Sunday LA Times - notice anything? Like no headlines, no news - just a freaking full-page ad.
Way to go, Tronc. Glad to see your commitment to news is unwavering.
Variety Special Writing Emmy
Samantha Bee
"This is exciting!" Samantha Bee said on stage, picking up her TBS late night franchise's very first Emmy win: Best Variety Special Writing, at tonight's Creative Arts ceremony. Bee won for her Not The White House Correspondents Dinner.
Backstage, Bee got asked for the hundredth time if Trumpworld is a late-night gold mine. And, once again she answered that as a citizen she would prefer to have less material.
In January, Bee announced her safe haven for Hollywood celebrities at an alt-White House Correspondents Dinner to be held the same night the White House Correspondents Association was scheduled to host its annual presidential roast/Hollywood petting zoo in Washington. In so doing, she robbed the correspondents association of its most obvious Plan B for its annual scholarship fundraiser, when Trump announced he was giving it a pass.
Asked back stage tonight to pick her fave late night show - really - she diplomatically noted that a lot of the people who work on her show cut their teeth on Comedy Central's The Daily Show.
And, despite tonight's Emmy love, Bee said no chance she will reconsider and do a second Not The White House Correspondents Dinner. It would be redundant, she noted.
Samantha Bee
Man With An Opinion
George Clooney
"Steve Bannon is a failed f-ing screenwriter, and if you've ever read [his] screenplay, it's unbelievable. Now, if he'd somehow managed miraculously to get that thing produced, he'd still be in Hollywood, still making movies and licking my a- to get me to do one of his stupid-a- screenplays," Clooney said, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Entertainment Weekly noted that before Bannon joined right-wing news site Brietbart, he worked in Hollywood as a producer.
"I like picking fights," Clooney said, according to EW. "I like that Breitbart News wants to have my head. I'd be ashamed 10 years from now if those weaselly little putzes, whose voices are getting a lot higher every week as this presidency starts to look worse and worse weren't still [after me]"
Bannon is scheduled to appear on 60 Minutes, according to Entertainment Weekly. It will be his first televised interview since he left the White House in August.
George Clooney
Del Toro Wins Top Prize
Venice Film Festival
Mexican director Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water", a dark fairy tale in which a mute cleaning lady falls in love with an aquatic creature, won the Golden Lion award for best film at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday.
The film beat contenders including George Clooney's "Suburbicon" and Alexander Payne's "Downsizing" at the end of a 10-day, high-quality and star-studded movie marathon that critics said showed Venice was now on an equal footing with the widely revered Cannes film festival.
"As a Mexican, I want to say this is a first for a Mexican storyteller so I want to dedicate and give the prize to every young Mexican film-maker or Latin American film-maker that is dreaming to do something in the fantastic genre, as a fairytale, as a parable, and is faced with a lot of people saying it can't be done. It can," del Toro said.
The runner-up Grand Jury prize went to family tragedy "Foxtrot" by Israel's Samuel Maoz, while France's Xavier Legrand was picked as best director for his divorce drama "Jusqu'a la Garde" (Custody).
Charlotte Rampling received the best actress award for her performance in Italian film "Hannah", while Palestinian Kamel El Basha took the best actor prize for his role in "The Insult".
Venice Film Festival
Democrat Slams Voting Restriction Efforts
Voter Fraud Probe
A Democratic member of President-for-now Donald Trump's (R-Crooked) commission to investigate voter fraud issued some of the strongest criticism yet from within the panel on efforts to make it more difficult to vote.
In a lengthy statement to the commission, Alan King, a Democratic probate judge in Alabama, criticized overzealous efforts to purge people from the voter rolls. In his statement, King wrote that while there may be some people who voted twice, there were thousands more who were removed from the rolls for no reason or had their vote suppressed. King won't be attending the panel's Tuesday meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire, because of a scheduling conflict, he told commission organizers.
"The reality is that the less affluent in our society are more prone to move and more prone to have a diminished economic position in life, just to survive. But that does not mean that officials in government should 'game the system' to deprive the less affluent from voting, simply because they may have moved from one election to another only to be stricken from the active voter list," he wrote.
This is about protecting the affluent. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that those that are affluent have a more stable type of residential situation and home life. Alan King, Alabama probate judge
King expanded on his statement in an interview with HuffPost, saying he saw aggressive voter purging as a way of disenfranchising the poor and less affluent.
Voter Fraud Probe
Worked To Kill Rule Protecting Victims Of Data Breaches
Equifax
If you want to know if you were one of the 143 million people whose data was breached in a hack of Equifax's data, the company has a website you can use to find out - but there appears to be a catch To check, you have to agree to give up your legal right to sue the company for damages. The outrage that clause has now generated could complicate the company's efforts - backed by Republican lawmakers - to block an imminent rule that would ban companies from forcing customers to agree to such provisions.
On Friday, social media users spotlighted fine print on Equifax's website that appears to force users to agree to waive their class action rights if they use the company's website to see if their personal data was exposed by the recent hack. It is precisely the kind of arbitration clause that a pending Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) rule is designed to outlaw - if Republicans and the Trump administration allow it to go into effect as scheduled later this month.
Federal documents reviewed by International Business Times show that in response to that 2016 rule, the Consumer Data Industry Association (CDIA) - which says it is "the trade association which represents Equifax" - pressed regulators to back off the proposed prohibitions, saying the regulations would subject data companies to tough penalties if during a class action suit they were found to have broken the law.
In one section of the letter, CDIA declares that federal regulators "should exempt from its arbitration rule class action claims against providers of credit monitoring products." The letter asserted that allowing customers to sue companies "would not serve the public interest or the public good" because it could subject the companies to "extraordinary and draconian civil liability provisions" under current law. In another section of the letter, Equifax's lobbying group says that a rule blocking companies from forcing their customers to waive class action rights would expose credit agencies "to unmanageable class action liability that could result in full disgorgement of revenues" if companies are found to have illegally harmed their customers.
Equifax's lobbying group argued against the prohibition even as it acknowledged that a 2015 government study found "that credit reporting constituted one of the four largest product areas for class action relief" for consumers. Consumer groups countered the claims of CDIA and other rule opponents by saying the ability to file suit is necessary to protect Americans' legal rights.
Equifax
Have Skyrocketed Since 2002
Heroin Deaths
The U.S. is losing more Americans lives to drugs every year than it did in the Vietnam war, the latest government figures show.
The number of heroin users spiked 230 percent from 404,000 users in 2002 to 948,000 in 2016, according to a new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Meanwhile, the number of heroin deaths has increased by 630 percent, from 2,089 in 2002 to an estimated 13,219 in 2016, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The U.S. saw more than 50,000 drug overdose deaths in 2015 --most of them related to opioids -- which is about the same number of Americans lost in the Vietnam war.
Data from the CDC suggest the number of deaths surpassed 60,000 in 2016 and could continue its trend this year. The report found 11.8 million people nationwide misused opioids last year, with 11.5 million misusing prescribed opioids, including Hydrocodone, Fentanyl, Oxycodone.
"Heroin is less expensive than prescription opioids, partially explaining the increase in heroin use," Sebastian Seiguer, CEO of emocha, told International Business Times.
Heroin Deaths
Collapses
Trift Glacier
Part of the Swiss alpine glacier Trift in the country's south collapsed Sunday, but caused no damage or casualties and residents evacuated from the area can return home, police in Valais canton said.
More than 220 people living in the ski resort of Saas-Fee had to leave their homes on Saturday as authorities feared a collapse of the glacier could trigger an ice avalanche which could reach the village.
The lower part of the glacier collapsed early Sunday but did not reach the houses, allowing residents to return and for a local road to reopen, though hiking trails remain closed, police said in a statement.
Geologists had recently noticed significant movement along the "tongue" of the Trift glacier, up to 130 centimetres (50 inches) in a single day, local authorities said.
The glacier had been under observation since October 2014, when the area was closed for three weeks. With a return to colder temperatures, the situation stabilised and the access ban was lifted.
Trift Glacier
Replacement To Cost $40 Million
Highway 1
A plan to build a road over a massive landslide that closed the world-famous scenic California coastal highway leading to Big Sur will cost about $40 million, state officials said.
The Department of Transportation announced Friday that Highway 1 could reopen by late summer next year, but the timeline for rebuilding will depend on this winter's weather.
Caltrans says the replacement road will be realigned across the slide and buttressed with embankments, berms, rock and other supports.
The Monterey Herald reports the area remains unstable and that in July Caltrans called the slide "ongoing and still active."
Highway 1
Weekend Box Office
'It'
The Stephen King adaptation from New Line and Warner Bros. shattered records over the weekend earning $117.2 million from 4,103 locations according to studio estimates on Sunday.
Not only is "It" now the largest ever opening for a horror movie and the largest September opening of all time, the film more than doubled the earnings of the previous record holders. Before this weekend "Paranormal Activity 3" had the biggest horror opening with $52.6 million from 2011, and the highest September debut was "Hotel Transylvania 2's" $48.5 million in 2015.
With no discernable competition, save for the counter programmed opening of the Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy "Home Again," which came in a very distant second with $9 million, "It" was able to dominate screens and show times at major movie theaters.
The overwhelming dominance of "It" made the rest of the charts look downright anemic. In third place was "The Hitman's Bodyguard," with $4.9 million, "Annabelle: Creation" took fourth with $4 million, and "Wind River" rounded out the top five with $3.2 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "It," $117.2 million ($62 million international).
2."Home Again," $9 million ($955,000 international).
3."The Hitman's Bodyguard," $4.9 million ($7.9 million international).
4."Annabelle: Creation," $4 million ($8.6 million international).
5."Wind River," $3.2 million ($1.2 million international).
6."Leap!" $2.5 million.
7."Spider-Man: Homecoming," $2 million ($71.8 million international).
8."Dunkirk," $2 million ($13.5 million international).
9."Logan Lucky," $1.8 million ($1.7 million international).
10."The Emoji Movie," $1.1 million ($5.7 million international)
'It'
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