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From The Reporter's Notebook
Pete Lanteri, the organizer of the citizen surveillance group "Counter Jade Helm," has been portraying himself in interviews as someone who doesn't tolerate the tin foil hat set. Yet on his own Facebook page he posted what he said was a friend's intel about suspicious activity outside a Texas Wal-Mart, playing right into one of the wildest "Jade Helm 15" conspiracy theories.
Agree or Disagree?
Josh Marshall believes that we’ve entered a golden age of the Obama presidency, in which he is pushing for his own policy agenda and no longer feels obligated to cater to obstructionist Republicans. He’s finally become the Obama his supporters always wanted.
BUZZING: Today in the Hive
From a TPM Prime member: "Analysts have been warning that the military and policy elite in Russia have been lowering the threshold for the use of nucs. The Soviet Union was a strong state with nuclear weapons; Russia is a weak state with nuclear weapons. From Moscow's perspective, the payoff matrix has changed. Ukraine serves as a warning to others: NATO can't save you. By chewing on the margins of Western Europe, Russia is getting closer to interfering with NATO member states, and potentially creating a serious crisis within the alliance (a crisis that could also arise on the eastern edge, thanks to Greece and Turkey). The scary thing is that Putin isn't part of the extreme hardline. There are scarier people even in his own government."
Related: Josh Marshall on the Soviet Union and revisionist history.
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What We're Reading
Prozac in America's wastewater is making birds fat and shrimp reckless. (Quartz)
Greece's other crisis: refugees. (Al Jazeera)
The black comedy of India's justice system. (The New Republic)
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