The Evening Blues - 10-9-20
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues and gospel group The Holmes Brothers. Enjoy!
The Holmes Brothers - NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
“In a dying civilization, political prestige is the reward not of the shrewdest politician, but of the man with the best bedside manner. It is the decoration conferred on mediocrity by ignorance.”
-- Eric Ambler
News and Opinion
Fed Lending Saved Corporate America. It Could Do the Same for Cities and States.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump slammed the door on the possibility of another Covid-19 relief package, announcing that his administration would withdraw from negotiations until after the election. While he’s since followed up with an offer to pass parts of the bill, the development has dire consequences for unemployed workers, struggling small businesses, and state and local governments — which are now staring into a fiscal abyss.
Faced with cratering revenues since the start of the pandemic, states have already cut billions from their public education budgets. More than 200,000 state and local government employees, many of whom are K-12 teachers, lost their jobs in September. Washington state is currently considering eliminating Medicaid coverage for all adult dental care. New Jersey has already halted plans to replace more than 300,000 unsafe lead service lines. At least 65 percent of U.S. cities plan to delay or cancel capital spending to fix roads, upgrade water systems, or make other infrastructure improvements, according to a survey by the National League of Cities. ...
There could be another way to stave off a devastating wave of austerity, according to a new report. Instead of slashing spending on health care or social services, governments could cut back on the money they send to Wall Street. In offering low-interest lending, the Federal Reserve would simply be extending the same benefit to public entities that it already offers to banks and private companies.
The advocacy group Action Center on Race and the Economy estimates that U.S. cities and states spend a cumulative $160 billion annually just on interest payment to banks and bondholders, thanks to high borrowing costs. If the Fed extended long-term, zero-interest loans to public borrowers, borrowers could refinance their debt and free up these funds for immediate needs, according to ACRE. While the central bank has so far leveraged its CARES Act lending power primarily in service of the investor class, there’s nothing stopping it from coming more forcefully to the rescue of cities and states.
There’s no silver bullet for soaring state revenue shortfalls, which could top $550 billion by the end of fiscal year 2022, according to a projection by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. But the savings from wiping out interest payments would amount to more than the $150 billion in direct aid sent to state and local governments through the first relief package. It’s also enough to pay for a host of progressive initiatives, including helping 13 million families avoid eviction by covering their rent for a year, according to the ACRE report.
Republicans Fear ‘Bloodbath’ As Trump Nukes Stimulus
Is it me, or does our national politics increasingly look like a bunch of decrepit, gibbering old farts in a nursing home sniping at each other?
Pelosi questions Trump's mental state and says Congress will discuss rules for removal
Democrats in the US Congress have announced a plan to create a commission to review whether Donald Trump is capable of carrying out his presidential duties or should face removal from office. The office of the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced a Friday press conference about the bill after she expressed concern that Trump, who is under treatment for coronavirus at the White House, is suffering a “disassociation from reality”.
The president has unleashed a barrage of erratic and self-contradictory tweets and declarations in recent days that have left staff scrambling and raised concerns over his stability.
In a zigzagging interview on the Fox Business channel on Thursday, his first since being hospitalised, Trump, 74, boasted: “I’m back because I am a perfect physical specimen and I’m extremely young. And so I’m lucky in that way.”
Pelosi, who is negotiating a Covid-19 economic stimulus plan, responded at her weekly press conference: “The plan isn’t for the president to say that he’s a perfect physical specimen. Specimen, maybe I can agree with that ... And young, he said he was young.” Trump “is, shall we say, in an altered state right now” and “the disassociation from reality would be funny if it weren’t so deadly,” the 80-year-old speaker added while wearing a mask.
Pelosi’s ‘Commission’ To Control Who Becomes President
‘Dangerously incompetent’: medical journal condemns Trump’s handling of pandemic
One of the world’s most prestigious medical journals has lambasted the Trump administration’s “dangerously incompetent” handling of the pandemic and called for them to be voted out of office, as US coronavirus cases continue to soar.
In an unprecedented move in its more than two centuries-long history, the New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial in which it said the current leadership had “recklessly squandered lives” and “largely claimed immunity for their actions”.
The article, published on Wednesday under the headline “Dying in a leadership vacuum”, said protections against the virus have been politicised in the US, stating: “Truth is neither liberal nor conservative.” It did not endorse a particular candidate in the presidential election that is less than a month away, but said America should not “abet” its current leaders by allowing them to stay in power.
“This election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative,” wrote the editors.
“When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.” ...
The journal is chiming in alongside Scientific American, which in September backed Democrat Joe Biden for the White House – marking the first time in the magazine’s 175-year history that it had endorsed a presidential candidate.
Republican senator says 'democracy isn't the objective' of US system
A top Republican senator has said that “democracy isn’t the objective” of America’s political system, sparking widespread outrage at a time when his party has been accused by Democrats of plotting voter suppression and questioning a peaceful transition of power in November’s election.
The Utah senator Mike Lee made the inflammatory declaration in an early morning tweet following Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate.
Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 8, 2020
“Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that,” he wrote, misspelling prosperity.
It followed a series of tweets he made during the debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris in which Lee claimed “We’re not a democracy” and questioned its role in US government.
The word “democracy” appears nowhere in the Constitution, perhaps because our form of government is not a democracy. It’s a constitutional republic. To me it matters. It should matter to anyone who worries about the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few.
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 8, 2020
Government is the official use of coercive force—nothing more and nothing less. The Constitution protects us by limiting the use of government force.
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) October 8, 2020
FBI Foils Right-Wing Plot to Kidnap Michigan Gov. Months After Trump Urged "Liberation" of State
LIBERATE MICHIGAN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020
Six people charged in plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer
Six people have been charged with a plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, that involves links to a rightwing militia group, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced. Another seven people were charged with plotting to target law enforcement and attack the state capitol building. The state attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced additional charges under Michigan’s anti-terrorism law. Seven men, all in custody, are linked to the militia group Wolverine Watchmen.
They are suspected of attempting to identify the homes of law enforcement officers to “target them, made threats of violence intended to instigate a civil war”. They also planned and trained for an operation to attack the Michigan capitol building and to kidnap government officials, including the governor, Nessel said.
Whitmer, a Democrat, told reporters on Thursday that she knew the job would be hard when she took the oath of office nearly two years ago but she “never could have imagined anything like this”. She thanked law enforcement, and said she hoped the criminal charges would “lead to convictions, bringing these sick and depraved men to justice”.
She said the pandemic ought to be a time for unity – saying “we are not one another’s enemy, the virus is our enemy” – but she accused Donald Trump of stoking division instead of bringing the American people together. ...
The FBI said in an affidavit that the plot to kidnap Whitmer had involved reaching out to members of a Michigan militia. The criminal complaint states that the alleged plot involved her second home in northern Michigan. “Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” an FBI agent wrote in the document. “The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.” The six men charged with plotting against Whitmer were arrested on Wednesday night and each faces up to life in prison. US attorney Andrew Birge called them “violent extremists”.
Who knew that Trump and Fox News' exhortations to "liberate Michigan" might lead to an attempt to harm the governor and lead a coup? Completely unforeseeable https://t.co/7YXzXSE49K
— Asha Rangappa (@AshaRangappa_) October 8, 2020
Interesting. Whatever one thinks of Trump, he is the commander-in-chief. Apparently, when he says "jump," the Pentagon does not ask "how high?" The Pentagon snickers, says, "we'll get right on that chief," and takes a snooze in its cozy chair until after the elections. Perhaps they want to think about whether the order to end a war "prematurely" in their view is an illegal order.
Trump's Afghanistan withdrawal announcement takes US officials by surprise
Donald Trump has announced on Twitter that he wants to bring all US troops home from Afghanistan by Christmas – a plan that came as a surprise to administration officials and which puts complicated peace negotiations in jeopardy.
Multiple officials told the Associated Press they had not been informed of any such deadline and military experts said it would be impossible to withdraw all 5,000 US troops in Afghanistan and dismantle the US military headquarters by the end of the year. They suggested the president’s claim was aimed at shifting the news cycle away from coronavirus coverage and that the Pentagon would not act on the order before the 3 November US election.
Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Why Turkey's Intervention Could Turn It into a "Proxy War"
Egregiously bad apples in Portland:
Portland: officers targeted medics with teargas and projectiles, report finds
Law enforcement officers in Portland, Oregon, specifically targeted medics with teargas and projectiles during summer protests in “indiscriminate attacks”, according to a new report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). The study is based on interviews and medical examinations involving health professionals, volunteer medics and emergency services personnel. It also found Portland police and fire personnel did not provide on-site medical care for injured protesters, and prevented ambulances from accessing the area of protests.
The PHR described an overall pattern that constituted “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” from Portland police and federal agents, violating several international compacts on the use of force. ...
The report covers June and July in the city, which has seen hundreds of protests in the months since the death of George Floyd, which were only briefly interrupted by Oregon’s wildfire emergency. This period included weeks in which federal agents participated in crowd control in the downtown area on the instructions of the Trump administration, and over the objections of local and state elected officials.
The document includes testimony from in-person observers, including a deputy fire chief, who say that “the number and severity of injuries” increased markedly after the arrival of federal agents, who were more likely to shoot “less lethal” ordnance like teargas canisters directly at protesters and medics. The report says this caused head injuries, severe lacerations, chemical burns and other injuries. It directly quotes a food service volunteer who was partially blinded by an impact round; a participant in the “wall of moms” protest who was struck in the forehead with a similar projectile, leading to severe bleeding; and medics who describe treating facial lacerations that cut to the bone. ...
Because police would not reliably allow medical access to the protest site, the report says, volunteer medics stepped in. It quotes several of them, including a neuroscientist, two former EMTs and a veteran combat medic, who say federal agents were deliberately targeting them as they treated injured protesters.
Facebook removes hundreds of fake profiles tied to pro-Trump group
Facebook has removed hundreds of fake profiles it has linked to the conservative group Turning Point USA for carrying out organized attacks on the site, including attempts to influence public conversations by flooding news articles with pro-Trump comments and misinformation.
The move was prompted by reporting last month in the Washington Post that found Turning Point Action, an affiliated pro-Trump group, was paying teenagers to post coordinated messages on the site, a violation of Facebook’s rules.
In comments on news articles, paid users cast doubt on mail-in ballots, praised Trump and spread misinformation about coronavirus. Facebook traced these profiles to an Arizona-based communications company called Rally Forge, which it says worked on behalf of Turning Point USA.
In a blogpost, Facebook said it had removed 276 fake accounts, including 200 Facebook accounts and 76 Instagram accounts. ...
These fake profiles commented most frequently on pages of the Washington Post, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and the New York Times, the report from Facebook said. The networks initially became active before the 2018 midterm elections and went dormant until June.
Activists at Amy Coney Barrett super-spreader event launch US bus tour
Two conservative activists who were at the White House’s Rose Garden event to announce the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court – now believed to be a super-spreader of the coronavirus – have launched a nationwide bus tour to promote the judge. The tour, led by a group called Concerned Women for America, has so far included stops in Georgia and South Carolina in which participants can be seen in close quarters and without wearing face masks.
In Georgia, the Republican senator Kelly Loeffler visited with the group – and was pictured without a mask – even though she attended the Rose Garden event and was in close contact with several participants who have since tested positive for Covid-19. Loeffler has said she tested negative for the virus, according to media reports.
Pictures also show the CWA president, Penny Nance, and Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin, in close contact with supporters after both were pictured attending the Rose Garden event. ...
The group’s website includes references to scripture and counts as its primary “concerns and goals” issues like; “protecting the unborn from abortion, fetal tissue experimentation, and embryonic research”; ending all forms of gambling; enshrining respect for “the distinctiveness of men and women”; and ending “sexual promiscuity” leading to the spread of HIV/Aids.
Donald Trump sacrifices babies to get well:
Covid drug given to Trump developed using cells derived from aborted fetus
One of the drugs taken by Donald Trump that he has touted as a potential “cure” for coronavirus was developed using human cells originally obtained from an elective abortion, a practice repeatedly denounced by the president and many of his supporters. The drug is a monoclonal antibody cocktail developed by Regeneron. The president received an 8-gram infusion under a “compassionate use” exemption when he was hospitalized over the weekend after testing positive for Covid-19. There is no cure for Covid-19, and the drug is not approved.
The stem cells used to develop the drug are known as HEK-293T cells, a line of cells used in laboratories. The cells were originally derived from an embryonic kidney after an elective abortion performed in the Netherlands in the 1970s.
The 2020 Republican party platform explicitly opposes embryonic stem cell research, and calls for a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Trump has already limited research using embryonic stem cells for ideological reasons. In 2019, his administration paused funding for government scientists to work on studies involving embryonic stem cells, affecting about $31m in research, according to Science Magazine. ...
The Susan B Anthony List, a leading US anti-abortion group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, the anti-abortion movement has weighed in on other Covid-19 drugs in development. At least five Covid-19 vaccine candidates used either HEK-293T cells or a proprietary line of cells developed by Janssen from a 1985 elective abortion.
The bully of the nursing home will not let any young whippersnapper with a computer shut his feed off:
Presidential debate schedule in disarray after Trump refuses virtual event
Donald Trump added more turbulence on Thursday to the US presidential race by refusing to participate in the next presidential debate with Joe Biden after it was changed to a virtual event to guard against the spread of Covid-19, prompting both campaigns to propose postponing it a week.
On Thursday morning, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) said that the next presidential debate, due on 15 October, would be a virtual affair, with the candidates appearing remotely. “In order to protect the health and safety of all, the second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which the candidates would participate from separate remote locations,” it said.
But Trump, who was hospitalized for three days after disclosing last Friday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, blasted the format change announced by the nonpartisan commission in charge of the debates and expressed concern that his microphone could be cut off at the event. Trump, who is still receiving Covid-19 treatment at the White House, also said he wanted to resume campaign rallies.
“I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate. That’s not what debating is all about,” Trump said in a nearly hour-long phone interview with Fox Business. “You sit behind a computer and do a debate – it’s ridiculous, and then they cut you off whenever they want.”
Harris refuses to oppose Trump’s planned 2020 election coup
Only one question mattered at the vice presidential debate held Wednesday night in Utah between Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence, and it was the last one posed by debate moderator Susan Page of USA Today. She asked Harris about the outcome of the election, “President Trump has several times refused to commit himself to a peaceful transfer of power after the election. If your ticket wins, and President Trump refuses to accept a peaceful transfer of power, what steps would you and Vice President Biden then take? What would happen next? You have two minutes.”
This is the question of questions. Indeed, it is the only serious issue that remains in an election where voting has already begun and is to conclude on November 3, only 27 days away. Trump has repeatedly threatened not to abide by the results of the voting, and the further he falls behind in the opinion polls, the more strident have become his threats. The moderator was asking Senator Harris, and by extension the entire Democratic Party, what would she and Biden be prepared to do in the event that President Trump defies the Constitution and seeks to remain in office after an electoral defeat—in effect, setting himself up as a dictator in defiance of the will of the American people.
Harris’s response was that the Democrats will do nothing. They will take no action to defend the Constitution or the democratic rights of the American people. ...
When finally compelled to answer the question of the election, she embarked on a description of the “coalition” behind the Democratic campaign, listing the large number of Republicans, including “seven members of President George W. Bush’s cabinet” and “over 500 generals” supporting the Biden-Harris ticket. She then appealed, “Here is what I would like to say to everybody. Vote. Please vote.”
But the question is what, given Trump’s announced intention not to honor the results of the vote which are likely to show a heavy defeat, will be done to enforce the vote? On this Harris was silent. ... It could not be clearer. Asked about what the Democrats would do if Trump refuses to accept the result of the election, Harris cited the support of Republicans and generals for Biden. So the decision as to whether Trump or Biden is to occupy the White House will not be made by the American people on Election Day, it will be made by right-wing politicians and the military.
Michelle Obama Can't Make Case for Candidate Offering NOTHING!
Experts Warn of Danger Posed by Armed Pro-Trump Poll Watchers
Following President Donald Trump's refusal last month to denounce white supremacists along with his longstanding pattern of undermining democratic norms—and in the wake of the FBI's interception of a plot by right-wing domestic terrorists to kidnap Michigan's Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow the state government—fears are mounting about the danger posed by far-right paramilitary groups heeding Trump's call to "go into the polls and watch very carefully."
Two weeks after Donald Trump Jr. took to social media in an attempt to recruit an "army for Trump's election security," and with early voting already underway, Republicans this week have begun dispatching thousands of volunteers to in-person voting locations and mail-in ballot drop boxes, part of a desperate "effort to find evidence to back up Trump's unsubstantiated complaints about widespread voter fraud," Reuters reported Thursday.
According to more than 20 officials involved in the effort, "the mission... is to capture photos and videos Republicans can use to support so-far unfounded claims that mail voting is riddled with chicanery, and to help their case if legal disputes erupt over the results of... the contest between Republican incumbent Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden."
But critics of the Trump campaign's operation—which revolves around baseless presumptions of fraudulent electoral activity committed by supporters of Democratic candidates—argued that the president's "call for his supporters to serve as self-appointed" poll-watchers "sounded more like an incitement to voter intimidation and violence than an endorsement of the role election observers play in protecting democratic norms."
Given the White House's alarming normalization of violence against political foes, voting rights experts, civic officials, and citizens are increasingly concerned about the negative consequences that could ensue if tensions escalate and the president's most militant supporters—white nationalist gangs, so-called "patriots" donning Confederate and Nazi regalia, and other heavily armed pro-Trump factions—follow his authoritarian cues.
Steven Gardiner, a scholar at the progressive think tank Political Research Associates, told The Guardian on Friday that "the militias will absolutely seize on" Trump's comments.
"The possibility of armed factions with military-style rifles showing up at polling places is very troubling," Gardiner added. ...
Gardiner told The Guardian that "the relationship between the militias and the current administration is call and response."
"It's not always clear who's leading the chant," he added. "Sometimes it's coming from the militias, sometimes it's coming from the president."
Another worrisome development is that gun sales nearly doubled between summer 2019 and 2020, meaning that the U.S. is further arming itself with "deadly weaponry [that] is increasingly finding its way onto the streets, borne by self-styled private militias, and culminating in violent clashes that have caused bloodshed in several U.S. cities," as The Guardian explained.
The New York Times estimated last month that the number of active militia members hovers around 20,000 people in 300 groups, with military veterans constituting one-fourth of those. But a new investigation by The Atlantic magazine into the Oath Keepers, one of the most prominent far-right paramilitary groups, revealed a list of nearly 25,000 current or former members, two-thirds of whom had military or law enforcement backgrounds, suggesting that the number of Americans with ties to extremist factions is larger.
Here's a link to a table detailing the massive 2019 massacre of animals by an agency of the government.
Trump's USDA Sued Over Program Allowing 'Horrific' Mass Slaughter of Native Wildlife
Days after federal data revealed taxpayers funded the killing of 1.2 million native animal species in 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services program was sued Thursday over what conservation advocates decry as a cruel and misguided annual extermination spree.
"Wildlife Services is infamous for the scope and cruelty of its killing campaigns across the nation," Chris Smith, southern Rockies wildlife advocate for WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement.
"To carry out such a horrific onslaught on native wildlife in the midst of a mass extinction event and a climate crisis, without any real knowledge of the impact," added Smith, "is utterly outrageous."
The lawsuit (pdf) was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico by WildEarth Guardians and accuses Wildlife Services (WS) of running afoul of various federal regulations stipulated by the National Environmental Policy Act, Council on Environmental Quality regulations, and Administrative Procedure Act.
According to the court filing, the program has failed to provide an Environmental Impact Statement on the program's impact on key ecosytems, nor has it provided timely supplemental analysis mandated by law. As such, the document states, WS is disregarding "new scientific publications on the ineffectiveness of lethal predator control and the negative cascading ecological consequences of removing keystone species from their native ecosystems," according to the filing.
WS purportedly exists "to resolve wildlife conflicts to allow people and wildlife to coexist." But Smith explains the agency's raison d'etre quite differently. "They are good at one thing—killing animals," Smith told Common Dreams, adding that the program is "still operating on data and science and ideas that are 20, 30, 40 years old."
The lawsuit explains WS in this way:
Every year, Wildlife Services—a program within the USDA—poisons, traps, and guns down several of our nation's most majestic animals, including wolves, bears, coyotes, and mountain lions in a futile attempt to save livestock and other "resources." Funded with millions of taxpayer dollars, and without modern scientific support, this program uses cruel and often archaic methods to capture and kill wildlife from their native ecosystems, largely at the behest of livestock producers. Across New Mexico, Wildlife Services uses fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to aerially shoot coyotes; body-gripping traps, neck snares and leg-hold traps to kill mountain lions, black bears, bobcats, badgers, coyotes, skunks, and swift and gray foxes; gas cartridges and poisons to exterminate coyotes, foxes, and prairie dogs in their dens; sodium cyanide M-44 devices to kill canines like foxes and coyotes; and other poisons to eliminate native birds like ravens. Family pets and federally-protected endangered and threatened species have been and will continue to be accidentally injured or killed by the agency's indiscriminate killing methods.
The latest annual tally of the animals killed by WS—including 1,258,738 native species— drew condemnation from WildEarth Guardians, with Samantha Bruegger, the group's Wildlife Coexistence Campaigner, saying in a statement Wednesday: "This mass slaughter is carried out in our backyards, on public lands, and in beloved parks; there is no limit to the program's reach."
The Trump administration's @USFWS today denied protections for wolverines, a rare species that lives in the snowpack of high alpine regions in the west, whose habitat is directly impacted by a warming world. Only 300 wolverines remain in the wild. https://t.co/J1KM2nBOij
— Earthjustice (@Earthjustice) October 8, 2020
Covid-19 lockdowns have improved global air quality, data shows
Around the world, Covid lockdowns have led to improvements in air pollution. In northern India, the Himalayas were visible in the distance for the first time in a generation. And during the first nine weeks of the UK lockdown, nitrogen dioxide along London’s roads decreased by an average of 31% compared with the pre-lockdown period.
'We're being massacred': Colombia accused of failing to stop murders of activists
Activists in Colombia have warned that they continue to face extermination despite the coronavirus pandemic, as Amnesty International accused the country’s government of doing little to protect them.
At least 223 social leaders – community activists defending human, environmental and land rights – have been murdered this year, according to local watchdog Indepaz. “We are being massacred, drop by drop,” said Danelly Estupiñán, who leads the Black Community’s Process (or PCN), an activist group dedicated to Afro-Colombian rights, in Buenaventura, an Afro-Colombian port city on the Pacific coast. Estupiñán has received countless death threats, been followed by suspicious men, and had her house broken into in recent months.
A new Amnesty International report entitled “Why Do They Want To Kill Us?” and published on Thursday, identified four areas of the country as particularly dangerous for activists: Buenaventura; the Amazonian province of Putumayo; the war-torn Catatumbo region on the Venezuelan border; and the Kubeo-Sikuani indigenous settlement in the eastern plains.
“For years, Colombia has been one of the world’s most dangerous countries for people who are defending human rights, territory, and natural resources,” Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty, said in a statement to media on Thursday. “Defenders will continue to die until the government effectively addresses structural issues such as the deep inequality and marginalization suffered by communities, ownership and control of the land, substitution of illicit crops, and justice,” Guevara-Rosas went on to say.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Covid ravages Navajo Nation as Trump makes election play for area
Teachers Left Out of School Reopening Discussion—Even on the Left
Bidens and Trumps, Foxes and Wolves
Tech Platform Censorship & The Great QAnon Facebook Purge
To Help Trump, PA GOP Undermines Its Own Vote-By-Mail Reforms
Federal Judge Bars Ohio From Limiting Ballot Sites to One Per County
Yanis Varoufakis: How Progressives Could Still Win the 21st Century
Citigroup Is Slapped with a $400 Million Fine for Doing Something So Bad It Can’t Be Spoken Out Loud
Fracking may be a bigger climate problem than we thought
Harris Did Not Need To Defend Fracking
As California Burns, Climate Activists Call on Gov. Gavin Newsom to Stop #FuelingTheFlames
David Sirota: Research Shows Lincoln Project Ads Are Total FAILURES And Pure Grift
A Little Night Music
The Holmes Brothers - Down In Virginia
The Holmes Brothers - You're the kind of Trouble
The Holmes Brothers - There's a train
The Holmes Brothers - Baby What You Want Me to Do
The Holmes Brothers - Everything Is Free
The Holmes Brothers - The Love You Save
The Holmes Brothers - Jesus on the Mainline
Holmes Brothers - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love And Understanding?
The Holmes Brothers - Give It Up
Buddy Guy, The Holmes Brothers, Pinetop Perkins
Comments
Good article on the Swedish gamble re COVID-19
From today's issue of the journal Science. I don't think there is a pay wall for COVID-19 articles.
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/09_october_2020/M...
evening roy...
thanks for the article. who knew that there was such an authoritarian streak in sweden's institutions?
Swedish novelists
and mystery writers point out Sweden's Nazi ties quite frequently.
Henning Mankell's Wallendar series, for one and the Girl With dragon tattoo for another.
NYCVG
interesting...
much of the media that i've consumed over the years portrays sweden as a fairly liberal/socialist kind of country as its defining feature. recently, like pretty much every other western country i've read about a resurgence of the far-right lunatic fringe, though.
Interesting to me too
I think it is complex. Acknowledging that I am guessing at best, I think there has long been a sort of social authoritarianism ("I am right because I am the Profesor.") that easily melded into Nazism. There was countervailing post WWII sexual freedom and the welfare state that dominated for a long time, but the old tendencies never disappeared. Recently there has been a lot of immigration. Some Swedes point out that in 30 years Sweden will be a Muslim nation and Swedes will be a minority (based on current birth rates), and this leads to disquiet. I suspect that you have the problem that the major political parties are neoliberal and worse neoliberal and, as in the US and elsewhere, if there is no party for working people, right wing populist parties gain favor.
yep...
the ascendancy of the professional class/technocrats sounds like a likely source of trouble. it is certainly a problem for the us, where the democrats serve the oligarchs and pander to the professional class while punching down at the working classes.
Hey Joe, thanks for the blues and have a great weekend!
I guess taking roid's turns a madman into a dangerous wild madman
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/fck-around-and-find-out-trump-dro...
Stay safe everyone and have a great weekend wherever you are. It's an Indian summer day here in Chitown, 80 and in shorts!
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
evening ggersh...
i guess trump thinks that all of iran quakes in their boots when he talks like a middle-school bully. i guess the iranians are counting the days until trump can be replaced by another geriatric, slightly less dangerous, israel toady.
it's been pretty nice here, too. temps in the low 70's during the day and in the 40's at night.
have a great weekend!
56,000+ new Covid USA today
up 2,000+ from yesterday.
Mitch Tweet about his not entering WH since August 8 spreading like wildfire
dum de dum dum
NYCVG
evening nycvg...
my guess is that fall is going to be a bad time for the spread of covid in the us. unfortunately, the pressure to reopen institutions has not coincided with pressure to plan measures appropriately to limit the spread.
have a great weekend!
Great weekend to you, too Joe
NYCVG
thanks! n/t
You got that absolutely right
I call it the "get out there and die for Wall Street" approach. China has less than 5000 deaths. Vietnam has 35. New Zealand has essentially eliminated COVID-19 and has reopened completely. Taiwan also has very few deaths. Some African countries have essentially avoided COVID-19 so far, mainly by using smart public health measures. The response of the US, the UK, Spain, France, Peru, Bolivia, Belgium, etc. has essentially been negligent homicide.
56,000 cases/day? Just give 'em what Trump got eh?
Thank You and Thank Jimmy Dore for nuking
Michelle Obama. She and Obama deserve any of the words Jimmy Dore has used for them.
I am only so embarrassed that I didn't understand Obama in the beginning. I would have to dig into my comments on TOP, which I don't know how to do anymore. It is such a shame. I fully was seduced and had fallen for Obama, even named my dog with the same name 'Sasha', because I liked Obama's little chubby daughter Sasha at that time. I think she was around eight to ten years old back then.
I don't remember anymore when I started to 'question myself' over my bias for Obama. I guess it was a tribal solidarity thingy, Obama seemingly having same tribal experiences with his parents, apparently similar to my son's experiences, I thought back then. That turned out to be total baloney. I understood that when I had read Obama's books. Obama had no clue about Africans and none about Europeans as well. One day I will dig back into my comment history on TOP. Though I think it is absolutely worthless to do so. I am just so angry at myself for having been such a naive dummy.
Thanks for the EB as always. In the words of the dear leader, you are mega and truely MAGA with your EB news collection. /ducking - heh but I mean it and it is true.
The bad apples can spin some fairytales, aww man OtC would say.
evening mimi...
nobody enjoys the thought that they have been taken in by a silver-tongued devil.
i was thinking about obama the other day and the apparent dichotomy between the person he seems to be and his often despicable, sometimes criminal, actions in office that all too frequently were crimes against humanity.
i was thinking that if he had not realized the ambition to attain high office, he might have remained a decent guy.
silver-tongued (coated) bad apples (devils)
I have to bookmark that.
Happy Friday ...
Bashar al-Assad has an intere4sting take on the POTUS, at MoA:
Why U.S. Elections Do Not Change Its Foreign Policies
Kim Iversen:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndT8KAHaFPE width:500 height:300]
Not sure what to say about this:
Have a nice night.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Bashar al Assad has the USA right
John Brennan, otoh, must be smoking some excellent weed.
NYCVG
They love the Beatles and John Lennon in Russia,
Navalny not so much.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Brennan tweets Lennon!?!?!?
What I read said Navalny peaked at a few % tops in polls/elections. Making him far far less popular than Guaido was. Yet to listen to Brennan and the media pundits you'd think he was actually popular, and a reasonable threat to leadership. Just like they did with Guaido.
My head about popped when I saw Brennan tweeting Lennon! But thanks, I know I am better off for knowing... hadn't seen it yet... LOL
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Navalny causes a lot of troubles - may be
one of those sugar-coated bad apples. No trust, despite our (German) media coverage he is getting.
What do I know? Nada.
evening azazello...
it looks like assad has america's number. whatever else he is, he is a pretty astute observer of our politics.
war criminal john brennan quoting john lennon's imagine is vomit-inducing. there ought to be a law.
have a great weekend!
Hey, joe!
What cold-blooded bastard decided 300 wolverines is plenty? Those influenced by the lumber industry, perhaps?
This part of Texas dodged Delta. Just light rain today, and it is windy outside.
Dore is on fire, huh?
Thanks for all you do!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
i guess former corporate executives don't relate to wolverines. perhaps if vultures were endangered we'd get some action.
glad to hear that you didn't get dumped on by delta.
dore has been on target and fairly prolific the last couple of weeks. he's had a couple of really outstanding segments lately, especially his interview with max blumenthal this week.
have a great weekend!
Hola, Joe! Watching HHJ's 'rally' today, me thinks
"something's rotten in Demark."
Not buying that HHJ is up 14-15 points, nationally. It doesn't make sense, from looking at his rallies, compared to OM's. (not that HHJ can't be ahead, at all)
See below.
Here's the link to the 'rally' video. I went through it quickly, so, maybe I missed something. If I did, someone please let me know.
Otherwise, the only long shot of the platform/podium showed several photographers, and a Secret Service detail.
BTW, Mr M and I make it our business to listen to the first 10-15 minutes of all rallies/events that we get wind of--although, we occasionally miss one. (last CNN townhall Biden held, didn't hear about until it was over)
Anyhoo, there is no comparison, regarding the crowd sizes.
Here's a photo from one of Dr Jill Biden's "drive-thru" or "drive-in" rallies, It was the photo with the most vehicles, that I could find at the time I searched.
The other Biden 'rally' photo I was able to find, was this,
For months, Mr M and I have been puzzled that this election cycle is the one and only time, that we can remember, that 'national polls' have been given more than a passing mention--since, only the electoral college vote matters--when it comes to winning an election.
Anyhoo, we've got to decide pretty soon whether it's worth 'our' time to request an absentee ballot, in order to cast a third party write-in vote. On the one hand, we think it's still important to make a statement, but, at this point, have very little faith in the voting process. Think I can request an absentee ballot online, so, that's handy. TN will only count mailed-in ballots received by November 3.
Nice weather, today. (except for a few sprinkles) Gonna have a rainy two days, starting tomorrow. Luckily, Hurricane Delta appears to be bypassing place in LA (Lower Alabama). For that matter, since she's now a Cat 2, we're expecting less rain, here, than we were bracing for yesterday.
Shoutout to folks in Louisiana--Godspeed. We're been there, done that, so sending beau coup positive vides their way, and hoping that they'll be spared a direct hit, and, will come out of this, safely.
Everyone have a nice weekend. Stay safe and well.
Mollie
"The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation."
~~Matt Taibbi, The American Press Is Destroying Itself, June 12, 2020
“If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.”
~~Will Rogers, Actor & Social Commentator (1856-1950)
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
evening mollie...
yeah, it's kind of hard to believe that a non-entity like biden/harris is that far up in the polls with so few demonstrations of voter enthusiasm to point to.
on the other hand, i suppose that it is possible to believe that trump is alienating voters and is that far down in the polls. this election has always trump's to lose as he has made it about himself.
what the truth of the polling is will only be evident when the results from the one poll that matters come in.
i hope that you are able to stay high and dry as delta heads your way. last i heard it will be considerably diminished by the time it hits tennessee. keeping my fingers crossed for you.
have a great weekend!
This election is basically Trump vs not-Trump
There are probably a few dozen people that are genuinely enthusiastic about Biden, and a similar number that haven't decided. The election will be about turnout, vote rigging and vote suppression.
Good evening Joe. thanks for the news and blues.
be well, have a good one and have a wonderful weekend.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
thanks, have a great weekend!
[Edited] Thanks, Joe--we're more than relieved
that we appear to be dodging Delta. From what I heard yesterday (unless the course changed in Louisiana)--it'll be hitting very close to where another one (can't remember which) just hit several weeks ago. Really gotta feel for those people.
Agree that OM's setting himself up for a loss--only ranting about the past.
Heard a HHJ XM Radio ad, today. Just so you know--everything is free from here on!
Seriously, I'm still trying to figure out 'why' HHJ's speech is so slurred--even in a pre-taped ad. Something's going on, aside from diminished mental acuity. (guess is could be drug-induced)
Will say this, we're being 'worried to death' by OM's so-called MAGA Army--I'm talking about GOTV door-knocking. And, from the notes/literature that we find (don't speak to any of them), he has both secular and religious-affiliated organizations on the ground. It appears that their enthusiasm didn't diminish over his contracting coronavirus (at least not around here). Go figure.
Will be SO glad when all of this is over!
[Edited: "we're" not "we've"]
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
That question posed to Senator Harris is interesting.
Have both sides gamed out the process if Trump barricades himself in the WH?
Trump's bellowing and howling for a few weeks would be irrelevant to the process. The states would certify the votes of their electors and submit them to the President of the Senate, Mike Pence, who is required to open the ballots and count the votes in the presence of the Senate and House. (Trump could order Pence to lose the ballots and scream sue me; then there would be no shortage of lawsuits.)
If the EC is tied, that could be the nightmare scenario. Less democratic than the EC. Each state House delegation gets one vote. DC gets none. As it currently stands, Republicans are in the majority of twenty-six House delegations. Democrats twenty-two, and two (MI and PA) are tied.
evening marie...
heh, if i were biden, i would tell trump this. if i win the election, i am gonna have the white house fumigated and exorcised on january 20. he can choose to be there or not when the fumigators start letting off the cannisters of poison.
@joe shikspack
OMG! Best idea I"ve heard ...by a mile.
I have visions of the Ghostbusters dudes doing it...
OTOH
As POTUS, Biden could order the Capitol Police, HHS stormtroopers, etc. to remove Trump from the WH and hold him in a jail cell awaiting an indictment for insurrection.
joe,
The contractor rebuilding my law office is a first cousin to Stevie Ray Vaughn.
Boy, does he have some family lore that is not widely shared!
One day, when you run out of blues artists ideas (Lol! A joke!), I know my guy would be thrilled with an eb that featured his beloved and awesome cuz!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
heh...
that's pretty cool. i was actually thinking about featuring one of his big brothers' bands sometime in the near future, if that would get it, it's already mostly in the can so to speak.
He would be thrilled
with that!
TLOML will make sure he sees the post.
Thanks so much!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
great sounds JS!
The Holmes Brothers are awesome... great stuff man! That guitar player is hot hot hot. T-bone I saw you did yesterday I think... he was as influential as it gets... From Chuck Berry to Steve Miller, and everything between... What a player he was, a real innovator.
You would think this admin would love vicious Wolverines. But I guess cutting the forests is more important. Otherwise you have to rake them.
The USFWS killin' programs are insanely crazy, leftover from the Bison extermination mentality. Still absolutely no understanding of an ecosystem and that these are cogs in the wheel. Strands in the web. Saving the parts is the first step to intelligent tinkering. Unfortunately that is not what we are doing.
Thanks for the sounds man! Have a good one!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
evening dystopian...
yep, i love the holmes brothers, too. i was lucky enough to see them a bunch of times. they are like the best street-corner doo-wop group you've ever heard with a hot blues trio behind them. the richness of their vocal harmonies just really stands out against the spareness of their arrangements.
heh, tidbit: t-bone walker and charlie christian had the same guitar teacher.
you would think that they would identify with wolverines, but wolverines are hard-working animals. the trump admin is full of soft-handed boardroom creatures who have never done a day of honest work in their lives, have contempt for those who do work and are accustomed to feeding on carrion, more like vultures.
have a great weekend!
Another week
Thanks for a week of hard work in bringing us all newz and bluez, Joe. You keep us busy trying to keep up! Plus, constantly giving light to musicians many of us are not familiar with, or not familiar with enough ...like The Holmes Brothers.
As a native Oregonian, I continue to learn and be amazed by
the history of racism and police violence in our state.
During the Vietnam war, the protests near Portland State [College] University were pitched battles. Nixon scheduled an appearance at the Convention Center to promote continuing the Vietnam War. The state in concert with many peace movement organizations counter-scheduled a week-long music festival near Estacada (esta-cay-duh) called Vortex 1. This successfully drew many protesters away, and provided the peace movements an opportunity to point out that they were indeed peaceful.
Vortex 1
During Occupy a young woman, Elizabeth Nichols, was pepper sprayed at extreme close range in the mouth. She filed suit but in the end was charged with resisting and paid fines.
Report from Oregon Live
Full account of trial
Further back at the founding of Oregon as a state, it was the only state which was formed constitutionally as a "white utopia, non-white exclusionary zone".
The New Yorker weekly podcast has an interesting piece on this including the views of a black man who has participated in Black Lives Matters in Portland.
The Battle Over Portland
Oct 9, 2020
Founding of Oregon as a white utopia
minutes 14 to 38 (the first half is about Anthony Fauci and the Pendemic)
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
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