Evening Blues Preview 8-28-15
This evening's music features one of the Three Kings of the blues guitar, Albert King.
Here are some stories from tonight's posting...
AP Files Suit For FBI's Refusal To Come Clean on 'Fake Reporter' Operations
Following public outrage expressed when it was first discovered last year, the Associated Press took legal action against the Department of Justice on Thursday for the FBI's failure to come clean about details surrounding its decision to impersonate an AP reporter as part of a covert investigation.
Along with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), AP filed the suit after the DOJ repeatedly refused to respect open records requests for documents related to the case.
The lawsuit argues that AP and the Reporters Committee "are statutorily entitled to disclosure of these records, which they seek so that they may inform the public about the nature and extent of the FBI’s impersonation of journalists and news organizations. Defendants have improperly withheld the records requested by Plaintiffs in violation of the law and in opposition to the public’s strong interest in obtaining information regarding a law enforcement practice that undermines both the credibility and independence of the news media."
As the RCFP recounts:
The lawsuit stems from an FBI operation in 2007, during which agents created and published a fake AP news story in order to trick a criminal suspect into downloading surveillance software onto his computer, software that enabled the Bureau to track the suspect's location.
When the FBI’s impersonation of the AP came to light in October of 2014, the Reporters Committee and 25 news organizations immediately sent a letter to the attorney general and FBI director calling it "unacceptable." AP also wrote to the attorney general protesting the FBI’s use of a fabricated AP news story "in the strongest possible terms."
As Common Dreams reported at the time, FBI Director James Comey defended the agency's action. "That technique was proper and appropriate under Justice Department and [FBI] guidelines at the time," he said last year. "Today, the use of such an unusual technique would probably require higher level approvals than in 2007, but it would still be lawful and, in a rare case, appropriate."
6 US Prisons May Soon House Guantanamo Detainees
In the coming weeks, the White House is expected to send Congress a final plan to "safely and responsibly" move dozens of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay to military and, possibly, federal prisons in the United States.
The move is part of President Barack Obama's pledge to shutter the 13-year-old detention facility, located on a remote part of the US Naval base in Cuba, before he leaves office. (The closing of Guantanamo would in some ways be symbolic; in 2011, Obama signed an executive order that made indefinite detention the law of the land.) Already, the plan has been met by fierce opposition by Republican lawmakers in Kansas and South Carolina, two states that are in the running to house detainees at military prisons located at Fort Leavenworth and the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston.
"A small team of DOD officials will travel to relevant facilities to assess those facilities, identifying the changes required to make those facilities suitable to house law-of-war detainees, to estimate the costs in making the changes necessary, and to estimate costs to operate the facilities thereafter," Ross said.
There are 116 detainees still being held at Guantanamo, 52 of whom have been cleared for release or transfer. The remainder includes so-called "forever prisoners" — those too dangerous to release, yet too difficult to prosecute before military commissions — and high-value detainees, like self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators, who have been targeted for prosecution for war crimes. ...
A GAO report, which was based on site visits to Guantanamo and DOD prisons, along with interviews the office conducted with Defense and Justice Department officials, identified six military facilities where detainees could be held: Naval Consolidated Brig in Chesapeake, Virginia; Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston; Naval Consolidated Brig in Miramar, California; Midwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; the Northwest Joint Regional Correctional Facility in Washington state; and the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.
'I have become a body without a soul': 13 years detained in Guantánamo
Zaher Hamdoun is a 36-year-old Yemeni man who has been detained in Guantánamo without charge since he was 22, one of 116 prisoners still detained there six years after Obama promised to close the facility. After I visited him earlier this summer, he followed up with a letter filled with questions.
... Will Obama’s conscience weigh on him when he remembers that tens of human beings who have fathers, mothers, wives and children have been waiting here for over 13 years, and some of them died before even seeing their loved ones again? Will his conscience weigh on him and make him finally put an end to this matter? Or are we going to remain the victims of political conflicts, which we have nothing to do with?
At the rate prisoners reviews are going, the administration will not finish by the time Obama leaves office. Of those reviewed, most have been approved for transfer, but they continue to languish. They’ve been added to the administration’s long list of people waiting for release, most for years. ...
I have become a body without a soul. I breathe, eat and drink, but I don’t belong to the world of living creatures. I rather belong to another world, a world that is buried in a grave called Guantánamo. I fall asleep and then wake up to realize that my soul and my thoughts belong to that world I watch on television, or read about in books. That is all I can say about the ordeal I’ve been enduring.
Saudi Arabia's Troops Have Crossed Into Yemen for the First Time
Saudi forces have reportedly crossed the border into northern Yemen near a site where Houthi rebels have launched shelling attacks toward the kingdom.
The incursion marks the first time that Saudi Arabia's troops have entered Yemen since a Saudi-led coalition began an air campaign in March against the Houthis, who captured large swaths of Yemen earlier this year.
Footage showing the troops on the Yemeni side of the border with the Saudi province of Jizan emerged on Wednesday a day after authorities in Riyadh said a battle for the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital of Sanaa was imminent.
Forces aligned against the Houthis and their allied loyalists of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country's former president, have made significant gains in recent weeks, expelling the rebels from the Southern port of Aden and pushing north toward strategic cities like Taiz, Yemen's third largest.
While Emirati special forces have reportedly taken part in some fighting in Yemen's south, Saudi soldiers have not, and the kingdom's commanders appeared loath to send their troops into conflict areas. Houthi rebels have repeatedly hit and in some cases killed Saudi forces guarding the border, however, and in one instance documented by a pro-Houthi television station, appeared to cross into Saudi territory.
Massive Protests Call for President to Resign as Corruption Scandal Hits Guatemala
The administration of Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina has continued to waver. Following the arrest of the country's former vice president, and the filing of charges against Perez Molina, eight more members of the president's cabinet announced their resignations. Meanwhile, thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand Perez Molina's resignation.
Hundreds of businesses and schools across Guatemala chose to close or suspend classes on Thursday in solidarity with the movement demanding the president's resignation. The demands come after a UN Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala connected the president to a corruption ring within the Presidential Palace.
As of Thursday afternoon, the president had not been seen in over 72 hours.
Shock Doctrine: A Look at the Mass Privatization of NOLA Schools in Storm’s Wake & Its Effects Today
When the Bank Robs You: Wells Fargo Contractors Allegedly Stole Family Heirlooms Rescued From Nazis
The few remaining defenders of the Obama administration’s failure to prosecute the executives who helped cause the 2008 financial crisis argue that the bankers’ actions were unethical but not criminal. President Obama himself has made this claim: “Some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street … wasn’t illegal,” he told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes in December 2011.
The president might want to take this up with David Adier, who says he was victimized by Wells Fargo breaking and entering into his family’s home in Morris Township, New Jersey, and then committing property damage and theft. Burglary is a felony subject to prison time — if anybody but a bank does it.
Adier’s case is doubly disturbing because of what was taken: items his father retrieved from his family’s apartment in France before fleeing the Nazis in 1940, including a Kiddush cup, a Seder plate and a sewing machine used by his grandmother.
Adier has since filed suit against Wells Fargo. According to the complaint, Wells Fargo’s contractors deemed the house abandoned, despite explicit instructions that it was not. The house had been in Adier’s family for 40 years, Adier and his sister had grown up there, and Adier’s father had lived there until his death in August 2012. According to Adier, who lives 30 miles away in Bayonne, he missed two payments on the home’s mortgage over the next several months due to troubles with his small business. On November 29, 2012, Wells Fargo’s contractors illegally broke in for the first time. ...
Adier is not alone. Since the beginning of the foreclosure crisis in 2007, banks have hired contractors to inspect properties in foreclosure and determine whether they are abandoned. If they make that subjective determination — based on overgrown grass, or a broken window — they are authorized to enter the home, change the locks, and “trash-out” the property by removing all belongings.
Banks claim they must secure abandoned properties to protect their investment and fulfill responsibilities under state laws. But the contractors frequently get things wrong, illegally ransacking properties still inhabited by homeowners, spurring hundreds of lawsuits. “It’s happening at exactly the same rate” now as during the previous seven years, argues Adier’s attorney, Josh Denbeaux.
'Blind Spot': Progressives Demand Stronger Sanders Stance on Endless War, Pentagon Largesse
Something is seriously missing, say campaigners, when a candidate denounces corporate power and oligarchy without emphasizing militarism and perpetual war
Though otherwise impressed by his bold positions on economic inequality, climate change, and getting money out of politics, progressive campaigners on Thursday presented presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders with a demand that he take a much stronger position against U.S. militarism, endless war, and a bloated Pentagon budget that directly impedes the other social investments for which he so strongly advocates.
Organized by the online group RootsAction.org, a petition signed by more than 25,000 people—many of whom are actively supporting his campaign—was delivered to Sanders' campaign headquarters as a way to highlight the intersection of military spending and corporate power and to hold the candidate's feet to the fire on key issues of foreign policy.
The petition itself reads:
"Senator Sanders, we are enthusiastic about your presidential campaign’s strong challenge to corporate power and oligarchy. We urge you to speak out about how they are intertwined with militarism and ongoing war. Martin Luther King Jr. denounced what he called 'the madness of militarism,' and you should do the same. As you said in your speech to the SCLC, 'Now is not the time for thinking small.' Unwillingness to challenge the madness of militarism is thinking small."
...
Though the petition sent to Sanders on Thursday is clearly a challenge for the candidate to speak about specific issues he has tended to avoid, RootsAction co-founders Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen made it clear that even as they support the campaign for its populist core, there remain critical gaps in his platform and stump speeches they believe ought to be addressed more frequently and forcefully.
Solomon said his group launched its petition campaign because ongoing U.S. wars and huge military spending "continue to be deeply enmeshed with basic economic ills from upside-down priorities." Solomon cited data from the National Priorities Project which shows that 54 percent of the U.S. government’s current discretionary spending now goes to military purposes. "We sidestep these realities at our peril," he said.
Sanders Lead: Why is He Silent on U.S. Foreign Policy?
Also of interest:
Comments
Bolivia finds solution to cocaine problem
Step 1: Kick out the DEA
Mom and Pop investor runs for the hills
Absolutely no confidence
They've learned not to bet what you can't afford to lose.
It took them a long time to learn it, and vst numbers haven't. Oh, yes, those with meaningful reserves that they can afford to lose are a vanishing species.
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 --
NSA spying ruled legal because of technicality
link
Snowden's people should release records
…of ordinary Americans whose every action is recorded. (Aka: everyone). Any name will do.
That is proof of standing to demand a human right in court, that the state denied Americans.
Although, I am not certain that Americans deserve Human Rights. They don't have a single one that I know of (aka food, housing, work, full education, etc.); they do not have any rights that cannot be revoked by the state upon any whim. Which means they have no Human Rights by world standards. They're still on the plantation, and they don't seem to care.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Ya, but they're dragging those of us that want rights
down with the all the rest. I'm not sure how to treat people like that anymore. Are they my enemy because
they are helping bring me and mine down? Is it counterproductive to have an enemy? Is that just that way it is
and will be?
Take this creature for instance. I want nothing to do with him and whatever he believes. I can say the same about a whole lot of them over there. But since the feeling is mutual, how are we going to carve up space on this planet for that?
Psychology is not a hard science
link
Well who could ever have imagined such a thing?
Surely not my id or ego. I got a real kick out of that article this morning.
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 --
Well I Made It Joe
Cool site I didn't even know existed except for you. Missed my evening quote though. So here's one of mine. Its actually Alan Greenspan admitting his friend and mentor Ayn Rand turned out to be full of shit.
“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms [...]
“Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.”
Homers24
Welcome H24...
Great to have you posting here, make yourself at home. Any questions about the site just ask. Still going to the festival this weekend?
I Had The Date Wrong
The Snowy Range Music Festival is next weekend but I'm throwing my camping gear together now and will be headed out Friday.
Homers24
So, Greenspan is in shocked disbelief?
Did he really say that? If yes, I am in shocked disbelief. Now I understand why Joe chose the Groucho Marx quote today:
Greenspan is the proof.
https://www.euronews.com/live
None of this
looks like fair dealing or honesty. When did Greenspan impart this shocked disbelief, now or when the 'economy' became a casino for moving funny money to the absolutely useless markets. Why does any one believe this fake out at this point? If Groucho were alive today I wonder what his wit and smarts would have to say about this insanity.
Greenspan was testifying before congress ....
... right after the economic collapse in 2008.
PS Love your signature
Homers24
Yes Greenspan Actually Said That
In testimony before congress no less. And its proof positive Ayn Rand is wrong and yet the conservative/Republican/Tea Party refuse to accept that and keep promoting her.
Homers24
evening folks...
i am having another round of lyme's disease (i've had it before), so depending on how fast the antibiotics work, i may be up and down for a while. i was well enough today to put together the news, but now i'm just about nodding off now.
i hope you all have a great weekend and i'll catch up with you asap.
and if you go out in the woods or the tall grass, look out for ticks!
oh my, I hope you get rid of it asap, that's more than
to be under the weather. Sigh. Sending well wishes.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Sorry to hear this Joe. :(
All my best wishes and whatever karma I can conjure up are going your way. This sucks and I hope you will be feeling better real soon.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
As long as you are not anti-war
…or don't really care that the US blows half its government revenues on roaming the world murdering brown people, then Bernie has great positions on domestic issues. (With the money left over from funding the global murder business, if any.)
But if your single issue is anti-war — then you already know that Bernie is an Israel-firster.
The longer Bernie can avoid any foreign policy discussions, the better for everyone. He's introducing important and evolutionary ideas (for the US, at least) that suggest governments exists to benefit the people.
He won't be able to walk that talk, of course, because if he did get elected, he'd be stuck with a Republican congress until at least 2020. Total legislative paralysis of the US, just like the past 6 years.
But in the case of the US Empire, complete paralysis has been a godsend for the entire world.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
If I had a single issue I suppose it would be
to end rule by the rich number one. That in itself would end war, imperialism, and a whole lot of other stuff.
And I try not to refer to myself as antiwar anymore, at least not without saying I'm also anti-imperialism.
The longer the issue of U.S. imperialism and militarism is avoided, the more people get killed, the more refugees are
created so we see more pictures of fathers carrying their sleeping kids while trying to sell pens on the street, and the farther
down the rabbit hole we all go.
This presidential election is a fraud and keeping real progress from occurring.
And I disagree that Bernie has "great" positions on domestic and social issues. I've looked at his 12 points for progress
and what I see are normal democratic party platforms. We need far more than that at this point. He's not proposing anything
that will end rule by the rich and proposing 15 bucks an hour minimum wage, phased in over five years, is nothing compared to
the changes we need.
To me it's all like
we're weakly demanding things from our rulers, the serfs to the King, when instead we should be telling those that work for
us, our government and our representatives, what it is we WILL have. It's all ass backward and people need to start getting
angry about it. They have no right.
Very good point, Al
…in your upper comment. It isn't about antiwar. It's about imperialism (which has morphed into global corporate rule). I make my argument centered on US global murder and terrorism, however, because my audience would have no idea what imperialism looks like. Americans are still colonists living under a slave-owner's constitution. And, they are completely unaware that they have NO human rights. With an audience like that, you have to go for the red meat or it goes right over their heads.
As to your second comment:
You're also describing Donald Trump's constituants, and the reason for Trumps success. I just finished writing an article about Trump, and I've come to the conclusion that he has an action plan that is to the left of Bernie Sanders, on almost every issue. Of course, his nutty fans have no idea they are being seduced and bamboozled by manufactured hate themes (red meat) — at the hands of an ultra-liberal negotiating genius. Here's are some passages:
And:
And this quote from the New Yorker:
Nothing is what it seems. 2016 is about something that is happening at a cosmic level, and hardly anyone is picking up on it.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
2016. Year of the Radical. It's time.
Ran across this from Jeffrey Sinclair, Counterpunch
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/28/long-time-coming-long-time-gone/
Amen to that Al
of course they have no right they don't need no stinking rights. They took them off the table a decade ago and they are not about to put them back. People are angry about this. They have no sane parliamentary means to address their grievances other then Trump or Bernie. lol. both seem useless and a totally bizarre choice. Let it be is my new mode. God knows nature may just make all this political bs irrelevant. Got to say that mother nature does not give a rats ass about free market disaster cappies from hell. Shake off the disease.
It's hard to be pollyannish with the divisions,
hatred, ignorance, and racism out there. We're a melting pot all right. But somehow, some way, it's got to get down
to the people, not the rich. The systems now are completely corrupted by and for the rich and no politician is going to
change that now. Not Bernie, not Trump, not Obama. We can be satisfied with "pushing the narrative" for the next
twenty years while the ruling class show goes on, or we can finally stop it by refusing to play their game.
I think Bernie is proving one thing, that people are disgusted with the class structure of our society and want something
done about it.
not a melting pot, Al, a stew with some ingredients that
always sink to the bottom and stand there and some slick oily things that always swim on the top and all the other stuff tends to clump together in sorta tribal or other groups. The melting pot is a myth imo. Something that covers up reality.
Or do I have just my miserable pessimistic outlooks on this factually wonderful and beautiful morning?
https://www.euronews.com/live
To LOTE or not to LOTE, that is the question I guess.
As much as I'd like to, it's impossible to defend Sander's on the war issue other than to say that of all the candidates, he is probably by far the least hawkish. I know, not much of a defense, non at all really. So people will have to decide if his good points outweigh the bad. As I ponder that my own self I'm also considering what the odds are of ever getting an opportunity to vote for someone whose views are more inline with my own than most of his are. Not a snowballs chance in hell, at least not in my lifetime.
All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon
It still is about the lesser evil particularly when
you talk about the two parties. No politician can challenge U.S. imperialism or gangster capitalism or
private central banking. Even Sanders. He recently was quoted saying that the War OF Terror was
a "battle for the soul of Islam". Of course that's the narrative they want us to believe instead of the reality
which is it's a manufactured enemy to further imperialism and radical Zionism.
So if they won't do it, who's left?
Other people.
I can't argue with any of those points Al. But being completely
honest with yourself, what other choice do we have, realistically I mean. There's a lot of pissed off people in this country for sure, but how many of them do you really believe are ready to rise up the way I think you're advocating? And whatever your best guess is on that, then ask yourself how many it would take to succeed? If the numbers don't match, then what? Believe me I'm not trying to argue with you, I get it, people are dieing all over the world because of our gov't. It's a horrible shameful fact. And I want it to stop as much as you do. The only place our opinions differ is how we go about getting it done. I know what we've been doing isn't working but I'm just as certain in my own mind that it's the only real option on the table, for now at least. You don't agree, I already know that, but at least understand that we're fighting the same battle, only our methods differ. That's all I got, early start to a long day tomorrow, heading off to bed. Peace brother.
All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon
....I get it, people are dieing all over the world because of
our government ....
The people will die in poverty and despair inside United States, if not a pretty radical and sincere socialist or social democrat turns against the current. And if that should happen (dying in poverty and violence), there will be enough people angry enough "to rise up".
I will defend Sanders, because he seems to be serious to fight against the oligarchs. But I am not so sure he can succeed after he is elected. So, the question, of what will happen, if the middle class get seriously poor, the environment destroyed, and nobody has jobs. I would say, it will be a civil war.
https://www.euronews.com/live
I agree, burnt out
I have made the very same argument to Al, myself. And it has come down to we agree that we disagree. I want a solution, a real solution! But what we have is the best choice we have had in my voting life, so I cannot throw that away. There is some false thinking here and elsewhere that Bernie can do it all. No he cannot. If for no other reason, by voting for Bernie I am sending a very clear signal that we the people cannot be ignored much longer or things will really go downhill for the oligarchs.
And yes, I am uneasy about his lack of foreign policy stances and his support for Israel which is another rogue state like the US. But even in the face of that, his foreign policy stances are still better than any of the other choices. Many of his supporters are urging Bernie to come out with a stronger foreign policy issues statement.
So thank you for this, burnt out, because it clearly echos my own feelings on the subject.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
I'll
happily defend Sanders.
Until someone presents me a candidate proposing a better foreign policy than Sanders, I'll rest, my arguments.
What's so difficult to understand; he wants their dog in the fight, not ours. A great start. No More War is my position; getting there will take bold efforts.
Boils down to trust, Sanders or the neocons?
Dang… so Bernie very likely is indeed Joe Lieberman: The Sequel.
From the Euphrates to the Nile, baby! Moar Purim! Keep mowin' that lawn!
As cartoonist Tom Tomorrow put it in of his book titles… it seems that even with Bernie, the future is gonna be so bright I can't bear to look.
Thanks Joe for the articles on Canada
The one about Stephen Harper, the worst PM in history and the one about The Bay of Fundy being "attacked" by TransCanada pipeline.
I hadn't seen either one of them until now.
Hope you get better very soon.
To thine own self be true.
Damn, been stomping around all over your essay and got so
distracted I almost forgot to say hello. Thanks for another great news roundup served up with some great music as always. Get better soon friend.
All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon