The Evening Blues - 11-8-16



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: music for election day

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features music for election day. Enjoy!

Ry Cooder - John Lee Hooker For President

"This is what it must feel like to be on Death Row, to be waiting for the moment when the iron door clangs open for the last time and four burly guards escort you arm-in-arm to the room where your life will be extinguished. That same sense of dread hangs over the presidential election of 2016."

-- Mike Whitney


News and Opinion

Taxpayers are still bailing out Wall Street, eight years later

Eight-years after taxpayers rescued the U.S. financial system, some of the country's largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, continue to receive billions in bailout money, according to government data.

Wells Fargo is eligible for up to $1.5 billion in bailout funds over the next seven years. JPMorgan and Bank of America could receive $1.1 billion and $964 million respectively.

The continuous flow of funds is a remnant of the $700 billion bailout effort, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP, put in place during the financial crisis. Some of that money, about $28 billion, was carved out to help distressed homeowners by paying banks to lower their interest rates and monthly payments.

The program, the Home Affordable Modification Program, has undergone several revamps over the last few years and fallen short of helping the 3 million to 4 million homeowners the Obama administration initially hoped. But it continues to operate -- HAMP will accept its last homeowner application at the end of this year -- and big banks continue to be paid based on how many homeowners they help. ...

But the stream of cash for the big banks is worrisome to Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP, the chief watchdog of the financial crisis-era bailouts. Many of the banks have repeatedly broken the rules of the program, including kicking homeowners out unfairly or making it too difficult to apply for the help.

“Why are we paying for nonperformance?...At what point is somebody going to say enough is enough?” said Christy Goldsmith Romero, special inspector general with the Troubled Asset Relief Program, who investigates crime at companies that received taxpayer bailout funds.

“If a homeowner doesn’t follow the rules in HAMP they get knocked out of the program. If a bank doesn’t follow they still get paid by Treasury.”

Pentagon Offers to Resume Libya Airstrikes If Asked

Over three months after the US launched its military campaign against ISIS in Libya, the Pentagon has announced that they are fully prepared to carry out more airstrikes against ISIS targets in Sirte, if they are requested by the UN-backed “unity government.”

The Pentagon says their planes are ready for more airstrikes whenever asked, while conceding that ISIS “no longer controls much territory there.” Officials have claimed ISIS was on the verge of being wiped out in Sirte for months now. ...

The initial 30-day operation ended on August 31, and the Obama Administration has repeatedly extended the war since, with officials saying there is no specific end date in site. Though it’s been quite some time since the US has actually done anything in Libya, they seem unwilling to allow their involvement on paper to end.

Defense Secretary: US ‘Can’t Wait Any Longer’ to Buy New Nukes

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, delivering a speech at Strategic Command headquarters, has ratcheted up ongoing Pentagon calls for massive spending increases, particularly on the creation of new modern nuclear weapons, claiming the current arsenal is becoming “antiquated.” ...

Despite the US having one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals, Carter insisted that potential “adversaries” aren’t deterred by them anymore because they’re pretty old, and conceivably some of them might not work. This too has been a recurring argument from the Pentagon.

Yet with the US arsenal large enough to exterminate the entire human race several times over, the possibility that a few percent of the bombs might ultimately be duds because they’re old seems to have minimal logical impact on deterrence.

Large Kurdish Peshmerga Force Enters ISIS Town of Bashiqa

An estimated 2,000 Kurdish Peshemerga forces have entered the town of Bashiqa, Iraq today as part of the battle for the general area around Mosul. Bashiqa is northeast of Mosul about 15 km, and has been under ISIS control since summer of 2014.

The town was pounded by artillery in the lead up to the invasion, which saw Peshmerga forces in armored vehicles, accompanied by embedded US special forces, enter the town and engage in heavy fighting with ISIS forces within.

Turkey: Getting Kurds Out of Manbij Remains ‘Top Priority’

Speaking to reporters today after a cabinet meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Numaan Kurtulmus revealed that Turkish officials had warned Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford against allowing the Kurdish YPG to participate in the invasion of Raqqa, saying it would “not contribute to peace.” ...

Kurtulmus, however, insisted Raqqa was just a secondary matter to Turkey, and that their “top priority” continues to be expelling the Kurdish YPG from the city of Manbij, along the Euphrates River. The Kurds captured Manbij over the summer, in fighting heavily backed by US warplanes.

US Hawks Gamble on Turkey’s Invasions

As Turkey mobilizes fresh troops on the Iraqi border, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has warned that Turkey’s invasion of his country will mean war. ... Turkey has threatened to take part in the U.S.-led military operation to liberate Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city now occupied by Islamic State militants. Turkey already has illegally deployed troops inside Iraq but the broader invasion deeper into Iraqi territory from an attack on Mosul would represent a more direct challenge to Iraqi sovereignty. ...

Events on the ground suggest Washington has two policies: one public and the other hidden. ... Publicly the U.S. opposes Turkish military intervention in Raqqa and Mosul, while privately it is effectively riding Erdogan’s outsized ambitions to let Turkish NATO troops create Hillary Clinton’s desired “safe zone” for rebel forces fighting to overthrow the Syrian government. This “safe zone” is on territory taken mostly from Islamic State that could eventually stretch from northeast Syria into western Iraq. ...

A safe area in eastern Syria stretching to western Iraq could implement the so-called Plan B: dividing Syria to weaken it, while also creating a “Sunnistan” corridor for a gas pipeline from Qatar through the Iraq/Syria border area to Turkey and on to Europe.

There might also be another crucial task for Turkey on behalf of Washington’s hawks in both Syria and Iraq. Erdogan may well target his move into Iraq on the area of the Shia Turkmen around Tal Afar. The Shia-led Iraqi government wants to get that area under central government control to possibly open a corridor from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, a corridor Clinton has vowed to close in accordance with a longstanding Israeli goal. Turkey could also cut this passage in northern Syria.

Is the U.S. allowing Turkish troops to create these facts on the ground? It’s impossible to know for sure because of the lack of transparency coming out of Washington. But in this scenario, Erdogan would get to control Syrian Kurdish areas and possibly parts of Iraq, satisfying his neo-Ottoman fantasies, while Clinton would get her “safe zone” protected by NATO troops (from Turkey), but without deploying U.S. soldiers on the ground.

Russia: Aleppo Ceasefire Will Continue Unless Rebels Launch New Offensive

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov offered a statement on Aleppo which insisted that the multi-week pause in attacks would continue, even though the most recent ceasefire ended a few days ago, as long as the Nusra Front-dominated rebels in eastern Aleppo don’t launch new offensives.

While Russia was heavily involved in airstrikes against Aleppo in September and early October, they have since tried to negotiate deals for civilian evacuations and tried to convince the rebels to similarly agree to leave the city. So far, the rebels have refused, and reports have accused them of blocking the civilians from going either.

Israel says 'no' to Middle East peace conference in Paris

Israel on Monday formally rejected France's invitation to take part in a Middle East peace conference in Paris later this year, saying it was a distraction from the goal of direct negotiations with the Palestinians.

At a meeting in Jerusalem with Israel's acting national security adviser and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's diplomatic adviser, French envoy Pierre Vimont was informed that Israel wanted nothing to do with the effort to revive talks that last broke down in 2014. ...

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said: "We are in favor of holding the conference and we welcome it regardless of whether Israel participates or not." ...

The Palestinians say they cannot resume talks with Israel until it suspends the building of settlements on occupied land the Palestinians seek for an independent state and meets previous commitments, including the release of prisoners.

Hackers and Law Enforcement Could Hijack Wi-Fi Connections to Track Cellphones

One morning on the underground in London, Piers O’Hanlon, a privacy and security researcher at Oxford Internet Institute, noticed something strange about his phone: it kept automatically connecting to Wi-Fi networks from his provider without asking for a password — displaying a small lock icon.

What started off as another morning on the tube prompted O’Hanlon’s next research project. He began digging into the widely available public, automatic Wi-Fi provided by the phone companies, and looking at the ways it could be exploited and spied on. It turns out, those connections, which largely happen without consent, are insecure and unencrypted — and can be easily intercepted by malicious hackers or law enforcement.

What O’Hanlon and his Oxford research associate, Ravishankar Borgaonkar, looked into was a previously known — but unaddressed — flaw in the automatic Wi-Fi protocols that would allow someone to track the location of phones that connect to these networks. While tech experts are aware of the flaw, it’s so deeply engrained in the system that it would require a large overhaul to fix — something companies aren’t eager to invest in.

This flaw would allow someone to hijack a user’s Wi-Fi connection the way law enforcement currently does with wireless communications using Stingrays, or IMSI Catchers, the handheld devices that imitate cell phone towers.

Judge Who Approved Expanding NYPD Surveillance of Muslims Now Wants More Oversight

More than a decade after he loosened a set of rules surrounding New York Police Department surveillance, a federal judge did something unexpected last week: He rejected a lawsuit settlement between the city and plaintiffs alleging years of unlawful spying in Muslim communities, arguing it did not go far enough in reining in law enforcement overreach.

In a 41-page ruling delivered last Monday, Judge Charles Haight Jr. argued that due to the NYPD’s “systemic inclination” to flout rules governing its surveillance practices, he could not approve a settlement the city had spent more than a year hammering out with civil liberties attorneys.

In lieu of approval, the judge proposed three recommendations to strengthen the role of a proposed civilian representative tasked with providing oversight in certain NYPD investigations. Each suggestion had been proposed during settlement negotiations, lawyers for the plaintiffs said, but were rejected by the city and left out of the final settlement proposal.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting this,” Jethro Eisenstein, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Intercept. “From our point of view, we rolled the rock up the hill as far as we could take it.”

Eisenstein described the judge’s ruling as a sign of encouragement. “He’s saying, ‘No, it has to go further.’”

RAI With Former Weatherman Bill Ayers

FSM spare us! Reach out your noodly appendage and prevent another 4-8 years of gas-spewing from Bill Clinton, a world-class asshole.

Labour chose Corbyn as he was ‘maddest person in room’ – Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton disparagingly referred to Jeremy Corbyn as being selected for Labour leader because he was “the maddest person in the room”, according to a leaked transcript of a campaign speech he made last year. ...

Clinton was speaking at a presidential fundraiser for his wife, Hillary, in Maryland in October last year, according to the transcript of his remarks, leaked by WikiLeaks as part of the group’s release of a wider cache of emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign director, John Podesta. ...

Clinton told his audience that Sanders’ response to economic questions was “just go get the money from the millionaires”, according to the leaked transcript.

Such a view “sounds good” to a lot of people around the world, Clinton argued. “The British Labour party disposed of its most [inaudible] leader, David Miliband, because they were mad at him for being part of Tony Blair’s government in the Iraq war,” Clinton said.

“And they moved to the left and put his brother in as leader because the British labour movement wanted it. When David Cameron thumped him in the election, they reached the interesting conclusion that they lost because they hadn’t moved far left enough, and so they went out and practically got a guy off the street to be the leader of the British Labour party.”

Clinton continued: “But what that is reflective of – the same thing happened in the Greek election – when people feel they’ve been shafted and they don’t expect anything to happen anyway, they just want the maddest person in the room to represent them.”

Julian Assange: A Statement on the US Election

In recent months, WikiLeaks and I personally have come under enormous pressure to stop publishing what the Clinton campaign says about itself to itself. That pressure has come from the campaign’s allies, including the Obama administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US President.

On the eve of the election, it is important to restate why we have published what we have.

The right to receive and impart true information is the guiding principle of WikiLeaks – an organization that has a staff and organizational mission far beyond myself. Our organization defends the public’s right to be informed.

This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work. ...

We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere. When we have material that fulfills this criteria, we publish. We had information that fit our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails). No-one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.

At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have. To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump’s campaign, or Jill Stein’s campaign, or Gary Johnson’s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated editorial criteria. As a result of publishing Clinton’s cables and indexing her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives. So it is natural that Clinton sources come to us.

We publish as fast as our resources will allow and as fast as the public can absorb it. ...

Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public’s right to know.

This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004 election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection. The current editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and rightly so. ...

In the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it is embarrassing to them – a reason for censorship the First Amendment cannot tolerate. Only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are inaccurate.

WikiLeaks’ decade-long pristine record for authentication remains. Our key publications this round have even been proven through the cryptographic signatures of the companies they passed through, such as Google. It is not every day you can mathematically prove that your publications are perfect but this day is one of them.

Here’s the WikiLeaks Bombshell on Clinton that Is Still to Come

Two partners at major law firms have likely been holding their breath since WikiLeaks released an email on November 1 showing that Obama had vetted Hillary Clinton for Vice President and the review came back “too critical,” thus leading Obama to select Joe Biden as his Vice Presidential pick during the 2008 campaign. The vetting memorandum on Clinton shows in the email thread to have been transmitted with the email but WikiLeaks has not provided it – yet.

According to the email, which carries a capitalized heading of “CONFIDENTIAL,” the vetting of Clinton had been done by James Hamilton, then a law partner at Bingham McCutchen LLP. Hamilton is now a partner at Morgan Lewis, a firm with a long history of ties to Wall Street. ... Upon receipt of the email and memorandums on September 4, 2008, Michael Froman issued an email to other members of Obama’s Transition Team stating: “Per our discussion, please do not circulate any further.”

The September 4, 2008 email was forwarded to Cassandra Butts, a member of Obama’s Transition Team, who responded to Froman as follows:

“Yes, of course. It should be noted that Mark Patterson didn’t share the Biden, Clinton or Edwards memos with me when he gave me the hard copies on Tuesday. He was concerned that the Clinton memo was too critical in ways that didn’t need to be shared outside of the vp process, the Biden memo was no longer relevant to our process and the same for Edwards. I agreed with Mark’s judgment on this, and it definitely raises the importance of keeping these memos very closely held.”



the horse race



‘Failed two-party system is throwing US people under the bus’ – Jill Stein

What America’s biggest political donor is doing with his money — and why it’s angering some Democrats

Over the past four years billionaire Tom Steyer has spent at least $140 million of his own money on national politics, more than anyone else in the country, according to figures from the Center for Responsive Politics. But it’s the way he’s spent the money that has Hillary Clinton’s campaign and other Democratic politicians so frustrated. Instead of giving most of his millions directly to the party and its candidates, Steyer set up his own campaign operation that allows him to pick and choose which Democrats fit his climate agenda. A disproportionate amount of Steyer’s attention and money is spent on California, already one of the most progressive states in the country.

“Climate is the Candidate,” reads some of NextGen Climate’s campaign swag. But both inside and outside NextGen, it’s becoming clear there’s a candidate other than climate: the donor himself. The former hedge fund manager is spending millions to run two overlapping campaigns, one for a cause and the other for his own political future.

“NextGen is also known as the ‘Tom Steyer for Governor Exploratory Committee,’” the super PAC’s former digital director Jesse Thomas told us last spring, referring to California’s open governor race in 2018. In an interview with VICE News, Steyer didn’t deny his gubernatorial ambitions, and some of Steyer’s biggest devotees welcome his likely push for California’s governor office. ...

Rather than donating directly to candidates or their affiliated super PACs, Steyer has spent most of his cash creating his own campaign infrastructure that can then help climate-focused candidates for Senate, governor, and president. He gave $2,700 to Clinton in 2015 but hasn’t donated to her during the general election, and none of the $67.3 million he has spent this cycle has found its way to her super PAC. At the same time, he has spent tens of millions of dollars registering and organizing young voters in states she needs to win.

“If you want to do the same-old same-old politics, then, yes, you just give money,” explained NextGen’s former chief strategist and veteran political consultant Chris Lehane. “Fundamentally, Tom’s thinking on this is that our political system often lags behind and that this is a way to accelerate it to confront the problem.” If you spend money organizing voters around the climate crisis and create a movement, the theory goes, then political action will follow. Electing Democrats is not enough.

Greg Palast in Ohio on GOP Effort to Remove African Americans from Voter Rolls in Battleground State

Standing Rock protesters sit out the election: 'I'm ashamed of them both'

Frank Archambault is not going to vote for president.

In mid-July, the 45-year-old member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe packed up all of his belongs and his family – five children and a grandson – to travel from Little Eagle, South Dakota, to Cannon Ball, North Dakota, to join the movement of “water protecters” facing off against the federal government and the oil industry. He is fully committed to doing whatever it takes to to halt the Dakota Access pipeline from crossing the Missouri River.

But Archambault is not interested in choosing the next elected leader of one of his enemies.

“I don’t want to have a say in government,” he said. “I guess you could call it trauma. I don’t have faith in government, so I don’t want to have a say.”

The “trauma” Archambault speaks of lies heavy over the encampments that have arisen on the windswept banks of the Missouri River. Generations of war, massacres, broken treaties, discrimination, police harassment, and poverty have resulted in a general feeling of distrust, disillusion, and disinterest in mainstream politics among the Native Americans gathered at Standing Rock. And historical traumas have only been compounded by the militarized police response to unarmed protesters, who have been met with Mace, rubber bullets, Tasers and sound weapons.

“I don’t think anyone here votes,” said Julie Richards, an Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. “We’re all like, fuck the government, fuck voting, and fuck the people running.” ...

“We’re either going to change the world with this movement, or the world is going to die,” said Ho-Waste Wakiya, an enrolled member of the coastal band of the Chumash Nation, as he sat outside his tipi at the Sacred Stone camp.

With those stakes in mind, the circus of the presidential campaign seems distant and insignificant.



the evening greens


Charges dropped against pair who filmed pipeline protest

Prosecutors have dropped charges including burglary and sabotage against two filmmakers who recorded a protest at an oil pipeline in Washington state last month.

The filmmakers, Lindsey Grayzel of Portland, Oregon, and Carl Davis of Orcas Island, Washington, say they were working on a documentary about climate activist Ken Ward on Oct. 11 when Ward broke through a fence and turned a safety valve along the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline near Burlington. Ward also livestreamed his actions.

The three were among 11 people arrested that day amid attempts to shut down oil pipelines in Washington, North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana in solidarity with those protesting the four-state Dakota Access pipeline project in North Dakota, said Jay O'Hara, a spokesman for the environmental activism group Climate Disobedience Center.

Charges remain against the other nine, who include two people who were recording actions in North Dakota and Minnesota.

Grayzel and Davis each faced felony counts of burglary, sabotage and assemblage of saboteurs, as well as a misdemeanor count of trespassing. They also had camera equipment, footage and phones seized, only some of which has been returned, Grayzel said Monday. She said the 34 hours she spent in custody and the prospect of prosecution has a chilling effect on independent journalists covering climate change and political dissent.

Amid 'Crisis and Scandal,' Global Banks Called to Stop Funding Dakota Access

Describing the fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) as "a national crisis and an international scandal," a coalition of 26 environmental organizations on Monday called on leading banks to stop funding the project.

In an open letter to the Equator Principles Association, a consortium of global banks ostensibly committed to responsible environmental and social practices, the groups say they "have been astonished to learn" that more than a dozen member institutions are involved in a $2.5 billion credit agreement with Dakota Access LLC and Energy Transfer Crude Oil Company LLC to construct the controversial pipeline. Signatories to the letter included Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and Food & Water Watch. 

"The world is closely watching how all actors involved will deal with the situation, including the banks that provide financial support to the project," the letter reads. "Given the presumed Indigenous rights commitments of [Equator Principles Financial Institutions, or EPFIs], it is for us inexplicable that gross violations of Native land titles, threats to water sources, and the desecration of burial grounds have not been identified early on as reasons for EPFIs to not provide funding for this project. However, this unfortunately fits into a documented and consistent pattern of disrespect of local communities and Indigenous rights by EPFI-backed projects worldwide."

The letter then calls on the association, which holds its annual meeting in London on Monday and Tuesday, to direct its institutions to "take swift action to stop the ongoing violation of the rights of Native Americans."

"This for now requires that all further loan disbursements to the project are put on hold," says the letter, coordinated by Netherlands-based BankTrack, "and that the EPFIs involved demand from the project sponsors an immediate halt to the construction of the pipeline and all associated structures, until all outstanding issues are resolved to the full satisfaction of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe."

In Blow to Enbridge, Canada to Ban Oil Tankers Off Northern B.C. Coast

Moratorium on oil tanker traffic off British Columbia's North Coast could be last nail in coffin for Northern Gateway Pipeline

Canada Transportation Minister Marc Garneau made headlines this weekend when he announced that by the end of the year, a long-promised ban on oil tanker traffic will be put in place off the North Coast of British Columbia—weeks after the government was harshly criticized for its bungled response to a spill in that same region.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned on a promise to institute such a moratorium before the Liberals won a majority of votes and put Trudeau in office in 2015, but as of a mere three weeks ago Trudeau appeared to be backtracking on that promise, after months of refusing to offer a timeline on the ban.

Garneau's words were thus a welcome surprise to many environmentalists: "That is a promise that we made. It's a mandate item for me and we are going to be delivering on that," Garneau told host Chris Hall in a Saturday interview on CBC Radio. ...

Garneau's assertion came a week after meeting with a coalition of Indigenous groups and unions from Canada's West Coast. The meeting included Geraldine Thomas-Flurer, coordinator for the Yinka Dene Alliance, whose member First Nations' territories are located in north-central British Columbia and have long fought for a ban.

Global 'greening' has slowed rise of CO2 in the atmosphere, study finds

A global “greening” of the planet has significantly slowed the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the start of the century, according to new research.

More plants have been growing due to higher CO2 levels in the air and warming temperatures that cut the CO2 emitted by plants via respiration. The effects led the proportion of annual carbon emissions remaining in the air to fall from about 50% to 40% in the last decade.

However, this greening is only offsetting a small amount of the billions of tonnes of CO2 emitted from fossil fuel burning and other human activities and will not halt dangerous global warming. “Unfortunately, this increase is nowhere near enough to stop climate change,” said Dr Trevor Keenan, at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US, who led the new work.

The absolute level of CO2 in the atmosphere is continuing to rise, breaking the milestone of 400 parts per million (ppm) in 2015, and rising temperatures continue to surpass records.


Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Legalizing Pot and 10 Other Ballot Issues to Watch on Election Day

How to hack an election - Six things to watch for on Election Day

This is How Consumers Turn into Debt Slaves

Amid Clinton Controversy, FBI Documents Show Why Americans Should Worry About Intelligence Gathering

Judge Jed Rakoff Throws Down Gauntlet to Judges on Lack of Due Process in America

America, It’s Over

Doomsday Election


A Little Night Music

Steve Goodman - Election Year Rag

Chicago Beau - Be Careful How You Vote

Tracy Chapman - Talkin bout a revolution

The Who - Wont Get Fooled Again

Guided By Voices - Vote For Me Dummy

Alice Cooper - Elected

The Clash - Revolution Rock

Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot

Rolling Stones - Street Fighting Man

Nixon Now More Than Ever



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Crider's picture

I know it's not too late to campaign against Trump . . . It's a hail Mary!
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q__bSi5rBlw]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YMb-j-R4Bc]

Vote Marxist/Lennonist!

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featheredsprite's picture

when he looked like the Mad Bomber. Must have kept J. Edgar awake at night.

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

Crider's picture

There's a whole website dedicated to John Lennon's FBI file, much of which is unclassified.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

I think I've figured it out, something happens and I'm back where I started.

The argument is over which Clinton is the sleaziest. From the article upstream, I'm back leaning towards Clenis.

It'll change before the night's over.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

joe shikspack's picture

heh, i just got through the first video - that's completely awesome! thanks!

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skod's picture

Go, Tom. Good old political humor! Knowledge of all his tunes was an absolute requirement when I was in college. Good drinking songs if you're at ground zero!

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karl pearson's picture

Funny that I was listening to "We Will All Go Together When We Go" this afternoon. Have to have a little humor after this awful presidential campaign. For 50 years ago, Tom Lehrer is still pretty relevant.

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joe shikspack's picture

thanks! tom lehrer got me through at least one chemistry test in high school and i've always loved his sense of humor.

this is the song of his that has been going through my mind occasionally during this election cycle:

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divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

joe shikspack's picture

yeah, but how else are we going to spend a trillion dollars? i mean, if you spent it on the people, why, it'd be inflationary.

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Lookout's picture

My favorite quote in tonight's EB:

“We’re either going to change the world with this movement, or the world is going to die,” said Ho-Waste Wakiya, an enrolled member of the coastal band of the Chumash Nation, as he sat outside his tipi at the Sacred Stone camp.

With those stakes in mind, the circus of the presidential campaign seems distant and insignificant.

Meanwhile they're anxious to to have more air strikes in Libya, buy more nukes, use Israel to block middle east peace efforts, track you with your phone, and arrest those who try to tell the story. My oh my...

Thank heavens for people like Julian and Greg Palast... and you Joe for pulling open the curtain.

I thought this clip of Amy interviewing Bill was classic...

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvgrZ-Wqeqg]

And a final thought...did you hear about making alcohol from carbon dioxide?
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a23417/convert-co2-in...

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I thought he did OK in the 90's. I was wrong. Wrong big time.

We know that Hillary works for the oligarchs and Zionists.

It will take a movement to hold her feet to the fire.

The Bernie movement continues and it looks like the diverse issues are converging - for example environmental justice which brings in Native Americans, environmentalists, ACLU, etc., etc.

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of the landowners whose property has been degraded, though eminent domain, but a foreign company. Also, the National Lawyers Guild has sent lawyers to be on site and set up field offices to help with those suffering under the police repression.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

joe shikspack's picture

i sure hope that a movement that is capable of holding hillary's feet to the fire springs up.

looking at what happened after obama was elected, it seems to me that it will have to happen outside of the influence of the democratic party, which has its tentacles throughout the left political community and uses them to suppress pressure from the left as the wikileaks docs show quite dramatically.

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joe shikspack's picture

that conversion technology looks interesting, though i wonder how much mining of copper would be necessary to make a dent in the current overburden of carbon in the atmosphere.

heh, i ran across that clip of clinton earlier, but haven't been able to bring myself to listen to mr. "i feel your pain," yet. perhaps later. Smile

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divineorder's picture

before but wanted to share...

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

joe shikspack's picture

i had not posted it yet.

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Greg is in Columbus now. He showed his movie and it is available for free on his web site today.

He is an intrepid investigative reporter tracking down election crimes and the billionaires who find them.

the "cross check" program in 27 states stripped over a million voters from the rolls. Suppose my name is Don Don Smith and in another state is Don George Smith. It is possible that I voted in 2 states. They don't bother to check middle names.

On democracynow and in the film there is a cameo appearance of Bob Fitrakis, an election advocate here in Columbus. He was banned from dailykos years ago. They don't want to hear about election fraud.

It will take both political parties, or an uprising from the people to get a world class election system with paper ballots and hopefully automatic registration.

In the mean time, on Nov 9, the pressure from the left on the oligarchs begins in full.

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OLinda's picture

Love the Nixon song and video! Thanks, Joe!

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joe shikspack's picture

back then, i always got a kick out of how cheezy nixon's campaign messaging was. it's still kinda funny to me.

just looking at nixon is also sort of comforting as it reminds me that we have gotten through having an awful president and managed to chase him out of the white house for criminal acts (as opposed to peccadilloes).

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

some pizza, and get ready to listen to election results. Thanks for tonight's edition of News & Blues, Joe.

John King (CNN) was almost choking up just now, after Wolf announced the numbers for the first poll closing - Kentucky, Trump 80%, FSC 18%. Not that one percent of the returns means much, of course; but, it was a very telling moment--hearing their reactions.

Biggrin

If I can get organized enough, I hope to (soon) have Tweets to post--on entitlement and/or tax reform--most evenings, when I check in with you Guys. My observation is that Twitter has become a really effective way to communicate, because of its potential reach.

Not to sound like a broken record, but I really believe that either this Lame Duck Session, or, the first 100 days of FSC's Administation (if there is one), will see drastic cuts to Social Security, and further cuts to Medicare.

Hey, Everyone have as nice an evening as possible!

Bye

[Edited: its instead of it's]

Mollie


“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore– to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

The SOSD Fantastic Four

Available For Adoption, Save Our Street Dogs, SOSD

Taro
Taro, SOSD

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

joe shikspack's picture

it's really early in the evening yet, but it looks like trump is doing surprisingly well. also, ap called the house for the gop.

i fully expect her heinous to win, but it looks at this point like it might be a closer election than it appeared a couple of weeks ago.

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karl pearson's picture

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enhydra lutris's picture

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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 --

joe shikspack's picture

yep, those folks all want to get you in the back of their limo and show you what their politics are. Smile

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enhydra lutris's picture

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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 --

joe shikspack's picture

thanks! have as good an evening as is possible under the circumstances. Smile

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divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

joe shikspack's picture

there are lots of people on the east coast still voting. the map looks impressively red now, but there's a lot of counting yet to go.

actually, thanks hillary cronies in the dnc. bernie would have wiped the floor with trump.

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divineorder's picture

In 2008 Obama campaigned to do more for the middle class, overturning the neo-liberal trade agreements of the Clintons, stop the wars and re purpose the spending on jobs and infrastructure but that was a lie. He did not deliver. Millions are still unemployed, have lost their homes, their children in hopeless debt from trying to get a college education. 7 countries bombed, millions of civilians killed, international law flaunted like under Bush. Those crooning over how wonderful President Obama was should look for different sources with which to evaluate his Presidency, and the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders would have wiped the floor with Trump. Clinton is a woman, and we would like to see a woman President, but her policies, record, and the 1% mega wealthy she represents were not the best choice for our times.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

enhydra lutris's picture

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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 --

Shockwave's picture

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The political revolution continues