The Evening Blues - 12-27-16



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Tommy Tucker

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer and songwriter Tommy Tucker. Enjoy!

Tommy Tucker - Hard Luck Blues

The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.

-- George Orwell


News and Opinion

Obama’s Unilateral War Declarations a Precedent Trump Could Use

Campaigning in 2008 as a critic of the expansion of US wars abroad under the post 9/11 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), President Obama ended up spending his entire eight years in office falling back on the AUMF as his go-to pretext for all the wars he started.

Despite the AUMF explicitly centering on al-Qaeda and others involved in 9/11, President Obama insisted it was fine to use it to attack the Gadhafi government in Libya, and earlier this year to attack Somalia’s al-Shabaab, which didn’t even exist when 9/11 happened.

While there has been some bipartisan criticism in Congress of this, it’s never been nearly enough to stop a war, and were more than willing to ignore Obama not seeking a new authorization for a war. The courts likewise have refused to get involved. This has only underscored Bush Administration policy, meaning that Obama could unilaterally declare presidential wars with no oversight.

And by extension Donald Trump. The president-elect takes power in mid-January, and will inherit a de facto precedent that he can start basically any war he wants to, and can tie it to the 2001 AUMF, even if it makes no sense, safe in the knowledge that no one else in power will call him on it.

What Will Happen When Donald Trump Takes Over U.S. Drone & Targeted Assassination Program?

US General Predicts Two More Years to ‘Defeat ISIS’

In a Christmas Day interview, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the command of US-led coalition forces in Iraq, faulting the Iraqi military for denying that the Mosul offensive was paused, insisting that “people need to rest” and that the offensive would resume soon.

Townsend also provided an estimate on the overall war, saying it’s going as well as could be expected, and that it’d probably be “another two years of hard work” before ISIS is really defeated in Iraq and Syria, saying that he didn’t want to put a specific timeline on the war.

Russian military report mass graves of civilians in Syria's Aleppo

Russia's military has found a mass grave of Syrians, allegedly killed by rebel groups ahead of last week's evacuation.

Troops found dozens of bodies, many shot in the head and showing signs of abuse and mutilation, Defense Ministry spokesperson Major General Igor Konashenkov said.

"Mass graves containing dozens of Syrians who were summarily executed and subjected to savage torture have been discovered," Konashenkov was quoted as saying by Russian agencies.

He said further inquiries would force backers of the Syrian opposition in the West to "recognize their responsibility for the cruelty" of the rebels.

First Turkey coup suspects go on trial in Istanbul

Twenty-nine Turkish police have gone on trial in Istanbul charged with involvement in last July’s attempted coup, the city’s first trial of alleged plotters in the massive crackdown that followed the failed bid to oust president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

With 41,000 coup suspects under arrest and the country still in a state of emergency, the trials of the accused are expected to be the most far-reaching legal process in Turkish history.

Five months after the coup, small-scale trials of suspects have already begun in the provinces and on Monday 60 people went on trial in the south-western city of Denizli.

However, the trial in Istanbul – taking place in a huge courthouse outside the Silivri prison – is the most significant to date and the first in the Turkish metropolis.

The accused are charged with seeking to overthrow the government as well as allegedly being members of the group led by the US-based preacher Fethullah Gülen, whom the authorities accuse of leading the plot.

US increased weapons sales in 2015 despite slight drop in global arms trade

The sale of global arms dropped slightly last year to $80bn from 2014’s $89bn, according to a new congressional study, with the US maintaining its position as the world’s dominant supplier.

But at $40bn the US market share of weapons sales amounted to about half of all arms agreements in 2015, and more than double the orders recorded by France, its nearest rival with $15bn in sales. The US and France both grew their market shares, by around $4bn and $9bn respectively.

Russia recorded a slight decline in arms orders, dropping to $11.1bn in sales from its $11.2bn total in 2014, while China reached $6bn, double the previous year’s estimates.

The latest figures were released last week by the Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress, and are considered one of the most reliable measures of the global arms trade.

US arms exports in 2016 looks set to remain broadly in line with the previous year’s sales.

Hell just froze over: the New York Times runs an article saying Zionism is racist

Trump’s election is having fascinating consequences. Today the New York Times to choose one idea or the other, and to stop denying the existence of apartheid.

Boehm says white nationalist Richard Spencer helped to blow up the liberal Zionist hypocrisy in his famous encounter with a Texas rabbi when he said he admires Israel for its ethnic purity and the rabbi had nothing to say. Some of Boehm’s hammer blows:

by denying liberal principles, Zionism immediately becomes continuous with — rather than contradictory to — the anti-Semitic politics of the sort promoted by the alt-right…

insofar as Israel is concerned, every liberal Zionist has not just tolerated the denial of this minimum liberal standard, but avowed this denial as core to their innermost convictions. Whereas liberalism depends on the idea that states must remain neutral on matters of religion and race, Zionism consists in the idea that the State of Israel is not Israeli, but Jewish. As such, the country belongs first and foremost not to its citizens, but to the Jewish people — a group that’s defined by ethnic affiliation or religious conversion…

Boehm never comes out and uses the term “racist,” but he might as well.

U.N. Declares Israeli Settlements Illegal; Netanyahu Vows to Retaliate After U.S. Abstains from Vote

Israel threatens to give Trump 'evidence' that Obama orchestrated UN resolution

Israel has escalated its already furious war with the outgoing US administration, claiming that it has “rather hard” evidence that Barack Obama was behind a critical UN security council resolution criticising Israeli settlement building, and threatening to hand over the material to Donald Trump.

The latest comments come a day after the US ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro, was summoned by Netanyahu to explain why the US did not veto the vote and instead abstained.

The claims have emerged in interviews given by close Netanyahu allies to US media outlets on Monday after the Obama administration denied in categorical terms the claims originally made by Netanyahu himself.

However, speaking to Fox News on Sunday, David Keyes – a Netanyahu spokesman – said Arab sources, among others, had informed Jerusalem of Obama’s alleged involvement in advancing the resolution. ...

Israel’s threat to present “evidence” on a sitting president, and one of Israel’s closest ally, to an incoming presidential team – and to do it so publicly – appears almost unprecedented.

The moves appear part of a high risk – and even more highly partisan strategy – on Netanyahu’s part, tying the future of Israel to a highly unpredictable Republican president-elect with no experience of public office and who comes from the very fringes even of the party he stood as candidate for.

The US has already denied the claim made by Israel in the strongest terms.

Why Netanyahu refuses to ‘turn the other cheek’ in his response to the UN defeat

It is Netanyahu’s ironclad belief, despite significant evidence to the contrary, that Israel’s standing in the world is terrific and will imminently become even better that lies behind the array of dramatic punitive steps he took this week against the 14 countries who supported Friday’s anti-settlement resolution at the UN Security Council, and the one who abstained — the United States.

Netanyahu’s deep-seated conviction that the world no longer much cares about the settlements, or Palestinian statehood, but is extremely thirsty for Israel’s high-tech prowess and anti-terrorism know-how, has been undented by even the most crushing diplomatic defeats. ...

“The resolution that was passed at the UN yesterday is part of the swan song of the old world that is biased against Israel, but, my friends, we are entering a new era,” he declared, predicting that the revolution “will happen much sooner than you think.”

And in this brave new world in which all nations need what only the Jewish state can offer, he vowed, “there is a much higher price for those who try to harm Israel, and that the price will be exacted not only by the US [under the Trump administration], but by Israel as well.”

“Those who work with us will benefit because Israel has much to give to the countries of the world. But those who work against us will lose — because there will be a diplomatic and economic price for their actions against Israel,” he said.

Netanyahu’s message is clear: Israel will no longer be the world’s punching bag. From now on, countries will have to choose whether they’re with Israel or against Israel. If they support us in international forums, we’re happy to do business. If they insist on voting against us, they will have to live without all the vital goodies — the cyberdefense skills, the intelligence on terrorism, and other such vital modern commodities — that the startup nation has to offer.

Some argue that Netanyahu’s was a deliberately exaggerated response aimed at scoring political points at home by portraying himself as a fearless leader willing to take on the world to protect Israel’s just cause. Others theorize that he is trying to keep the Security Council vote in the headlines in order to deflect attention from new developments in a probe into alleged corruption. Indeed, Netanyahu’s squabble with the world, especially with the US, has unsurprisingly received vastly more airtime than a report that the police might soon open a full-blown criminal investigation against him over alleged bribe-taking and aggravated fraud.

A Sour Holiday Season for Neocons

America’s extended Christmas holiday season, stretching through much of November and all of December, has not been a happy time for Official Washington’s dominant neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks.

First, they had to lick their wounds over the defeat of their preferred U.S. presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton; then they had to watch as their “moderate” Syrian rebel proxies and their Al Qaeda allies were routed from east Aleppo; and finally they watched in disbelief as the Obama administration permitted passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s illegal settlements on Palestinian lands. ...

Again, the neocons erupted in fury. Rather than acknowledge that Israel had brought this condemnation on itself by its illegal actions, the neocons lashed out at Obama and the world for not taking Israel’s side. The neocon editors of The Washington Post decried Obama’s decision as “a dangerous parting shot at Israel.”

“It will encourage Palestinians to pursue more international sanctions against Israel rather than seriously consider the concessions necessary for statehood, and it will give a boost to the international boycott and divestment movement against the Jewish state, which has become a rallying cause for anti-Zionists,” the Post lamented. ... Similarly, the neocon editors of the Wall Street Journal labeled Obama’s abstention his “Anti-Israeli Tantrum.” ... Though neocons always blame the Palestinians for not making the concessions that Israel demands – and thus holding them at fault for the moribund peace process – the reality is that the Israeli leadership has no intention of reaching a reasonable two-state solution with the Palestinians and hasn’t for at least two decades.

The reality is that Israel is on a steady march to become a full-scale apartheid state in which Palestinians are kept as either stateless or second-class citizens indefinitely. When these facts on the ground can no longer to obfuscated or denied, then the world will have little choice but to engage in the sort of moral and economic pressure that confronted racist South Africa in the 1980s. ...

Thus, 2016 is ending on a decidedly sour note for the neocons and liberal interventionists. ... Now, the neocons and liberal hawks find themselves on the outside looking in and one can expect their anger to be voiced at increasing decibels across the mainstream media. But whether anyone still takes them seriously is another question.

Trump's Cabinet, the Church of Neoliberal Evangelicals

Obama: DLC still in control, Dems remodeling Sanders as a centrist.

Barack Obama: I'm 'confident' I could have won a third term as president

Barack Obama has said he believes he would have won a third term in office were he eligible to run in the 2016 presidential election, while also casting a skeptical eye at the UK Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

In a wide-ranging interview with former aide David Axelrod, the outgoing president expressed his belief that he could have won re-election in 2016, based on his view that most Americans still subscribed to his progressive vision and ideals. ...


However, the outgoing president insisted that he didn’t fear what Axelrod called “a Corbynization” of the Democratic party following this bruising loss in the November election, “partly because I think that the Democratic party has stayed pretty grounded in fact and reality”.

The president contrasted this with the Republican party, which he characterized as “mov[ing] further and further and further away from what we would consider to be a basic consensus around things like climate change or how the economy works”.

The result, Obama said, was that “it started filling up with all kinds of conspiracy theorizing that became kind of common wisdom or conventional wisdom within the Republican party base. That hasn’t happened in the Democratic party. I think people like the passion that Bernie brought, but Bernie Sanders is a pretty centrist politician relative to ... Corbyn or relative to some of the Republicans”.

Corbyn hits back after Obama suggests Labour is disintegrating

A spokesman for Jeremy Corbyn has hit back after Barack Obama appeared to suggest that the Labour party has moved away from “fact and reality” and is disintegrating.

The spokesman said the Labour leader “stands for what most people want” and suggested that the outgoing president’s Democratic party needed to “challenge power if they are going to speak for working people”.

Obama had earlier said he was not worried when asked if the Democrats could undergo “Corbynisation” and “disintegrate” like Labour following Hillary Clinton’s election defeat by Donald Trump. ...

Corbyn’s spokesman said: “What Jeremy Corbyn stands for is what most people want: to take on the tax cheats, create a fairer economy, fund a fully public NHS, build more homes and stop backing illegal wars.

“For the establishment, those ideas are dangerous. For most people in Britain, they’re common sense and grounded in reality.”

Centrist Democrats - the Nazis' best friend.

Donald Trump and other monsters of this new era were always there. They just triumphed because centrists blocked those who could keep a lid on them

There’s always a narrative. This year, it’s that 2016 saw a massive surge for the reactionary far-right. ... This is true, but it’s not the complete picture. This is not, entirely, a surge for the right wing. What we saw in 2016 were the consequences of a political order that’s done everything it can to exclude the left.

As some liberals never tire of pointing out, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Trump’s victory did not, on the level of the American public itself, mark a sudden swing to the right. Republicans voted for their candidate, just as they always do. In fact, Trump received fewer votes than Mitt Romney had four years earlier. Trump won, and Clinton lost, because the people Democrats usually count on failed to vote for them.

They didn’t vote because the Democrats didn’t really have anything to offer: Clinton’s platform was maniacally sane and aggressively centrist, insisting against all the evidence that America was already great, that all it needed to do was to stay on its current course towards the distant cliffs. ...

For decades, centrist figures such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair encouraged us to approach politics as atomised individuals: not through any kind of collective struggle, not by making mass demands. They tried to get rid of the conditions that allowed radical mass movements to flourish. And the response of the masses has been to fall silent, and not engage.

What we’re witnessing isn’t a wave of reactionary populism overwhelming the stable democracies of the west. All the terrifying monsters of this new era – racism, nationalism, the ruthless dispossession of the poor, the chiliastic frenzy of a white male subject under constant imagined threat – were already there. They’ve been part of the fabric of western society for a very long time.

What’s happened is that political centrists have deliberately blocked any engagement from those who could keep a lid on them. Things like the welfare state and anti-racist solidarity – the things keeping liberal societies from collapsing into pure bigotry and pure exploitation – were always the products of radical anti-capitalist struggles.

Without their influence, capitalism has been left to spiral lopsidedly into its own idiocy, to droop and moisten until it congeals again into the smirking face of Donald Trump. Fascism is just capitalism that’s been left out in the sun for a week.

Bangladesh garment factories sack hundreds after pay protests

At least 1,500 workers have been sacked from Bangladesh garment factories after protests forced a week-long shutdown at dozens of sites supplying top European and American brands.

Tens of thousands of workers walked out of factories this month in the manufacturing hub of Ashulia which make clothes for top western brands such as Gap, Zara and H&M, prompting concerns over supply during the holiday season.

The protests were sparked by the sacking of 121 workers, but soon evolved into a demand for the trebling of workers’ pay from the current monthly minimum of 5,300 taka (£54).

More than 50 factories were closed last week to try to contain the protests, which escalated after police fired rubber bullets that injured 10 demonstrators, according to labour leader Taslima Akhter.

Police have branded the protests illegal and said they had arrested 30 workers including seven union leaders, as well as a television reporter covering the unrest.

On Tuesday, they said factory owners had sacked around 1,500 workers and resumed operations.

Rage against the machines: Is automation destroying the labour market?

The new household names

Sorry, Millers, there are now more Garcias in the U.S.

That’s just one finding from a recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau on the mix of the country’s most common last names.

The numbers show significant growth of predominantly Hispanic surnames. The 2010 data collected and analyzed by the Census show that six of the 20 most common last names in the U.S. now have Hispanic or Latino origin. In 1990, just 2 of the 20 most common names were Hispanic. (For the record, some 92 percent of the respondents with the surname Garcia identify themselves as of Hispanic origin.)

'Alt-right' groups will 'revolt' if Trump shuns white supremacy, leaders say

Donald Trump will disappoint and disillusion his far-right supporters by eschewing white supremacy, according to some of the movement’s own intellectual leaders.

Activists who recently gave Nazi salutes and shouted “hail Trump” at a gathering in Washington will revolt when the new US president fails to meet their expectations, the leaders told the Guardian.

The prospect of such disillusion and internecine squabbling may console liberals who fear a White House tinged with racism and quasi-fascism. All the more reassuring because it comes from far-right influencers and analysts, not wishful progressives.

Instead of enjoying proximity to power, according to this analysis, vocal parts of the loose coalition known as the “alt-right” could remain on the political fringe, wondering what happened to their triumph. ...

In an email interview Peter Brimelow, founder of the webzine Vdare.com, which alleges Mexican plots to remake the US, said Trump’s failure to deliver “important bones” could trigger a backlash. “I think the right of the right is absolutely prepared to revolt. It’s what they do.” ...

The young crowd that roared “Hail Trump” at last month’s gathering in Washington will fight for its beliefs no matter what, Brimelow said. “None of them were looking for jobs in the Trump administration. These are not party loyalists. They know they’re entirely outside the establishment consensus. And they’re used to guerrilla warfare.”

19 States Passed 60 New Abortion Restrictions in 2016

More than 60 new restrictions on access to abortion were passed by 19 states in 2016, according a year-end report from the Center for Reproductive Rights. The regulations run the gamut from attempts to ban abortion altogether, to excessive paperwork requirements for providers and measures that would restrict the donation of aborted fetal tissue for medical research.

In sum, 2016 was a just another normal year for advocates who have battled to protect women’s reproductive autonomy. Notably, however, state or federal courts ultimately blocked many of the onerous provisions, a circumstance that underscores how important the judiciary is in protecting women’s rights. ...

Over the course of his divisive campaign, president-elect Trump flip-flopped wildly on women’s health issues – though once pro-choice, Trump eventually embraced some of the most extreme views on the rights of women, from pledging to employ an anti-abortion litmus test for his Supreme Court nominees, to opining not only that abortion should be banned but also that women should be punished for having the procedure. That has happened in Indiana. While Pence was governor, the state successfully prosecuted a woman named Purvi Patel for what prosecutors said, absent hard evidence, was an illegally induced medication abortion. Pence has said that he would like to see Roe v. Wade consigned to the “ash heap of history.”

The current wave of legislative attacks on reproductive rights began after the 2010 mid-term elections, which brought new conservative majorities to many state houses and governors’ mansions. While those elections might actually have been a reaction to concerns about the economy and jobs, notes Amanda Allen, CRR’s senior state legislative counsel, “we knew at the time that women’s reproductive rights would be collateral damage.”

Fights, disturbances shut down malls across U.S.

Fights, disturbances and false reports of gunfire caused chaotic scenes and shut down several malls across the United States on Monday during the typically busy post-Christmas shopping day.

Eight to 10 people suffered minor injuries during a melee in the food court at The Mills at Jersey Gardens in Elizabeth, New Jersey, the mayor there said on Twitter. ...

Photos and video clips posted on social media showed heavily armed police officers responding to the incident as shoppers raced to exits and alarms rang out inside the mall.

Similar disturbances unfolded across the United States on Monday at malls that were packed with shoppers returning gifts, using gift cards they received over the holiday weekend and searching for clearance deals.

Many involved calls of shots being fired and youths fighting. It was unclear if the incidents were connected.



the evening greens


Cheetah 'more vulnerable to extinction than previously thought'

Urgent action is needed to stop the cheetah – the world’s fastest land animal – becoming extinct, experts have warned.

Scientists estimate that only 7,100 of the fleet-footed cats remain in the wild, occupying 9% of the territory they once lived in. Asiatic populations have been hit the hardest, with fewer than 50 surviving in Iran, according to an investigation led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

In Zimbabwe, cheetah numbers have plummeted by 85% in little more than a decade.

The cheetah’s dramatic decline has prompted calls for the animal’s status to be upgraded from “vulnerable” to “endangered” on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species.

Dr Sarah Durant, from ZSL and WCS, the project leader for the Rangewide conservation programme, said: “This study represents the most comprehensive analysis of cheetah status to date. Given the secretive nature of this elusive cat, it has been difficult to gather hard information on the species, leading to its plight being overlooked. Our findings show that the large space requirements for cheetah, coupled with the complex range of threats faced by the species in the wild, mean that it is likely to be much more vulnerable to extinction than was previously thought.”

Welcome to crocodile country: the remarkable comeback of Australia's Jaws of the north

For the people of Australia’s tropical north, a wary coexistence with crocodiles is a fact of life.

Protected for more than four decades after being hunted to near extinction, the ancient reptile – on the credible numbers that are available – has staged a remarkable recovery.

In the Northern Territory there are now as many as 100,000 saltwater crocodiles, up from just 3,000 in 1971. There are similar estimates in neighbouring Queensland but the true population will not be known until the first systematic government survey is completed over the next three to five years.


Also of Interest

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

Women's March on Washington: a guide to the post-inaugural social justice event

Trump and the Phantom of Democracy

Liberal Zionism in the Age of Trump

Union Cuts Budget in Preparation for Trump's "Extremist-Run Government"

A Battle Over American-Made Products Is Looming and Republicans Are in the Middle of It

Eight Years After an Epic Banking Crash, America’s Biggest Threat Is Still Its Banks


A Little Night Music

Tommy Tucker - I Don't Want 'Cha

Tommy Tucker - Oh what a feeling

Tommy Tucker - Thats how much

Tommy Tucker - Hi-Heel Sneakers

Tommy Tucker - Drunk

Tommy Tucker - Alimony

Tommy Tucker - Sitting Home Alone

Tommy Tucker - Chewin gum



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Steven D's picture

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

joe shikspack's picture

i hope that all is going well and you guys are recovering apace.

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Steven D's picture

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

divineorder's picture

How about some good news.....

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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

some good news is never amiss, thanks!

i hope that your holidays went well and you guys are warm and happy.

heh, it's 60 degrees here, so i'm headed out for a nice evening walk. catch up with you shortly.

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divineorder's picture

Didn't slow her down though, she was just in HI after BO to release Chelsea Manning.

Ann Wright is a 29-year US Army/Army Reserves veteran, a retired United States Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Wright was also a passenger on the Challenger 1, which along with the Mavi Marmara, was part of the Gaza flotilla. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December, 2001 she was on the small team that reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book "Dissent: Voices of Conscience." She has written frequently on rape in the military.

www.voicesofconscience.com

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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

According to her account, “someone submitted my name and social security number to SSA as a person who has been confined in a jail since September 2016”—a claim she says amounts to falsification. It was not immediately clear who she suspects is behind the alleged maneuver.

that's pretty rotten.

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snoopydawg's picture

I was going to write about it but now don't need to.
Did you read that she has been in prison for over 30 days but she is standing in front of the person who told her that she had to get the court papers from Nevada to prove it? I guess that the person can't believe that she's standing in front of her and not actually in prison.
That person who committed fraud against her should have to be held accountable somehow for what they did to her. But since this would be someone from Obamas's justice department we know that isn't going to happen because he doesn't hold people accountable for anything.
Our government hard at work to stifle any dissent about their illegal actions that go against international laws and basic human rights.
And as with everything else that obama has done regarding continuing the MICC and PNAC's goals in the Middle East, so called progressives have remained silent about it because.....
He's the best president since FDR didn't you know?
He's stopped two wars and hasn't started any new ones.
The Libya, Syria, Ukraine and the now 8 countries he's bombing don't count as real wars.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

enhydra lutris's picture

centrist; he's well to the left of the reactionaries of the GOP and the hard core conservatives of the Democrats, while being to the left of Communists and hard-line socialists.

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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

heh, saying that he's to the left of the gop or the clintonistas isn't saying much, of course. bernie's stance on the military and foreign policy pretty much locates him as a 70's era moderate republican.

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divineorder's picture

until I watched the DemocracyNow! segment you featured. Meh.

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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.

Lookout's picture

and I missed the saturn / crescent moon show, but looks like decent viewing tomorrow - they just aren't as close together.

for those of you with a dark sky there is a good planet show...
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/visible-planets-tonight-mars-ju....

Last year was good for planet viewers - a shot from last Feb with all the visible planets....pretty cool
5-planets-2-8-2016-Eliot-Herman-Tucson-AZ-e1454946479711.jpg

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

at 8000 feet in the arid SW part of Colorado you could sometimes see Uranus with unaided vision.

With binoculars, there were 4 asteroids that I was able to spot over the years. With an asteroid, I had to watch it for a few nights and see it move against the background star to be sure.

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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'd like a good planet show, but there's just too much light pollution where i live to see much at night. that's why i have to take regular vacations, heh. Smile

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top of the wrreck'd list

The first memo, based on the former intelligence officer's conversations with Russian sources, noted, "Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years. Aim, endorsed by PUTIN, has been to encourage splits and divisions in western alliance." It maintained that Trump "and his inner circle have accepted a regular flow of intelligence from the Kremlin, including on his Democratic and other political rivals." It claimed that Russian intelligence had "compromised" Trump during his visits to Moscow and could "blackmail him." It also reported that Russian intelligence had compiled a dossier on Hillary Clinton based on "bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls."
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joe shikspack's picture

interesting. the hillbots have just discovered this old piece of crap?

perhaps they are hoping that nobody will notice this:

That secret Trump-Russia email server link is likely neither secret nor a Trump-Russia link

corn (david corn! pffffttt!!!) says that the investigation of trump's russian connections has been ongoing for 5 years.

and:

The former intelligence officer says the response from the FBI was "shock and horror." The FBI, after receiving the first memo, did not immediately request additional material, according to the former intelligence officer and his American associates. Yet in August, they say, the FBI asked him for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify his sources. The former spy forwarded to the bureau several memos—some of which referred to members of Trump's inner circle. After that point, he continued to share information with the FBI. "It's quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on," he says.

so, months after this big, hairy, scary investigation of trumps kremlin connections, comey and the fbi were acting as agents of putin when comey put out that notice about the emails found on weiner/abedin's shared laptop?

what a load of crap.

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joe shikspack's picture

i'm guessing that i am not the hillbots' favorite person.

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snoopydawg's picture

Both calling for evidence and using Corn and of course he was basically called an Putin apologist for it.
WMDs are CT.
Putin interfered with the election is accepted even though the information comes from anonymous sources.
And some took a swipe at this site again for being Putin apologists and believing that what was in Podesta's emails.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Crider's picture

Now, I suppose, it has come true and we have become a vassal state of Russia with that idiot dupe as the puppet in chief. Believe It or Not!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8EMx7Y16Vo]

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Steven D's picture

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

janis b's picture

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Crider's picture

Thomas P. Bossert will be “an invaluable asset” claimed Tramp and praised the breadth of experience he would bring to the new administration. “He has a handle on the complexity of homeland security, counterterrorism and cybersecurity challenges.”

“We must work toward cyber doctrine that reflects the wisdom of free markets, private competition and the important but limited role of government in establishing and enforcing the rule of law, honoring the rights of personal property, the benefits of free and fair trade, and the fundamental principles of liberty,” Mr. Bossert said in the statement announcing his appointment.


What do we want? Property rights!
When do we want them? Now!
What do we want? Property rights!
When do we want them? Now!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vc6GPygu84]

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joe shikspack's picture

oh my.

Mr. Bossert served as deputy homeland security adviser for Mr. Bush, and he runs a risk management consulting firm in Washington. He is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, working on the research institution’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative.

Helping to protect the country from cybercrimes is likely to be a major focus for Mr. Bossert in light of the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other incidents in recent years. Mr. Bossert will face the challenge of balancing cybersecurity needs against the privacy concerns of internet companies.

“We must work toward cyber doctrine that reflects the wisdom of free markets, private competition and the important but limited role of government in establishing and enforcing the rule of law, honoring the rights of personal property, the benefits of free and fair trade, and the fundamental principles of liberty,” Mr. Bossert said in the statement announcing his appointment.

well, i'm so glad that corporations are going to have rights, including privacy rights. i wonder if the trumpers envision citizens having privacy rights.

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Crider's picture

What's that? Privacy for my property is all I'm gonna get.

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janis b's picture

musical expression ; ).

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Crider's picture

The lead singer of the Pleasure Seekers was Suzi Quatro!

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Big Al's picture

presidential candidates in U.S. history.
Ya, he's the man all righty.
Further evidence he lives in an alternate reality.

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joe shikspack's picture

heh, of course he could have. he already beat the next worst presidential candidate in us history back in the 2008 primary.

hell, kim kardashian probably could have beat both of those clowns if she ran as an independent.

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Big Al's picture

that's a terrible vision. I think that would be when God strikes us all down with fire and brimstone, again.

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joe shikspack's picture

yah, but given those three choices, who would you have voted for?

(evil grin)

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janis b's picture

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Big Al's picture

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janis b's picture

I always enjoy your musical contributions, Big Al.

[video:https://youtu.be/sLQR7S3t9Uw]

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janis b's picture

Thanks for Tommy Tucker. He’s a lot of fun to listen to.

Do you think anything positive will come from the added exposure of the negatives of Netanyahu?

I hope you enjoyed your balmy evening walk.

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joe shikspack's picture

thanks, i had a very nice, brisk walk.

well, netanyahu seems intent on exposing his negatives (and those of his constituency) in a way that israeli leaders have not previously dared to do. not only does he seem to finally be revealing (after years of official ambiguity) that the israelis have been negotiating in bad faith with the palestinians, but he seems to want to rub the international community's noses in it.

frankly, i think that he's overplaying his hand and as they say, pride cometh before a fall.

the fall of netanyahu and the settler people would be both a necessary and a dangerous thing. necessary because there is little chance for any sort of justice that can lead to peace in the middle east as long as netanyahu and the israeli hard-liners remain in power. dangerous because there is no predicting what lunatics like that might do in defeat, particularly given that they have access to nuclear weapons.

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janis b's picture

But, I guess, confidence-building becomes increasingly more difficult to imagine.

Thank you joe, anyway ; ).

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A wrath is upon us: we must clear the anti-democratic aberration of poor governance, the alternative is to suffer in stupidity, perhaps forever. Remain alert for any putrid emanations. Do not suffer the stupidity, the DP has shown. You will also be held to impossibly high standards, should you fail to walk from their presence. If all a party has to offer is willful ignorance, more is the fool that must suffer for it. So their days will be as peaceful, as their nights, at eternal rest. Preview:2016-2018: "Fork, meat, dun!?"

Yes, not my party, so definitely not my problem. Had their chance, they continue to provide a basic example of a compromised cell, bursting at the seams with virii.

Quickly, this karma, is not yours: Walk past.

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Fighting for democratic principles,... well, since forever

TheOtherMaven's picture

But he'll never show up on one of these lists, because he didn't do blues. Smile https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Tucker

Eileen Farrell might, someday - she successfully straddled both worlds, and gave later singers the option of doing so too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eileen_Farrell

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.