The Evening Blues - 1-31-17
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features delta bluesman Son House. Enjoy!
Son House - Preachin' Blues
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
-- Thomas Paine
News and Opinion
Well now, this looks promising:
Protesters Grill Democratic Senator About His Vote for Trump’s CIA Chief
At a testy meeting with a crowd of constituents Sunday evening, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., became the latest Democratic senator to face a grassroots backlash for voting to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee for director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Whitehouse was one of 14 Democrats who voted last Monday to confirm Mike Pompeo, a fierce Trump ally who largely shares the president’s antagonism towards Muslims and personal privacy, and has strongly suggested that he supports bringing back intelligence gathering techniques that include torture.
Organizers said more than one thousand people showed up at the senator’s town hall, held inside a Providence middle school auditorium, to denounce Whitehouse’s support for Pompeo. ...
The crowd, unhappy with the response, began yelling again, and called for the senator to disclose his positions on other Trump cabinet nominees. Whitehouse committed to voting against Betsy DeVos for education secretary, Steve Mnuchin for treasury secretary, Rex Tillerson for secretary of state, Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Scott Pruitt for EPA, and Andy Puzder for labor secretary, but said he wants to meet with Elaine Chao, Trump’s pick for transportation secretary, before making a decision.
I recommend reading this.
Lessons for “The Resistance” from the Bush Resistance
... While partisan Democrats may be one’s allies when opposing a Republic president, their opposition is opportunistic and not principled. The second they are in charge, they will support or wave aside the same actions they condemned coming from a Republican. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work with partisan Democrats, it means understand when they’ll stop fighting AND that once they don’t need you, they will regard you as a threat and seek to to eliminate you. ...
The control of a party matters more than the results of any individual election. ... But there’s a reason that the US is where it is: After each over-reach, after each extension of executive powers, to the creation of police state and the waging of war, the Democrats didn’t roll back the worst excesses when they got into power, NOR did they push the lever further to the left. In fact, Clinton had many policies worse than Reagan/Bush (welfare, crime) and Obama had many policies worse than Bush Jr., as has been discussed.
In order to stop the next Trump, not just this one, you must have control of a party to the point that they are forced to roll back the terrible laws and policies of the last 40 years–and not just roll them back, but start pushing the lever even further towards equality, away from oligarchy, and towards civil liberties and widespread prosperity. ...
The right-wing understands that. The Netroots said “More and better Democrats,” and while it had some successes, it didn’t have enough, because it failed repeatedly at primarying bad actors.
The Tea Party succeeded: They were able to remove enough Republicans they objected so that the ones who remained were scared to cross them. While doing so, they were willing to lose seats, because they understood that Republicans who would not vote for them when the chips were down might as well be Democrats. (This is where the screams about the Supreme Court would be inserted. There is truth to this, but you are now losing it anyway.) ...
Changing what Democrats WANT to do, who they want to be, and what sort of country they are actually willing to vote for and work to build, is what matters. Objectively, Obama and Bill Clinton contributed massively to the ills which lead to Trump. That needs to stop.
Three Senate Dems, and Angus King, Enable Tillerson to Advance
Senate Democrats and one Independent on Monday helped enable the advancement of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson's nomination as U.S. Secretary of State, sparking outrage.
The cloture vote was 56-43, ending an attempted filibuster with the simple majority needed to move forward, The Hill reports.
And while the vote went largely along party lines, three Democrats—Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Mark Warner (Va.)—as well as Independent Sen. Angus King (Maine), advanced Tillerson's nomination, helping him get one step closer to confirmation even as other Democratic leaders scrambled to delay the decision and an energized resistance movement demands lawmakers show stronger opposition to Trump's nominees.
Now, the Senate may take their final vote on Tillerson's nomination as soon as Wednesday.
Taking names? Angus King, Heidi Heitkamp, Mark Warner & Joe Manchin all voted with the GOP to shut down the filibuster on Tillerson
— Howie Klein (@downwithtyranny) January 30, 2017
Manchin, Heitkamp, and King are up for reelection in 2018.
For some, Sally Yates' firing resembles Saturday Night Massacre
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates' firing over her refusal to enforce President Trump's immigration ban made waves on social media Monday night.
And, as news spread of the ouster, critics thought of another clash between a president and attorney general that ended in an ouster: the Saturday Night Massacre.
Many compared what happened to Yates, an Obama holdover who defied Trump's executive order suspending immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, to former President Richard Nixon's clash with his Attorney General's Office over the handling of the Watergate investigation. That disagreement led to the resignations of Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William D. Ruckelshaus. ...
Critics are drawing parallels between the Saturday Night Massacre and Yates' firing because they see a dissident defying a president (as Cox, Richardson and Ruckelshaus did) resulting in them leaving their posts. Nixon's shakeup came as he was trying to hide his role in the Watergate scandal, which was illegal. Trump's came as he was trying to enforce an immigration order he signed Friday. While Trump says the order is meant to protect Americans from terrorists abroad, the order's constitutionality likely will be challenged in court on the basis that it discriminates against Muslims and violates protections to exercise freedom of religion.
Watergate Veterans: Just Like Nixon, Donald Trump Appears to Think He is Above the Law
If You Want Trump Impeached, It’s Because You Don’t Know Enough About Mike Pence
Mike Pence is a hardcore, Bible-thumping, warmongering neocon. ...
Everything you hate about Trump, Pence embodies, albeit with a much more politically conventional and polite face. He embodies everything that’s foul about Trump, plus he’s as eager to start World War 3 as Hillary Clinton. If you thought the general election featured two awful choices, think about what would happen if you combined all the worst aspects of both of them. The very worst of both deeply abysmal worlds. That’s exactly what Mike Pence is.
What we progressives need is not the impeachment of the current President, it’s to focus on the battle of ensuring that the next one is excellent. The Democratic party currently actively sabotages true progressive candidates. That has not changed. Not one thing about the machine that killed Bernie Sanders has changed a whit, and they don’t intend to change if they can get away with it. As long as they’ve got us naively exerting our energy on a dead-end campaign to oust Trump, they can just quietly slip into the background only to emerge in 2020 with yet another corporate warhawk candidate that we don’t want but feel like we have to get behind as they play the same old trick of “Well, do you want Trump again?”
Come on guys. Let’s get smart. Let Trump duke it out with the neocons while we focus on cleaning house.
If America is to lead the world, voters have a "DUTY to educate themselves"
US under Trump among external threats to EU – council president Tusk
Syria warns against safe zones set up without its consent
Syria said on Monday that any attempt to create so-called safe zones for refugees without coordinating with Damascus would be "unsafe" and violate Syria's sovereignty, the state news agency SANA reported.
SANA said Syria's Foreign Ministry and the United Nations refugee agency had agreed on the issue during a meeting in Damascus. It did not elaborate.
The White House said U.S. President Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia's King Salman agreed in a telephone call on Sunday to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen.
It was Damascus's first comment on the issue since Trump said on Wednesday he would "absolutely do safe zones in Syria" for refugees fleeing violence in the war-torn country.
US defends killing women in Yemen raid, says they were Al-Qaeda combattants
US special forces who led a rare ground assault against Al-Qaeda in Yemen over the weekend killed women fighting alongside male troops, the Defense Department said Monday.
"There were a lot of female combatants" in Sunday's battle, said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis. ...
On the AQAP side, 14 fighters, including women, were killed, according to the Pentagon. The jihadist militant group said nearly 30 people were killed, including women and children.
The Pentagon declined to say whether children were among the fatalities and stated that the death toll was still being evaluated.
Puppet or president?
Riot charges dropped against three more journalists at inauguration protests
Three more journalists who were arrested while covering protests against Donald Trump’s inauguration have had felony charges against them dropped by prosecutors.
Alexander Rubinstein, Jack Keller and Matthew Hopard had been facing potential 10-year prison sentences and $25,000 fines following their detention by police in Washington DC on 20 January.
Riot charges against the three were dismissed on Monday after the US attorney’s office in Washington DC said in court filings that it would not proceed with the prosecutions. An identical charge against Evan Engel, a senior producer for Vocativ, was dropped last week.
Two other men who say they were covering the demonstrations as members of the media – Shay Horse, an independent photojournalist, and Aaron Cantú, a freelance journalist and activist – remain charged with felony rioting, according to court records.
Sarsour v. Trump: Palestinian-American Activist Sues the President to Overturn Muslim Ban
Donald Trump’s ‘Muslim ban’ will only make terrorist attacks, more, not less likely
Donald Trump’s travel ban on refugees and visitors from seven Muslim countries entering the US makes a terrorist attack on Americans at home or abroad more rather than less likely. It does so because one of the main purposes of al-Qaeda and Isis in carrying out atrocities is to provoke an overreaction directed against Muslim communities and states. Such communal punishments vastly increase sympathy for Salafi-jihadi movements among the 1.6 billion Muslims who make up a quarter of the world’s population. ...
Al-Qaeda and its clones had been a small organisation with perhaps as few as a thousand militants in south east Afghanistan and north west Pakistan. But thanks to Bush’s calamitous decisions after 9/11, it now has tens of thousands of fighters, billions of dollars in funds and cells in dozens of countries. Few wars have failed so demonstrably or so badly as “the war on terror”. Isis and al-Qaeda activists are often supposed to be inspired simply by a demonic variant of Islam – and this is certainly how Trump has described their motivation – but in practice it was the excesses of the counter-terrorism apparatus such as torture and rendition, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib which acted as the recruiting sergeant for the Salafi-jihadi movements.
The Trump administration is now sending a message to al-Qaeda and Isis that Washington is easily provoked into mindless and counter-productive repression targeting Muslims in general. Those affected so far are limited in number and about the last people likely to be engaged in terrorist plots. But the political impact is already immense. Salafi-jihadi leaders may be monsters of cruelty and bigotry, but they are not stupid. They will see that if Trump, unprovoked by any terrorist outrage, will act with such self-defeating vigour, then a few bombs or shootings directed at American targets will lead to more scatter-gun persecution of Muslims. ...
Since Isis’s great victories in 2014 when it captured Mosul and conquered a vast area in Iraq and Syria, it has been beaten back by a myriad of enemies. Though it is fighting back hard, its eventual defeat has seemed inevitable, but with Trump fuelling the sectarian war between Muslims and non-Muslims which Isis and al-Qaeda always wanted to wage, their prospects look brighter today than they have for a long time.
America’s Deportation Agents Love Trump’s Ban and Rely on Breitbart for Their News
Donald Trump’s executive order barring nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries from travel to the United States has outraged many Americans, and fostered ill-will across the globe, but one group, at least, is delighted: the nation’s deportation officers and border patrol agents.
Two unions, representing more than 21,000 immigration officers, praised Trump’s action on Saturday night, shortly after federal judges had ordered a halt to the deportation of refugees, tourists and legal permanent residents detained at airports nationwide. ...
The political leanings of the unions, which both endorsed Trump during his campaign for the presidency, might help explain the extreme reluctance of immigration officers at the nation’s airports to comply with court orders requiring them to give detained travelers access to legal counsel.
There is little doubt about the extremely conservative politics of Chris Crane, a federal officer who leads the union that represents most deportation agents, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council. A string of news articles praising him on his union’s website come almost entirely from one source: Breitbart, the conservative website popular with white nationalists. He is also a close ally of Senator Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican now in line to be Attorney General.
Turmoil at DHS and State Department – “There Are People Literally Crying in the Office Here”
While President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration has left families wondering when they will see their loved ones again, drawing condemnation from leaders around the globe, the administration’s actions have also impacted another group: career U.S. officials working on asylum and refugee cases as well as foreign policy.
“There are people literally crying in the office here,” said a senior U.S. immigration official who spoke to The Intercept on condition of anonymity. ...
It was a move many within the government had feared, [an] official said — a so-called “security hold” that would essentially paralyze the asylum and immigration process for those fleeing some of the world’s most volatile places. “Permission to work, adjust status to a citizen or a permanent resident, any immigration form they have will stay in limbo,” the official explained. “We know what is coming. These cases will all likely be denied after significant waits.”
The sense of upheaval has not been confined to DHS. On Monday morning, the legal blog Lawfare published a draft version of a dissent channel memo complied by several officers within the State Department, which blasts the Trump administration for endorsing a policy “which closes our doors to over 200 million legitimate travelers” and “runs counter to core American values of nondiscrimination, fair play, and extending a warm welcome to foreign visitors and immigrants.”
“We are better than this ban,” the memo adds.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded harshly to the leaked dissent memo during a press briefing on Monday. “I think that they should either get with the program or they can go,” he told reporters. “This is about the safety of America and there’s a reason a majority of Americans agree with the president.”
“The president has a very clear vision,” he added. “If somebody has a problem with that agenda, then that does call into question whether they should remain in that post or not.”
Amazon pledges legal support to action against Trump travel ban
Amazon chief executive, Jeff Bezos, has pledged the full legal resources of his company to fight the travel ban instituted by Donald Trump against seven Islamic nations.
In an email to employees sent on Monday afternoon, Bezos said that Amazon would be putting its legal and lobbying efforts behind the fight against the ban. A key avenue of opposition involves supporting the attorney general for Washington state, where Amazon is headquartered, in his lawsuit against Trump – the first confirmed legal action from a state against one of the new administration’s policies. ...
Reuters reports that Microsoft is also working with the state, providing information about the order’s impact “in order to be supportive,” according to a spokesperson, who added “we’d be happy to testify further if needed.” Previously, Microsoft’s statements had been limited to expressing “concerns about the impact of the executive order on our employees”.
DeVos squeaks through
Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Education, was approved by a Senate committee vote of 12 to 11 along party lines on Tuesday morning, clearing the way for a floor vote on her nomination.
Though Democrats have aligned against DeVos because of her ties to far-right advocacy organizations, the Republicans hold a majority in the Senate and she is widely expected to be approved. ...
DeVos’s confirmation process, like that of most of Trump’s nominees, has been rocky. At her confirmation hearing, DeVos did not appear to understand basic education terms and concepts. She said that years of tax forms that listed her as an executive at her mother’s right-wing foundation were a “clerical error.” And according to ranking committee Democrat Patty Murray, “she refused to answer basic questions about her finances.”
Keiser Report: Trump’s Divide & Conquer Strategy
Trump's crooked Goldman Sachs Treasury Secretary - brought to you by Obama. Thanks, Barry.
Mnuchin Again Denies Robo-Signing, Despite Yet More Evidence He Is Lying
Donald Trump's Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin on Monday doubled down on his lie to the Senate Finance Committee, again claiming in amended answers for the record that OneWest Bank never robo-signed foreclosure documents, despite copious evidence that they did.
To make his claim, Mnuchin relied on a discredited government review of OneWest foreclosures, while neglecting actual examples of robo-signing newly uncovered in a news report Sunday.
The Columbus Dispatch found dozens of cases in Ohio public records where low-level OneWest employees in Austin, Texas signed off on affidavits attesting to reviewing the underlying loan file, when they had not. These affidavits included those signed by Erica Johnson-Seck, who admitted in a July 2009 court deposition to spending only 30 seconds on each document and never even reading them. ...
Mnuchin’s use of the Independent Foreclosure Review as a shield reveals yet another example of the sad legacy of accountability for financial fraud under President Obama. Regulators designed a flawed study of foreclosures that, almost by design, did not reveal the extent of borrower harm in the foreclosure crisis.
And now Trump’s Treasury Secretary nominee is using that flawed review to whitewash his lie to the Senate Finance Committee.
Republicans move to sell off 3.3m acres of national land, sparking rallies
Land totaling the size of Connecticut has been targeted in a new bill in the Republican House
Now that Republicans have quietly drawn a path to give away much of Americans’ public land, US representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah has introduced what the Wilderness Society is calling “step two” in the GOP’s plan to offload federal lands.
The new piece of legislation would direct the secretary of the interior to immediately sell off an area of public land the size of Connecticut. In a press release for House Bill 621, Chaffetz, a Tea Party Republican, claimed that the 3.3m acres of national land, maintained by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), served “no purpose for taxpayers”.
But many in the 10 states that would lose federal land in the bill disagree, and public land rallies in opposition are bringing together environmentalists and sportsmen across the west.
Set aside for mixed use, BLM land is leased for oil, gas and timber, but is also open to campers, cyclists, and other outdoor enthusiasts. As well as providing corridors for gray wolves and grizzly bears, low-lying BLM land often makes up the winter pasture for big game species, such as elk, oryx and big-horned sheep. ...
Scott Groene, a Utah conservationist, said the state’s elected officials were trying to “seize public lands any way they can”, without providing Americans a chance to weigh in. If residents knew their local BLM land was being threatened, said Groene, “I’m sure the communities would be shocked”.
The 10 states affected are Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. Residents can see how much acreage is earmarked for “disposal” in their counties by checking a PDF on Chaffetz’s website.
Honduras elites blamed for violence against environmental activists
High-ranking politicians and business tycoons are implicated in a wave of violence against environmental activists in Honduras, according to an investigation by the anti-corruption group Global Witness, which says the country’s elites are using criminal methods to terrorize communities with impunity.
At least 123 land and environmental activists have been murdered in Honduras since a military coup d’état forced out the populist president Manuel Zelaya; many of the victims have been members of indigenous and rural communities opposing mega-projects on their territories.
[Thanks, Hillary Clinton!]
The murder last year of the indigenous activist Berta Cáceres, recipient of the prestigious 2015 Goldman environmental prize, triggered international condemnation but failed to stop the bloodshed. ...
Last year, an investigation by the Guardian revealed that Caceres’ name appeared with dozens of social activists on a military hit-list assigned to US-trained special forces units.
Top Trump Aide Calls Environmental Movement 'The Greatest Threat to Freedom'
Close advisor to President Donald Trump and avowed climate change denier Myron Ebell characterized the environmental movement on Monday as "the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world," and promised that the U.S. would soon withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
"The environmental movement is, in my view, the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world," Ebell said, according to the Guardian, while speaking to the press in London.
Ebell, who oversaw the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) transition team before Trump's inauguration, also strongly affirmed the Trump administration's commitment to climate change denial.
"I don't think there is any doubt that [Trump] thinks that global warming is not a crisis and does not require drastic and immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions," Ebell said.
"The people of America have rejected the expertariat, and I think with good reason because I think the expertariat have been wrong about one thing after another, including climate policy," Ebell added. "The expert class, it seems to me, is full of arrogance or hubris."
Judge in environmental activist's trial says climate change is matter of debate
A Washington state judge has sparked outrage for remarks questioning the existence of climate change and the role of humans in global warming.
During the high-profile trial of Ken Ward, a climate activist facing 30 years in prison for shutting down an oil pipeline, Judge Michael E Rickert said: “I don’t know what everybody’s beliefs are on [climate change], but I know that there’s tremendous controversy over the fact whether it even exists. And even if people believe that it does or it doesn’t, the extent of what we’re doing to ourselves and our climate and our planet, there’s great controversy over that.”
The Skagit County judge made the comments on 24 January while addressing Ward’s request to present a “necessity defense” in court, meaning he would argue that the grave threat of climate change justified civil disobedience.
Rickert’s controversial statements, along with his decision to block Ward from arguing that his pipeline protest was necessary to prevent harm to the planet, angered environmentalists who insist that American courts have an obligation to recognize the science and consensus among researchers about man-made climate change.
“I thought it was shocking and deeply worrisome for my case,” said Ward, 60, of Corbett, Oregon, who temporarily shut off the safety valve of the TransMountain pipeline in Skagit County. “We are in the late stages of global collapse, and to have someone who is presumably as knowledgeable and aware as a judge should be blithely dismissing the biggest problem facing the world is chilling.”
Keystone XL Opponents Promise Trump a Mass Mobilization 'On a Scale Never Seen'
With his order to revive the Keystone XL (KXL) pipeline, President Donald Trump "has declared war on Indigenous nations across the country," one Cheyenne River Sioux organizer said Monday.
But he'll be met by a fierce native resistance movement that "will not back down," said the organizer, Joye Braun, on a press call organized by the Indigenous Environmental Movement (IEN).
Trump signed executive orders last week advancing the controversial KXL and Dakota Access (DAPL) pipelines, prompting widespread outrage and vows of bold resistance from the Indigenous activists, climate campaigners, and countless others who have fought against both projects. What that opposition will look like came into sharper focus on Monday.
"Make no mistake: resistance to the toxic Keystone XL pipeline will only grow stronger," declared Dallas Goldtooth, IEN's Keep it in the Ground organizer. "We will mobilize, fight back, we will resist the Keystone XL pipeline. We plan to create camps along the Keystone XL pipeline route to fight this pipeline every step of the way."
A press release from his organization confirmed that Indigenous groups are "organizing spiritual camps to resist the Keystone XL pipeline up and down the pipeline route, in addition to reviving the Standing Rock camp" which sprang out of resistance to DAPL and at its height housed thousands of protesters.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
How Corporate Media Threatens Our Democracy
The anti-Trump resistance will fail if we don't ditch establishment Democrats
Secret Docs Reveal: President Trump Has Inherited an FBI With Vast Hidden Powers
Trump Quiets Some Russian Doubts
Iranians in U.S. “Can Never Feel Safe Anymore” After Muslim Ban
Donald Trump Has a Goldman Sachs Problem: Derivatives
Here’s the Big Threat to Americans That Trump Is Ignoring
A New Wrinkle in the War on Truth
A Little Night Music
Son House - Grinnin' in Your Face
Son House - John the revelator
Son House - Walkin Blues
Son House w/Buddy Guy - My Black Mama
Son House - Levee Camp Moan
Son House - Beween Midnight And Day
Son House - Pearline
Son House - Pony Blues
Son House - Empire State Express
Comments
I'm gonna get me religion,
from Son House 'Preachin Blues'
evening randtntx...
sounds like an ok gig, but i think that i'd rather start my own, more enjoyable religion.
You are right about the enjoyable part.
Why make things unenjoyable for a purely arbitrary reason?
I will edit the above to reflect that it is a quote from the above (above) song lyrics. My main enthusiasm was for the no-work status of the Baptist preacher. The no-work description could apply to any preacher of any religion I suppose. If one could devise a truly enjoyable religion, it could possibly apply to that as well.
@randtntx But are you willing to
But are you willing to give up drinking and dancing?
Baptists preach against drinking, dancing, and adultery. They tend to actually abstain from drinking and dancing.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
I stand corrected.
There are some things I will not give up.
Welcome to Krypton
The molecules in the atmosphere and the sunlight striking earth don't care what anybody thinks, they're just obeying their physical nature.
I pity humanity.
"the expertariat"
because, as all know, experts are Commies.
evening shahryar...
soon they will all be wearing pink o's on their clothing.
I tend to agree that
the expert class is full of arrogance and hubris. I would add that they are all about self-aggrandizement which is of course of primary importance.
That's the true ugliness
of it, to me. There's a lot of truth in the stupidity of the expert class, so now it's going to be turned against expertise in general. Lot easier for Trump to grasp that way, and easy to sell with the arrogance and idiocy of our media too.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
heh...
I think you found the perfect song
for our era. TPTB described in a nutshell. The problem is though, that our planet is in real peril because of "the smartest guys in the room". All the little critters on the planet are doomed just because of these smart folks. It just doesn't seem fair.
evening nvt
i guess facts are of secondary importance when insults have been taken and injury has occurred.
oh well, i hear that facts aren't what they used to be anyway.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
Thanks for the EB
I don't usually comment because I usually see it too late or the next day or whatever, but I always appreciate all your work (and the music). I have a bit of Son House in my music collection. I do like the Preachin' Blues especially.
thanks!
glad you enjoy reading and listening.
Peggy Lee has a question for us tonight
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCRZZC-DH7M]
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
evening steven...
a great question. and there seems to be an answer built in. happy dancing!
What a mess...
How many protests will it take?
I visited with a pro-T-rump crowd today with these sentiments (4 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9Vqd7h9QSs
They listen to reason about like T-rump uses reason.
Papantonio thinks T-rump is within his legal rights (4 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REyLFEMq-lU
Like I said...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
evening lookout...
i don't think that protest alone is going to do the trick. i'm afraid that this is going to take years to sort out.
some things will require protest and civil disobedience, such as the pipelines for example. ultimately, those tactics may fail however.
it seems like we will need to rely on the courts and at the same time we will probably have to force the democrats to act in our interests or purge them.
The expert class in my experience
has been all about stealing the profits while screwing the people who do all the actual work.
the expert class...
it seems to me are the (often very well-compensated) lackeys of the .01% who arrange their legal, financial and legislative/regulatory affairs.
the .01% get the bulk of the profits.
Am I in the twilight zone ?
This (rather non-specific, as in ill-defined) classification is a bit off-putting. Unless you are defining "the expert class" as those lackeys to which you refer. If so, I would have to ask, "How do I fit into this schema?"
evening pricerip
here are some rambling, random thoughts before i drop off to sleep.
it is vague, but look at where the terminology comes from.
it comes from people who are struggling to make it and have been told that the reason that they are unable to achieve their goals is because of the liberal technocrats who have undermined them with their evil regulations. naturally, their ability to achieve a decent standard of living or maintain dignified employment has nothing to do with the actions of the people who are pointing at the liberal technocrats...
while we probably can all find examples of people (perhaps even some scientists) who have at times expressed themselves with something less than adequate compassion for those that have been left behind by capital, the definition of just who the "expert class" is must remain vague to serve its rhetorical purpose.
if i wasn't clear, ultimately the "expert class" (whoever that group contains) is not to blame for the problems of the underclass, rather it is their employers/clients of the .1% who direct the market and the government.
so, how do you fit? i don't know. we live in an age where science, facts and truth do not seem to be quite as revered as they once were. perhaps we are coming to a point where pursuit of truth rather than survival needs is a hallmark of class privilege.
You have it almost right.
This is spot on in my opinion:
The above coupled to your last paragraph succulently describes the nature of the verbal haze that has acted to destroy the hard won confidence we (scientists) enjoyed in the past. I take this personally because I have experienced this transition (and resulting contempt) personally.
This is the bit that is "almost right", meaning it is analogous to "whitesplaining" so I suppose I am required to invent a new word, "expertclassplaining" or some such nonsense.
In the 1980s I gave a presentation entitled "The Inevitable Demise of Capitalism", because I noticed a "sudden" increase in the flow of STEM graduates into the financial sector. Computers were on the verge of becoming ubiquitous, and given my knowledge I knew what was about to happen. Maybe wizards can see into the future. To the extent I had any influence I steered students away from that cesspit, but there are always students that "know better" than some "idealistic" professor. That is a truism I suppose.
The point is: In every bit of propaganda there must be a kernel of truth. References: Sun Tze (if you bother to read between the lines), George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, and too many others to mention. So, while I know "the masses" are being duped and we are being unjustly vilified, I understand it all oh so very well. The problem is how to fix the situation. Generalist terms like "the expert class" are just more shit lubricating the gears that are grinding us all to dust. Or perhaps a better analogy would involve The Colosseum. What does it matter anyway, it is all bread and circuses, permeated with strychnine and shards of glass.
I keep coming back to the fact that a select set of individuals are allowed to rape our economic system without fear of incarceration. That otherwise honorable students I have known are getting seduced into being the Wehrmacht of the corporate reich commanders.
How was that for going full on Godwin's?
heh, well pricerip, you have it almost right...
i salute your prescience regarding the best stem minds shuffling off to wall street.
what we are seeing now, i think, is the predictable result of productivity enhancements and automation.
capital now has at its beck and call a vastly larger pool of surplus labor than is needed to fulfill david ricardo's iron law of wages.
ricardo seemed to assume that the elites would have a reason to sustain the life of the laborers - which is why wages would always tend to subsistence level.
we are long past that point - and the structures of our society and culture are rooted in the assumptions that lives (or at least the ability to sell one's labor) have significantly more value than capital places upon them currently.
this places capital at odds with the society and culture that are imposing costs upon capital that it feels are greater than its due based upon its extraction value + expected profit growth.
capital is trying to shed costs (starting with those regulations that protect life and limb) and there will be lots of finger pointing and distraction.
anyone, such as scientists who get in the way of their cost reduction operation is going to get slimed.
So we being played by MSM
sine when did the nomination of a SCOTUS judge become prime time viewing?
just sayin......MSM hasn't changed and it doesn't matter who's prez.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
evening ggersh...
it sounds like trump is still producing his television show.
Hey Joe! Speaking of Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs is pushing back against Government Sachs.
To thine own self be true.
Funny
Do we have a tiff?
evening marilyn...
wow, that's pretty funny. i'm guessing that there will be some interesting discussions between goldman and government sachs.
Good evening Joe and Bluesters...
As always, many thanks for the news and music and the sanity of this place.
Especially worried about the 'sale' of public lands and all the other bills in waiting authored by repugs; going to pass things under the radar as Trump's WH team provides headlines of sensational cover.
Needless to say, it's late and useless to mutter "I told you so," to the DNC and TOP.
Time for breaking eggs, now. "Keep on trucking!"
Hi Smiley, but "those lands serve no purpose"
nice to see you.
This is no purpose?
Looks to me like the land is exploited to the max. It would serve taxpayers even more without the resource extraction. Some small minds cannot imagine that wilderness could exist just for itself and its wildlife.
To thine own self be true.
Maybe the hunters can...
metaphorically train their sights on the thieves in the night.
evening smiley...
great to see you!
yeah, that process which will ultimately lead to the privatization of public lands really ticks me off. unfortunately, given the enormous scale of the republicans victories at the state and federal levels, our public commons are very likely to be significantly looted. it's going to be pretty awful for a while - and yes, the democrats created this opportunity for the 1%.
Thanks for all you do, Joe.
I probably do not say that enough.
I do, however, make a monthly contribution to this wonderful site, and encourage anyone reading this to please, pretty please, send what you can spare.
I fell, broke my shoulder on Saturday night. I haven't missed a minute of work. I have 5 cases on the docket tomorrow (1 uncontested probate matter, in another court that are uncontested,(one felony, 2 civil) and 1 trial that may go until late at night.)
Now, the 88 year old client can't wait for me to heal. The client flying in from another state can't get a refund on her ticket because my shoulder hurts. My 72 year old client must get his divorce done and documents done in order to transfer God only knows how many millions of dollars, and it must be done now. And I cannot be impaired by the pain meds given to me at the emergency room.
And seriously, people, the only time I ever felt at all disappointed about this site was some serious lawyer bashing that occurred.
We are advocates for your case, within the confines of law. We do not make shit up. We just present to the judges, in legalese, what you want them to hear.
The only time lawyers make mountains out of molehills is to pump up their fees. And in due time, lawyers that get called out stop doing it, or get disbarred.
joe, sorry. Way off even an open thread.
Many legal issues that have sprung up over the past 2 weeks have had me answering questions I should not have had to answer, thanks Obama.
Peace. Today I made a contribution to save elephants. IWW.
Again,
Peace.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I hope your shoulder gets better soon.
You are taking the meds at night, aren't you, so you can get some rest?
And to misquote the Bible, a compassionate lawyer is worth more than rubies.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
@featheredsprite Night time is when I
Night time is when I don't need the Tylenol 3.
I took one Monday morning to get through the day, and another this morning.
No way I can continue them.
10 years ago, I appeared in court with a sinus infection that caused vertigo. I was at court to make some announcements for case continuances so I could go see a doctor. I had informed the judge I was liable to fall, and the court bailiff actually grabbed me.
To this day, their are some police officers that spread the word about me that I am a drug user, staggering around in court.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
sorry to hear about your shoulder break and the pain that accompanies it. your commitment to your clients is quite admirable.
i'm sorry that you've had some occasion to feel uncomfortable due to criticism of your profession. if it's any help, i think that most people feel like there are good and bad lawyers and the bad ones do a lot of damage to the profession's reputation. perhaps more reflective sorts recognize that the whole legal system is not a level playing field and that no individual lawyer can really fix that, though many really decent lawyers make sacrifices to help those that might not otherwise get a fair hearing.
anyway, i hope that you can find a way to take the grumbling as being about those other lawyers.
Do you remember Pelosi's pledge in 2006 when she said that
if we put them in the majority position they would roll back the Bush abuses? And what she said after we did? This is such a great statement about how when a republican president can't get the legislation passed then the next democratic president does it.
And it seems that only the republicans can block bad legislation by placing holds or filibuster bad legislation.
Both NAFTA and welfare reform was cooked up by George One and then when Bill became president he signed them into law.
Same thing happened when Obama continued PNAC's goals in the Middle East, the Patriot and Military Commission act, the continued money for the banks that had crashed the global economy and extended the tax cuts for the elites.
I don't think that the war on terror failed because as it has often been stated there isn't a military solution to the problem of terrorists attacks. After the first attack on the towers, the government treated it as a crime and put the people in prison.
If our government was serious about ending the war then they as well as our allies would quit funding and arming them. But that would hurt the defense industrie's profits.
This is the exact same thing with the war on drugs. If those drugs were legalized then it would end the profits of the military industrial complex and other industries.
Great round up again joe, thanks.
There is so much information on what is happening around the world and you bring it to our attention
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
evening snoopy...
well i remember pelosi's table and the strange difficulty she had in putting on it the things that she had promised to place there. the fact that she is still occupying a seat in the congress is a shame upon her district and a national plague. i don't feel this way about many people, but i think that i will not be at all saddened when the suck embraces her.
heh, as you indicate, vexatious republican ideas slouch towards democratic administrations to be born.
No good news today. We're going to hell in a handbasket.
But if you need a calming break, may I recommend Bored Panda dot com?
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
evening featheredsprite...
heh, i thought that sheldon whitehouse getting invited to explain himself to 1,000 angry progressives about his vote for mike pompeo was good news. it would be even better news if it happened to a lot more craven dems.
Whitehouse voted against allowing access to cheaper drugs
from Canada too. Now his support for Pompeo essentially erases his reputation as a fighter against global warming.
So disappointed in Whitehouse
whom I used to respect very much. He is throwing himself in with the "grown-ups" who will make the "compromises" that bring us all down in the long run.
" “Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” FDR "
Hey joe ...
@ Mac Davis
I like that song, hadn't heard it in a while. I don't know why, but it put me in mind of this one:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylv1_FEXvLM]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
evening azazello...
heh, i hadn't thought of that song in decades and it just sprung to mind without warning.
thanks for the roger miller! i hadn't listened to him since he hired danny gatton as his sideman and went out on tour with him.
On the Cusp
I wish you a speedy recovery and a diminution of your pain as soon as possible. Any derogatory remarks made about the expert class are not aimed at you but at those who seek profits regardless of the harm it causes.
Ayep.
The new order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.