The Evening Blues - 2-6-17
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago blues piano player and singer Otis Spann. Enjoy!
Otis Spann - Who's out there
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
-- H.L. Mencken
News and Opinion
Liberals Are Becoming Addicted To Fear, And It’s A Problem
In order to keep liberal Americans in a constant state of fear since the November election so as to avoid having to make any changes in the way it does business (which has indeed been the objective), the neoliberal/neocon establishment media was pounding the “Russian hacking” narrative into their skulls in daily fire-and-brimstone fearmongering updates until Trump’s inauguration. You don’t hear nearly as much about Russia now that Trump’s been sworn in, because until he became an actual government official taking actual government action, there was only so much they could squawk about before the spell they were casting wore off. So they babbled about Russian hackers and urinating prostitutes nonstop from November 9th until January 20th to fill in the fear gap.
And now, at long last, they’ve got President Trump to fuel the fire. Every single thing he does, every tweet, every comment, every word-salady mouth fart he makes in front of the podium gets twisted into the most extreme possible interpretation and alarm bells ring throughout the nation to keep America’s liberals in a constant state of cortisol and adrenaline-soaked fugue. ... There’s an orgiastic fervor to these nationwide collective fear fests these people keep partaking in day after day after day. To be frank, it has a very strong masturbatory element to it. We’re watching America’s liberals repeatedly engaging in collective orgies of fear porn.
This is a problem. There are many actual, real-life flaws with the current administration, and by keeping our bodies in a constant state of fight-or-flight response, we’re crippling our ability to tackle them in a very real way. Everyone’s jumping at shadows, tackling non-issues, annoying and desensitizing the rest of the nation with nonstop crying wolf and irresponsible hyperbole. We’re spread way too thin and stretched way too far to properly fight Trump’s insane environmental policy, for example, or to watch for and combat human rights violations in the impending deportations of millions of purportedly lawbreaking undocumented immigrants. We’re too stupid, irrational and forgetful to respond consciously to real challenges, and the rest of the country is getting too busy wishing we’d cease our nonstop shrieking to hear our concerns.
Oval Office Cold Open - SNL
Heh, Trump says something true and the Washington establishment rushes in to beat him for it.
Trump faces wrath of Republican hawks after defending Putin
Republican hawks took to Twitter and the Sunday political shows to attack President Donald Trump for his latest comments defending Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal regime.
Pressed by Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly about how Trump could respect a “killer” like Putin, Trump said, “We got a lot of killers [too]. What, you think our country is so innocent?" ... “We’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.” ...
Just four years ago, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said Russia was America’s “number one geopolitical foe” and portrayed President Obama as naive for pursuing a “reset” with the country. Now, Democrats in Congress are rattling every saber they can find at Russia, and Republicans in Congress are either quietly accepting Trump’s fancy for Putin or, like Rubio, criticizing it.
Vice President Mike Pence made the rounds to television news studios in the nation’s capital Sunday morning to defend the president. Pence told CBS’s John Dickerson on “Face the Nation” that Trump’s comments shouldn’t be interpreted as establishing any moral equivalency between the two countries. Dickerson then repeatedly pressed Pence on whether he believed the United States was morally superior to Russia, but Pence refused to give a direct answer.
The United States Is Innocent and Has Never Killed Anyone
It was bound to be the case that if a U.S. president ever admitted that the United States murdered people and did so on a scale at least as significant as other countries, he would be defending the practice, not denouncing it.
It is not a secret in much of the world that the United States is (as that Putin stooge Martin Luther King Jr. put it) the greatest purveyor of violence on earth. The United States is the top weapons dealer, the top weapons buyer, the biggest military spender, the most widespread imperial presence, the most frequent war maker, the most prolific overthrower of governments, and from 1945 to 2017 the killer of the most people through war. ...
The reality of U.S. foreign relations is generally treated as “fake news.” So, when someone like Donald Trump, who pushes lies and disasters like they’re going out of style, blurts out some truth, Democratic partisans are eager to denounce it.
But their blind partisan patriotism just reinforces the truth of what Trump said. As he pursues policies of “stealing oil” and “killing families” he is adding nothing new to the United States’ record. Killing has been the primary investment of federal discretionary spending since long before the days of the Bowling Green Massacre.
The FBI Is Building A National Watchlist That Gives Companies Real Time Updates on Employees
The FBI's Rap Back program is quietly transforming the way employers conduct background checks. While routine background checks provide employers with a one-time “snapshot” of their employee’s past criminal history, employers enrolled in federal and state Rap Back programs receive ongoing, real-time notifications and updates about their employees’ run-ins with law enforcement, including arrests at protests and charges that do not end up in convictions. (“Rap” is an acronym for Record of Arrest and Prosecution; ”Back” is short for background). Testifying before Congress about the program in 2015, FBI Director James Comey explained some limits of regular background checks: “People are clean when they first go in, then they get in trouble five years down the road [and] never tell the daycare about this.” ...
Rap Back has been advertised by the FBI as an effort to target individuals in “positions of trust,” such as those who work with children, the elderly, and the disabled. According to a Rap Back spokesperson, however, there are no formal limits as to “which populations of individuals can be enrolled in the Rap Back Service.” Civil liberties advocates fear that under Trump’s administration the program will grow with serious consequences for employee privacy, accuracy of records, and fair employment practices.
In typical federal background checks, the FBI expunges or returns the fingerprints it collects. But for the Rap Back system, the FBI retains the prints it collects on behalf of companies and agencies so that it can notify employers about their employee’s future encounters with law enforcement. The FBI has the license to retain all submitted fingerprints indefinitely — even after notice of death. Employers are even offered the option to purchase lifetime subscriptions to the program for the cost of $13 per person. The decision to participate in Rap Back is at employers’ discretion. Employees have no choice in the matter.
“This type of infrastructure always tends to undergo mission creep,” explained the ACLU’s Jay Stanley, referring to how agencies often find secondary uses for data beyond its original function.
Google to appeal against order to hand over user emails stored outside US
US magistrate judge Thomas Rueter in Philadelphia ruled on Friday that Google must comply with search warrants issued by the FBI as part of a domestic fraud investigation. He said that transferring emails from a foreign server so FBI agents could review them locally did not qualify as a seizure because there was “no meaningful interference” with the account holder’s “possessory interest” in the data sought. ...
But the ruling diverges from one made at a federal appeals court, which reached the opposite conclusion in a similar case involving Microsoft and its customer email data stored outside of the US.
A Google spokesperson said in a statement: “The magistrate in this case departed from precedent, and we plan to appeal the decision. We will continue to push back on overbroad warrants.”
The Philadelphia ruling came less than seven months after the second US circuit court of appeals in New York ruled Microsoft could not be forced to turn over emails stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland that US law enforcement sought in a narcotics case. That 14 July decision was welcomed by dozens of technology and media companies, privacy advocates and both the American Civil Liberties Union and US Chamber of Commerce.
Deaths in U.S. Raids Enable Al-Qaeda's Rising Influence in Yemen
The U.S. military's stats on deadly airstrikes are wrong. Thousands have gone unreported
The American military has failed to publicly disclose potentially thousands of lethal airstrikes conducted over several years in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, a Military Times investigation has revealed. The enormous data gap raises serious doubts about transparency in reported progress against the Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Taliban, and calls into question the accuracy of other Defense Department disclosures documenting everything from costs to casualty counts.
In 2016 alone, U.S. combat aircraft conducted at least 456 airstrikes in Afghanistan that were not recorded as part of an open-source database maintained by the U.S. Air Force, information relied on by Congress, American allies, military analysts, academic researchers, the media and independent watchdog groups to assess each war's expense, manpower requirements and human toll. Those airstrikes were carried out by attack helicopters and armed drones operated by the U.S. Army, metrics quietly excluded from otherwise comprehensive monthly summaries, published online for years, detailing American military activity in all three theaters.
Most alarming is the prospect this data has been incomplete since the war on terrorism began in October 2001. If that is the case, it would fundamentally undermine confidence in much of what the Pentagon has disclosed about its prosecution of these wars, prompt critics to call into question whether the military sought to mislead the American public, and cast doubt on the competency with which other vital data collection is being performed and publicized. Those other key metrics include American combat casualties, taxpayer expense and the military’s overall progress in degrading enemy capabilities.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military activity in all three war zones, indicated it is unable to determine how far back the Army’s numbers have been excluded from these airpower summaries.
White House Pulls Back From Bid to Reopen C.I.A. ‘Black Site’ Prisons
The Trump White House appears to have backed off for now on its consideration of reopening overseas “black site” prisons, where the C.I.A. once tortured terrorism suspects, after a leaked draft executive order prompted bipartisan pushback from Congress and cabinet officials.
On Thursday, the White House circulated among National Security Council staff members a revised version of the draft order on detainees that deleted language contemplating a revival of the C.I.A. prisons, according to several officials familiar with its contents.
The draft order retains other parts of the original that focus on making greater use of the military’s Guantánamo Bay prison, which the Obama administration had tried to close. Those sections, reflecting repeated vows from President Trump, include a call to bring newly captured terrorism detainees there and to freeze plans for any more transfers.
After news outlets reported details of the original draft on Jan. 25, lawmakers erupted in outrage, and both the defense secretary, Jim Mattis, and the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, disavowed any prior knowledge of the contemplated order.
China accuses US of putting stability of Asia Pacific at risk
China has accused the US of putting the stability of the Asia-Pacific at risk after Donald Trump’s defence secretary said Washington would come to Japan’s defence in the event of a conflict with Beijing over the disputed Senkaku islands.
James Mattis, on a two-day visit to Japan, said the islands, which are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China, fell within the scope of the Japan-US security treaty, under which Washington is obliged to defend all areas under Japanese administrative control.
Mattis also made clear that the US opposed any unilateral action that risked undermining Japan’s control of the Senkakus, a group of uninhabited islets that are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and potentially large natural gas deposits.
“I want to make certain that Article 5 of our mutual defence treaty is understood to be as real to us today as it was a year ago, five years ago – and as it will be a year, and 10 years, from now,” Mattis, a retired marine general who has served in South Korea and Japan, told Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, on Friday evening.
On Saturday, China’s foreign ministry called on the US to stop issuing “wrong remarks” about the Senkakus, which are located in the East China Sea and known as the Diaoyu in China. The ministry said in a statement that the US should avoid complicating the issue and “bringing instability to the regional situation”.
Romania scraps decree to decriminalize corruption after largest protests in decades
Romania’s prime minister abandoned a controversial emergency decree Sunday that would have protected corrupt politicians from prosecution. The decree, initially passed Tuesday without parliamentary consent, sparked the country’s largest protests in decades and drew criticism from abroad.
The decree would have decriminalized abuse of power in offenses involving less than 199,102 Romanian Leus — the equivalent of about $47,500 (or €44,000) — and potentially freed dozens of officials jailed for corruption. In response, an estimated 250,000 people took to the streets in protest Wednesday — the largest demonstrations the country has seen since the fall of communism in 1989. ...
Romania is seen as having one of the worst corruption problems in the European Union. Decades of corruption, ranging from low-level bribes to high-level fraudulent activity, have chipped away at public trust of government. In 2015 alone, the DNA handled 1,250 corruption cases.
Michigan GOP Official Calls For 'Another Kent State' For Campus Protesters
A Republican Party official in northern Michigan has issued what amounts to a death threat against American college protesters, calling for “another Kent State” in the wake of protests at the University of California, Berkeley. ...
Dan Adamini, former chair and current secretary of the Marquette County Republican Party, indicated that a single death might be sufficient to end student protests this time around.
“I’m thinking another Kent State might be the only solution protest stopped after only one death,” he posted on Facebook on Thursday. “They do it because they know there are no consequences yet.”
Trump's plan for the economy is about Wall Street, not manufacturing
While hugely important to his political base — including industrial Midwestern states like Michigan and Ohio — manufacturing just isn’t a big part of a U.S. economy that has been intensely tilted toward domestic consumption for decades. In fact, today’s jobs report shows that manufacturing jobs shrunk to just 8.48 percent of all U.S. jobs, a new low.
Any effort to reorient the U.S. economy radically toward manufacturing would be disruptive and incredibly difficult. If Trump is serious about hitting his goals of pushing U.S. growth up to 4 percent, expect him to focus on pulling more conventional levers for economic growth, such as easing regulations that have kept bank lending relatively tight. For the record, the Trump administration seems to be setting the table for just such a relaxation of regulations on the banks, with news emerging Friday that he plans to kill off an Obama-era rule that attempted to reduce conflicts of interest for asset managers and brokers.
While reckless lending can get out of control, a burst of lending is a much easier path to U.S. economic growth than trying to turn the U.S. economy back to some industrial Golden Age.
Pence plans to use tie-breaking vote to confirm Betsy DeVos for education post
Vice-president Mike Pence said on Sunday he expects that the billionaire Republican donor Betsy DeVos will be confirmed as education secretary with his tie-breaking vote.
Pence blamed the tie on DeVos in the Senate – the first-ever on a cabinet nominee – on “obstruction by the Democrats”, despite the fact that two Republican defections have caused it.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Pence said the Trump White House was “very confident that Betsy DeVos is going to be the secretary of education”.
'Shame on you': Republicans face crowds angry over Obamacare repeal
Angry voters confronted Republican lawmakers at town halls in California and Florida this weekend, fearful that the party’s promise to repeal former president Obama’s healthcare law will leave them without a comprehensive alternative.
In California on Saturday, congressman Tom McClintock had to be escorted by police, having faced tough questions about healthcare, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) – referred to pejoratively by Republicans as Obamacare – and President Trump’s agenda. Protesters followed him, shouting: “Shame on you!”
In an equally conservative district in Florida, congressman Gus Bilirakis answered questions from town hall attendees worried about the loss of insurance and higher premiums if the ACA is repealed.
The events were captured on Facebook, the Saint Peters blog and other news organizations and echoed angry town halls that Democrats faced in 2009, when Obama pressed for passage of his sweeping law.
Trump Reportedly Scraps Anti-LGBT Executive Order, But Vows to Give Churches More Political Power
Texas Governor Goes to War with Austin Over Immigration Enforcement
After and intense week of back-and-forth communications between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and local officials in Austin regarding Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez’s policy of honoring only lawfully obtained immigration detention requests, Abbott made good on a threat to yank from the county $1.5 million in criminal justice-related grants.
“As sheriff your primary duty is to ensure the safety of the residents of Travis County,” Abbott wrote to Hernandez in a January 23 letter threatening to cut off the funds if she failed to reverse course. “However, your recent policy directive forbidding Travis County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) employees from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) … betrays your oath and the residents of Travis County.”
At direct issue is a decision by the newly elected Hernandez to discontinue her predecessor’s policy of honoring all ICE-issued immigration detention requests under an Obama-era program — known variously as Secure Communities (S-Comm) or the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP) — that saw deportations in the U.S. skyrocket and that has drawn the ire of immigrant rights advocates and the courts. Under the previous sheriff, Austin ranked third in the nation for its deportation rate.
Under the detainer program, fingerprints collected by local jailers are shared with immigration authorities via the FBI. If ICE gets a hit on a person believed to be in the country illegally, the agency would request that the local jail hold the person until agents came come pick them up — even if the detention would extend beyond the legal term of incarceration or after the person has made bail. Jurisdictions that have refused to honor such detainers have been dubbed “sanctuary cities.”
California protests lead the way for Trump resistance movement
The activists entered the train tracks, chained themselves together with PVC piping and halted all commuter rail traffic in San Francisco. Two miles away, hundreds shut down Uber’s corporate offices, blockaded Wells Fargo’s global headquarters and formed a barricade at the Israeli consulate.
While protests erupted across the US on Donald Trump’s inauguration day, the carefully planned demonstrations in the San Francisco Bay Area offered a window into the highly coordinated and energetic resistance campaign that is rapidly emerging in California.
“We interrupted people’s business as usual, so you had to think about the impact of Trump on marginalized communities,” said Cat Brooks, co-founder of the Anti Police-Terror Project, who helped organize the protests. “You don’t get to not take a stand any more. You have to pick a side.”
During Trump’s chaotic first weeks in office, the Golden State has embraced its reputation for progressive politics and civil rights activism and has cemented its role as the state that will lead the movement to defy the White House.
Despite concerns of possible retaliation from Trump, California’s leaders have pledged to aggressively resist him – on immigration, health, the environment, voting rights and more – while grassroots activists have strategized ways to stand up for the most vulnerable communities and launch mass actions.
Lawyers Urge Appeals Court Not to "Unleash Chaos Again" by Reinstating Trump's Muslim Ban
California Moves to Become a Sanctuary State
A week after President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting immigrants prompted nationwide protests and global condemnation, California lawmakers took the first steps in advancing measures that would bar the state’s police and sheriffs from enforcing federal immigration law. Legislative hearings Tuesday had the tone of a state ready to go head to head with Washington, with repeated references to California’s size, economic clout, and large immigrant population. Lawmakers also went out of their way to highlight studies linking sanctuary policies to decreased crime. ...
A separate bill intended to counter Trump’s call for a national Muslim registry was unanimously passed by California’s Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday. The measure, SB 31, would prevent state law enforcement from participating in the creation of any database or registry of individuals according to their religion, national origin, or ethnicity. ...
A third bill that advanced out of the Judiciary Committee, SB 6, would create a state-funded legal defense program for undocumented immigrants in deportation proceedings. The program would not cover individuals with violent felony convictions on their record.
West Coast cities have also started to push back against Trump’s order punishing sanctuary cities. On Tuesday, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera sued the federal government on the grounds that the 10th Amendment bars Washington from withholding money from states in response to policy disagreements.
Australia's chief scientist compares Trump to Stalin over climate censorship
Australia’s chief scientist has slammed Donald Trump’s attempt to censor environmental data, saying the US president’s behaviour was comparable to the manipulation of science by the Soviet Union.
Speaking at a scientific roundtable in Canberra on Monday, Alan Finkel warned science was “literally under attack” in the United States and urged his colleagues to keep giving “frank and fearless” advice despite the political opposition.
“The Trump administration has mandated that scientific data published by the United States Environmental Protection Agency from last week going forward has to undergo review by political appointees before that data can be published on the EPA website or elsewhere,” he said.
“It defies logic. It will almost certainly cause long-term harm. It’s reminiscent of the censorship exerted by political officers in the old Soviet Union.
“Every military commander there had a political officer second-guessing his decisions.”
Last month Trump’s administration mandated that any studies or data from scientists at the EPA undergo review by political appointees before they can be released to the public.
California Struggles with Groundwater Depletion Following End of Drought
Republicans Are Using Big Tobacco’s Secret Science Playbook to Gut Health Rules
Much of the country has been watching in horror as Donald Trump has made good on his promises to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency — delaying 30 regulations, severely limiting the information staffers can release, and installing Scott Pruitt as the agency’s administrator to destroy the agency from within. But even those keeping their eyes on the EPA may have missed a quieter attack on environmental protections now being launched in Congress.
On Tuesday, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is expected to hold a hearing on a bill to undermine health regulations that is based on a strategy cooked up by tobacco industry strategists more than two decades ago. At what Republicans on the committee have dubbed the “Making EPA Great Again” hearing, lawmakers are likely to discuss the Secret Science Reform Act, a bill that would limit the EPA to using only data that can be replicated or made available for “independent analysis.”
The proposal may sound reasonable enough at first. But because health research often contains confidential personal information that is illegal to share, the bill would prevent the EPA from using many of the best scientific studies. It would also prohibit using studies of one-time events, such as the Gulf oil spill or the effect of a partial ban of chlorpyrifos on children, which fueled the EPA’s decision to eliminate all agricultural uses of the pesticide, because these events — and thus the studies of them — can’t be repeated. Although it is nominally about transparency, the bill leaves intact protections that allow industry to keep much of its own inner workings and skewed research secret from the public, while delegitimizing studies done by researchers with no vested interest in their outcome.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Women of America: we're going on strike March 8. Join us so Trump will see our power
Raoul Martinez on writing this year's essential text for thinking radicals
Steering Trump Back to Endless War
Trump’s Immigration Court Battle Just Became a States’ Rights Case
“Let the Leaking Begin” — Longtime NASA Watchdog Welcomes New Rogue-Agency Tweeters
Don’t Side With Neoliberalism in Opposing Trump
Historical Ignorance, Spineless ‘Dissent’: the Dangers of Decorous Resistance
An Actual American War Criminal May Become Our Second-Ranking Diplomat
A Little Night Music
Otis Spann - Feelin' Good
Otis Spann w/ Muddy Waters & His Band - Been a Long, Long Time
Otis Spann - One More Mile to Go
Luther "Snake" Johnson + Otis Spann - Down to the nitty gritty
You're Gonna Miss Me When I'm Gone
Otis Spann - You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now
Otis Spann - Marie
Otis Spann + BB King - Five Spot
Otis Spann - Home To Mississippi
Comments
Good evening, joe and bluzerz!
Stopping in while I have a minute this blustery February day!
RESISTANCE! That's my motto. My resolve is even stronger when I see how the folks in progressive California are handling things. I love the protests - they are in the streets - in their faces. It goes along with the Chris Hedges article in Truthdig today: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/make_america_ungovernable_20170205
Hope all are doing the best they can each day. We must continue to live with meaning.
Have a beautiful day, folks!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
evening ra...
it hasn't worked up to blustering around here today, it was actually kind of on the warm, sunny side.
i am glad to see the people out in the streets again, too. it's a hopeful sign. liberals may not be able to get elected because of their sad attachment to neoliberal slimeball politicians, but they do seem to control the public dialogue.
have a great evening and thanks for doing what you can!
It's amazing
Both of my sisters in Southern California are out in the streets protesting. Never before have either of them done this, even though they both are quite progressive, and my big sister is 69 years old. She wasn't there for the Sunset Strip riots in 1965 and wasn't there for any anti-Vietnam protests or Iraq war protests, but she's pissed now!
heh, well...
better late than never, i guess.
Why now? Trump?
Well get a grip people Trump is just a symptom of the fascist state that the USA! has become. Don't tell me it always was cause that is bs. There is no point in resisting only Trump. It plays into the hands of the real fascist's who own and run this country. Oh my I just wish Oboomber was still here with his soft gloved version of global fascism and his lovely wife for a female role model.
Instead of The Hairball that crude asshole who did not go to Harvard, is a overt nutball we need a leader like Oboomber who is a classy mass murderer and doesn't vocally offend women and anyone as he is so damn classy. Why focus once again on persona and party and not look really look at what this country has become? Of course I'm glad to see people hit the streets but I'm sad as they still do not grasp that Trump is a symptom of what we are as a nation about.
Now Hillary, what would your sister say about The Mad Bomber killing and droning villages and impoverishing women globally? Get real. Sorting out real resistance to fascism from this faked up partisan political bs. will require people to actually look at what has gone down with the Demorat's since The Clinton two fer DLC took over the party.
Hillary and Obama are gone
Didn't you get the memo? The reigns of power are now in the hands of an individual with a serious personality disorder.
@Crider
Aren't the reins still in the hands of the Psychopaths That Be, with their chosen lackeys fronting for them as 'politicians'? Trump is just more obvious, which is good, because people are fighting what he's doing, since it's up front, rather than back-roomed, and there's no lubricant involved when the Repubs do it anyway.
And protesters at protests against specifically Trump, not merely the ramping-up of the same-old, same-old 'policies' (abuses) apparently aren't being beaten, shot, arrested, pepper-sprayed/teargassed or subjected to other injuries by militarized police the way those protesting Dems typically are/would be... funny, that...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Evening, folks, Boot on my Leg, broken bones grumpy.
Makes me feel like No Good News at all. Just disarray on the Left and anti-Trump needs to be pulled in just for numbers. The boot is not instantaneously wonderful. My foot may feel better by what I have been doing for 2 days: do not ambulate. Food level has no bathroom. Long ago trade for solar DHW. Now both are gone.
Just bummed out today, breaking down.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
evening riverlover...
sorry to hear about your uncomfortable bones. i hope that they start healing up and feeling happy, soon.
@riverlover
Sending healing thoughts and hugs; pathetic but unfortunately all that I can do.
Life always gets better at some point or in some way, though it often takes too long, especially where broken bones are concerned.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Good Evening, Joe and all, I have out-trumped myself
today and nothing left to post anymore. Just saying thank you for the EB and wishing you all a good evening.
evening mimi...
i'm feeling pretty trumped-out, too. it seems to be the only thing that the news media and blogosphere want to talk about, though.
perhaps the swelling will go down soon.
have a great evening!
Great round up of news today.
The Huffpost is definitely doing this because every single thing that Trump does is headline news. And of course the democrats are once again helpless to stop him from appointing the most heinous people to his cabinet.
But they are putting on a good show for trying to keep DeVos from being appointed, but failed miserably at not stopping Carson for HUD. I guess that they are using their powder sparingly after all these years of keeping it dry.
It's going to be interesting if the democrats have any reservations about confirming Abrams after he committed actual war crimes.
I don't want to hear that another leader of a country has to be removed from office under false pretenses after reading what Abrams allowed to happen in Guatemala. My gawd, how could anyone be okay with what those dictators did? Especially a person such as Abrams because of what Hitler did to the Jewish people?
The presidents just keep rotating the same villains over and over don't they.
War criminals and bank criminals never have to face the justice they deserve.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening snoopy...
i can't believe that elliot abrams might actually be placed in a government position again. surely he has done enough damage already. i hope that one day there is a reckoning for him and many others in some international court that has jurisdiction over war crimes.
I second what smiley said. Thanks for finding the articles
for us and posting them for us. I too hope that some day all the war, bank and white collar criminals will have their day of reckoning. That's not going to happen until this country is no longer the sole superpower. The opening of the movie V for Vendetta is one of my favorite scenes of the movie because after this country had created so much strife around the world it finally gets its comeuppance.
The video on California's underground water supplies was interesting. I lived in the middle of a walnut orchard in California and every 3 weeks the orchard was flooded from the many canals crisscrossing the state. Now those farmers are getting their amounts of water cut back and many people are selling their orchards because they can't afford to pay for their water.
And companies like nestles that have been taking water for pennies on the dollar and selling it back to us for a great profit has to stop.
The next wars are going to be for water and that's why rich people are buying land that has ample water reserves.
ETA 3 days ago there was at least 3-4 feet of snow in my backyard and at the cemetery we walk at. Yesterday it was down significantly and today it's almost gone. With the rain we are getting the next few days and the temperatures in the high 40's it's going to all gone by this weekend.
Abby loves the snow and runs and rolls in it but can't understand why it goes away.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
@snoopydawg
I'm beginning to wonder if the Dems think that they can invoke sympathetic magic affecting voters by themselves voting for the Great Evils of Trump's appointments (I suspect at ThePsychosThatBe suggestion and similar to/the same as those Hillary would have appointed) so that the next rigged election, they can plausibly be the more-highly-rewarded Coronees?
These are magical thinkers, after all - they even think that they can somehow survive a 'limited' nuclear war-crime against multiple countries, even though life on the planet wouldn't and that they can live forever, once a robot or computer has been programmed to display their characteristics. Or that their heads can be transplanted onto a young and living body, sick, rotting brains and all...
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Hi Joe and All...
"How can you tell he's king?"
Thanks for sifting through the ever growing 'news' for today's EB, Joe.
Personally, another day with the white coats; complex health problems infused with a chaotic heath care system and I have insurance, whoa is us.
Hanging on and pushing as much as possible for more available science...
Been a tough Winter here or should I say Spring; trying to go down hill and earn income, when we have snow and I've the legs to endure walking.
evening smiley...
i hope that despite the chaos and the white coats, your health care is providing your body with what it needs to heal and you are in a good frame of mind about it all. just in case they do any good i'll be thinking postive thoughts at you.
have a great evening!
@joe shikspack Love you Joe; Otis has
Love you Joe; Otis has a calming influence. How you doing?
hey smiley...
i'm doing reasonably well, still pretty busy with work and keeping the eb going. i'm kind of waiting for winter to end so that i can spend more time wandering around outdoors, though.
My first response to the March strike
is that I don't give a shit if Trump sees my power.
Maybe if I thought I really had a reasonable amount of power, or if I thought he had to respect it, I'd feel differently.
Anyway, possible Trump may not be here in March, depending on whether the establishment really wants to get rid of him, or whether they decide to keep him in place for a while as a toy for the kiddies to play with. A new Darth Vader action figure.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
evening csts...
i don't much care what trump thinks of the power of progressives and women. however, if they can arrange a large enough strike that has significant economic and social effects, there will be people far more important than trump that could do with a palpable example of 99% power.
i am ambivalent about trump being run out of town because in his place will be a crazed christian dominionist. darth vader in a slicker, more palatable form.
@joe shikspack Our thoughts chime as
Our thoughts chime as one.
I'm happy to see the idea of a general strike take hold again.
But, like you, I'm not interested in Trump being impeached. It means President Pence, or, at best, President Ryan. FFS!
The other part of this: I'm pretty sure part of the establishment, at least, WANTS Trump removed. Thus, the people who protest against him are going to get a rude shock if he gets removed. Once President Pence is in, the red-carpet treatment protesters of Trump are being given by the press and the cops will go away and we'll be back to an Occupy or Standing Rock mode.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
once pence is installed...
his party will close ranks around him. there is division over trump, but pence will unite the party. the media will also treat him with deference that is not accorded to trump. once the endless stream of outrages that trump generates comes to an end, the movement that is currently rising may have more difficulty getting traction.
trump seems to be a preferable opponent.
Standing Rock is a
A righteous movement? All these so called marches against Trump weird me right out, especially as a woman. I am a woman and I find the Democratic version of women's right offensive. I also find it offensive and sick that women are hitting the streets to protest the insane crazy clown in the WH? Why is he there? What woman decided he was a good pied piper for her brand of global fascism? USA! USA! USA!
Why is there no checks on his power or any Democrat willing to actually step up and use the remedies superscribed in the constitution to stop this abuse of power? Ask yourself that instead of Chicken Litteling and hitting the streets because a pol like Trump has not been resisted by the loyal opposition or anyone who has the power to do so. Seem to me people are once again focusing on the pols and the farce of partisan politics instead of the absolutely insane reality that both parties have declared the law of the land.
This is not what democracy looks like, it's extortion. What you people refused to crown the Mad Bomber? Well here's what you get instead. A pussy grabbing pig lunatic, former Democrat, asshole developer who wants to play king. Guess you should have voted for the real queen and king, the two fer from hell, and not caused us to lose. Get out in the streets you women and protest this pig. Meanwhile how many women and children did Obama and SoS Clinton kill or impoverish?
Get real fascism is US. It's the mode today and it calls itself the free market, democracy and inevitable. forget about the persona of the pols they are all pigs on every level. How about we the people turning away from this reality that offers nothing but binary versions of the same fascistic reality. Nancy 'Take it off the table' says it would be irresponsible for the Dems. to obstruct or effectively fight these crazies but hell get out there and protest the Hairball pig they installed in the WH.
The Demorat's took all our options off the table as war is peace and ignorance is strength. Why ot hit the streets in a protest aginst all of these fuckers instead of acting like Trump is the problem and not a symptom, of our dead as a doornail democratic system. I find it hard to accept that after all that has gone down the only thing that seems to move people to hit the streets is the mad clown who the Dems. refuse to use the law to unseat. Why would they he's the perfect foil for the Demorat's for 2018 and beyond. How fucking stupid are we?
How fucking stupid are we?
look around you.
As I think you know, Shaz,
I'm right there with you. Honestly, I think the best thing we could do right now is to retreat with like-minded individuals we trust (like people on here, for instance) and make a plan. A strategic plan, focused more on power than policy (though I don't mind an attached policy statement).
Americans hate retreat. We're more the "never give up, never surrender" types. Which is funny given that we couldn't possibly have fought the Revolutionary War that way and won. Continuing to march in a full frontal assault against an overpowering enemy because it's demoralizing to retreat is kind of a weak strategy.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
csts, plans are needed...
i think that the most likely means of making some change is to develop a set of demands that will resonate with vast numbers of the people protesting. it seems to me that the key to success is to turn a protest against a single man into a movement for particular political ends.
Both Lee Fang and Chris Floyd
Both Lee Fang and Chris Floyd are wrong, but Lee Fang is more wrong, which is kinda sad. I wonder if somebody hijacked his account? The pseudo-history and bad politics in his comment don't sound like him "The lefty riots of 1968 gave us Nixon???" Uh, they did? I thought it was because the Democratic party first spit in the eye of Southern racists and then got split in half between Wallace and Humphrey, but maybe I've got my history wrong (I was an infant at the time). Anyway, as Floyd points out, which "lefty riots?"
I get that Twitter constrains one's ability to be precise, but sometimes you just need to address things in a venue that allows you more than 140 characters, Lee.
Then there's the part where Lee says that the LA Riots brought us the Crime Bill. Now I was an adult for the LA riots. And I can't fucking remember ANYBODY saying that the LA Riots were the reason we needed a crime bill, much less that crime bill. Maybe this is something people were saying at DC rooftop parties while sipping martinis, and that's why I missed it.
So the idea that the dust-up with that asshole in CA is going to result in some awful victory for the right wing is kind of silly. I don't think enough people care about him, though, of course, instant hysteria is now the rule for both Right and Left, who are supposed to grab onto any evidence of wrongdoing or badness and use it as an immediate call to arms--or to panic.
Now for where I think Chris Floyd is wrong.
I clearly don't like the Breitbart asshole who came to CA to talk, or his views. But as I've said elsewhere, I believe in the right to free speech, even for right-wing bastards. Where his speech becomes NOT protected, in my view, is when he threatens to recite the names of actual undocumented people from the stage. That constitutes a physical danger to those people, and should be stopped--though I'd hope that people would at least try to get confirming evidence that Mr. Milo Whateverthefuck actually HAD that information.
There seems to be a prevailing opinion among the left now that if somebody says something nasty enough, we should shut down those nasty words by any means necessary. It demonstrates something that's bothered me for a while: the Left seems a hell of a lot more concerned about what people say than what they do. Maybe it's b/c our public discourse is now so corrupt and toxic that people are reacting to that toxicity. But we seem obsessed with word choice, attitudes expressed in our words, and symbols. Also with celebrity and individual actors. I'm not sure any of this is particularly helpful.
For instance, I'm certain that a discussion of Star Wars being racist (b/c evil Darth Vader has a black mask, but when he redeems himself & the mask is taken off, he's a white guy) is NOT helpful.
Dude. Even if this were important--
I knew Vader was going to be a white guy. Because he fathered Luke and Leia, and Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher were both about as white as you can get.
And anyway, why the hell are we talking about this!?!
I think we focus on these things because we don't want to think about what's actually happening.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
A great velue
for my entertainment dollar.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLaYDmJYE8k]
Thanks much, Joe. How about those Romanians?
evening crider...
that's awesome, thanks!
I guess nobody else ready Chris Hedges today.
I am not scared.
Just realistic, bracing for what comes.
My fractured shoulder is healing, my deep thigh bruise is over and done with.
The music is all good.
Thanks, joe.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
i started reading it late in the afternoon but didn't get through it before i had some other business to attend to, so didn't include it tonight. what i read of it seemed to be quite reasonable as a prediction.
i'm glad to hear that your shoulder is on the mend. i hope that you have been able to get some pain relief between cases.
I read it this morning
and there was a diary on DK yesterday that spoke about how close we are to the republicans being able to rewrite the constitution. Not too many people commented on it, but the author kept pushing this fact in other diaries that were as someone else wrote, collective orgies of fear porn.
Many people are saying that the 2018 elections will be the opportunity for the democrats to take back control of congress, but we've seen how the DNC doesn't back any candidates who are progressive and they either back the ones who are more conservative or they just let the republican candidates run unopposed.
I still think that Obama was complicit in this because after the disastrous 2010 election when the republicans won so many seats both nationally and locally. That he didn't fire DWS after that election speaks volumes to me.
It gave him the cover of being blocked by those mean republicans who wouldn't allow him to pass the legislation that he wanted, and it was part of the plan for giving the republicans the chance to reorder the constitution.
And we have seen that the democrats aren't really going to fight against the people that Trump or the people behind him want to put in charge of the country.
This is my opinion on why DWS was allowed to keep her job.
Plus she was put in charge of the democratic primaries and we saw how that turned out.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
@snoopydawg I don't think that
I don't think that cartoon is quite fair--It's Bill and Hillary who should be walking away from the smoking wreck, hand-in-hand, perhaps with a beaming Al From at their side.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
What happened to your shoulder?
I didn't know that you had broken it. I can't begin to imagine how painful this must be.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
@snoopydawg I bumped into the
I bumped into the dishwasher door and fell. A clean fracture, I don't even wear a sling. I took 2 Tylenol 3's, 1 per day, over the first weekend. I have since been ok on Anacin. I do warn opposing attorneys that by late afternoon, I am beginning to get short tempered and am not in the mood for bull shit.
I unloaded 100 lbs of horse feed from my truck into the barn on the way back from the er.
This is what happens when you live alone in the country and have livestock, and also when you are self-employed. If I don't work, I don't get paid.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Good evening, Joe, thanks for the Otis Spann. It's been a while
since I've been able to catch the EB, and it sure is nice.
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 --