The Evening Blues - 3-23-17
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago blues singer, songwriter and guitarist John Brim. Enjoy!
John Brim - Tough Times
“The future is uncertain but the end is always near.”
-- Jim Morrison
News and Opinion
Real-Time Face Recognition Threatens to Turn Cops’ Body Cameras Into Surveillance Machines
Last year, a Russian startup announced that it could scan the faces of people passing by Moscow’s thousands of CCTV cameras and pick out wanted criminals or missing persons. Unlike much face recognition technology — which runs stills from videos or photographs after the fact — NTechLab’s FindFace algorithm has achieved a feat that once only seemed possible in the science fictional universe of “Minority Report”: It can determine not just who someone is, but where they’ve been, where they’re going, and whether they have an outstanding warrant, immigration detainer, or unpaid traffic ticket.
For years, the development of real-time face recognition has been hampered by poor video resolution, the angles of bodies in motion, and limited computing power. But as systems begin to transcend these technical barriers, they are also outpacing the development of policies to constrain them. Civil liberties advocates fear that the rise of real-time face recognition alongside the growing number of police body cameras creates the conditions for a perfect storm of mass surveillance.
“The main concern is that we’re already pretty far along in terms of having this real-time technology, and we already have the cameras,” said Jake Laperruque, a fellow at the Constitution Project. “These cameras are small, hard to notice, and all over the place. That’s a pretty lethal combination for privacy unless we have reasonable rules on how they can be used together.”
This imminent reality has led several civil liberties groups to call on police departments and legislators to implement clear policies on camera footage retention, biometrics, and privacy. On Wednesday morning, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology, where advocates emphasized the dangers of allowing advancements in real-time recognition to broaden surveillance powers. As Alvaro Bedoya, executive director of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, told Congress, pairing the technology with body cameras, in particular, “will redefine the nature of public spaces.”
NYPD videorecorded Occupy and BLM protests over 400 times, department could not locate legal authorizations
New York City Police Department documents obtained by The Verge show that police camera teams were deployed to hundreds of Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street protests from 2011–2013 and 2016. Originally acquired through a Freedom of Information Law request by New York attorney David Thompson of Stecklow, Cohen & Thompson, the records are job reports from the NYPD’s Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) that document over 400 instances in which the unit’s video team attended, and sometimes filmed, demonstrations. More important than the records the NYPD turned over, however, are those that it claims it cannot find: namely, any documents demonstrating that legal reviews and authorizations of these surveillance operations took place.
While NYPD cameras have been regularly spotted at protests over the last six years, the frequency of their deployment and the departmental practices governing their use have remained unknown. Since mass protests broke out in New York City over the deaths of Mike Brown and Eric Garner at the end of 2014, Black Lives Matter activists have pointed to the constant presence of cameras as one of the NYPD’s primary means of spying on the movement, in addition to the presence of undercover officers.
According to Interim Order 22, the NYPD’s guidelines for the filming of public activities, the department’s deputy commissioner of legal matters is supposed to review police requests for the filming of demonstrations, which include the operational objective of the recording, and forward approved requests to NYPD higher-ups. ...
Jethro Eisenstein, an attorney who litigated for the rules governing NYPD political surveillance, known as the Handschu guidelines over four decades ago, says that while the department’s apparent lack of authorizations may violate departmental protocol and make activists feel like unwarranted videotaping is taking place, opponents of such activity have little legal recourse. “When you violate an internal NYPD rule, everyone becomes sad, but there’s no remedy,” says Eisenstein, whose legal challenges pushed the NYPD to create the internal rule Interim Order 22 in 2007, after allegations surfaced that the NYPD had been filming peaceful Iraq War protesters for political purposes. ...
While activists wait for new details to come out about NYPD surveillance operations, some assert that the persistent presence of police cameras alone has been one of the more damaging moves against their movement. “People are like, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this,’” says Waithe. “Just the sight of them with their cameras is enough to scare people. This is a fear tactic.”
Keiser Report: Heading for Global War
Tillerson Admits Iraq War Actually Going To Last A Long Time
President Donald Trump entered office promising to avoid costly nation-building efforts overseas, but his administration appears willing to deploy significant military resources to “stabilization” in Iraq after the Islamic State is driven from the country.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday U.S. forces will remain in Iraq following the military defeat of ISIS, whenever that happens, the Washington Examiner reported. Troops would stay in place in to prevent ISIS militants from re-establishing a foothold in the country.
Tillerson’s announcement signals yet another change of course for the administration’s long-term plans in Iraq, though the secretary emphasized that post-ISIS operations would not constitute “nation-building,” a term that has fallen out of favor in the wake of U.S.-led military quagmires in the greater Middle East.
Aid Officials Beg Congress to Help Yemen, While Trump Sends More Bombs
As the Trump administration resumes weapons shipments to Saudi Arabia for its devastating bombing campaign in Yemen — including precision-guided weapons the Obama administration had suspended on human rights grounds — a State Department official told Congress that the two-year-long conflict has led to the largest starvation emergency in the world.
Gregory Gottlieb, an acting assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday that the conflict — which the U.S. is a silent partner to — has left the majority of the Yemeni people struggling to find food. ...
USAID is the foreign assistance arm of the State Department — the same department that signs off on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Since Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in March 2015, the U.S. has approved more than $20 billion in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia — and looked the other way as the Saudi-led coalition has bombed civilian infrastructure, hospitals, and children’s schools.
Last week the UN warned that the majority of Yemen’s population is suffering and on the brink of famine. Stephen O’Brien, the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, criticized both sides of the conflict for restricting the flow of aid, but said that the Saudi-imposed naval blockade was particularly devastating for the desert country, which imports most of its food. ...
[T]he Trump administration has intensified its military operations against al Qaeda in Yemen, loosening counterterrorism rules and accelerating the pace of bombings and drone strikes.
US Marines said to land behind Islamic State lines in Syria
An American-backed Syrian Kurdish coalition said Wednesday that the US had landed infantry behind Islamic State lines to spearhead an assault on the town of Tabqa.
The Syrian Democratic Forces said the US airlifted several Marines and SDF fighters by helicopter into Islamic State-held territory, capturing four villages, and cutting the main artery running between the terrorist group’s self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa and the western countryside.
It was not immediately possible to confirm the deployment with US commanders.
The group said in a statement on social media Wednesday that the operation was in preparation for an assault on Tabqa, an IS redoubt 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of Raqqa.
Aging war head gives interview to NYT:
U.S. General Urges Nuclear Upgrade as Russia Grows ‘More Aggressive’
The general who oversees the United States’ atomic weapons arsenal has expressed concern over what he described as “much more aggressive” behavior by Russia in recent years, saying it justifies the need for a strengthened and modernized nuclear deterrent force in this country.
Lt. Gen. Jack Weinstein of the Air Force made the remarks against the backdrop of a reassessment by the Trump administration of American nuclear policy, including whether nuclear disarmament, as advocated in 2010 under President Barack Obama, is a realistic goal.
General Weinstein, whose career spans four decades, attributed the increased tensions with Russia in large part to its actions under President Vladimir V. Putin, punctuated by Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014.
“If you look at the Russian behavior since 2010 to the way they are now, it’s much more aggressive — much more, I’ll say, bellicose,” he said. “I woke up one day, and the Russians had invaded a sovereign nation, which was not something that was on my scope.”
When he looks back at the actions of Russia over time and its dealings with the United States, the general said, “For me the most important thing we can really do is maintain a strong nuclear deterrent.”
Democrats Trade Places on War and McCarthyism
Caught up in the frenzy to delegitimize Donald Trump by blaming his victory on Russian meddling, national Democrats are finishing the transformation of their party from one that was relatively supportive of peace to one pushing for war, including a confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. This “trading places” moment was obvious in watching the belligerent tone of Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee on Monday as they impugned the patriotism of any Trump adviser who may have communicated with anyone connected to Russia. ...
Given the paucity of evidence – both regarding the claims that Russia hacked Democratic emails and slipped them to WikiLeaks, and the allegations that somehow Trump’s advisers colluded in that process – it would appear that what is happening is a political maneuver to damage Trump politically and possibly remove him from office. But those machinations require the Democratic Party’s continued demonization of Russia and implicitly put the Democrats on the side of escalating New Cold War tensions, such as military support for the fiercely anti-Russian regime in Ukraine which seized power in a 2014 U.S.-backed putsch overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych. ...
The Democratic Party leaders have fully bought into the slanted Western narrative justifying the violent overthrow of Yanukovych. They also have ignored the human rights of Ukraine’s ethnic Russian minorities, which voted overwhelmingly in Crimea and the Donbass to secede from post-coup Ukraine. The more complex reality is simply summed up as a “Russian invasion.” Key Democrats also have pressed for escalation of the U.S. military attacks inside Syria to force “regime change” on Bashar al-Assad’s secular government even if that risks another military confrontation with Russia and a victory by Al Qaeda and other Sunni extremists.
In short, the national Democratic Party is turning itself into the more extreme war party. It’s not that the Republicans have become all that dovish; it’s just that the Democrats have become all that hawkish. The significance of this change can hardly be overstated.
This is worth reading in full:
Will Washington Risk WW3 to Block an Emerging EU-Russia Superstate
“Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as Europeans…That’s why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a community referred to by Russian experts as ‘the Union of Europe’ which will strengthen Russia’s potential in its economic pivot toward the ‘new Asia.’”
— Russian President Vladimir Putin, “Russia and the changing world”, February 2012
The relentless demonization of Vladimir Putin is just one part of Washington’s multi-pronged strategy to roll-back Russian power in Central Asia and extinguish Putin’s dream of a “Greater Europe”. Along with the attempt to smear the Russian president as a “KGB thug” and “dictator”, the media has also alleged that Moscow intervened in the US presidential elections and that Russia is a serial aggressor that poses a growing threat to European and US national security. The media onslaught, which has greatly intensified since the election of Donald Trump in November 2016, has been accompanied by harsh economic sanctions, asymmetrical attacks on Russia’s markets and currency, the arming and training of Russian adversaries in Ukraine and Syria, the calculated suppression of oil prices, and a heavy-handed effort to sabotage Russia’s business relations in Europe. In short, Washington is doing everything in its power to prevent Russia and Europe from merging into the world’s biggest free trade zone that will be the center of global growth and prosperity for the next century.
This is why the US State Department joined with the CIA to topple the elected government of Ukraine in 2014. Washington hoped that by annexing a vital landbridge between the EU and Asia, US powerbrokers could control critical pipeline corridors that are drawing the two continents closer together into an alliance that will exclude the United States. The prospect of Russia meeting more of the EU’s growing energy needs, while China’s high-speed railway system delivers more low-cost manufactured goods, suggests that the world’s center of economic gravity is shifting fast increasing the probability that the US will continue on its path of irreversible decline. And when the US dollar is inevitably jettisoned as the primary means of exchange between trade partners in the emerging Asia-EU free trade zone, then the recycling of wealth into US debt will drop off precipitously sending US markets plunging while the economy slips into a deep slump. Preventing Putin from “creating a harmonious community of economies from Lisbon to Vladivostok” is no minor hurtle for the United States. It’s a matter of life and death.
Officials say the FBI has information suggesting Trump aides worked with Russia to hurt Clinton
The FBI has information suggesting that President Donald Trump’s associates had contacts with suspected Russian agents, possibly to arrange the leak of hacked information harmful to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, CNN reported Thursday, in the latest explosive claims surrounding Trump’s alleged ties to Russia.
Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the CNN report said the information suggesting collusion included accounts of meetings between individuals – as well as phone, travel and business records. These, along with human intelligence, raised the suspicions of FBI investigators. This information is now a large focus of the official investigation, CNN’s sources said.
While officials said the information was not conclusive, the report is an indication of the potential lines of inquiry being pursued by the FBI, following Director James Comey’s bombshell announcement before Congress Monday.
Why The Fuck Would The Trump Camp Need To Approve Russian Hacking Releases??
If you thought America’s fact-free McCarthyist feeding frenzy couldn’t get any more demented, I envy your optimism but you were profoundly wrong. CNN has broken a story that is now being circulated throughout establishment media outlets asserting that people involved in the Trump campaign were in contact with the Russians who allegedly hacked the emails of Democratic party officials and gave a “thumbs up” to Russian operatives to release the information “when it was ready”.
The story follows the typical formula we’ve all become used to by now in which anonymous sources make vague but clickbait-friendly allegations couched in equivocations like “though officials cautioned that the information was not conclusive” and “officials who spoke to CNN say it's premature to draw that inference from the information gathered so far since it's largely circumstantial,” which has proven a valuable tactic for stoking the flames of the Russia hysteria due to the inherent impossibility of disproving or corroborating such claims. That’s not an advantage in this case, however, because anyone with even the remotest capacity for critical thinking can see an immediately obvious plot hole in this narrative.
Why would anyone in the Trump camp need to give a “thumbs up” to Russian operatives in order for them to leak information they’d hacked? Why in the name of Actual Fuck would that be a step that anyone involved needed or wanted to take? If the Russians did indeed pilfer the Democratic emails (friendly reminder that we’ve still been shown exactly zero proof that they did) and they preferred President Trump over President Clinton, why would they need to interact with anyone within the Trump campaign to release them to WikiLeaks?
People are actually swallowing this crap though, that’s what’s even crazier. Perhaps partly due to the efficiency of the propaganda machine and partly due to the way critical thinking has been criminally under-emphasized in American classrooms, this blatantly falsified Trump-Russia election collusion narrative has been espoused as fact in the majority of liberal discourse. Check out r/politics on Reddit right now and you’ll see page after page after page of it with no tolerance for dissent whatsoever. It’s Blue Church doctrine.
Michael Moore is about to explode. I presume that in any other circumstance other than a Republican being accused of a crime, he would scream until blue in the face about the presumption of innocence which is the fundamental bedrock of the American system of law. Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat.
Citing FBI Probe of Trump, Democrats Told to 'Declare National Emergency'
Documentary filmmaker and political activist Michael Moore on Wednesday said it's time for the Democratic Party in Congress to "declare a National Emergency" and put a stop to all legislative activity—including the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch—until the FBI completes its investigation into possible ties between members of President Donald Trump's campaign and alleged interference by the Russian government in last year's U.S. election.
In a message posted to his Instagram account early in the day, Moore wrote:
The Democratic Party needs to declare a National Emergency. For the first time in our history, the President of the United States and his staff are under investigation for espionage. This announcement, by the head of the Trump-friendly FBI, is a shock to our democracy. The Democratic leadership in the House and Senate needs to bring a halt to all business being done in the name of this potential felony suspect, Donald J. Trump. No bill he supports, no Supreme Court nominee he has named, can be decided while he is under a criminal investigation. His presidency has no legitimacy until the FBI - and an independent investigative committee—discovers the truth. Fellow citizens, demand the Democrats cease all business. "The American people have a right to know if their President is a crook." —Richard Nixon
Accompanied by an image of the infamous "red eye" of the HAL 9000 computer from Stanley Kubrick's classic film "2001: A Space Odyssey," Moore's message comes as the most pronounced version yet of what many, including some top members of the party, have been saying since FBI Director James Comey confirmed the existence of the open investigation during a congressional hearing on Monday.
As of this writing on Wednesday afternoon, a petition hosted on MoveOn.org entitled "Shut Down and Investigate Trump" had garnered nearly 122,000 signatures of its 125,000 goal.
Cybersecurity Firm That Attributed DNC Hacks to Russia May Have Fabricated Russia Hacking in Ukraine
The cyber security firm outsourced by the Democratic National Committee, CrowdStrike, reportedly misread data, falsely attributing a hacking in Ukraine to the Russians in December 2016. Voice of America, a US Government funded media outlet, reported, “the CrowdStrike report, released in December, asserted that Russians hacked into a Ukrainian artillery app, resulting in heavy losses of howitzers in Ukraine’s war with Russian-backed separatists. But the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) told VOA that CrowdStrike erroneously used IISS data as proof of the intrusion. IISS disavowed any connection to the CrowdStrike report.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense also has claimed combat losses and hacking never happened.” The maker of the military app allegedly hacked called CrowdStrike’s report “delusional,” and told VOA that CrowdStrike never contacted him either before or after they completed their report. VOA News noted Ukraine’s rebuttal to CrowdStrike received little media attention as CrowdStrike’s report was widely cited in media outlets throughout the United States as further evidence of Russia hacking the United States. Alperovitch, who gave several interviews on CrowdStrike’s initial report to the Washington Post and other media outlets, refused to comment on VOA News’ report.
The report sheds further skepticism on CrowdStrike’s findings and objectivity in their conclusions, which several cyber security experts and former CIA and NSA officials have cast doubt on, especially given that several media outlets reported in early January 2017 that the DNC never allowed the FBI to examine their servers themselves, rather the FBI relied on forensic data gathered by CrowdStrike.
Trump-Russia inquiry in 'grave doubt' after GOP chair briefs White House
The top Democrat on one of the congressional committees investigating ties between Donald Trump and Russia has raised “grave doubt” over the viability of the inquiry after its Republican chairman shared information with the White House and not their committee colleagues.
In the latest wild development surrounding the Russia inquiry that has created an air of scandal around Trump, Democrat Adam Schiff effectively called his GOP counterpart, Devin Nunes, a proxy for the White House, questioning his conduct. ...
Two days after testimony from the directors of the FBI and NSA that dismissed any factual basis to Trump’s 4 March claim that Barack Obama had him placed under surveillance, Nunes publicly stated he was “alarmed” to learn that the intelligence agencies may have “incidentally” collected communications from Trump and his associates.
Nunes, who served on Trump’s national security transition team, said the surveillance “appears to be all legally collected” and masked the identities of Americans, but did so in such a way that Nunes could hazard a guess as to whom the intercepted communications discussed. Nunes added that the alleged intercepts did not actually concern Russia.
“Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting,” said Nunes, who has shifted the focus of the inquiry onto leaks that Trump blames on the intelligence agencies.
MSNBC: Devin Nunes Blew Up Hopes Of Independent Russia Investigation | Morning Joe
Nunes: Other Trump Team Members Were Surveiled And Identified
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes revealed Wednesday other members of the Trump transition team were not only surveilled by the Obama administration but their names were also unmasked.
“I have confirmed that additional names of Trump transition team members were unmasked,” Nunes said. “To be clear, none of this surveillance was related to Russia or any investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team.”
Jane Mayer on Robert Mercer & the Dark Money Behind Trump and Bannon's Radical Vision
Congress To Get More Money To Scrutinize Government Surveillance and Spies
Privacy advocates and national security wonks have for years argued that the House intelligence committee, a key overseer of spy agencies like the NSA, can’t do its job because it doesn’t have enough money to hire sufficient staff. Now that purported Russian hack attacks are routinely in the news, the committee is poised to get a big funding increase.
The budget for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence would rise 31 percent to $6.1 million under an omnibus resolution approved unanimously by members of the Committee on House Administration earlier this month. The resolution must still be approved by the full House, a process that typically occurs with little debate.
While all permanent House committees are set to get budget boosts under the resolution, the intelligence panel will receive one of the four largest increases. The funding runs through the two-year duration of the 115th Congress.
In testimony before the House Administration Committee in February, intelligence committee chair Devin Nunes, a Republican from California, argued that the committee received fewer and fewer resources even as the intelligence agencies expanded in size and as global threats proliferated, including a “rise in global terrorism, increasing threats from ISIL, homegrown violent extremists, [and] cyber threats from our enemies.” According to Nunes, the committee lacks the resources it needs to “hire staff with specialized knowledge” as well as travel when necessary — and it wants to update its outdated technology infrastructure, “to reduce the risks of viruses, malware, and intrusion by foreign actors.”
Senate Might Let Internet Companies Sell User Data to 'Highest Bidder
The Senate is set to vote this week whether to let broadband companies sell user information to the highest bidder—overturning rules implemented by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and possibly banning the agency from passing similar restrictions in the future.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R–Ariz.) introduced a resolution earlier this month that would overturn the FCC's rules, passed in October, that block providers such as Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon from selling personal information like web-browsing and app usage history to third-party vendors without users' consent.
Flake introduced the measure under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), which gives lawmakers the power to overturn recently-passed agency rules by a simple majority.
Once a rule is repealed through this process, the CRA blocks the agency from passing similar measures unless it is specifically authorized by a new law.
Assange: 'Only 1 percent' of the CIA material has been published
In speaking with DW, Assange announced that more CIA documents would be published over the coming months: "We have only published one percent of the material; 99 percent of the material is still to go." ...
Companies whose products may be compromised by the CIA's tools were informed about those vulnerabilities by WikiLeaks, Assange told DW. European firms reacted quickly. US tech companies, however, were more reserved - with the exception of the browser provider Mozilla. Other companies affected by the CIA's hacking tools, such as Google, Microsoft and Apple, in contrast, simply forwarded WikiLeaks' offer to provide further information to their legal departments.
Assange claims that this was done because these companies work with US intelligence agencies. It is also the reason that so many employees at such companies have US government security clearance, especially those who work in cybersecurity departments. But security clearance rules stipulate that if a person is given clearance, they are not allowed to accept leaked information. Assange's critical summary: "[These companies'] entanglement, their proximity to the US government, means that so far, they are not able to properly secure their users from attacks conducted from the CIA or the NSA."
Assange's assessment is rather similar to that of Finnish cybersecurity expert Mikko Hypponen. In his keynote address at the computer fair CeBit in Hanover on Wednesday, Hypponen warned that the world was witnessing the start of a new arms race that would be fought out in cyberspace. The Finn was also clear about who is currently leading the race: the US. "No other country has invested so much in cyber capability for so long as has the US." The security expert said that Israel was in second place, followed by Russia and China. Hypponen also had a clear answer to the question of just what makes cyberweapons so attractive: they are effective, cheap - and they allow attackers to deny their actions.
Latest WikiLeak Dump Shows CIA Hacking iPhones Since 2008
On the tails of its damning CIA hacking bombshell, WikiLeaks on Thursday published another trove of documents outlining how the spy agency has been uploading secret software to Apple devices dating back to 2008.
Named 'Dark Matter,' the latest release shows that that CIA has been infecting iPhones since shortly after the product's launch in June 2007, and in some cases "interdicted mail orders and other shipments" to open, infect, and resend devices leaving the United States.
In its press statement, WikiLeaks said it was "noteworthy" that the NightSkies program, said to be a "beacon/loader/implant tool" for the Apple iPhone, "had reached 1.2 by 2008, and is expressly designed to be physically installed onto factory fresh iPhones. I.e the CIA has been infecting the iPhone supply chain of its targets since at least 2008."
TechCrunch observes: "It was quite powerful as NightSkies could access your address book, SMS conversations and call logs in order to upload it to the CIA’s servers. The agency could also execute commands on the iPhone remotely to install new tools and more."
"While CIA assets are sometimes used to physically infect systems in the custody of a target it is likely that many CIA physical access attacks have infected the targeted organization's supply chain including by interdicting mail orders and other shipments (opening, infecting, and resending) leaving the United States or otherwise," WikiLeaks noted.
Journalist Barrett Brown on Prison, Leakers, and Private Intelligence Agencies
Watchdog investigating DHS for alleged misconduct by immigration officials at airports
The official watchdog of the Department of Homeland Security is investigating alleged misconduct by immigration officials at US airports as a result of Donald Trump’s stalled travel ban on people from majority-Muslim countries.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG), the body vested with investigating alleged abuses within the DHS, has confirmed to Congress that it is carrying out an internal review of the botched implementation of Trump’s executive order that imposed a travel ban on the predominantly Muslim populations of several nations. The ban was introduced twice, and on both occasions halted at the order of federal judges.
In a letter to Yvette Clarke, a member of Congress from New York, the DHS inspector general, John Roth, confirmed that the OIG had initiated an investigation into the implementation of Trump’s travel ban and any abuses that might have occurred by Customs and Border Protection officials. “In addition to reviewing its implementation, we will review DHS’s adherence to court orders and allegations of individual misconduct on the part of DHS personnel, including CBP agents,” he said.
White House refuses to attend international meeting to discuss human rights
The US pulled out of a international meeting that was to examine the potential impact on human rights of Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting refugees and immigrants.
The hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) was called following concerns about the impact of three executive orders signed by Mr Trump, including a plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.
But Reuters said the US announced it would not take part in the meeting, which was held in Washington DC on Tuesday.
Trump toils to win support for healthcare plan as House vote looms
The future of the American healthcare system hangs in the balance as Donald Trump works furiously to close the deal on a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the first major legislative test of his presidency.
The House is poised on Thursday to vote on the Republican healthcare proposal despite widespread criticism and opposition from a coalition of hard-right conservatives who say that they have the votes to block its passage.
The stakes for Trump and the House speaker, Paul Ryan, who is spearheading the bill, are high. For seven years – and over the course of three election cycles – Republicans have run in and won elections on the promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
On the campaign trail, crowds thrilled to Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare “on day one” and replace it with “something terrific”. Failure to pass this law could jeopardize Trump’s broader legislative agenda, which includes tax reform and border security. ...
A group of conservative donors, led by the powerful industrialists Charles and David Koch, announced on Wednesday that it was putting together a new fund for Republican re-election races in 2018 – excluding candidates who voted for the healthcare overhaul. They oppose the bill because they feel it does not scale back enough of Obamacare.
Republican health bill looks dead on arrival as House conservatives vow to vote against it
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are putting the Affordable Healthcare Act on life support.
The group, which has opposed the bill from the start, emerged from a meeting in Washington on Wednesday with a blunt message for President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan: “Start over” on Trumpcare. Released just over two weeks ago, the bill has gone through three House committees at a dizzyingly fast pace before the scheduled vote Thursday. The bill would substantially cut healthcare subsidies for older Americans, roll back Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, and cut most of the Obamacare taxes.
If Trump and Ryan instead choose to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote as originally planned on Thursday, the group promised that at least 25 of its roughly 30 members would vote against it, which would be more than the 22 needed to defeat it. ...
Members of the Freedom Caucus are backed up by influential conservative groups like Heritage Action, Freedomworks, and Club for Growth, which have also come out against the bill despite personal entreaties by Trump.
Pfffffttt!!!
John Lydon says he will 'sorely miss' the Queen when she is gone
God Save the Queen – he means it, man. John Lydon has said he will “sorely miss” Britain’s monarch when she dies. The Sex Pistols/Public Image Ltd singer was appearing on the Quietus video hour when conversation turned to the topic of the recently published plans for the death of Queen Elizabeth II. ...
He said: “It’s not her fault she was born into a gilded cage. ... Can I just correct this, just slightly? Because it’s important. ‘I will miss her’ sounds ominous and I don’t want that. Long may she live. I don’t know about the “reign” part, but long may she live.”
He also added that he enjoyed the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the royal family. “I love all the pageantry, too. I loved that last wedding. Oh, when the planes flew over the palace? It reminded me of world war two and all those films, and how grim it was fighting Nazis. For me, it was a reintroduction to history, lest we forget.”
Exxon Ordered to Recover 'Wayne Tracker' Emails It Claims Are Lost
A New York State judge on Wednesday ordered ExxonMobil to turn over a year's worth of emails it now admits it lost from an alias account used by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when he was CEO of the company—a "bombshell" revelation, according to a lawyer for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who's investigating the oil giant's climate cover-up.
Schneiderman's office discovered Tillerson's 2008-2015 use of the email alias "Wayne Tracker" to discuss climate change and other matters as part of its ongoing probe.
Exxon previously blamed the email loss on a technical glitch.
"Exxon has failed to produce management documents from critical time periods when Exxon is known to have been formulating and publicizing key policies and related representations regarding the company's resilience to the impacts of climate change and climate change regulations," Schneiderman said in a letter to the court, according to Bloomberg.
Justice Barry Ostrager of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan "ordered ExxonMobil Corp. to work with New York's attorney general to recover lost emails" and gave the company until the end of the month to produce the documents, Reuters reports.
Ostrager also "ordered Exxon to deliver sworn statements and records from its staffers responsible for monitoring the 'Wayne Tracker' emails, so state investigators could determine how they were lost," the New York Post writes.
Coal in 'Freefall' Worldwide, Report Finds
The coal industry is in "freefall" worldwide, the latest annual survey from environmental groups Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and CoalSwarm finds.
"The staggering uptick in clean energy and reduction in the new coal plant pipeline is even more proof that coal isn't just bad for public health and the environment—it's bad for the bottom line," said Nicole Ghio, senior campaigner for the Sierra Club's International Climate and Energy Campaign, in a statement. "Markets are demanding clean energy, and no amount of rhetoric from [President] Donald Trump will be able to stop the fall of coal in the U.S. and across the globe."
The report (pdf) published Wednesday examined proposed and existing coal projects around the globe, discovering a huge drop "in all stages of coal plant development, including pre-construction planning, construction starts, and in-progress construction."
According to the survey, new construction and coal plant permits in China and India have sharply dropped off, while aging coal plants were retired across the U.S. and Europe. (The U.S. saw its 250th coal plant retirement on Monday.)
"This has been a messy year, and an unusual one," said Ted Nace, director of CoalSwarm, in a statement. "It's not normal to see construction frozen at scores of locations, but central authorities in China and bankers in India have come to recognize overbuilding of coal plants is a major waste of resources. However abrupt, the shift from fossil fuels to clean sources in the power sector is a positive one for health, climate security, and jobs. And by all indications, the shift is unstoppable."
Childhood lead poisoning in 29 California neighborhoods found to rival levels in Flint
More than two dozen communities in California have experienced recent rates of childhood lead poisoning rivaling or exceeding those in Flint, Michigan, according to data collected by Reuters and detailed in a report published Wednesday.
Following an article in December documenting nearly 3,000 towns, cities, and neighborhoods nationwide that have lead poisoning rates double those found in 2016 along the Flint River in Michigan, Reuters’ data-gathering uncovered 29 California neighborhoods where children have elevated rates of lead; there were particularly high rates of exposure in the Bay Area and downtown Los Angeles. In one Fresno County zip code, 13.6 percent of blood tests on children under 6 came back high for lead, compared to 5 percent across the city of Flint during its recent water contamination crisis. In nine other zip code areas in Fresno County, lead levels in children’s blood were similar to the levels found in Flint.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Prison Dispatches From the War on Terror: American Explains What Drove Him to Extremism
Trumps's National Security Advisor challenged over human rights record
When Neil Gorsuch put corporate interests over a man freezing to death
The Supreme Court decided Neil Gorsuch was wrong in the middle of his confirmation hearing
Ecuador’s Elections: Why National Sovereignty Matters
Lindsay Lohan: America’s next jihadist?
Tiny houses: salvation for the homeless or a dead end?
Trump Wants to Cut Public Broadcasting — Where Mike Pence’s Daughter Got Her Start as a Filmmaker
Does the 'Cyrus prophecy' help explain evangelical support for Donald Trump?
A Little Night Music
John Brim Trio - Trouble In The Morning
John Brim and His Trio - Drinking Woman
John Brim And His Gary Kings - Go Away
John Brim - Gary Stomp
John Brim - Humming Blues
John Brim - It Was A Dream
Jimmy Reed w/John Brim - High And Lonesome
John Brim - Movin' Out
John Brim - Ice Cream Man
John Brim - Wake Up America
Comments
A Blogger's Real Dilemma
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
Bruno Latour on how Trumpism is war on everyone
I have mentioned the French Polymath Bruno Latour before.
He talks often about the difference between a police action and a war. Terrorism can be handled with police action. But the major political player for the last 30 years has been Gaia in the form of The New Climate Regime.
And all countries are dependent on others. And pollution knows no boundaries. Coal ash from China goes to US. Nuclear waste from Japan goes around the world in the ocean.
He had some tweets today about how Trumpism backing down on environmental regulation is in fact a war on other countries.
(Joe's article today lists several hints about a possible global fighting war, and even the use nuclear weapons, but this is another denial of The New Climate Regime)
There are three tweets today from AIME project - Latour's An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. 15 modes of veracity including: politics, religion, science, law, fiction, etc. etc.
The first one links the NY Times article today about Trumpism backing off Obama's environmental regulations.
Trump Lays Plans to Reverse Obama’s Climate Change Legacy
In other articles Bruno shows the problems with boundaries and sovereignty and even the boundaries of the self.
Bruno uses the term Gaiapolitics in contrast to geopolitics to put the Earth, Gaia, in the center, not the globe of globalization.
Here is the tweet that linked the NY Times article above.
Here is the next tweet
Globe - can hold in your hands like a cantaloupe. But that is a view from no where. We can only see horizontally, in the thin skin where all life lives.
Then in the third tweet he links to his article on Symmetric Anthropology. Bruno has been years on the project of an anthropology of the moderns
In short, during colonization indigenous people and customs were destroyed for progress. Now that Gaia is on the attack, humans are on the chopping block. He says this explicitly in his Gifford lectures but I don't think it is in this article - the point about the attack from Gaia.
Humans are foolish to waste time on nuclear war but need to build a collective and return to the Earth, i.e., Gaia.
Go to Bruno's web page and get the Abstract of the article which is an interview
The link to the article
A Dialog About a New Meaning of Symmetric Anthropology Bruno Latour (interviewed by Carolina Miranda1 )
During the winter Utah's air is the worst in the country
I read an article about what is causing it besides the Salt Lake areas being surrounded by mountains that trap the smog in the valley, but it's been determined that a lot of the problem is China's air pollution that travels all over the world and it makes our inversions much worse.
I don't have any breathing problems and there are days that I do have difficulty breathing.
My aunt is usually on prednisone 3-4 times during our winters because she does have severe lung damage.
That's interesting how each country's pollution or waste resources are being spread around the world.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening don...
thanks for the link!
as i see it, mother nature (or gaia) has always been a force to be reckoned with, at this point, though, the force exerted by billions of humans is now big enough to upset whatever inertia mother nature has. the dominant means by which humans organize themselves (capitalism) was able to hide its externalities when humans exerted less force collectively. humans have now reached the end of capitalism's utility in organizing ourselves and it is a handicap.
evening jnh...
heh, one really might need to seek the services of a psychologist if response or lack thereof to internet postings becomes some sort of personal measuring stick.
evening Joe and all
I've been wondering how the world would be different if we were dropping millions of dollars worth of food and water on people instead of bombs...how different the world would be if we used the same (even half) the resources used to kill people to help people... and the attitude of the world about our country might be. Seems simple...and impossible.
Hope you're doing well. I've missed dropping by of late, but always enjoy your excellent round-up.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
evening lookout...
all of this cold war stuff coming up recently has had me revisiting my memories of the cold war years. one of the things that i remember quite clearly was that the competition between the antagonists was not strictly military - there was competition over the standard of living that the citizens of each state experienced.
if we could reintroduce that sort of competition it might be useful.
Gorsuch hearing
This article is in the Also of Interest section:
When Neil Gorsuch put corporate interests over a man freezing to death
Here is a video to go with it. It is Al Franken questioning Gorsuch at his confirmation hearing:
This guy (Gorsuch) sounds like a real jerk.
cold
Al mentions it was 14 F below zero. That is inside the cab. Outside, according to the article, it was 27 below.
Oh good lord, what an asshole
Not only not answering the questions, but his look of boredom and disdain while Frankenstein was describing the story. Gorsuch was drinking water and swishing it like a 3 year old child.
And he couldn't answer whether he'd drive the truck in that condition or not? Seriously, "I wasn't there so I can't answer what I would do if I was the trucker "
They have to take classes on how to not answer a straight forward question.
The democrats better filibuster this doofus.
ETA this link to the article about Gorsuch's mother and why he turned out the way he did. His mother used to work with James Watts. Remember him when he was head of the department of interior?
The article takes awhile to get to the point, but it explains a lot of the reasons for why Gorsuch is such an asshole.
Toxic Mom
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/03/roaming-charges-toxic-mom-the-sho...
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening olinda...
thanks for the video. franken does a pretty good job of interrogating gorsuch.
it's been a while since i watched this silly dance.
budding capitalists
Many, many, many years ago it seems to me that parents tried to teach their kids about helping people, kindness, etc. For example, maybe suggesting they mow the little old lady's lawn down the street for free to help her out. Character. Maybe I am just thinking of the Boy Scouts.
Now, it seems they teach their kids "If she offers you $20, say you'll do it for $25."
Is our government going to be okay if the United States
becomes a failed state or will that not actually happen? Am I reading this article and this paragraph wrong?
Is there time for the government to turn this slide around if they start pulling troops out of who knows how many countries and starts investing the money back into this country?
If we can't achieve global hegemony, then what's the point in letting our infrastructure decay to the point of no return?
I do get a kick out of our government accusing Russia of being an aggressor and interfering with the election of not only our country but other country's elections too.
The only thing that Russia is accused of is hacking the DNC's and Podesta's emails and giving them to Wikileaks but no one has shown any proof that they did it.
Meanwhile, this country has interfered with countless other country's elections or overthrown elected officials and installed their puppet dictators who can do whatever they want to their citizens as long as they are friendly to US' interests.
I haven't read the article about the 29 cities that have lead in the water, but I wonder how long someone has known about it and kept quiet because this is another way to get rid of the people who will be a drain on the dwindling resources?
Hey just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get rid of a lot of us
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening snoopy...
it is possible for the us to become something other than the global hegemon. empires end. i think that what happened to the british empire might be something of a template for what could easily happen to the us. the us has been overreaching for years.
the question is really not "will the government be ok," the question is whether the set of oligarchs that use the us government as a front for their capture of the imperial revenue stream will be ok. if the oligarchs are able to direct their capital to greener pastures and continue to tap global revenue flows, ditching the many "useless eaters," in the us (while continuing to loot the corpse) - then the demise of the empire will not need to be an occasion for global war.
on the other hand, should too many of the oligarchs get caught with their pants down, unable to extract their capital and replace the revenue flows elsewhere, then things will not be ok and global war is quite likely.
the fate of the rest of us is not really all that important, except to the extent that it makes usians willing to take up arms and fight for the benefit of the oligarchs (in hopes of some crumbs from their table filtering down).
sorry to be so blunt, but that's pretty much what my sense of history and human nature lead me to believe are the most likely outcomes.
Thanks for your history lesson and reply
That was an excellent article that put a lot of pieces in place, especially why they want Assad gone.
If he was removed from office then the deals that Russia has in regards to the oil pipelines goes with him.
And that was the reason for the Ukraine coup and the build up of NATO troops in the countries surrounding Russia.
And it doesn't look like Putin is going to be caught with his pants down. He's putting his own defenses in place just in case this country and NATO are stupid enough to attack Russia.
China too is doing what they can to fight back against the USA if it tries to disrupt their plans.
I would think that it would be cheaper to make deals for other country's resources, but then the defense industry wouldn't get its money and there would still be too many people needing resources.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Greetings, Joe & Gang! Appreciate the
excellent roundup of News & Blues--thanks! Look forward to listening to the Democracy Now video. Also, enjoyed Johnstone's essay--she's good.
Ran across a discouraging piece about the race in California's 34th, Xavier Becerra's old seat, which he won by a 70-plus percentage during his last election cycle. My browser crashed, but, if I can re-find the article, I'll post it. It makes the case for not depending upon the new organizations that have recently popped up, to make a whole lot of difference in regards to running 'progressive' candidates. It even surprised me, and I've never had much use for them.
The drama over the 'repeal and replace' of the ACA is amazing. I don't believe the spin from CNN, etc.--from all that I've read and heard, the Freedom Caucus could care less what the Dem Party Base thinks about their proposed 'reforms.' As bad as the proposed bill is (right now), I have a feeling that it is better than what will result if the FC continues to hold out, and pressure Ryan and the Administration. If I were involved in the Medicaid program, I would be very concerned. Of course, I also have a lot of problems with the way beneficiaries age 55 and older are treated (regarding MERP). So, if I had the power, I would abolish Medicaid and Expanded Medicaid for those folks, and make it mandatory that they be enrolled in Traditional Medicare, with a comprehensive Medigap policy--and Part D, of course.
I'm dodging thunderstorms and/or flash floods today, so, gotta run 'the B' out real quick while MinuteCast says there's a break for a while.
See you Guys later.
Mollie
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers
[my boldface and re-paragraphing]
Taro
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
evening mollie...
a couple of weeks ago i read an article (i think in the la times) about becerra's replacement election that framed it as a race between hillary/establishment and berniecrats. the thing was there were something like 19 candidates, with several berniecrats among them.
it sounded to me like the establishment had picked its candidate, who has all of the endorsements from california democrats and he is well ahead of the rest of the field, which means that the berniecrats are unlikely to do well competing with each other for the progressive vote.
regarding the trumpcare debacle, it's a popcorn moment. in the short run, i suspect that bad things are going to happen, lots of people will lose access to healthcare and probably some more people will die needlessly because of it. in the longer run, it will probably create both the consensus and the public will to make something like medicare for all happen. it's awful that it has to come to such a horrible point to make that happen.
Arts and Humanities
Looks like Neil is not happy about the proposed elimination of the National Endowments for The Arts and for The Humanities.
One article I read said that our country
spends $15 billion per month or $20 million per hour on the war of terror. And that doesn't take in the amount of money spent on the veterans or the other personnel that works at the pentagon and other military places such as Air Force bases.
I live by one and watch as 4-5 jets fly for hours doing touch and goes and each jet burns as much fuel per hour as a family of 4 do all year. Now multiply that by every Air Force base in this country and the jets that fly off of aircraft carriers or at the over 800 bases that we have all over the world.
And the reason why we are fighting so many wars is to get our corporation's hands on oil and gas resources. And then add in the amount of fuel spent on military equipment in war zones.
I could also add in how much oil and gasoline that is spent during war games or the amount of ammunition fired while teaching people how to shoot.
So you can see why there isn't enough money for the social programs here at home and this is why they want to kick people off the programs so that they will die sooner. Those people are taking the money that could be spent on conquering the world.
Sigh, I'm with lookout and John Lennon.
Imagine......
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
JS and merry Bluesters everywhere. Good Evening
Feds finally admitted to killing millions viaWildEarth Guardians
Now that's a budget cut I would like to see!
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
A young boy and his dog
went for a walk not far from his house and he saw something sticking out of the ground. When he touched it, it sprayed cyanide all over them which ended up killing the dog and injuring the boy. There were no warning signs posted anywhere about it.
I think I need to take a break from reading the news.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
A person we met in Santa Fe had her dog
get trapped beside a hiking trail in the SF National Forest. Hell, it could have been me, as I am apt to wander off trail to relieve myself at regular intervals.
Enjoy your break! Good thing to do to get re-centered in the wonder of life ....
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Oh yeah, 'aerial gunning'
must be many general NRA members' dream job.
Meh.
Fox kits at play, Grand Teton National Park, 2015
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
evening do...
it's sad that they never seem to want to cut the really awful stuff that the government does.
i'd dearly love to see "wildlife services" go.
Thanks for this piece, DO. We used to hate the aerial
killing of wildlife that was allowed in Alaska--talk about a bunch of cowardly people! How could they even call themselves hunters, with such an unfair advantage. The only shooting we did (well, Mr M) was with a Canon SLR, back when he was into photography--which wasn't hard, when we lived in Alaska.
You made several excellent points in your reply last evening about using the military system. I agree that I wouldn't want to 'feed the beast,' so to speak. Actually, part of my thinking was to 'redirect its mission.' I say this because the federal government has the highest educational attainment level (number of professionals, etc.) of any of our US private or public institutions; and, because of this, I'm thinking that it would be impossible--not to mention devastating to the American economy--to dismantle it overnight, even if it were possible.
For instance, starting late 70's, and especially in the 80's, it became almost impossible to even promote beyond Major without a PhD. (I only knew of only a couple officers--anecdotal, I realize--who were able to do so, and they were Silver Star, or Bronze Star recipients, saving entire platoons in Viet Nam, or the equivalent.) Not to mention, it has became much more common for senior NCOs to be college-educated, especially, if they wanted to promote beyond E-7. (It may even be a requirement, today--I wouldn't know.)
And, there are numerous educational programs in place--including those which educate physicians, in exchange for their service. They even pay them several thousand dollars in stipends as students--at the ranks of 2nd, then 1st Lieutenant. Plus, you advance to Captain (O-3) immediately upon graduation from medical school, and entering active duty status.
I would, however, amend my idea that the VA system might be utilized--only because I wasn't remembering that the 2014 'Choice Act' basically began the privatization of that system. I read about a month ago that already--in barely 2 years--one quarter of the medical services through the VA, are handled in the private sector--through so-called public-private partnerships. I could be wrong, but it might be difficult to turn the clock back on this--especially, since DT chose O's biggest VA privatizer to be his VA Secretary (Shulkin). Whew!
Anyhoo, I could be wrong, but I expect that some folks would be happy to receive the quality and degree of health care that most military members are entitled to receive. IOW, perhaps we could expand and redirect the military's mission, making the medical services that they render a 'public option.' IOW, no one would have to enroll in it. It would be strictly voluntary. (Like the ACA Exchanges, or Medicare.)
As I'm typing, there are reports that the so-called Freedom Caucus may have gotten enough of their 'reforms' to push the vote through, tomorrow. If it passes, and the '10 Essential Benefits' go through, health care may be more affordable for some, but there sure will be some major holes in coverage. Maybe I'm just grasping at straws, with my idea.
We're thankful that we're now old enough for Medicare.
Edit: Deletion--Mr M did't care for his birthday being bandied about!
Mollie
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
nominee Gorsuch
Forbes
The U.S. Supreme Court today overturned a ruling Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch wrote. This happened while his confirmation hearing was going on. Haha.
A bit of detail on the case at the link.
heh...
one of the articles i posted upstairs says that dick durbin caught gorsuch on the way to the restroom to tell him that he'd been overturned unanimously by scotus:
i bet that one left a mark.
Hopefully it left a skid mark
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
What is any party good for?
When humans move beyond politics, a paradigm switch, from wanting to control towards wanting to promote. Add value to life, versus prohibiting situations and taxing the inevitable? It should not make sense, as that way is towards madness and dysfunction.
A government as an enemy of the people: How foolhardy is that? If government was not actively trying to make everything in life easier: excellent employment, great healthcare, and a fine education, then it is parisitic.
Fighting for democratic principles,... well, since forever
Thx, for the excellent news article collection - I conclude
from what I read and vaguely understood that the best way of operation is to travel without mobile phones and laptops between the US and Europe or Asia. I will store in each continent a laptop and cell phone and leave the crap at "home" when hopping over the Atlantic or Pacific. I guess that will be the beginning of a NSA lists of suspicious people who travel without cellphones and laptops. The truely dangerous people you know...
Thanks to JekylInHyde's cartoon and your response to it. I consider sueing therapists to have not served up to standard and eliminated all our unhappy depressions of not getting comments to our thoughts posted on the intertube's blogs. May be they then get so angry over their patients to advise more suitable reactions of us deplorable depressed little people. Never trust a therapist.
"to travel without mobile phones and laptops"
good morning. This is going to sound awful, but I feel like the government in charge is a kleptocracy and this is just TSA bottom feeders getting their opportunity to steal. Good thing I just looked it up, for sure I am a cynical pessimist to go on top of my existential nihilism. Have a nice day.
Imagine having serious major depressive episode and stumble upon that one.
Peace & Love