The Evening Blues - 3-10-16



eb1pt12


Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Louisiana blues singer Silas Hogan. Enjoy!

Silas Hogan - Lonesome La La

“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

-- Alexander Pope


News and Opinion

The Goal of the Neo-Liberal Consensus Is to Manage the Decline

Corey Robin says when Clinton tells the truth, believe her:

"Amid all the accusations that Hillary Clinton is not an honest or authentic politician, that she's an endless shape-shifter who says whatever works to get her to the next primary, it's important not to lose sight of the one truth she's been telling, and will continue to tell, the voters: things will not get better. Ever. At first, I thought this was just an electoral ploy against Sanders: don't listen to the guy promising the moon. No such thing as a free lunch and all that. But it goes deeper. The American ruling class has been trying to figure out for years, if not decades, how to manage decline, how to get Americans to get used to diminished expectations, how to adapt to the notion that life for the next generation will be worse than for the previous generation, and now, how to accept (as Alex Gourevitch reminded me tonight) low to zero growth rates as the new economic normal. Clinton's campaign message isn't just for Bernie voters; it's for everyone. Expect little, deserve less, ask for nothing. When the leading candidate of the more left of the two parties is saying that - and getting the majority of its voters to embrace that message - the work of the American ruling class is done."

In Germany after WWI, austerity imposed by outsiders created the conditions for fascism to grow. We knew this. We were even taught this in school. And we certainly know just how good that is for women and minorities.

But in America (and Britain), that austerity is being imposed by our own leaders, and most effectively by leaders of the Democratic Party (and Labour Party) — the supposed "left" party, the party that was understood to support working people.

Clinton, like all of the DLC, talks like this "new economy" of decline is something that just happened, like it's a natural force. They do not admit that it was a political decision to break the power of ordinary working people and put it back into the hands of the aristocracy. They pat us on the head and tell us they will try not to make it as bad as the Republicans will, but it will happen and there is nothing to be done about it.

The Exposure of the Vast Left-wing Establishment

What my eyes have been opened to this election season in a way they have never been opened before is the depth of the truth in what Sanders says about our system being deeply rigged. Let's be clear, I am not saying as a black man originally from the South that I did not understand long ago that American society was definitely tilted in favor of whites, men, straights, the wealthy, the attractive and Christians for example. The reality of the privilege inherent to those groups has always been obvious. But I guess this year, as I have watched the way the entire system has piled on I have come to realize in a much deeper way that those in power, even those with a little bit of power, will do everything they can to maintain the system.

Of course we all know this was and is the reality when we are talking about the 1 percent who own and control mostly everything there is in our society. And we always knew the political ruling class would do what they could to stay on the side of power, including conspiring with the 1 percent when necessary, by taking their money and doing their bidding in order to curry favor. So there were no surprises there. But what jolted me the most from my previous misunderstanding about how powerful the whole system is and how wide it stretched was in not fully accepting the fact that even those on the Left could be part of that rigged system. Of course seeing it now it is obvious. Those in power, even when the power is on a side I support, will support actions that maintain power. The idea of an "establishment" in the women's movement, in the black and Hispanic communities, in the "liberal media," in the Left in general, is not one we typically think of. But that establishment is very real. And has it ever raised its ugly head during this primary season.

The Clinton campaign has pulled the lever unleashing, and maybe I should say, exposing, the depth of the Left Establishment in all its fury. First there was Clinton herself admonishing Sanders for daring to imply that she, a woman, was part of the establishment. Then there was the attack of the feminist icons to carry that mantle for her, Gloria Steinem and Madeline Albright. Once the primary race became more about race, when blacks and Hispanics were part of the conversation, Hilary's campaign has further unleashed a surrogate team of Latino and Black leaders to do their part in taking down Sanders. As with the feminist icons, the black surrogates have included many established black leaders such as Representatives John Lewis and Jim Clyburn.

By no means am I saying this surrogate game is not a standard part of politics. But what I am saying is that watching the lineup of these folks coming out for Clinton is like watching a who's who list of what makes up the establishment core of the Left. Sure these people, women and minorities that they are, have long battled the bigger establishment of power and money in our society. But let's not continue our naiveté by not realizing that all of them represent a different power structure, their own establishment. And be not mistaken, they will do whatever is necessary to remain a part of that power structure. Hillary Clinton is the next in line to the throne, at least so the Left Establishment has decided, and that includes the DNC. And those that want favor from her when and if she occupies the White House, again, are doing their part to make sure their position in the Left Establishment remains secure.

Obama's incredible hypocrisy on display again:

Obama claimed to want transparency. His actions suggest the opposite

The Obama administration has taken a lot of well-deserved criticism over the years for claiming to be the most transparent presidency ever while actually being remarkably opaque, but they’ve now reached a new low: newly released documents show they aggressively lobbied Congress to kill bipartisan transparency reform that was based on the administration’s own policy.

In a move open government advocates are calling “ludicrous”, the administration “strongly opposed” the passage of bipartisan Freedom of Information Act (Foia) reform behind closed doors in 2014. The bill was a modest and uncontroversial piece of legislation which attempted to modernize the law for the internet age and codify President Obama’s 2009 memo directing federal agencies to adopt a “presumption of openness”.

Through a Foia lawsuit, the Freedom of the Press Foundation (the organization I work for) obtained a six-page talking points memo that the Justice Department distributed to House members protesting virtually every aspect of the proposed legislation in incredibly harsh language – despite the fact that some of the provisions were based almost word-for-word on the Justice Department’s own supposed policy (you can see a side-by-side comparison here).

Worse, Vice’s Jason Leopold is also reporting that the administration is conducting similar lobbying efforts around this year’s attempt to reform Foia in time for the law’s 50th anniversary this summer.

This is a shameful move by an administration that is constantly touting its open government and transparency bona fides despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

Syrian Rebels See ‘Less’ Ceasefire Violations, Undecided on Peace Talks

With the Syria ceasefire holding, the plan is to see the next round of UN brokered peace talks begin on Monday in Geneva. As usual, the rebels’ intentions are the question looming largest on the talks.

After a solid week of condemning the ceasefire and insisting there were massive, undocumented violations, rebel leaders are now saying there are “less” violations, and see that as an encouraging sign. That doesn’t mean they’re going to attend the Geneva talks, however.

Rebels from the HNC, one of the major rebel negotiating factions, say they simply haven’t decided on whether or not they’d attend the talks, but do say there is a chance they will decide “very soon.” They said they like the idea of a talk on “political transition” at the start of the conference.

Hillary's imperial regime change in Libya is still producing wonderful results:

Tunisia builds barrier on border with Libya to keep jihadists out

Saudi Govt, Yemen’s Houthis Agree to Border Truce, Prisoner Swap

Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Shi’ite Houthis, confirmed only yesterday to be in direct negotiations with one another for the first time during a nearly year-long war, have come to a first agreement, which will see a truce along the Yemen-Saudi border and a mutual prisoner exchange.

The deal apparently does not include an end to the Saudi naval blockade of Yemen, or to the war on the ground within Yemen, as pro-Saudi forces control some of the nation’s southern coast. Still, analysts hailed it as a major first step.

Pentagon: US Ground Troops Involved in Somalia Raid

Officials Insist US Troops Are Just 'Advisers'

Pentagon officials have confirmed that US ground troops were involved in a raid against an al-Shabaab-held town in Somalia, arriving by helicopter in a raid which also involved Somali forces, and which they say killed “more than 10 fighters.

The US rarely discusses its troops in Somalia, which are nominally “advisers,” Officials suggested today that the troops were again in an “advisory” role and that they didn’t go “all the way” in the raid. They were involved enough that al-Shabaab confirmed their presence.

Russian hostility 'partly caused by west', claims former US defence head

The current level of hostility in US-Russian relations was caused in part by Washington’s contemptuous treatment of Moscow’s security concerns in the aftermath of the cold war, a former US defence secretary has said.

William Perry, who was defence secretary in Bill Clinton’s administration from 1994 to 1997, emphasised that in the past five years it has been Vladimir Putin’s military interventions in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere that have driven the downward spiral in east-west relations.

But Perry added that during his term in office, cooperation between the two countries’ militaries had improved rapidly just a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union and that these gains were initially squandered more as a result of US than Russian actions. ...

“Our first action that really set us off in a bad direction was when Nato started to expand, bringing in eastern European nations, some of them bordering Russia." ... In his memoir, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, Perry writes that he argued for a slower expansion of Nato so as not to alienate Russia during the initial period of post-Soviet courtship and cooperation. ... “Basically the people I was arguing with when I tried to put the Russian point ... the response that I got was really: ‘Who cares what they think? They’re a third-rate power.’ And of course that point of view got across to the Russians as well. That was when we started sliding down that path.” ...

He sees the second major misstep by Washington DC as the Bush administration’s decision to deploy a ballistic missile defence system in eastern Europe in the face of determined opposition from Moscow. ... The third factor that Perry pointed to in the poisoning of US-Russian relations was Washington DC’s support for pro-democracy demonstrators in the “colour revolutions” in former Soviet republics including Georgia and Ukraine. Perry agreed with the ethical reasons for backing such revolutions but noted their severely damaging effect on east-west ties.

Iran Says Its Missile Program 'Will Not Stop Under Any Circumstances'

A senior commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) has said that the country's ballistic missile program will not stop under any circumstances and that Tehran has missiles ready to be fired, according to state television.

Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh made his comments after a series of ballistic missile tests conducted by guard units that drew international concern, including a call by US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for new sanctions against Iran.

The tests, which state television said ended on Wednesday night, were seen as a challenge to a United Nations resolution and last year's nuclear accord with world powers under which Tehran agreed to curb its atomic program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

"Iran's missile program will not stop under any circumstances," Hajizadeh said. "The IRGC has never accepted the UN Security Council resolutions on Iran's missile work.

"We are always ready to defend the country against any aggressor. Iran will not turn into Yemen, Iraq, or Syria," he was quoted as saying by state TV.

European Parliament to Vote on Torture Resolution Over Italian’s Death in Egypt

The European Parliament is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a resolution that strongly condemns “the torture and assassination” of Italian student Giulio Regeni in what the resolution describes as a pattern of “torture, death in custody, and enforced disappearances across Egypt.”

Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian researcher, disappeared in Cairo on January 25, the fifth anniversary of the uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. Regeni’s body was found last month on a highway on the outskirts of Cairo bearing signs of torture. Italy’s interior minister said Regeni had suffered “inhuman, animal-like” violence. Egypt’s security forces, notorious for arbitrary arrests and abuse of detainees, are widely suspected of being involved in his death, though the government has denied any involvement.

The resolution describes Regeni’s murder as “not an isolated incident.” ... The resolution calls for the release of unjustly detained journalists and human rights activists, and it urges the Egyptian government to guarantee that civil society organizations and independent trade unions — the groups that Regeni was researching in Egypt — can operate freely. It specifically criticizes a government order from last month for the closure of the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence, a prominent human rights group, as well as the ongoing harassment of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, another local advocacy group.

The resolution also urges EU member states to adhere to past commitments restricting the sale of military equipment and technology that could be used in human rights violations. ...

The resolution comes as the Obama administration is looking to roll back restrictions Congress has placed on foreign aid to Egypt, which is the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel. Under current law, 15 percent of aid to Egypt is subject to being withheld based on human rights conditions — although even that can be waived if it is deemed to be in the national security interest of the U.S., as it was last year.

Report: Biden Warns Netanyahu New Aid Package Will Be Less Than Expected

Reports in the Israeli media, quoting Israeli officials familiar with the conversations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visiting Vice President Joe Biden suggest that the US VP has warned that the next aid package will be a significant increase over the previous one, but will be short of Israeli expectations.

The last deal saw the US giving Israel $3 billion annually over the course of a decade, with several one-off extra aid packages thrown in to subsidize Israeli wars and their costly missile defense schemes. Netanyahu was said to expect in excess of $5 billion annually in the new 10-year plan. ...

Biden is trying to get Netanyahu to sign off on accepting the aid package, but getting the Israeli PM to accept $40+ billion in funding is harder than it sounds, and there is a sense among Israeli officials that if they hold out until after the election they can exact a much bigger amount from the next president elected.

Obama to Cuba: New Visit, Old Politics

Responding to Clinton Barb, Sanders Blasts US Imperialism in Latin America

Hillary Clinton's interventionist record in Latin America is being called into question after Wednesday night's Democratic presidential debate saw her and rival Bernie Sanders sparring over the U.S.'s role in the region.

When asked about his past support for Latin American leaders Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Fidel Castro in Cuba, and to explain "the difference between the socialism that you profess and the socialism in Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela," Sanders declared:

What that was about was saying that the United States was wrong to try to invade Cuba, that the United States was wrong trying to support people to overthrow the Nicaraguan government, that the United States was wrong trying to overthrow in 1954, the government -- democratically elected government of Guatemala.

Throughout the history of our relationship with Latin America we've operated under the so-called Monroe Doctrine, and that said the United States had the right do anything that they wanted to do in Latin America. So I actually went to Nicaragua and I very shortly opposed the Reagan administration's efforts to overthrow that government. And I strongly opposed earlier Henry Kissinger and the -- to overthrow the government of Salvador Allende in Chile.

I think the United States should be working with governments around the world, not get involved in regime change. And all of these actions, by the way, in Latin America, brought forth a lot of very strong anti-American sentiments.

[...] The key issue here was whether the United States should go around overthrowing small Latin American countries.

Clinton, on the other hand, "was at her all-out reactionary best, expressing contempt for the likes of Cuba and refusing to acknowledge her support for policies that have sown discord in the hemisphere," according toTeleSUR analysis. ...

As Honduran feminist artist Melissa Cardoza recently told TeleSUR, Clinton's policy in Central America "has shown her true colors as an instrument of empire representing patriarchal, not feminist, ideology."

"As is well known, she supported the coup d'etat in my country, which has sunk a very worthy and bleeding land further into abject poverty, violence, and militarism," Cardoza said of Clinton's legacy in Honduras. "She is part of those who consider only some lives to be legitimate, obviously not rebel women and women of color that live here and who do not, at least not all, fit in with imperial interests."


Hillary Clinton, Stalwart Friend of World’s Worst Despots, Attacks Sanders’ Latin American Activism

At Wednesday night’s Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton attacked Bernie Sanders for praising Fidel Castro in the 1980s, as well for standing with Central Americans governments and rebel groups targeted by Ronald Reagan’s brutal covert wars. “You know,” said the former Secretary of State, “if the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, imprison people or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere.”

To defend her remarks, Clinton’s faithful Good Democratic supporters began instantly spouting rhetoric that sounded like a right-wing, red-baiting Cold War cartoon.

Vehement opposition to Reagan’s covert wars in Central America, as well as to the sadistic and senseless embargo of Cuba, were once standard liberal positions. As my colleague Jeremy Scahill, observing the reaction of Clinton supporters during the debate, put it in a series of tweets: “The US sponsored deaths squads that massacred countless central and Latin Americans, murdered nuns and priests, assassinated an Archbishop. I bet commie Sanders was even against Reagan’s humanitarian mining of Nicaraguan waters & supported subsequent war crimes judgement vs. US. Have any of these Hillarybots heard of the Contra death squads? Or is it just that whatever Hillary says must be defended at all costs? The Hillarybots attacking Sanders over Nicaragua should be ashamed of themselves.”

[Click on the article link for a fine listing of Hillary's favorite cold-blooded- killer dictators, despots, fellow war criminals and regimes that she gets kickbacks to the Clinton Foundation for arming. - js]


Bernie Sanders Promises “Level Playing Field” on Israel-Palestine

On Tuesday, Bernie Sanders called for the U.S. to approach the Israel-Palestine conflict to be a “level playing field.” Speaking after his surprising victory in the Michigan Democratic primary, Sanders asserted that there are people of goodwill in both “Israel and the Arab communities” whom he would seek to bring together as president.

“All I can tell you is I will make every single effort to bring rational people on both sides together, so that hopefully we can have a level playing field, the United States treating everybody in that region equally,” Sanders said.

Sanders’ proposal to treat both sides fairly makes him an outlier in the presidential race. The only other candidate to endorse such a position has been Donald Trump, who has said he would be “sort of a neutral guy” in his approach to negotiations. But Trump has also said that he would be “totally pro-Israel” in his policies.

... In November, Clinton wrote an op-ed titled “How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond With Israel — and Benjamin Netanyahu,” promising uncritical support for a range of Israeli policies once elected.

Brazil: Charges filed against Lula in money-laundering probe

Former Brazilian President Lula Charged in Connection to Money Laundering

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was charged in a money laundering investigation led by São Paulo state prosecutors on Wednesday, intensifying scrutiny of the politician questioned in a separate federal graft probe last week.

A spokesman for the state prosecutors declined to specify the charges, but state investigators have said they suspect Lula's family owned an undeclared beachfront apartment in the city of Guaruja.

Federal investigators echoed those allegations after they detained Lula for questioning in police custody on Friday, fanning a political crisis that has rattled his successor, President Dilma Rousseff.

Lula has denied any wrongdoing and rejected the idea that he owned the luxury condo in Guaruja built by engineering group OAS, one of the conglomerates snared in a vast corruption scandal tied to state-run oil company Petrobras.

Lula's lawyer called the charges an attempt by prosecutor Cassio Roberto Conserino to smear the former president.

President Santos Says Colombia May Not Sign Peace By the Current March Deadline

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos said on Wednesday that he will only sign a peace deal with Marxist rebels by a March deadline if a satisfactory accord has been reached, and will extend talks if necessary.

The Colombian government has been negotiating an end to 50 years of war with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, rebel group since late 2012. The two sides agreed last year to sign a peace deal by March 23, 2016, and the talks are now in their final stages. ...

Negotiators based in Cuba have reached partial agreements on land reform, guerrilla participation in politics, transitional justice, efforts to find missing persons and remove land mines, and an end to illegal drug trafficking.

With the process apparently entering its final stages the United Nations has promised a monitoring mission and the United States and pledged substantial amounts of funding to help implement the accords.

Why Is Obama Convinced His Wall Street Reforms Work?

President Barack Obama met with his financial regulatory chieftains on Monday, and I got the distinct
impression that something was on his mind. See if you can figure it out.

“The laws we have passed have worked,” Obama said, referring to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform legislation. “I want to emphasize this because it is popular in the media, in political discourse—both on the left and the right—to suggest that the crisis happened and nothing changed.” About three minutes later, he reiterated, “So I want to dispel the notion that exists both on the left and on the right that somehow, after the crisis, nothing happened.” And later, Obama hit that point again: “So when you read articles, whether on the left or the right, that suggest somehow nothing happened and everybody just went back to the same go-go years that they were engaging in before, those are factually incorrect.”

Looks like somebody didn’t like the ending to The Big Short!

Obama’s frustration probably springs from the fact that the Democratic presidential primary has become a referendum on Wall Street’s influence on politics and the economy—and with 100 percent of precincts reporting, “negative influence” won in a landslide. ...

The real reason people are disinclined to believe that Obama made financial regulation stronger is that they never saw a banker in handcuffs headed to jail. I know law enforcement and regulation aren’t precisely equivalent, but letting fraud go unpunished created a rot at the heart of our democracy, and made any claim about deterrents to another meltdown suspicious. Obama said on Monday, “When there’s a perception that nothing happened, that that feeds cynicism that actually weakens our ability then to make further progress.” He fails to realize that his administration’s failure to prosecute Wall Street’s worst offenders contributed greatly to that cynicism.

Treasury Drops a Bombshell: Fed’s Stress Tests Get It Wrong

Four days after the Federal Reserve Board of Governors held an open meeting to propose a new rule to contain counterparty risk on Wall Street on a bank by bank basis, researchers at the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research (OFR) dropped a bombshell on the Fed. The researchers, Jill Cetina, Mark Paddrik, and Sriram Rajan, produced a study which shows, in their opinion, that the Fed’s stress test that measures counterparty risk on a bank by bank basis is all wet. The problem, say the researchers, is not what would happen if the largest counterparty to a specific bank failed but what would happen if that counterparty happened to be the counterparty to other systemically important Wall Street banks. ...

To put some simple language perspective on this, what Wall Street effectively did in the lead up to the crash of 2008, was to make the big insurer, AIG, its bitch. Some of the biggest Wall Street banks, like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Merrill Lynch, got AIG to sell them credit default swaps. The swaps were a wager that if a financial institution, like Lehman Brothers, should fail, the Wall Street banks would collect billions of dollars from AIG. When Lehman failed, AIG didn’t have the money to cover the bets so a gun was put to the head of the taxpayer to make these Wall Street banks whole – at the outrageous rate of 100 cents on the dollar.

AIG turned out to be not so much a real counterparty to contain risk on Wall Street but a wager on how much fleecing of the U.S. taxpayer Congress would allow to cover gambling debts on Wall Street. The answer to that turned out to be an open spigot of money.

With Senator Bernie Sanders stumping across the United States reminding folks that the riskiest banks need to be broken up and the Glass-Steagall Act restored, while President Obama attempts to persuade the public that his financial reform legislation known as Dodd-Frank has things under control on Wall Street, this new report from OFR raises clear doubts about just how under control things really are. ...

If you take this most recent study from the very bright and intuitive folks at the OFR and combine it with the gut-churning report OFR released in February 2015 on the interconnectedness of the mega banks on Wall Street, you have a realistic script for how things will play out in the next crash.

The door-to-door union killers: rightwing foundation takes labor fight to the streets

The Freedom Foundation says its goal is to offer choices, but union leaders say it’s part of a conservative effort to flip Washington and Oregon from blue to red

For several months, Shawna Murphy, a home-based childcare provider in Seattle, had received a stream of emails, letters and robocalls – some two dozen of them – telling her she had the right to stop paying union dues.

Then early one afternoon, while the six children in her charge were napping, a man with a briefcase knocked on her door. At first Murphy thought he was a lawyer, but then she realized he might be a state inspector of childcare providers. So she opened the door.

“He said there’s this supreme court case that will impact me, and he pulled out this leaflet and told me that I don’t have to be part of the union and don’t have to pay union dues,” said Murphy, a member of the Service Employees International Union. “I told him, ‘I’m a proud supporter of the union, and you can leave now.’”

The man was one of the many foot soldiers in a highly unusual offensive against public-sector unions in the US north-west. A conservative group, the Freedom Foundation, has dispatched activists to visit the homes of more than 10,000 childcare and home-care workers in Washington and Oregon to advise them that under a two-year-old supreme court decision, they can opt out of paying union dues. ...

“The Freedom Foundation says they care about workers, but what they’re really about is defunding unions and defunding the left in our state,” said Aaron Ostrom, executive director of Fuse Washington, a statewide coalition of progressives. “They see this as the best tactic to turn Washington from a blue state to a red state.”

Could This Lawsuit Be the Straw That Breaks the TPP’s Back?

In November 2015, just after President Obama finally stood up to the fossil fuel industry and rejected the TransCanada Corporation’s application for its tar sands pipeline through the United States, I issued a warning: In The Hill, I applauded the Obama decision and laid out the reasons why, under current trade and investment rules, TransCanada had grounds to sue the United States under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  I hardly need remind readers that NAFTA launched the modern era of corporate-biased investment rules, and serves as the model for the investment chapter in the TransPacific Partnership (TPP) that now awaits votes in the U.S. Congress and in the legislative bodies of the 11 other TPP countries.

Lo and behold, TransCanada came to the same conclusion that I did.  They hired a giant corporate “K Street” law firm, Sidley Austin, and in January 2016, the fossil-fuel giant put the U.S. government on notice of a potential lawsuit under the investment chapter of NAFTA.  To get the U.S. government’s attention, they claimed to have suffered $15 billion in losses because of the rejection.  In TransCanada’s “notice of intent,” they argue that the United States has never before rejected a cross-border pipeline and that repeated studies by the U.S. State Department showed that the pipeline would not have a deleterious environmental impact on climate.  They conclude that the U.S. rejection of their pipeline, some seven years after their application, is a political decision and is not permitted under the NAFTA rules.

It is vital that people pause and ponder: TransCanada, in its legally justified yet totally outrageous reaction, is reminding us of the reality of the investment rules our governments, under heavy pressure from global corporations, have inserted into thousands of trade and investment agreements. And, we need to contemplate the assault on democracy that these rules and the TransCanada complaint represent. ...

Bernie Sanders, the independent Senator from Vermont, has been opposed to NAFTA from the start and is a harsh and outspoken critic of the TPP and its investment chapter.  Sanders has made this one of his campaign issues and Hillary Clinton, under heavy pressure from the more populist Sanders, said in the fall of 2015 that she would not support the TPP in its current form.  Not surprisingly, given her past support of trade agreements, she has largely avoided the issue on the campaign trail. But the Democratic party base deeply opposes the agreement, and a broad coalition of citizen groups under the Citizens Trade Campaign is rallying people against it.  On the Republican side, all the remaining candidates support the TPP save the frontrunner and likely Republican nominee, Donald Trump.  Trump has attacked the TPP, charging that it will accelerate the shift of good U.S. jobs to Asia.

In the context of this fluid debate, it is crucial for academics, activists, politicians, and citizens in the United States and around the globe to speak out against this outrageous assault on democracy enshrined in the TPP.

Survey finds rampant police abuse in area where Freddie Gray was arrested

On 25 April, as a crowd of thousands gathered in west Baltimore for a large march downtown, members of a neighborhood advocacy organization began going door to door in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood where Freddie Gray was arrested to ask people about their interactions with police.

The No Boundaries Coalition had been working on police issues in the community since they identified police accountability as a major concern in 2013. But after speaking to more than 250 people that April day, they had a new sense of a community harassed and brutalized for minor infractions, and ignored when they need help.

“In just that one afternoon, we talked to people who had had family members killed by police, people who had sustained broken bones in police encounters, and people whose house had been torn apart during a drug raid – only to find out that the police had the wrong address,” according to a report from the group. “From the stories we heard that day, we knew we needed to document the prevalence of police misconduct in West Baltimore.”

In the months since then, they have distributed thousands of flyers and talked to 1,500 individuals in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood of west Baltimore. And 453 of them reported negative interactions with police, almost all defining their interactions as excessive force, according to a newly released quantitative study by No Boundaries and Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (Build).

San Francisco mulls state of emergency over homelessness. But will it help?

In 2015, California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii were four of the five states to see the greatest increase in their homeless populations (the fifth was New York). California alone accounts for 21% of the nation’s homeless population. And while nationwide, 31% of homeless people have some kind of shelter at night, California, Oregon and Hawaii all have unsheltered rates above 50%. In California, 63.7% of the homeless population lacks shelter.

Homelessness on the west coast is increasingly perceived by residents as an unacceptable crisis. In response, policymakers have begun declaring “states of emergency” over the manmade disaster unfolding on their streets.

On Tuesday, San Francisco supervisor David Campos introduced legislation to declare a “shelter emergency” in the city of San Francisco. The move came one week after city officials had cleared out a sprawling homeless encampment under a highway overpass where as many as 300 homeless people had been living in tents and makeshift shelters.

Campos’s legislation seeks to activate a California state law that allows cities to declare a “shelter crisis” when “a significant number of persons are without the ability to obtain shelter, resulting in a threat to their health and safety”. Such a declaration suspends certain liabilities and regulations that would “prevent, hinder, or delay” government action to address the crisis.

On the same day, another San Francisco supervisor, Jane Kim, introduced a resolution urging Governor Jerry Brown of California to declare a statewide “state of emergency on homelessness”.



the horse race



NYC Wall Street Protest Planned to Call on Hillary Clinton to Release Transcripts of Goldman Sachs Speeches

Activists from the Occupy Wall Street movement will join a broad coalition of Bernie Sanders supporters Wednesday to march on Wall Street in New York City and demand Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton release the transcripts of speeches she gave to financial giant Goldman Sachs.

Protesters will gather on the steps of the Federal building at 11:30 a.m. and march to the Trump Building on Wall Street until 1 p.m.

Two groups that support Sanders’ bid for the White House—Latinos for Bernie and Veterans for Bernie—will attend the event in an official capacity and join other Sanders supporters as well as Occupy Wall Street activists in carrying signs and banners that read “#ReleaseTheTranscripts.” ...

The protest on Wednesday focuses specifically on the Goldman Sachs transcripts rather than the speeches Clinton gave to other financial firms.

Tyson Manker, the director of Vets for Bernie and a candidate for State’s Attorney in Morgan County, Illinois, issued a statement blasting Clinton for being too close to Wall Street and not being truthful to the public.

“Veterans fight wars abroad to ensure freedom and transparency at home,” Manker said. “The last thing we need is a president who hides what they say to Wall St. bankers behind closed doors. That’s not what we fought for.”

Andrew Bacevich: Why Is No Candidate Offering an Alternative to Militarized U.S. Foreign Policy?

Clinton, Sanders Forced to Prove They Aren't 'Hispandering' to Latino Vote

The candidates were both forced to defend their records on immigration at the forum at Miami-Dade University, part of which was conducted in Spanish. Throughout the night, the candidates turned repeatedly to key immigration issues including unaccompanied minors, the 2007 immigration reform vote on guest workers and border security. ...

Clinton fielded tough questions from moderators and her rival on Wednesday, which focused largely on trust and allegations of flip-flopping. Early in the debate, Univision's Maria Elena Salinas highlighted inconsistencies with the secretary's previous statements on banning employment of illegal immigrants and recent efforts to push for a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Salinas asked Clinton whether she was "pandering to Latinos [or] what some would call Hispandering?"

In response, Clinton highlighted her support for the DREAM Act, which would create a pathway to permanent residency and protect minor immigrants, as well as the comprehensive immigration reform bill of 2007, which Sanders opposed over concerns about guest worker programs. Sanders was forced to go on the defensive over the 2007 vote, comparing the guest worker provisions with modern slavery. He reiterated that Hispanic rights organization LULAC and the Southern Poverty Law Center were also against the legislation at the time and that he later supported an immigration reform bill in 2013.

Sanders went after Clinton over her response to the influx of children fleeing violence from Honduras to the US in 2014, saying: "I said welcome those children into this country, Secretary Clinton said send them back." ...

Sanders was referring to a widely discussed 2014 interview Clinton gave to CNN. "They should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who responsible adults in their families are," Clinton said at the time, "because there are concerns whether all of them can be sent back but I think all of them who can be should be reunited with their families..."



the evening greens


Hillary Clinton Showed Support, Associates Profited from Ex-Im Bank Financing World’s Largest Coal Plants in South Africa

In 2009, the South African government announced a major energy plan to construct two new coal-fired power stations. The project, which aimed at building the world’s largest coal plants, came under intense criticism by various governments and climate activists, who saw it as a disastrous blow to the fight against climate change.

Yet newly released emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State, reveal that she acted in support of a World Bank loan for the construction of one of the plants.

Furthermore, a DeSmog investigation finds that the other plant, which received funding from a US government agency led by a close Clinton ally and fundraiser, is being built by an American construction firm tied to another associate of the former Secretary.

These actions seem contrary to Clinton’s tough campaign talk on curbing CO2 emissions and investing in renewable energy. They also raise new questions about Clinton’s ties to the revolving door lobbying culture that connects major corporations to top officials in Washington, DC.

Hillary Clinton Wants to Regulate Fracking, but Still Accepts a Lot of Fracking Money

Hillary Clinton continues to fundraise with fracking investors, despite her assertion Sunday that she would largely curtail fracking inside the U.S.

[Apparently the 1% doesn't think that she's honest either. - js]

On Wednesday, Clinton will appear at a $575-a-head fundraising lunch at a Ritz-Carlton Hotel on the Northern California coast hosted by Alisa Wood, a partner at the international private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR).

In 2009, KKR began heavily investing in fracking, purchasing large shares of three North American oil and gas companies, and selling two of them for billions in profits. The third was hit hard by plummeting gas prices, and declared bankruptcy last year. But KKR was not deterred, and still owns a large portfolio of small fossil fuel companies, at least two of which — Cinco Industries and Comstock Resources — use fracking. ...

Many of Clinton’s largest fundraisers are lobbyists for oil and gas corporations. Some of her largest contribution bundlers are lobbyists representing Chevron, Cheniere Energy, and TransCanada — all companies that use fracking.

After a rally in Iowa last December, Clinton claimed to be unaware she ever received donations from fossil fuel companies. ... An investigation by Mother Jones found that Hillary Clinton personally lobbied for U.S. fracking rights overseas as secretary of state.

"Mr. Trudeau Goes to Washington" - What happens when political celebrities tackle climate change

US and Canada promise to lead world to low-carbon economy

The US and Canada declared they would help lead the transition to a low-carbon global economy on Thursday, in a dramatic role reversal for two countries once derided as climate change villains.

The shared vision unveiled by Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau ahead of a meeting at the White House commits the two countries to a range of actions to shore up the historic climate agreement reached in Paris last December.

The two leaders committed to rally G20 countries behind the accord, promote North American carbon markets, cap emissions from hundreds of thousands of existing oil and gas wells, and protect indigenous communities in a region which is warming beyond the point of no return, according to a statement from the White House.

The initiative announced on Thursday brings the US a big step closer to meeting its own Paris target by committing for the first time to cut emissions of methane - a powerful greenhouse gas responsible for about a quarter of warming - from existing oil and gas wells. ...

With Thursday’s announcement, Obama appeared to be passing the baton of climate leadership to Trudeau. Trudeau, just months into his prime ministership, has made clear he wants Canada to play a similar leadership role at home and on the global stage, White House officials told a conference call with reporters on Thursday.

Climate Coalition Vows 'Peaceful, Escalated' Actions Until 'We Break Free from Fossil Fuels'

A global coalition of climate activists are joining together in a new civil disobedience campaign, Break Free from Fossil Fuels, seeking to to disrupt the power of the fossil fuel industry through "a series of peaceful, escalated actions...targeting the world’s most dangerous and unnecessary fossil fuel projects" in May, the environmental group 350.org announced on Wednesday.

Six months after nations vowed to limit global warming in Paris, weeks after thermometers registered a record-breaking warm winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and in the midst of a renewable energy boom, thousands of grassroots activists who are determined to uphold the spirit of that climate agreement are coordinating efforts to take down Big Oil through peaceful global protest.

From the U.K. to Brazil, from Nigeria to the Philippines, the Break Free platform is uniting a broad coalition of international, national, and local groups performing actions around the world. "Fighting climate change requires the courage to confront polluters where they think they are most powerful," Break Free's website announces. "For years, communities on the front lines have led that struggle, and this May we can join them."

The online platform allows those interested to look up planned actions in their own country to take part in.


Also of Interest

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

Clinton and Sanders dig deep for fresh angles of attack at Democratic debate

When Hillary Clinton threw Arab and Muslim Americans under the bus

Clinton Proves Best PR in the World Can’t Sell a Terrible Product

Language policing and Twitter wars: why modern feminism is failing us (again)

America’s Persian and Arabian Wars

U.N. torture envoy concerned at water-boarding rhetoric in U.S. race

Pentagon report justifies deployment of military spy drones over the U.S.


A Little Night Music

Silas Hogan - So Glad

Silas Hogan - Everybody Needs Somebody

Silas Hogan - Dark clouds rollin'

Silas Hogan - Airport Blues

Silas Hogan - Honey Bee Blues

Silas Hogan - Just Give Me a Chance

Silas Hogan - Every Saturday Night



Share
up
0 users have voted.

Comments

Stopping in to say hi to all. They've moved Mrs. Wingnut's bone marrow transplant up to late this month. Checking into the hospital on the 27th. If all goes well, she'll be home on April 14th cancer free. Fascinating technology. Inspirational people. I'll try to stay in touch. Peace, cw.

up
0 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

great to hear from you!

best wishes to mrs. wingnut! i hope that everything goes well and she returns april 14th as the picture of health.

up
0 users have voted.

keeping Mrs.cw in my thoughts and wishing her and you all the best. Thanks for stopping in, my friend.

up
0 users have voted.
Unabashed Liberal's picture

great results (in the extended family) due to bone marrow transplants.

My best to you both . . .

(Music City) Mollie
elinkarlsson@WordPress


"I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive."
----Gilda Radner, Comedienne
up
0 users have voted.

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

enhydra lutris's picture

up
0 users have voted.

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 --

divineorder's picture

all the HC providers as well.

up
0 users have voted.

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

mimi's picture

I liked the article about the "The Exposure of the Vast Left-wing Establishment". Just that those they count into the establishment I never really counted as "left-wing". I don't think they ever were, just moderate, centrists, identity-policy pushing democrats, mostly. And they grabbed the mike, took over the cameras and let never go of them.

up
0 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

yeah, i don't count them as left-wing either. it's just a convenience so that the writer can play on hillary's "vast right wing conspiracy" meme.

up
0 users have voted.

US policy in Latin America(repression of popular indigenous movements,support of local oligarchs,and the war on drugs)is one of the primary reasons so many refugees are forced to flee the violence and poverty so prevalent in the region.

Orlando Cachaito Lopez - Tumbanga

up
0 users have voted.

Solidarity

Pressure Cooker

up
0 users have voted.

Solidarity

joe shikspack's picture

that's among my favorite gatemouth tunes.

this was the closing music for my radio show:

up
0 users have voted.
MarilynW's picture

Looks like we will receive 300,000 Syrian refugees before the crisis is over. If Trump gets in as POTUS (gods forbid!) we can expect a few US Muslims to apply at our border.

up
0 users have voted.

To thine own self be true.

joe shikspack's picture

hell, if the donald takes office as prez, i'd like to move to canada, too.

up
0 users have voted.
MarilynW's picture

up
0 users have voted.

To thine own self be true.

detroitmechworks's picture

How long's the commute from yer place? Smile

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

MarilynW's picture

It would be a two hour commute by catamaran ship from Seattle to my place.

up
0 users have voted.

To thine own self be true.

mimi's picture

in Hawaii, when at the same time they criminalize any move by homeless people to sleep somewhere that, with some imagination, you could consider a shelter from the elements. They hit the homeless people with fines, send them to prison, if you can't pay the fine, once having the record of having been in prison, not being able to get a job or any option to secure a contract for a rental contract, even if they work.

Fulltime working persons can't afford any sort of rental prices as you find them in Hawaii. You have to share, but then you are not allowed to share, due to dumb laws. If shared, two people both under stress enhance the already difficult situation and are cause for "drama". Shelter facilities, if available, are so horrible that people rather sleep outside in the elements, if they can find a place, where nobody chases them away.

It's not allowed to sleep in your car. You have to hide the car somewhere, where the police hopefully is not looking. It's not allowed to park your car on piece of land a friend of yours might offer you, so that you can park it safely and sleep in the car. Neighbors, who see that, call those who offer such arrangements to the attention to the police. If caught doing so, the owners offering their land for such purposes, get busted. People, who like to offer their garage spaces or shacks of Ohanas, are afraid of doing so, because most are not "not per code" structures and they are not allowed to let people sleep in there. So, any kind of empathy and humane offer to help a person in need of a shelter gets punished and criminalized.

You are not allowed to sleep on the beaches. You can't go into the woods and camp there. Once homeless and with little money, you can't drive to work, if you have to hide somewhere far away from your place of work. You can't camp on a "legal camping site" and if you can pay the daily fees, you can't do it for more than three days. People, who have farm land rent out tent places for as much as $800.00 per month and more, no water or toilets etc. often in arrangements where you have to do farm work to get reduced rent.

There are many homeless people with kids, parents working both, often even two jobs. Of course there is no security you get the hours you need to make a salary you can count on. One parent in a shelter, one parent sleeping in a car and walking miles and miles to their job places.

Instead of calling out emergency and building shelters, they just could change their laws. Especially laws considering how much a landlord is allowed to squeeze out for a rat hole from homeless people who still have an income. May be some work related labor laws making the hiring and firing from one day to the next illegal would help. Not all homeless are drug addicts or severely mentally distressed. But they need some security, that the job they have today is there tomorrow and the hours they got yesterday will be the same as the hours they get tomorrow. There are no securities at all for those workers.

So, please, cry me a river, emergency declaration. Put in some frigging regulatory laws on the rental, housing market, give subsidies for public transportation, have labor laws that protect the workers from being abused.

I wished Michael Moore would do a film about homeless people in America.

The islands had been bought up by corporate investors, rich folks from the West Coast and Alaska since the last three decades. Since 2008 the situation has drastically changed. Less work, extremely high rental and housing prices and laws that focus on "getting rid and clean out" all those, who don't have enough money to pay for their shelter. Such an eye sore for the rich tourists talking blah blah over there. Houses are build that don't meet the demand of the working middle income and lower income people at all.

All done with the bastardized aloha spirit of rich investors who buy out the islands.

up
0 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

hmmm. hawaii, is that any way to run an island paradise? sheesh.

up
0 users have voted.
triv33's picture

First, and this comes as no surprise whatsoever:
Surprise! NSA data will soon routinely be used for domestic policing that has nothing to do with terrorism

A while back, we noted a report showing that the “sneak-and-peek” provision of the Patriot Act that was alleged to be used only in national security and terrorism investigations has overwhelmingly been used in narcotics cases. Now the New York Times reports that National Security Agency data will be shared with other intelligence agencies like the FBI without first applying any screens for privacy. The ACLU of Massachusetts blog Privacy SOS explains why this is important:

What does this rule change mean for you? In short, domestic law enforcement officials now have access to huge troves of American communications, obtained without warrants, that they can use to put people in cages. FBI agents don’t need to have any “national security” related reason to plug your name, email address, phone number, or other “selector” into the NSA’s gargantuan data trove. They can simply poke around in your private information in the course of totally routine investigations. And if they find something that suggests, say, involvement in illegal drug activity, they can send that information to local or state police. That means information the NSA collects for purposes of so-called “national security” will be used by police to lock up ordinary Americans for routine crimes. And we don’t have to guess who’s going to suffer this unconstitutional indignity the most brutally. It’ll be Black, Brown, poor, immigrant, Muslim, and dissident Americans: the same people who are always targeted by law enforcement for extra “special” attention.

This basically formalizes what was already happening under the radar. We’ve known for a couple of years now that the Drug Enforcement Administration and the IRS were getting information from the NSA. Because that information was obtained without a warrant, the agencies were instructed to engage in “parallel construction” when explaining to courts and defense attorneys how the information had been obtained. If you think parallel construction just sounds like a bureaucratically sterilized way of saying big stinking lie, well, you wouldn’t be alone. And it certainly isn’t the only time that that national security apparatus has let law enforcement agencies benefit from policies that are supposed to be reserved for terrorism investigations in order to get around the Fourth Amendment, then instructed those law enforcement agencies to misdirect, fudge and outright lie about how they obtained incriminating information — see the Stingray debacle. This isn’t just a few rogue agents. The lying has been a matter of policy. We’re now learning that the feds had these agreements with police agencies all over the country, affecting thousands of cases.

And this, which shouldn't, but it kinda does:

War Zone Tactics Come Home as Pentagon Admits Domestic Spy Drone Use

An internal Pentagon report made public on Wednesday revealed that the U.S. Department of Defense has been using unarmed drones to conduct surveillance missions over American soil since 2006.

The Pentagon inspector general report, entitled “Evaluation of DoD Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for Support to Civil Authorities,” obtained by USA Today through a Freedom of Information Act request, said that “less than 20” such missions occurred between 2006 and 2015, though they anticipate many more in the years to come.

“More than ten years of war in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan have taught a generation of Airmen valuable lessons about the use of Remotely Piloted Airdfta (RPA) and other [Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR)] assets,” the analysis states.

Perhaps people will begin to give a shit when bizzy buzz buzz is outside of their windows, I doubt it.

up
0 users have voted.

I shave my legs with Occam's Razor~

joe shikspack's picture

thanks for the stories. yep, neither of them is terribly surprising, but it's important to keep the information out there.

Perhaps people will begin to give a shit when bizzy buzz buzz is outside of their windows, I doubt it.

i doubt it, too. a lot of them will probably "feel safer" because the drones are watching other people, not them, of course.

up
0 users have voted.
triv33's picture

but reality leaves me little choice.

up
0 users have voted.

I shave my legs with Occam's Razor~

Big Al's picture

raise you two jades. I will not be out-jaded.
And good to see ya.

up
0 users have voted.
triv33's picture

raise me two, eh? Fuck it, I'm all in. I'm holding four queens with jaundiced eyes and one jaded joker that just barely saves my sanity~

up
0 users have voted.

I shave my legs with Occam's Razor~

snoopydawg's picture

I just replied to a person on Kos that wrote that Obama has ended two wars and has stopped the cycle of endless wars.
I reminded her that the U.S. has troops still in Afghanistan. That Obama tried to keep troops in Iraq AFTER the SOFA was up. That there are troops in Iraq again, and in Libya, Syria, most countries in Africa, and in countries that surround Russia.
Plus he's been using drones in at least 7 countries for over 7 years.

The person also said he rescued the country from a depression, so I reminded her that income inequality hasn't been this bad since 1928 just before the crash.
Sure there are more jobs, but they don't pay very well for a lot of people and some are working 2-3.

I don't understand how people can be so blinded to the reality of what and who Obama has represented during his presidency.
And these are the people who are going to vote for Hillary over Bernie because she says that she will continue his legacy.
I would rather give Bernie the chance to turn this country around. I know that Hillary won't, nor would she try.

up
0 users have voted.

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

detroitmechworks's picture

produce lots of Not Wounded and killed NOT Civilians.

In addition to Not-veterans who will not be forced to not rely on our not a VA which has of course NOT been outsourced to NOT corporations.

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

joe shikspack's picture

there are some folks who just can't bring themselves to make an honest consideration of obama's record of criminality, cruelty and failure. sure he's done a couple of good things, but the bad things he's done overshadow the good, like a murderer who drives a prius to cut down on his carbon footprint.

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

And your analogy made me laugh. Very apt. As is his cruelty and failure. Another thing I don't understand is how so many people in our government don't give a shit about the number of innocent civilians killed in their illegal invasions or the number of people suffering in this country. How do people become so callous after getting money and power?
I read the WP article about the spying and the comments are interesting. Some people believe that this is illegal. Others don't care because they hide behind this
"I don't do drugs, commit any criminal acts, belong to any anti-American groups, or cheat on my taxes so I guess it really doesn't matter if the NSA wants to monitor my emails, phone calls, financial dealings, or internet postings. If anything, it will just eat up more of their time by doing so because I live a pretty calm and boring life."

One commentator brought up an interesting point. Congress 's job is to make rules, but those rules are supposed to be limited by the constitution.
We all know what Obama thinks about the constitution. He's decided that its legal for secret committees to make up secret rules that allows him to kill people with out due process, lock people up indefinitely without letting them have access to the lawyers when he signed the NDAA.

And the person I am arguing with on Kos gave me a link to the Wikipedia page that said that the war in Afghanistan has ended. I gave her the link that states it might go on until 2024.
We know that the Middle East wars will go on indefinitely.

up
0 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

Another thing I don't understand is how so many people in our government don't give a shit about the number of innocent civilians killed in their illegal invasions

something in an article that i read a couple of weeks ago really struck me.

it was a piece about a recent us bombing of an isis bank where they allegedly had millions of dollars stored with which they made their payroll for their troops. the mission was successful and, according to the military, killed about 7 civilians. the article said that they were happy about that, they had anticipated that the strike might kill up to 50 civilians but they were ok with that, because of the amount of money that would be destroyed.

in other words, it was, "worth it."

i just want to ask these people (and the candidates) to explain their math. how do they calculate if risking 50 lives is, "worth it" how about the more than 500,000 children that bill clinton starved in iraq, which madelaine albright assured us was, "worth it?"

up
0 users have voted.
divineorder's picture

up
0 users have voted.

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

Big Al's picture

It happens particularly when putting one's faith in politician's.
Obama is a damn war criminal, flat out. It is hard to understand why everyone doesn't understand it when you know the truth. But people simply don't get the truth from the mainstream media and most of the dem sycophants over at Daily Kos refuse to expand beyond the propaganda channels.
I was going to write a diary tonight about how Obama is trying to whitewash his war crimes while attempting to show he's been "up to the task" to the ruling class, with help from Goldberg, the scumbag from the Atlantic.

up
0 users have voted.
JekyllnHyde's picture

up
0 users have voted.

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

joe shikspack's picture

heh, if only bernie could find some military organization to make him an honorary colonel. Smile

up
0 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

up
0 users have voted.

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 --

seefleur's picture

I'd never heard any of Silas Hogan before and am now hooked!! This site is most excellent... imho

up
0 users have voted.

Think off-center.
George Carlin

joe shikspack's picture

welcome! silas hogan was one of quite a number of louisiana swamp pop musicians that were recorded by the excello label. if you are a musician or a blues fan, it's worth seeking out their stuff.

happy reading!

up
0 users have voted.
seefleur's picture

When I started attending the North Atlantic Blues Festival about 12 years ago, my mind was officially blown away. You have added a new level of "OMG awesome music" and for that you have earned massive music/karma points. Thank you!

up
0 users have voted.

Think off-center.
George Carlin

joe shikspack's picture

up
0 users have voted.
Unabashed Liberal's picture

I'm admittedly a bit of a 'dog person,' I must say that it's really nice to see your pretty kitten's face, in what turned out to be a sea of pooch faces [this evening].

Wink

Great to have you here!

(Music City) Mollie
elinkarlsson@WordPress


"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers
up
0 users have voted.

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

Unabashed Liberal's picture

this evening. Mr M is popping the corn--gonna force ourselves to watch the first half of the nutty Republican Gladiators--the last debate before the OH and FL primaries.

Hoping Rubio takes Florida (although we doubt he will), but we want anyone but Kasich to take Ohio. We'll see.

I still haven't decided which of the four would be the most disastrous. On slashing entitlements and taxes (for corporations and the wealthy)--it would probably be Kasich and/or Cruz. 'The Donald' is a disaster in areas other than those (and free trade), not to mention totally obnoxious. And Rubio--considering that he looks all of fifteen years old, what can I say?

Wink

Hey, excellent essay this evening. Thank you for tonight's 'News & Blues.'

Have a nice evening, Everyone!

(Music City) Mollie
elinkarlsson@WordPress


"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare."--Japanese Proverb
up
0 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

you're either made of pretty stern stuff or have a great love of clowns if you can handle listening to the rethug debate.

that essay started as a brief intro to the top story tonight, but it just kind of grew organically. Smile

take care!

up
0 users have voted.
Unabashed Liberal's picture

up
0 users have voted.

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

divineorder's picture

... not that we were missed, but here for a few weeks before launching off again. Yeah, back to responsibilityland with the attendant 'first world problems.' but doin' all right.

Hope all is well with you and yours, and we wish the very best to all Bluesters, other earthpersons, and may all be fed. Save some for the wildlife though.

As you may have guessed we are now are holed up in our 100 year old shack in the TX Hill Country. The lovely Jakkalbessie was tired after too little sleep in Austin after we got in so late, but energized by cooking with a full kitchen for a change. She fixed another fabulous meal of roasted brussel sprouts with the required onions and bacon, mixed green salad topped with pepitas, and even opened up a can of hard to find outside of Texas Field Peas which is comfort food for me for sure.

Now enjoying some wine together and checking in on our frins here at the home grown no holds barred raw but sophisticated http://caucus99percent.com .

Whoo, but ya'll been busy!

Good to see!

But, hey, got to tell you, my bucket got a hole in it.

That would be my Photobucket account, it full up, don't werk no mo.

Trying to learn how to easily upload direct to 99 like do at GOS.

Here goes, the last night sunset from Fred's in Manuel Antonio National Park area on Costa Rica's Pacific coast, one of the most beautiful places in the world imo.

20160212_173957.jpg

Hah! did it, guess JTC slipped in a resizer, or maybe it was there all along. Will I be able to find it when sober?

Hugs to you all, and thanks for all you do.

up
0 users have voted.

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

Unabashed Liberal's picture

up
0 users have voted.

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

divineorder's picture

Got a fast connection tonight, we are big Amy Goodman Democracy Now fans and actually got to meet her at a fundraiser in Santa Fe . Had never seen General AB speak. Fascinating.

Looks like he has some excellent books out, but wonder if the questions he raised about Bernie needing to speak out about US foreign policy more, wonder if he has read this excellent piece which still is the best I have seen covering the holes in Bernie's program.

Bernie Needs Your Help
By joe shikspack
Monday Sep 28, 2015 · 7:24 AM CDT

up
0 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

up
0 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

glad to hear that you all are home safe and taking solid food. Smile

i think the instructions for the photo upload are in the faq. if your photobucket is full, you can get a free terabyte at flickr if you don't mind having your collection spread across two accounts.

you guys have a great evening!

up
0 users have voted.

is that a new one from Cost Rica? Glad to see you and Jb back stateside. If you can't find that resizer when you wake up tomorrow, take two aspirins and call me in the morning! Heh!

up
0 users have voted.
pfiore8's picture

i live in The Netherlands. night owl. what can i say. but wanted to share this before turning in. had me laughing. it still does:

12804884_1159585974052816_6962635243158370073_n.jpg

up
0 users have voted.

“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"

Unabashed Liberal's picture

up
0 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

nice!

up
0 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

station on Slacker, thanks for continuing to broaden my knowledge of great blues performers and influences. I think I'll just ignore the news, pretty ugly, as usual and as expected. The freedom foundation needs a visit from the wobblies, they wre there first.

up
0 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

happy listening! btw, there's plenty more silas hogan on youtube if you're in need of a bigger fix.

up
0 users have voted.
Shahryar's picture

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3485830/Barack-Obama-warned-Davi...

Barack Obama blasted David Cameron for 'free riding' over defence and has privately accused the British Prime Minister of leaving Libya a 's*** show', it emerged today.

In a remarkable insight into the US President's critical view of Mr Cameron's foreign policy, it was revealed today that Mr Obama believed Britain and France were too happy to rely on the US to deal with conflicts on Europe's doorstep.

And he warned Mr Cameron last summer that the 'special relationship' between Britain and America would be lost if he refused to commit the UK to spending the Nato target of 2 per cent of GDP on defence.

it'd be a shame if anything happened to you. Accidents happen but we can give you protection for 2% of your GDP

up
0 users have voted.
detroitmechworks's picture

isn't making their sales projections...

Tsk, tsk. We've upped our orders, Europe!

Up Yours.

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

joe shikspack's picture

thanks for the link! i think that i've seen that story from another source recently, but i don't know if i posted it.

oh my, it's so hard to stay on obama's poodle bff list.

up
0 users have voted.
Crider's picture

Just saw a good Kaiser Report, and the second half featured a person trying to reverse the privatization of the British National Health Service. The Tories have really wrecked the NHS, yet deny what they're doing since it is so popular.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnjZPr9Q5I8]

up
0 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

i saw that today but didn't have time to watch it, thanks for posting it. with any luck i can get caught up a bit this weekend.

up
0 users have voted.

link

MIAMI—Following a series of attacks by his opponents on inconsistent policy statements he has made in the past, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump reportedly shot back at his challengers with a pointed and stinging rebuttal during Thursday’s GOP debate, saying, “I suffer from severe psychological issues, and I desperately need the help of mental health professionals.”

Sources said Trump’s biting retort, in which he acknowledged having debilitating cognitive and emotional impairments that rendered him wholly unfit to make important decisions for himself, let alone for a nation of 320 million people, came during the first hour of the nationally televised debate, and drew raucous cheers and applause from the audience.

“What people need to understand is that I’m plagued by very real and very serious mental health issues that leave me with considerable mental deficits and sharply distort the reality I perceive,” said Trump, his blunt and forceful rejoinder cutting through the noise of the other candidates talking over one another and silencing the field. “Look, folks, I have a crippling, intractable personality disorder, exacerbated by ongoing chemical imbalances in my brain, that is manifesting itself as an acute, long-term manic episode. Let’s be clear here: I lack the sound judgment, impulse control, and ability to regulate emotional responses that a rational, mentally healthy human being should possess.”

“I am sincerely afraid of what I might do to myself or others—please, someone help me,” Trump continued, leaving his challengers flustered as the crowd erupted in a standing ovation.

up
0 users have voted.
detroitmechworks's picture

At this point, I almost expect Trump to try to grab hold of the "I'm A Victim" mentality in order to shut down dissent.

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

joe shikspack's picture

heh... he can't do that, cause he's a winner. well, unless he's the most stupendous, winning victim evah. Smile

up
0 users have voted.
detroitmechworks's picture

Not only would he have mental problems, they would be the MOST Glamorous Mental Problems anybody ever had. And those problems would be EXACTLY what this country needs!

And a little music from south of the border about Trump's brain. OK, L.A., but it would piss him off more if they were from TJ, so I'm claiming it. Smile

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_5y5KrBoO8]

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

joe shikspack's picture

the onion forgot the bit about the truth serum.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

oh yeah, o happy day. That makes me finally going to church.
[video:https://youtu.be/fWXFCxsxL5k]

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

I think he wants to get into the business of fixing us up, send thousands of "advisers", teach us a lesson about freedom and democracy and make a bug or two.

Desaster my a**. Watch out what you wish for, Mr Hairbomb.

up
0 users have voted.
mimi's picture

Clinton Declares That She Will Never Be Indicted And Insists That Her “Predecessors Did The Same Thing” On Emails
Longish article with lots of details. That's the conclusion:

...It is bizarre that the media does not address the glaring disconnect between what Clinton is saying and what the law actually demands. SF-312 reflects the obvious standard that classified information does not have to be marked. More importantly, as President, Clinton could never allow subordinates to operate under such a ridiculous construction of the rule. It would mean that classified statements that she makes in a SCIF or in the oval office would be free to be released or discussed in unsecure forums because no one stamped her oral statements classified as they were uttered. Yet she has been asked this question dozens of times and has given the same answer with virtually no reporter raising the actual language of the federal law or the practical implications of what she is suggesting about the scope of classification laws.

I have rarely seen a major legal issue in a presidential campaign that is being discussed with so little connection to the actual laws or legal standards. I understand that politics can be a fluid and rather superficial field. However, law is based on actual statutes and standards. The disconnection between the actual law and these questions is disconcerting.

up
0 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

thanks!!

up
0 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

Obama won't do shit to her even if there's proof that she broke any laws.
Look what his administration did to Manning and what they are trying to do with Assange who isn't even am American citizen.
How many people did he charge with the espionage act?

But Petreyous gave his girlfriend tons of classified material and was he charged under the espionage act? Hell no. He paid a $400 thousand fine, got to keep his pension and is living free.
The senate spent $6 million going after the CIA to release the torture report. And for what? Has anyone been charged for torturing and murdering 'some folks'? No.
And why didn't he go after Bush and Cheney? And no president goes after the previous president that committed war crimes. I don't know one that hasn't.
Hillary is right. She won't be charged with anything. The Clinton foundation money laundering scheme is a bigger issue to me than the emails
That's because Obama is a war criminal too.

up
0 users have voted.

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

detroitmechworks's picture

Some Low rank Soldiers were found completely responsible for the whole torture thing. And One General Officer got a wrist slap.

As usual.

up
0 users have voted.

I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Jazzenterprises's picture

up
0 users have voted.

Progressive to the bone.

mimi's picture

Why Some Hasidic Jews Are Loving Donald Trump's Campaign -
By Olivia Becker

Schlaff says he "loves" the way Trump speaks and so do most of his friends: "He talks about everything we think."

Schlaff is not the only member of the Hasidic community in the greater New York City area that feels this way about Trump. According to many Hasidic voters and political commentators, Trump has sparked an undeniable interest in parts of this culturally isolated world.

"Among my circle of friends, at least 90 percent [support] Trump," said Yanky Lichtman, a Trump supporter who lives in Lakewood, New Jersey, one of the biggest Orthodox Jewish communities in the New York area.

David Gross, a Hasid who lives in Brooklyn, said he was never interested in politics before this election, but "when Trump decided to run I got excited."

"He is honest, an everyday person," Gross said. "A lot of people I know agree with him, but they just don't want to say it." Gross added that he'd probably just sit out the general election if Trump was not the Republican nominee because "it won't be as interesting."
...
The Hasidim are the most conservative wing of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and are culturally, ideologically, and politically distinct from mainstream American Jews. While Jewish voters overall are consistently one of the most liberal groups in the country, nearly two-thirds of ultra-Orthodox Jews say they are politically conservative, while 57 percent of Orthodox Jews identify with or lean towards the Republican party, according to a Pew survey of Jewish Americans.

up
0 users have voted.
angel d's picture

up
0 users have voted.