The Evening Blues - 1-5-18
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Elvin Bishop. Enjoy!
Elvin Bishop - Southside Slide
"Bombing, particularly from the perspective of the receiving end, is not 'communication.' Bombs result in death and destruction."
-- H. R. McMaster
News and Opinion
More Bombs, More Boots, More Casualties: Trump's First Year
In President Trump’s first year as commander-in-chief, U.S. military activity intensified in nearly every theater of war he inherited, a VICE News review of publicly available information on military operations shows. In fact, Trump, once a vocal non-interventionist, has been very busy on the war front. In Afghanistan, he recommitted to the 16-year war, arguing more troops were needed to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. In Iraq and Syria, he made good on his campaign promise to “bomb the shit” out of ISIS, attacking the terror group’s strongholds at record rates and driving them from Iraq. And Trump has expanded the battlefield in newer conflicts, giving the Pentagon more freedom and troops to fight al Qaeda and its offshoots.
Despite lambasting his predecessor’s military strategy, Trump has broadly followed it, favoring a mix of airpower and small deployments — often of special operations forces — while working beside local forces. But Trump has been far more aggressive than President Obama. He’s overseen a massive surge in airstrikes, rapidly increased military action in previously limited conflicts like Somalia and Yemen, and pushed to raise troop levels in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. ...
Trump’s aggressiveness has come to define his first year at the helm of the military, and it rests largely on one significant change: On the advice of his generals, Trump stripped away Obama-era civilian oversight and regulatory efforts. As a result, commanders have been able to carry out operations with more speed and less bureaucracy, a combination that military officials say allows them to more effectively fight the war on terror but that human rights experts and counterterrorism analysts warn comes at a deadly price to civilians. ...
It can be hard to gauge where the United States is actually at war. Congress has not formally declared war since 1942, and since 2001 U.S. presidents have relied on the Authorization for Use of Military Force, a wide-ranging bill passed right after 9/11 that allows them to expand the war on terror without congressional approval. As a result, the military has a presence pretty much everywhere, increasingly under the secretive banner of Special Operations Forces.
Glenn Greenwald on Iran Protests: Trump Tweets “Time for Change” While Backing Dictators Worldwide
Russia accuses US of misusing UN to meddle in Iranian affairs
American efforts to win UN security council backing for a tough line against the Iranian leadership in the wake of this week’s protests came unstuck after Russia accused Washington of seeking to undermine Iranian sovereignty by convening an emergency UN session on Friday.
The Russians demanded a closed session of the security council – before the open session wanted by the US – at which Russia will attack the American misuse of the UN to interfere in the sovereignty of Iran. If Russia challenges the need for the emergency meeting, the US needs nine backers on the 15-strong security council for it to go ahead. There are no vetoes.
With protests inside Iran reportedly receding, the Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said he saw no role for the UN on the issue. He said such a meeting would be “harmful and destructive”. A Russian foreign ministry spokeswomen said that no such meetings were called when US police cracked down on the Occupy Wall Street movement or the Ferguson protests.
It would be a demonstration of declining US heft at the UN if Russia were to prevent a discussion, after the US said so emphatically it was vital the UN did not remain silent on the crisis. Last month, the US was left isolated at the UN when it was left with virtually no support for its call for Jerusalem to be recognised as the capital of Israel.
Ryabkov also sided with the Iranian regime by saying allegations that the protests had been fuelled by foreign powers “were not groundless”. He said the security council meeting represented an attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of Iran. The Iranian regime has itself accused CIA officials, Saudi Arabia and Israel of stoking what they describe as riots.
Trump on Saudi Leadership Shake-up: “We’ve Put Our Man on Top!”
When Saudi Arabia's Mohammad bin Salman effectively launched a coup and unseated his political rival in June, President Donald Trump took private credit. “We’ve put our man on top!” Trump told his friends, writes Michael Wolff in his forthcoming book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.”
Saudi Arabia’s King Salman had ousted his nephew Mohammad bin Nayef as crown prince and replaced him with his then-31-year-old son, bin Salman, shaking up the line of succession and turning on decades of custom within the royal family. The move was announced in the dead of night and was just another step in bin Salman’s rise to power in the kingdom in recent years. The king also removed bin Nayef, once a powerful figure in the country’s security apparatus, from his post as interior minister.
Just a month earlier, Trump had visited Saudi Arabia on his first overseas trip, meeting with leaders from across the Middle East and signing a $110 billion aspirational arms deal with the kingdom’s leaders. When bin Salman was named crown prince, Trump called and congratulated him on his “recent elevation.” ...
[Steve] Bannon, speaking at a Washington think tank in October, made a connection between Trump’s Saudi visit and the change in succession. “If you look at Saudi Arabia, they’ve had a pretty big fundamental change since the summit,” Bannon said. “The deputy crown prince is now the crown prince. I think it was two weeks ago or three weeks ago, there were 1,000 clerics rounded up or put under house arrest or whatever. I realize that the opposition party in the New York Times refer to most of them as ‘liberal scholars.’”
North Korea agrees to first talks with South in two years
North Korea has agreed to South Korea’s offer to hold talks next week, in what will be the first high-level contact between the two countries for more than two years.
The talks – the first since December 2015 – will take place in Panmunjom, a village that straddles the demilitarised zone (DMZ) between the two countries and come amid international concern over Pyongyang’s ballistic missile and nuclear programmes.
The discussions, to be held at the Peace House on the South Korean side of Panmunjom, will initially focus on North Korea’s possible participation in next month’s Winter Olympics in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang.
But officials - whose identities have yet to be confirmed - will also talk about how to improve overall ties after a year in which North Korea has raised tensions in the region with a series of missile launches and its sixth – and most powerful – nuclear test.
Pyongyang notified Seoul that it has accepted the offer of talks at Panmunjom via fax on Friday morning, according to the South Korean unification ministry.
US-South Korea Military Exercises To Start After Paralympics: Jim Mattis
US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis on Thursday played down a delay of US-South Korean military exercises, saying they would resume after the conclusion of the March 9-18 Paralympics and that their postponement was simply due to logistical concerns.
Mattis also credited US championed international pressure on North Korea over its nuclear weapons and missile programs for Pyongyang's offer of talks with the South but added it was too soon to say whether the North Korean gesture was meaningful.
"I wouldn't read too much into it because we don't know if it's a genuine olive branch," Mattis said during an impromptu, off-camera press briefing at the Pentagon.
Mattis praised the United Nations for the pressure it has put on Pyongyang, pointing to the three latest rounds of sanctions that have sought to squeeze the North's economy as punishment for its weapons programs.
How the NY Times & U.S. Government Worked Together to Suppress James Risen’s Post-9/11 Reporting
Brazil seethes as man jailed for sexual abuse of teenager joins congress
ust when it seemed that Brazil’s scandal-plagued political class could not be any less popular, the country is incensed at the revelation that its congress will soon include a man jailed for the sexual exploitation of underage girls.
Nelson Nahim, a politician from Rio de Janeiro state who is affiliated with President Michel Temer’s Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, was handed a 12-year sentence in 2016 for submitting a 15-year-old girl to prostitution/sexual exploitation, rape and intimidating behaviour.
As a “substitute” lawmaker for a coalition of parties, he will take the seat vacated by Brazil’s new minister of labour, Cristiane Brasil, when congress returns from recess next month, but he officially becomes a deputy when she takes up her new role next week.
Adding fuel to the fire, Brasil herself was in 2016 ordered to make payments to a former driver whom she had employed without proper papers. Brasil is also the daughter of a politician jailed in a previous scandal. ...
Documents submitted to court described Nahim, 60, as a regular client of a prostitution ring in the Rio town of Campos dos Goytacazes between 2008 and 2009, in which underage girls were kept behind bars and forced to consume drugs in order to have sex with clients. According to prosecutors, Nahim had sex with two 15-year-old girls at a country house he owned. He denies the allegations.
ACLU: Police pepper sprayed child during inauguration
Police officers "knocked down" a 10-year-old boy and exposed him and his mother to pepper spray during a rally against US President Donald Trump's inauguration, according to amendments to a lawsuit filed by a civil rights organisation.
The lawsuit, which was originally filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia (ACLU-DC) on behalf of four plaintiffs in June, was amended on Wednesday to add the 10-year-old boy and his mother, Gwen Frisbie-Fulton. The lawsuit names the child as "A.S." in order to protect his identity. ...
When police kettled a group of demonstrators, bystanders, journalists, medics and others who had been present during an anti-fascist and anti-capitalist bloc march, the officers continued to use pepper spray and other weapons, such as stinger grenades, against them. Frisbie-Fulton and A.S., who had been nearby, were caught in the mayhem, according to the lawsuit.
"As she and A.S. tried to escape the spraying, a line of officers knocked A.S. to the ground. Frisbie-Fulton picked A.S. up and tried to carry him away from the melee, but she coughed and choked from the thick clouds of pepper spray, and could not carry him further," the ACLU-DC's statement explained. Frisbie-Fulton claimed the officers endangered her and her son's safety.
"I was terrified for my son's safety. When he was knocked down, I instinctually jumped on top of him to cover his body with mine," said Frisbie-Fulton, as quoted in the press release. "We are told the police are there to keep us safe, but on Inauguration Day they were the ones who put us in danger."
'Trump has declared war on California': state defiant as White House takes aim
In the first hours of 2018, Californians toasted with “Happy New Year blunts” and marijuana gummies, celebrating the launch of the largest legal pot market in the world. Three days later, Donald Trump’s administration announced a policy that could allow US prosecutors to target legal marijuana operations and undermine California’s massive cannabis movement.
“There should be no doubt that President Trump has officially declared war on California,” state senate leader Kevin de León told the Guardian on Thursday after the US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, rescinded an Obama-era policy that opened the door for states to legalize marijuana. The federal government’s war on the Golden State – which overwhelmingly rejected the president in 2016 and has become a liberal leader in the anti-Trump resistance – has intensified in recent days with the administration threatening California’s immigrants, world-famous coastal shores, taxpayers and weed smokers.
The political warfare by Trump, who reportedly holds deep grudges and is said to be obsessed with his electoral wins and losses, has the potential to cause havoc and destroy livelihoods in the state of California, the world’s sixth largest economy.
Comey’s original Clinton memo released, cites possible violations
Ex-FBI Director James Comey’s original statement closing out the probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server was edited by subordinates to remove five separate references to terms like “grossly negligent” and to delete mention of evidence supporting felony and misdemeanor violations, according to copies of the full document.
Comey also originally concluded that it was “reasonably likely” that Clinton’s nonsecure private server was accessed or hacked by hostile actors, though there was no evidence to prove it. But that passage was also changed to the much weaker “possible,” the memos show.
The full draft and edits were released on the website of Senate Homeland and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), providing the most complete public accounting to date of Comey’s draft and the subsequent edits. ...
The full draft, with edits, leaves little doubt that Comey originally wrote on May 2, 2016, that there was evidence that Clinton and top aides may have violated both felony and misdemeanor statutes, though he did not believe he could prove intent before a jury. ...
Johnson recently sent a letter to new FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding to know why such significant edits were made to Comey’s draft and whether they were part of an effort by FBI subordinates to politically protect Clinton from a harsher assessment during the 2016 election.
Fire and Fury released early in defiance of attempt to ban tell-all Trump book
The US publisher of an explosive new book exposing chaos behind the scenes at the White House has brought publication forward to Friday in defiance of an attempt by Donald Trump’s lawyers to try to shut it down.
The book’s author, Michael Wolff, tweeted: “Here we go. You can buy it (and read it) tomorrow. Thank you, Mr President.”
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House was due to be released on Tuesday. But after extracts were made public by the Guardian, the White House was thrown into a frenzy.
Claims in the book about Trump’s mental stability and fitness to serve were dismissed on Thursday as “disgraceful and laughable” by the White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders.
Establishment's New Trick To Screw Bernie In 2020
'Like thunder in the ground': Texans fear link between quakes and fracking waste
An earthquake, Cathy Wallace says, feels like “a rumble – it’s like thunder in the ground coming towards your house like a train and you can hear it and feel it coming”. Wallace is not based in California, or in any of the US’s well-known seismic hot-spots. She lives in north Texas, historically one of the country’s least earthquake-prone regions – until the drillers came.
Rampant energy industry activity is nothing new in Texas, but these days it does not only signify oil pumpjacks nodding lugubriously in remote fields. In little over a decade, since fracking began in earnest in the Barnett Shale, drilling sites have become part of the urban landscape in the nation’s fourth-largest metropolitan area, sometimes placed a matter of metres from houses, businesses, churches, schools, parks and the 11th-busiest passenger airport in the world. ...
Significant new research led by a seismologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and published in November indicates that the spate of tremors in north Texas is occurring on faults that were inactive for at least 300m years. Using a different analytical technique from earlier studies, it backs up previous conclusions that the only plausible explanation for the earthquakes is human activity.
In Fort Worth there are 2,127 pending and approved gas well drilling permits within the limits of the city, which has a population of more than 850,000. Since 2008, the Fort Worth Basin has changed from experiencing no confirmed recorded earthquakes to hundreds, mostly minor. The likely primary culprit is not hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in itself, but the process of wastewater injection. A common way to get rid of the vast amounts of water that are a byproduct of fracking and other extraction methods is to use disposal wells to push it underground, where it is thought to put pressure on faults.
In the fall an earthquake-tracking website was launched by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas. It shows that in 2017 there were clusters of seismic activity around prominent oil-and-gas producing regions in west and south Texas, as well as the Dallas-Fort Worth area, home to more than 7 million people and a number of huge dams of debatable resilience.
Trump administration plans to allow oil and gas drilling off nearly all US coast
The Trump administration has unveiled a plan that would open almost all US offshore territory to oil and gas drilling, including previously protected areas of the Atlantic, Arctic and Pacific oceans.
Ryan Zinke, the secretary of the interior, said a new oil and gas leasing programme, which would run from 2019 to 2024, would make more than 90% of the outer continental shelf available for what would be the largest ever number of lease sales to fossil fuel companies.
The draft plan includes nearly 50 lease sales in all but one of 26 planning areas in US waters, including 19 sales off the coast of Alaska, seven in the Pacific, 12 in the Gulf of Mexico and nine in the Atlantic. The plan reverses protections put in place by the Obama administration and would introduce drilling for the first time to the Atlantic seaboard – a prospect fiercely opposed by communities along the east coast.
“We want to grow our nation’s offshore energy industry, instead of slowly surrendering it to foreign shores,” Zinke said. “This is a clear difference between energy weakness and energy dominance. Under President Trump we’re going to have the strongest energy policies and be the strongest energy superpower.”
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Fox News Pundits Who Cheered On Iraq War Suggest Arming Iranian Protesters
Here Are the 19 Senate Democrats Still Not Committed to Defending Net Neutrality
A Little Night Music
Elvin Bishop's Big Fun Trio w/Charlie Musselwhite - 100 Years Of Blues
Elvin Bishop - Rock My Soul
Elvin Bishop - Can't Even Do Wrong Right
Elvin Bishop - Travelin' Shoes
Elvin Bishop - Juke Joint Jump
Elvin Bishop - Stealing Watermelons
Elvin Bishop - Midnight Creeper
Elvin Bishop - Everybody's In The Same Boat
Elvin Bishop Group - Crazy 'Bout You Baby
Comments
California
Maybe he plans to have as many Democrats in jail as possible by 2020 to boost his chances.
evening olinda...
most punditry of the past (in my memory) considered the idea of conspicuously attacking california by an administration to be electoral suicide. perhaps trump just deeply doesn't care.
california
is now majority-minority (38% white people, and falling), and so as long as they remain the "white riot" party, the Republicans will never win here again. So there is no downside to The Hairball attacking the state. Makes the people out in the Hairball regions happy.
evening hecate...
yeah, i guess given trump's commitment to immigration lunacy, the gop's hopes of picking up the hispanic vote is pretty much out the window.
batten down the hatches, california!
a guy
I know planned this holiday season to drive from the Hairball-Free Zone of California to the Hairball-Free Zone of Vermont, bearing some marijuana as Christmas presents. Some of us tried to talk him out of it, because such a trip involves traversing a
Next person should try an end run to the north
There's this whole big COUNTRY that's a Hairball-Free Area, and they like the weed. The only hazard is in the exit and entry points. (Plan ahead, nuff said!)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Heh
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Hola amigo!
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
evening tim...
heh, indeed! thanks for the reminiscences of hound dog.
have a good funkin' evening!
Friday it is!
Another beautiful day in this Colorado hamlet. It might have hit 60 today. Supposed to be mid-50s and partly sunny to sunny for the next several days.
Hard to believe we have it so nice with so much of the rest of the country so cold. Usually it works the other way. I'm definitely appreciating it because I know the reverse will kick in soon.
Hope all is well for all the Bluesters!
Thank you, joe, for the news and blues. Lots of news in the news today!
Hell_O
I spent 12/23-1/1 out your way. Chain restrictions from Georgetown to Glenwood Springs early in the week. We drove the Peak to Peak 12/29. It was so windy in Nederland that a gust of wind made me and two other guys all take a simultaneous step backwards, just to maintain our balance.
We had a great time and noticed an affinity for tater tots.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
@NCTim
Oh, I hope you had a good time, Tim! There are better times of year to visit here.
Wind can be a crazy experience.
One particular weather event I will never forget was a girlfriend and I leaving a restaurant and trying to walk down 17th Street in Denver. The wind had picked up while we were eating. You couldn't really "walk." It was more like pushing yourself down the street. We would push on until we got to an inset doorway of an establishment, take refuge in the doorway and rest. Then push on to the next doorway. It took an hour to go a few blocks.
Chain restrictions, among other slippery and chilly tidings, keep me hibernating most of the winter.
Hope you are home now, safe and warm.
Home now
We were across 25, from downtown, just a couple blocks up 15th. I wandered all over Lodo and Highlands.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
60?
geez, that sounds like heaven about now. we're headed for the low single digits or less tonight here. fortunately the winds have calmed down considerably.
stay warm and toasty!
2 0 1 8
Wow, five days into 2018. I remember when the year turned to 2000. That was such a big deal and a year that had seemed so far away that it would never really get here. Now it's 18 years later. Hard to believe. I guess it can't be fake news though, hmmm? Or can it????
another crock of bs
From the ACLU/pepper spray story:
"When police kettled a group of demonstrators..."
Didn't "kettling" start at some point during the Bush years? Seems I recall it new at that time. What a crock. A small, specific roped off area that you had to enclose yourself in if you wanted to protest. Since when is that even legal ... constitutional? What about free assembly? That's not very free. It's so scary and dangerous, I can't really say what I would have done. But, somehow we needed to have not allowed it! To call them on that BS and not allow ourselves to be restricted and roped in. Now it seems to be standard, accepted procedure.
I'm sure it happens often, but I recall one instance where the police insisted protestors be kettled a block or two from whatever or whoever they were protesting, and they couldn't even be seen by the target of the protests.
yeah, remember they called them
"free speech zones" durning juniors' rule. So the cameras wouldn't show dissent. Thought that was very 1984 'ish at the time.
question everything
Jettling actually goes back to the sixties, but they didn't
call it that then, and really didn't specifically call it anything except sometimes "sweeps". They would surround a group, order them to disperse, then bust them all for failure to disperse as ordered. This, obviously, was only practical when they had the numbers, usually with small demonstrations, or outlying groups.
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 --
free speech zones...
are what it seems that you are thinking of. in a lot of urban settings (including at some dubya bush election events) the secret service and sometimes local police would erect cages for protesters.
the supreme court decided that dubya was correct that "it's only a damned piece of paper" with justice ruth bader ginsburg writing the opinion for the court deep-sixing free speech rights for americans:
@joe shikspack
Thanks, joe. I wasn't aware of that ruling. Disgusting. All speech is free. Some is just freer than others, it looks like.
au contraire
Speech is quite expensive.
What is political 'dark money' — and is it bad?
Secret cash is influencing elections. Here’s how.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Senor Paquete de Seis
I have always been impressed that Elvin Bishop went to The University of Chicago. on a physics scholarship.
By the time he was preparing for college in the late 1950s, Bishop had earned a National Merit Scholarship that allowed him to go to almost any school he chose – and the only choice on Elvin’s mind was the prestigious University of Chicago, which just happened to be located on Chicago’s South Side, ground zero for much of the urban Blues Elvin had so far been studying only from a distance.
Then he started hanging out with miscreants that hang out in blues bars.
Elvin is Pigboy Crabshaw.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
heh...
i think that elvin made the better career choice.
What can a poor fella' do ?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqLA4pSahYY width:400 height:240]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
heh...
except to sing in a rock 'n' roll band?
for a moment there, i thought you might be headed for a stones reference.
Now c'mon joe ...
I do occasionally make a musical comment that does not involve Keith Richards.
I'm listening to Huey Lewis tonight.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q61MvucepBs width:400 height:240]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
I thought you had pulled out the 45s
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
What a surprise
Corey Booker, America's darling is not on board with the net neutrality fixit bill? Yeah sure, run him. He's voted against everything people have wanted for how long? Do it.
Good for Russia to call us out on our hypocrisy of how we treated our protesters. How big of an embarrassment would it be if the security council meeting goes against us? Two in a row? This might be a good sign that the other countries who normally follow our lead are going to distance themselves from us. I guess it depends on how many want a war with Iran.
The war has been planned for a long time by the Brookings institution. This shows how the war would come about and how they would do. The methodology of creating a plan for a war that will see millions hurt and hundreds of thousands dead is something that I will never understand. No person can be this devoid of humanity and still be sane. Not the ones who wrote it, or read it and then agreed that it should go forward.
What, we headed back to ‘freedom fries’ since France not in
support?
Seriously, this does bring back memories of US using UN as cover for Iraq Invasion.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
freedom fries? heh!
if certain interests don't get their damned war with iran, we might be back to "cheese eating surrender monkeys" again.
evening snoopy...
yeah, but cory is like superman, i mean he's a "mainstream african-american who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" - and he's accomplished, too.
who cares that he's a corporate whore?
it'll be interesting to see what sort of fallout comes from russia's calling out the u.s. over it's attempt to insinuate its weapons into the iranian protests. i certainly hope that nikki haley gets raked over the coals for this in behalf of trump.
heh, the brookings plan to attack iran is just the liberal plan. there are think tanks all over america left and right that have made good money planning to attack iran. there seem to be quite a number of deep-pocketed individuals and institutions that are willing to part with some serious dough to whip up some interest in attacking iran.
My Senator Udall
has not signed in either. I contacted his office today and had my say about the issue. Get on board with the people - get on board with net neutrality!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Hoping you get a better reply from your guy then I did from
Hatch. I sent him an email about the tax bill and CHIP and he just thanked me for writing him. Said he wouldn't address my issues personally unless I had a significant problem. Ya think? I rely on the safety net and he's getting ready to gut it. I think that's a significant problem..
Thank goodness Hatch
is retiring. He is an embarrassment - actually, the majority of them are. It pains them to stand for their constituents because money!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
I'm starting to see how important Jimmy Dore's voice is.
This in reference to the video you posted:
"Establishment's New Trick To Screw Bernie In 2020"
I think Dore has become the living embodiment of the Fairness Doctrine — he is the spirit of the intention of that regulation. The regulation only applied to news media broadcasts intended to inform the public about choices they face that will alter their lives. (Back when there was a democracy.) Dore's execution is not perfect, but it gets the job done. Other pundits do take short clips and pound on them for their own purposes, introducing absurdities to distort them. That's standard US news fuckery these days.
But Jimmy Dore can't get away with the cheap shots because he uses complete passages from a presentation. He does not hide the speakers intent to make his own point, he showcases it. He doesn't finish their sentences with red meat lies. He sits there and calmly deconstruct it, in an academic fashion. He examines the topic, the setting, and the words actually spoken. It's very much like a class workshop in analysis. Then he reassembles it again exactly the way it was, but he gives his audience a broader context for understanding it, based on the reality we all share.
That's how the Fairness Doctrine worked, and what it achieved for the most part.
In Dore's case, he makes the in-depth process of detailed cultural analysis very entertaining. And, honestly, it is. Hypocrisy with a straight face is really hilarious. But we need a catalyst to release the humor, and Dore does that so well.
I agree
And hopefully someone doesn't make him an offer to join the CFR
Jimmy Dore's a jagoff nightclub comic,
but he sees what's going on and he's good at explaining it.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
evening pluto...
dore is developing into an important voice. he is reasonably entertaining, he has a nose for irony and he seems to enjoy afflicting the comfortable. it'll be interesting to see if his platform grows.
Jester's Immunity
The court jester was the only person who could tell the king he was being a fink, but he had to put a gloss of humor on it to keep his job.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Couldn't agree more.
Dore presents it, , so even we C students get it.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Potential Peace talks?
Thanks for all the hard work you put into getting all this news out to us Monday through Friday. I, for one, am going to envision peace talks moving forward between North and South Korea. Of course, the Defense Secretary holds little hope for these talks to have any positive results.
Don’t think most of the citizens of the United States have a clue as to the absolute damage caused by a nuclear bomb. While still teaching would play a short video put together for Beyond War produced by the International Physicians to Prevent Nuclear War. The video showed what would happen if a bomb the size of Hiroshima were dropped on the city of San Francisco and the resulting damage in a three-mile radius of the bomb blast. It also showed footage from the aftermath of the Hiroshima blast.
The school where I taught was near Bergstrom Air Force Base in Austin and you could actually hear the bombers warming up the engines on the planes once a week. After showing the video we drew a three mile circle with the Air Force Base as ground zero. This was always a powerful and sobering lesson for these students.
Anyway, holding on to a peaceful vision for the future!
Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.
This ain't no dress rehearsal!
evening jb...
i'm pretty impressed with kim jong un's diplomatic victory over trump. if he can successfully maneuver the south koreans into a less supine relationship with the u.s., it might be possible over time to negotiate some sort of peace. it will take masterful negotiating on kim's part, but then again, the trump administration is not exactly filled with the best and brightest, so maybe there's a chance.
yep, one nuclear bomb could ruin your whole day.
The CDC is getting ready to teach us about it JB
CDC To Teach The Public How To Prepare For A Nuclear Explosion
Planning and preparation... yeah that's what we need to learn about. Here's a better idea. Don't use it.
Fear? They seem to be downplaying this. Sure, don't worry your little heads over wondering what it'd be like to die from nuclear radiation. Geebus!
Hope you are feeling better js. We have been having allergy
Stuff juniper pollen time.
....
Bloomberg coverage on the Security Council meeting today:
“Sweden’s envoy, deputy Ambassador Irina Schoulgin Nyoni, appeared to sum up the view of many on the 15-nation Security Council: “Human rights violations must be separated from JCPOA. The agreement is there to ensure the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program.”“
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Good to hear that from Sweden
This is THE point that the other countries that signed on with the deal need to make. The nuclear deal stands, but I'm hopeful the other countries will tell Haley, Trump and especially Bibi to take a hike. The Saudis are the biggest sponsors of terrorism and Bibi is the head cheerleader for our foreign interventions. If Israel wants something done then they should have to pay for it and use their troops, not ours or others. Seems that the brave Israeli soldiers can only pick on someone who is defenseless. Throwing that young girl in prison because she slapped that person who was in her face. Unfortunately, I've read that many Israeli citizens also want her punished.
evening do...
sorry to hear about the allergies, i hope you feel ok and get through it quickly. i'm feeling ok, mr. sore throat is not as potent this time and i think that he will be gone again pretty soon.
glad to hear that other nations (besides russia) are taking haley to task at the un. with any luck, the u.s. and israel will have to knuckle under and sharpen their knives for next time as they mumble angrily after being shut in the cloakroom.
Hola, Joe & Gang! Dore musta not gotten 'the memo'--
younger members of the Dem Party/Leadership have been calling for a bunch of the more 'geriatric' (shall we say) Dem Party Leaders to step aside.
Seriously, this 'younger' versus 'older' Dem Party Leader discussion has been in print media and on teevee--C-Span, especially--for at least the better part of a year. Maybe Dore has forgotten that Bernie's part of the Dem Party Establishment, and, that he's also the primary lawmaker who's consistently put out on Cable News and Sunday Political programs to carry the Party message. Frankly, I would imagine that the Dem Party Leadership is encouraging him to run. (After all, they can just rig another election, to make sure he doesn't actually win.) Recently, several Dem 'talking heads' on CNN spoke of his unique capability to bring progressive college students into the fold in 2020. And, aside from the one million dollars that the DNC's Tom Perez claims the DNC spent on GOTV for the recent Senate race, it was access to Bernie's college campus networks in Alabama that have been credited with helping Jones make it over the line. For instance, the post-election 'stats' regarding the 'vote flip' in Tuscaloosa (UofA) and Lee County (Auburn) were no less than staggering.
Here's a couple links, below. (The best are to WaPo pieces, but I don't have paid access to that publication, and prefer not to use one of my 5 monthly articles on this topic.)
and,
Sorta swamped with business matters that didn't get tied up by the end of the year. So, off and one, gonna have to be in lurk mode. We're hoping that we'll be able to get some major 'help' for Mister B this coming week. From our internet research, we think that some of his treatment--specifically, very high doses of Predisone as a maintenance drug--may have created another very serious medical condition. Upcoming tests should confirm this, one way or the another.
Hope folks have avoided some of the worst of what this cold spell has wrought. We're very fortunate, in that we've avoided anything worse than cold weather--no snow, no ice, etc. I've lost count of the number of deaths attributed to frigid temps. IMO, it's criminal that in a country as rich as this one, people are literally freezing to death. And, animals.
Hey, hope Everyone has a nice evening--stay warm!
Mollie
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."--Lao Tzu
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
If they do that to Bernie again
then they will lose. Again. This is one of the reasons why Hillary lost. Bernie woke up too many people and they refused to vote for Her. Not only because of her policies, but because they knew what she did to Bernie just so she could win.
Hi, SD -- you could very well be right. I
could be wrong, but I 'suspect' that they (the Dem Party Establishment) believe that 2020 will be different.
Or, to put it another way, I believe that the Dem Leadership is quite confident that enough folks will be so frightened by DT, and by their 'Russia, Russia' hysterical meme, that they will 'forgive and forget' any transgressions--including voting irregularities.
From all that I've read and heard, the Dem Party plans to ride identity politics to the White House (and, to regain both chambers in 2018). As illustrated by the Alabama Senate race, it's very likely that they can succeed. A lot of pollsters have claimed that there was a huge drop in the African-American vote in the 2016 election, and seem to be confident that it won't happen again in 2018 or 2020.
Of course, a lot of it depends upon Bernie, and whether he plays along with them. It's always been my opinion that to win, he'd have to run as an 'Independent.' Considering that there's a far less popular mainstream politician who's talking about it now--the toxic Governor of Ohio, Kasich--I have to wonder, "Why won't Bernie?"
BTW, the stats of the 'average audience' for the 2016 Dem Debates last cycle were only 8 million viewers. Therefore, I think that the idea that in a country of almost 327 million people, you have to kowtow to one of the major legacy Party's to win (meaning participate in the debates which only a handful of folks watch), is no longer valid. Not in the age of social media.
Have a good one!
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Sadly I agree with you
"We're not Trump or the GOP" is what they will run on. This is pretty much what Her ran on. And being a Bernie substitute.
Hey, I posted a very cute video in the photography essay. I thought of you when I saw it.
Thanks, SD--I'm on my way over there now! ;-D EOM
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
evening mollie...
heh, so the democrats have suddenly noted that their ranks are full of old party hacks, eh? well. i'll tell ya. the world would be a better place if all of the current democrats would just resign and leave politics. if bernie got lost in that, it would still be absolutely worth it.
a fella can dream, right?
i hope that everything works out well for the b. give him a good scritch and some sympathy from me.
Thanks, Joe--scritch given! ;-) Listened to
a couple of the Bishop videos (have to watch my bandwidth, until I purchase a new 'hot spot'). He's good. Remember the 70's pop tune--"Fooled Around . . ."? It was very popular the year I met Mr M. Here you go,
[Fooled Around And Fell In Love - Elvin Bishop, YouTube, toothlessflics]
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Good evening, joe and bluzerz!
Been hit with a cold - I let my immune system get compromised by traveling over my break and being exposed to a lot of sick people. I'm allowing myself to be ill. It's making me rest.
I love Jimmy Dore.
Have a beautiful evening and weekend, folks!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
evening ra...
sorry to hear that you're not feeling well; take your time and get better.
stay warm and comfy!
Good evening, Joe. Thanks for Elvin and the news. Hope
you and yours are weathering the weather well. Have a good one.
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 --
evening el...
as long as the weather stays outside and i stay inside, everything is peachy. by this time next week, it's supposed to be hitting 50 degrees during the day, so i'm looking forward to that a great deal.
have a great weekend!