The Evening Blues - 2-21-18



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bukka White

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta bluesman Bukka White. Enjoy!

Booker White - Aberdeen Mississippi Blues

“People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.”

-- Blaise Pascal


News and Opinion

Russia Conspiracy Theorists Have Failed To Meet Their Burden Of Proof

The establishment Russia narrative is soul-wiltingly dull. Oh hey a shocking shocking bombshell revelation about something Russia did, everyone freaks out, then people actually look into the nature of the allegation and it turns out it's nothing. Lather, rinse, repeat. An interminable addition of zeros, day after day after day after day. ...

The power establishment which lied about Iraq, lied about Libya, lied about Vietnam, and is currently lying about Syria is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt that it is telling the truth about Russia and its new cold war escalations with that country. It most certainly carries the burden of proof, and it has most certainly failed to meet that burden.

From the false Nayirah testimony to the Gulf of Tonkin incident to "Saddam has WMD" to "Gaddafi's troops are taking Viagra for rape" to the Bana Alabed psyop, there is an abundance of publicly available evidence that the US power establishment will unhesitatingly lie to the public to manufacture consent for war, and the mainstream media will unhesitatingly help them. You do not need to dip into tinfoil hat territory to see this. This is publicly available information.

The US-centralized empire has every incentive to lie in order to manufacture support for escalations which hobble the Russia-China tandem, and has an extensive history of doing so. It isn't up to us to come up with a perfect "counter narrative" for how that happened behind the opaque wall of deep state secrecy; that's an argument from ignorance. It isn't up to us to prove a negative, it is up to them to prove their positive claim. Prove the DNC hack, prove that the troll farm had ties to the Russian government and an intention of disrupting the election, provide proof of any Trump-Russia collusion whatsoever. That has not happened. At all.

There is currently no convincing reason to believe that this isn't another "Saddam has WMD", and there is every reason not to. Iraq was an absolutely unforgivable crime against humanity, and it is everyone's duty to prevent the US-centralized empire from ever being given that trust again. World-threatening escalations keep mounting between two nuclear superpowers and this evidence-free narrative is being used to justify it. In a post-Iraq invasion world, this is simply unacceptable.

New York Times Reporter Debunks Russia Twitter Panic

Failed Attempt to Smear Jeremy Corbyn Reveals Waning Power of British Tabloids

For decades, British politicians have cowered in fear at the power of the nation’s popular and largely unregulated tabloid newspapers, which are owned by a handful of billionaires, and skew heavily to the far-right. So the prime minister presumably thought it would be good politics to joke on Wednesday in the House of Commons about a smear campaign launched by the tabloids on Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the opposition Labour party. Referring to a recent barrage of poorly sourced stories in The Sun and The Mail accusing Corbyn of having helped Czechoslovakia spy on Britain during the Cold War, May introduced a tortured pun about the Labour leader wanting her to sign “a blank Czech.”

Corbyn’s response, a theatrical yawn, delighted his supporters.

A more potent sign that the attacks had failed was how quickly other members of May’s party retreated when the allegations about Corbyn were thoroughly debunked by former British spies and records available in the archives of the Czech secret service. Those records, an archivist told the BBC, showed only that a spy posing as a diplomat had spoken with Corbyn in the 1980s, but had not recruited him as a source. ...

Faced with overwhelming evidence that their effort to tie Corbyn to Czech intelligence had failed, reporters for the far-right tabloids moved on to loudly demanding that the Labour leader permit the release of a supposed file on him compiled by the East German secret service, the Stasi. That effort also fell flat when German officials who oversee the Stasi archive announced that they had found no documents at all on Corbyn.

Heh. I'm sure that the U.S. didn't meddle in Honduras' election. By the way, need a bridge?

U.S.-Trained Police Are Hunting Down and Arresting Protesters Amid Post-Election Crisis in Honduras

It was the middle of the night when they broke down the door. The children, aged 3 and 6, and their parents were all fast asleep in their home in Pimienta, a town 18 miles south of San Pedro Sula, in northwestern Honduras. “They arrived at three in the morning,” said the mother of two whose home was raided. U.S.-trained and supported special forces agents, known as TIGRES, as well as criminal investigation officers searched the family home, flipping over the beds and ripping pillows apart while she and her children watched. Her partner had already been handcuffed and taken outside. ...

According to Honduran law, search warrants should only be executed between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., but there have been numerous reported cases of nighttime raids by security forces over the past several months, as the Honduran government cracks down on protests against the contested elections that delivered the presidency to incumbent Juan Orlando Hernández in November. ...

TIGRES special forces have been controversial since their founding in 2013, and their short history has been dogged by allegations of theft and corruption involving drug traffickers. Trained in Honduras and in the United States by Green Berets from the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), the TIGRES receive substantial support from the U.S. State Department. And they have been active participants in government repression during the current political crisis in Honduras. ...

Hernández was sworn in for his second term on January 27, two months after the November 26 general elections were marred by widespread reports of fraud. An early 5-point lead favoring opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla evaporated after the election data transmission system went offline for hours. Observers from the Organization of American States documented a host of irregularities and refused to endorse Hernández’s victory, claiming it was impossible to have any certainty about the outcome. ...

The Trump administration has supported Hernández — a longtime U.S. ally in the region — as the victor of the election, and security assistance continues to flow. The State Department issued a certification back in November, two days after the contested election, allowing Honduras to receive millions of dollars of aid that was conditioned on progress with regard to human rights and corruption.

GOP Senator Says Trump Is Ready to Start War With North Korea, Which Would Be “One of the Worst Catastrophic Events in History”

It didn't get much notice, but Sen. Jim Risch made extremely alarming remarks on Sunday at the Munich Security Conference, in which he said President Donald Trump is prepared to start a “very, very brief” war with North Korea that would be “one of the worst catastrophic events in the history of our civilization.” Trump would go to these extraordinary lengths, the Idaho Republican said, in order to prevent the government of Kim Jong-un from developing the capacity to deliver a nuclear warhead to the U.S. via an intercontinental ballistic missile. ...

Risch said he and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. — who was sitting next to him on stage at the conference in Germany — had “drilled down with the administration” on its North Korea policy. Risch emphasized that the Trump administration was not bluffing. If Risch is correct, Trump is willing to cause “mass casualties the likes of which the planet has never seen” in a conflict with North Korea, rather than rely on principles of deterrence that have prevented nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia and the U.S. and China for many decades.

None of Risch’s remarks addressed the fact that the U.S. Constitution gives Congress, rather than the president, the power to declare war.

North Korea bailed on Mike Pence two hours before a secret Olympic meeting

North Korean officials pulled out of an historic face-to-face meeting with Mike Pence during the Winter Olympics, the vice president’s office said Tuesday. The VP was scheduled to meet members of the North Korean delegation, including Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of leader Kim Jong Un, and Kim Yong Nam, the nominal head of state, but Pyongyang backed out less than two hours before the secret gathering was due to start on Feb. 10, officials said.

Hours before the withdrawal, North Korean officials sent a message to Pence’s team saying they were unhappy with his attacks on the regime, but that the meeting was still on.

The proposed sit-down between the two countries, which have been locked in a tense standoff over the North’s nuclear ambitions, had not been made public until it was first reported by the Washington Post Tuesday. The meeting was agreed to prior to Pence’s departure from the U.S., after the CIA had been informed Pyongyang was interested in meeting Pence at the Games. It was scheduled to take place in the neutral grounds of South Korea’s presidential Blue House on the afternoon of the VP’s final day in the country.

Netanyahu’s friend just agreed to testify against him in corruption probe

A close confidant of embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to testify for the state against him in a corruption investigation, Israeli media reported Wednesday.

Shlomo Filber, a friend of Netanyahu’s whom he personally appointed as head of Israel’s Communications Ministry, was among a number of the prime minister’s associates arrested Sunday as part of an investigation known as “Case 4000.”

The investigation, just one of the corruption probes surrounding Netanyahu, is looking into whether a deal was cut with Bezeq, Israel’s largest telecom, to pass regulations benefiting the company in exchange for positive media coverage of the prime minister on one of its subsidiary news websites. ...

Securing testimony from someone in the prime minister’s inner circle would be a significant coup for investigators. The reports have fed speculation that Netanyahu, who denies all the allegations against him, is preparing to call an early election in a bid to shore up his support and stall the probes into his affairs.

Supreme court narrows protections for whistleblowers

The United States supreme court dealt a blow to Wall Street whistleblowers on Wednesday when it ruled that protections for them passed by Congress after the 2008 financial crisis only apply to those who report problems to the government, not more broadly, such as to a boss.

The justices decided unanimously that measures in the Dodd-Frank Act that protects whistleblowers from being fired, demoted or harassed only applies to people who report legal violations to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal government’s financial watchdog. In a narrow interpretation of the law, they said employees who report problems only to company management don’t qualify.

Reporting internally still affords some protections under an older law, the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act. But the two laws differ in aspects such as how long people have to bring a lawsuit, for example if they have been fired after reporting suspected illegal activity in their company, and how much compensation they can receive.

Two lower federal courts had backed the SEC’s own point of view, that those blowing the whistle internally are protected by Dodd-Frank measures.

Citigroup Drove Puerto Rico Into Debt. Now It Will Profit From Privatization on the Island.

One of the same banks that drove the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, into the red will now be paid to help auction it off to the highest bidder. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., or Citi, will be the main investment bank consultant in the restructuring and privatization of PREPA, the Washington-appointed Fiscal Control Board — the body now overseeing Puerto Rico’s finances — announced recently. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló first announced the move toward privatization last month.

“Citi will advise the Board on PREPA’s privatization,” the Fiscal Control Board wrote in a statement, “as well as the restructuring of PREPA’s debt pursuant to Title III proceedings in federal bankruptcy court. Citi will take the lead in identifying private sector solutions that fulfill the vision laid out by Governor Rosselló.” ...

Citi is responsible for having underwritten large chunks of the utility’s $9 billion in debt, and at one point owned at least hundreds of millions of dollars in PREPA bonds directly, according to an analysis from the Action Center on Race and the Economy. Citi “has been profiting from helping push Puerto Rico over the edge for a long time,” said Carrie Sloan, ACRE’s research director.

Inside the U.S. Military Recruitment Program That Trained Nikolas Cruz to be “A Very Good Shot”

Florida students confront lawmakers on gun control as thousands walk out

Student survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting confronted Florida’s lawmakers on Wednesday to demand gun control reforms, as thousands of teenagers walked out of lessons in solidarity at schools across the state. About 100 students from the Parkland school travelled 450 miles to the state capital of Tallahassee to spend the morning meeting with Republican and Democratic party legislators, and the Florida governor Rick Scott, in small groups.

“Some heard us loud and clear, others did not,” Spencer Blum, a Stoneman Douglas junior, said of the meetings, which took place exactly one week after a 19-year-old expelled former student killed 14 students and three adult staff members with a legally purchased semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle.

The students, however, found themselves under attack from several right-wing commentators. CNN commentator Jack Kingston said he believed their sorrow was being “hijacked by left-wing groups who have an agenda” while former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly questioned in a tweet if the students were “in an emotional state and facing extreme peer pressure in some cases.” The radio host Rush Limbaugh said when he heard of the students’ plans for protests and a march he “started putting two and two together” and had some of the language before.

Also in Tallahassee on Wednesday, a sizeable anti-gun rally was taking place on the steps of the city’s capitol building, organised by a coalition of activist groups and supported by students from local schools, who were excused from lessons to attend. Elsewhere in Florida, students at dozens of high schools walked out of classes and staged campus demonstrations in support of the Stoneman Douglas #NeverAgain campaign.

Florida House votes down motion to take up weapons ban with Douglas students present

On their first full day lobbying Florida lawmakers in Tallahassee to change the state's gun laws, students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School quickly learned change does not happen very fast in government, if at all.

With Douglas students in the gallery Tuesday, the Florida House voted down a motion to take up a ban on assault weapons such as the AR-15 used by Nikolas Cruz when he killed 17 people at the school on Valentine's Day.

The final motion vote was 36-71. ...

News 13 reports the students held a candlelight vigil before meetings at the Senate office building. The students were told at the time that only GOP reforms already being considered have a chance at being passed in the final three weeks of the current session. Those reforms included raising the firearm possession age from 18 to 21 and banning bump stocks.

Mentally ill people aren’t killers. Angry people are.

In the wake of a string of horrific mass shootings by people who in many cases had emotional problems, it has become fashionable to blame mental illness for violent crimes. It has even been suggested that these crimes justify not only banning people with a history of mental illness from buying weapons but also arming those without such diagnoses so that they may protect themselves from the dangerous mentally ill. This fundamentally misrepresents where the danger lies.

Violence is not a product of mental illness. Nor is violence generally the action of ordinary, stable individuals who suddenly “break” and commit crimes of passion. Violent crimes are committed by violent people, those who do not have the skills to manage their anger. Most homicides are committed by people with a history of violence. Murderers are rarely ordinary, law-abiding citizens, and they are also rarely mentally ill. Violence is a product of compromised anger management skills.

In a summary of studies on murder and prior record of violence, Don Kates and Gary Mauser found that 80 to 90 percent of murderers had prior police records, in contrast to 15 percent of American adults overall. In a study of domestic murderers, 46 percent of the perpetrators had had a restraining order against them at some time. Family murders are preceded by prior domestic violence more than 90 percent of the time. Violent crimes are committed by people who lack the skills to modulate anger, express it constructively, and move beyond it. ...

Violent crimes committed by people with severe mental illnesses get a lot of attention, but such attacks are relatively rare. Paolo del Vecchio of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has said, “Violence by those with mental illness is so small that even if you could somehow cure it all, 95 percent of violent crime would still exist.” A 2009 study by Seena Fazel found a slightly higher rate of violent crime in schizophrenics—but it was almost entirely accounted for by alcohol and drug abuse. Likewise, the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study found that mentally ill people who did not have a substance abuse problem were no more violent than other people in their neighborhoods.

With no clear explanation of the causes of violent crime from the mental health field, and with significant encouragement from the gun lobby, the public has begun to seize on the wrong explanation for tragic, violent events. ... The attribution of violent crime to people diagnosed with mental illness is increasing stigmatization of the mentally ill while virtually no effort is being made to address the much broader cultural problem of anger management. This broader problem encompasses not just mass murders but violence toward children and spouses, rape, road rage, assault, and violent robberies. We are a culture awash in anger.



the evening greens


'Dirty meat': Shocking hygiene failings discovered in US pig and chicken plants

Shocking hygiene failings have been discovered in some of the US’s biggest meat plants, as a new analysis reveals that as many as 15% (one in seven) of the US population suffers from foodborne illnesses annually. A joint investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and the Guardian found that hygiene incidents are at numbers that experts described as “deeply worrying”.

US campaigners are calling once again for the closure of a legal loophole that allows meat with salmonella to be sold in the human supply chain, and also warn about the industry’s push to speed up production in the country’s meat plants. And UK campaigners warn that the UK could be flooded with “dirty meat” if a US trade deal is signed post-Brexit.

The findings are worrying, according to Prof Erik Millstone, a food safety expert at Sussex University, “because of the risks of spreading infectious pathogens from carcass to carcass, and between portions of meat. The rates at which outbreaks of infectious food poisoning occur in the US are significantly higher than in the UK, or the EU, and poor hygiene in the meat supply chain is [a] leading cause of food poisoning in the US.” ...

The documents seen by the Bureau and Guardian do not reveal the full numbers of non-compliance reports across the whole sector. However, one dataset covering 13 large red meat and poultry plants over two years (2015-17) shows an average of more than 150 violations a week, and 15,000 violations over the entire period. Thousands of similar violations were recorded at 10 pork-producing plants over a five-year period up until 2016, further documents show.

Citing 'Urgent Threat' of Climate Crisis, 236 US Mayors Denounce Trump's Attack on Clean Power Plan

Citing concerns about the impacts of the climate crisis on communities across the United States, mayors representing more than 51 million Americans have come out against efforts at the nation's top environmental agency to repeal the Clean Power Plan, an Obama administration rule that aimed to cut carbon emissions from power plants. Although many environmentalists have criticized the plan as "woefully inadequate," the Trump administration's attack on it has raised alarm among activists and policymakers alike.

Last March, in a move decried as "terribly irresponsible," President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding a review of the plan—which has faced challenges in federal court—ahead of its possible repeal. In December, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it was seeking public comment for how to replace it.

In a letter addressed to Scott Pruitt, the Trump-appointed EPA administrator, 236 mayors from 47 states wrote, "We strongly oppose the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which would put our citizens at risk and harm our efforts to address the urgent threat of climate change."

"Communities across the country are experiencing the effects of climate change today: sea level rise; hotter, longer, and more frequent heat waves; increased extreme weather; and many other harmful impacts," they noted. "Residents of our communities have experienced harmful impacts of climate change such as dirtier air, increased heat-related illnesses and deaths, damaged and disappearing coastlines, longer droughts and other strains on water quantity and quality, and increasingly frequent and severe storms and wildfires. No one is insulated from the impacts of climate change—people in cities of all sizes, along with suburban and rural communities are all at risk," they continued. "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is essential to protect our citizens against the worst impacts of climate change."


Also of Interest

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

Intercepted Podcast: RussiaMania — Glenn Greenwald vs. James Risen

Democrats beware: the Trump-Russia inquiry isn't the path to power

Newsweek plunged into chaos by its own reporters' exposé

How the Washington Post Missed the Biggest Watergate Story of All

The Long-suppressed Korean War Report on U.S. Use of Biological Weapons Released At Last


A Little Night Music

Bukka White - Parchman Farm Blues

Bukka White - Chi Chi Boogie

Bukka White - Fixin To Die Blues

Bukka White - Jack O'Diamonds

Bukka White - Jelly Roll Blues

Booker (Bukka) White - Shake 'Em On Down

Bukka White - Bukka's Jitterbug Swing

Bukka White - The New Frisco Train

Bukka White - World Boogie

Bukka White - Copenhagen 1970



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Comments

Meteor Man's picture

From your very first article, a new logical fallacy:

The mainstream Russia narrative is made entirely of such individually weak arguments. Russiagate is one giant Gish gallop.

And an excellent selection of Parkland shooting/gun control articles joe. Gonna listen to that Intercept podcast debate now.

Peace Out.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Meteor Man's picture

@Meteor Man
Even though what I thought was the debate was actually 50 minutes of excerpts from the pending podcast James Risen clearly lost. Greenwald nails it with "journalists should not accept claims without evidence".

I should also add that Greenwald and Risen should both listen to Jimmy Dore and Lee Camp podcasts and read Caitlin Johnstone if they want to be better informed.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

OLinda's picture

@Meteor Man

Hi MM. Turns out the rest of the debate is going up as a video. It will be nice to see their faces, but podcast form would be more convenient for me. Don't know when I can watch the video.

It's 8PM at Intercepted HQ and I haven't seen it posted yet.

I enjoyed hearing how Risen and Greenwald talked to each other on this issue. My only comment for now. Smile

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joe shikspack's picture

@OLinda

it looks like the video is up now. i'm listening to it in the background.

i listened to the excerpts earlier and the debate was pretty much as i expected, a generally gentlemanly exchange.

i thought that greenwald won the excerpt debate. Smile

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mimi's picture

@joe shikspack
Thanks.

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joe shikspack's picture

@Meteor Man

i agree that greenwald won the excerpt debate. we'll see how he does in the long program.

the one thing that i hope that greenwald will call risen out on in the long program is his equivocation about "the russians." in the excerpts risen conflates the actions of the 13 indicted web marketers with "the russians." the imprecision of that kind of conflation is dangerously wrong. it turns the actions of a bunch of cheesy clickbait marketers into the actions of the russian government, the russian people and putin in the prepared minds of propagandized americans.

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Meteor Man's picture

@joe shikspack
How can they not know that this was a Troll Merchandising Clickbait site? And as everybody here knows, some of the Scary Russians had not worked for the company since 2014? I really expected a more forceful pushback from Greenwald.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

lotlizard's picture

@joe shikspack  
shenanigans were used as a springboard for the media and political establishment to go on and on about “the Jews” in general.

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Azazello's picture

That Jimmy Dore segment was excellent. I love having my biases confirmed.
Here's more, this from RT which YouTube warns "is funded in whole or in part by the Russian government."
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo0l8A66ILc width:400 height:240]

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

enhydra lutris's picture

@Azazello

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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

@Azazello

i would worry a little about having my biases confirmed so amply except that i'm sure that my biases are correct and reflect reality. Smile

thanks for the vid, i'll have to check it out later after the great debate.

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Just some thoughts

it took the Bernie campaign and then Hillary and journalists like Thomas Frank in "Listen Liberal" to learn about the crimes that the Clinton's have permitted

it took the Bernie campaign to expose the fraudulent democratic party

both of these were suspected, but now they are right out in the open as the Republicans further destroy what is left of the democracy

every day there is another assault on an institution as part of an effort to discredit every system of rules and controls

and on and on

and the gap is so great that even with friends and family who may have been long term democrats, it is sad to see them caught up in the dem attempt to change the subject from the issues

a short piece from the London Review of books on the attempted Corbyn smear which has already crashed

In any case, Corbyn’s ‘contact’ was apparently well known as a fantasist. MI5, more knowledgeable about such matters than the Daily Telegraph, will have been aware of this. And by that time they had probably also come to realise – tardily, and despite their class prejudices – that traitors were more likely to come from among the ‘upper’ classes – the Cambridge Five, for example – than from the Labour left. (Which didn’t stop MI5 plotting against the Labour left, but that’s another story.)

It’s surprising to see this old smear being recycled by the Tory press, and so blatantly. Is it a sign of desperation? Can it possibly have any purchase on opinion? It seems not to have done so during the last general election. Its great drawback, from their point of view, is that as well as being a smear, it looks like one.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/02/21/bernard-porter/czech-spies-and-oth...

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joe shikspack's picture

@DonMidwest

i am glad to see that the british people were not taken in by their neoliberal propaganda outlets. i worry that the failure of their propaganda delivery system to demolish the prospects of the left may lead to far more drastic actions by other arms of the neoliberal state machinery as has happened in the u.s.

when the usual "soft" machinery failed, the deep state machinery was engaged.

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Bollox Ref's picture

aren't as friendly as he thinks.

Good for them. The sooner that man is removed from the levers of power, the better.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

joe shikspack's picture

@Bollox Ref

i suspect that bibi has very few friends and i further suspect that a lot of his associates are going to be looking to save their own skins, like rats deserting a sinking ship.

i think that bibi will look great in an orange jumpsuit.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

@Bollox Ref @Bollox Ref

create a distraction in an attempt to maintain power. Attacking Lebanon or Iran would do it. Although in the Middle East there is no end to the trouble he could start or current crisis he can’t make worse.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

enhydra lutris's picture

of proof, they have actually failed to produce a coherent argument. It's all a massive, year-long, non-sequitur.

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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

@enhydra lutris

agreed. apparently neither the democrats nor mueller nor the deep state is capable of constructing a coherent narrative.

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snoopydawg's picture

Especially since the country has a law stating that they can only be done from 6am to 6pm. But where's the fun in that?

There is a loophole that allows meat contaminated with salmonella to be sold? Who knew? You can not make this shit up.
(One would think that as many times as I've written "shit" on my iPad that autocorrect would have caught on by now.)

Gotta love Caitlin...

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

@snoopydawg the billions of pounds of shit ( literally ) from all these animals being raised for meat consumption is killing us by polluting the ground, water and air and now is a major contributor to climate change as well. Not to mention the way these animals are inhumanely slaughtered at factory meat houses. Add the salmonella IMO there couldn't be a better time to become a flexitarian or stop eating meat all together.

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snoopydawg's picture

@pro left

Why? Because it has been contaminated with euthanasia drugs. WTF is that drug doing in dog food? Because the Meat Biproducts in the food is actually euthanized pets, pink slime that is found on the floor at meat factories and road kill along with anything else that they put in it.

Gravy Train and Kibbles and Bits are the ones that have been recalled. There is very lack oversight of dog and cat food, just like our food can have salmonella in it. Good grief, they don't care if they kill us.

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

Meteor Man's picture

@snoopydawg
The vague description suggested this was a nationwide problem. It sounds like we have a choice between salmonella or going Vegan.

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Meteor Man
since salmonella has also been widely spread by tainted lettuce etc.

Big Ag's food production procedures are a mass threat across the board - cheap, sloppy, and dirty.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

the monroe doctrine is longstanding policy, but the u.s. doesn't interfere with the democratic processes of other nations. no. not at all.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

Bernstein needs a total rewrite. Was it ignorance. Or was intentional?

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

joe shikspack's picture

@Amanda Matthews

it seems that perhaps in this time of universal brewhaha about treason, this story could provide an example of a political campaign engaging in that sort of activity as could perhaps candidate reagan's relations with iran prior to the 1980 election.

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Anja Geitz's picture

And point to it whenever another witlessly uninformed idiot calls me a "Russian Tool".

The power establishment which lied about Iraq, lied about Libya, lied about Vietnam, and is currently lying about Syria is not entitled to the benefit of the doubt that it is telling the truth about Russia...From the false Nayirah testimony to the Gulf of Tonkin incident to "Saddam has WMD" to "Gaddafi's troops are taking Viagra for rape" to the Bana Alabed psyop, there is an abundance of publicly available evidence that the US power establishment will unhesitatingly lie to the public to manufacture consent for war, and the mainstream media will unhesitatingly help them. You do not need to dip into tinfoil hat territory to see this. This is publicly available information.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

joe shikspack's picture

@Anja Geitz

it would make a great text for a national saturation billboard campaign.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@joe shikspack

Billboards, everywhere, reminding the U.S. Public of our governments record of lying to us, along with the weasel press that gave those liars a megaphone.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

snoopydawg's picture

Obama had the gall to accuse Assad of using chemical and biological weapons on his citizens after what this country did to North Korea? Insane hubris.


It is a matter of historical record now that the U.S. government granted amnesty to Japan’s chief at Unit 731, doctor/General Shiro Ishii and his accomplices
. Oh well, at least they got the German scientists who worked at the concentration camps, right? I mean the ones that they didn't bring to this country.

"Orders are orders." Gee and here I was thinking that this excuse wasn't accepted at the Nuremberg trials. Silly me.

Even if this information became public knowledge, would it make any difference to the pro war people here? Somehow I doubt it.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

it seems that no matter how much americans know about the horrors of war, it doesn't put them off of it. we are a warlike people as long as other people are doing the dying.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@snoopydawg
"legitimately thought that they were following orders" would not be subject to charges or any form of punishment.

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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 --

Taught history but has never read of this. Thanks for this article. Kinda explains all those other things done by the US government for the "good" without any explanation or apology.

Reporting in from Costa Rica where we are now in the heat and humidity. Had a brief episode of heat overload and spent a few hours drinkibg ice water and cooling down. Cannot help but think of refugees and others that have no ice or place to cool down and how much of their suffering the US government has caused.

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Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.

This ain't no dress rehearsal!

joe shikspack's picture

@jakkalbessie

jeffrey kaye is a great writer to follow if you are interested in learning about things that the u.s. has done and is not pleased to share with the public.

i hope that you're feeling ok now and the heat lets up.

take care and have a great time!

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divineorder's picture

We debated whether to watch the vid in the name of being more informed, but eventually decided heh, mindblowing? Might ruin our Costa Rica high. Smile

110 (1024x683)_0.jpg Jacana trying to put the voodoo hex on the trespassing grey - necked rail, exposing a pair of yellow fake eyes we have never seen before! As seen from the kayak, Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica, February 2018

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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

@divineorder

heh, good choice to stay on vacation when you're on vacation. Smile

have a great time and thanks for the photo!

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mimi's picture

the Bernstein Woodward story and the Russian troll factory facts. I remember having read about those troll factory establishment first from a German/Iranian correspondent who covers news from Ukraine and Russia. And that was quite some years ago (for sure before 2014). Sigh.

I have to reread the Bernstein-Woodward article. So darn complicated.

Thanks for the EB again.

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SnappleBC's picture

OK, so I came across an article in my news feed. I think it's worth the read and I offer proof! For instance, take this totally awesome quote:

Think about what’s Mueller is really up to: He’s not just moving the goalposts, he’s loading them onto a spaceship and putting them on another planet. Where’s the evidence that Russia hacked the DNC computers and stole their emails? Where’s the proof that members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia? That’s what we want to know, not whether some goofy Russian troll was spreading false information on Facebook. That has nothing to do with the original charges.
-- Popular Resistance, GOOFY INDICTMENTS DIVERT ATTENTION FROM CRIMINAL ABUSES AT FBI AND DOJ

Doesn't that just hit the nail on the head?

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A lot of wanderers in the U.S. political desert recognize that all the duopoly has to offer is a choice of mirages. Come, let us trudge towards empty expanse of sand #1, littered with the bleached bones of Deaniacs and Hope and Changers.
-- lotlizard