The Evening Blues - 5-29-18



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Cookie Jackson

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features r&b singer Cookie Jackson. Enjoy!

Cookie Jackson - Your Good Girl's Gonna Go Bad

"One cannot wage war under present conditions without the support of public opinion, which is tremendously molded by the press and other forms of propaganda."

-- General Douglas MacArthur


News and Opinion

Is this funnier than it is scary, or vice-versa? I can't decide.

Hillary Clinton Wants to be CEO of Facebook

Hillary Clinton would be prepared to swap life in politics to run social networking giant Facebook. The former secretary of state and Democratic presidential contender was at Harvard Friday to receive the Radcliffe Medal, which honors people who've "had a transformative impact on society."

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey asked her which company she would like to lead as CEO. “Facebook,” came Clinton’s rapid reply, according to video footage of the event.

"It's the biggest news platform in the world," Clinton said. "Most people in our country get their news, true or not, from Facebook."

Adam Schiff Is An Evil Bug-Eyed Fascist

On an MSNBC interview about his involvement with human clickbait Roger Stone, comedian Randy Credico stated that he’d spoken with Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff to inform him that Julian Assange is willing to be interviewed and share information which will show that “there is no collusion”. ... In response to follow-up requests for information from MSNBC’s Ari Melber following Credico’s interview, Adam Schiff’s office responded that “Our committee would be willing to interview Julian Assange when he is in U.S. custody, not before.”

Adam Schiff is the ranking Democrat in the House Intelligence Committee, one of the numerous federal institutions which has investigated the alleged Russian election meddling and the possibility of the Trump campaign’s collusion therewith. Does he have inside information verifying some basis for the Trump administration’s stated agenda of arresting Julian Assange? Or is he just being his usual, bug-eyed fascist self?

It has been nearly two months since the Ecuadorian embassy cut Assange off from internet access, phone calls and visitors on the day he’d been scheduled to give evidence before the UK’s Digital Culture, Media and Sport committee as part of its inquiry into the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Russia. He has remained there effectively detained without charge for over seven years, and now he is reportedly in imminent danger of being forced out of the embassy where he is under political asylum. The British government has been consistently refusing to say whether it has an extradition request for Assange from the United States, and today we have one more US political insider giving us yet another reason to fear that Assange setting foot outside the embassy will put him directly into the hands of the same establishment which tortured Chelsea Manning. And Adam Schiff wants that. Rather than possibly receiving free pertinent information from a central figure in a large-scale investigation right now, Schiff wants to at some point in the future imprison a journalist for publishing truthful, authentic documents about the United States government.

Adam Schiff is a virulent interventionist who has never met a war he didn’t like, receives large amounts of funding from the arms industry and votes in lockstep with the American supremacist neoconservatives on all foreign policy matters. He has dedicated the last year and a half to helping to advance longstanding neocon agendas against Russia with the aim of crippling America’s rivals. Adam Schiff would like nothing better than to see US soldiers goose-stepping victoriously into the capital of every nation on earth, switching out their flags, and throwing their dissident journalists into prison.

Adam Schiff is a fascist.

Donald Trump Has Liberated Koreans From the Illusion That America Is Helping Them

It's strange to say, but there is an upside to the goat rodeo way in which President Donald Trump has cancelled, for the moment, his North Korea summit. No president has done a better job of making clear that the United States is an impediment to peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Is this a disaster? It could be, because anything Trump touches can turn to nuclear ash. But the summit cancellation — or postponement or revival or who knows what to call it, given Trump’s garbled moods — has the prospect of being useful if South Korea and North Korea seize the moment to take matters into their own hands, improving their ties despite the toxic clown show in the Oval Office.

“Ultimately, this cannot just go back to how it was before the Winter Olympics,” tweeted Abraham Denmark, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia. “North Korea is in a stronger position, Kim has far more legitimacy, China is more engaged, South Korea has invested a lot into diplomacy, and the U.S. role is more circumscribed.” ...

This is an emperor-has-no-clothes moment, but not only in the sense of Trump and coherent thinking. For more than a century, the Korean Peninsula has been the unlucky target of more foreign intervention than arguably any other spot on the planet (which, I know, is saying a lot). Trump has shown just how capricious and prejudicial the actions of outsiders can be, doing little to serve the interests of the 75 million people who live there.

Donald Trump’s summit with Kim Jong Un is back on — until the next tantrum

Donald Trump dispatched negotiators to North Korea Sunday to resurrect the summit he whimsically cancelled Friday, which could still go ahead on June 12, with South Korean President Moon Jae In acting as an intermediary at the sit-down.

With both sides happy to play games over the fate of the Korean Peninsula, it’s hard to tell if the two leaders will ever actually meet, but the signs Monday were once again positive.

North Korea summit: Trump says Kim aide on way to New York

A top aide to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, was on his way to the US on Tuesday, Donald Trump said in a tweet. Another key aide to Kim arrived in Singapore on Monday night, a Japanese broadcaster said, adding weight to indications a planned summit with Trump will go ahead.

Kim Chang-son, Kim’s de facto chief of staff, flew to Singapore via Beijing, the report by public broadcaster NHK said. South Korea’s Yohnap news agency reported that Kim Yong-chol, a former North Korean spy chief and senior official, was headed to the US after stopping over in Beijing.

Trump appeared to confirm that in a tweet on Tuesday morning, sent in the middle of a sequence of complaints about the Russia investigation.

“We have put a great team together for our talks with North Korea,” the US president wrote. “Meetings are currently taking place concerning Summit, and more. Kim Young [sic] Chol, the Vice Chairman of North Korea, heading now to New York. Solid response to my letter, thank you!” Kim Yong-Chol is vice-chairman of the Workers’ Party’s Central Committee. Trump’s reference to a letter was to his cancellation of the summit last Thursday.

Israel, Russia said to reach secret deal on pushing Iran away from Syria border

Israel and Russia have reached a secret agreement to distance Iranian forces from the border area in southern Syria, Israeli TV reported Monday, as Jerusalem and Moscow sent differing messages regarding the extent of their tolerance for Iran’s military presence in that country.

Under the apparent agreement coming together, Israel will accept the return of Syrian regime soldiers to the border on the Golan Heights, in exchange for Russia guaranteeing there are no Iranian or Hezbollah forces in the area, Hadashot TV news reported. Russia will also call on all foreign troops to leave Syria, including not only Iran and the Lebanese terror group, Hezbollah, but also the United States and Turkey, the report said.

The agreement was reportedly finalized in a phone call Friday between Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman and his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu; Liberman is set to visit to Moscow next week. Hadashot said. Earlier in the day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov seemed to begin the process of pushing Iran and Hezbollah back, saying only the Syrian army should be present on Syria’s border with Israel.

However, his statement suggested Russia was ready to allow Iran to maintain a foothold in other parts of the country.

Nothing to hide? Israel seeks to criminalize filming of IDF soldiers on duty

Israeli jets hit militant bases in Gaza after shells fired from strip

Israeli jets have bombed several bases run by militant groups in Gaza after a barrage of 27 mortar shells from the strip hit the country’s south, the largest number fired in a single incident since the 2014 war with Hamas. At least one base belonging to Hamas and four to Islamic Jihad, another armed faction, were struck by the Israeli response, security sources said. An Israel Defence Forces spokesperson said the army was operating in Gaza and “the explosions heard are related to this activity”.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had pledged to respond “with great force” after the Tuesday morning mortar strikes, most of which were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome aerial defence system. He blamed the salvo on Hamas and Islamic Jihad, saying Israel would “exact a heavy price from anyone who tries to attack it”.

However, no group immediately claimed responsibility for the mortars, which set off sirens in communities living near the coastal enclave. A projectile damaged a kindergarten building before the children had arrived and Israeli media reported one person was lightly wounded.

Amid Rocket Fire and Airstrikes, Gazans Launch Fishing Boats to Challenge Israel's Naval Blockade

As Palestinian militants fired mortar shells into southern Israel and Israeli forces responded with airstrikes on Gaza targets on Tuesday, a group of Palestinians launched a humanitarian envoy of fishing boats off the Gazan coast to challenge Israel and Egypt's naval blockade.

A main boat carrying about 20 people set sail from the Gaza City harbor on Tuesday, accompanied by several smaller vessels, said protest organizers and AFP journalists. "Occupants include medical patients and students unable to leave through overland crossings," according to the Associated Press.

The Israeli navy, which has imposed the blockade for more than a decade, seized control of at least one boat that attempted to cross the blockade. An organizer told the AFP "Israeli forces surrounded it and intercepted it," and that organizers had lost communication with the vessel for more than 30 minutes.

Initially, reports Raidió Teilifís Éireann, "there were conflicting statements about whether the boats would seek to break Israel's blockade, which currently allows them to travel nine nautical miles (16km) off the coast. Some organizers said they would only protest, while other participants said they wanted to move past the limit." The expedition, as the AP noted, "marks eight years since Israeli commandos raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, killing nine pro-Palestinian Turks and sparking an international outcry against the blockade."

Freedom Flotilla foiled: Israel blocks Palestinian attempt to leave Gaza by sea

Israeli Supreme Court Gives Military 'Green Light' to Keep Killing Unarmed Palestinians

Once more affirming its role as an enabler of Israel's brutal occupation and murder of Palestinians, the Israeli Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a legal effort by human rights groups to revoke military rules that permit soldiers to use live ammunition against unarmed civilians.

In its unanimous ruling—which comes less than two weeks after Israeli soldiers massacred more than 60 unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and injured over 2,000—the high court gave "a green light" to Israel's "continued use of snipers and live fire against Palestinian protesters in the Gaza Strip" and "fully adopted the Israeli military's position," noted the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, one of the groups involved in the effort challenging the rules.


"The Israeli Supreme Court completely ignored the broad factual basis presented to it by the petitioners, which includes multiple testimonies of wounded and reports of international organizations involved in documenting the killing and wounding of unarmed protesters in Gaza," Al Mezan said in a joint statement with the Palestinian rights group Adalah on Thursday.

"It is worth noting that the Israeli Supreme Court refused to watch video clips documenting Israeli shootings of demonstrators and, rather than actually examining the case, fully accepted the claims presented to it by the state," the groups added. "The extreme nature of the ruling is also highlighted by the striking absence of any mention of the casualty figures that had been presented to the court."


Ireland’s Catholic priests are not happy with the “sinners” who repealed abortion laws

The Catholic Church has responded to Friday’s historic vote to make abortion legal in Ireland by hectoring “Yes” voters to go to confession for their “sins.” Ireland Friday voted by an overwhelming majority to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which enacts some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the developed world. Minister for Health Simon Harris said he is “extremely eager” to begin drafting legislation that will allow abortion on request up to 12 weeks, and in limited circumstances after that.

Ireland voted by 66.4 percent to 33.6 percent in favor of repealing the legislation, with a record turnout of 2.15 million voters from a total of 3.3 million registered voters. The result was celebrated throughout Ireland and among Irish communities around the world, but the Catholic Church, which campaigned to retain the restrictive abortion laws, decried the voting majority as “sinners.”

Speaking to state broadcaster RTE Monday, Bishop of Elphin Kevin Doran said that while “the Catholic Church is a family and nobody ever gets struck off, what I’d say to a Catholic who voted Yes is this, if you voted Yes knowing and intending that abortion would be the outcome then you should consider coming to confession.” ...

Comments on social media suggest that in churches across the country Sunday, priests took the opportunity to comment on the landslide victory, with many condemning “Yes” voters for their actions. In one case a member of the clergy told parishioners that anyone who voted “Yes” could leave the church immediately.

Meet Two of the Activists Behind Ireland’s Historic Vote to Repeal a Ban on Nearly All Abortions

Thousands of Italian Women March Across Country. Demand: 'My Body, My Choice'

Thousands of women marched across Italy on Saturday afternoon to mark the anniversary of Italy’s 194 Law, which passed in 1978 and legalized abortion in the country.

Marchers fear that the far-right, anti-European Union, anti-immigrant League, which contains many anti-choice militants, will soon threaten the 194 Law. The League stands on the brink of forming a government with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement following the general elections in March.

Saturday's mobilization was organized by 'Obiezione Respinta' (Rejected Objection) and the 'Non una di meno' (Not one less) movement.

"Italian women’s battles over the last four decades show that any abortion law has to be founded on women’s freedom of choice — or it won’t work,"  Michela Pusterla, an Italian feminist involved in the Non una di meno movement, wrote Friday in Jacobin. " In Italy and elsewhere, as fascist and sexist anti-choice movements grow their presence in Parliaments and public hospitals, the fight for reproductive rights becomes larger than itself. It becomes a global fight for liberation; for another society based on autonomy and self-determination."

The anti-abortion movement is strong in Italy, due in part to the strong influence of the Catholic Church.

Border Patrol beat, sexually assaulted, and denied medical care to immigrant children, ACLU says

As a detained 16-year-old immigrant waited in her cell with her infant child, a Border Patrol stood in the doorway and warned her, “Right now, we close the door, we rape you and fuck you.” On a separate occasion, an agent tossed an immigrant child to the ground, leveled a gun at him, and told the kid, “Stop or I will shoot you.” A group of officers once told several pregnant girls that they’d "come to contaminate this country with all those things. Look at all those other girls, all fat.”

These incidents, and dozens of similar allegations of child abuse by Border Patrol agents, are all detailed in a report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union’s Border Litigation Project and the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago School of Law. All of the incidents, which are drawn from complaints filed with a Department of Homeland Security watchdog agency and obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, took place between 2009 and 2014, under the Obama administration.

“The records show that the leadership at Customs and Border Protection were well aware of the allegations of unlawful child abuse — including people still now directing the agency — yet there is no indication that any individual official was ever held accountable for abuse,” Mitra Ebadolahi, a staff attorney with the Border Litigation project and the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, wrote in a blog post accompanying the report’s release. (CBP oversees the Border Patrol.) ...

While deportations swelled to record numbers under President Barack Obama, Trump has made no secret of his plans to embolden the Border Patrol.

“Don’t Treat Us Like Animals:” Outrage Builds After Border Agent Kills Indigenous Guatemalan Woman

US Border Patrol agent executes Guatemalan woman

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is seeking to whitewash the extrajudicial execution of an unarmed Guatemalan woman by a Border Patrol agent on Wednesday, in the Texas border town of Rio Bravo, 15 miles southeast of Laredo. The woman, identified as 20-year-old Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez, left her home town of San Juan Ostuncalco, Guatemala, more than two weeks before in the hope of joining her boyfriend and finding work in Virginia. She was traveling through Rio Bravo as part of a group of Central American migrants who had just made the treacherous journey across the Rio Grande and into the United States without immigration documents, when they were confronted by an as yet unidentified Border Patrol agent at about 12:30 p.m. local time.

Under circumstances that remain unexplained, the agent fired a single shot from his handgun into the back of Gomez’s head, killing her instantly. CBP has since given multiple accounts attempting to justify the agent’s actions. An initial statement issued by the agency claimed that one of its agents was investigating reports of “illegal activity” in the town when he was attacked by immigrants wielding “blunt objects,” later identified as two-by-four pieces of lumber. In response, the agent “fatally wounded one of the assailants.”

Two days later, on Friday, CBP released another statement making no mention of any objects used to attack the agent, but instead claiming that the officer commanded the immigrants to “get on the ground,” but “the group ignored his verbal commands and instead rushed the officer.” In this latest version of events, CBP no longer claims that the victim was an “assailant,” but merely a “member of the group.” The three men traveling with Gonzalez were apprehended and may be deported before they can provide statements or testify in the event that charges are ultimately brought against the agent. ...

Marta Martinez told the Los Angeles Times that she was inside her house at the time of the shooting and ran outside upon hearing the gunshot. When she emerged, she saw a woman lying face-down on the ground, her head covered in blood, and a uniformed Border Patrol agent standing over her, gun in hand. In a video broadcast on Facebook Live, an officer can be seen flipping the woman’s body over and performing chest compressions, though it is apparent the woman is dead. Martinez said she watched as an agent captured two men who had tried to run away and heard him telling the men in reference to their murdered companion, “This is what happens. You see? Look what happened.” Martinez also heard the agent telling the men, “Be quiet, you have weapons” in an apparent attempt to justify the shooting. She noted that although she did not witness what happened prior to the shooting, “There was no weapon. They were hiding.”



the horse race



FBI Spied On Trump With Former CIA Criminal

Amid Grassroots Push, Medicare for All Winning Big in Democratic Primaries

With Medicare for All reaching record levels of support among both members of Congress and the American public—where support for single-payer is spreading "like wildfire"—policy platforms demanding that the U.S. ditch its wasteful and deeply immoral for-profit system in favor of guaranteed healthcare for every American are also proving to be winners in Democratic primary fights across the country. In red and blue states alike, candidates backing Medicare for All have emerged victorious in Democratic primary battles where, in some cases, their opponents had the backing of the party establishment.

"In Nebraska's 2nd district, Kara Eastman, who supports 'Medicare for All,' beat a former congressman backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee," Axios's Caitlin Owens reported on Tuesday. "Two 'Medicare for All' backers, Scott Wallace and Susan Wild, won House primaries in Pennsylvania. Gina Ortiz Jones, competing to unseat GOP Rep. Will Hurd in Texas's 23rd district, 'supports a single-payer system,' per her campaign website."

Over the next few months, candidates who support Medicare for All "are also running in Minnesota, New Jersey, Iowa, New York, Maine, and Washington state," Owens added. This growing support for single-payer among Democratic congressional candidates come amid an upsurge of activism at the grassroots level from nurses, doctors, progressive activists, and democratic socialists.

Jeremy Corbyn: The next Labour government will abolish the House of Lords

Labour will abolish the House of Lords if it wins the next general election, a spokesman for Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed. In comments which go further than the party's previous position, he said the Upper Chamber was an "undemocratic anachronism in the 21st century" and had to go. He also confirmed that any new Labour peers appointed by the party must pledge to support that policy if it ever comes to a parliamentary vote. ...

Speaking after Prime Minister's Questions today, Mr Corbyn's spokesman said: "Jeremy has made clear we want to see the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement with an elected second chamber and that is well past overdue. It's a basic democratic reform, it must take place.

"It's absurd that we still have this undemocratic anachronism in the 21st century and when Labour is elected we will carry through that pledge." ... He added: "We're a democratic party and we support a democratic constitution. This is a long overdue reform. It's extremely hard to argue against and people struggle to do so."



the evening greens


In an internal memo, the White House considered whether to simply ‘ignore’ federal climate research

White House officials last year weighed whether to simply “ignore” climate studies produced by government scientists or to instead develop “a coherent, fact-based message about climate science,” according to a memo obtained by The Washington Post.

The document, drafted Sept. 18 by Michael Catanzaro, President Trump’s special assistant for domestic energy and environmental policy at the time, highlights the dilemma the administration has faced over climate change since Trump took office. Even as Trump’s deputies have worked methodically to uproot policies aimed at curbing the nation’s carbon output, the administration’s agencies continue to produce reports showing that climate change is happening, is human-driven and is a threat to the United States.

Catanzaro, who prepared the memo for a meeting of senior White House and agency officials that took place a couple of days later, asked whether the Trump administration should “consider having a firm position on and a coherent, fact-based message about climate science — specifically, whether, and to what extent, anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are affecting the climate system, and what level of concern that warrants.”

The memo presented three options without endorsing any of them: conducting a “red team/blue team” exercise to “highlight uncertainties in climate science”; more formally reviewing the science under the Administrative Procedure Act; or deciding to just “ignore, and not seek to characterize or question, the science being conducted by Federal agencies and outside entities.”

It did not consider touting federal scientists’ findings.


Although administration officials did not adopt a formal policy in the wake of these deliberations, in practice they have largely ignored the findings of U.S. government researchers. As a result, these scientists have continued to sound the alarm on climate effects such as sea-level rise and wildfires — even as top Trump officials emphasize that they can neither endorse nor repudiate these findings.

Climate Change Could Supercharge Threat of Antibiotic Resistance: Study

The World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have previously sounded alarms about the growing issue of antibiotic resistance—a problem already linked to overprescribing of antibiotics and industrial farming practices. Now, new research shows a link between warmer temperatures and antibiotic resistance, suggesting it could be a greater threat than previously thought on our ever-warming planet.

The study, led by epidemiologists from Harvard Medical School (HMS), Boston Children's Hospital, and the University of Toronto, was published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change.

"The effects of climate are increasingly being recognized in a variety of infectious diseases, but so far as we know this is the first time it has been implicated in the distribution of antibiotic resistance over geographies," said Derek MacFadden, an infectious disease specialist and research fellow at Boston Children's and study co-author.

"We also found a signal that the associations between antibiotic resistance and temperature could be increasing over time," he said. ...

"The bottom line," said co-author John Brownstein, chief innovation officer and director of the Computational Epidemiology Group at Boston Children's and professor of pediatrics at HMS, "is that our findings highlight a dire need to invest more research efforts into improving our understanding of the interconnectedness of infectious disease, medicine, and our changing environment."

In the United States alone, according to the CDC, 2 million people annually become infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and at least 23,000 people die each year as a direct result of those infections. A fact sheet from WHO, meanwhile, declares antibiotic resistance "one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today."

Kinder Morgan pipeline: Canadian government to buy project for $4.5bn

Canada’s federal government has announced it will buy a controversial pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific Coast to ensure it gets built. Justin Trudeau’s government plans to spend C$4.5bn (US$3.45bn) to purchase Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline.

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion would triple the capacity of an existing pipeline to ship oil extracted from the oil sands in Alberta across the snow-capped peaks of the Canadian Rockies. It would end at a terminal outside Vancouver, resulting in a seven-fold increase in the number of tankers in an environmentally sensitive area. The project has faced fierce opposition from environmentalists and indigenous groups.

Kinder Morgan earlier halted essential spending on the project and said it would cancel it altogether if the national and provincial governments could not guarantee it. Finance minister Bill Morneau said the pipeline must and will be built. “Make no mistake: this is an investment in Canada’s future,” Morneau said. The line would allow Canada to diversify and increase exports to Asia, where it could command a higher price. Canada has the world’s third largest oil reserves but 99% of its exports now go to refiners in the US, where limits on pipeline and refinery capacity mean Canadian oil sells at a discount.

The project has pitted Alberta against coastal British Columbia, where concerns about fisheries, real estate values, tourism and ocean ecology are high. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson calls the pipeline an “unacceptable risk” that threatens 10,000 jobs in the harbor.

EU Urged to Go Further to Save Trash-Filled Waters With New Proposed Plastics Ban

In a move welcomed by conservationists, the executive arm of the European Union (EU) on Monday proposed a ban on 10 common single-use plastics that, together with fishing gear, account for about 70 percent of marine litter across Europe. The European Commission's ban would apply to bags; balloons and balloon sticks; chips and candy wrappers; cigarette butts; cotton buds; cups and lids; cutlery, straws, and stirrers; drink bottles; food containers; and sanitary applications.

The plastics proposal was widely embraced by conservation campaigners, though they challenged European leaders to go further. "The only way to stop plastics pouring into our oceans is to turn off the flow at its source: production. By reducing the amount of unnecessary plastic we produce, we can make a real difference to the global marine litter crisis," Oceana Europe executive director Lasse Gustavsson said in a statement. ...

The European Commission estimates that if implemented, the measure would save consumers €6.5 billion and prevent 3.4 million tonnes of carbon emissions as well as €22 billion in other environmental damage by 2030.


Also of Interest

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

1918

Allan Nairn on How Trump Dragged a Rightist Revolution to Power

How Identity Politics Has Divided the Left: An Interview With Asad Haider

First glimpse of immigrant children at holding facility

How Two House Democrats Defended Helping the GOP Weaken Dodd-Frank Financial Regulations

Getting Rich on Government-Backed Mortgages

Former CIA Officer Exposes Clinton Charity Fraud As Biggest Scandal In US History

New Zealand 'marine heatwave' brings tropical fish from 3,000km away


A Little Night Music

Cookie Jackson - Try Love (Just One More Time)

Cookie Jackson - Suffer

Cookie Jackson - Love Brings Pain

Cookie Jackson - Do You Still Love Me, Blind Love

Cookie Jackson - Find Me A Lover

Cookie Jackson and the Flares - I Didn't Lose a Doggone Thing

Cookie Jackson - Hot Dog

Cookie Jackson - The Reason I'm Singing

Cookie Jackson - Fresh Out Of Tears

Cookie Jackson - Need Of Love

Cookie Jackson And The Flares - Write A Song About Me

Cookie Jackson - Go Shout It On The Mountain


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@gjohnsit Obama's scandal is that he ended up corporatist neoliberal militarist republican.

This whole vicious way Trump is treating immigrants is a scandal, but not when Obama did the exact some shit. It took "resistance" tweeting out pictures of kids in fenced jails. And then people pointing out the pics were from the Obama era. This will end after all 15 minutes until the next time Trump is found building on Obama/Bush policies.

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joe shikspack's picture

@gjohnsit

so, i guess obama is proud that he was able to either keep his weenie in his pants, or, alternately not get caught red handed in a clintonian peccadillo.

if you're obama, you've got to set the bar pretty low to carry yourself with pride after all of the war crimes he committed in office. i wonder how proud he is of killing an american teenager.

not having a scandal must mean that whatever deviant, immoral shit you do, the media does not call you out for it.

a very low bar, indeed.

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Russiagate skeptic

“I think people are asking for too much when they hope that the Mueller investigation is going to come up with kind of a smoking gun and say, “Yes! Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, in the hotel room with the piss tape!” You know that’s not how the world works; life is not that simple.

And to be honest, everyone who has heard Trump speak for three minutes knows he’s a wrecking ball. This does not sound like the kind of person that you would want to engage in some kind of complicated Manchurian Candidate, when, you know, the guy can’t even remember what he was going to say at the end of a sentence.”

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detroitmechworks's picture

It's summer, my seasonal depression is lessening, and I'm thinking it's time for another beer with my C99 friends...

How's peoples Schedules looking?

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

joe shikspack's picture

@detroitmechworks

sounds like a great idea, i've got the time, but getting there is somewhat problematic. Smile

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you've linked us to, two really stand out for me.

First, the hopeful agreement between Russia and Israel. Wow, just wow. Why couldn't we have thought of that? And second, Corbyn's Labour Party plan to abolish the House of Lords! Wow again! Why couldn't we have thought of that?

Imagine ending the U.S. Senate! No longer would Wyoming, with a population of less than each of 25 individual U.S. cities, have as many Senators as California!

Population of Wyoming 2018: 573,720

Population of California 2018: 39,776,830

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joe shikspack's picture

@Linda Wood

it would be nice if russia could assist in deescalating the tensions in the region. i hope that netanyahu has the good sense to back off, though i wouldn't bet good money on it.

corbyn is talking seriously about implementing democracy. we could do with a lot more of that here.

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@Linda Wood @Linda Wood

Imagine ending the U.S. Senate

I like that states have a lot of freedom to make their own laws, and the Senate has been important for that. I kind of resent not having nearly as much say in our so called Presidential elections as does someone living in Wyoming. I don't agree with many of the choices Wyoming voters have made.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

joe shikspack's picture

@The Aspie Corner

wow, the neocons, netanyahu and israeli hardliners must be just like giddy schoolgirls about now.

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According to Gallup Americans supported the Iraq invasion by 72%. That did not happen by accident. The American people were blitzkrieg-ed with a massive propaganda campaign to support the invasion. The same thing but even worse happening with Russia hysteria. The mass and elite media either forgot what happened early in Bush's regime, or they understand their role.

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joe shikspack's picture

@MrWebster

my money is on, "they understand their role."

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The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

@The Aspie Corner

means that "simply put,you are wrong."

au contraire, mon ami.

the majority consensus in this country is that the war criminal obama was a good president.
to give just one example.

ever take a test on which just one smart kid got the answer right?

"Well you ain't so big. You're just tall that's all."
that's the spirit. don't care what flag you wave.

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The Aspie Corner's picture

@irishking I doubt the people who thought Obama was great know what he actually did. I also doubt they'd care about everything going on right now if Hillary were in charge. Ya gotta love how the pendulum in this first world shithole only ever swings between right-off-a-cliff and far right these days.

That being said, when it comes to the buzzwords, I think this guy mostly gets it right.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

@The Aspie Corner

the idea that truth is determined by majority rule really bugs me.

that one sentence at 4:42 made me choke.

maybe I overreacted. peace out.

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joe shikspack's picture

@irishking

i think that he prefaces the "inconsistent with majority consensus," with something like - you don't view things like climate change or gender differently (you view them inconsistently with majority consensus).

i took it that he was referring to an expert consensus, like (in the mentioned cases) climate scientists or biologists specializing in gender studies, rather than a set of general assumptions that one might acquire from fox news or msnbc.

in general, i would take it that in his complaint against the conservotwits that utter epithets like "snowflake" or "triggered librul," he is railing against the anti-intellectualism of those people that makes discussions with them less than fruitful. in the absence of agreed-upon standards of logic or science, there is no way to make meaning or declare one interlocutor more likely to be correct in their assertions.

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@joe shikspack

as I said to AC, I may have overreacted.
Perhaps that sentence "triggered" my outburst.

He did preface it as you said. It was the implicit contention that there is a consensus view of gender equivalent to that on global warming that got my attention.

I don't know if that is true- my suspicion is it is not.
As near as I can tell, departments of gender studies are related more closely to sociology than to biology. (black studies, women's studies, queer studies, gender studies,etc.)

A check of the faculty in these departments will show if I am on the right track.
My guess is that there are very few Ph.D. biologists in these programs, and that their courses have little to do with the science of biology. So to me, the "consensus of expert opinion" about gender is very different from that which exists on climate change.

We have to ask what it means to be an expert in this field. Do biologists count?
As you say,

"in the absence of agreed-upon standards of logic or science, there is no way to make meaning or declare one interlocutor more likely to be correct in their assertions."

Not sure we have those agreed-upon standards in case of gender.
But the guy on the tape has no doubts.

thanks again. I don't disagree with anything you said.

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snoopydawg's picture

racist tweet about Valerie Jarret.

Roseanne cancelled: ABC scraps sitcom after star's 'abhorrent' tweets

Roseanne Barr’s revived sitcom has been cancelled after she posted a racist and Islamophobic tweet that attacked former Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett.

The sitcom star falsely alleged that Jarrett, who was born in Iran to American parents, has connections to the Muslim Brotherhood, and compared her to an ape. Barr wrote: “Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj,” using Jarrett’s initials.

ABC swiftly announced the show’s cancellation. The network said in a statement: “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”

Can't say that this makes me upset in any way. Roseanne has been pushing the envelope for rudeness for far too long in my opinion and she finally pushed it too far!

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There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i guess it's a good thing that they canned her show because she made a racist comment. i mean, it's nice to know that they have moral standards of a sort and that there is something so awful that it should appear to be more important than the corporation's short-term profit.

it's too bad that they won't cancel the news shows that cheer for war and imperialist domination of the world.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@joe shikspack

...with Planet of the Apes. Her hairdo, anyway.

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@joe shikspack

it's too bad that they won't cancel the news shows that cheer for war and imperialist domination of the world.

funny how that works,isn't it?
a real puzzler.

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mimi's picture

comes to my mind.

No comments otherwise.

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joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

heh. throughout recorded history, it seems that humans tend to find affinity with a subset group and despise others not in that subset of humanity.

there have been larger thinkers who urge us to accept and, indeed, love everyone, treating them as we would like ourselves to be treated. however, while many pay lip service to those urgings, it has never really caught on.

Smile

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mimi's picture

@joe shikspack
warmth, honesty and intelligence. ... and in the stamina of your convictions that shine through them all.

A few good men around these quarters here... Smile

I am down to scanning headlines only for the time being, but when something convinced me now that Hillary Clinton is ... not the person I would like to have around anywhere in political power circles ... then it is her remark to want to be a CEO of facebook, because "It's the biggest news platform in the world ... Most people in our country get their news, true or not, from Facebook."

It's clear that it's not important to her if the news are true or not, I would say.

For sure both deserve each other, Zuckerberg and Hillary. But I don't think we deserve both of them.

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