The Evening Blues - 7-19-18



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: The Chambers Brothers

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features psychedelic soul band The Chambers Brothers. Enjoy!

The Chambers Brothers - It's All Over Now

“In a democracy, someone who fails to get elected to office can always console himself with the thought that there was something not quite fair about it.”

-- Thucydides


News and Opinion

Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States

The nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them. In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006," which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them. ... ES&S is the top voting machine maker in the country, a position it held in the years 2000-2006 when it was installing pcAnywhere on its systems. The company's machines were used statewide in a number of states, and at least 60 percent of ballots cast in the US in 2006 were tabulated on ES&S election-management systems. ...

Software like pcAnywhere is used by system administrators to access and control systems from a remote location to conduct maintenance or upgrade or alter software. But election-management systems and voting machines are supposed to be air-gapped for security reasons—that is, disconnected from the internet and from any other systems that are connected to the internet. ES&S customers who had pcAnywhere installed also had modems on their election-management systems so ES&S technicians could dial into the systems and use the software to troubleshoot, thereby creating a potential port of entry for hackers as well. ...

The presence of such software makes a system more vulnerable to attack from hackers, especially if the remote-access software itself contains security vulnerabilities. ... In 2006, the same period when ES&S says it was still installing pcAnywhere on election systems, hackers stole the source code for the pcAnyhere software, though the public didn’t learn of this until years later in 2012 when a hacker posted some of the source code online, forcing Symantec, the distributor of pcAnywhere, to admit that it had been stolen years earlier. Source code is invaluable to hackers because it allows them to examine the code to find security flaws they can exploit. ... Around this same time, security researchers discovered a critical vulnerability in pcAnywhere that would allow an attacker to seize control of a system that had the software installed on it, without needing to authenticate themselves to the system with a password. ...

In its letter to Wyden, ES&S defended its installation of pcAnywhere, saying that during the time it installed the software on customer machines prior to 2006, this was "considered an accepted practice by numerous technology companies, including other voting system manufacturers." Motherboard contacted two of the top vendors—Hart InterCivic and Dominion—to verify this, but neither responded. However, Douglas Jones, professor of computer science at the University of Iowa and a longtime expert on voting machines confirmed that other companies did routinely install remote-access software during this period.

Detente Bad, Cold War Good

The entire “liberal” media and political establishment of the Western world reveals its militarist, authoritarian soul today with the screaming and hysterical attacks on the very prospect of detente with Russia. Peace apparently is a terrible thing; a renewed arms race, with quite literally trillions of dollars pumped into the military industrial complex and hundreds of thousands dying in proxy wars, is apparently the “liberal” stance.

Political memories are short, but just 15 years after Iraq was destroyed and the chain reaction sent most of the Arab world back to the dark ages, it is now “treason” to question the word of the Western intelligence agencies, which deliberately and knowingly produced a fabric of lies on Iraqi WMD to justify that destruction. It would be more rational for it to be treason for leaders to blindly accept the word of the intelligence services.

This is especially true on “Russia hacking the election” when, after three years of crazed accusations and millions of man hours by lawyers and CIA and FBI investigators, they are yet to produce any substantive evidence of accusations which are plainly nuts in the first place. This ridiculous circus has found a few facebook ads and indicted one Russian for every 100,000 man hours worked, for unspecified or minor actions which had no possible bearing on the election result.

There are in fact genuine acts of election rigging to investigate. In particular, the multiple actions of the DNC and Democratic Party establishment to rig the Primary against Bernie Sanders do have some very real documentary evidence to substantiate them, and that evidence is even public. Yet those real acts of election rigging are ignored and instead the huge investigation is focused on catching those who revealed Hillary’s election rigging.

Why Russian Indictments Will Never Be Proven

Russiagate Is Like 9/11, Except It’s Made Of Pure Narrative

“We are in a 9/11 national emergency because our country is under attack, literally,” Senator Richard Blumenthal told CNN while demanding a record of Trump’s meeting with Putin at the Helsinki summit. “That attack is ongoing and pervasive, verified by objective and verifiable evidence. Those words are, again, from the director of National Security. And this 9/11 moment demands that we do come together.”

Nothing about the establishment Russia narrative is in any way verifiable, and the only thing it has in common with 9/11 is the media coverage and widespread emotional response. September 11 had actual video footage of falling towers. You could go visit New York City, look at the spot where those towers used to be, and see them not being there anymore. You could learn the names of the people who died and visit their graves and talk to their family members. Exactly how it happened is a matter of some debate in many circles, but there is no question that it happened. There was an actual event that did happen in the real world, completely independent of any stories people tell about that event.

Russiagate is like 9/11, but with none of those things. It’s like if 9/11 had all the same widespread emotional responses, all the same nonstop mass media coverage, all the same punditry screaming war, war, war, except no actual event occurred. The towers were still there, everyone was still alive, and nothing actually happened apart from the narrative and the emotional responses to that narrative. Russiagate is 9/11 minus 9/11.

This is what I’m talking about when I say that whoever controls the narrative controls the world. Whoever controls the stories that westerners are telling each other has the power to advance concrete agendas which reshape global geopolitics without any actual thing even happening. Simply by getting a few hand-picked intelligence agents to say something happened in a relatively confident way, you can get the entire media and political body advancing that narrative as unquestionable fact, and from there advance sanctions, new military operations, a far more aggressive Nuclear Posture Review, the casting out of diplomats, the arming of Ukraine, and ultimately shove Russia further and further off the world stage. ...


If humanity is to pull up and away from its current path toward either ecological disaster, nuclear armageddon or Orwellian dystopia, we are necessarily going to have to change our relationship with narrative. As long as the way we think, vote and organize can be controlled by the mere verbiage of the servants of power, our species will never be able to begin operating in a sane and wholesome way. If all it takes to make us act against our own interest is a few establishment lackeys speaking a few words in a confident tone of voice, if mere authoritative language can hypnotize us like a sorcerer casting spells, we are doomed to slavery and destruction.


An interesting piece about some unfamiliar history for Americans. Worth a full read:

When the US Invaded Russia

In September 1959, during a brief thaw in the Cold War, Nikita Khrushchev made his famous visit to the United States. In Los Angeles, the Soviet leader was invited to a luncheon at Twentieth Century-Fox Studios in Hollywood and during a long and rambling exchange he had this to say:

“Your armed intervention in Russia was the most unpleasant thing that ever occurred in the relations between our two countries, for we had never waged war against America until then; our troops have never set foot on American soil, while your troops have set foot on Soviet soil.”

These remarks by Khrushchev were little noted in the U.S. press at the time – especially compared to his widely-reported complaint about not being allowed to visit Disneyland. But even if Americans read about Khrushchev’s comments it is likely that few of them would have had any idea what the Soviet Premier was talking about. But Soviet – and now Russian — memory is much more persistent. The wounds of foreign invasions, from Napoleon to the Nazis, were still fresh in Russian public consciousness in 1959 — and even in Russia today — in a way most Americans could not imagine. Among other things, that is why the Russians reacted with so much outrage to the expansion of NATO to its borders in the 1990’s, despite U.S. promises not to do so during the negotiations for the unification of Germany.

The U.S. invasion Khrushchev referred to took place a century ago, after the October Revolution and during the civil war that followed between Bolshevik and anti-Bolshevik forces, the Red Army against White Russians. While the Germans and Austrians were occupying parts of Western and Southern Russia, the Allies launched their own armed interventions in the Russian North and the Far East in 1918. The Allied nations, including Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the U.S., cited various justifications for sending their troops into Russia: to “rescue” the Czech Legion that had been recruited to fight against the Central Powers; to protect allied military stores and keep them out of the hands of the Germans; to preserve communications via the Trans-Siberian Railway; and possibly to re-open an Eastern Front in the war. But the real goal – rarely admitted publicly at first—was to reverse the events of October and install a more “acceptable” Russian government. As Winston Churchill later put it, the aim was to “strangle the Bolshevik infant in its cradle.”

In addition to Siberia, the U.S. joined British and French troops to invade at Archangel, in the north of Russia, on September 4, 1918. ... In all, 174 American soldiers were killed during the invasion of the Soviet Union. Interestingly, pressure to withdraw the US troops from Siberia came from fed-up soldiers and home-front opinion opposing the continued deployment of military units abroad long after the conclusion of the war in Europe. ...

Outside of the State Department and some elite opinion, U.S. intervention had never been very popular. By now it was widely understood, as one historian noted, that there may have been “many reasons why the doughboys came to Russia, but there was only one reason why they stayed: to intervene in a civil war to see who would govern the country.”

PBS Report from Yemen: As Millions Face Starvation, American-Made Bombs Are Killing Civilians

Israel just passed a law that Arab leaders say creates “an apartheid state”

The Israeli parliament Thursday passed a controversial law declaring that Israel is an exclusively Jewish state — legislation Arab leaders have denounced as “racist” and akin to creating “an apartheid state.” The “nation-state” bill, which was passed by a 62-55 vote in the Knesset, says that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it.”

The law strips Arabic of its designation as an official language, downgrading it to “special status” and says advancing Jewish settlement is a national interest. A number of Arab lawmakers ripped up copies of the bill as the law was passed, and were removed from the chamber as a result. The bill was backed by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called it a “defining moment in the annals of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel.” ...

Netanyahu told the Knesset after the law passed that “this is our state — the Jewish state. In recent years there have been some who have attempted to put this in doubt, to undercut the core of our being. Today we made it law: This is our nation, language and flag.” ... But for Arabs living in Israel, most of whom are descended from the Palestinians who remained on their land after the 1948 war that occurred during the creation of the modern Israeli state, the law will only heighten their sense of alienation. “I think this is racist legislation by a radical right-wing government that is creating radical laws and is planting the seeds to create an apartheid state,” Bassam Bisharah, 71, a doctor in the municipality of Ma’alot-Tarshiha where Jews and Arabs live together, told Reuters.

The most withering criticism of the new law came from the Joint List, an alliance of four Arab-dominated parties, who described it as “anti-democratic, colonialist, racist and with clear characteristics of apartheid.”

Israel passes controversial 'nation-state' law

California court kills billionaire's plan to divide state in three

A measure that would divide California into three parts will not appear on the ballot in November, the state supreme court decided Wednesday.

The justices ordered the secretary of state not to put the ballot initiative before voters, saying significant questions have been raised about its validity. The court will now consider the merits of a challenge brought by an environmental group.

The Planning and Conservation League argues that dividing the nation’s most populous state into three would drastically change California’s government structure beyond what can be accomplished through a ballot initiative. ...

The initiative, which could appear on a future ballot if the court ultimately rules in its favor, seeks to divide the state into northern California, California and southern California. Its supporters argue the state has become ungovernable because of its size, wealth disparities and geographic diversity.

'Primary Every Single One of Them': 18 Democrats Join GOP to Pass House Resolution Embracing ICE

Amid a surging grassroots outcry against ICE's heinous abuses and as a growing number of Democratic voters want the agency to be abolished entirely, 18 House Democrats joined hands with a nearly unanimous GOP caucus on Wednesday to pass a symbolic resolution that expresses "continued support" for ICE and denounces those calling for its elimination.

Responding to the vote on Twitter, Splinter's Sophie Weiner declared simply, "Primary every single one of them."


States are already preparing for the end of Roe v. Wade

Massachusetts lawmakers must answer a question on Wednesday: Do you support NASTY Women? Technically, they’re planning to vote whether to pass the “Act Negating Archaic Statutes Targeting Young Women” — colloquially known as the “NASTY Women” bill. The measure would amend a 19th century state law that criminalizes attempts to “procure the miscarriage of a woman,” or, in modern terms, abortion.

Legislators in Massachusetts haven’t had to worry too much about that law, since Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. But with Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy retiring this month, and President Donald Trump tapping conservative Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill his seat, they’re worried now.

Trump previously said he'd only nominate justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, and Kavanaugh has the backing of anti-abortion groups. If the Supreme Court does one day overturn the landmark case, abortion wouldn’t immediately become illegal. Instead, each state would be able to decide whether to allow abortion and how to restrict its access. And both anti-abortion and pro-abortion rights advocates and politicians want to make sure they’re prepared.

In addition to Massachusetts, efforts are already underway in at least two states to legalize abortion. Another two states are currently pursuing ballot measures that would give state lawmakers greater latitude to restrict abortion access. ... Right now, nine states have laws on their books that would protect abortion access even if Roe disappears, according to the Guttmacher Institute. But not all lawmakers in traditionally blue states had the same foresight, and they’re scrambling to catch up.

Black man sues D.C. cop for invasive search

A 39-year-old black resident of Washington, D.C., is suing a Metropolitan Police officer for subjecting him to an intrusive anal probe as part of routine stop-and-frisk activity. M.B. Cottingham, a father of three who has worked as an ice cream vendor for the last nine years, was relaxing with friends on lawn chairs on a Wednesday afternoon last September, contemplating how he should celebrate his birthday later that evening, according to the complaint filed by American Civil Liberties Union.

Then two cop cars pulled up, and officers jumped out. They asked Cottingham and his friends, all of whom are black, if they had weapons, per the complaint. They said that they didn’t. The officers noticed an open container of alcohol; Cottingham says he offered to pour it out. Then Officer Sean Lojacono asked what was in Cottingham’s sock. Cottingham, according to the complaint, pulled out “a small, clear bag containing less than an eighth of an ounce of marijuana – a quantity that a person may legally possess under District law – and placed it on the hood of a nearby car.”

Cottingham then consented to a pat-down, and turned away, raised his arms and spread his legs. “Officer Lojacono reached immediately between Mr. Cottingham’s legs, grabbed his scrotum, felt around with his hand, and stuck his thumb in Mr. Cottingham’s anus,” the complaint states. One of Cottingham’s friends recorded the search on his cell phone. “Stop fingering me, bro,” Cottingham is heard saying.

“I’ve never been so humiliated in my life,” said Cottingham in a statement. “It’s bad enough that members of my community are stopped and frisked by the police all the time. I’ve been frisked many times and even beaten by police. But this officer treated me like I’m not even a human being.”

Lojacono contended in an incident report that he was looking for drugs.

Keiser Report: American Labor Shortage

Police beat up Amazon strikers in Spain

Police charged a picket line and beat Amazon workers during the second day of a three-day strike at the company’s largest logistics centre in Spain at San Fernando de Henares, Madrid. The strike was timed to coincide with Amazon’s “Prime Day,” and took place as thousands of workers in Germany and Poland also struck the company.

Until the police attack, the Amazon workers and their supporters had been peacefully picketing, under the broiling sun at the main entrance to “MAD4,” as police escorted trucks and scabs into the centre. According to strikers, the police “without apparent reason,” beat them up with truncheons, which led to one suffering “an open wound on the face caused by a blow from a policeman.” Three others were arrested and taken away to police stations. ...

The Amazon workers have been involved in a long running dispute, since 2016. For nearly two years, Amazon has been negotiating with the trade unions—CGT, CCOO, UGT and CSIT—to impose the Provincial Collective Agreement of Logistics and Packing of the Madrid Region, which would replace the previous warehouse agreement and drastically reduce workers’ rights.



the horse race



CNN (!?!) has an interview with Democratic Socialists of America National Director Maria Svart. Following are some excerpts...

'We want to democratize everything': Inside DSA's rise with its leader

The intro:

A little less than a year ago, the Democratic Socialists of America met for their biennial convention in relative obscurity. Some 800 delegates, gathered in Chicago for a long summer weekend, discussed ways to build on their Trump-era membership surge and, in sometimes-pitched debates, wrestled with how deeply to engage in the 2018 midterm campaign season. The election of socialists was settled on as one of three national political priorities, with a pledge that the organization "will concentrate its scarce national electoral resources on supporting chapters that are campaigning for open socialists who are running as Greens, independents, or in partisan Democratic primaries."

Since then, candidates backed by Democratic Socialists of America chapters around the country have won up and down the ballot, from the Virginia state House of Delegates in 2017 to this year's Pennsylvania state House primaries and in New York's 14th Congressional District, where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old first-time candidate, defeated Rep. Joe Crowley, a 10-term incumbent who's one of the most powerful Democrats on Capitol Hill. ...

CNN What is the fundamental difference between the politics of DSA and someone like Bernie Sanders? Svart Well, we have one foot inside the Democratic Party and one foot outside the Democratic Party in the same way we have one foot inside electoral politics and one foot outside.
Our vision is to build a mass, multi-racial, working-class movement that brings people together across our differences and demands that our society and our economy be run democratically. Most of us believe that this will not work under capitalism. Our north star is totally transforming the system, even though our immediate vision and our immediate political program is similar to Bernie Sanders'. What's different is we want to democratize everything, ultimately. That's the goal.

CNN DSA is not a political party. Why not? Svart In the US, there are institutional barriers, structural barriers (for any new party). But we also want to maintain the flexibility of being within the left wing of the Democratic Party, but also being outside of it.
We see our role now as shifting the Overton window -- shifting the acceptable discourse, while also organizing people and building concrete power with a politically aware grassroots base that understands who the enemy is and is willing to hold politicians accountable. But that flexibility is important.

'Absolute Ghoul' Joe Lieberman Emerges From Political Irrelevance to Urge Third Party Bid Against Ocasio-Cortez

Taking a quick break from his lucrative work as a lobbyist for the law firm that has represented President Donald Trump for years, former Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) emerged from the realm of complete political irrelevance on Tuesday to urge defeated New York Rep. Joe Crowley to disregard the will of voters and mount a third-party bid against democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

"Ocasio-Cortez is a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, whose platform, like hers, is more Socialist than Democratic," Lieberman—who is infamous among progressives for his support for the invasion of Iraq and his successful campaign to kill the public option—wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. "For the sake of Congress and our country, I hope Joe Crowley will give all the voters of his district the opportunity to re-elect him in November—and I hope they find his name on their ballots."

Lieberman's call for Crowley—who lost to Ocasio-Cortez in a 15-point landslide last month—to keep his political career alive by running on the Working Families Party ticket was immediately ridiculed as a "doomed rearguard action" by the "absolute ghoul" who notoriously endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential race. ...

While it is unclear whether Lieberman spoke to Crowley before his Wall Street Journal op-ed was published, Crowley appeared to be responding to the piece on Wednesday when he tweeted simply: "Still not running."

Urgent FBI Investigation Into Russian Interference Delayed Clinton Email Revelations Until Days Before 2016 Election

It has been one of the lingering mysteries of the 2016 campaign: Why did the FBI wait until 11 days before the election to announce a new batch of Hillary Clinton’s emails in an “October surprise” that might have tilted the election to Donald Trump? Top FBI officials had learned weeks earlier that the laptop of disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner appeared to hold a huge cache of Clinton’s emails, yet they didn’t do anything about it until the eve of the election — a baffling delay that Clinton and her supporters, to this day, claim cost her the election.

For the first time, a full accounting of the game-changing episode has emerged. Deep in the 568-page report released last month by the Justice Department Inspector General on the FBI and the 2016 campaign lies a series of explanations from senior FBI officials — excuses, in the view of the Inspector General — for the damaging delay and inaction. The most startling explanation from the FBI: It was all about Russia, or more precisely, the bureau’s urgent and then-secret investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia that fall. At least three senior FBI officials suggested in interviews with the Inspector General that the bureau was so overwhelmed that fall with frantically investigating the suspected Trump-Russia ties that the new Clinton emails simply took a backseat. Ironically, the urgency of chasing Trump’s possible ties to the Kremlin may have helped topple his opponent.

“It was Russia, Russia, Russia all the time” that fall before the election, then-Director James Comey told the Inspector General investigators in explaining the mindset at headquarters when the new batch of Clinton emails surfaced unexpectedly. ... The Russia investigation and the Clinton email probe collided in the closing weeks of the campaign with damaging results, the Inspector General found. A number of the same key FBI agents and lawyers who worked on the original Clinton investigation — which was effectively closed that July without charges — were then assigned just weeks later to the newly opened Russia investigation. They were in the midst of that pursuit when Weiner’s laptop turned up, the report found. ...

Even as Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s office laid out the testimony from FBI officials, it concluded that the urgent demands of the Russia investigation and other explanations offered by FBI officials did not justify the monthlong delay in the Clinton email case, which “had potentially far-reaching consequences” in the presidential campaign.

However, the Inspector General found no evidence that political biases by anyone at the FBI drove the delay – either in holding the new email review until the eve of the election to hurt Clinton or burying it altogether until after the election to help her, as some Republicans have suggested. Instead, the report suggests that the new Clinton emails inexplicably slipped through the cracks in the FBI’s massive bureaucracy because of needless management lapses and communication breakdowns against the backdrop of an increasingly urgent Russia investigation.



the evening greens


Sinking land, poisoned water: the dark side of California's mega farms

Towns across the Central Valley region of California have had tap water arsenic levels above the federal limit for almost two decades, levels that research suggests can raise the risk of a variety of cancers and lower IQ in children. During the same period, locals and scientists have noticed another odd phenomenon: the valley is sinking, at rates as fast as 25cm a year. Now it seems that the two problems are connected.

The 50,000 sq km of the Central Valley play an essential role in American life: some 250 crops grow here, about one-quarter of the nation’s food supply. Agriculture on this scale requires an enormous amount of water, especially as water-hungry crops like almonds have gained popularity. And since the area’s river and rainfall levels fluctuate widely even month to month, farmers say they have no choice but to drill wells and draw aggressively on aquifers.

Over the past century, groundwater levels in some places have fallen as much as 200 meters during drought conditions, according to the United States Geological Survey. The subsequent changes in water pressure alter underground architectures, leading to a sometimes-surreal slumping of land by as much as 10 meters. ... The same subsurface change in pressure can suck arsenic out of layers of clay and into groundwater, like a sponge being squeezed, said Dr Scott Fendorf, a professor of earth science at Stanford University and a co-author of a new study on the subject. “When we’re overdrafting the aquifer, the two things happen simultaneously.”

EPA fans struggling coal industry by rolling back pollution regulations

The Trump administration on Wednesday eased rules for handling toxic coal ash from more than 400 US coal-fired power plants after utilities pushed back against regulations adopted under Barack Obama. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, said the changes would save utilities roughly $30m annually.

The move represents the latest action by Donald Trump’s EPA to boost the struggling coal industry by rolling back environmental and public health protections enacted under his predecessor. It pushes back the deadline to close problematic ash dumps and gives state regulators flexibility in how they deal with the vast waste piles that result from burning coal for electricity. ...

US coal plants produce about 100m tons annually of ash and other waste, much of which ends up in unlined disposal ponds prone to leak. Some have been in use for decades. Data released by utilities in March under an EPA mandate showed widespread evidence of groundwater contamination at coal plants. Heightened levels of pollutants, including arsenic and radium in some cases, were documented at plants in numerous states, from Virginia to Alaska.

Urging Barclays to Stop Funding Pipelines, Greenpeace Slathers Bank's London Headquarters With Faux Tar Sands Spill

Greenpeace U.K. activists staged a protest at Barclays' Canary Wharf headquarters in London on Thursday to denounce the multinational bank's investments in Canadian tar sands pipelines—hanging massive mock-oil droplets from the logo on the building's awning, blaring recorded messages through a loudspeaker in the lobby, and passing out flyers to customers, urging them to rethink where they put their money.

"Tar sands are a climate disaster," explained Greenpeace U.K. oil campaigner Hannah Martin. They "produce more than twice the carbon of an average barrel of oil, and a tar sands oil spill is even worse than a normal crude oil spill—the oil sinks in water, making it almost impossible to clean up."

"Barclays have been ignoring the damage their dirty funding decisions are doing to the world, and to Indigenous communities in North America, so we've brought a little taste of what they're trying to ignore right to their doorstep," declared Martin. "We need to hold them to account for the damage they're causing."



Also of Interest

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

The Helsinki Summit: Trying to Turn the Page on the New Cold War

Federal Death Penalty Prosecutors Accuse One Another of Destroying Evidence and Other Misconduct in Discrimination Lawsuit

Chaos Prevails in Immigrant Detention Centers, with Children Under 5 Still Separated From Parents

Dark money lurks at the heart of our political crisis

Never mind the Nazis, FBI agents are about to get an earful on “left-wing gangs”


A Little Night Music

The Chambers Brothers - Chain Gang Thang

The Chambers Brothers - Are you ready

The Chambers Brothers - Blues Get Off My Shoulder

The Chambers Brothers - In The Midnight Hour

The Chambers Brothers - I Can't Stand It

The Chambers Brothers - I Can't Turn You Loose

The Chambers Brothers - I Wish It Would Rain

The Chambers Brothers - Love, Peace & Happiness

Chambers Brothers - Practice What You Preach

The Chambers Brothers - I Got It

The Chambers Brothers - Colour Me Pop Show


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divineorder's picture

After traveling since late April we are ready to head back, but the weather is a bit of a downer, no?

United just sent us an offer to reschedule for our flight from Europe into Chicago, then in the Tx Hill Country we are facing 105-107 record temps for several days! Whoa!

Guess we deserve what we get for flying on jets using fossil fuels. To think that we contribute to the coming mega catastrophe that will produce untold numbers of climate refugees puts a damper on our wonderful experiences of the last few months.

At any rate hope all is well and you had a good extended weekend and now are having a good week.

Remember #ExxonKnew ?

If global greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current pace, they say, heat and humidity levels could become unbearable, especially for the poor.

It is already making them poorer and sicker. Like the Kolkata street vendor who squats on his haunches from fatigue and nausea. Like the woman who sells water to tourists in Delhi and passes out from heatstroke at least once each summer. Like the women and men with fever and headaches who fill emergency rooms. Like the outdoor workers who become so weak or so sick that they routinely miss days of work, and their daily wages.

“These cities are going to become unlivable unless urban governments put in systems of dealing with this phenomenon and make people aware,” said Sujata Saunik, who served as a senior official in the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs and is now a fellow at the Harvard University School of Public Health. “It’s a major public health challenge.”

Electricity rates went up dramatically in the small TX county seat where we have our 100 year old shack second home. During the extended below average temps in Jan locals were sharing on social media how they would never be able to pay their bills. Now, with these high temps, really fear that some of them will die.

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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

it's great to have you (nearly) back. sorry to hear about the weather in hell er texas. it has intermittently become unbearably hot and humid here, too. last week it 100 degrees on my back porch for the first time this summer.

heh, i had a great extended weekend out in west virginia. thanks! heh, i made a new friend in the river:

20180714_173119

here's a quarter for scale:

20180714_173205

safe travels!

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divineorder's picture

@joe shikspack

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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.

dystopian's picture

@divineorder Hey d.o. if you ever get down to the southside and slum around Lost Maples or Utopia, look me up, I think my hobby webpage is in profile maybe? My e-mail would be there at the website. We're on Bandera elect. a co-op, which is said to be cheaper than non-co-ops around, but still higher than a giraffe's arse if you ask me.

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

divineorder's picture

@dystopian What a beautiful area you live in! We don't spend much time in the Hill Country these days, preferring to stay at our postage stamp sized place in Santa Fe, NM.

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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.

Azazello's picture

From Bernie's YouTube channel: Sanders Introduces Resolution to Protect American Democracy from Russian Meddling
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thcYCHan_0w width:500 height:300]

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

@Azazello And one of the their weekly political programs was pushing Russiagate to the hilt. Another major program on the radio station is a staunch Russian conspiracy supporter--Putin wants to bring back the Soviet Union. These people and radio station are not even close to being establishment democrats, but yet...

Russiagate is producing its early fruits, but will continue. Massive increase in military budgets,funding for government sponsored propaganda, demands and acceptance by corporations to implement censorship, given power to unelected deep state to determine foreign policy. And it is turning on left organizers and media outlets with google and facebook censoring dissent from the left.

The image I had listening to this spewing of Russian conspiracy on this stations was that these guys are sharpening the sword that will hack them. These sorts of xenophobic national movements will always turn on leftists, progressives, unions, etc.

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travelerxxx's picture

@MrWebster

Also disappointed with a number of the programs on Houston's Pacifica KPFT. The station overall is fine, but there are certain weekly programs which purport to be left, even hard left, that leave me speechless in their mindless parroting of the Russia! Russia!! Russia!!! lies. Luckily there are a few programs that seem to know the deal ... at least a little bit. Still.... sheesh!

Of course, the local PBS radio is totally ate up with the Russia malarkey. It is instructive to listen, however, as one can learn the up-to-date DNC narrative. Particularly interesting are some of the late-night BBC broadcasts; the BBC is as bad as the Democrats, maybe worse.

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@Azazello

Early in my days of posting here, I wrote two essays indicating I didn't know what to make of Sanders anymore. I got a fair amount of flack about them. However, the more time passes, the more I stand by them.

On the one hand, he endorsed people like Hillary and Shaheen; he jumped on the Russiagate bandwagon early and so on. On the other hand, he was for cutting back on the PATRIOT Act and I get emails from him reminding me that leftist/leftish candidates have to fight against both Democrats and Republicans (so send money).

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@Azazello and her minions "meddling" in the primary he "lost." Beyond disgusted with Bernie now. I still wear the t-shirts but I'm going to have to rethink that as well, the last thing I want is to be labeled a Russia-did-it-bot, no thanks.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

well, there's little doubt that whatever he was before, he is now a democrat. he lapped up a steaming bowlful of that propaganda and isn't at all shy about spouting the big lie about "the entire intel community" determining that russiarussiarussia hacked our elections.

it's good that he was standing behind a podium so that his feet of clay wouldn't be visible.

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JekyllnHyde's picture

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A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

@JekyllnHyde Gather up republicans, Crowley supporters, pro-Israeli voters, and some judicious cheating, and down goes AOC.

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JekyllnHyde's picture

@MrWebster

The demographics of New York's 14th congressional district have changed dramatically over the past decade or so. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez didn't just squeeze by in the primary election. She won in a landslide by 15 points, even after some criticized her policy positions. Clearly, the critics were wrong.

Anything is possible and for your scenario to unfold - and regardless of what Joe Lieberman says - Crowley would have to actively campaign on the Working Families Party ticket. He has said he doesn't intend to do so.

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A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

@JekyllnHyde And I would think that even national dems leaders would not approve as it blows up the party primary process. And alienate progressives everywhere.

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joe shikspack's picture

@JekyllnHyde

heh, if lieberman ever shuffled off this mortal coil, the neocons would take him to their reanimation facility in the undisclosed location where they keep the cheneybot...

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detroitmechworks's picture

Lot of missing faces have shown up again, and it's a nice feeling.

Finished another piece in the Logos Series for those who are interested. Apollo, and I tried to match Iambic Pentameter as much as possible. Not as hard as I thought, but I tend to ignore the Stressed/unstressed pattern if the image is better by abandoning it.

So, glad to see everybody, it's been too long.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WZZu3qgVOk]

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

joe shikspack's picture

@detroitmechworks

now where did the horn section get to? Smile

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Boeing sold 20 jet freighters to the Russians. I am counting the hours before Trump and Boeing are accused of treason and collusion. The sale looks to be a Russian civilian transport company moving oil heavy equipment around.

Boeing gets 747 boost as Russian firm signs up for more freighters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-airshow-france-boeing-volga-idUSKBN0O...

Looks like the sale is saving the ass of Boeings large freight jets. I don't think this sort of transaction is covered by any sanctions. But wanna bet they will be in short order?

But for me now, this is all look-down my nose arrogant amusement as I know what the ending of this farce is going to be.

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joe shikspack's picture

@MrWebster

i am sure that at the airbus offices there are some very hopeful people chattering around the water cooler, marvelling at their good luck that americans are so stupid.

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I will comment briefly on rigging voting machines and reproductive choice.

Rigging Voting Machines. Once Democrats took back the House in 2007, Waxman held hearings on rigging voting machines. The testimony was, of course, that, yes, they could easily be rigged. So, of course, Democrats did absolutely nothing about that. Of course, Democrats cry foul every time they lose elections, but not when they win them.

Choice. Of course, the issue in Roe v. Wade was whether a state could, consistent with the US Constitution, criminalize abortion. The court held, definitely no, maybe and definitely yes---depending upon the trimester. (As much as I am pro-choice, pretending that the U.S. Constitution said or meant any about trimesters or viability of the fetus outside the mother's body was a joke.) Anyway, if Roe v. Wade is overruled, states that wish to allow choice do need to get rid of any old statutes that denied choice. If no such statute is still on the books, the state need not do anything. (Statutes tell us what is illegal, not what is legal.)

In most cases. if the laws of your state are satisfactory to you, you are in good shape. 2019, which will mark the 100th anniversary of the Constitutional amendment re: women voting, would be a great time to get rid of all patriarchal state statutes.

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joe shikspack's picture

@HenryAWallace

heh, one has to suspect that neither of the two corporate parties wants to eliminate the potential for election rigging in hopes that they can exploit it themselves when it is convenient or necessary to keep third parties or other interlopers out.

re: roe - i suspect that most of the blue states will do what is necessary to allow their citizens to maintain their right to abortion, deep red states will undoubtedly jump at the opportunity to impose religious beliefs on their citizens.

i am wondering if it will affect internal migration patterns.

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thanks for the chambers, bro.

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joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

anytime. everytime i hear the chambers brothers it's 1968 again.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

Sounds like the wheels are coming off the establishment. What a bunch of blithering, whining idiots. We are getting into bumpier territory. It’s been coming.

Those ridiculous Amazon workers didn’t realize the police protect their bosses. Get back to work, already. What a kick in the teeth.

People are feeling the effects of the roller coaster. Can it stay on the tracks? We do have infrastructure problems, you know.

Ok, I’ve had my fun. Thanks for the tunes, joe.

Have a beautiful evening, folks! Pleasantry

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"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

joe shikspack's picture

@Raggedy Ann

if the wheels do come off, it will be as planned - a provocation to allow the militarized police thugs to deliver a beat-down to "dangerous elements."

everybody step back in line.

and on that cheery note, have a great evening!

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mimi's picture

@joe shikspack @joe shikspack
@Raggedy Ann

A Baltimore professor was the victim of an anti-Semitic attack and then German police punched him

This was reported on main stream public news madia.

Despite my no comment comment, I think it is worthwhile to let this video and its meaning to sink in and watch the next video "Why people hate Jews" as well for those who need it.

I just want to go to sleep again. It's early morning here. Sorry for that.

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lotlizard's picture

could be in danger of being engulfed by and disappearing under red-hot lava.

https://www.civilbeat.org/2018/06/big-island-hawaiis-last-hippie-holdout...

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joe shikspack's picture

@lotlizard

pretty daunting. i hope that those folks are resilient and able to recover from this episode.

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dystopian's picture

That Love Peace and Happiness was a great song, it was love at first hear for me, way back in the day. Amazing it was a single release, I think there is a long album version? I knew a guy that was friends with them, he said they got expenses paid and $200 per person per week touring back then. Someone was getting rich but it wasn't them. Great musicians.

The Resnicks (Fiji water, the pomegranite, pistaschio and almond people) are the ones draining the central valley, the ground sinking so fast it has broken roads, pipelines, and they fear for the irrigation canals. Bunch of great stories on them out there in the ether. Hey anything for a buck!

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

lotlizard's picture

When it comes to violating your privacy and mining your personal data, you can bet it Fuchsia over just as badly as Android . . .

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-19/google-team-is-said-t...

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