The Evening Blues - 9-12-18



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Alfred "Blues King" Harris

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Alfred "Blues King" Harris. Enjoy!

Alfred "Blues King" Harris - I Need You Pretty Baby For My Own

"Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet."

-- Mark Twain


News and Opinion

The EU just voted to fundamentally change how the internet works

The EU Wednesday passed a controversial law that could fundamentally change the way the internet works, forcing companies like Google and Facebook to pay publishers every single time someone shares a link to an article.

The Copyright Directive was introduced in order to update copyright law for the digital age, but the inclusion of two controversial provisions led to significant opposition from rights groups and activists. Despite the opposition, European lawmakers voted to pass the legislation by 438 votes to 226. MEPs previously voted against the directive in July, but more than 250 amendments have been made since.

The two provisions which have prompted the most concern have been dubbed the “link tax” and the “upload filter.”

  • Article 11: This provision is intended to force big tech platforms like Google and Facebook to pay publishers when they share a link to an article. Some have suggested it could spell the end of services like Google News in the EU.
  • Article 13: This is a provision that activists claim will “kill the internet” as it forces all tech companies to filter all user content before it is put online and check for any copyright material.

... Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, and Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, warned in June what passing this legislation could mean: “[It] takes an unprecedented step towards the transformation of the internet from an open platform for sharing and innovation, into a tool for the automated surveillance and control of its users.”

EU lawmakers set to vote on updating copyright rules for first time in more than 15 years

Seventeen years after Sept. 11, Al Qaeda may be stronger than ever

In the days after Sept. 11, 2001, the United States set out to destroy Al Qaeda. President George W. Bush vowed to “starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest.” Seventeen years later, Al Qaeda may be stronger than ever. Far from vanquishing the extremist group and its associated “franchises,” critics say, U.S. policies in the Mideast appear to have encouraged its spread.

What U.S. officials didn’t grasp, said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, in a recent phone interview, is that Al Qaeda is more than a group of individuals. “It’s an idea, and an idea cannot be destroyed using sophisticated weapons and killing leaders and bombing training camps,” she said.

The group has amassed the largest fighting force in its existence. Estimates say it may have more than 20,000 militants in Syria and Yemen alone. It boasts affiliates across North Africa, the Levant and parts of Asia, and it remains strong around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Seventeen Years After 9/11, Pentagon Report Ignores Trillions of Dollars Spent on Endless War

As the world marks the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, the Pentagon's latest lowball estimate of just how much the so-called War on Terror has cost Americans is making headlines—despite independent analyses that have come up with far higher figures. "The collective wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria have cost U.S. taxpayers more than $1.5 trillion since Sept. 11, 2001," CNBC declared Monday, citing a Pentagon report (pdf) from March.

However, after Secrecy News published a copy of that report last month, Stephen Schwartz of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists compared the Department of Defense (DOD) figure with the oft-cited $5.6 trillion estimate put out last year by the "Costs of War" project at Brown University's Watson Institute of International and Public Policy. And the National Priorities Project (NPP), though it currently estimates war spending at about $4.6 trillion since 2001, has been keeping a running tally for years.

Watson's estimate, Schwartz pointed out in a pair of tweets, "took into account costs for which DOD is not responsible and therefore ignores—including care for veterans, Homeland Security, and interest paid to borrow money to pay for wars." The Watson report (pdf) also acknowledges that "there are still billions of dollars not included" in its estimate, such as the costs of state and local government's veteran care programs that aren't subsidized by federal tax dollars and "the gifts the U.S. makes in excess military equipment to countries in and near the war zones."


Next step in ditching US dollar? Putin and Xi Jinping meet in Eastern Economic Forum

Trump’s Endgame in Palestine

Last Friday, the State Department announced it would end all funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency that provides many essential services for Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. The reaction to this decision has been mostly negative. Some have objected to the Trump administration’s decision because it runs counter to U.S. interests. Some have objected because it jeopardizes Israel’s security. Others talk about the staggering humanitarian consequences for the millions of refugees UNRWA serves.

These are all important concerns. But none of them hits the mark of what the Trump administration—apparently at the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without any consultation with anyone else in the Israeli government or defense establishment—is doing. This is not merely an attack on UNRWA, as serious as that may be. This is an attempt to destroy the Palestinian national movement.

As I have long argued, the biggest single issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948 is not Jerusalem, settlements, borders, or even security. It is the Palestinian right of return. It is the one issue Israel would not discuss in talks and Israelis, with very few exceptions mostly on the far left, will not even consider compromising on. It is also the very basis of the Palestinian national movement since 1948. For seven decades, the Palestinian right of return has been the irresistible force meeting the immovable object of Israeli nationalism. It has been the time bomb that would explode if talks on all those other issues were ever successful.

The right of return continued to smolder on its long fuse while diplomats from Israel, the US, Europe, and elsewhere sat comfortably with their belief that the Palestinians would simply accept their permanent exile. ... Trump has not reversed policy, as some have said. Rather, he has shoved policy in the direction it was leaning before. Consider the words of Dan Shapiro, who was Barack Obama’s ambassador to Israel. Shapiro tweeted, “I’m 100% for being honest [with Palestinians] that there will be no right of return or any other outcome that undermines Isr[ael] as a Jewish state. I’m also for being honest that the conflict can only end in 2 states [for] 2 peoples.” ...

Trump is taking that idea to a reckless and callous extreme. ... Whether it was his abandonment of the two-state solution with no alternative (allowing Netanyahu’s policies to fill the void), his turning a blind eye to settlement expansion, moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, his parroting of virtually every right-wing Israeli talking point, or his relentless attacks on UNRWA, Trump has steered his policy on Israel-Palestine down a clear path. He is motivated by the right-wing belief, undoubtedly held by Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, and his ambassador to Israel, David Friedman—Trump’s “Mideast peace team”—that contrary to conventional wisdom, the Palestinians can be pounded into submission. ...

The Israeli right and their U.S. counterparts understand very well the power imbalance between the Palestinians and Israel. They believe that they should crush Palestinian national aspirations and that Israel can weather the Arab and global reaction until it eventually subsides. Trump’s policies have been directed unerringly at that outcome.

Trump Abandons All Pretense of Being a ‘Fair Broker’ in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict

New York senate candidate accuses Israeli PM Netanyahu’s spokesman of sexual assault

Julia Salazar, a candidate for New York’s state senate, has accused the Israeli prime minister’s spokesman of sexually assaulting her. David Keyes denied the accusation and said Salazar was “dishonest”.

Salazar, 27, said on Twitter that she had been informed her story was about to be reported by an unnamed news organisation in what appeared to be “an effort to cast doubt upon my and other women’s accusations against Keyes”.


Following the post, the Wall Street Journal reporter Shayndi Raice tweeted that she also had a “terrible encounter with David Keyes” before he joined Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, and claimed his “mistreatment of women was an open secret”.

“The man had absolutely no conception of the word ‘no’,” Raice wrote. “No matter how often I said no, he would not stop pushing himself on me. I was able to extricate myself quickly and it was a very brief and uncomfortable moment, but I knew as I walked away I had encountered a predator.”

McDonald’s workers set to strike over sexual harassment

McDonald’s fast-food restaurant workers have voted to stage a one-day strike at outlets in 10 US cities next week, in hopes of pressuring the company to take stronger steps against sexual harassment on the job.

Organizers of the action say it will be the first multi-state strike in the US specifically targeting sexual harassment and that they have been emboldened by the #MeToo movement against harassment and sexual assault.

Plans for the walkout – to start at lunchtime on 18 September – have been approved in recent days by committees of female employees at dozens of McDonald’s restaurants. Lead organizers include several women who filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in May, alleging pervasive harassment at some of the corporation’s franchise restaurants.

The strike comes as union-backed organizations have been putting pressure on McDonald’s on several fronts for better working conditions, including $15 an hour wages – at a burger chain that employs tens of thousands of people around the country, many of them at low pay.

I wonder which brand of paper towels Trump will be lobbing at the survivors of Florence (and FEMA's incompetence). I hope that they're super absorbent.

Trump just called Hurricane Maria response an “incredible unsung success.” Nearly 3,000 people died.

If anyone was worried about the Trump administration’s readiness to deal with Hurricane Florence, the president wants to reassure them by pointing to the “tremendous” response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year — where nearly 3,000 citizens lost their lives due to the storm.

“I actually think it is one of the best jobs that's ever been done with respect to what this is all about,” Trump said Tuesday in the Oval Office during a briefing on preparations for Florence, heading for the Carolinas and due to make landfall Thursday.

The official death toll from the Puerto Rico storm last fall had been 64, but a recent study by independent researchers found it was almost 3,000 people who died from the disaster. According a report released by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, nearly half of the evacuees from the hurricane have been living in Florida and can’t move any time soon due to the economy and failing infrastructure. For an entire week following the hurricane, FEMA didn’t even have information on about half of the wastewater treatment plants or the hospitals.

But Trump is happy with the overall response. “I think that Puerto Rico was incredibly successful,” he said. “Puerto Rico was actually our toughest one of all because it is an island.”

ICE is trying to deport a disabled man who has been in the U.S. for 35 years

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is trying to deport a man with special needs who overstayed his student visa 35 years ago, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Francis Anwana, now 48, came to the U.S. from Nigeria when he was 14 to attend the Michigan School for the Deaf, in Flint, the Free Press said. He now lives in an adult foster care facility in Detroit and does custodial work at a nearby church. His advocates told the Free Press that, due to a cognitive disability, he does not fully understand that he could soon be forced to leave.

ICE gave Anwana less than a week’s notice that they planned to deport him Tuesday, Michigan Public Radio reported. His deportation has since been delayed, and he has a meeting with ICE in two weeks.

“With his condition, life in Nigeria will be very, very bad, and can lead to death for not receiving proper medical care,” Fatou-Seydi Sarr, founder of the African Bureau for Immigration and Social Affairs, told the Free Press.



the evening greens


Fueled by Floods, Storms, and Drought Made Worse by Climate Crisis, Global Hunger Levels Rise for Third Straight Year

Extreme weather events, driven by the climate crisis, are a key factor in the rising global food crisis of recent years—with the number of people now affected by inadequate food and water prompting fears that the past decade's gains have been reversed. A new study by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development, UNICEF, the World Food Program, and the World Health Organization find that 821 million people worldwide—one in nine—lack sufficient food and water. Malnutrition and food shortages worsened in most of Africa and in large swaths of South America in the last year.

"Hunger is significantly worse in countries with agricultural systems that are highly sensitive to rainfall and temperature variability and severe drought, and where the livelihood of a high proportion of the population depends on agriculture," reads the study. The report, entitled "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018," points to "climate shocks" including flooding, drought, and tropical storms as ones that have had the most adverse effects on food production.

Drought causes 80 percent of all damage to agriculture, with farmers in Ghana, Tanzania, and Nigeria reporting to the agencies that frequent droughts as well as heatwaves have resulted in significant crop loss. In Asia, where more than half a billion of the world's hungry population lives, flooding is largely behind food scarcity. More than three million people in Bangladesh went without enough to eat in 2017 due to severe storms and resulting floods, while similar events combined with drought left more than 10 million hungry in Nepal, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.


EPA admits scrapping regulations will put more methane into atmosphere

The Trump administration moved closer on Tuesday to rolling back Obama-era rules reducing oil and gas industry leaks of methane gas. Methane is one of the most potent agents of climate change.

As the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally released its proposed substitute for a 2016 Obama administration rule that aimed to step up detection and elimination of methane leaks at well sites and other oil and gas facilities, it conceded the move “may … degrade air quality and adversely affect health and welfare”.

The move is part of a broad Trump administration effort to undo former president Barack Obama’s legacy programs to fight climate change by cutting emissions from oil, gas and coal. The EPA conceded that relaxing the Obama-era rule for methane leaks at oil and gas sites would put another 380,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere by 2025. The amount is roughly equivalent to more than 30m tons of carbon dioxide, another fossil-fuel emission that receives far more attention in efforts to slow climate change.

Relaxing federal oversight will save $75m in regulatory costs annually, the agency said.

Death on the Dakota Access: Oil & Gas Boom Generates Dangerous Pipeline Jobs Amid Lax Regulations

Hurricane Florence: North Carolina fears possible environmental disaster

Hurricane Florence could cause an environmental disaster in North Carolina, where waste from hog manure pits, coal ash dumps and other industrial sites could wash into homes and threaten drinking water supplies. Preparations are also being made at half a dozen nuclear power plants that stand in the path of the 500-mile-wide hurricane, which is barreling toward the US east coast, expected to make landfall Thursday night. More than 1.4 million residents across North and South Carolina have been ordered to evacuate.

In North Carolina, computer models predict more than 3ft of rain in the eastern part of the state – and fears were exacerbated by the many environmental hazards lying in the path of the storm. There are 16 nuclear reactors in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, the states expected to suffer the most damage from Florence. Duke Energy, which runs reactors at six sites, has said operators would begin shutting down nuclear plants at least two hours before hurricane-force winds arrive.

Brunswick nuclear plant, located south of Wilmington near the mouth of the Cape Fear river, was identified in 2014 by Huffpost and Weather.com as one of the nuclear facilities most at risk from rising sea levels and resulting floods. The Brunswick plant’s two reactors are of the same design as those in Fukushima, Japan, that exploded and leaked radiation following a 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Following that disaster, federal regulators required all US nuclear plants to perform upgrades to better withstand earthquakes and flooding.

Duke Energy did not respond to requests for information about specific changes made at Brunswick, other than to say emergency generators and pumps will remove stormwater at the plant if it floods. The company issued assurances this week that it is ready for Florence, which is predicted to pack winds of up to 140 miles per hour and a 13ft storm surge. ...

North Carolina has roughly 2,100 industrial-scale pork farms containing more than 9 million hogs typically housed in long metal sheds with grated floors designed to allow the animals’ urine and feces to fall through and flow into nearby open-air pits containing millions of gallons of untreated sewage. During Floyd, dozens of these lagoons either breached or were inundated by flood waters, spilling the contents. State taxpayers ended up buying out and closing 43 farms located in floodplains. To prepare for Florence, the North Carolina Pork Council says its members have pumped down lagoon levels to absorb at least 2ft of rain. Low-lying farms have been moving their hogs to higher ground.


Also of Interest

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

Beyond Bolton: The Path to a Progressive Foreign Policy

Washington Quietly Increases Lethal Weapons to Ukraine

U.S. Military’s Worst-Case Scenario: Large Parts of Africa Seized by ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram

Intercepted Podcast: Donald Trump, the Democrats, and the Illusion of American Greatness

CIA-Backed Firm Touted Social Media Surveillance Of Students To Sell Services To Evanston Police

ThinkProgress Censored By Facebook After Cheerleading Facebook Censorship

Wall Street Is the Definition of a Ponzi Scheme (Literally)


A Little Night Music

Alfred "Blues king" Harris - Blues King Mango

Alfred Blues King Harris - Sufficient Clothes

Alfred "Blues King" Harris - Miss Darlene

Alfred "Blues King" Harris - My Life Blues & Up Side The Wall

Alfred "Blues King" Harris - Great Lakes Boogie & Sundown Boogie Blues

Alfred "Blues King" Harris - Blues And Trouble & Gold Digger


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Comments

US copyright laws make perfect cents $en$e.

The original idea was that copyright laws would encourage people to create original works by ensuring that only the author of the works would, for a limited time ("limited" being the word used in the copyright clause of the US Constitution) be able to profit from them. However, they are now seen as the way to keep royalties rolling in, even if the creative person who created them is long dead and beyond the ability of any law to "encourage" into writing something else.

Every time the term of a copyright is due to end, the author or his or her heirs lobby Congress for extensions and Congress obliges them.

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divineorder's picture

@HenryAWallace

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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

@HenryAWallace

there is no term for a group of lawyers, like a murder of crows or a gaggle of geese, so today i'm calling it a "corruption."

yep, somebody set a corruption of lawyers loose on the copyright laws, and they have twisted the law to make indistinguishable the original stated intent of the lawmaking process - "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

for example, as wikipedia describes it (emphasis mine):

The Copyright Clause is the only clause granting power to Congress for which the means to accomplish its stated purpose are specifically provided. The exact limitations of this clause have been defined through a number of United States Supreme Court cases interpreting the text. For example, the Court has determined that because the purpose of the clause is to stimulate development of the works it protects, its application cannot result in inhibiting such progress. However, there has been a countervailing strain in the courts that has promoted a varying view. ...

Although perpetual copyrights and patents are prohibited—the language specifies "limited times" — the Supreme Court has ruled in Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003) that repeated extensions to the term of copyright do not constitute a perpetual copyright.

so, if you want to take a simple concept and make it twisted, arcane, counter-intuitive and a valuable consideration for big corporations - just add a corruption of lawyers.

my sincere apologies to on the cusp and any other lawyer with integrity and a sense of common decency.

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WoodsDweller's picture

... where did they pump the pig sewage to? I thought the reason they used lagoons is that they had nowhere for it to go?

Inquiring minds want to know.

From Weather Underground:

Extremely dangerous Hurricane Florence continues to maintain Category 4 strength as it steams west-northwest towards a devasting encounter with North Carolina and South Carolina. Florence is a storm whose strength, impacts, and unorthodox track all point to outcomes that will likely lie outside historical experience for much of the Southeast U.S. The odds continue to increase that Florence will stall on Friday and move slowly west-southwestward along the coast for several days, bringing a devastating rainfall, storm surge, and wind event for a large swath of North and South Carolina.
...
Wave heights to 83 ft were measured early this morning under the NE quadrant of Hurricane Florence.
...
Florence’s environment is very conducive for intensification.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

snoopydawg's picture

@WoodsDweller

every super fund site in the storms way is going to be in the flood waters. That this country has allowed the huge factory farms where animals live in heinous conditions and their waste is collected in ponds and then sprayed over fields where the wind spreads it over areas where people live is another thing that people didn't vote for. Most of the toxic wastes from all factories usually end up where poor people live. The pet coke in Chicago is across the street from a poor neighborhoods. People develop all kinds of lung diseases from it. Think that could have been built where rich people live? Me neither.

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divineorder's picture

@WoodsDweller still very dangerous.

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/Florence-Cat-3-Wind-Field-Expands-Oliv...

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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.

divineorder's picture

@divineorder environmental disasters after flooding contributed to us not buying pork for years and years.

The only time I eat pork is when a relative feeds it to me.

Well, except for the occasional package of pre cooked bacon, that is.

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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.

smiley7's picture

@divineorder

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joe shikspack's picture

@WoodsDweller

well i can get your query one step closer to an answer and speculate a little...

here is what i found in one article:

We’ve seen this before: 2016’s Hurricane Matthew inundated 14 hog manure lagoons. In the days leading up to the hurricane’s landfall, some farmers pumped waste out of their lagoons and hauled it away in an effort to limit the damage.

i haven't seen anything about where they hauled it away to, but my guess is that they take it somewhere to be repurposed as manure for application on farm fields.

why anyone would want to spray hog poop on their fields (unless it is an issue of price, perhaps) which in my experience is about the worst smelling of all the major farm animal fecal material (turkey poop is not far behind) is beyond me, but i regularly drive through pennsylvania farm country and i can assure you that it happens.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

Well, things are certainly getting interesting in these united states. I'm stocking up on popcorn.

Don't worry, Herr Drumpf will not be lobbing rolls of paper towels to the folks of the Carolinas - well, maybe to the POC.

Had to write a letter to the editor today about one of our university regents and his bad behavior. Mail 1 I hope they publish it. When I told my Director I was writing one, she said, may the force be with you. When I showed her what I wrote, she said BRAVO! So, I think the force was with me. I'll need the force if/when the jackass regent comes after me. Oh wait - I'm small potatoes!

Have a beautiful evening, everyone! 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

yeah, i don't know whether to make popcorn or apply for asylum in a civilized nation.

i guess we'll see what trump does when a catastrophic storm hits a place where his base lives. i wonder if he will treat them like chimpy bush treated new orleans.

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snoopydawg's picture

Trump administration eliminating most of the EPA has anyone? Or on the other issues that his cabinet picks are doing. Just because they are out of power doesn't mean they need to stay silent, but they are.

It's definitely going to be hard to eliminate Al Qaida if one keeps arming and protecting them don't ya think? And sitting back and watching ISIS get bigger certainly didn't help. But then ....

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divineorder's picture

@snoopydawg or introducing any legislation.

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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

@snoopydawg

heh, the dems won't notice what trump is doing to the epa unless he suddenly moves its offices to russia.

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

And you're so right about that. Maybe we can start telling people that everything that goes wrong in this country is Russia's fault. Oh wait ...

U.S. officials suspect Russia in mystery 'attacks' on diplomats in Cuba, China

The strong suspicion that Russia was behind the alleged attacks is backed by signals intelligence, meaning intercepted communications, say U.S. officials.

WASHINGTON — Intelligence agencies investigating mysterious "attacks" that led to brain injuries in U.S. personnel in Cuba and China consider Russia to be the main suspect, three U.S. officials and two others briefed on the investigation tell NBC News.

The suspicion that Russia is likely behind the alleged attacks is backed up by evidence from communications intercepts, known in the spy world as signals intelligence, amassed during a lengthy and ongoing investigation involving the FBI, the CIA and other U.S. agencies. The officials declined to elaborate on the nature of the intelligence.

The evidence is not yet conclusive enough, however, for the U.S. to formally assign blame to Moscow for incidents that started in late 2016 and have continued in 2018, causing a major rupture in U.S.-Cuba relations.

They declined to elaborate on the nature ..... but we decided to write this anyway.

RT called them on their BS

Smile

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Azazello's picture

Here's something: Haretz: Israel Secretly Armed and Funded 12 Syrian Rebel Groups, Report Says
That's why they don't want any cleaning out of Idlib. God knows what the Syrians and Russians will find there in the way of foreign arms and foreign fighters.

And now I must say adios to the Evening Blues, at least for a couple of weeks. We leave tomorrow for a trip to the Pacific Northwest. I will not take a computer. I will not check naked cap in the morning or the Evening Blues in the afternoon. I will be blissfully ignorant like so many of my compatriots. See y'all later.

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

@Azazello Have fun too!

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divineorder's picture

@Azazello the smoke has been up there? According to a woman in our yoga class she and her husband just got back from car rally there and the interstate was shut down for a time. Hope it all clears for you!

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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

@divineorder
and they say the smoke from the B.C. is all gone. Our only real worry is a fire in CA that could shut down the Amtrak.

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

divineorder's picture

@Azazello camping in Colter Bay on Jackson Lake and for the first four days or so we could only see the outline of the fabulous Teton peaks just across the lake!

Then it rained for a couple of days and viola, we could see our precious mountains.

I am allergic to smoke and wore a CDC reccd mask off and on when it was at it’s worst.

After two weeks in GTNP we went up to Yellowstone to search for wolves. Smoke was bad up there from time to time as well. One person we talked to said he had driven down from Washington and was in smoke most of the way. Another woman from WA said she had had horrendous smoke at her home there as well.

Hope that train rolls on and the smoke clears for you to have an amazing time!!!! So beautiful up there!

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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.

snoopydawg's picture

@divineorder

and there was a great thunderstorm that lit the Tetons up. It went on for a long time and we were all up in the bed of our camper watching it. Were the leaves changing yet? They started changing here last month. I think it's early this year.

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joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

have a great trip and enjoy your period of blissful ignorance. Smile

safe travels!

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enhydra lutris's picture

@Azazello

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

snoopydawg's picture

Let's say that I did buy Apple stock in 1995 like I wanted to and now it's gone way up. What happens if I sell it today and no one buys it like that article says. Will I just get the original money back that I purchased it for? Or doesn't it work that way? Financial stuff makes my brain hurt ...

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WoodsDweller's picture

@snoopydawg
If your stock is common stock and nobody wants to buy it, the price goes to zero and you get nothing. There is no concept of getting your original money back. If it is preferred stock you have a claim on the company's assets. I can't imagine a company with net assets and nobody wants the stock at any price. The preferred share price even in a bankruptcy would reflect its claim on the net liquidation value of the company. If that value was zero, your preferred shares would also go to zero.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

snoopydawg's picture

@WoodsDweller

It's the Wall Street ponzi article. And the stock was Apple, but I have no idea what kind of stock it is.

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WoodsDweller's picture

@snoopydawg
When a company is liquidated (whatever section of bankruptcy code that is, and this may vary by state), payouts go (in order):

1. Employees. This is generally just the few days since the last pay period, may include accrued vacation time, probably doesn't include accrued sick time. Your 401k and whatever is held by another entity and should not be affected. Of course any company stock you are holding from a stock purchase plan or whatever is gone.
2. Secured creditors. This means bond holders and preferred stock holders. Bond holders get paid in full if possible. I'm not 100% sure about preferred stock, if memory serves there is a "par value" which has almost nothing to do with what you paid for it (you almost certainly paid a lot more), but you may get your $1 per share or whatever the par value was if there was enough left over from the bond holders. If there isn't enough, you get a share, or you may get nothing.
3. Unsecured creditors. This is suppliers, utilities, rent, company credit cards, etc.
4. Common stock holders get a share of whatever is left. Usually that is nothing. If a company can actually cover the first three categories they probably have enough money to keep going and won't be liquidated.

I'm not sure where court-ordered judgements would go. Maybe they're unsecured creditors, maybe they get paid even before the secured creditors. I can see a situation where a company is getting by and gets hit with some huge settlement that they just can't hope to handle and that drives them to bankruptcy and then to liquidation.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

joe shikspack's picture

@WoodsDweller

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enhydra lutris's picture

@WoodsDweller
even before employees.

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

smiley7's picture

Ominous news this evening, appears that hurricanes aren't the only forces gaining strength.

Sitting tight with an old cat on table beside my laptop and two little doggies sleeping nearby.

Damn, this word needs leadership and in a strange way, i see Mother Nature saying so.

Hope you folks can come and visit.

As always, thank you for the work and hoping you've a great evening.

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divineorder's picture

@smiley7 Agreed!

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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.

smiley7's picture

@divineorder @divineorder
from your journeys.

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joe shikspack's picture

@smiley7

i hope that the storm treats your area well and you are safe and secure there.

i'm working on clearing my calendar in order to get down there and am looking forward to visiting soon.

you and your companions have a great evening!

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I know it's not Friday yet, but this photo is wild...

dragonfly in morning dew.jpg

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joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

wow, that's an awesome photo! to heck with friday, thanks! Smile

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

@QMS

or a photo similar to it--on Twitter earlier today.

The name of the Twitter account is Land of cuteness@landpsychology,
in case anyone is interested. They have beaucoup animal photos--mostly dogs and cats, but from time to time, they include photos of wildlife, insects, etc. (I posted a dog and Kookaburra photo from it, last night.)

Blue Onyx

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

Unabashed Liberal's picture

looking at Medicare (RX) Part D material that came today (right after I posted earlier comments), so have absolutely 'nuttin' to offer this evening. Wink

Except, 'hi,' and thanks for tonight's EB. I'll be swinging back by to read, later. Oh, my best to anyone who's in the path of the storm--mostly Carolinas, I think. Take care Smiley, Nancy, and any other 99'ers who might be impacted. Fervently hoping that Florence doesn't stall; and, that she continues to be downgraded.

Everyone have a nice evening!

Bye

Blue Onyx

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

joe shikspack's picture

@Unabashed Liberal

heh, back when my mom was still with us, reading anything related to medicare was an exquisite form of torture. it's amazing how much text and alpha-numeric code they can put on a piece of paper that makes absolutely no textual or mathematical sense whatsoever. utter gibberish.

have a great evening!

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enhydra lutris's picture

posts that they are not to be read in EU countries unless the reader agrees to assume any and all costs caused by EU law?

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

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

might be prudent. or, i could just publish a european edition that is entirely blank. Smile

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divineorder's picture

In your neck the woids.

Rock on!

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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.

lotlizard's picture

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vonovia

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vonovia

Major shareholders: BlackRock, State Pension Fund of Norway, Barclays Capital Securities, Lansdowne Partners International, Invesco, Wellcome Trust, Wellington Management, Terra Firma Capital Partners (TFCP), CICAP Ltd. (Coller Capital), Citigroup.

Folks, take it from me, you can expatriate to try to get away, but wherever you are — excepting maybe North Korea and Cuba (but, uh-oh: “watch this space”) — American capital always catches up with you, shaping your daily life and filling everyone’s eyes and ears via pop culture and marketing.

The movement that brings down this system of global capital is going to have to be worldwide.

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dervish's picture

Have you see this tweet from Tulsi, on 9/11?

Perfect!

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

joe shikspack's picture

@dervish

it's good to see that at least one congressperson will occasionally speak uncomfortable truths.

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