The Evening Blues - 10-22-18



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Reverend Gary Davis

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Piedmont blues and gospel guitarist and singer Reverend Gary Davis. Enjoy!

Rev. Gary Davis - Slow Drag / Cincinnati Flow Rag

"Tyrants preserve themselves by sowing fear and mistrust among the citizens by means of spies, by distracting them with foreign wars, by eliminating men of spirit who might lead a revolution, by humbling the people, and making them incapable of decisive action."

-- Aristotle


News and Opinion

'This Is a Colossal Mistake': Experts Sound Alarms After Trump Confirms Plans to Ditch Nuclear Arms Control Treaty With Russia

Concerns are mounting after President Donald Trump confirmed on Saturday that he will withdraw from a Cold War-era nuclear arms control treaty with Russia following reports that National Security Adviser John Bolton had been pushing the plan behind closed doors despite warnings from experts that ditching the agreement "would be reckless and stupid."

The Guardian had reported Friday that Bolton and an ally in the White House have been working to convince members of the administration to support the United States withdrawing from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) on the grounds that Russia is violating it. Nuclear arms control experts and others rapidly responded with alarm. Many agreed that Russia's alleged violation "merits a strong response" but noted a withdrawal could alienate European allies and raise the chances of armed conflict. ...

And thanks to the president's warmonger of a national security adviser, the INF treaty isn't the only arms control agreement with Russia currently under threat of termination. As the Guardian reported: 

Bolton and the top arms control adviser in the National Security Council (NSC), Tim Morrison, are also opposed to the extension of another major pillar of arms control, the 2010 New Start agreement with Russia, which limited the number of deployed strategic warheads on either side to 1,550. That agreement, signed by Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev, then president of Russia, is due to expire in 2021.

"This is the most severe crisis in nuclear arms control since the 1980s," said Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute. "If the INF treaty collapses, and with the New Start treaty on strategic arms due to expire in 2021, the world could be left without any limits on the nuclear arsenals of nuclear states for the first time since 1972."

“Counterproductive and Dangerous”: Nuclear Arms Race Feared as U.S. Quits Key Treaty with Russia


“Putin’s Puppet” Advances Nuclear Missile Escalations Against Putin

Yesterday the news broke that Swamp Monster-In-Chief John Bolton has been pushing President Trump to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the 1988 arms control agreement between the US and the Soviet Union eliminating all missiles of a specified range from the arsenals of the two nuclear superpowers. Today, Trump has announced that he will be doing exactly as Bolton instructed. This would be the second missile treaty between the US and Russia that America has withdrawn from since it abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. John Bolton, an actual psychopath who Trump hired as his National Security Advisor in April, ran point on that move as well back when he was part of the increasingly indistinguishable Bush administration. ...

So, on the one front where cooler heads prevailing is quite literally the single most important thing in the world, the exact opposite is happening. Hotter, more impatient, more violent, more hawkish heads are prevailing over diplomacy and sensibility, potentially at the peril of the entire world should something unexpected go wrong as a result. This is of course coming after two years of Democratic Party loyalists attacking Trump on the basis that he has not been sufficiently hawkish toward Russia, and claiming that this is because he is Putin’s puppet.

In response to this predictable escalation the path for which has been lubricated by McResistance pundits and their neoconservative allies, those very same pundits are now reacting with horror that Putin’s puppet is now dangerously escalating tensions with Putin. “BREAKING: Trump announces that the United States will pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that the US has been in for 31 years,” exclaimed the popular Russiagater Brian Krassenstein in a tweet that as of this writing has over 5,000 shares. “Welcome back to the Cold War. This time it’s scarier And no, It’s not Obama, or Hillary or the Democrat’s fault. It’s ALL TRUMP!”

“Hilarious to listen to all this alarmed screaming about US withdrawal from INF Treaty emanating from those who for 2 years have been demanding that Trump get tough with Russia,” tweeted George Szamuely of the Global Policy Institute. “Now that they’ve got their arms race I hope they are pleased with themselves.”

Saudis admit Khashoggi was killed but claim it was a “fistfight”

Saudi Arabia finally conceded late Friday that dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi is dead, but they added a new cover story for how it happened: he was killed in a fistfight inside the consulate in Istanbul.

In an epic news dump issued at 1 a.m. in Riyadh, Saudi state media announced that 18 Saudis have been arrested in connection with the incident. In the same statement, the Saudi government said Khashoggi was killed Oct. 2 after an argument in the consulate resulted in “a fistfight that lead to his death.”

The kingdom’s latest explanation stands in stark contrast to its initial claim that the Washington Post columnist left the consulate the same day he entered it. ...

Despite the change in tune, the new offering isn’t likely to move the heat off of the kingdom’s powerful young prince and de-facto leader, Mohammed Bin Salman. Prince Mohammed is believed to be behind the ordering of Khashoggi’s death and was known to be at odds with the dissident’s criticism of his rule.

Jamal Khashoggi death: give us the facts, western countries tell Saudis

The UK, France and Germany have pressed Saudi Arabia to provide facts for its widely derided account of the death of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as Turkey vowed to reveal the “naked truth” about what happened in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul earlier this month. ... Western governments have become increasingly dismissive of the often conflicting accounts of the journalist’s death provided so far. In a joint statement released on Sunday, the UK, France and Germany said: “There remains an urgent need for clarification of exactly what happened on 2 October – beyond the hypotheses that have been raised so far in the Saudi investigation, which need to be backed by facts to be considered credible.”

After two weeks of contradictory statements, the Saudi government claimed late on Friday that Khashoggi was strangled after a fistfight broke out between him and officials on 2 October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Five officials, including a senior intelligence officer, were said to have been fired and 18 others arrested. In a later explanation offered on Sunday, the Saudis claimed the initial plan was to capture and persuade Khashoggi to return to Saudi Arabia, but to release him if he refused to comply. The Saudis have given no details on the whereabouts of his body, and there are reports that the crown prince is both surprised and angry at the strength of the reaction in the west.

Jubeir insisted on Sunday that the killing was “a terrible mistake”. “This is a terrible tragedy. Our condolences go out to them. We feel their pain,” he said. “Unfortunately, a huge and grave mistake was made and I assure them that those responsible will be held accountable for this.”

Prior to the joint statement, ministers from France, Germany, the UK and Canada all criticised the Saudi version of events, which have changed over time, starting with the assertion that Khashoggi had left the consulate unharmed.

CCTV footage appears to show Khashoggi body double in Istanbul

Newly leaked CCTV footage has emerged that appears to show a Saudi agent leaving the country’s consulate in Istanbul wearing the clothes of the murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. CNN aired the footage on Monday, citing a Turkish official who identified the man as Mustafa al-Madani, a “body double” and member of a 15-man Saudi team sent to Istanbul to target Khashoggi.

The agent, wearing glasses and a fake beard in an apparent attempt to further resemble the journalist, is seen touring a number of landmarks in the Turkish city after leaving the consulate.

The apparent Saudi aim was for footage of the man to be picked up by CCTV and distributed, thereby bolstering its claims made in the days after Khashoggi’s disappearance on 2 October that he had left the consulate unscathed.


Erdogan threatens big reveal in Khashoggi case while Saudis keep changing their story

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened Sunday to explode Turkish-Saudi relations by making public lurid details of Jamal Khashoggi’s gruesome death at the hands of a Saudi assassination squad. Erdogan said during a TV address that the details of the journalist’s death “will be revealed in full nakedness.” He promised: “On Tuesday, I will tell this very differently in my parliamentary group speech.

The Turkish president's comments came hours after Saudi Arabia again changed its explanation for how Khashoggi was killed, shifting from a fistfight turned deadly to the actions of a “rogue operation.” More than a dozen Saudi men, including some of the Saudi prince's personal security detail, reportedly arrived at the embassy the same day Khashoggi did.

The Saudis continue to insist that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS) did not order the killing, but the kingdom's facing mounting pressure from the U.S. and Europe to better explain what happened at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul on Oct. 2.

Khashoggi murder exposes Trump administration's dependency on Saudis

The murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi has come at time when the Trump administration is at its most dependent on Riyadh for the success of both its foreign and domestic policies. Donald Trump has spoken repeatedly about US arms sales to Saudi Arabia, hugely overstating the actual figures. The president also benefits personally by Saudi royals and officials spending freely at his luxury hotel. But he is reliant on Riyadh for more urgent and consequential reasons.

In three weeks’ time, sweeping US sanctions go into effect on Iran, as the administration seeks to cut off the country’s oil exports. Since walking out of an international nuclear deal with Iran in May, Trump has made crippling the Iranian economy a foreign policy priority, though his officials deny the aim is regime change. Without a compensating increase in oil supply from other oil suppliers, Saudi Arabia foremost, the sanctions that go into effect on 4 November will produce a spike in oil prices just ahead of the finely balanced midterm elections.

“If they are going to squeeze Iran with new sanctions next month they need the Saudis to fill the gap on world markets,” said Bruce Riedel, a former senior CIA official who is now director of the Intelligence Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “If the Saudis are slow or hesitant about filling the gap, oil prices will go up and the the president will be in trouble economically. Nothing makes Americans more riled than going to the pump with prices going up especially as we approach the holiday season.” Oil prices have been pushed up considerably in recent weeks as the Iran sanctions deadline nears. Iranian production has dropped by 376,000 (about 10%) in the past six months. The country supplies about 3% of global daily consumption, but at a time of high and rising demand, the withdrawal of Iranian oil from the market could have a big effect. Some analysts are predicting that the crude oil price could rise from just under $80 a barrel to $100 a barrel in the next few months. ...

Saudi support in critical to other planks of Trump’s Middle East policy. Saudi Arabia is the main financier of a Syrian stabilisation fund. Trump has been persuaded by allies and his own officials to keep US troops in Syria to combat Isis and provide a bulwark against Iranian influence. But he insisted other nations pay more of the bill. Riyadh pledged $100m in August, but the money only landed in US accounts on Tuesday – the day the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, arrived in Riyadh to talk to the Saudi king and crown prince about Khashoggi’s fate. ... Hassan Hassan, a senior research fellow at the programme on extremism at George Washington University and an expert on Syria, said: “The whole administration’s policy hinges on how much Saudi is willing to contribute in eastern Syria. All these elements of administration policy are interconnected and Saudi Arabia is the centrepiece.

MSNBC and Daily Beast Feature UAE Lobbyist David Rothkopf With No Disclosure: a Scandalous Media-Wide Practice

On Thursday, the Daily Beast published an article about the Saudi/US relationship by David Rothkopf, a long-time member in good standing of the U.S. Foreign Policy elite. Until last year, he was the editor-in-chief of the establishment journal Foreign Policy, named to that position in 2012 when it was owned by the Washington Post. He’s also a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting professor at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. He was previously deputy undersecretary of commerce for international trade policy in the Clinton administration and managing director of Kissinger Associates, the advisory firm founded by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. But, unbeknownst to Daily Beast readers consuming his commentary about Saudi Arabia, Rothkopf is something else: a paid lobbyist for the Saudi regime’s close ally, the equally despotic regime of the United Arab Emirates. Last month, Rothkopf formally registered as a foreign agent for the Emiratis.

On September 12, Rothkopf personally signed a contract with the UAE regime to be paid $50,000 every month, for a period of three years, to, among other services, “provide day-to-day advice on the development of messages”; to work on “media projects [and] outreach efforts”; and to “prepare memoranda [and] talking points” for the “Embassy of the United Arab Emirates to develop and support specific programs and initiatives within the United States.” ...

Daily Beast readers interested in knowing why Rothkopf is qualified to opine on matters relating to Saudi Arabia and other matters of foreign affairs would have no idea that he is paid a substantial sum by one of the region’s most repressive regimes to disseminate messaging on its behalf. That’s because there is nothing in any of Rothkopf’s articles for The Daily Beast that indicates this, nor does his bio page for the journal include this rather significant fact. The Rothkopf article published on Thursday does not mention the UAE. It does, however, call the U.S. relationship with the Saudis, one of the key allies of the UAE regime that pays him, “important,” though it argues that it is not as important as it once was. Like most U.S. elites who have long defended ties with Gulf dictators but who now must denounce the Saudi despots given the P.R. anger over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Rothkopf does denounce the Saudi leaders in the article.

But – unbelievably – Rothkopf has the audacity to criticize Trump for having “repeatedly shown great fondness for foreign leaders—even despots and known murderers, human rights abusers and criminals”, while Rothkopf himself is literally a paid agent working to disseminating propaganda for one of the most repressive regimes on the planet, one that does much of the Saudis’ dirty work for it in Washington. And the fact that the Daily Beast makes no disclosure of any of this is what makes this practice – having paid lobbyists and consultants for foreign regimes and corporations masquerade as objective and neutral analysts of the news – such a massive journalistic scandal and fraud. ... If Daily Beast readers had been told who Rothkopf really is and how he makes large amounts of money, they would have known that he’s one of the least credible people on the planet to sanctimoniously denounce those who harbor “great fondness for foreign leaders—even despots and known murderers, human rights abusers and criminals.” But because Rothkopf’s work for UAE tyrants was concealed by the Daily Beast, readers would have no way of knowing that.

U.S. admits a general was shot in Taliban attack that nearly claimed top NATO commander

A devastating Taliban attack that came close to hitting the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan inflicted even more damage on the American military brass than they were willing to admit. On Sunday, the Pentagon revealed that one of its generals had been shot and wounded in the assault.

U.S. officials confirmed that U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Smiley was one of two Americans wounded in the attack in Kandahar Thursday, when a bodyguard for the provincial governor opened fire on senior Afghan officials leaving a security meeting in a government compound. The gunman killed two high-ranking Afghan officials, including Kandahar police chief Gen. Abdul Raziq, widely seen as the most powerful man in southern Afghanistan.

Though the U.S. mission was quick to clarify that Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, escaped unharmed, they were less forthright about the two American casualties in Thursday’s insider attack. The U.S. mission has been cagey in acknowledging how close the attacker got to American generals, initially characterizing the incident as an “Afghan-on-Afghan” attack, and denying that Miller — the top NATO commander in the country — had been a target, despite the Taliban’s explicit claims to the contrary.

The wounding of an American general, who are rarely in positions where they are vulnerable to attack, has underlined the parlous state of U.S.-led efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, 17 years after the conflict began.

“Reminiscent of South Africa’s Grand Apartheid”: Israeli Human Rights Group Slams Israel at U.N.

Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro threatens purge of leftwing 'outlaws'

The far-right favourite to become Brazil’s next president has vowed to spearhead a historic purge of his leftwing political foes in a menacing address that delighted supporters and left opponents outraged and unnerved. Jair Bolsonaro looks set for a landslide victory over his Workers’ party (PT) rival Fernando Haddad when the world’s fourth-largest democracy returns to the polls on Sunday for the decisive second round of its presidential election. Latest polls give him an 18-point lead over Haddad.

In a confrontational video address to supporters on Sunday, the pro-torture former paratrooper pledged to use the presidency to launch a frontal assault on his “red” political rivals.

“Either they go overseas, or they go to jail,” Bolsonaro told thousands of cheering supporters who had packed Avenida Paulista, one of São Paulo’s main arteries, for one of his final campaign acts. “These red outlaws will be banished from our homeland. It will be a cleanup the likes of which has never been seen in Brazilian history,” Bolsonaro declared in his 10-minute address by videolink from his home in Rio de Janeiro, where he has been recovering following a near-fatal assassination attempt last month.

“Crooks” from Brazil’s landless workers movement (MST) would be designated as terrorists, Bolsonaro vowed, while the leftist former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – whom he mocked as a “drunkard” – would be left “to rot in jail”, along with other top PT politicians, including Haddad.

“We are the majority. We are the true Brazil. Together with this Brazilian people we will build a new nation,” Bolsonaro declared, later adding: “We are the voice of freedom … We do not want socialism.” Euphoric Bolsonaro supporters, many of them wearing the yellow and green of Brazil’s national flag, cheered the oration with chants of “Brazil, Brazil, Brazil, Brazil!” and their leader’s nickname: “Legend! Legend! Legend! Legend!”

The NYPD has started arresting Proud Boys involved in violent Manhattan brawl

The New York Police Department has started arresting members of the fascist street gang “Proud Boys” in relation to the violent brawl on the Upper East Side of Manhattan last week.

As of Friday afternoon, two Proud Boys had been taken into police custody. ... Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes told the New York Times he was making arrangements for at least eight of the members to turn themselves in and said they were “going to be in the Tombs by tonight.” McInnes has touted himself and his organization as an ally to law enforcement: On Sunday, during a podcast segment, McInnes boasted that he had “a lot of support in the NYPD.” At the same time, McInnes has made it clear he has no problem with Proud Boys committing violent acts, which he has said is “a really effective way to solve problems.”

The NYPD said Monday that they were seeking 12 people in connection with last Friday’s events, including nine Proud Boys. The Times also reported that police have opened a “broad criminal inquiry into the group’s activities” after members clashed with protesters last Friday following McInnes’ speaking appearance at the Metropolitan Republican Club.

Widely circulated video of last week’s clashes showed a few dozen Proud Boys, many wearing red MAGA hats and their trademark black-and-yellow Fred Perry shirts, roaming the streets, shouting homophobic slurs, and violently beating protesters. In one video, a Proud Boy is heard bragging about kicking a “foreigner” in the head.

Trump administration trying to define transgender out of existence

The Trump administration is attempting to strip transgender people of official recognition by creating a narrow definition of gender as being only male or female and unchangeable once determined at birth, the New York Times reported.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has undertaken an effort across several departments to establish a legal definition of sex under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex, the Times said, citing a government memo. That definition would be as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals a person is born with, the Times reported.

Such an interpretation would reverse the expansion of transgender rights that took place under President Barack Obama. It would also set back aspirations for tolerance and equality among the estimated 0.7% of the population that identifies as transgender. Most transgender people live with a profound sense that the gender assigned to them at birth was wrong and transition to the opposite sex. Others live a non-binary or gender-fluid life.

Trump Admin Attempts to Erase Existence of Trans People After Years of GOP-Led Attacks on Freedoms

The Despicable Campaign to Roll Back Transgender Protections in the Massachusetts Midterms

The November midterm elections are poised to offer, in some sense, a referendum on the Trump administration’s two-year assault on the rights and liberties of women, immigrants, people of color, and LBGTQ communities. In Massachusetts, the referendum is literal: Voters will be asked on the ballot whether they want to uphold or repeal anti-discrimination protections for transgender people in the state.

In 2016, one month prior to Donald Trump’s presidential election, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law a bill that updated the state’s civil rights statutes to protect transgender individuals from discrimination in public places, including restrooms, locker rooms, restaurants, stores, and medical offices. Now, thanks to the concerted efforts of anti-transgender opponents using transphobic misinformation and scaremongering, Massachusetts will become the first state to question whether to uphold or repeal such hard-won protections.

The 2016 law, and those like it around the country, far from assured an end to rampant anti-transgender discrimination. But a repeal on the grounds framed in the Massachusetts referendum — steeped as it is in bigoted, anti-transgender myths — would not only assert that transgender lives do not matter, but that they constitute a public threat. “I truly believe that this is one of the most pivotal moments in the trans legal, political movement of this decade,” Chase Strangio, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union and a transgender rights activist, told me. “If we lose in Massachusetts and the protections are repealed, it will send a message to lawmakers across the country that trans people are unworthy of legal protection and animate new fights to restrict our access to public space.”

The measure, now named Question 3, was put forward by opponents to the 2016 law. ... Keep MA Safe, the group leading the repeal campaign, and Massachusetts Family Institute, a conservative Christian public policy organization, have pulled their alarmist and baseless narrative straight from a well-worn transphobic playbook: They claim that legal protections for transgender people in public places provide cover for sexual harassers to spy on and assault women and children in bathrooms.

Migrant caravan faces misery at Mexican border

It’s just a fifteen-minute walk across the bridge separating Guatemala and Mexico. Now, this concrete stretch has become the scene of an unfolding humanitarian crisis as around 1,500 mostly Honduran migrants — many of them children — are sleeping here amid heaps of garbage with no bathrooms and no water except for what volunteers bring by in small plastic bags. At the moment, this is the end of the line for nearly half of the estimated 4,000 migrants mostly from Honduras, part of a “caravan” headed ultimately for the U.S. border. Mexican federal police fired tear gas Friday to prevent an onslaught of migrants from storming the gates; now, the crowd has settled down and appear ready to wait here as long as it takes to get across the border.

“The municipality is collapsing because of the quantity of people here,” Gustavo Adolfo Arana Jui with Guatemala’s natural disaster commission, known as Conred, said in a press conference Saturday in Tecun Uman, where the migrants have converged. In an effort to alleviate the crisis, the Guatemalan government is sending buses to Tecun Uman to offer free transport for Hondurans who want to return home. Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said on Saturday around 2,000 members of the caravan have gone back to Honduras. Municipal officials in Tecun Unam pegged the number of returnees far lower — at around 1,200.

Meanwhile, more than 1,400 migrants from the caravan have entered Mexico in the last week, according to estimates from Mexican government officials and shelters operating in the region. Some were granted legal entry by Mexico, although the majority appears to have crossed into the country illegally, crossing the Suchiate River on makeshift rafts.

But the bulk of the migrants who joined the caravan are now living in makeshift camps on a bridge less than a mile long. Some are sleeping under tarps, but most have nothing to protect them from the rain and sweltering sun. ... Still, most of the migrants say they plan to stay as long as they need to – even those with children. “The truth – it’s even worse in Honduras,” said Sadi Mejilla, who is four months pregnant and travelling with her four children, all under the age of 11. “Here, on the bridge, it’s basically okay. Except for sleeping on the ground underneath the sun, I still think it’s better than in Honduras.”

An interesting article. Here are some excerpts from the intro:

How Wall Street Drove Public Pensions Into Crisis and Pocketed Billions in Fees

Thousands of Kentucky public school teachers swarmed the state Capitol earlier this year, angry not about low salaries, but about their shrinking pensions. Among their concerns: the high portion of their money that has ended up in the hands of Wall Street in opaque, high-cost products that seem to benefit no one aside from the people who sold them. Rising pension costs helped to send teachers in Colorado into the streets in protest a few weeks later. In the last year, pension woes have also prompted teachers in Ohio and Oklahoma to march. And police, firefighters, and other public employees in Michigan have been staging protests since at least 2016 to preserve their public pensions, more than one-third of which is invested in “alternatives”: private equity, hedge funds, commodities, distressed debt, and other opaque Wall Street investment vehicles.

A “Wall Street coup” — that’s how pension expert Edward “Ted” Siedle describes it. Public pensions across the country now squander tens of billions of dollars each year on risky, often poor-performing alternative investments — money public pensions can ill afford to waste. For all the talk of insolvency, $4 trillion now sits in the coffers of the country’s public pensions. It’s a giant pile of money of intense interest to Wall Street — one generally overseen by boards stocked with laypeople, often political appointees. “Time and again,” Siedle has written, “hucksters successfully pull the wool over these boards’ eyes.”

In 1974, in the wake of the spectacular collapse of the Studebaker car company and its pension plan, Congress passed a piece of landmark legislation, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Under ERISA, companies are required to adequately fund their pensions and follow what was then called the “prudent man” rule, which barred those in charge from putting pension dollars into overly risky investments. The departments of Labor, Treasury, and Commerce were charged with overseeing the country’s pensions and a new body was created, called the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, that would backstop pensions should a business default.

Except Congress left out public employees entirely — with a yawning loophole that granted an exemption to public pensions. ERISA expressly exempts public pensions operated by state and local governments — the plans that provide for the country’s teachers, firefighters, police officers, and librarians in their retirement. Forty-four years after the passage of ERISA, these public workers comprise the majority of active employees still contributing to pension plans. And they have been left largely unprotected. Siedle calls it “the loophole that is swallowing America."

Well now, this sure doesn't look like "Chief Justice" Roberts has decided to help cover up the misdeeds of his new colleague conservative conspirator:

Kavanaugh once lobbied for judge now handling ethics complaints against him

Supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh once lobbied in support of a controversial judge who is now tasked with reviewing more than a dozen ethics complaints filed against him during his own confirmation process.

Emails sent to the Senate judiciary committee and obtained by the Guardian show that beginning in 2001, Kavanaugh was involved in a high-stakes campaign to ensure that Timothy Tymkovich, another staunch conservative and a former Colorado solicitor general, would secure a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the supreme court this month, worked on the judicial campaign in his role as a senior staff member for President George W Bush. Tymkovich was confirmed in 2003, after a long delay in the Senate. He is now chief judge on the 10th circuit court of appeals, in Colorado.

The chief justice of the supreme court, John Roberts, asked Tymkovich to examine more than a dozen judicial ethics complaints filed against Kavanaugh while he was technically still a circuit court judge. The complaints were not sent to Tymkovich until after Kavanaugh was confirmed to sit on the supreme court, where judges are in effect immune to disciplinary action by lower-court justices and are meant to police their own actions. The complaints are not public but according to the Washington Post they allege Kavanaugh lied under oath and that his behaviour before the Senate was ill-suited for a judge.

Prof. Jason Stanley in Wake of Kavanaugh’s Confirmation: Fascism Cannot Operate Without Patriarchy



the horse race



Anti-Muslim Bigots Are Weaponizing Abuse Allegations Against Keith Ellison

This week, over the vehement objections of Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and his ex-wife Kim Ellison, a Minnesota family court official unsealed the divorce files for the couple’s 25-year marriage. While divorce records are typically public, courts seal them if both parties agree, and no one else objects. A lawsuit to unseal the records was filed in September by a far-right news site, Alpha News, and soon joined by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The two organizations claimed the public had the right to view the records, as Keith Ellison is running for state attorney general and has been accused by his ex-girlfriend, Karen Monahan, of attempting to pull her off a bed during a domestic argument. (He denied the allegation.) Kim Ellison, an elected member of the Minneapolis Board of Education, has since said that her ex-husband never abused her in the four decades she’s known him — and the two Ellisons pleaded for respect for their privacy.

The allegations against Keith Ellison, which were made public in the days leading up to his August primary, have threatened to derail his bid for attorney general. His opponents, including anti-Muslim bigots, have seized on them as evidence of his unfitness for office, while Democrats have largely tiptoed around the issue, neither condemning nor fully standing behind Ellison. (Two national women’s groups, UltraViolet and the National Organization for Women, called on Ellison to drop out of the race in August.) The divorce records, unsealed Wednesday, don’t contain any information that indicts the congressman, as some of his political opponents seemed to be hoping they would. Instead, they reveal evidence of a difficult marriage unsettled by medical issues, and one in which Keith Ellison was himself subjected to frequent physical attacks. “It was very humiliating to admit that I was a domestic abuse victim,” he wrote in a 2015 court affidavit. In a statement released Wednesday, Kim Ellison condemned the judge who released the files, as well as the news organizations that pressed to expose details of her personal medical and mental health history. ...

Some of the groups and individuals capitalizing most enthusiastically on the abuse allegations against Keith Ellison have a history of promoting anti-Muslim propaganda in the state and have smeared Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, for years. Alpha News, the right-wing website that sued for the divorce records, was the same website to first claim that Ilhan Omar, the Somali-American state legislator who will most likely be elected to represent Minnesota’s 5th District in U.S. Congress next month, may have married her brother to commit immigration fraud. Omar dismissed the rumors as “absolutely false and ridiculous,” but more than two years later, the story continues to dog her campaign. In a 2016 article typical of the site, Alpha News published a story with the headline, “Does Rep. Keith Ellison Have Ties to Radical Islam?” — and suggested the answer is yes.

Two Weeks Before Midterms, Trump Attacks Democracy With 'One of the Most Naked Attempts to Promote Voter Suppression' in Modern Times

After President Donald Trump fired off a hysterical tweet this weekend warning of mass "voter fraud"—a right-wing bogeyman for which there is virtually zero evidence—and threatening violators with severe punishment, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law condemned the president for deploying Jim Crow-era scare tactics to suppress minority voter turnout just two weeks before the midterm elections.

"President Trump's statement regarding vote fraud is one of the most naked attempts to promote voter suppression that we have seen in modern time,"  Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee, said in a statement following Trump's tweet, in which he declared that "all levels of government and law enforcement are watching carefully" for violations.

Clarke argued that the president's tweet is clearly part of an ongoing right-wing effort to "promote fear and incite law enforcement to action in ways that could chill voter participation this midterm election cycle."

"Meanwhile this administration and the Justice Department's silence regarding widespread voter suppression has been deafening. To date, this Justice Department has failed to file a single case to enforce the Voting Rights Act and has failed to take any action to protect the rights of minority voters," Clarke said. "Instead, we see the president using his platform to promote unsubstantiated and false claims about vote fraud."

Report Says Russia-gaters Should Go Quietly in the Night

In a new article titled “Mueller report PSA: Prepare for disappointment”, Politico cites information provided by defense attorneys and “more than 15 former government officials with investigation experience spanning Watergate to the 2016 election case” to warn everyone who’s been lighting candles at their Saint Mueller altars that their hopes of Trump being removed from office are about to be dashed to the floor. “While [Mueller is] under no deadline to complete his work, several sources tracking the investigation say the special counsel and his team appear eager to wrap up,” Politico reports.

“The public, they say, shouldn’t expect a comprehensive and presidency-wrecking account of Kremlin meddling and alleged obstruction of justice by Trump — not to mention an explanation of the myriad subplots that have bedeviled lawmakers, journalists and amateur Mueller sleuths,” the report also says, adding that details of the investigation may never even see the light of day. So that’s it then. An obscene amount of noise and focus, a few indictments and process crime convictions which have nothing to do with Russian collusion, and this three-ring circus of propaganda and delusion is ready to call it a day. This is by far the clearest indication yet that the Mueller investigation will end with Trump still in office and zero proof of collusion with the Russian government, which has been obvious since the beginning to everyone who isn’t a complete moron. ...

In a just world, everyone who helped promote this toxic narrative would apologize profusely and spend the rest of their lives being mocked and marginalized. In a world wherein pundits and politicians can sell the public a war which results in the slaughter of a million Iraqis and suffer no consequences of any kind, however, we all know that that isn’t going to happen. Russia-gate will end not with a bang, but with a series of carefully crafted diversions. The goalposts will be moved, the news churn will shuffle on, the herd will be guided into supporting the next depraved oligarchic agenda, and almost nobody will have the intellectual honesty and courage to say “Hey! Weren’t these assholes promising us we’ll see Trump dragged off in chains a while back? Whatever happened to that? And why are we all talking about China now?”

But whether they grasp it or not, mainstream liberals have been completely discredited. The mass media outlets which inflicted this obscene psyop upon their audiences deserve to be driven out of business. The establishment which would inflict such intrusive psychological brutalization upon its populace just to advance a few preexisting agendas has proven that it deserves to be opposed on every front and rejected at every turn.



the evening greens


'Disgraceful and Enraging': Supreme Court Halts Youth Climate Case After Last-Ditch Trump Effort to Kill Suit

In a move author and activist Naomi Klein denounced as "disgraceful and enraging," the U.S. Supreme Court has halted a lawsuit brought by 21 American children and young adults that aims to hold the federal government accountable for its ongoing failure to adequately curb greenhouse gas emissions to battle the global climate crisis.

The decision came in response to a last-ditch effort by the Trump administration to kill the "potentially landmark" case ahead of the trial slated to begin in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon on Oct. 29.

The case has been tied up in the legal system for three years. Just this week, District Court Judge Ann Aiken reaffirmed that the youth plaintiffs can credibly claim that the government has violated their due process rights. The Supreme Court, however, stayed discovery and the trial in an order (pdf) issued Friday, demanding a response from the plaintiffs' legal counsel by Wednesday afternoon. Michael Gerrard, director of Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia, called the move "highly unusual" and "reminiscent of their stay of the Clean Power Plan." ...

While the high court's one-page order provoked public outrage, Julia Olson of Our Children's Trust, co-counsel for the youth plaintiffs, remained optimistic and said the team plans to file their reply on Monday. "We are confident once Chief [John] Justice Roberts and the full court receive the youth plaintiffs' response to defendants' mischaracterization of their case, the trial will proceed," she said. "As the Supreme Court has recognized in innumerable cases, review of constitutional questions is better done on a full record where the evidence is presented and weighed by the trier of fact. This case is about already recognized fundamental rights and children's rights of equal protection under the law."

Trial of eight accused of murdering Honduran environmental activist Berta Cáceres in chaos

The trial of eight men accused over the murder of Honduran indigenous leader Berta Cáceres has been thrown into disarray after judges ousted the victim’s lawyers from proceedings. The legally suspect ruling in the country’s most high-profile case leaves the verdict vulnerable to appeal. The case is considered a litmus test for the justice system which has received millions of dollars of international aid in recent years

Cáceres, who won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize, was shot dead just before midnight on 2 March 2016 at her home in La Esperanza, in western Honduras, after a long battle against the internationally financed Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project on the Gualcarque river, territory sacred to the indigenous Lenca people. Her opposition to the scheme triggered a wave of smear campaigns against her, surveillance, sexual harassment, false criminal charges, multiple death threats and, ultimately, her murder. The latter sparked international condemnation and confirmed Honduras’s ranking as the most dangerous country in the world for defenders of the environment and land rights.

Gustavo Castro, a Mexican environmentalist, was also shot in the attack but survived by pretending to be dead. The eight defendants are also accused of his attempted murder. All eight deny the charges. The start of the trial had been suspended since September when lawyers representing the Cáceres family accused the three judges of bias and abuse of authority, and petitioned they be recused and replaced.

The petition was rejected, but on Friday the lawyers lodged another appeal, insisting the judges were not competent to hear the case after a series of decisions and omissions during pre-trial hearings violated due process and demonstrated bias against the victims. The judges initially accepted that the appeal should be admitted. Then, in a highly unusual move, after protests from the public prosecutors and defence lawyers, they ruled that the trial would open this weekend without legal representation for the victims. The judges claimed the victims’ lawyers, who presented the appeal in writing not person, had abandoned the trial. The victims, the judges said, would be adequately represented through the public prosecution.

In Honduras, the victims – in this case, the family, Copinh (the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organisations of Honduras, which Cáceres led) and Castro – are entitled to prosecute independently, alongside the state. In a statement, the family vowed to fight the decision.


Also of Interest

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

Post-Cold War U.S. Foreign Policy Has Been a Near Total Failure. Two New Books Look at Why.

In Jair Bolsonaro’s New Brazil, Far-Right Evangelical Billionaire Edir Macedo’s Media Empire Is Being Exploited to Investigate Journalists — Including The Intercept

Matt Taibbi: Three Colliding Problems Leading to a New Economic Disaster

Global 'War on Drugs' Terrible at Eradicating Drugs, But Great at Upending Societies: Report

Trump thinks scientists are split on climate change. So do most Americans

The 2018 Midterm Cycle Could Be the Most Islamophobic U.S. Election Ever


A Little Night Music

Reverend Gary Davis - Samson and Delilah

Reverend Gary Davis - I'll Be Alright Someday

Rev. Gary Davis - St. Louis Tickle

Rev. Gary Davis & Sonny Terry - When The Train Comes Along

Blind Gary Davis - I Heard the Angels Singing

Rev. Gary Davis - Maple Leaf Rag

Reverend Gary Davis - Candyman

Rev Gary Davis - I Am The Light Of The World

Rev. Gary Davis - Civil War March


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mimi's picture

at least then you would get not only a stupid and reckless one but an intelligently stupid and reckless one. It would be progress... you know.

Good Night and Good Luck. Hope all stay safe, dry and warm in their homes, and for those who have lost everything through the furious weather gods, prayers and help from your fellow good Americans, your friends and neighbors. May you be strong and not despair.

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divineorder's picture

@mimi

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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.

mimi's picture

@divineorder @divineorder
even the little people in Germany, like our garden-helper. Gorbachev is too. And better don't ask me.

German reactions to Trump's threat to ditch nuclear treaty with Russia

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty at a Glance - Fact Sheets & Briefs

How the world reacted to Trump’s proposed withdrawal from a nuclear arms treaty with Russia

'Don't throw baby out with bath water,' Germany tells U.S. on INF treaty (Funny that Germany seems to want seek help from NATO for keep the INF treaty in tact. Our foreign minister Heiko Maas seems to have some 'hopey changey feelings'. I guess he will learn his lesson taught by the moustache man...

Better I don't think about it. The moustache man has to go ...

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joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

shhhh! don't say that - it's far more dangerous than the threefold repetition of beetlejuice. Smile

my goodness, john "death cult" bolton as (shudder) president would surely be the final manifestation of the wrath of an angry god.

at least we wouldn't have to worry about climate change.

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mimi's picture

@joe shikspack

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Rational people may think that a treaty which helped de-escalate the threat of a nuclear war might be a good thing. Well you would be wrong. Check out this Glenn Greenwald twitter thread in which it is argued by a number of people that leaving the treaty serves Putin's interests. And by golly Trump did this knowing it would benefit Putin. I guess Bolton is a Putin stooge, and Putin is so evil he wants nuclear war. From a number of translated Putin speeches, he seemed totally serious about negotiating missile/nuke based treaties. But talking to anybody Russian is treason now.

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1053978385016410113

This is a major (and dangerous) provocation toward Russia by Trump that - like his lethal arms to Ukraine, the bombing of Assad's forces, & sanctions/expulsions - should cause anyone who peddled the "Putin-controls-Trump-with- kompromat" conspiracy tripe to apologize in shame:

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snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

Some of the comments on this tweet are just ridiculous. I can't believe that people can be that misinformed or brainwashed. People fall for the propaganda every time.

IMG_1681_0.JPG

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@snoopydawg It always reminds me of my born again ex-inlaws who saw the devil everywhere.

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divineorder's picture

@snoopydawg

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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

I did LoL Smile

Thanks. I'm going to have to use this when I respond to some of the Russia Gaters on Twitler.

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divineorder's picture

@snoopydawg

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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

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joe shikspack's picture

@MrWebster

heh, the conspiracy theory as self-fulfilling prophecy. gotta love the liberals.

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snoopydawg's picture

In how many ways is the country going backwards?

These Five Court Cases Could Change the Future of LGBT Rights

The Supreme Court nominee President Trump is expected to announce on Monday could play as large a role in unraveling LGBT rights as retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy did in recognizing them.

As LGBT legal advocacy groups previously told The Daily Beast, virtually everything will be on the line if Kennedy is replaced with an arch-conservative: transgender rights, employment protections, religious justifications for discrimination, and even marriage equality itself.

While it’s impossible to predict the specific cases that will end up before the high court, there are major court battles currently unfolding in each of these areas that could prove monumental. Here are five such cases that demonstrate just how deeply the LGBT community will be in jeopardy.

If these cases—or cases like them—are decided against LGBT people, the next Supreme Court could systematically dismantle what few rights the embattled community was on its way to securing.

“Should this case—or one like it—make it back to the U.S. Supreme Court, we could see a ruling that allows states to limit or eliminate benefits for same-sex couples while still technically allowing same-sex marriage to remain legal.”

WWJD? Or should I say, "would Jesus approve of these actions" since they are coming from the Christian Right.

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

wwjd? he'd get the hell out of dodge before the morons that have adapted his message to suit their own peculiar superstitions and hates get anywhere near him.

In how many ways is the country going backwards?

that is the genius of the donald for the fake christians. he is working to turn over the new deal, but is willing to please his monstrous xtian sponsors by turning the clock back to the dark ages.

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divineorder's picture

Sickened by the rampaging Bolton and the plan to witdraw from the nuke treaty, but should not be surprised given the money in teh the Defense bill earlier this year.

If anyone missed this when it came out rec going back and giving it a look:

Today noticed that Matt Stoller put this out via Twitter:

Don't know about Gillum but O'Rourke fits that bill for sure.

FB fiends in TX are all fired up about Beto O'Rourke to take Cruz seat. jb and I sent him some small money when he first ran for the House, based on suggestion at TOP. Heh. Soon after he was elected to represent El Paso . An within that first term he got invited on a junket to Israel. So it goes.

In the house he has voted for the Defense bills as most of them do.

Would give anything to get rid of Cruz but no revolution is going to be lead by Beto.

Just LOTE all over again.

FWIW, here are a couple of more interesting Stoll tweets:

....

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Azazello's picture

@divineorder
I told her about this and she didn't believe me. I told her to look it up.

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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 @Azazello

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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

Most Americans are probably aware that the Pentagon spends a lot of money, but it’s unlikely they grasp just how huge those sums really are. All too often, astonishingly lavish military budgets are treated as if they were part of the natural order, like death or taxes.

Boy ain't that the truth? The budget was bigger than Trump asked for and nobody blinked an eye at how every democrat voted for it. Of course except the ones who are going to run for president so they think that people will think that they are anti war. Or something. Harris and Booker didn't vote for it. And of course Bernie didn't so he could keep up his bonafides of being a progressive. If anyone thinks that he is listen to his rant in this tweet from Wendy's essay. Fully on board with Russia Gate!

Shaking my head, Bernie.

Nea

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joe shikspack's picture

@divineorder

yeah, i find it pretty amusing when democrats expect me to get excited about their candidates who want to incrementally roll back the new deal and cook the planet a little slower than their republican opponents - you know, because the dems don't want to roll back the enlightenment.

oh, yay!

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lotlizard's picture

@joe shikspack  
They just want him deplatformed and placed under house arrest for “inauthentic behavior.”

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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.

joe shikspack's picture

@The Aspie Corner

yep, the partisans play their games and some americans, but mostly brown people die.

it isn't going to change without a revolution.

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snoopydawg's picture

That’s right: China, which holds about $1.2 trillion in Treasury notes and about $1.5 trillion in U.S. debt overall.

In any trade war with China, the United States would seem to have an advantage. We import a lot more of their goods (last year, about $524 billion in Chinese products) than they import of ours (about $188 billion of U.S. exports). But all of this is moot if China suddenly stops buying U.S. debt, or even just slows down a bit.

Experts claim to think this is unlikely, given China’s own dependence on U.S. Treasuries as a safe destination for its trillions in foreign exchange reserves.

Why do countries buy our debt? What's in it for them? The interest that we pay them? Economics was never my strong suit.

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

Why do countries buy our debt? What's in it for them? The interest that we pay them?

they buy u.s. debt because the dollar is the leading world reserve currency and u.s. debt is considered to be very safe. the interest we pay (at current) is quite small and probably not a determining factor.

some of the reasons, depending on the nation, can be complicated. the saudis, for instance sell oil and buy u.s. weapons to offset the trade surplus and buy debt to store their value, keep the financial cycle going and have leverage over u.s. relations with them.

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snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

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divineorder's picture

In Texas they Teacher Retirement Service has lowered our basis, setting up the fund for attacks by those who want to privatize it.

If this doesn't lead to a revolution, what will:

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snoopydawg's picture

@divineorder

The upcoming bank bail-in should do it. There were riots in Greece when that happened. Hopefully everyone is aware of what it is and have their money out of the big banks.

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joe shikspack's picture

@divineorder

If this doesn't lead to a revolution, what will

it will certainly lead to a lot of very pissed off old people. hmmm... geezer riots. Smile

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lotlizard's picture

@joe shikspack  
Seems they never figured that out.

As usual, there were contradictory official statements that, a lot of people thought, didn’t add up …

As usual, people speculated to try and fill in the gaps …

As usual, they were called conspiracy theorists …

As usual, a few months later the entire thing was down the mainstream media memory hole and forgotten …

Beware grounchy geezers gettin’ guns …

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snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

You're right that no one has heard what the background of the Vegas shootings were. But isn't that what has been happening since Trump was elected? The media goes from one outrage to another without finding out what actually happened. I've heard that people said they heard more than one shooter coming from other directions and that the autopsy reports confirmed that because they showed wounds coming entering from different directions.

Then there's the number of people who have died after they survived the massacre. Why was this? Were they going to spill the beans on what they knew? This is how conspiracy theories start. We still don't know what his motives were.

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Azazello's picture

but then, I don't watch very much of it.
California guardsman killed in Ukrainian Su-27 crash
What a Putin puppet Trump is, holding war games in Ukraine.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

i hadn't seen any reporting about the california ang death, i had seen reports a while ago indicating that trump was going to send troops to training and war games in ukraine.

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Azazello's picture

@joe shikspack
just what Putin wanted all along.
I'm guessing that the US pilot wanted to take a flight in an Su-27, and what fighter pilot wouldn't, and got into trouble. Maybe he wanted to try doing Pugachev's Cobra.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daOPK07baBw 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.

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

absolutely, putin was surely thinking to himself, "how can i get the americans to plant some more bases on my borders?" 'cause, you know, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

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divineorder's picture

A friend of ours did work on this back before smartphone during the touch tone era.

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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 sounds like something that would be awfully difficult to secure. i want paper ballots. simple, effective, accountable,

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Azazello's picture

@divineorder
If it involves computer code, it can be hacked.

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

mimi's picture

@divineorder
so that it's not that easy to erase from the ballot. Then keep a copy of your ballot in your own record file at home.

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divineorder's picture

credit, etc. We try to block the number when we can.

Have not gotten this one yet though:

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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 congress needs to do something about it besides that worthless do not call list. I'm getting 2-3 calls every day from the IRS, the treasury department, some computer geek telling me that mine is causing the internet to crash and some other subjects. Elderly people don't know that they are being spammed and lots of them have seen their bank accounts wiped out.

I did a reverse phone number look up for 10 calls last night to see who has been calling and the site is many pages of people being spammed by which type of companies. Yep it's past time congress or the states looked into this and did something about it.

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lotlizard's picture

@snoopydawg  
who are doing a pretty good job being anti-Trump.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was even one single agency in DC fighting phone fraud and Internet fraud?

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smiley7's picture

store this early morning and lights went out as i left. And after an interlude, the day, on a brisk walk to an evening store, lights ... i wonder again, why all this attention?

Is what it is, bring 'em on, always; but, it hides in the shadows, religiously.

Have a good one and thanks for the news and blues.

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joe shikspack's picture

@smiley7

we haven't had any frost here yet, but i'm looking forward to it. we've had some fairly brisk mornings in the upper 30's, though.

hope you're having a good one and that the lights start acting right for you. Smile

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smiley7's picture

@joe shikspack

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mimi's picture

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teacher Allen Smithline who drove for (and lived with) the Rev.
https://youtu.be/MVC3Eh3X0ws
Great stuff.

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chuck utzman

TULSI 2020

joe shikspack's picture

@chuckutzman

good stuff, thanks!

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