The Evening Blues - 12-18-18



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Skip James

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta blues musician Skip James. Enjoy!

Skip James - Catfish Blues

"Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?"

-- Bertrand Russell


News and Opinion

Snarkily delicious and worth a full read:

Mass Media’s Russia Hysteria Is Openly Acknowledging The Power Of Propaganda

Asks popular #Resistance pundit Amy Siskind in response to a New York Times article claiming Russian social media trolls targeted Sanders supporters and Black voters during the 2016 election:


“I think we’ll get our answers in the coming months from the Mueller probe,” Siskind speculated.

Well that’s a mighty good question there, Amy, and I think the answer is pretty obvious. Clearly Russia knew to target African American voters because Donald Trump called his boss Vladimir Putin and told him about America’s secret racial issues, which nobody in any foreign country could ever know about on their own. Then it was a simple matter of sending the trolls of St Petersburg’s Internet Research Agency to trick Black people into thinking that the American political system hasn’t been working for them, thereby ensuring the defeat of the rightful heir to the presidential throne, Hillary Rodham Clinton. It’s not disenfranchised voters’ fault that Hillary’s coronation failed to take place, it’s the fault of Russian memes on social media which confused their silly heads about who they wanted to vote for!

This whole story is unbelievably idiotic. Not just because it’s based on a report by a private cybersecurity company that was founded by an NSA veteran, a company which would have every incentive to bend its findings in the most sensational way possible to attract clients with a viral new “bombshell” story about Russian election meddling. Not just because it infantilizes voters by implying that a smattering of cutesy memes deprived them of independent agency and caused the failure of Hillary Clinton’s historically awful presidential campaign. Not just because of the sleazy gaslighting element inherent in a narrative which insinuates that a populace meant to elect a different candidate but got confused. By far the dumbest thing about this story is the implicit suggestion that only Russian propaganda was at play during the 2016 election, and no other propaganda.

For all the fearmongering we see in the mass media about “Russian propaganda”, propaganda from Russia actually constitutes an almost nonexistent percentage of the media westerners consume which is designed to influence the way they think, act and vote. You can go your whole life without ever encountering any propaganda that was cooked up by the Kremlin, yet every day you are surrounded by screens, billboards and literature aimed at manipulating you into supporting the corporatist oligarchy that rules the nation you live in. The only reason anyone thinks Russian psyops have any kind of meaningful influence on people’s minds is because the mass media have been shrieking about it day in and day out for two years without ever contrasting it with the rest of the propaganda they consume. But within all the hysterical hand-wringing about Russian propaganda there is an important admission: these mass media talking heads are all openly acknowledging that there exists a science for manipulating the minds of the public, and that it is very effective. Now if they could only admit that they are the world’s greatest practitioners of this science, they’d be telling the full story.

Apparently, either the ruling class cannot believe that the little people experience actual distress at not being able to afford their basic needs, or, they are orchestrating a devious plan to assert greater control based upon a manufactured foreign hobgoblin.

Gilets jaunes: grassroots heroes or tools of the Kremlin?

Russian state television has spent much of the last two weeks playing up the chaos of France’s protests, continuing a trend of coverage that emerged long before troll factories and the modern era of “fake news”. Seven years ago, the Kremlin-backed TV station Russia Today went all in on coverage of a leftist street protest in the west. Did Occupy Wall Street fit the Kremlin’s interests of showing a western nation in (relative) chaos? Yes. But at that time, few would have suggested that Occupy was anything but a genuine protest movement. ...

Thanks to recent events, specifically the 2016 US election, protests in the west are now treated with wariness, and France is already investigating whether it too has been a victim of Russian disinformation. Projects that track Kremlin influence abroad, such as the Alliance for Securing Democracy dashboard, listed “#giletsjaunes” as one of the trending terms used by accounts “linked to Russian influence operations”. The thinktank doesn’t name the accounts it monitors, which makes checking the reports impossible. But in this case it would be hard not to notice Russian media laser-focused on the protests and Russian online trolls doing what they love: trolling.

What similar studies do not measure is the efficacy of Russian messaging. ... It is possible that time will come, but there is scant evidence to prove that it has done so already. For the moment, on-the-ground reporting shows that participants in the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) have organic, significant causes for protest that are tied neither closely to Russia or to what they read online. ...

On the barricades on roundabouts and at tollbooths in rural and suburban France, gilets jaunes demonstrators said they had joined the protests out of frustration with their struggle to make ends meet. Although most had organised their protests via local Facebook groups or social media, many said they were protesting because of real difficulties in their lives rather than because of what they had been reading or watching online.

Did Facebook Cause Riots in France?

In the days since protesters wearing yellow vests (gilets jaunes) began taking to the streets of France in the hundreds of thousands to voice their opposition to a proposed gas tax hike — and, more broadly, to the deeply unpopular administration of President Macron — English-language media has begun circling around a particular story of causation: This is Facebook’s fault. In Bloomberg, Leonid Bershidsky writes that “Street riots in Paris are less about a tiny fuel tax hike than the power of social networks to radicalize their users”; on Medium, Frederic Filloux argues that Facebook is “fueling the French populist rage.” Most widely circulated is a lengthy and detailed Buzzfeed article headlined “The ‘Yellow Jackets’ Riots In France Are What Happens When Facebook Gets Involved With Local News.”

The general story goes something like this: Earlier this year, Facebook changed the way it sorts its news feed in the hopes of reducing partisan squabbles and links to “fake news,” and began promoting posts from friends and family and semi-private Facebook groups over posts that link off the website. Unwittingly, however, the company was promoting mass unrest, by pushing into users’ feeds, memes, and rants from the semi-political populist groups that would become the core organizational structure of the gilets jaunes. ... The problem is that there’s very little evidence being provided for this particular narrative. We know that Facebook has adjusted its News Feed sorting in various ways over the last year. We know that some of the protesters have used Facebook to organize themselves. But it seems like a big stretch to go from there to calling the movement “a beast born almost entirely from Facebook,” as Buzzfeed does.

That’s not to say that Facebook was irrelevant to the protests. There seems to be consensus that the social network is the organizational platform of choice for the gilets jaunes. But the idea that popular outrage is more about “the power of social networks” than actual French politics, as Bershidsky argues, seems very wrong, and more than a little irresponsible. “Some in Paris have suggested all gilets jaunes are driven by fake-news and conspiracy theories on Facebook, & are somehow uneducated,” Guardian Paris bureau chief Angelique Chrisafis tweeted on Friday morning. “That was not what I found and it would be a mistake to think that … ” At one barricade, Chrisafis spoke with a wide range of citizens “united in fury at Macron’s way of running France — what they called his top-down approach cut off from ordinary people’s experiences. Everyone could angrily quote examples of Macron’s ‘arrogance.’” This sounds like real grievance, not inauthentically promoted “fake news.”

Facebook is obviously an important component to the gilets jaunes protests, but some care is needed about how we attribute causality or we run the risk of misunderstanding not just the situation in France, but the relationship between social media and protest movements.

‘Yellow Vests’ open a new front in the battle: Popular referendums

Slavoj Zizek weighs in on the Gilet Jaunes, worth a full read:

The yellow vest protesters revolting against centrism mean well – but their left wing populism won’t change French politics

In the past weeks the yellow vests (gilets jaunes) movement has grown to include a panoply of demands, including Frexit (the exit of France from EU), lower taxes, higher pensions, and an improvement in ordinary French people’s spending power. They offer an exemplary case of the leftist populism, of the explosion of people’s wrath in all its inconsistency: lower taxes and more money for education and health care, cheaper petrol and ecological struggle… Although the new petrol tax was obviously an excuse or, rather, pretext, not what the protests are “really about”, it is significant to note that what triggered the protests was a measure intended to act against global warming. ...

One should be clear here: in all the explosion of demands and expression of dissatisfaction, it is clear the protesters don’t really know what they want, they don’t have a vision of a society they want, just a mixture of demands that are impossible to meet within the system although they address them at the system. This feature is crucial: their demands express their interests rooted in the existing system. One should not forget that they are addressing these demands at the (political) system at its best, which, in France, means: Macron. The protests mark the end of the Macron dream. Recall the enthusiasm about Macron offering new hope not only of defeating the rightist populist threat but of provide a new vision of progressive European identity, which brought philosophers as opposed as Habermas and Sloterdijk to support Macron. Recall how every leftist critique of Macron, every warning about the fatal limitations of his project, was dismissed as “objectively” supporting Marine Le Pen.

Today, with the ongoing protests in France, we are brutally confronted with the sad truth of the pro-Macron enthusiasm. Macron’s TV address to the protesters on 10 December was a miserable performance, half-compromise half-apology, which convinced no one and stood out by its lack of vision. Macron may be the best of the existing system, but his politics is located within the liberal-democratic coordinates of the enlightened technocracy. We should therefore give the protests a conditional yes – conditional since it is clear that left populism does not provide a feasible alternative to the system. That is to say, let’s imagine that the protesters somehow win, take power and act within the coordinates of the existing system (like Syriza did in Greece) – what would have happened then? Probably some kind of economic catastrophe. This doesn’t mean that we simply need a different socioeconomic system, a system which would be able to meet the protesters’ demands: the process of radical transformation would also give rise to different demands and expectations. Say, with regard to fuel costs, what is really needed is not just cheap fuel, the true goal is to diminish our dependency on oil for ecological reasons, to change not only our transportation but our entire way of life. The same holds for lower taxes plus better healthcare and education: the whole paradigm will have to change.

The same holds for our big ethical-political problem: how to deal with the flow of refugees? The solution is not to just open the borders to all who want to come in, and to ground this openness in our generalised guilt (“our colonisation is our greatest crime which we will have to repay forever”). If we remain at this level, we serve perfectly the interests of those in power who foment the conflict between immigrants and the local working class (which feels threatened by them) and retain their superior moral stance. (The moment one begins to think in this direction, the politically correct left instantly cries fascism – see the ferocious attacks on Angela Nagle for her outstanding essay “The Left Case against Open Borders”) Again, the “contradiction” between advocates of open borders and populist anti-immigrants is a false “secondary contradiction” whose ultimate function is to obfuscate the need to change the system itself: the entire international economic system which, in its present form, gives rise to refugees.

Keiser Report: Canceling Debt to Avoid Economic Crisis

A ceasefire has stopped fighting in Yemen’s Hodeidah

A UN-brokered ceasefire in Yemen remained intact Tuesday, after initial skirmishes between Houthi rebels and government forces threatened to sink the deal minutes after it came into effect. The agreed cessation started at midnight local time Tuesday (4 pm Monday ET) and covers Hodeidah city and port, as well we the ports of Salif and Ras Issa.

The truce looked broken as fighting continued after midnight, but as dawn broke calm descended over the besieged city. The UN special envoy for Yemen said Tuesday he was positive about the ceasefire holding.

“The problem is that the forces have yet to disengage, and when they're close up to each other they are liable to respond to anything they see as a provocation or an alert,” Martin Griffiths told the BBC. “So we can expect some of this happening, but the pattern is a positive one.”

WaPo: Trump Needs to Destroy Venezuela to Save It

Tamara Taraciuk Broner of Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Johns Hopkins professor Kathleen Page took to the pages of the Washington Post (11/26/18) to whitewash Donald Trump’s successful efforts to make Venezuela’s economic crisis much worse.  Appropriately enough, at the end of the piece, the Post recommended four other articles (11/23/18, 9/11/18, 6/20/18, 8/21/18) that either attacked Venezuela’s government or stayed conspicuously silent about the impact of US economic sanctions. Propaganda works primarily through repetition. The vilification of Venezuela’s government in the Western media has been relentless for the past 17 years, as Alan MacLeod pointed out in his book Bad News From Venezuela.

NGOs like HRW play an important role in framing the Western imperial agenda from a supposedly “independent” and “humanitarian” perspective, as dramatically illustrated after the death of Sen. John McCain (FAIR.org, 8/31/18) when several HRW officials joined the US media in sanctifying an overtly racist warmonger. In contrast, a few hours after Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013, HRW rushed out a statement vilifying Chavez’s years in office, displaying total indifference to his achievements in reducing poverty and improving health outcomes, despite the violent, scorched-earth tactics of his US-backed opponents to prevent this from happening. No such statement was rushed out by HRW to attack George H.W. Bush—the recently departed butcher of Panama and initiator of the decades-long mass slaughter in Iraq, to mention only a few of his crimes.

HRW has repeatedly invoked the impact of an economic crisis in Venezuela to call for more US-led “pressure” on Venezuela’s government, as was done by Taraciuk and Page. They wrote:

But most sanctions—imposed by the United States, Canada and the European Union—are limited to canceling visas and freezing assets of key officials implicated in abuses and corruption. They have no impact on the Venezuelan economy.

In 2017, the United States also imposed financial sanctions, including a ban on dealings in new stocks and bonds issued by the government and its state oil company. But even these include an exception for transactions to purchase food and medicines. In fact, the government has purchased food from abroad, but these efforts have given rise to corruption allegations.

The idea that “most sanctions” have “no impact on the Venezuelan economy” is appalling nonsense (FAIR.org, 3/22/18). ... The US allies Taraciuk and Page mentioned mainly provide propaganda cover for a US-led assault. Bear in mind that the United States, Canada and other countries within the European Union are supplying weapons and other essential military support to Saudi Arabia, even as it inflicts famine on Yemen. Why do you suppose governments barbaric enough to arm Saudi Arabia also target Venezuela with economic sanctions? Does concern over human rights and corruption, which Taraciuk and Page uncritically cited as a rationale, pass the laugh test?

Belgian PM Charles Michel resigns after no-confidence motion

Belgium’s government of four years has fallen on the issue of migration after the country’s parliament rejected an appeal from prime minister, Charles Michel, for its support for a minority administration. Michel was forced to offer his resignation to the King of the Belgians, Phillipe, after the Socialist party, with support from the Greens, proposed a vote of no confidence in his administration.

The country is now braced for a snap election in January. The head of Michel’s party said the opposition had rejected the government’s “fair offer” in order to secure a political scalp. “The Socialist opposition and Greens wanted a trophy and have it”, said David Clarinval, chairman of the liberal Reform Movement party.

Following the departure of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the largest of the coalition government’s four parties, Michel had appealed to the federal parliament to back a minority administration until the country held its general election next May. ...

Michel was subsequently asked by the King to be a caretaker prime minister, with reduced powers, while parliament seeks to construct a new alliance of parties that can take the reins of power. It is expected that the talks with parties will take several days but that a election will be held in the new year.

Marc Lamont Hill Speaks Out After CNN Fires Him for Pro-Palestine Speech at U.N.

2018 was the worst year on record for violence against journalists

Attacks against the media by “unscrupulous” politicians helped make 2018 the worst ever year for violence and abuse against journalists, according to a report released Tuesday.

At least 80 journalists were killed, 348 are in jail and another 60 are being held hostage, according to the annual report from Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based media watchdog.

“Violence against journalists has reached unprecedented levels this year, and the situation is now critical,” the group’s secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “The hatred of journalists that is voiced, and sometimes very openly proclaimed, by unscrupulous politicians, religious leaders and businessmen has tragic consequences on the ground and has been reflected in this disturbing increase in violations against journalists.” ...

Forty-nine of the journalists killed were deliberately targeted. Yet only a handful of these killings have garnered international media coverage — such as the killing of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi’s inside his country’s consulate in Istanbul, or the shooting of Slovak data journalist Jan Kuciak in his home. Those killings showed “how far some people will go to silence ‘troublesome’ journalists,” the report said.

The remaining 31 killed were caught up in violence, the report states. Afghanistan was the deadliest country for journalists in 2018, with 15 killed, followed by Syria, Mexico, and Yemen, while the United States featured for the first time as one of the most dangerous following the murder of five people in a shooting at the Capital Gazette, in Annapolis, Maryland.

Glenn Greenwald: Congress Is Trying to Make It a Federal Crime to Participate in Boycott of Israel

With Friday Deadline, These 16 House Democrats About to Go Down in History for Helping GOP Kill Internet as We Know It

The U.S. House still has an opportunity to side with the vast majority of the American public and overturn the Republican-controlled FCC's net neutrality repeal, but time is quickly running out. With Friday, Dec. 21, marking the official deadline to restore net neutrality in this session of Congress, the House still needs 38 signatures to pass the Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would reverse the FCC's deeply unpopular repeal, which was crafted by agency chairman and former Verizon lawyer Ajit Pai.

According to Fight for the Future, 16 Democrats—all of whom are major recipients of telecom cash—still haven't signed on to the CRA. To pass, the CRA needs every Democrat and at least 22 Republicans to sign on before the Friday deadline.

The 18 House Democrats who still haven't signed on to the Congressional Review Act (CRA) measure to restore net neutrality protections are: Reps. Brandon Boyle (Pa.), Robert Brady (Pa.), G.K. Butterfield (N.C.), Matt Cartwright (Pa.), Jim Costa (Calif.), Henry Cueller (Texas), Dwight Evans (Pa.), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Gene Green (Texas), Tom O'Halleran (Ariz.), Brad Schneider (Ill.), David Scott (Ga.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Filemon Vela (Texas), and Pete Visclosky (Ind.).

View the full list of House members who have yet to back the CRA here.

Trump may back down from $5bn border wall demand, White House says

Donald Trump may back down on his demand for $5bn for a wall on the border with Mexico to avoid a government shutdown, the White House has unexpectedly signaled. The president had been insisting that Congress include the money in spending bills that must be passed and signed into law by Friday night in order to keep the federal government up and running. But the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, said on Tuesday that Trump wants to avoid a shutdown and can find other ways to pay for his proposed wall.

At a White House meeting last week with House and Senate Democratic leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, Trump declared he would be “proud” to shut down the government. “I am proud to shut down the government for border security,” he said. “I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it.” But congressional Republicans, unsure of the path forward, have encouraged him to back down from the fight, seeing no way he could win it. ...

anders said Trump would now be prepared to support alternate border security legislation, “as long as we can couple that with other funding resources that would help us get to the $5bn”. She said the White House “absolutely” believes it could legally use defense funding to pay for the wall, a proposition likely to meet legal challenge if tried.

US left isolated at UN over stance on abortion and refugees

The United States has found itself isolated at the 193-member United Nations general assembly over Washington’s concerns about the promotion of abortion and a voluntary plan to address the global refugee crisis. Only Hungary backed the United States and voted against an annual resolution on the work of the UN refugee agency, while 181 countries voted in favor and three abstained. The resolution has generally been approved by consensus for more than 60 years.

However, this year the resolution included approval of a compact on refugees, which was produced by the UN refugee chief, Filippo Grandi, after it was requested by the general assembly in 2016. The resolution calls on countries to implement the plan. The US was the only country to oppose the draft resolution last month when it was first negotiated and agreed by the general assembly human rights committee. It said elements of the text ran counter to its sovereign interests, citing the global approach to refugees and migrants.

The US also failed in a campaign – which started last month during negotiations on several draft resolutions in the general assembly human rights committee – against references to “sexual and reproductive health” and “sexual and reproductive health-care services”.

US government shutdown looms as standoff over border wall deepens

The standoff over Donald Trump’s $5bn wall funds has deepened, threatening a partial government shutdown. Monday brought few signs of progress in solving a dispute between Republicans and Democrats over keeping the government open. A partial shutdown that could occur at midnight Friday risks disrupting government operations and leaving hundreds of thousands of federal employees furloughed or working without pay over the holiday season. Costs would probably be in the billions of dollars. ...

The president is insisting on $5bn for the wall along the southern border with Mexico, but he does not have the votes from the Republican-led Congress to support it. Democrats are offering to continue funding at current levels, $1.3bn. It’s unclear how many House Republicans, with just a few weeks left in the majority before relinquishing power to House Democrats, will even show up mid-week for possible votes. Many say it is up to Trump and Democrats to cut a deal. ...

Meanwhile, more than 800,000 government workers are preparing for the uncertainty ahead. The dispute could affect nine of 15 cabinet-level departments and dozens of agencies, including the departments of homeland security, transportation, interior, agriculture, state and justice, as well as national parks and forests. About half the workers would be forced to continue working without immediate pay. Others would be sent home. Congress often approves their pay retroactively, even if they were ordered to stay home. ...

Many agencies, including the Pentagon and the departments of veterans affairs and health and human services, are already funded for the year and will continue to operate as usual, regardless of whether Congress and the president reach agreement this week.



the horse race



Congressional Progressives Join Pro Wall St. Coalition



the evening greens


Even conservative Republicans like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, poll says

A new poll from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication shows strong bipartisan support for the Green New Deal, a plan to rapidly decarbonize the U.S. economy by investing in green infrastructure and jobs that has been championed by Congresswoman-elect Ocasio-Cortez.

Eighty-one percent of respondents, regardless of their political ideology, said they either “somewhat” or “strongly” support the progressive climate change policy proposal. Three-quarters of moderate Republicans said they supported a Green New Deal, and 57 percent of conservative Republicans said that they, too, were in favor of the idea. An overwhelming amount of Democrats, at 92 percent, support the Green New Deal, along with 88 percent of independents. It's worth noting, however, that the poll has a relatively low sample size.


Notably, pollsters did not mention Ocasio-Cortez — who has became Fox News’ favorite example of a leftist boogeyman — by name when asking voters about their support of the Green New Deal. The pollsters said that “very few people had heard about it.” People are prone to respond less favorably when they learn that a policy is supported by someone of the opposing political party, so it’s likely that the issue will become more partisan going forward.

As Cuomo Touts Green New Deal for New York, Critics Warn 'Empty Rhetoric' Just as 'Dangerous as Inaction'

Climate campaigners on Monday responded to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 2019 Justice Agenda—which includes a pledge to pursue a Green New Deal for the state—with demands that the Democratic governor push for even bolder policies than those he is promising.

The governor's office claimed that by making the state's electricity carbon neutral by 2040, "New York will be the most progressive state in the nation in moving to renewables and growing the new sustainable green economy," but green groups say that's not nearly detailed or ambitious enough. "Cuomo calls the climate crisis a matter of life and death, but unfortunately his policies don't match the lofty rhetoric," Food & Water Watch Northeast region director Alex Beauchamp declared in a statement. "A vague pledge of carbon neutrality by the year 2040 is not the bold action necessary to move New York off fossil fuels."

Betámia Coronel, a native New Yorker and 350.org U.S. national organizer, concurred—warning that "empty rhetoric and lip service is as dangerous as inaction."

Chickens freezing to death and boiled alive: failings in US slaughterhouses exposed

Chickens slowly freezing to death, being boiled alive, drowned or suffocating under piles of other birds are among hundreds of shocking welfare incidents recorded at US slaughterhouses, according to previously unpublished reports. Among them are “inexcusable” violations, say campaigners, who ask if the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) current system, where inspectors issue reports when they see violations, really works. One inspector, who asked to remain anonymous, questioned the impact of those reports.

An investigation by the Guardian and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism looked at hundreds of inspection logs from the USDA detailing incidents in poultry plants across the country. In recent years, inspectors recorded numerous incidents where:

  • chickens suffocated to death beneath other chickens when they piled up on a conveyor belt that had stopped due to a mechanical failure.

  • chickens drowned after entering the scalding tank while conscious.

  • machines failed or there were incidents of staff being inadequately trained.

  • thousands of birds died of heat stress after travelling or being left waiting in trucks in temperatures above 90 degrees F, or alternatively, freezing to death in extremely low temperatures.

The USDA dictates rules for humane slaughter, but these only apply to “livestock”, which the US government considers separate from “poultry”. There are “good commercial practice” guidelines, but they are largely voluntary and not enforced. The USDA is not obliged to take any action against plants that violate these practices, other than writing up a report. “We’ve learned that the incidents resulting in the most suffering are those related to the neglect or abandonment of birds during transportation and during holding at the slaughter plant,” said Dena Jones, director of the Farm Animal Program at the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute (AWI). “None of these incidents is covered by current USDA regulations.”

Animal welfare organisations have submitted legal petitions in recent decades charging that the USDA is not fulfilling its remit to protect animals from undue suffering and the public from unsafe meat. The USDA has consistently responded that it does not have the jurisdiction to create such regulation. “FSIS is a regulatory agency that ensures that laws affecting livestock and poultry are implemented in federal establishments across the nation,” said an FSIS spokesperson. “It would indeed require an act of Congress for poultry to be added under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.”


Also of Interest

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

The World Is Now the Property of the 1 Percent

Chris Hedges: Trump, the Quintessential American

The ‘Gilets Jaunes’ Movement Is Not a Facebook Revolution

Brazil’s biggest tribal reserve faces uncertain future under Bolsonaro

Wisconsin activists fight threat to African American vote

To take on climate change, we need to change our vocabulary

How Newark got lead in its water, and what it means for the rest of America


A Little Night Music

Skip James - Illinois Blues

Skip James - Look Down The Road

Skip James - I'm So Glad

Skip James - If You Haven't Any Hay Get On Down The Road

Skip James - Crow Jane

Skip James - Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues

Skip James - Devil Got My Woman

Skip James - Drunken Spree

Skip James - Lazy Bones

Skip James - All Night Long


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WindDancer13's picture

least among you. (Matt 25) We are failing as badly at this as we are at being stewards of the earth. (Listening to Keiser's bible-based discussion while thinking about the chicken article.)

Found this interesting. It gives a different view of millennials who are taking a lot of the blame by older generations as well as corporations for so many things lately. It is quite short.

Panel Discussion: New ‘Adulting’ Classes Being Offered

Side thought: Doesn't taking a group of people and applying a label on them and, therefore, expecting them to be all behave or think the same, show a lack of critical thinking?

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

@WindDancer13
We know who is to blame. It is the role of the media to convince us otherwise. I, for one, do not buy it.

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WindDancer13's picture

@QMS

Although, it has taken the heat off of baby boomers who two years ago were receiving the blame for everything. Why is it so hard to place the blame on the individuals who truly deserve it? In part, I think you are right that the media holds some responsibility for that, but I think it goes deeper. How about a government system that set out to destroy everyone getting a good education?

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

joe shikspack's picture

@WindDancer13

heh, i think that this whole "millenials" thing is just another way that the ruling classes use the media wurlitzer to implant narratives in impressionable minds that lead to social divisions ripe for exploitation (divide and conquer).

sure there are generational differences, but they pale in comparison to the similarities between people.

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I am getting the impression that black activists are none too pleased about the assertion that Russians suppressed the black vote for Hillary. Some have complained that the democrats are taking a paternalistic attitude toward black people and denying them agency (too stupid to know better) and are suspect able to some juvenile tweets and ads.

Russiagate is an obsession of the white liberal and media elites. But last month fresh in the minds of a lot people was that white republicans actually suppressed black voters. Not a Russian in sight. And from what I can gather, no white democrats in sight either. In some sense, the report denied the historical and currently reality of black voter suppression. Why just everybody wanted to vote for Miss Hillary.

I warned about this (slapping self on back) obsession was ignoring where the real electoral bullshit was happening--it was all within the system, as only people within the system can fck with it--not some Russian in Moscow.

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joe shikspack's picture

@MrWebster

heh, i'm pretty sure that the dems use of the russiarussiarussia narrative is going to backfire. it seems intuitively obvious that you are not going to obtain the support of african-americans by suggesting that they have no real grievances, they are stupid and easily manipulated - not a winning appeal.

despite my high level of cynicism, i find their racism and hubris appalling.

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mimi's picture

don't we have massive yellow vest demonstrations in Germany, especially why not in former East German regions?

The former East Germans must have the same anger that most of the French yellow vesters have, it's about injustice for the have nots, not making meats end, anger about those who have a lot, ie former West Germans, feeling betrayed etc.

I have a yellow vest. I intend to wear one now in Germany. Let's start a movement. I should have a sign saying FO Zuckerberg.

I am angry enough. So, if I join the yellow vesters, I am either a puppet of Putin or Zuckerberg? Insanity you are my middle name. Gosh when will this nightmare end?

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joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

why don't we have massive yellow vest demonstrations in Germany

my guess would be that there are cultural and historical reasons why germans do not react in the same way that the french do, in similar conditions.

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mimi's picture

@joe shikspack
thanks for that excellent article. I always dreamt or being a French woman. Smile

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ggersh's picture

what it's like to be black in the u.s.
and it isn't good

bostonglobe.com

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

joe shikspack's picture

@ggersh

was there a link that you wanted to share? i checked the front page of the globe site but couldn't find anything related.

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ggersh's picture

@joe shikspack click over here it should have the
Bostonglobe link, one extra click, can you handle
the.....

excuse my poor sense of humor please

https://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=31935982

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

Azazello's picture

That's a very good Keiser Report today, both halves. I'll have to reserve Husdson's new book at the library.
Here's an interesting essay, from Jacobin: Liberalism in Theory and Practice
No surprise to see Arizona's Sinema and O'Halleran among the 16 House Dems. They stink on ice. They are both members of the New Dems and the Blue Dogs. Sinema is the chair of the Blue Dog PAC, i.e. the head bag lady.
The snowpack is in decline.
Keef turned 75 today.
Have a nice night.

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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

heh, that's a pretty good rant in jacobin. thanks!

hey, i hear that keef also went off the booze for the most part and has been off it for about a year now.

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Azazello's picture

@joe shikspack
I hope he's still able to enjoy a smoke now and then.

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

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Azazello

They are like a blog in a blog. I often find myself wandering the tunnels of the rabbit holes you've dug for extended periods. And they always deliver excellent discoveries. So, thanks.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Azazello's picture

@Pluto's Republic

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

This is a really good article

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joe shikspack's picture

@gjohnsit

heh, imo, perception has been gaining on fact for years and may eventually eclipse it, except in one area. most people have a pretty good grasp on what's in their wallet, what's in the larder and the difficulty of filling them.

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dystopian's picture

The Russia and Facebook blame both have the same goal: censorship.

I did hear both blamed for the yellow vests, I guess in case one didn't work. It is not the neo-lib policies bringing those people out.

Remember when the WAPO was a paper of record, instead of the CIA and Bezos propaganda machine?

I can't figure the calculation on how you have an anti-BDS law in a democracy. If it were a democracy, how could you have or need anti-BDS laws? In a democracy anti-BDS laws would be outlawed.

Based on the questions asked of Mr. Google when he went to congress, I now understand why the congress critters don't understand net neutrality. Besides that they are paid not to understand.

As for us not joining the world with the U.N. resolution on refugees, I guess Nikki Hellfire Haley didn't get to tell the world to F off this time? I wonder if we explained that our only refugee policy was to create them. And blame them for being there.

Skip James was amazing... that right hand... wow, amazing picking, and hits those harmonics at the end of I'm So Glad, awesome! Those decades he wasn't recording after the depression knocked him out of the game were a great loss. Like Buchanan cutting hair.

Thanks for the blues and news!

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

joe shikspack's picture

@dystopian

Remember when the WAPO was a paper of record, instead of the CIA and Bezos propaganda machine?

heh, i remember when, for the most part, newspapers as institutions were interested in getting the facts first and most accurately into print. now they seem more like corporations that leverage their credibility and reach for cash.

our congressworms are woefully ill-prepared to regulate internet commercial interests. they don't understand the issues well enough to figure out what sort of advisors they need to hire to assist them.

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snoopydawg's picture

I was surprised by how many websites yesterday were talking about the Russian ads that made Her lose.

How Putin's Russia Weaponizes X

Read the comment by librul #22 who listed the websites that posted on this. I'm wondering what is being planned that needed people to remember how Vlad stole Hillary's spot in history?

Remember when Russia was blamed for MLK?

IMG_2953.JPG

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

WindDancer13's picture

@snoopydawg

Why that would be her 2020 campaign slogan: "Don't let the Russian's tell you how to vote! Return to me and I will tell them to Knock It Off!"

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

@WindDancer13

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

her will never allow anyone to forget that vlad stole her coronation. it's stupid and wrong, but it's the sort of comfortable falsehood that partisans will maintain forever.

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WindDancer13's picture

The vote for that is coming up on the 21st. The same day as the deadline for the shutdown. Some enterprising soul needs to sneak in an amendment to roll back the previous ruling into the budget bill. Example: Repubs snuck in the no voting on Yemen bill into the Farm Bill.

Edited to add: I just found this. Sen Cardin is sneaking in a bill into the must-pass budget to prohibit people (with penalties) who participate in any BDS (Boycott Divest Sanction) activities toward Israel.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

snoopydawg's picture

@WindDancer13

Cardin thinks that protecting Israel's feelings is more important than saving net neutrality? *#*%^*!!

Best not I translate this, but I'm steamed over this lick spittle crap. We know that if he can do that then someone could do that for net neutrality. Who is writing the legislation for it do you know?

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

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

senator ben cardin is a wholly-owned subsidiary of aipac. he has been at this for a while now.

his first attempt, which had broad support from fellow democrats, fell apart (and cosponsors and supporters drifted away) when the aclu raised a stink about it.

since then he (or some aipac lobbyists) modified the language to what he claims is acceptable and the aclu still claims is not.

here's an article i posted about it a couple of weeks ago.

apparently, the constitution is just a "damned piece of paper" when it gets in the way of what ben cardin and the israel lobby want.

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WindDancer13's picture

@snoopydawg

Repubs sneak stuff like this in all the time. In fact, HRC used Sander's vote "yes" on a must-pass bill that had one of these nasty little riders in it against him during the debates. Of course, she just said that he had voted yes on that particular thing, nothing about the bill it was attached to or the majority who also voted for it.

I can think of no reason why the net neutrality bill could not be handled the same way. Other than finding someone with the guts to do it.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

The Aspie Corner's picture

Thought we could all use a laugh.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAYZ6mEwLsY]

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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

thanks! that was pretty great.

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Azazello's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDMDMLF2j1A width:400 height:240]

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