The Evening Blues - 10-1-19
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features delta bluesman Robert Nighthawk. Enjoy!
Robert Nighthawk - Burning Heat
“Colonialism hardly ever exploits the whole of a country. It contents itself with bringing to light the natrual resources, which it extracts, and exports to meet the needs of the mother country's industries, thereby allowing certain sectors of the colony to become relatively rich. But the rest of the colony follows its path of under-development and poverty, or at all events sinks into it more deeply.”
-- Frantz Fanon
News and Opinion
Worth a full read:
Gaddafi vs the West: Two Revolutions on the Wrong Side of History
This month marks half a century since Muammar Gaddafi's Libyan revolution, which led to the overthrow of the American-backed King Irdis. In Libya's 1969 revolution, Muammar Gaddafi inherited one of the poorest nations in Africa; however, by the time he was assassinated, Gaddafi's socialism had turned Libya into Africa's wealthiest nation. Libya had the highest GDP per capita and life expectancy on the continent.
The Western-backed counter-revolution of 2011 has resulted in Libya becoming a failed state and its economy is in shambles. ...
The two revolutions that have occurred in Libya over the last 50 years could not be more diametrically opposed.
Gaddafi's demise has brought about all of the nation's worst-case scenarios: Western embassies have all left, the south of Libya has become a haven for terrorists, and the northern coast a center of mass migrant trafficking. Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia have all closed their borders with Libya. This all occurs amidst an environment of rampant assassinations, rape and torture that complete the picture of a state that is failed to its core.
In 2011, the West's objective was clearly not to help the Libyan people, who already had the highest standard of living in Africa, but to oust Gaddafi, install a puppet regime, and gain control of Libya's natural resources. People who think that the West's intervention in Libya was just another oil grab are mistaken. Broadly speaking, for America, the military intervention was mainly about arms; for Italy, its oil and natural gas; and for France, its water. ...
In 2009, Mr. Gaddafi invited the New York Times to Libya to spend two weeks observing the nation's direct democracy. The New York Times, that is highly critical of Gaddafi's democratic experiment, conceded that in Libya, the intention was that "everyone is involved in every decision. People meet in committees and vote on everything from foreign treaties to building schools." Far from being a military dictatorship, Libya under Gaddafi was Africa's most prosperous democracy. In the West's version of "democracy" in Libya today the militias, variously local, tribal, regional, Islamist or criminal, have recently formed two warring factions. Libya now has two governments, both with their own Prime Minister, parliament and army, fueling perpetual civil war and destroying all chance of an actual democratic state.
Clearly, Gaddafi's revolution created one of the 21st century's most profoundly successful experiments in economic democracy. In stark contrast, the 2011 Western-backed counter revolution may indeed go down in history as one of the greatest social and military failures of the 21st century.
Senate Urged to Reject Trump's Pick of Bush-Era Torture Advocate to Be Human Rights Official at State Department
Human rights advocates are urging senators to block the advancement of Marshall Billingslea, President Donald Trump's pick to be the executive branch's top human rights official,citing his record as a torture advocate under the George W. Bush administration.
"I realize that absolutely no one in the world would expect anything else from Trump, but still, having your human rights guy be a supporter of torture?" tweeted Andrew Stroehlein, Human Rights Watch's (HRW) European media director Monday. "That's a step beyond."
Billingslea, who is currently assistant secretary for terrorist financing at the Treasury Department, would serve as Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights at the State Department.
He faced a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month over Democrats' opposition because they lacked "basic vetting information."
"There has been ample evidence that Mr. Billingslea encouraged the use of interrogation methods that amount to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment while he served in the Bush administration," said Daphne Eviatar, director of Security with Human Rights at Amnesty International USA, the day of the committee hearing. "This makes a mockery of that important position."
MoveOn's Phony New Campaign for 'Protecting Whistleblowers'
All of a sudden, MoveOn wants to help "national security" whistleblowers.
Well, some of them, anyway.
After many years of carefully refusing to launch a single campaign in support of brave whistleblowers who faced vicious prosecution during the Obama administration—including Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake and Edward Snowden, and CIA whistleblowers John Kiriakou and Jeffrey Sterling—MoveOn.org has just cherrypicked a whistleblowing hero it can support.
"The stakes could not be higher for the whistleblower, who took a great personal risk to defend our democracy," MoveOn declared in a mass email Sunday afternoon, referring to the intelligence official who went through channels to blow the whistle on Donald Trump's phone call with Ukraine's president. "We need to have the whistleblower's back." ...
But what about Manning, Drake, Snowden, Kiriakou, and Sterling, who also took great personal risks on behalf of democracy? With its digital finger to the wind, MoveOn refused to engage in a campaign to help any of them. Manning, Kiriakou, and Sterling were railroaded into prison and remained there for years; Snowden has been forced to stay in exile; and Drake endured years of persecution under threat of decades behind bars.
I experienced MoveOn's refusal firsthand when, in December 2015, I wrote to the group's campaign director with a request. After a sham trial, Sterling had gone to prison six months earlier for allegedly providing information to New York Times reporter James Risen that he included in a book. "Is there a way that MoveOn could use a bit of its list to promote this petition in support of Jeffrey Sterling?" I asked.
The answer that I received was disappointing—merely a suggestion that the petition be put on MoveOn's do-it-yourself platform, where it would not be supported with distribution to any of MoveOn's email list. After pressing further, I got an explanation from MoveOn that had a marketing sound: "It looks like we have definitely done a lot of testing on Snowden and Manning in the past, but unfortunately nothing quite reached the level of member support where we were able to send it out." That approach has endured. In the last decade, MoveOn—which says it has an email list of 8 million "members"—has refused to do any campaigns to help Manning, Drake, Snowden, Kiriakou, or Sterling. ...
The organization that MoveOn just teamed up with—Whistleblower Aid—explicitly does not support people like Snowden, Drake, Kiriakou, Sterling, and Manning, or the more recent whistleblower Reality Winner. The founding legal partner at Whistleblower Aid, Mark Zaid, has maintained a vehement position against unauthorized release of classified information for many years. ...
MoveOn has not only refused to support courageous whistleblowers like Snowden, Drake, Manning, Kiriakou, and Sterling—who've informed the world about systematic war crimes, wholesale shredding of the Fourth Amendment with mass surveillance, officially sanctioned torture, and dangerously flawed intelligence operations. Now, MoveOn is partnering with a legal outfit that actually contends such brave souls don't deserve any protections as whistleblowers. Despite its assertion that "protecting whistleblowers is critical for a healthy democracy," MoveOn is now splitting donations with an organization that supports the absence of legal protections for many of them.
To Impeach or Not to Impeach? Chris Hedges & John Bonifaz Debate What Congress Should Do Next
Trump and Barr Have Been Asking These Foreign Governments to Help Them Discredit the Mueller Report
For someone who has repeatedly hailed the Mueller report as “complete and total exoneration," President Trump seems to be going to great lengths to discredit it. Reports on Monday exposed Trump and his Attorney General William Barr’s involvement in a wide-ranging, international effort to solicit help from foreign countries in undermining the conclusions of the investigation that overshadowed the first two years of Trump’s presidency.
Trump recently reached out to ask Australia’s prime minister for help investigating the origins of Mueller’s probe, The New York Times reported Monday. Attorney General William Barr, meanwhile, made overtures as recently as last week for assistance from Italian and British officials, The Washington Post reported soon after.
Their efforts promise to pour jet fuel on the raging inferno of Trump’s Ukraine scandal, which inspired an impeachment inquiry last week and has resulted in fresh subpoenas for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. They also shed a harsh light on the mysterious counter-investigation being led by John Durham, the career prosecutor Barr tapped earlier this year to lead a controversial probe of the origins of the investigation into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election and Trump’s ties to Russia.
Monday’s revelations present the highly unusual spectacle of a sitting attorney general globe-trotting around the world on a mission to help clear his boss, the president, from even the hint of wrongdoing in the Russia scandal. And he reportedly did so by pressing foreign countries for help investigating the actions of the FBI and CIA.
New reports reveal wider role for Barr and Pompeo in impeachment scandal
An effort in recent months by Donald Trump to rewrite the history of the 2016 US presidential election and set up a 2020 re-election victory was both more geographically sprawling and reliant on the day-to-day participation of top cabinet members than previously reported, it emerged on Monday. Both William Barr, the attorney general, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, collectively participated in contacts between Trump and leaders of at least four foreign countries, according to multiple reports. ...
Barr and Pompeo – whose vast portfolios nominally run from administering criminal justice in the United States to securing international alliances and combating threats abroad – have separately tried to distance themselves from the avalanching revelation that Trump’s conduct of the matters of state has apparently, in significant proportion, been devoted to the pursuit of the president’s personal bugbears and ambitions.
Barr was previously reported to be “surprised and angry” to find his name mentioned in a summary of a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president, while Pompeo, when asked what he knew about that phone call, replied that he had not seen a copy of the whistleblower document that flagged it: “I haven’t seen the complaint,” he told ABC News. In fact, Pompeo reportedly took part in the call, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing a senior state department official. For his part, Barr flew to Italy and to London to ask for help in “investigating” the roots of the Russia investigation, the Washington Post reported. Trump also asked the Australian prime Scott Morrison for help, and Morrison agreed to assist, something first reported by the New York Times, and confirmed by the Australian government.
“It should trouble all of us that the attorney general is flying overseas and spending his time focused on discrediting the origins of the Mueller probe instead of combating crime here in the US,” tweeted the former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. “His personal involvement reinforces the view that he does Trump’s bidding.”
Bernie Explains Why Impeachment Is Bad Strategy w/Aaron Mate’
Support for impeachment surges amid Trump-Ukraine scandal
Public support for impeaching Donald Trump and removing him from office has climbed significantly in the week since news first emerged that Trump sought foreign help for his 2020 re-election campaign, according to two polls released Monday.
One poll, conducted by Quinnipiac University over the weekend, found a 20-point swing in the last five days in support for Trump’s impeachment. Americans are now split 47-47 on the question of impeachment, the poll found, compared with 37% for impeachment and 57% opposition measured by the poll on 25 September.
A second poll, conducted by CNN/SSRS, also found that 47% of Americans support impeaching Trump, up 6 points from when the question was asked in May.
The odds of Trump’s impeachment hit a new high of 71% in online betting markets, meanwhile.
Saudi crown prince warns of escalation with Iran, prefers political solution
Saudi Arabia's crown prince warned in an interview broadcast on Sunday that oil prices could spike to "unimaginably high numbers" if the world doesn't come together to deter Iran, but said he preferred a political solution to a military one. ...
"If the world does not take a strong and firm action to deter Iran, we will see further escalations that will threaten world interests," Prince Mohammed, known as MbS, said through a translator. "Oil supplies will be disrupted and oil prices will jump to unimaginably high numbers that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes."
In an interview conducted on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, he said he agreed with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the attacks, which knocked out more than 5% of global oil supply, were an act of war by Iran.
But he said he preferred a peaceful resolution because regional war would collapse the global economy. The United States, European powers and Saudi Arabia have blamed the attacks on Iran, which denies involvement. Instead, Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group claimed responsibility.
Iraq Is Once Again the Battleground for an American Proxy War
People in Baghdad are fearful that the next war between the US and Iran will take place in Iraq, which is only just returning to peace after the defeat of Isis. Alarm that Iraq will be sucked into such a conflict has increased here because of recent Israeli drone attacks on the bases of the Iraqi paramilitary group known as the Hashd al-Shaabi, which is accused by the US and Israel of acting as a proxy of Iran.
“The new development is that Israel has entered the conflict in Iraq,” says Abu Alaa al-Walai, the leader of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, a militant Shia paramilitary movement with ties to Iran, speaking in an exclusive interview with The Independent in Baghdad. He says that three Israeli drones attacked one of his bases in the Iraqi capital, called al-Saqr, on 12 August, leading to the explosion of 50 tons of weaponry. The Israelis confirm that they carried out the raid, which was preceded by several others, claiming that they hit Iranian missiles on their way to Syria and Lebanon.
It is the likelihood of US complicity in the Israeli action which could provoke a political crisis in Iraq. Abu Alaa says that an unpublished Iraqi government report on the attack reveals that the Israeli drones were launched from a US base called Kassad in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria. “Iraqi radar tracked one out of three of the drones travelling at 140km before, during and after the attack,” he says.
US policy in the Middle East is notoriously incoherent and contradictory under President Trump, but allowing Israel to make pin-prick attacks from a US base against the Hashd looks peculiarly like self-destruction from an American point of view. It has already led to a bill passing through the Iraqi parliament demanding the withdrawal of US forces from the country.
Asked if Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada would attack US forces, if there is a war between the US and Iran, Abu Alaa replies: “Absolutely, yes”. He expresses enthusiasm for drone warfare, saying that the successful drone assault on the Saudi oil facilities on 14 September makes battlefields more equal for groups like his own. “We are working day and night to develop drones that can be put together in a living room,” he says.
Israel’s Benny Gantz Faces Dutch War Crimes Case
Rouhani reportedly refused to take call with Trump and Macron during UN stay
Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to persuade Hassan Rouhani to talk to his US counterpart went as far as installing a secure telephone line on the same hotel floor where the Iranian president was staying, it was reported on Monday. Rouhani, however did not take the call offered by Macron last week, and stayed in his New York hotel room when the French president arrived to try to coax him into a conversation with Donald Trump, according to several accounts. ...
For months, Macron has been promoting a plan aimed at defusing tensions in the Persian Gulf, exchanging US sanctions relief for full Iranian compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal and Tehran’s agreement to pursue broader talks.
Trump, however, has been ratcheting up sanctions in recent weeks and announced more punitive measures in his speech to the UN earlier the same day Macron wanted Rouhani to talk to him.
Iran’s economy has been hard hit by a US oil and banking embargo, and diplomatic sources in New York said it was never remotely likely Rouhani would speak to Trump without sanctions relief.
Swedish navy returns to vast underground HQ amid Russia fears
Sweden’s navy HQ is returning to a vast underground cold war fortress designed to withstand a nuclear attack, in what has been seen as a defensive move against a resurgent Russia. After a 25-year absence, the navy will once again be commanded from beneath billions of tonnes of granite as the country strives to build up its defences in response to the perceived threat from Moscow. ...
On its return to Muskö on Monday, the Swedish naval command said the new location would offer greater freedom of manoeuvre. “The move is based on the calculation that the Russians could use powerful weapons which demand the level of protection that only Muskö can provide,” said Niklas Granholm, a senior analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency.
Sweden’s army and airforce commands are also moving out of the capital and into more fortified locations, spreading their headquarters geographically to make them less vulnerable to attack. But the navy’s relocation is the most dramatic, and emblematic of a revival of cold war sentiment in the country.
Peru's president closes Congress and calls for elections
Worth a full read, lots more at the link.
Senior Twitter Executive Joined British Army Troll Brigade
Ian Cobain has written about the long history of British involvement in torture. He is now investigating British involvement in media manipulation. Here is a significant find of his:
The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit, Middle East Eye has established.
Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company's UK office six years ago, has for several years also served with the 77th Brigade, a unit formed in 2015 in order to develop “non-lethal” ways of waging war.
The 77th Brigade uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as podcasts, data analysis and audience research to wage what the head of the UK military, General Nick Carter, describes as “information warfare”.
... The 77th Brigade's job is to produce dark propaganda in support of British (military) operations:
What do we know about 77th Brigade? Let me quote a written MoD parliamentary answer published in March 2015. The Brigade exists “to provide support, in conjunction with other Government agencies, to efforts to build stability overseas and to wider defence diplomacy and overseas engagement”. That’s a highly political rather than military remit.
The parliamentary answer goes on to say the Brigade is “leading on Special Influence Methods, including providing information on activities, key leader engagement, operations security and media engagement”. Note the phrase “special influence methods”, which is straight out of Orwell’s 1984. And notice the reference to “media engagement”. Since when has the British Army had a legitimate role in trying to influence the media?
A really interesting and dangerous aspect of the 77th Brigade is its mixed military-civilian character:
Here we come to a truly insidious aspect of 77th Brigade. It has a complement of around 440 dedicated personnel, according to the parliamentary answer. Under the Army’s new organisational doctrine, units combine both fulltime soldiers and territorial reservists. The 77th Brigade recruits its reservists from among UK journalists and professionals in advertising and public relations companies. We are not talking just computer and information technology specialists but media practitioners. The result is that the necessary boundaries between the military and the civilian media have been compromised. This represents a potential threat to democratic norms.
That a Twitter executive with editorial responsibility also works for a British military propaganda unit makes clear that 'western' social media are only as neutral or free as the powers that be allow them to be. ...
One should not think of the 77th Brigade as a one way street on which the state provides the messages that civilians help to spread. When hedge fund managers, senior bankers, heads of public relations companies are invited into its operations they will have a significant interest in getting their own messages spread and their own enemies defeated. The Twitter executive as a member of the propaganda brigade will also use it to spread his companies messages and wishes.
This is a marriage of the powers of large companies' and the government for manipulating the opinion of the public. It is dangerous.
Caitlin Johnstone also wrote about the official Twitter propagandist, here are some supplementary excerpts from her piece:
Twitter Suspends Accounts For Propaganda, Has Literal Propagandist As High-Level Executive
Gordon MacMillan’s presence in a government psyops unit was not a secret; until Middle East Eye began raising questions on the matter, it was right there on his LinkedIn profile. This is not something that anyone considering him for promotion was likely to have been unaware of. According to his (now-edited) LinkedIn page, MacMillan has been in his current position as Head of Editorial EMEA since July 2016. According to Middle East Eye, MacMillan was already a captain in the 77th Brigade by the end of 2016. His current rank there is being hidden behind a wall of government secrecy.
When questioned by Middle East Eye about MacMillan’s work in the British Army’s online propaganda program, Twitter hilariously responded, “Twitter is an open, neutral and rigorously independent platform. We actively encourage all our employees to pursue external interests in line with our commitment to healthy corporate social responsibility, and we will continue to do so.” That’s very nice of Twitter, isn’t it? They encourage their employees to pursue wholesome external interests, whether that be tennis, volunteering at a soup kitchen, or moonlighting at a military program explicitly devoted to online psychological warfare. You know, just everyday socially responsible pastime stuff. ...
This is just one more item on the ever-growing mountain of evidence that these giant, immensely influential social media platforms we’ve all been herded into are nothing other than state propaganda for the digital age. True, they operate in a way which disregards the official lines that are drawn between government power and corporate power and the lines that are drawn between nations, but then, so do our rulers. We are living in a globe-spanning corporate oligarchic empire, and these government-aligned Silicon Valley giants are a major part of that empire’s propaganda engine.
The real power of that empire and that oligarchy lies in their invisibile and unacknowledged nature. Officially we all live in separate, sovereign nations run by democratically elected officials; unofficially we live in a massive transnational empire ruled by a loose alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies where military propagandists are employed by social media monopolies to manipulate public narratives. The official mask exists only on the level of narrative, while the unofficial reality is what’s actually happening. Yet whenever you try to publicly discuss the threat that is being posed by oligarchic narrative control online, you get told by establishment loyalists and libertarians that Twitter is just a simple private business running things in a way that is entirely separate from government censorship and state propaganda.
Rep. Chris Collins Resigns and Will Plead Guilty to Insider Trading Charges
Rep. Chris Collins will resign from Congress and plans to plead guilty in his criminal insider trading case on Tuesday.
The Republican congressman from New York was the first to back Trump during the 2016 GOP primaries and emerged as a major congressional power player during the early days of the Trump administration — before getting ensnared in a probe over his role on the board of an Australian biotech firm late last year, when he was charged with insider trading. ...
Collins allegedly alerted his son Cameron, also a major investor, that the biotech firm’s main experimental drug had failed its clinical trial in June 2017. The younger Collins is accused of dumping his stocks before the information became public and the company’s stock price plunged. He also allegedly tipped off his fiancee’s father, also an investor, to do the same.
Bernie Sanders’ War With CEOs Making Bank Just Got Real
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has promised voters he can get the wealthy to “pay their fair share” — and today, he rolled out another way to get there. His campaign is now proposing to boost the corporate tax rate for companies whose chief executives make at least 50 times more than the median employee. It would only apply to businesses that bring in $100 million or more a year, with harsher penalties for wider gaps between the highest- and lowest-earning workers. ...
“The American people are sick and tired of corporate CEOs who now make 300 times more than their average employees, while they give themselves huge bonuses and cut back on the health care and pension benefits of their employees,” Sanders said in a statement.
For businesses that pay their median worker 50 times less than the CEO, Sanders' proposal would hike the tax rate by half a percent. That figure would rise to 1% if a CEO makes more than 100 times what the median employee does. Corporate taxes would increase to 2% at places where the CEO makes 200 times what the median employee does, and so on, up to 5% for an income gap of 500 times.
Krystal Ball: Unity is centrist myth that is undermining Sanders' campaign
Fueled by Teachers and Average Donation of $18, Sanders Raised Record $25.3 Million in Third Quarter
The presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Tuesday that it raised $25.3 million from 1.4 million individual donations in the third quarter of 2019, the largest fundraising quarter of any 2020 Democratic White House contender thus far.
"The billionaire class should be very, very nervous," Sanders tweeted. "The working people of this country are ready for a political revolution."
The Sanders campaign said the average third-quarter donation was just $18, "teacher" was the most common profession of donors, and Starbucks, Amazon, and Walmart were the most common employers of donors.
Sanders's third-quarter fundraising boom was "fueled by a September haul that set a Bernie 2020 record for total amount raised and number of individual contributions in a single month," the campaign said in a press release.
"The final day of the third quarter was the second biggest fundraising day of the campaign," said the campaign. More than 99.9 percent of Sanders's donors since the start of the campaign in February can give again.
In a statement, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir said "Bernie is proud to be the only candidate running to defeat Donald Trump who is 100 percent funded by grassroots donations—both in the primary and in the general."
"Media elites and professional pundits have tried repeatedly to dismiss this campaign," Shakir added, "and yet working-class Americans keep saying loudly and clearly that they want a political revolution."
Pelosi's Endorsement of Anti-Choice Henry Cuellar Over Progressive Jessica Cisneros Reveals Lack of Leadership, Justice Democrats Say
Progressive group Justice Democrats took aim at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Monday for her endorsement over the weekend of Rep. Henry Cuellar, a right wing Democrat from Texas who is a top target for the party's left in the 2020 primary elections.
Pelosi publicly endorsed Cuellar on Saturday during an appearance at The Texas Tribune Festival in Austin.
Nancy Pelosi just endorsed a “Democrat” who is anti-choice and received an A rating from the NRA. https://t.co/NmALxW5ZN1
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) September 30, 2019
The speaker's endorsement came hours after a public announcement of suppport from Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), the head of the Democratic Congressional Camapaign Committee (DCCC).
As Common Dreams reported, Justice Democrats recruited human rights lawyer Jessica Cisneros in June to challenge Cuellar.
On Monday, the group took aim at Pelosi for the Cuellar endorsement. "Nancy Pelosi endorsed someone who calls himself a 'Democrat' but fundraises for Republicans and receives support from the NRA, private prisons, Big Oil, and the Koch Brothers," said Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas.
Schumer Tells Financial Firms to Disclose More on Climate Risk
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer and other top Democrats met with executives from some of the nation’s top financial institutions Friday and told them to do a better job of disclosing their risks related to climate change. The meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations summit in New York comes amid growing concern about how the effects of climate change -- rising temperatures, sea level rise, water shortages, and more frequent extreme weather patterns -- will affect companies, their assets, and supply chains. ...
Nearly half of the 600 largest U.S. companies still do not disclose decision-useful information on climate-related risks, according to Ceres, a corporate sustainability advocacy group that successfully pushed the Securities and Exchange Committee to issue the first-of-its-kind climate disclosure guidance in 2010.
“These risks are not something that will happen in the future, it’s already happening,” Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who leads a special climate change panel set up by Democrats. “All of the players in our financial system will be effected by the economic risks around climate.”
Global economic losses related to natural disasters have reached an annual $160 billion and a report by a U.N. climate change panel warned of $54 trillion in damages to the global economy by 2100 -- even if the world limits average global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Newark Water Crisis: Mayor Ras Baraka Responds to Critics & Promises City Is Working on Solution
Uproar after research claims red meat poses no health risk
New research that claims red and processed meat is probably not harmful to our health has caused controversy among experts who maintain people should cut down. The World Health Organization has classified red and processed meats as cancer-causing. Public health bodies worldwide urge people to limit their intake of red and processed meat to reduce their cancer risk. The NHS advises that people who eat 90g of meat a day – equivalent to three thin slices of roast meat – should cut down to 70g.
Aside from public health, calls are multiplying for people to cut back on meat consumption because of the climate emergency and the greenhouse gas emissions that come from animal farming.
But the 14-member international team led by Bradley Johnston an associate professor of community health at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, concluded that those who like meat should not stop on health grounds. “Based on the research, we cannot say with any certainty that eating red or processed meat causes cancer, diabetes or heart disease,” he said.
Many scientists agreed with the team that the evidence from studies around the world was generally poor. Some said that left them open to both interpretations – either that meat could cause health harm or that it did not. Others said Johnston and colleagues were wrong to exclude environmental concerns about damage to the planet from clearing forests and animal farming from their work.
Giant iceberg breaks off east Antarctica
A gigantic iceberg about the size of greater London has calved from the Amery ice shelf in east Antarctica, according to expert monitors.
The tabular iceberg, officially named D-28, separated from the ice shelf on 26 September. The iceberg is 1,636 square kilometres in size, or about 50 x 30km, the Australian Antarctic Division said.
Ice shelves are platforms of floating ice that form where the Antarctic ice sheet meets the ocean. Working in a similar way to architectural buttresses, they hold back the flow of the grounded ice.
The Amery ice shelf has an estimated floating ice area of 60,000 sq km and water penetrates over 550km underneath it. It is the first major calving event on the Amery ice shelf since 1963-64 although scientists said they did not believe it was linked to climate change.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Heroes, Villains & Establishment Hypocrisy
John Kiriakou: What was this CIA Officer Thinking?
Bolsonaro tells students to read book by dictatorship-era torturer
In Media Newspeak, a ‘Peace Plan’ for Israel/Palestine Is Anything US Proposes
The Repo Loan Crisis, Dead Bankers, and Deutsche Bank: Timeline of Events
Nina Turner, Bernie Sanders’s Campaign Chair, Led Charge for Education Reform as Ohio Legislator
2016 Revisited: Electronic Balloting Favored Clinton, Paper Balloting Sanders
Freedom Rider: The WFP, Phony Outrage and Black Misleaders
A Little Night Music
Robert Nighthawk - The Time Have Come
Robert Nighthawk - Take It Easy Baby
Robert Nighthawk - Nighthawk Shuffle, I Need Love So Bad
Robert Nighthawk - Jackson Town Gal
Robert Nighthawk - My Sweet Lovin' Woman
Robert Nighthawk - Someday
Robert Nighthawk - Love you Tonight
Robert Nighthawk - Blues Before Sunrise
Robert Nighthawk - Maggie Campbell
Robert Nighthawk - Honey Hush
Comments
Policewoman guilty of murder
White policewoman who shot black man in his own apartment found guilty by Texas jury.
Saw it at Guardian. Am on my way out the door to Dr appointment, but wanted to share this.
Amazingly, Texans do something right.
Kudos to the prosecutors in that jury selection.
Just an incredible verdict!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I was so pleased with that verdict.
It is about time murder was called murder.
evening granma...
thanks! i am glad to hear that impunity doesn't always extend to murder for cops. perhaps it will cause some of them to rethink their callous attitudes.
Thank you, Joe for the great EB.
a lot there to think about.
Yesterday the judge was considering letting the defense
use the castle doctrine which means people have a right to defend themselves in their own homes. I gotta kick out of this being used for a police officer when there were numerous times SWAT or just regular cops went to people's homes and killed them because they were defending their homes. This happens more than people know about and it's usually when SWAT does a no knock warrant in the middle of the night for some piddly assed issue.
Last year the cops went to the wrong address and killed an undocumented person. The city's attorney tried to say that his 4th amendment wasn't violated because of his immigration status and therefore the constitution didn't apply to him. Hopefully he got laughed out of court.
How this cop saw the guy sitting on his couch eating something as a legitimate threat is probably why the jury voted guilty. Plus it wasn't her apartment. Someone mentioned that his door was a different color than hers was. I once walked into my neighbors apartment but fortunately I knew right away because they had stairs in a different place then mine were. After that I always locked my door. This is easy to do some times.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
I will check with some of my
defense attorney pals, like Mike Deguerin, ( I love Dick, but Mike is my God of All things Defense...I got a hug and a chat with him just a few months ago), or various others, see if they have the scoop. This is incredible. This does not happen anywhere in the country, and it happened in damn Texas.
!!!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I read that the judge gave the jury
the option of calling it manslaughter. They did not. They named it murder. I hope she gets a long sentence. I don't know if it's a judge or jury who decides that in TX.
The defense is required
to elect whether to go to the judge or jury before the trial.
You could have grounds to appeal an excessive sentence by a jury, but not by a judge.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Yes, the Blues before Sunrise
maybe just maybe the sun rises for the people
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2019/09/29/julian-assanges-lawyers-...
But there’s another kind of intelligence – one that was sabotaged by the very covert operations reported by the Guardian and now by El Pais. For not only were the meetings between Assange and his lawyers monitored, with intelligence provided directly to the CIA, but Moreno reportedly agreed to hand over documents and other material belonging to Assange to the US authorities. Client-lawyer confidentiality remains a cornerstone of the English legal system. However, if that confidentiality is breached, the validity of any legal case under consideration could then potentially be subject to challenge.
Consequently, on this basis, there is an argument that the US extradition request should be denied.
https://wallstreetonparade.com/
Tom Mueller’s New Book Shows How Whistleblowers Are Increasingly Left to Do the Job that Law Enforcement Won’t
Tom Mueller, Author of Crisis of Conscience -- Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 1, 2019 ~ Tom Mueller’s new book, Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud is being released today by Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. It’s packed with seven years of research and inspiring personal interviews. Despite its initially intimidating 600-page heft, it’s an enticing read as it connects the dots to how a country like the United States, founded on the premise of “equal justice under law,” as engraved on the front of the U.S. Supreme Court, has become a “banana republic” with only whistleblowers’ pockets stuffed with crinkled documents or secret tape recordings all that stand between resuscitating our democracy or a complete collapse into oligarchy. Mueller builds an incontrovertible case that the United States has become a dystopian society where almost every government entity that a citizen would typically turn to for redress over a lawless … Continue reading →
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
evening ggersh...
heh, certainly that is an argument that will be made before the kangaroo court that assange finds himself before. it may take years of appeals before assange finds himself in a jurisdiction that actually gives a damn about the rule of law.
before that time comes, his time in the clutches of belmarsh prison may do him in.
No wonder U.S. manufacturing is in recession
evening gj...
heh, looks like monetary policy has been manipulated to sacrifice manufacturing, doesn't it?
Good stuff tonight, joe.
I've got a couple more to add.
The first half of this is good.
Max Keiser on WeWork:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afWXHgIokZ8 width:500 height:300]
Jimmy Dore with Aaron Maté.
Jimmy on James Risen:
Media's Misreporting Of Ukraine-gate Apes Misreporting Of Russia-gate
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6by-4RQ1ZY width:500 height:300]
More from Maté, at The Nation: The Ukraine Scandal Might Be a Bad Gambit for Democrats
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Imagine if Max had a show on cable/reg TV
WS/tptb would shit themselves
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
evening azazello...
excellent piece by max. i am shocked, shocked, i tell you, to find out that wall street's business model is based on fraud.
heh, oh my, i am also shocked to find out that axios would recklessly and blatantly lie in their reporting.
jimmy was wrong about the abc connection, though, assuming that this wikipedia entry is correct:
Great article on Gadaffi from the BAR.
My only quibble with it is that the author never mentions the petro dollar and Gadaffi looking to create a Pan African currency to ditch the dollar, which is obviously a huge part of why he had to go, just as Saddam threated to use the Euro instead of the dollar for oil trades.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Was Gaddafi really going to do that
or was it something we were just told? Another reason Hillary said we needed to go in was because Gaddafi was giving his troops viagra and letting them rape women. Some journalist looked into this is and lo and behold he did indeed find empty boxes of it sitting on some tanks and stuff. But the tanks that they were on were wet from rain, but the boxes were dry. There is more to this story, but that's the gist....
Hillary has been busy tweeting lots of stuff about Trump and how he's not a very good president. She is getting her butt handed to her for the things she did. It's quite funny to see how many people know exactly who she is and what she did.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
evening lizzy...
yep, good quibble.
here is an article that i posted a long time ago that explains the less than admirable motivations of sarkozy and france in libya (excerpt):
So,
where is the gold now?
heh...
this is the most recent guess i could find:
Muammar Gaddafi’s lost treasure may be stashed in boxes hidden around Africa
Hola, Joe! Grassley lends more credence to 'bipartisan'
nature of latest impeachment push. See below.
(Will be using Pidgeon English' due to bum index finger for a while.
)
From what I've heard/read today, think it'll (impeachment trial) be over before they break for Christmas, and, that the several additional Repub candidates (referenced other day) will have declared their candidacy.
Another hint will be when JK resigns his CNN 'talking head' position. (Think he'll have to, IIRC.)
Thanks for tonight's EB. Everyone have nice evening. (Hope heat wave ends soon!)
Mollie
I think dogs are the most amazing creatures; they give unconditional love. For me they are the role model for being alive.
~~Gilda Radner, Comedienne
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
~~Cicero
The obstacle is the path.
~~Zen Proverb
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
evening mollie...
glad you're able to kind of limp along as your fingers do the walking.
grassley is an odd duck, but sometimes he seems to exhibit what almost appear to be principles. it's not a regular phenomenon, however.
it's been on and off hot here, it's trying to cool down, but the humidity has been very high for days on end. i hope you are finding oases of comfortable cool.
Another spark of enlightenment
In a show of good faith to the UN, Yemen's Houthi fighters have released hundreds of prisoners.
It's a move which could revive efforts to end a war that has sparked the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
The UN hopes it will lead to a larger exchange of prisoners with the Saudi-Emirati coalition. But the alliance has remained non-committal so far.
They seem in much better shape than prisoners released in the US. I wonder how they get their whites so white.
Thanks for the news, Joe.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
evening pluto...
the houthis appear to be mounting a pretty successful campaign against the saudis. this was certainly a good public relations move and the saudis failure to reciprocate does nothing to help out their suffering image.
have a great evening pluto!
Good evening, joe and bluzerz!
I want to give a shout out to our gal, Hil. She deserves ALL the credit for this outcome. I went to the BAR and read it. I'm appalled. One knows it's bad, but one doesn't investigate. This one thanks you, joe, for bringing it to my attention. How can we live with ourselves? What are we doing? Who are we? Who are THEY?? Those 64 billionaires that have more money than 3.8 billion people - or was it 11.8 billion people? How absurd is this question?????
I couldn't even get any farther than that article and had to write my comment. If anything else catches my attention, I might be back.
In the meantime, have a pleasant evening, everyone.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
evening ra...
yeah, i found the article kind of heartbreaking. it really highlights the fact that there is little difference between trump and his predecessors beyond style.
One interesting factoid about WB's 'detail'--
heard a Dem Party, or Dem-Party-leaning talking head (posing as a journalist) yesterday, say that it was Brennan who put the operative on the WH detail.
Have no idea exactly how long ago he stepped down. Otherwise, wouldn't surprise me, if that were to be true.
Didn't catch but the name of the TH/journalist "Susan." Sorry!
Usually, on the programs that I listen to--it's either Susan Page, and it was not her voice, or, Susan Glasser, a possibility. Or, just 'a Susan' I don't know, at all.
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
I have no problem seeing Brennan's hands all over this
Or John Bolton's or a lot of other ex CIA goons. What's funny about the 5 white women taking credit for first calling for impeachment is that they are all either ex intelligence agency or ex military. Wsws has a great article on how it's just two different factions of the elites who are warring for control of DC. This makes sense because whomever did set this up used a CIA officer to blow the whistle. I still don't see why people aren't calling for the original talkers to go before congress and explain why they thought there was a problem. This makes more sense than using a second hand account. But then that's just me.
ETA link
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Here's what I've been telling, or trying to tell,
TDS Democrats. This "whistle blower" is not a real whistle blower because those people end up in jail. This was a CIA operative doing a CIA operation. You might think it's a good idea for them to take down Trump but what if your candidate should win in 2020. Would you be OK with the CIA and the "intelligence community" taking down your president ?
Should the CIA have veto power over American elections ?
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Anonymous whistleblower
What happened to right to face your accuser? That's always dragged out in rape trials where the woman has to testify in front of her assailant.
Doesn't Trump have the same rights as a rapist?
Is the Rule of Law suspended for our political enemies?
This makes us different from Fascists, how?
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
That is exactly what it was.
A psyop to affect the 2020 election outcome.
I wrote an essay on it, but I couldn't bring myself to post it. It was still early in the news cycle and it sounded like a rant without sources. Now that there are sources to confirm my speculations, the situation has evolved and taken a sinister turn. It's tinged with desperation and a lack of situational awareness. It's making people act foolishly.
As you infer.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I agree with you 100%
This does seem to be nothing more than a CIA op and a continuation of Russia Gate to take down Trump for whatever reasons that are behind it. That so many people don't see it and Russia Gate for what they are is bewildering. If this was being done to anyone but Trump then I think they might. But then it's the same ones who are fully vested in RG. The other thing that people are missing is that no foreign leader would talk to the president if they know their conversations would be leaked. Russia told Trump or someone that they don't want theirs leaked and I'm betting others have said or thought the same thing. But since it's only being reported that Russia said that people of course think it's because Russia has something to hide. Sheesh! And then it comes out that Obama's conversations had also been removed to a private server. BTW remember when democrats were upset that Trump didn't release the transcripts of his talks with the Russians in the Oval Office? We were told that the only ones in the room were the translators. But now WaPoo has a story from 'people in the room at the time.' This just shows me that people are making shit up to fit their agendas. I ask people to imagine this being done to Obama or Bush and if they'd be okay with it. "Obama would never do anything wrong". Whoosh!
Sadly too many people think they should.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Maria Zakharova, in the Russian MSM:
Zakharova: No One Can Talk to US President Anymore Without Worrying That Dems Will Leak It!
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq8V3KCq7ro&t=233s width:500 height:300]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
This is unfuckingbelievable
Peace between Russia and Ukraine is moving forward and the f'cking Twitterverse is sad. Not only them, but many people on ToP are too. This is being seen as Zelensky folding to Putin's will, not as good news for the people in Ukraine who have been living in hell since Obama's coup. Oh yeah...
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
We have our Nobel Peace Prize winner!
I hope he survives.
He's new. Not tainted by experience and corruption. It's the right thing to do. Self-determination is the most important human right. The border changes happened around the ethnic Russians living in that region. They did not ask for that and have attempted referendums for decades to reverse being annexed to Ukraine. They speak Russian. So does Zelensky. Apparently he is not fluent in Ukrainian. So, he's from East Ukraine, perhaps from from the Donbass region. This may have been his plan from the beginning.
How interesting this is.
Such good news for Ukraine.
We also need to elect comedians to run the Federal government. It may be the only thing that works.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Jimmy Dore for President
We have to be selective though because so many of the ones we used to laugh with have sold out....Ellen, Colbert , Stewart... Maher if he ever was one. WE could have put Molly Ivins and George Carlin in his cabinet. Oh yeah Molly for VP! Take that you sexists.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Agree, SD. Except, I think that the 7-person DS
conservadem Op-Ed was intentionally a red herring/attempt at misdirection.
Frankly, I find it incredulous to believe that these less-than-one-year Freshman wield a whole lot of power in the Party.
Which is not to say that Pelosi isn't wanting them 'out front' to use their credentials to make a case for impeachment, as in spouting 'national security' talking points--she does. IMO.
(I know I may have a lot of crow to eat, later.
But, that's my take.)
Have a good one!
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Gaddafi’s gold Dinar announcement
(Sorry, this posted under the wrong comment. My fault.)
Gaddafi’s gold Dinar announcement was a real thing. I was trading Forex at the time and it came across the newsfeed and created a buzz. I don't think it made US news. Even more important, Gaddafi was on track to create an African Union, during a time when he was re-nationalizing his oil. That's why the Libyan middle class were the most prosperous in the Middle East. Selling oil for gold? Heads exploded.
.
Actually, Hillary told us herself, eventually:
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Thanks
Good to see confirmation on Gaddafi.
Sidney Blumenthal Hillary's war crimes BFF was neck deep in everything she did. This was after Obama's ordering her to keep him away from anything connected to her duties in the state department. But just like she didn't mind his order of keeping her foundation far away she just ignored him. Sheesh is there anyone who didn't walk all over him?
It's sickening to see what we did to Libya. Can you imagine waking up one day and all of a sudden your city is being bombed and invaded? More people should think what that would be like for them instead of worshiping every damn thing our military does.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
A Viagra footnote to the above:
Snoopydawg:
This may answer your earlier question about the battlefield Viagra:
.
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/01/06/new-hillary-emails-revea...
This article I've been quoting is from January of 2016 and it is far more gruesome than anything we're seeing today about what the US is doing. It identifies serious crimes and atrocities throughout, committed by US officials like Hillary and by the US military. I didn't realize how tame information has become. Our censorship is apparently global, now. I didn't notice this before. No wonder anti-war sentiment is largely ignored. I am pretty shocked. I knew something was off....
–
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Shocking indeed
And of course what is more shocking is that no one has ever been held accountable for their war crimes and crimes against humanity in this country. But dare to expose it....
More on the viagra story. And once again Susan Rice is up to her neck involved in it. War crimes tribunal needed!
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
from a quick google ...
it looks like the brennan connection is getting a lot of play from right-wing sources.
Hi, Joe - I've seen a few similar references
,,
this week, but, just in case, I waited until I heard an obvious Dem partisan say the same thing (before mentioning Brennan), since there's no way that I'm able to verify the claim, one way, or the other.
Sure sounds par for the course, though, from my observations of him on Cable teevee.
(Finger still hurts, but, fixed the bandage so it's not quite so tight. Still, having to do a lot of corrections.
)
I second your sentiments about the weather--the humidity has been off the charts for several days, now. Almost like the dead of summer. Phew!
Have a good one!
[Edited: Added couple sentences.]
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Idris Ginger Beer was quite good in the day
so he wasn't all bad.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
evening bollox...
heh, not sure i get the connection.
have a great evening!
Bad Trump!
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
heh...
sounds like the special handiwork that cass sunstein set up at obama's oira, though this particular nasty cost-benefit decision may have been made by one of sunstein's successors at the agency.
I'm getting pushback on another blog
questioning that Biden bragged about strong arming Ukraine to get an investigation into his son quashed.
I found a Youtube link but I don't consider Youtube credible, having seen brilliant fakes.
Please help me provide a better link. They think it's just Trump bullshit.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Did you read Linda's essay?
There have been lots of essays posted here on this and you can find them by a search.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
I asked for help, not a lecture.
If you didn't want to help, you could have stayed silent.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
evening voice...
here, this ought to suffice.
the link goes to a transcript of a council on foreign relations event where biden made the remarks during an interview with richard haass, president of the cfr and diplomat - certainly not a right-wing bomb thrower.
here's the relevant part of the transcript:
Bingo
EDIT: It should have but it didn't. The response was "Biden was carrying out Obama's policy. Biden did the right thing."
Well, I tried. "There are none so blind as those who will not see."
As stupid and partisan as a Trumptard.
Thanks for the effort. I won't bother there again.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
pearls before swine, eh?
it has been my experience (particularly over at that orange place) that when people start asking you for "better" sources, that rarely will any source persuade them.
it was worth a shot, though. if nothing else, there may be other people reading besides the partisan morons that will appreciate the information.
This is from the Washington Post. Will that do ?
Link: The gas tycoon and the vice president’s son: The story of Hunter Biden’s foray into Ukraine
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
To quote Governor Blagojevich:
To quote Governor Blagojevich:
"Fxxxing Golden". Exactly what I need. Muchas gracias!
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
The destruction of Libya is totally on Obama and Hillary Clinton
Mass migration continues to destabilize the underpinnings of the E.U.
Definitely a curb on any unbridled enthusiasm for seeing Democrats take over the White House again.
evening lotlizard...
yep, i totally agree. they have a lot to answer for, and they both ought to be wearing orange jumpsuits right now.
Good to see you, LL! Saw your comment
about helping with braille music. For certain, a very worthy project, that I'm sure will be greatly appreciated.
Have a good one.
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Good evening Joe. Good stuff. Especially liked the
Gadaffi article.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
thanks! have a good one!