The Evening Blues - 10-23-19



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Lonesome Sundown

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Louisiana blues musician Lonesome Sundown . Enjoy!

Lonesome Sundown - Don't Go

"The sad truth is that societies that demand whistleblowers be martyrs often find themselves without either, and always when it matters the most."

-- Edward Snowden


News and Opinion

Julian Assange’s Extradition Case is a SHOW TRIAL - John Pilger


Bernie Sanders Pledges to End Practice of Prosecuting Whistleblowers Under the Espionage Act

As president, Bernie Sanders would end the practice of using the controversial Espionage Act to prosecute government whistleblowers, the Vermont senator told The Intercept in an interview on Saturday ahead of a major rally in New York. ...

Asked if it is appropriate to prosecute whistleblowers using the Espionage Act, Sanders said, “Of course not.”

The Espionage Act, which was passed in 1917 to suppress opposition to World War I and now considers leakers to effectively be spies, makes a fair trial impossible, as relevant evidence is classified and kept from the defense, and the bar for conviction is low. The law also comes with stiffer criminal penalties and longer sentences than more obvious charges that might be leveled, such as mishandling classified intelligence.

During the interview, The Intercept noted that Trump has referred to White House officials, who provided information to the whistleblower who went through legally sanctioned channels and alerted Congress of Trump’s Ukraine activities, as “spies.” Democrats widely condemned Trump for the comparison, though those same Democrats have not generally objected to the Justice Department’s use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers who leak to journalists, suggesting that the media is being treated tantamount to a foreign adversary. “Whistleblowers have a very important role to play in the political process,” Sanders said in response. “And I am very supportive of the courage of that whistleblower, whoever he or she may be.”


President Trump claims that ceasefire on Turkey-Syria border will be "permanent"

Trump offers to cut the Kurds in on any profits the U.S. makes from potential oil exports from Syria

President Trump pulled a 180 Monday and said he'll keep troops in Syria after all — but to defend oil fields, not the Kurds.

He offered to cut the Kurds in on any profits made by potential oil exports from Syria. “We’ll work something out with the Kurds so that they have some money, so that they have some cash flow. Maybe we’ll get one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly.”

However, former administration officials say any plans for the U.S. to profit from Syrian oil would face considerable hurdles, not least legal ones. “Oil, like it or not, is owned by the Syrian state,” Brett McGurk, the administration’s former special envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, told a Washington think tank Monday.

“It [is] just illegal for an American company to go and seize and exploit these assets.”

Russia and Turkey agree to share control of northeastern Syria

Turkey and Russia agree on deal over buffer zone in northern Syria

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, have agreed on the parameters of a proposed Turkish “safe zone” in Syria, a development that could bring an end to Ankara’s offensive against Kurdish forces over the border by severely curtailing their control of the area. ... Tuesday’s developments more concretely define the size and scope of the area that Turkish soldiers will occupy, adding to pockets of northern Syria that Turkey seized from Islamic State and Kurdish fighters in operations in 2016 and 2018.

The deal was widely perceived as good news for Ankara and a poor result for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), building as it does on the US’ agreement last week that Turkey has a right to a buffer zone on its border at their expense. Most of all, it cements Moscow’s new role as prime powerbroker in the Middle East as US influence in the region wanes.

Turkish troops in areas of north-east Syria seized since the start of the 9 October offensive will remain in situ, and Russian troops and the Syrian army will control the rest of the frontier, effectively fulfilling the goal of Turkey’s Operation Peace Spring at Russia’s discretion: the dilution of Kurdish control over the 270-mile (440km) border corridor. Russian military police and Syrian border guards controlled by the president, Bashar al-Assad, will from Wednesday at noon facilitate the removal of Kurdish fighters and weaponry to the depth of 18 miles from their positions on the border.

The Kurdish YPG element of the multi-ethnic SDF has 150 hours to withdraw, a joint statement said, and then Turkish and Russian soldiers will begin joint patrols of the entire border area to a depth of 10km with the exception of the de-facto Kurdish capital, Qamishli. The deal appears to also include the contested strategically key town of Manbij as well as the important Kurdish town Kobane. It made no mention of the long-term presence of troops loyal to Assad, now also present in the proposed border zone. ...

No comment on the deal from the SDF or Kurdish political leaders was immediately forthcoming. ... Assad himself has repeatedly vowed to reunite his entire country under Damascus’s rule. In a symbolic visit to southern Idlib on Tuesday – territory the regime now occupies for the first time in years – he called Erdogan “a thief” and said he was ready to support any popular resistance against Turkey’s invasion.

Chilean president announces reforms as protests continue

Death toll rises to 15 in worst unrest Chile has faced since Pinochet, as armed men in masks prowl Santiago firing at defiant protesters

As helicopters clattered overhead and army truck convoys rumbled through the city, armed men in masks prowled the streets of Santiago on Monday night, firing at protesters defying a fourth night of curfew under martial law. By Tuesday morning, the official death toll stood at 15. The Chilean government claimed all the casualties were looters, but there were widespread allegations of brutality by the military, following the declaration by president, Sebastián Piñera that his country was “at war”.

U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet – a former president of Chile – has called for independent investigations into the deaths in weekend protests, saying there had been “disturbing allegations” of excessive use of force by security forces.

“I was coming home and the military patrol stopped me,” said one bruised and bloodied man as he stumbled home in the early hours of Tuesday morning. “They put me in the truck and – ‘Bang! bang! bang!’ – they smashed me in the head with the butt of a gun. I begged them to stop but they kept on kicking me – and they took my friend away.” ...

Piñera’s conservative government declared a state of emergency on Friday night, granting the government additional powers to restrict citizens’ freedom of movement and their right to assembly. Soldiers have returned to the streets for the first time since an earthquake devastated parts of the country in 2010.

Chile Trade Unions Call for General Strike in Support of Student-Led Uprising

As protests against the Chilean government continued Monday, trade unions across the South American country called for a general strike to support demonstrators drawing attention to the nation's high cost of living, inequality, and injustice.

"We can't remain indifferent to the social movement out there," Escondida Union No. 1 president Patricio Tapia, whose organization voted to stop work at the Escondida copper mine for 10 hours Monday night or Tuesday morning, told Bloomberg Monday. "Something's not right with this country and 14-year-olds were the first ones to say so—now it's workers' turn to say enough is enough." ...

A number of unions said Sunday they were calling for a general strike in solidarity with the burgeoning protest movement.

"Sebastián Piñera does not understand the underlying reasons for the widespread citizen protest throughout the territory," the unions said in their declaration of intent to strike. "With his attitude it is clear that he is not in a position to continue directing the country."

MPs reject Boris Johnson's attempt to fast-track Brexit deal

Boris Johnson’s plan to fast-track his Brexit deal through parliament in time for next week’s 31 October deadline was blocked by MPs on Tuesday night, even after he threatened to pull it and press for a general election.

The prime minister said he would speak to EU leaders and urge them not to agree to a prolonged Brexit extension after former Tory cabinet ministers Philip Hammond and Rory Stewart joined with Labour to inflict a humiliating defeat on the government.

But the European council president, Donald Tusk, suggested almost immediately that he would recommend the EU27 accede to the UK’s request for a three-month delay. That request was set out in the letter reluctantly penned by the prime minister at the weekend in compliance with the backbench-led Benn act – despite his previous insistence that he would rather be “dead in a ditch” than countenance a delay. ...

After a day of cajoling and inducements from the prime minister and the Conservative whips, the government lost a crunch vote by 322 to 308 – a margin of 14. ...

Nick Thomas-Symonds, closing the debate for Labour, condemned “a flawed bill implementing a fundamentally bad deal” and said the timetable was far too brief. “This government, having tried unlawfully to shut down parliament altogether, now tries to shut down the ability of members to properly scrutinise the most important piece of legislation that’s been brought to this House for generations,” he said. “Weariness with the politics of the past three years is no good reason to wave through a bill of such huge significance in less than 36 hours.”

Chaos erupts as Republicans barge into Trump impeachment inquiry hearing

Political tensions over an intensifying impeachment inquiry reached fever pitch on Wednesday as Republicans “stormed” a closed-door committee hearing on Capitol Hill where another witness to the Ukraine controversy was appearing – a day after devastating testimony from a key diplomat. A group of Republican members of the House of Representatives, chanting “Let us in”, barged into a secure, in-camera hearing room where Laura Cooper, a top Pentagon official who oversees Ukraine policy, was set to testify before the committees in charge of the inquiry.

The chaos and confusion temporarily shut down the proceedings as Republicans tweeted live updates of the disruption from their cellphones, which are not typically permitted in classified areas, and reportedly entered into yelling matches with committee members.

“BREAKING: I led over 30 of my colleagues into the SCIF where Adam Schiff is holding secret impeachment depositions. Still inside – more details to come,” tweeted Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican congressman and one of Donald Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, referring to secured areas of the Capitol known as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, or SCIFs, and Schiff, the Democratic chairman of the House intelligence committee leading the Trump-Ukraine impeachment inquiry.

The Republicans who led the protest do not sit on the three committees involved in the impeachment inquiry and are not permitted to attend. Members of those committees already include Republican members of Congress, as well as Democrats and both parties attend and ask questions at the hearings, whether public or, as in this case, closed to the public and the press. But the members involved in the action on Wednesday have sought to attack the inquiry on procedural grounds, protesting against the private nature of the hearings and demanding access to the full breadth of the testimony that has rattled Washington in recent weeks.

US envoy says Trump used military aid to push Ukraine to investigate Biden

The acting US ambassador to Kyiv has provided congressional committees conducting impeachment hearings a detailed account of how Donald Trump repeatedly sought to make a summit meeting and military aid to Ukraine conditional on its government launching investigations into the president’s political opponents.

Bill Taylor’s testimony was the latest in a series of depositions by serving and former administration officials, as part of the impeachment inquiry, about Trump’s use of the presidency to put pressure on the Ukrainian government to procure compromising information on his political rivals. And it was the most detailed and damning to date. Taylor, who took over as acting ambassador in June, presented his testimony behind closed doors on Capitol Hill but copies of his opening statement soon leaked.

The veteran diplomat said that soon after arriving in Kyiv, he became concerned “our relationship with Ukraine was being fundamentally undermined by an irregular informal channel of US policymaking, and by the withholding of vital security assistance for domestic political reasons”.

Taylor said this irregular channel was run by Trump through several emissaries: the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the departing energy secretary, Rick Perry, the ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, and the special Ukraine envoy, Kurt Volker. They became focused solely on persuading the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to announce investigations that would damage Democrats and especially Joe Biden, the former vice-president and leading contender to the be the 2020 Democratic nominee.

Democrats declared it to be the clearest account to date of Trump’s abuse of office in the Ukraine scandal.

Anonymous Trump official who wrote New York Times op-ed to release book

An anonymous senior government official who wrote an excoriating op-ed column describing Donald Trump’s time in office, and detailing an internal “resistance” movement to thwart the president, has written a book that will be released in November. The book, titled A Warning, will expand on the anonymous article which was published by the New York Times in September 2018, it emerged on Tuesday.

That article, which the Times said was written by a current Trump administration official, presented a shocking description of Trump’s presidency. The official described Trump as making “half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions” and said a group of Trump appointees were working on “thwarting Mr Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office”.

The Washington Post and CNN reported that the book will be published on 19 November. A draft press release to accompany the launch, obtained by CNN, described the book as: “Picking up from where those first words of warning left off, this explosive book offers a shocking, first-hand account of President Trump and his record.”

Big Tech Platforms Have Had a “Profound Negative Effect on Democracy.” Is It Time to Break Them Up?

Honduran woman accuses immigration agent of sexual assault over seven years

A Honduran woman living in Connecticut has accused a US immigration agent of sexually assaulting her over a period of seven years under the threat of deportation, according to a federal lawsuit.

The woman, identified in the lawsuit as Jane Doe, sued the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), and the former Ice agent Wilfredo Rodriguez on Saturday, seeking $10m in damages.

“My only comment is that my client had a choice: cooperate with Ice or be deported with her family,” said George Kramer, the woman’s lawyer. “She remains in a very fragile psychological state. She is not only seeking compensation for the physical and emotional damage she suffered but to change the way those who are cooperating with Ice are treated by those in a position of power and who often wield total control over the ability to remain in the United States.”

An Ice spokesman told the Associated Press he couldn’t comment on litigation but confirmed Rodriguez no longer works for the agency. Homeland security didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment. ...

Tom Carson, a spokesman for the US attorney’s office in Connecticut, told the AP he could not comment on whether there has been or will be a criminal investigation.

Seeking to Deport Haitians, the Trump Administration Is Counting Deaths in Displacement Camps as “Progress”

Since Haiti was struck by a devastating earthquake in 2010, an estimated 59,000 Haitians have been granted Temporary Protected Status, which allows the nationals of countries designated unsafe due to “extraordinary and temporary” conditions to live and work legally in the United States. But in November 2017, the Trump administration abruptly terminated TPS for Haitians, setting off multiple battles in court. If the government prevails, current Haitian TPS recipients — many of whom have children who are U.S. citizens — could be deported to a country that is now in the midst of an escalating crisis.

A federal judge, in temporarily blocking the policy in April, found evidence that the decision was made in “bad faith” by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, which went “fishing for reasons” to end Haitians’ eligibility for TPS and ignored relevant facts about the persistence of hazardous conditions in the country. Haiti remains vulnerable to deadly diseases like cholera, Hurricane Matthew only exacerbated the post-earthquake housing crisis, and a political standoff has caused widespread food and fuel shortages, forcing hospitals to cut services or close entirely. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge William Kuntz also said there was evidence to suggest that “a discriminatory purpose of removing non-white immigrants from the United States was a motivating factor behind the decision.” The Trump administration is now appealing Kuntz’s injunction and defending the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation in four separate lawsuits.

In justifying its move to strip Haitians of their protected status, the administration has seized on statistics produced by the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental agency that counted 96 percent fewer people living in camps for internally displaced people in Haiti in 2016 than in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake. ... When one of the lawsuits challenging this termination went to trial in January, IOM’s statistics were the first item of evidence that the lead attorney representing Trump, Duke, and the U.S. government presented to support his argument that the decision to terminate TPS for Haitians was lawful and justified. During the trial, another government attorney referred to the “decline of the numbers of people living in camps” as “a sign of progress.” ...

Interviews for this article with dozens of Haitians who lived in IDP camps after losing their homes in the 2010 earthquake call these claims into question. We found that the vast majority of these earthquake-displaced Haitians still do not have safe or adequate shelter and are now living in informal settlements where they lack access to basic services. Many of them, far from voluntarily leaving the camps, were violently evicted. After examining the conditions in just four of the 1,555 camps where displaced Haitians lived, we found evidence that at least 32 individuals had died in these camps. Yet IOM does not keep track of such deaths, the organization confirmed. The evicted, the dangerously housed, and many of the dead, we found, are counted in that 96 percent decrease in camp population as evidence of “progress.”



the horse race



Jill Stein: Hillary Clinton is still sabotaging progressives

Matt Taibbi: Ukrainegate, Biden corruption, Hillary's Tulsi smear


Ocasio-Cortez Endorses 'Powerful, Progressive Fighter' Jessica Cisneros in Primary Fight With Centrist Henry Cuellar

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lent the campaign of progressive primary challenger Jessica Cisneros some star power on Tuesday when the New York Democrat endorsed the Texas lawyer in her quest to unseat Rep. Henry Cuellar.

Cuellar, a conservative Democrat, is one of the top targets for the progressive group Justice Democrats in the 2020 primary cycle.

"The people of South Texas deserve a Democrat like Jessica who is going to fight for real people, not big corporate donors like the Koch Brothers, GEO Group, and Exxon," said Ocasio-Cortez. "When Jessica is elected, not only will I no longer be the youngest person in Congress—I'll have a strong new ally in the fight for Medicare for All, getting corporate money out of politics, and fixing our broken immigration system."

The endorsement came just days after Ocasio-Cortez endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in his run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. ...

An anti-choice, pro-corporation legislator, Cuellar votes with President Donald Trump 52.8% of the time. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) enthusiastically endorsed Cuellar in September.



the evening greens


ExxonMobil faces trial over allegations of misleading investors on climate crisis

ExxonMobil is to face trial in New York City on Tuesday, accused of misleading investors over the business risks caused by regulations aimed at addressing the climate crisis. The oil and gas giant has been taken to court by New York’s attorney general for allegedly covering up the costs it will incur from government rules designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This represents just the second time a climate case has gone to trial in the US. ...

A slew of lawsuits across the US have sought to hold major oil companies to account over the climate crisis. The New York case is different in nature as it essentially revolves around investor fraud. From 2010, Exxon told the public it had assigned a price to carbon to account for how government regulation would affect its business. However, it privately used a much lower figure, allowing it to make carbon-heavy investments such as in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, that would appear much less profitable otherwise.

The lawsuit, now led by the New York attorney general, Leticia James, alleges Exxon ran a “longstanding fraudulent scheme”.

“Exxon in effect erected a Potemkin village to create the illusion that it had fully considered the risks of future climate change regulation and had factored those risks into its business operations,” the lawsuit states. “As a result of Exxon’s fraud, the company was exposed to far greater risk from climate change regulations than investors were led to believe.”

Melting glaciers reveal five new islands in the Arctic

The Russian navy says it has discovered five new islands revealed by melting glaciers in the remote Arctic.

An expedition in August and September charted the islands, which have yet to be named and were previously hidden under glaciers, said the head of the northern fleet, Vice-Admiral Alexander Moiseyev.

“Mainly this is of course caused by changes to the ice situation,” Moiseyev, who headed the expedition, said at a press conference in Moscow. “Before these were glaciers; we thought they were (part of) the main glacier.Melting, collapse and temperature changes led to these islands being uncovered.”

Glacier loss in the Arctic in the period from 2015 to 2019 was more than in any other five-year period on record, a United Nations report on global warming said last month.


Also of Interest

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

Assange Displayed Signs of Torture in Courtroom Farce

Only Cowards And Sadists Support The Persecution Of Assange

The FBI Has a Long History of Treating Political Dissent as Terrorism

Hillary Clinton And The Democrats’ Disinformation Campaign Against Tulsi Gabbard

Twitter Editor Exposed As Military PsyOps Officer

Proud Boys: members of far-right group receive prison sentence over street fight

As Modi Hobnobs With Kissinger and Other War Criminals, Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal Criticize US Support for Indian Regime

Jubilant Lebanon Uprising Fueled By Music, Dancing, and... 'Baby Shark'

Democrats Seek $70 Million Corporate Cash to Fund 2020 Convention

Krystal Ball: Yang's trucker friendship shocks the NYT

Elizabeth Warren Demands Repo Loan Answers as NY Fed Repo Data Disappears

Leaving Trees Alone Might Be Better Than Planting New Ones

The River People in Mexico left without a river

Jimmy Carter in hospital with pelvis fracture after fall at Georgia home


A Little Night Music

Lonesome Sundown - You're Playin' Hookey

Lonesome Sundown - I'm A Samplin' Man

Lonesome Sundown - Gonna Stick To You Baby

Lonesome Sundown - Hoo Doo Woman Blues

Lonesome Sundown - She's My Crazy Little Baby

Lonesome Sundown - I'm Gonna Cut Out On You

Lonesome Sundown - When I Had, I Didn't Need

Lonesome Sundown - Lonesome Whistler

Lonesome Sundown - I Had A Dream Last Night

Lonesome Sundown - I'm A Mojo Man


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joe shikspack's picture

@gjohnsit

thanks for the snowden vid!

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@gjohnsit Thank you so much.
I am always interested in Snowden's opinions.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

ggersh's picture

This is all from Zerohedge but just wow...

https://www.zerohedge.com/

It's all about the oil

It's Official: Trump Says US Keeping Syria's Oil, Secured By "Small Number" Of Troops

"We'll be deciding what we're going to do with it in the future."

451

Censorship via Silicon Valley which btw needs to go back to the stone age

Tulsi's Youtube, Suppressed!

"...All of a sudden [snaps fingers] boom, valve is pinched, you can’t find her exclusively in the United States. You can if you’re in Germany; you can if you’re Spain. United States however – nothing..."

144

Pravda of the West at work

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nyt-stealth-edits-story-hide-hillary...

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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

heh, it will be interesting to see how "we" go about keeping syria's oil. i wonder if the "protecting america's interests" crowd wants to die on that hill.

that piece about the new york times stealth-editing hillary's comments is quite fascinating. paper of record or operator of orwell's memory hole?

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Azazello's picture

Evening all, here's a reminder of why Bill Clinton was the worst president of our lifetimes: How Democrats Became the Party of Monopoly and Corruption
Good reporting from The Guardian on the Rio Colorado of late, thanks for the links joe.

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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

that's a great piece, thanks! lots of memories there.

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snoopydawg's picture

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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

heh, in one of those panel discussions on the hill's rising (with krystal ball) they show that clip of biden and mention that other democrats (it went by pretty quickly, but i remember hearing nadler's name) had used the "l" word, too.

i think that i linked it in the blog posts of interest section.

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lotlizard's picture

is throwing in the towel — October 31 will be the last day for Washington’s Blog Sad

https://washingtonsblog.com/

https://washingtonsblog.com/2019/10/washingtons-blog-october-31st-is-our...

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joe shikspack's picture

@lotlizard

that's pretty awful, though generally predictable. i'm not sure how a lot of sites will continue without revenue. it reminds me of how fortunate that we are to be here.

i appreciated their modified version of joe hill's "don't mourn, organize."

We’re not going to whine about how we got smeared and blacklisted by agents of disinformation, which took away 99% of our ad revenue. Alot of other good sites did as well …

Don’t mourn for the death of this site. Instead, celebrate the years when the web was free enough to allow sites such as this to exist, and redouble your commitment to making a better world for your kids, grandkids, loved ones and community.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

Thanks for the tunes, joe. I've been traveling and just got home yesterday. I worked today, but I use the term loosely.

I hope to take the time for the Snowden video. Almost three hours. I know I'll love every word, but that will take some time.

I'm feeling a bit of turn in the vibration in the US. Perhaps the impeachment stuff is giving people some hope. I also think the AOC endorsement of Bernie is having an impact. Her endorsement of Cisneros in Texas is powerful.

To me, the turn is being spearheaded by the youth. I couldn't be more pleased. It's their turn. They've got to take up the gauntlet. It was thrown decades ago. They are the ones. I am ready to follow their lead as I feel inspired by their energy and their courage.

I'm watching the series. I'm pulling for the Nats.

Have a playful evening, everyone! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

joe shikspack's picture

@Raggedy Ann

glad that you're back home safe and sound.

i hope that you're right about change being in the air. i was glad to see aoc throw her lot in with bernie for the stated reason of building a movement. her endorsement of cisneros is also welcome (cuellar is a turd that needs flushing) - i hope that it is only the start of the bernie/aoc movement endorsing downticket challenges to give their movement a base of support in the federal legislature and also at the state and local level.

a wholesale turnover of power will be required to make anything of value happen and it will be best to make a big move while people are motivated. there will be huge opposition and if sanders wins without legislative support what the centrists and the six-ways-from-sunday people are doing to trump will seem like a kiddie party by comparison.

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Back story: John was initially a CPA, supposedly doing tax cases, and he got a wild hair to take a capital murder case. Defendant's name was Johnny Paul Penry. It was appealed, retried, appealed, retried, the finally a plea to just give Penry life in prison with no chance of parole.
John went before the US supreme Court on this case.
I know every prosecutor, judge, clerk, cop, that had anything to do with this.
It established the IQ level for "incompetence", or at least made that IQ level the starting point across the land.
I will save these videos for the weekend. So happy to have them vetted for my viewing, Mr. shikspack!
And as always, your music round up is fun, and your roundup of information from sources I would never have thought about reading independently, is much, much appreciated.
John said, as I was describing my current case load, and current drive to have some state authorities come see if they think things are ok and on the up and up, that I was as much a raging firebrand as ever. Such a compliment from my friend who has been in the trenches.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

joe shikspack's picture

@on the cusp

add to your list of videos the snowden video that gjohnsit posted above. i'm about half way through it, but it's probably the most detailed interview that i can remember hearing from snowden.

heh, glad to hear that you're still keeping the court fires burning. Smile

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@joe shikspack Again, thank you so much for what you do.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

joe shikspack's picture

@on the cusp

i just finished listening to it in the background. it's an excellent interview. snowden covers some issues that you've undoubtedly heard him discuss before, but rogan gives him the time and space to expand on the details at a level that no interview that i've heard previously has allowed.

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I hardly participate with regards to comments in your posts but your efforts are greatly appreciated. When I view your posts I certainly uprate your content. It is truly a shame that many of the participants in this blog fail to do the same.

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travelerxxx's picture

@humphrey

I feel the same, humphrey. Seldom comment here, yet the EB tends to be my primary news source. There is a whole lotta work that goes into this to make it what it is and I appreciate it, too.

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

i appreciate your comment and that you click the like button. it's really the only way that i get a sense that folks are reading the eb.

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Anja Geitz's picture

@humphrey

to this comment as well. Usually don't comment, especially if I'm viewing on my ipad. (I don't know why but I frequently have difficulty loading all the videos and then the page crashes). But I always read everything and then give it a thumbs up.

Hey Joe, thanks for all you do!

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

mimi's picture

exclusively and continue to do so. But I got drawn in to the rest of the site in ways that were not helpful to me. I need to remind myself that I don't know the peoples to whom I am talking and it would be nice, if people remind themselves of the same.

I listened to the Snowden interview for the first 1.5 hours. The next thing I will do get his book when it's out and available in Germany. I think I know where I will find it the soonest. I hope to see Snowden one day in Germany live and well and in person.

Thank You for the EB as always. Thanks for the support to keep this site running goes to JtC for enabling Joe to post the EB.

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joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

thanks for reading!

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