The Evening Blues - 3-31-16
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Delta bluesman Houston Stackhouse. Enjoy!
Houston Stackhouse - Cool Drink of Water
"Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government."-- Jeremy Bentham
News and Opinion
Maryland Appellate Court Rebukes Police for Concealing Use of Stingrays
A Maryland appellate court on Wednesday explained its reasoning for its landmark decision earlier this month requiring police to establish probable cause and get a warrant before using a Stingray, or cell-site simulator.
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals rejected the state of Maryland’s argument that anyone turning on a phone was “voluntarily” sharing their whereabouts with the police. And the 73-page opinion also harshly rebuked Baltimore police for trying to conceal their use of Stingrays from the court.
“This is the first appellate opinion in the country to fully address the question of whether police must disclose their intent to use a cell site simulator to a judge and obtain a probable cause warrant,” said Nathan Wessler, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Project on Speech, Privacy, and Technology.
The panel of judges stated that “cell phone users have an objectively reasonable expectation that their cell phones will not be used as real-time tracking devices, through the direct and active interference of law enforcement.” ...
Judge Andrea Leahy, writing for the panel, admonished the department’s secrecy: “We perceive the State’s actions in this case to protect the Hailstorm technology, driven by a nondisclosure agreement to which it bound itself, as detrimental to its position and inimical to the constitutional principles we revere.”
FBI to help Arkansas prosecutor in unlocking murder suspect's iPhone
The FBI agreed to help an Arkansas prosecutor unlock an iPhone and iPod belonging to two teenagers accused of killing a couple, just days after the federal agency announced it had gained access to an iPhone linked to the San Bernardino gunman.
The FBI announced on Monday that it had gained access to an iPhone belonging to Syed Farook, who died with his wife in a gun battle with police after they killed 14 people in San Bernardino in December. The FBI has not revealed how it cracked Farook’s iPhone. Authorities also have not said whether the iPhone and iPod in the Arkansas case are the same models or whether the FBI will use the same method to try to get into the devices.
Another story of American Corporations supporting fascism.
Fueling Fascism: The Secret History of How Texaco Supplied Oil to Fascists in Spain
US to transfer dozen Guantanamo inmates to at least two countries
The transfers come as the Obama administration takes steps to close the controversial facility, which has been called a recruiting tool for jihadists.
The prisoners are expected to leave Guantanamo in the coming weeks.
However, the military did not disclose the prisoners' destinations.
Tariq Ba Odah, a Yemeni man who has been on a long-term hunger strike, is among the prisoners being transferred, an official told Reuters.
The US Is Sending Thousands More Armed Troops and Heavy Weaponry to Eastern Europe
The American military is going to deploy rotations of US-based armored brigade combat teams and new equipment on NATO's eastern borders in response to an "aggressive Russia."
A brigade's worth of soldiers — around 4,500 soldiers each — will be on nine-month rotations in the region starting in February 2017 — the first such deployment since the end of the Cold War.
They will conduct military exercises across Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary, according to a statement from US European Command.
A host of new heavy equipment including 250 tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Paladin self-propelled howitzers, and more than 1,700 additional wheeled vehicles and trucks will also be sent, reported the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
The extra troops' presence in Europe will be continuous and bring the total US Army presence on the continent to three fully manned brigades, the military said.
The US has around 62,000 military personnel permanently stationed in Europe across 21 bases, and has previously sent a brigade in intermittently.
Gosh, I can't imagine why Russia would want to boycott Obama's legacy-burnishing summit.
Russia's absence means nuclear summit likely to end in anticlimax for Obama
When Barack Obama welcomes more than 50 world leaders to Washington on Thursday ahead of his fourth and final nuclear security summit, one of the most important chairs will be empty.
Russia is thought to possess more nuclear weapons than any other country, including the US. Together the cold war foes share more than 90% of the world’s arsenal. So President Vladimir Putin’s decision to boycott the high-level talks threatens to turn them into an elaborate anticlimax, even as fears of nuclear terrorism are on the up. ...
In an opinion column in the Washington Post on Wednesday, Obama argued that the US and Russia should negotiate to further reduce their nuclear stockpiles. “Our massive cold war nuclear arsenal is poorly suited to today’s threats,” he said. But the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told Reuters that Russia was skipping the summit because of a “shortage of mutual cooperation” in working out the agenda.
Joint Chiefs Chairman: Obama to Decide on Increasing Troops in Iraq ‘Soon’
Speaking at a news briefing today, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford told reporters that President Obama is about to decide on proposals to increase the number of US ground troops in Iraq, saying the decision will come within a matter of weeks.
Last week, Dunford confirmed that multiple proposals had been sent to President Obama, and suggested that the only real question was how many more troops will be sent to Iraq.
US Warns Assad Against Forming New Coalition With Opposition
With some progress apparently being made in the peace talks, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he believes a new constitution could be ready in a matter of weeks and a new unity government, including both the existing government and rebel factions, could be formed with little difficulty.
Convincing the rebels, such as they are, may not be the tough part, however, as the White House was quick to condemn Assad’s comments, and to warn that the US will never recognize any Syrian government that includes Assad. ...
Exactly what the US can do about it is unclear, however, as they already backed the peace process that seems to be leading to that government, and grousing about the Syrian decision to unify after advocating unification talks probably won’t win them a lot of fans.
The Obama Doctrine: The Audacity of Ignorance
... If Libya was an isolated example, history might be more generous to 21st century America.
But one must look to Afghanistan, where a shell of the original coalition sent to bust up the Taliban now acts to maintain some-sort of American vassal state. Iraq of course is the uber-example, a war to stop another evil dictator (formerly supported by the United States) that changed under its coalition’s nose into creating a whole new nation-state in America’s image. The same is happening in real-time in Syria, where the U.S. State Department still believes a coalition of 62 nations is furthering whatever America’s goal there might be.
Obama and all of the presidential candidates also keep saying much the same thing about how the Sunnis and Kurds need to “step up” to fight ISIS.
Standing above them all is the grandest of American coalitions at present, that one that seeks to smite Islamic State, in the many countries it has metastasized into. But funny, one hears little any more about any coalition against al Qaeda. Meh, times change, gotta move on.
One foreign commentator said the United States has “turned into a nation of idiots, incapable of doing anything except conducting military operations against primitive countries.”
That, perhaps, is the clearest statement of the Obama Doctrine yet.
Turkey 'demands deletion' of German video mocking Erdogan
The Turkish government has reportedly ordered the deletion from the internet of a German satirical video that pokes fun at President Recep Tayipp Erdogan and condemns his human rights record. ...
The complaints centre on a two-minute song, Erdowi, Erdowo, Erdogan, which was broadcast by the TV channel NDR on 17 March. The lyrics mock the president for everything from his “showy palace with a thousand rooms, built without a permit in a conservation area” to his crackdown on press freedom, and for “jailing journalists for writing things he doesn’t like”.
It also criticises his attitude towards the Kurds, claiming he is “more inclined to bomb them than his brothers in faith from Isis”, and paints a picture of a Europe that is kowtowing to his demands.
Greece's Impending Humanitarian Catastrophe: Breaking Borders
Netanyahu Furious as US Lawmakers Seek Probe of Israel’s Extrajudicial Killings
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today expressed outrage at Sen. Patrick Leahy (D – VT) and a number of other Congressmen over their request that the State Department investigate reports of extrajudicial killings by Israeli security forces.
Netanyahu insisted Israeli security forces “are not murderers” and that it is wholly inappropriate to investigate them for the killings they do. This comes amid a high-profile legal dispute within Israel over an IDF medic killing an already wounded and disarmed Palestinian, though that killing wasn’t specifically mentioned in the Leahy letter.
The letter did mention Amnesty International and other NGOs reporting several other similar killings, along with the use of torture against certain detainees, including Wasim Marouf. The Leahy Law bars the State and Defense Departments from providing military aid to nations that violate human rights.
Part one of an expose of corruption in the oil industry, here's a teaser:
The Company That Bribed The World
A massive leak of confidential documents has for the first time exposed the true extent of corruption within the oil industry, implicating dozens of leading companies, bureaucrats and politicians in a sophisticated global web of bribery and graft.
After a six-month investigation across two continents, Fairfax Media and The Huffington Post can reveal that billions of dollars of government contracts were awarded as the direct result of bribes paid on behalf of firms including British icon Rolls-Royce, US giant Halliburton, Australia’s Leighton Holdings and Korean heavyweights Samsung and Hyundai.
The investigation centres on a Monaco company called Unaoil, run by the jet-setting Ahsani clan. Following a coded ad in a French newspaper, a series of clandestine meetings and midnight phone calls led to our reporters obtaining hundreds of thousands of the Ahsanis’ leaked emails and documents. ...
Corruption in oil production - one of the world's richest industries and one that touches us all through our reliance on petrol - fuels inequality, robs people of their basic needs and causes social unrest in some of the world's poorest countries. It was among the factors that prompted the Arab Spring.
There's A Huge New Corporate Corruption Scandal. Here's Why Everyone Should Care.
Most people remember that the Arab Spring started with a guy who lit himself on fire. What they don’t remember is that he did it as a protest against corruption: Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian fruit vendor, decided he'd been shaken down by police officers one too many times.
Bouazizi's death set in motion the biggest political upheaval of the 21st century. The Arab Spring was “mostly about corruption,” said FBI Special Agent George McEachern, one of the leading investigators of global graft. “Corruption leads to failed states, which leads to terrorism." ...
Hundreds of major international corporations -- including Halliburton, its former subsidiary KBR, Rolls-Royce and Samsung -- counted on Unaoil to secure lucrative contracts in Iraq, Kazakhstan, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and other countries in Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union, tens of thousands of internal emails and documents reveal. It's common for large multinational corporations to partner with smaller firms with local expertise to win contracts. But in many cases, Unaoil wasn't winning contracts because of its expertise -- it was winning them by paying millions of dollars in bribes to corrupt officials. ...
By aiding the corruption of already-distrusted regimes and accelerating the flow of money and resources out of poor countries, Unaoil and its partners were risking far more than fines and criminal penalties. They were creating political instability, turning citizens against their governments, and fueling the rage that would erupt during the Arab Spring -- and be exploited by terrorist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Abortion without the clinic on offer with revolutionary new US program
A groundbreaking new experiment is launching in four states that could make abortion dramatically more accessible by allowing women to obtain abortion-inducing drugs through the mail.
The program, which will be run as a pilot study out of four clinics in New York, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington state, is a first in the US – and one that its architects urgently hope to expand as the country’s abortion clinics close down at historic rates. ...
The program works by making a key shift in how mifepristone, the nation’s most-used abortion drug, can be dispensed. Under current FDA rules, the drug is only available in clinical settings – never in pharmacies. The pilot, however, will permit four abortion clinics in four states to ship the medication by mail.
Patients in their first nine weeks of pregnancy can receive the pills by mail if they live in the same state as the clinic and undergo an ultrasound and blood test to confirm the pregnancy and rule out risks. (Unlike abortion clinics, the thinking goes, facilities offering blood tests and ultrasounds are plentiful.) A clinician will then counsel the patient on taking the pills via video conference. The counseling and drug regimen are unchanged.
The Price of Fighting Back: How Woman Faces 60 Years in Prison for the Death of Her Abusive Ex
Activists and Legislators Shine a Spotlight on the Criminalization of Black Girls
Black girls are entering the criminal justice system in droves, many of them directly from the classroom. While incarceration rates nationwide have been on the decline after years of growth, black girls are the fastest-growing segment of the prison population, and many have been caught up in a cycle of criminalization and punishment from a young age.
Black girls represent 16 percent of female students but almost half of all girls with school-related arrests. Nationwide, they are being suspended at six times the rate of white girls — more disproportionally than black boys, who are suspended three times as often as their white peers.
But harsh school punishments and a fast track into the criminal justice system are not the only problems affecting black girls, who are also disproportionately vulnerable to extreme poverty, poor access to health care, and domestic and sexual violence. And like black men, black women are also dying at the hands of police. ...
Now black women are trying to change that. This week marks the second-ever Black Women’s History Week. And last week, three black congresswomen responded to an online petition by announcing the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, which will launch next month and aims to raise awareness about black women’s issues before policymakers. ...
Like other recent efforts by legislators on racial justice issues, the caucus was prompted by a grassroots campaign by seven women who called themselves the #SheWoke committee, including activists, scholars, and the biological sister of Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old woman who was arrested during a traffic stop in Texas last summer and found dead in her cell three days later.
Jamar Clark decision leaves protesters dismayed, but not surprised
When he announced on Wednesday that no charges would be brought against two police officers involved in the shooting of Jamar Clark, county attorney Michael Freeman called for peace. Within an hour, scores of police in riot gear were swarming once again around the fourth precinct building in north Minneapolis.
This building – which was once a community center – has become a focal point for anger. Clark was shot 100 yards from here in November 2015, following a struggle with two officers, and died the next day. Eyewitness accounts from bystanders said that the 24-year-old black man had been handcuffed at the time he was shot, and his family called it an “execution-style” killing. Freeman, the county attorney, denied the veracity of these accounts when he declined to charge the officers. ...
But for the protesters, dismayed at the lack of charges against the officers who shot Clark dead in front of more than a dozen witnesses, the notion that the killing could be described as “justified” felt like a gut punch.
“This is not a surprise,” said Nimo Omar, a 20-year-old student who had been at the precinct occupation in November and was protesting again on Wednesday. “This is just another way of saying ‘fuck you’ to all of us.” ...
Freeman said the Hennepin County chief medical examiner had found “no evidence of injuries from handcuffs”. ... He said that 10 law enforcement and emergency response witnesses had said that Clark was not handcuffed. ... For Mel Reeves, an organiser of the group Twin Cities 4 Justice 4 Jamar Clark, Freeman’s words were hollow. “All the witnesses – at least, most of them – say the guy was handcuffed,” he said. “And he was surely unarmed, and all the witnesses say he was just shot.
“None of the witnesses corroborate what the police said,” Reeves continued. “In fact, it was just a fairytale that the county weaved.”
Sanders bumped off D.C. ballot
As a result of a registration error committed by the District of Columbia Democratic Party, Sen. Bernie Sanders won't appear on the Washington D.C. ballot.
The Vermont senator's name won't appear on the ballot because the party submitted the requisite paperwork one day too late, according to NBC's Washington affiliate, News4.
Both the Sanders' campaign and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's campaign paid the $2,500 fee to appear on the June 14 Democratic primary ballot on time but the district's Democratic Party failed to inform the Washington D.C. Board of Elections until March 17, one day after the deadline.
Is Arizona Voting Chaos a Warning for Upcoming Elections?
Arizona Secretary of State Confirms Election Fraud Happened in State Primary
Arizona’s Secretary of State has confirmed that election fraud took place in the Arizona primary on March 22.
During yesterday’s testimony at the Arizona state capitol in Phoenix, Secretary of State Michele Reagan was asked what her office was doing to investigate the claims that registration for thousands of voters had been changed from Democrat or Republican to independent. As US Uncut previously reported, thousands of voters were given provisional ballots, which aren’t actually counted, due to their party registration mysteriously showing up in the system as “independent” or “no party declared.” ...
The enraged voters who flooded the state capitol building in Phoenix yesterday are largely calling for a re-vote, as the problems with the primary extended far beyond the party registration mishaps alone. Reagan has promised provisional ballots will eventually be counted if they can somehow determine that party affiliation had been improperly changed, but has flatly denied the possibility of a re-vote thus far.
Hillary Clinton looks to be conceding Wisconsin; troubles loom for New York
It looks as though Hillary Clinton is giving up on Wisconsin, conceding it to rival Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders, as she hunkers down in New York to prepare for a battle there.
Mrs. Clinton has moved her campaign to New York in the pivotal days before the Wisconsin primary, which will be held April 5. Mrs. Clinton has no plans, as of now, to be in the Badger State before the contest.
Although the public polling looks tight in Wisconsin, Mrs. Clinton’s internal polls must be telling another story — why else would she be trekking out of the state?
#BernieOrBust Dynamic Somehow A Revelation For Corporate Media
The establishment consternation over the very idea that Democratic Party members would refuse to vote for Hillary Clinton came into intense focus after an interview actress Susan Sarandon did with perpetually credulous MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes, wherein she explained that many supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders do not like or trust former Secretary Clinton and will likely not vote for her if she is the nominee.
The substance of Sarandon’s argument was completely coherent and sensible concerning the likelihood of left-leaning Democrats to support a candidate like Hillary Clinton, who has supported aggressive wars in Iraq and Libya while shilling for Corporate America and Wall Street at home. Sarandon even postulated that some of those people might be content to let Donald Trump become president in hopes that Trump would destroy the current system and allow a better one to be built in its place.
While that last point predictably led to smear pieces from the usual suspects in hack journalism, it was not long before the pundits really started condemning the idea that Democrats would not come home in November and vote for Clinton, should she be the nominee.
Some excellent snark...
Sorry Bernie Bros, Your Candidate Just Doesn’t Have The Foreign Policy Experience Necessary To Prop Up A Pro-Western Dictatorship
All election long, I’ve seen post after post from rabid “Bernie Bros” ecstatically trumpeting the enlightened policies of Senator Bernie Sanders. You can find them in every corner of the internet spewing impassioned diatribes against anybody who dares criticize their presidential candidate. Well, I’m sorry, Bernie Bros; it’s not working on me. Bernie has a couple nice economic pipe dreams, but he simply does not have the foreign policy experience necessary to prop up a pro-Western dictatorship. ...
Sure, he can speak abstractly about international relations, but enabling the rise of the next Pinochet requires a lot more than abstractions. For that, you need actual diplomatic chops and hands-on experience supporting tyrannical despots, and that’s where Sanders would be way out of his depth.
I’m just being pragmatic here. Even the most fanatical Bernie Bro has to admit their hero knows nothing about the real-life challenges a president faces when undermining established foreign governments. The tough truth is that no amount of high-minded rambling about free college tuition can put machine guns into the hands of juntas sympathetic to U.S. strategic goals.
With Underwater Blasting Plans, 'Unacceptable Risk' Awaits Atlantic Marine Life
Though Obama administration dropped plans for Atlantic offshore drilling, possibilty of dangerous seismic airgun blasting remains
When the Obama administration announced earlier this month that it was reversing its plans to open the mid- and south-Atlantic to oil and gas drilling, environmental groups cheered.
But, as a new set of maps from ocean conservation group Oceana shows, "entire marine communities" in those waters from Delaware to Florida are still under threat.
That's because fossil fuel exploration using seismic airgun blasting—a process known to cause harm to marine life—is still a possibility. Currently, as ThinkProgress reported,
there are eight applications to conduct seismic testing making their way through the federal permitting process. The National Marine Fisheries Service, part of NOAA, is currently considering issuing Incidental Harassment Authorizations. There will be a 30-day public comment period on the IHAs before they go back to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which will decide whether to approve the permits.
Despite the testing's expenses and the administration's reversal, "none of the companies that have sought the seismic permits have withdrawn their applications to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management yet," Tideland News reported.
As Coal Use Drops, Investors Blow Nearly $1 Trillion Globally on Unnecessary New Plants
Faced with an overabundance of underused coal plants, what has today's coal industry decided to do?
Keep on building new coal plants—to the tune of a whopping $981 billion.
Those are the findings of a new report (pdf) put out by environmental groups Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and CoalSwarm. "New investigations detailed in the report revealed that while the coal industry continues to push for the construction of more coal-fired power plants, in reality, coal plants are increasingly sitting idle in all of the world’s four largest markets, and global coal consumption is declining drastically," the groups noted in a press statement.
The non-profits' report, Boom and Bust 2016: Tracking The Global Coal Plant Pipeline, explores the perplexing trend:
The world has too many coal-fired power plants, yet the power industry continues to build more. While the amount of electricity generated from coal has declined for two years in a row, the industry has ignored this trend and continues to build new coal-fired generating plants at a rapid pace, creating an increasingly severe capacity bubble. The problem of over-capacity is especially pronounced in China, where the average coal plant is now run at a 49.4 percent rate, less than half its full capacity. Meanwhile, 338 GW of new coal capacity is in construction worldwide, and 1,086GW is in various stages of planning—the equivalent of 1,500 coal plants. The amount of overspending on these potentially unneeded plants amounts to US$981 billion, or close to one trillion dollars.
"Coal use keeps falling off a cliff and plants are sitting idle, yet more money is being wasted on misguided attempts at locking in this dirty, dangerous fuel," said Nicole Ghio, senior campaigner for the Sierra Club’s International Climate and Energy campaign. "The hundreds of billions being thrown at coal could instead go toward the booming clean energy sector, helping more than a billion people get access to the clean, reliable electricity that fossil fuels have failed to deliver."
Study: Antarctic Ice Sheets May Melt Even Faster than Previously Predicted
Antarctic ice has the potential to melt faster than predicted, and could contribute to sea level rise of up to six feet by 2100, according to a new report published Wednesday.
The research, published (pdf) in the journal Nature, finds that in a worst-case scenario of unabated carbon emissions, melting ice sheets in Antarctica could raise sea levels by 39 inches by 2100—double what United Nations climate scientists warned just three years ago, according to the study by University of Massachusetts Amherst professor Rob DeConto and Pennsylvania State University professor David Pollard.
With melting ice in other regions, the seas could rise by up to six feet, as the New York Times explained.
Even in a best-case scenario in which nations cap rising greenhouse gases as agreed to in the Paris climate deal last December, sea levels could still rise by three feet in that same time span.
And in the worst-case scenario, by the year 2500, melting Antarctic ice alone could raise sea levels by 42 feet.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
President Has His Facts Seriously Wrong on Financial Reform
Bernie Sanders’ connections with two UMKC economists run deep
Five Demographic Arguments for Bernie Sanders
The arc of neoliberalism is long, but it bends toward the rich
No, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida's Payday Law Doesn't Rein in Loan Sharks
FBI resists call to reveal Tor hacking secrets
FBI Honeypot Ensnares Michigan Man
A Little Night Music
Houston Stackhouse - Big Fat Mama Blues
Houston Stackhouse - Kind Hearted Woman Blues
Houston Stackhouse - Big Road blues
Houston Stackhouse - My Babe
Houston Stackhouse - Return Mail
Houston Stackhouse and Carey Ditty Mason - Mercy Blues
Houston Stackhouse - Talkin' 'Bout You
Houston Stackhouse - Take a little walk with me
Comments
A Bit of Sad News
Many here knew blueyedace2 for, among other things, his beautiful photo diaries on DK. Ace passed away this past weekend. He was a really good guy. RIP Ace.
This diary was posted in the afternoon by a friend — BLUEYEDACE2 has left this earth, not just DK. RIP my friend! - http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/31/1508631/-BLUEYEDACE2-has-left-...
Thank you.
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
that is very sad news.
very sad.
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
evening jnh...
thanks for the (sad) news and condolences to his friends.
Evening, joe! Hope you're doing well mate. Excellent music -
thanks for educamating me every evening. I'm listening to my new delta blues hero, Houston Stackhouse, as I go through the news. You know, I'm spending a lot less time on scanning the MSM since following the Evening Blues :=) Thanks for that!
That f*cking preznit of yours really knows how to screw up a legacy, don't he? A very lawyerly shyster he turned out to be, eh? I suspect our shiny new PM will follow in his footsteps soon. The fellow is already wiggling on tar sands and his gov is mewling away about the "difficulties" of legalizing MJ, as he promised so repeatedly. He bears close watching.
WTF? "Seismic underwater airgun blasting? Excuse me? I heard one of your restaurant chains is now selling something they call "ocean meat." Good grief. My first thought was, "It's because you f*ckers have cleaned out the whole ocean, so the jellyfish can rule alone." Now with this blasting business, they really will only be able to sell "ocean meat" - from scooping up the shreds of fish with nets and pressing it into pattycakes. This poor earth really does need a bazillion years of rest from humans, eh.
Excuse the rant, the news really calls for it. Have a great evening mate,
PS: Stackhouse does a real good "Kind-Hearted Woman" blues!
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
evening gerrit...
you're welcome. as a famous preznit might say, i'm learnin' all the time, i'm glad that you is too.
our f*cking preznit down here likes to pretend to do one thing and make purty speeches about it, while he does something underhanded to achieve the results that his 1% buddies want. he's really quite good at it. i'm sorry to note that your preznit seems to have a certain similar charismatic streak - i hope that he uses it for better things than our preznit.
"ocean meat." hmmm... is that anything like "surimi" or "crab sticks?"
I've no idea what's in "ocean meat", joe, I'm not touching it!
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
DC City Council Moves to put Bernie on Ballot
D.C. City Council To Hold Emergency Vote To Get Bernie Sanders On The Ballot
Please help the Resilience Resource Library grow by adding your links.
First Nations News
evening martha...
good to hear that the dc government is motivating itself to avoid a major kerfuffle.
thanks! have a great evening!
Question for Da Mods: could we stream all TOP-referencing
articles into one stream somehow? Then I could ignore them all at once, instead of having to work so hard at ignoring them one at a time? :=) Call it the Zuniga OT or something. Then folks who are still going through the stages of separating and grief could have an Emergency Room/Chapel and all articles about progressivism would stand out more.
I know this is real hard and I sound callous, but there's a never-ending stream of TOP-related stuff on the community page. I get that folks need to separate and grieve and look for lost relatives. I want them to be able to do so here, but surely c99 could stream all that into one?
And now I'm so reminded of my childhood: "All right, young mister G, bend over so that the principal could give you six of the best with his cane." Man, we boys used to keep score - we'd mark the inside seam of our school jackets with each caning and compare scores the end of term. :=)
Please forgive my bluntness; I don't know how else to talk.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
ah... give 'em time.
i don't know how long you've been blogging, but it does become a home of sorts. if you noticed, there was mention of blueyedace2 dying. he's somebody i've known for almost 10 years. not as well as some other bloggers because i not terribly active at dKos anymore (except for these last few months).
but you make friends. you have routines. you hang out in the same places. i mean, it's dynamic and things change sure, but you always imagine you can go home... again. hell, i've met some of them in RL, even the elusive ek hornbeck. he and a few others are really very dear to me. including our own johnny the conqueroo.
truth is, sometimes you just can't go home. but with you here and so many other wonderful interesting people, it won't be long before everybody gets settled in.
i don't know why, but i'm having a bit of Lonesome Dove moment, so I'll add this:
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
TY, pf8, that explains it well, I get it. TL Jones sings? Woah.
thanks.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
gerrit!!!!
have you never seen or read Lonesome Dove?
you would love it . . . i mean i hardly know you but i do think you would love it.
it is epic.
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
it could be done...
but it seems kinda uncharitable to tell folks, yeah, do that over in yonder corner.
in my view, there are a lot of folks here who are still decompressing after being in a pretty manipulative environment. yes, i wish that we could all just move on right now, we have work to do.
it is going to take some folks quite a while to disentangle themselves. a lot of folks were quite invested in that place and the games played there. they still want to win that site, despite the fact that it's rigged. some of them will probably go right back after the storm blows over, though i suspect an awful lot will not.
i hope that over time the folks that are still healing will come to terms with the idea that the best revenge is living well - and start really living rather than reacting.
for now, i think that we just keep encouraging them to focus on the things that are really important.
Roger that, joe, thanks mate, I get it. Sad thing is, you can't
ever go home again. I'm an immigrant with the scars from that lesson. But everyone learns at a different rate and I'm a trooper: I can ignore several things at once for the cause :=) In fact, i'm so full of my on bullsh*t, I hardly have time for anything else! I'll work on the kinder, gentler thing, thousand points of light and so forth. (I used to be better at that.) Thanks again for filling me in.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
Stormy Monday
I'm so sorry.
I wanted to share this with you. Geez -- I was just trying to upload it. I didn't expect it to post when I saved it. At any rate, I thought you would really like this. It's one of my favorites.
And I will try to get my comment thing down:).
evening jmarks...
first, welcome and thanks for the tune!
second, on this site, you can edit your comments. so, if you find that you have hit the save button before you finished your comment, you can click on the edit link (next to the reply link under the yellow thumb at the bottom of your comment) and then fix things to be just exactly perfect and save the comment again.
Super Delegates Starting To Feel The Bern?
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First Nations News
whoa wow
"i will strongly support nominee" and of course he's being very cagey here. because his vote may help determine the nominee, but this is quite something. thanks for this Martha.
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
heh, with any luck...
it's the start of a sea change.
Evenin' joe and everyone!
Headed out to my granddaughter's softball game and then home. Hope to read the blues at home and enjoy the music! Toodles!
"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...
good luck to your granddaughter and i hope that you can make it back later.
take care!
Evening Joe, good people~
Just this tonight:
I shave my legs with Occam's Razor~
and...
I put the tweet I was practicing embedding in instead of the real one...lol, all fixed.
I shave my legs with Occam's Razor~
evening triv...
thanks! that's a pretty interesting linked in profile.
i guess most of the information in it is old and has been bandied about as conjecture about nsa's methods and capabilities for a long time. on the other hand, it's funny how classified information becomes "more real" when it is finally acknowledged by officialdom. (for example, we knew for decades about the cia's overthrow of mossadegh before the cia finally admitted it. but when the report was finally released 60 years later, it becomes news that the lickspittles in the mainstream media can report.)
have a great evening!
It's interesting and absurd.
These things tend to confirm my creeping suspicion that we have, in fact, entered the Twilight Zone.
I shave my legs with Occam's Razor~
Great collection of articles
During the 1970s, the U.S. 2d Armored Division kept three brigades at Fort Hood, Texas, and one at Grafenwoehr, West Germany. It was the only Army division with four brigades, and they all took turns spending six month deployments in Germany - which included field exercises in Bavaria. I was in the 1st Brigade. 2AD was deactivated at the end of the Cold War.
It's amazing what lengths our leaders are willing to go to in what appears to be a bid to re-start the Cold War. Which is not a good idea.
The Susan Sarandon MSNBC interview was wonderful, although I would describe Chris Hayes as incredulous rather than "credulous."
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
and again Obama is lying
He says that he wants to decrease the number of nukes, but they are working on a mini nuke that won't do as much damage.
And he's saying that Russia is increasingly aggressive? WTF. Russia had every right to defend Crimea because they have had a base their for decades.
And I don't recall Russia invading country after country in the Middle East or else where. Does anyone else?
And of course there's plenty of money to surround Russia to protect US interests while working on a grand bargain here.
I can't wait for his term to be over.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
evening rmw...
heh, the cold war is good for business, apparently. we can't count on these middle eastern terrorists to drive the economy with their brush fire, low-intensity wars. /s
i enjoyed the sarandon interview, too. i thought that hayes' eyes were going to pop out and push his glasses off of his face.
Another excellent EB, joe. Thanks.
I hope people read the link to the article The whole Benghazi scandal. It has some great zingers in it. Rudy 9/11 is blaming Hillary and Obama for Isis because they pulled the troops out of Iraq. But Obama did everything he could to be able to stay in after the SOFA, but US troops could be tried under Iraqi laws and that wasn't acceptable. So it was actually Bush that set the time line for the troop withdrawal.
"Giuliani wants us to believe that the world is a more dangerous place because Hillary Clinton is a prude who doesn’t like to bomb brown people countries. Yes, the world is a more dangerous place - but for the exact opposite reason: Clinton’s penchant for interventionism has contributed to destabilizing the Middle East and North Africa, creating ideal conditions for ISIS to grow and thrive. In this sense, she really did “help create ISIS.”
As a ferocious supporter of invading of Iraq, in 2003 then-Senator Clinton insisted that Saddam Hussein was giving “sanctuary” to terrorists. Aside from being total baloney nonsense, the dark irony is that the invasion transformed Iraq into an enormous terrorist incubator: A top military adviser to General David Petraeus has stated plainly that “there undeniably would be no ISIS if we had not invaded Iraq” and “we have to recognize that a lot of the problem [in the Middle East] is of our own making.”
As the author states, Hillary has a penchant for military interventions. True.
Here's the list of the ones she has pushed for going back to the 80's
http://www.empireslayer.org/2013/11/hilary-clinton-pro-war-and-imperiali...
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
evening snoopy...
yep, i enjoyed that piece about mr. "a noun, a verb and 9/11" guiliani and hillary. they really are two peas in a pod, happy to exploit 9/11 for political gain.
27K in line in the Bronx to see Bernie tonight
Wow, gbb, just wow! NYC feels the Bern - w00t! The polls there
shows Bernie closing and fast. WI is moving decisively his way and at this rate, NY could be close, if not a Yuge surprise. Terrible things often happen when I get a real good feeling about s/t, but this could be a magic carpet ride the next 10 days or so. This calls for Steppenwolf at max volume :=) Do the chair dance, gerrit!
From here on out, this is my Bernie theme song - the revolution Will be set to music. Cheers mate,
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
evening gbb...
damn! i've been to grateful dead concerts with smaller crowds.
Hey hey all.
I have the feeling this speech is going to be a special one! I have a feeling NY is going to turn this coming week, in a good way!
well, i think the whole world is going to the dogs . . .
“There are moments which are not calculable, and cannot be assessed in words; they live on in the solution of memory… ”
― Lawrence Durrell, "Justine"
LOL! Our Golden's just like that :=)
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
evening peef...
heh, my daughter's dogs are a lot more excitable than that. they are always at the door barking long before the doorbell rings - it might be somebody with food! the mailman bugs them because he comes, touches the house and then leaves before they can find out what he's been eating. they know before you get up to go to the refrigerator that you will be going there, they can sense your intent when you stand up somehow.
if a burglar showed up, they'd have him surrounded trying to figure out where his food was.
Adorable! It is amazing how dogs can sleep soundly,
yet seemingly, hear every sound.
'Mister B' can be in the den, appearing to be deeply asleep--then show up 'Johnny On The Spot' when he hears me open his daily 'meds' container--which signals that it's 'yogurt time.'
Thanks for tonight's EB, Joe. Feeling sorta puny today, so don't have too much to add.
AP Radio News reported several times today that FSC had a few Bernie supporters escorted out of a rally she held in Purchase, NY. Apparently, she lectured them that she had received more votes that any other candidate (D or R), on their way out.
According to a print piece that I located, they left on their own--but, not before chanting, ""If she wins, we lose."
Good for them! The article goes on to put out that she is 'struggling' with young Democrats.
Purchase, New York is apparently is the wealthiest Zip Code in the US--10577. The average household income in Purchase, NY is estimated to be approximately $352,000,[13] which, according to Time Magazine, is the highest among all cities and towns in the United States.[14]
Hey, have a nice evening, Everyone!
(Music City) Mollie at C99P & DKos
elinkarlsson@WordPress
"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare."--Japanese Proverb
"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."--Author Unknown
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
evening mollie...
i'm seeing indications that new york might not be as much of a cakewalk for clinton as she may have expected. a major upset there would be quite a turning point, i think.
Off Topic
Unless music is the topic...
So I just heard this song on the radio for I think the first time ever (The Current 89.3 Twin Cities, they stream, they're community supported radio and amazing!)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvndA7tfvz8]
I'm in a new band project and we just played our first Dark Side of the Moon show last weekend, and I had literally just gotten off the phone booking our 2nd gig as a Floyd tribute, and One of These Days comes on the radio. It's a sign!!
"Polls don't tell us how well a candidate is doing; Polls tell us how well the media is doing." ~ Me
evening thumb...
music is always a topic.
heh, you could do another one of these days right after it...
Hey Thumb
One of these days is good early Floyd.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Love that!
Because we're a jam band at heart we're considering A Group of Small Furry Animals Sitting in a Cave and Grooving With a Pict. Love deep tracks.
"Polls don't tell us how well a candidate is doing; Polls tell us how well the media is doing." ~ Me
Have you heard Darkside of the Mule?
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Oh yeah
Go read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, then listen to Echos. Cannabis can be a useful catalyst.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
feeling depressed, just reviewed 2006 Lamont-Lieberman race
I'll have to write it up. There were some crazy things said by people who are considered "reasonable". Tell me if this Jonathan Chait comment reminds you of anything.
then there was this political ad
and here's some goofball from Slate
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2006/08/dea...
the next sentence is very interesting. You know Hillary didn't want war. She thought her vote would mean no war and lots of inspectors.
oh...I see. She did want war, just not the way Bush ran it.
evening shahryar...
yes, indeed, that does remind me of something.
it strikes me that maybe this time we will have the numbers to take those snotty, war mongering, elitist bastards and shove them back in the closet with their skeletons. if we don't, we're just going to hear the same whining forever.
The establishment vs everyone else
Yeah, it sounds familiar. Sadly familiar. I'm looking forward to your write up, although I suspect I'm going to find it a depressing and distressing read...
Ran across a long write up about Hillary's emails today: https://informedvote2016.wordpress.com/2016/03/18/do-i-really-need-to-wo... its long, and really well sourced, well written and cross linked to the point it took me an hour to get through the whole thing, but its well worth the time investment.
Having read it, I'm now wondering where Unaoil and the Clinton Global Initiative might intersect as apparently the corruption issues going on in Afghanistan were brought to SOS Clinton's attention but dismissed. http://abovewhispers.com/2016/03/30/theres-a-huge-new-corporate-corrupti...
I keep wondering if the announcement that the FBI is interviewing Clinton before the NY primary is a play to garner her sympathy (along the 11 hours of Benghazi hearings) or if its an actual sign she's in trouble..
Honestly hoping is the latter, but expecting the former
Speaking of Corruption
Steven D has been reporting on some of this. Now, here's more information about what happened in MA.
It's on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuEMOKSaTk0
From MO's reddit page
This is GRIM. Truman Foundation connection - including members of Clinton staff - WTF?
Who is sabotaging the Sanders Campaign??? Shudder to think what must be happening in NY, PA, and CA.
Evening and thanks, Joe and c99percenters,
listened through the whole video above. I can't believe that people behave like that. I wonder if those 'trojan horses' in the Sanders campaign get good money for doing what they do. Does Bernie knows about this?
https://www.euronews.com/live
Evening Joe (and everyone)!
Again, all the information that's fit to read, nicely listed in one place. This evening news feed is now my go-to for keeping up with the REAL news
Glad to see DC fixing the Bernie snafu and at least one superdelegate changing their mind about the annointed one. I saw where some Washington and Alaska Superdelegates were taking some heat from their constituents about sticking with Clinton. I hope it costs them to go against the majority of their state...
evening jiordan...
regarding the superdelegates, it takes a lot to dislodge an establishment candidate gone bad. look at the experience with lieberman.
on the other hand, we may be building up to a wave election one of these days.
“Periods for Pence”
Women hilariously troll Indiana Gov. Mike Pence by phone to protest anti-abortion law
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First Nations News
Thanks Joe!
Just a quick fly by tonight. I had tidy up tomorrow's OT. Take a look, I am hoping to provoke a needed discussion.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
isn't that nice?
I wonder who the "others" are in the Clinton column.
https://www.euronews.com/live
appreciate all the news
Wow Joe, The evening blues are pretty dense. Good edition tonight. Thanks for all the info to digest.
Have you seen RFK jr's theory about ISIS and the reason Assad must go? He thinks its a pipeline.
Short piece http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/02/24/rfk-jr-isis-created-by-washingto...
longer: http://ecowatch.com/2016/02/25/robert-kennedy-jr-syria-pipeline-war/
Sounds possible to me. Sure does explain a few things like Russia's involvement. Why Assad must go but we can support rulers that behead their people every Wed in Saudi Arabia. and so on.
War is created in bank board rooms.
Thanks for all your work! I'll leave you with the Delmore Brothers from here in Alabama Blues stay away from me
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Oliver Stone: Why I'm for Bernie
link