The Evening Blues - 2-16-21
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues singer Wynonie Harris. Enjoy!
Wynonie Harris - Don't Roll Those Bloodshot Eyes At Me
“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
-- Douglas Adams
News and Opinion
Congress can't get enough of their recent drama.
Pelosi announces plans for 9/11-style commission to examine Capitol riot
Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, said on Monday that the US Congress will move to establish an outside, independent commission to review the “facts and causes” related to the deadly 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump in the waning days of his presidency. Pelosi said in a letter to members of Congress that the commission would be modeled on a similar one convened after the 11 September 2001, terrorist attack on Washington and New York.
Establishing such a body, were it to resemble the commission that reviewed the 9/11 crisis, is expected to require legislation. Democratic and Republican lawmakers had called for a bipartisan 9/11-style commission to investigate why government officials and law enforcement failed to stop the attack on the Capitol, while both chambers of Congress were engaged in the process of certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.
The calls followed Trump’s acquittal in his second impeachment trial, in which he was accused of inciting the insurrection after months of stoking his supporters with exhortations to try to overturn the election result and an inflammatory rally on the day itself, outside the White House, when he urged angry supporters to march on the Capitol.
Pelosi said on Monday that the panel will also look at the “facts and causes” behind the catastrophe, in which five people died on 6 January, including a police officer, many were injured, and two police officers died by suicide in the days that followed.
There were renewed calls from both parties on Sunday for such a commission.
Rania Khalek slams phony impeachment "soap opera"
Worth a full read. There's a lot more depth to the piece than can be fairly abstracted:
Chris Hedges: Cancel Culture, Where Liberalism Goes to Die
The Washington Post, which analyzed the public records of 125 defendants charged with taking part in the storming of the Capital on January 6, found that “nearly 60 percent of the people facing charges related to the Capitol riot showed signs of prior money troubles, including bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades.”
“The group’s bankruptcy rate — 18 percent — was nearly twice as high as that of the American public,” the Post found. “A quarter of them had been sued for money owed to a creditor. And 1 in 5 of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings.” ...
We must acknowledge the tragedy of these lives, while at the same time condemning racism, hate and the lust for violence. We must grasp that our most perfidious enemy is not someone who is politically incorrect, even racist, but the corporations and a failed political and judicial system that callously sacrifices people, as well as the planet, on the altar of profit. ...
To understand is not to condone. But if the ruling elites, and their courtiers masquerading as journalists, continue to gleefully erase these people from the media landscape, to attack them as less than human, or as Hillary Clinton called them “deplorables,” while at the same time refusing to address the grotesque social inequality that has left them vulnerable and afraid, it will fuel ever greater levels of extremism and ever greater levels of state repression and censorship.
The cancel culture, a witch hunt by self-appointed moral arbiters of speech, has become the boutique activism of a liberal class that lacks the courage and the organizational skills to challenge the actual centers of power — the military-industrial complex, lethal militarized police, the prison system, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the intelligence agencies that make us the most spied upon, watched, photographed and monitored population in human history, the fossil fuel industry, and a political and economic system captured by oligarchic power. It is much easier to turn from these overwhelming battles to take down hapless figures who make verbal gaffes, those who fail to speak in the approved language or embrace the approved attitudes of the liberal elites.
The cancel culture was pioneered by the red baiting of the capitalist elites and their shock troops in agencies such as the FBI to break, often through violence, radical movements and labor unions. Tens of thousands of people, in the name of anti-communism, were cancelled out of the culture. The well-financed Israel lobby is a master of the cancel culture, shutting down critics of the Israeli apartheid state and those of us who support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as anti-Semites. The cancel culture fueled the persecution of Julian Assange, the censorship of WikiLeaks and the Silicon Valley algorithms that steer readers away from content, including my content, critical of imperial and corporate power.
In the end, this bullying will be used by social media platforms, which are integrated into the state security and surveillance organs, not to promote, as its supporters argue, civility, but ruthlessly silence dissidents, intellectuals, artists and independent journalism. Once you control what people say you control what they think. ...
The ruling elites and the courtiers who trumpet their moral superiority by damning and silencing those who do not linguistically conform to politically correct speech are the new Jacobins. They wallow in a sanctimonious arrogance, one made possible by their privilege, which masks their subservience to corporate power and their amorality. They do not battle social and economic injustice. They silence, with the enthusiastic assistance of the digital platforms in Silicon Valley, those who are crushed and deformed by systems of oppression and those who lack their finely developed politesse and deference to linguistic fashion. They are the useful idiots of corporate power and the emerging police state. Cancel culture is not the road to reform. It is the road to tyranny.
France Tells US To Keep Its Woke Politics To Itself
Myanmar: troops and police forcefully disperse marchers in Mandalay
Troops have joined police in forcefully dispersing marchers in the city of Mandalay in northern Myanmar, as protests against the military coup continued despite the deployment of extra soldiers in some areas and an eight-hour internet blackout overnight.
Images and reports from the city on Monday showed police and soldiers using rubber bullets and slingshots to disperse protesters. A student union in the city said several people had been injured.
In the capital, Naypyidaw, protesters gathered outside a police station demanding the release of a group of high school students who were detained while joining in anti-coup activities.
One student who managed to escape told reporters that the pupils – thought to range in age from 13 to 16 – were demonstrating peacefully when a line of riot police arrived and began arresting them. It was not clear exactly how many students were rounded up, but estimates put the figure at between 20 and 40.
Myanmar resurfaced online at about 9am local time on Monday after an internet-monitoring service showed a dramatic fall in connectivity from midnight. There were fears the blackout might be used as cover for mass arrests or violence.
Myanmar's Suu Kyi faces new charge as crackdown intensifies
Anger as Bolsonaro moves to make guns easier to access: 'A threat to democracy'
Jair Bolsonaro’s latest efforts to make guns more easily available to Brazilians have sparked anger and trepidation with some calling the moves a threat to the South American country’s young democracy. Brazil’s pro-gun president announced four presidential decrees designed to facilitate legal access to weapons on Saturday morning, as the country’s coronavirus death toll swelled to nearly 240,000.
The changes, which came into effect immediately, increase the number of firearms and the amount of ammunition citizens can legally buy and make such weapons easier to acquire, stripping back federal police and army oversight of gun ownership. Hunters can now buy 30 guns each and sports shooters up to 60. ...
Gun control campaigners and Bolsonaro’s opponents are appalled, warning his relaxation of gun laws was helping organized crime groups to expand their arsenals and would make one of the world’s most violent countries even more violent. Gun ownership and imports have soared since Bolsonaro took office in January 2019 and began issuing a succession of decrees – some of which were later suspended – making it easier to buy more and more powerful weapons, including semi-automatic assault rifles.
Marcelo Freixo, a leftist congressman, called Bolsonaro’s actions “a threat to democracy”. “Bolsonaro doesn’t want an armed society because he believes individual rights should be above whatever else ... He wants to undermine our institutions so you have a society where a coup d’état can be carried out with guns,” Freixo said, urging citizens to wake up to the threat. Freixo noted how Brazilian citizens were now buying more ammunition than all of the country’s police forces put together, putting the state’s monopoly on force in check. “What’s happening is extremely serious.”
Andrés Arauz: Ecuador's Presidential Front-Runner on COVID, Austerity & Ending U.S. Interference
Risk of global food shortages due to Covid has increased, says UN envoy
People living in poverty around the world are in danger of food shortages as the coronavirus crisis continues, the UN’s food envoy has warned, with the risk worse this year than in the period shortly after the pandemic began.
Agnes Kalibata, the special envoy to the UN secretary general for the food systems summit 2021, said: “Food systems have contracted, because of Covid-19. And food has become more expensive and, in some places, out of reach for people. Food is looking more challenging this year than last year.”
Many of the problems that experts predicted last year have been deferred, not solved, she said. “The main impact has been on markets, the shutdown of food markets. The lockdown has closed markets and that makes it very difficult for farmers.
“Last year, many countries used whatever opportunity they had to keep their food systems going. That is more difficult now. Food prices have increased significantly in some places.”
Arkansas’ anti-BDS law violates the First Amendment, says court
The Arkansas Times has successfully challenged a law that prohibits the state from doing business with companies that boycott Israel.
The Little Rock-based weekly filed the lawsuit in 2018 and was represented by the ACLU. The paper takes no official position on BDS, but it launched the legal challenge after the University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College refused to sign an advertising contract with The Arkansas Times, unless it signed the pledge. A U.S. district court judge dismissed the case in 2019, but last week the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found the law unconstitutional in a 2-1 decision.
“We’re thrilled by the court’s ruling, which upholds the fundamental right to participate in political boycotts,” said ACLU attorney Brian Hauss in a statement. “The government cannot force people to choose between their livelihoods and their First Amendment rights, which is what this law did. Political boycotts are a legitimate form of nonviolent protest, and they are protected by the First Amendment.”
Cuomo CAUGHT In COVID Cover-Up, CNN Is Complicit
Andrew Cuomo insists New York didn't cover up nursing home Covid-19 deaths
Under fire over his management of the coronavirus’ lethal path through New York’s nursing homes, Andrew Cuomo insisted Monday the state didn’t cover up deaths – but the governor acknowledged that officials should have moved faster to release some information sought by lawmakers, the public and the press.
“All the deaths in the nursing homes and hospitals were always fully, publicly and accurately reported,” the Democratic governor said, weeks after the state was forced to acknowledge that its count of nursing home deaths excluded thousands of residents who perished after being taken to hospitals.
He explained the matter Monday as a difference of “categorization”, with the state counting where deaths occurred and others seeking total deaths of nursing home residents, regardless of the location.
“We should have done a better job of providing as much information as we could as quickly as we could,” he said. “No excuses. I accept responsibility for that.”
Cuomo, who has seen his image as a pandemic-taming leader dented by a series of disclosures involving nursing homes in recent weeks, said he would propose reforms involving nursing homes and hospitals in the upcoming state budget, without giving details.
Parler: rightwing social network back online after US Capitol riot controversy
Parler, a social media service popular with American rightwing users that virtually vanished after the US Capitol riot, re-launched on Monday and said its new platform was built on “sustainable, independent technology”. ... Despite the relaunch, the website was still not opening for many users and the app was not available for download on mobile stores run by Apple and Alphabet-owned Google, which had earlier banned the app.
While several users took to rival Twitter to complain they were unable to access the service, a few others said they could access their existing account. Parler, which asserted it once had over 20 million users, said it would bring its current users back online in the first week and would be open to new users the next week.
Last month, Amazon.com suspended Parler from its web hosting service, effectively taking the site offline. Parler, on Monday, said its new technology cut its reliance on “so-called big tech” for its operations.
'Biggest Risk' for Democrats on Minimum Wage, Says Top Sanders Aide, Is Not Raising It to $15
Amid ongoing wrangling over the inclusion of a $15 federal minimum wage provision in the proposed coronavirus rescue package, a top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders—chair of the powerful Senate Budget Committee—suggested Sunday that Democrats would be shooting themselves in the foot politically not to boost the wage floor.
"The biggest risk the Democratic Party faces with respect to the minimum wage is failing to raise it to $15 an hour when they control the House, the Senate, and the White House," tweeted Warren Gunnels, majority staff director for Sanders.
"I've been pretty silent on this sight for awhile. This has been our focus and our mission. We must win," he wrote.
The federal minimum wage currently sits $7.25 an hour—a level unchanged in a dozen years, even though many individual states have a higher wage set.
Incrementally increasing the federal wage to $15 an hour by 2025, as the House-passed bill calls for is not only appropriate procedurally for the reconciliation bill, say progressive lawmakers, it's nothing "radical."
"A $15 minimum wage is not a radical idea," Sanders tweeted Sunday. "What's radical is the fact that millions of Americans are forced to work for starvation wages, while 650 billionaires became over $1 trillion richer during a global pandemic. Yes. We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage."
While the Senate parliamentarian has yet to formally weigh in on the question of using reconciliation in this instance, the wage hike proposal—which would affect at least 27 million workers—is facing resistance not only from Republicans but some Democrats as well. Conservative Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia announced their opposition, and the Democrats' narrow control of the Senate means they can't afford any opposition to the measure, even with reconciliation requiring just a simple majority.
Sinema, for her part, asserted last week that the "minimum wage provision is not appropriate for the reconciliation process" because it's "not a budget item." That runs counter to the Congressional Budget Office's analysis showing that it does in fact have a budgetary impact.
Among other the "key players" in the minimum wage hike effort, according to The Hill, is the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Justice Reform Coalition Urges Biden to Pardon All Non-Violent Marijuana Convictions
A coalition of drug reform advocates on Monday urged President Joe Biden to follow through on his campaign promises and signal the nation is "truly taking a new course" by expunging the records of those with non-violent marijuana convictions.
In a letter (pdf) sent Monday, the groups—including National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and the just-launched U.S. Cannabis Council (USCC)—pointed to a national criminal justice system "in urgent need of reform" and called for a general pardon of those currently and formerly incarcerated.
"Cannabis prohibition ruins lives, wastes resources, and is opposed by a large majority of Americans," the group wrote.
They also referenced Illinois' Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker pardoning last month of more than 11,000 individuals with low-level cannabis conviction, saying that action "showcased the important role of clemency in achieving justice and equity."
Lasting harm from such criminal records casts a wide net, affecting areas including job opportunities and housing, they said. The letter likened that harm to the "baggage of the war on marijuana" that "continues to undermine that person's life and diminish their prospects."
"It is past time for the harm to stop," they wrote.
The group helped make their case by referencing comments Biden made on marijuana decriminalization during a presidential primary debate in 2019 when he said people should have "their records expunged, be completely zeroed out." The letter also pointed to Biden's day-one order saying the nation deserved a "whole-of-government equity agenda."
The latter comment, they wrote, is especially relevant in light of the "profound" and "long-term harm of cannabis prohibition in communities of color."
LAPD and district attorney investigate George Floyd photo with ‘you take my breath away’ caption
The Los Angeles district attorney and the police department are investigating after a police officer reported that an image of George Floyd had been made into a mock-Valentine meme featuring the words “You take my breath away” and circulated among officers.
The district attorney, George Gascón, decried the reported meme of Floyd, who was Black and killed by police in Minneapolis last spring.
Gascón posted on Twitter: “Celebrating the murder of a Black man at the hands of police demonstrates a profound absence of humanity. The mock valentine underscores problematic and racist perceptions of law enforcement culture regarding the communities we are sworn to protect and serve.” ...
The LAPD police chief, Michel Moore, earlier announced an internal examination of the situation and said investigators would try to determine how the image may have come into the workplace and who may have been involved, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Moore said the officer who made the complaint would be interviewed on Monday and added: “Our investigation is to determine the accuracy of the allegations while also reinforcing our zero tolerance for anything with racist views.”
Krystal Ball: Dems NEVER Really Wanted To Get Rid Of Trump
Wall Street Journal warns Republicans: ‘Trump won’t win another election’
In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s second acquittal in an impeachment trial, his supporters celebrated confirmed dominance of the Republican party. But as they did so an influential voice warned: “Mr Trump may run again, but he won’t win another national election.” The Wall Street Journal also said moves by Trump other than a run for the presidential nomination in 2024, including a “revenge campaign tour” or third-party run, would only “divide the centre-right and elect Democrats”.
No one so much as Democrats wishes for that analysis to be true: that if Trump insists on remaining a loud voice in US politics, he will succeed only in electing more Democrats. But the fantasy of Trump’s summary departure from the national political stage is to be guarded against, many warn – and the notion that he cannot win the White House again in 2024 has been rejected on both the left and the right. ...
About half of Republicans want Trump to stay head of their party. That said, half of American voters want him banished from politics altogether, according to a CNBC poll this month that echoed other surveys. There are a lot more Americans than there are Republicans. Furthermore, tens of thousands have left the party since the Capitol Hill attack on 6 January. ...
Right now, for Trump 2024, the political math looks bad. But the factors on his side, including fundraising muscle and a rabidly devoted base, are plain to see. Trump raised more than $250m after the election on the back of his lie that it was stolen – and he has promised to stick around. ... State Republican parties back him. At least four senators who voted to convict were on the receiving end of sharp rebukes. Such skirmishes could be further signs of how Trump threatens to pull the party apart.
Mexico was once a climate leader – now it's betting big on coal
The men on the midnight shift smoked cigarettes and cracked jokes in the glow of their helmet lights as they prepared to go underground. They were loading safety equipment and coils of pipe onto wheelbarrows, in readiness for a second shift due to start working later that week. “We’re reactivating the industry,” said Arturo Rivera Wong, who had just taken on 40 more workers at the mine he owns in the scrublands of the border state of Coahuila. “Four furnaces at the big thermoelectric plant are going to be reactivated,” he explained. “This is going to kickstart coal sales.” ...
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly known as Amlo, has unveiled plans to buy nearly 2m tons of thermal coal from small producers like Rivera. He also plans to reactivate a pair of coal-fired plants on the Texas border, which were being wound down as natural gas and renewables took a more prominent role in Mexico’s energy mix.
Not only is López Obrador is betting big on fossil fuels, he is also curtailing clean energy.
The populist president has promoted a vision of energy sovereignty, in which state-run bodies – the oil company Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) – pump petroleum and generate electricity. Private players, which have heavily invested in clean energy, are relegated to a secondary role in López Obrador’s vision – while emissions and climate commitments are an afterthought. ...
The CFE’s current investment plan forgoes clean energy projects entirely. And a bill for overhauling the electricity industry that was recently sent to Congress would force the CFE to purchase power from its own facilities, including coal plants, before renewables. López Obrador has said his government will refurbish the CFE’s hydroelectric installations, which would allow Mexico to meet its climate commitments of generating 35% of its electricity via renewables.
Did that dolphin say, "so long and thanks for all the fish?"
Nearly 200 Florida manatees filmed basking in shallow waters with dolphins
Almost 200 threatened Florida manatees have been filmed together basking in shallow waters off the state’s west coast, the remarkable drone footage also showing a pod of playful dolphins swimming through the group. ...
The YouTube video of the manatees and dolphins at play is unusual in that it captures the species together in such high numbers. The Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission estimates that only about 7,500 manatees exist in the wild in the south-eastern US, up from only around 1,250 two decades ago but far short of historical highs. Hundreds die each year from watercraft strikes and disease.
“Dolphins and manatees don’t interact super often, mainly because manatees spend a lot of their time in fresher waters than you find dolphins,” said Mike Heithaus, dean of Florida International University College of Arts, Sciences and Education and professor of the university’s department of biological sciences.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
In Biden’s Nomination of Marty Walsh, Aaron Swartz Prosecutor Gets Her Final Comeuppance
Rocket Attack Hits US Base in Iraqi Kurdistan, One Contractor Killed
New Documents Reveal More British Efforts To Undermine Russia
Jacob Zuma faces jail after failing to appear at anti-corruption inquiry
‘Astonishing’ dig reveals domestic life in the iron age
Ukraine man invents murder in attempt to get police to clear snow
Krystal and Saagar: Media Covers Biden’s Bedtime INSTEAD Of Arms Deal
Ryan Girdusky: FBI INVESTIGATING Lincoln Project As Founders Resign
Ryan Grim: Inside Dem’s EMBARRASSING Impeachment Witness Fumble
Saagar Enjeti: NYT SMEARS Private Blogger As Racist In Latest Bid To CONTROL All Speech Online
Jimmy Dore: The Establishment Wants Us Divided, Distracted, Afraid
A Little Night Music
Wynonie Harris - Put It Back
Wynonie Harris - I Like My Baby's Pudding
Wynonie Harris - Good Morning Judge
Wynonie Harris - Who Threw The Whiskey In The Well?
Wynonie Harris - Sittin' On It All The Time
Wynonie Harris - All She Wants To Do Is Rock
Wynonie Harris - Wynonie's Blues
Wynonie Harris - Hey Ba-Ba-Re-Bop
Wynonie Harris - I Want My Fanny Brown
Wynonie Harris - Night Train
Comments
Thanks as always joe.
I hit what I consider a gold mine today.
288 wide mouth canning lids.
The garden shall now proceed as planned.
10" of the powdery white demon last night and a backache today. It wasn't too bad considering it was only 11 degrees. But baby, that sun was shining hard.
Nothing a couple of big gulp 7&7s cant fix.
Luv to all.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
evening pricknick...
wow, congratulations on finding all of those canning lids!
sorry to hear about the backache, i hope the cure is extra pleasant.
have a good one!
If it wasn't for the food bank
last year, I would have tossed a truck load of produce.
I've devoted a computer to constantly check for availability of canning supplies.
Quality wide mouth lids will likely be a shortage this coming season the way things are looking.
As I usually preserve around 2-3 hundred quarts and pints per year, finding two gross of lids was a welcomed happening.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Good Evening Joe and Blues lovers - The quote from
Douglas Adams
is superb. Made my day.
The only thing I disagree with from the headline of Christ Hedges 'Cancel Culture' is that I don't consider Cancel Culture a culture but an abomination. (Have to read the essay tomorrow.
Manatees and Dolphins playing together, isn't that gorgeous?
And darn it, I am so glad Biden goes to bed early, at least he is accountable for next morning's executive orders to be "well slept over". That makes us sleep more trusting and calmly.
Have a good one all. Go to sleep early. And my wishes for you to survive whatever next disaster is hitting your parts of the woods. I add an extra prayer to the weather gods. May they have mercy.
Good Night.
https://www.euronews.com/live
evening mimi...
heh, with any luck biden is now getting plenty of sleep and maybe the irascibility that he displayed on the campaign trail will dissipate. heh, fat chance.
stay warm and toasty and have a great evening!
Good evening, joe and bluzerz!
It snowed for nine hours without stopping. It was a beautiful, heavy, wet snow. We needed this desperately. We actually got snow Sunday and Monday, too, but light and powdery. This is the one that counted.
Enjoy the evening!
"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
Glad for you.
We needed it like a hole in the head. Can barely see the cars on the driveway for the mounds of snow.
I have trees that look like bushes. About 18 inches of snow in the birdbath. Birdbath looks like a disc sitting on the snow.
fraction of an inch in central alabama. Emergency was declared. all gone by noon. Now that's the kind of snow emergency I like!
DC suburbs in Virginia were nearly as good. A decent snowfall overnight, totally gone by the next day.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Hey joe and the bluzers...
yes we got a mere dusting, and stayed in the 20's all day. Not typical, but not unheard. Hope the rest of you are weathering the, well, weather.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/02/us-focus-on-narratives-will-let-it...
Entertaining if nothing else. Sure is a joke wouldn't you say?
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
evening lookout...
i would expect that we will get entertained to within an inch of our sanity. the dems are like a dog with bone. besides, they'd much rather entertain us than govern.
Hey, in 1954 Puerto Rican terrorists shot up the House floor
“First breach of the Capitol complex in two centuries”? Very Orwellian, the way The Serious People in media and politics choose their words as if that 1954 attack never happened.
https://www.qwant.com/?q=1954%20puerto%20ricans%20attack%20house%20repre...
https://timeline.com/in-1954-these-four-puerto-rican-radicals-stormed-th...
Hey, you up there in the elites, Carter only, you know, pardoned them — that’s not the same as going back with a time machine and erasing the event from the history of the universe.
Time was, before we got all psycho-paranoid,
that just anybody could just walk in and observe government in action. They could even just walk into the White House and see the President, if he happened to be in residence and not busy.
Those days, of course, are long gone and will probably never return.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
I remember that! 1960's and probably 1950's
You just walked in, asked where your congressman's office was and the secretary would give you tickets to sit in the balcony. I remember some Southern Senator (Strom Thurmond?) giving a speech h with charts and proposing that "Negroes" be relocated evenly throughout the USA because the South had an inordinate number of "them". (Gee! I wonder how that happened! /s). Yes, that was an actual Senate debate, although lots of desks were empty and many of those that were there were not paying attention.
Also got in line for the White House tour. We were warned that we might see the President but not likely. On another day, I did "see" Johnson at Andrews AFB. I did see Air Force One and one of his daughter's wandering about the ramp (Lucy bird?). Three limos pulled up and a horde of SS agents got out and they moved as a body up the ramp into Air Force One. Couldn't see Johnson in the pack. Same trip I sold a pack of Lucky Strikes to the Air Marshall of England. Didn't really meet him. He sent an aide over to see me. He had noticed I was smoking an unfiltered cigarette and the canteen only had filtered. I told the aide that the Marshall was welcome to my second pack, but he insisted on paying. I forget the aide's rank, mid-grade offer like a US captain or major, I think. The Marshall actually smiled. They wear really strange lapel insignia.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Oh, that was people of color
They can do no wrong. According to dem racists only white skin makes one a pariah.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Yay for you
You’re probably as dry as we are and love the snow now. We’ve gotten snow all day and more storms are lined up for next week. We went from the wettest spring on record to the second driest all time and then the driest summer as well as the hottest.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Yeah, August was high nineties and no rain.
Now record cold. "May you live in interesting times."
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
evening ra...
glad to hear that you guys got some serious moisture. we've certainly been getting plenty of moisture here.
it snowed last night for a little while, then as it warmed up we got sleet and rain. by the wee hours of the morning it got so warm that the ice sliding off of the roof and gutters and crashing on the ground kept waking me up.
it got warm enough today that a lot of the snow that has been hanging around melted off. they say that between wednesday and saturday it'll probably get replaced with more snow, or possibly sleet. i guess we'll see.
Evening Joe
If manatees and dolphins can swim together
why not reds and blues?
We could learn a thing or two about adaptation.
Thanks for the Wynonie!
question everything
evening qms...
heh, dolphins and manatees are free of the ravages of cnn, msnbc and fox.
have a great evening!
Rania Khalek was on fire ...
Evening all, and thanks joe, for linking the Rania & Anya Show. I saw that in my YouTube feed and thought I'd take a pass but then, if joe links it it's probably worth a look.
Very Good.
From Wired magazine: Billionaires See VR as a Way to Avoid Radical Social Change
Kim Iversen was good last night:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueNkPab28xI&t=1021s width:500 height:300]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
evening azazello...
glad you enjoyed rania khalek's take on things as much as i did.
that post story is something i expect to see a lot more of. the feebs aren't likely to go after their right-wing moron friends, they are going to do what they always do and go after the left.
that wired article seems to be on target for the most part.
thanks for the links!
Really, when you get down to it ...
The picture-box world that most of us have been living in for many, many years is a virtual reality, a corporate-approved reality. You could call it capitalist realism, if you were into historical allusions. Here's a Mexican tune:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOMC2D59FoI width:500 height:300]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
heh...
thanks for the tune!
when i heard that opening bass line, it reminded me of blue bayou.
Thanks again for the new n blues Joe
Wake me up when any of our so called leaders end up in orange, until that occurs I'm saving the good stuff, so for now I'll stick to a gummie here and there and a smoke there and here.
Stay safe and warm everyone, the Artic weather appears to be going back to where it belongs.
Funny that warm weather in the Artic no problemo, Artic weather in Texas and all hell breaks loose.
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, somehow i don't expect to have to wake you up anytime soon. enjoy your gummies.
stay warm and toasty and lets hope the arctic and its weather get back together soon.
have a good one!
Sad situation for so many
Norway when their wind turbines get frozen. Lots of republicans yada yadaing and lying about what’s happening in Texas.
Wonder what the record amount is?
It did that once in SLC. Dumped 4 feet of snow that melted by noon leaving a huge mess. Everyone living in the city stayed home and those that commuted drove in only to be told that we were closed and to go home. Yeah Right.
Truth dies in darkness.
Funny how congress hasn’t ever done a 9/11 commission study on school shootings.
Seen on the Twit:
Amen to that. Ogden has all these new apartment buildings crammed into a space where 3 homes used to be. In this one there are 14 6-apartments blocks and developers are building apartments like that all over the state. On mountain road going to SLC I used to pass orchard after orchard and now it’s apartment blocks wherever they can fit them in. They are not cheap either. Typical homes cost $400,000 when just a decade ago they were in the $200,000. Young people can’t afford a $1,000 mortgage, but they are paying much more for rent. This is only going to get worse if congress doesn’t act. So we’re losing so much as the money goes to the top. Our main roads in the city need refinishing badly and I’m wondering where the money is going to come from. Our legislators are real estate tycoons and they will not regulate the growth that is pushing out so many.
Gravel deleted this tweet.
Today we chased the clouds from the sky.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Gee -- I seem to recall a time
when the Texas WH team and Texans laughed as CA was experiencing blackouts and getting hosed on their electric bills.
I was in Modesto when that went on
Lots of fun to be without air conditioning when it’s over 100. I sure don’t remember getting a refund for over paying my electric bills that summer. Again with everything going on here I’m still stunned that congress and Biden have the balls to go on vacation and telling us that we are on our own. Those poor people who held on to hope that Biden in and Trump being gone they would get help. This was 41 days ago that Biden promised the checks would go out immediately. Warnoff is going to be challenged by Perdue in 6 years and I bet we’ve seen the last time that blacks will vote democratic after the second betrayal by Biden. The 1st was the Obiden years. Deja vu
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Slight correction.
Perdue would have to wait six years to attempt to reclaim his senate seat from Ossoff. Warnock won in a special election and the term on that Senate seat ends in Jan 2023. (Isakson retired (health related) and Loeffler was appointed in Jan 2020.)
Perdue isn't that well regarded in GA; so, would expect some GOP competition for him in the 2022 election. (GA has a "jungle" general election and if no candidate wins 50%+1, the top two meet in a runoff.) While Perdue did run stronger in his 2021 runoff than Loeffler did in hers, he still lost to a weak candidate (one that only the DNC, etc. loves).
Someone will have to tell Purdue that
Because he’s making plans to return earlier.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
evening snoopy...
heh, snow in texas. what'll they think of next?
that photo of folks walking on the interstate reminds me of one day a number of years ago when i was driving to work through several inches of snow on the road and i saw this crazy guy up ahead riding a ten-speed bike up the middle of the road.
sorry to see that the tribune is getting absorbed by the borg, though i was sort of glad to see that the baltimore sun may be reverting back to local ownership, i hope that it works out well.
apparently, that didn't hit them where they live. dead kids' grieving parents are great props for fundraising, but it doesn't inspire the visceral feelings that being chased by an armed mob does.
Oh oh
This must be making Pelosi and Schumer squirm.
If Trump divides the republicans and the results are more democrats winning then how will they fight against it? Democrats don’t want to hold power any more than republicans want them to, but how can they fix it? Oh wait a minute..that is the message they are sending now. "Just because we’re in charge don’t be expecting us to deliver on any of our promises to you that we’ve made over and over each time we ran...it’s not gonna happen!"
lol...I tweeted: "Imagine if Trump was at Camp David this week while millions were without power and many states paralyzed because of weather and the checks still hadn’t gone out yet and congress is on vacation. Biden is."
Lol one person said that I’m lying because Trump golfed every weekend....lots more jumped on. Okay I guess. Trump golfed a lot but Biden’s not really at Camp David. Guess that’s how that works in their mind.
Feudalism vs authoritarianism? Combo of both?
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
heh...
i have complete faith in the dems to be able to screw things up and lose - regardless of what sort of clown show their opponents put on.
nancy and chuckie shouldn't worry.
The Chicago Tribune is just a right wing rag.
Once they had alternative voices but no more. anti-tax, anti-union, all the time. I kept buying it for the comics and my wife liked the Sunday ads. then they upped the price and dropped my favorite cartoons (too leftist).
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Hope to hell there was a follow up question
Id start with, "I’m sorry but how can you say that you did everything right when we’re talking about how many things you did wrong?"
Second question would be "why did you start talking about the void when asked if you would apologize for lying about nursing home deaths when you could have just said yes or no?"
Next: .your assistant said that she hid the numbers from the Trump administration because she didn’t want them to look bad. Were you aware that she did that and if so what made you make that decision?"
Then I’d keep going. Putrid little puke Cuomo. Blehh.,
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
heh...
he has a real talent for obfuscation.
9 of Cuomo's
previous collaborators have been sentenced to prison. Most are still there.
2 more than Trump
NYCVG
hmmm
And yet, OWS held no interest for them and instead they lined up to support a billionaire (alleged) conman. Sure looks as if their racism trumped their wallets.
evening marie...
heh, ows wouldn't let people bring guns to their meetings.
perhaps it's just a measure of how effective media manipulation of groups has been that there are distinct protest movements of the downtrodden right and left.
on the other hand, there were lots of libertarian types that attended ows events, including ron paul followers.
It’s like the bomber with a rainbow flag on it
It could be edited, but that was pretty much what she said when asked about Yellen’s conflicts of interests. She lies,
obsfiscates (help)obfuscates and condescends with her answers. I don’t see her doing anything different than Trump’s mouthpieces. Psaki is the mouthpiece for empire as Caitlin is fond of saying.The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt
Matt Taibbi on fascism's 5th Column
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/marcuse-anon-cult-of-the-pseudo-intellectu...
I just wish I had a time machine so I could go back and kill this cancer-seed (or perhaps Sigmund Freud himself? He was basically the Prime Mover behind this entire Unlightenment); it's SO unfair, and COMPLETELY unnecessary.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Without Freud we'd never have had "Forbidden Planet",
nor the classic line, "Monsters from the Id!" (The story was basically Shakespeare's The Tempest IN SPACE, but with Freudian embellishments.)
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
As I recall our favorite charcter was 'cookie"
The cook that got Robbie the robot to make him a huge pile of whiskey.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
I didn't care for that movie's message, and that would be why
"Man is untrustworthy and irrational and evil, and that is why we have laws and religion!"
Kind of sums it up right there; a SUPREMELY reactionary war on The Enlightenment itself that led DIRECTLY to fascism as we know it, all because of a sleazy charlatan and his monstrous extended family, telling the Victorian ruling class everything they wanted to hear EVEN THOUGH REAL PSYCHOLOGISTS SHITCANNED HIM DECADES AGO.
I would literally kill in defense of the last 300 years of hard-earned history, that these ass-clowns are committed to nullifying; how about you?
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!