The Evening Blues - 2-24-21



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Memphis Slim

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues piano player Memphis Slim. Enjoy!

Memphis Slim - Born With The Blues

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."

-- Benjamin Franklin


News and Opinion

Glenn Greenwald: House Democrats, Targeting Right-Wing Cable Outlets, Are Assaulting Core Press Freedoms

Not even two months into their reign as the majority party that controls the White House and both houses of Congress, key Democrats have made clear that one of their top priorities is censorship of divergent voices. On Saturday, I detailed how their escalating official campaign to coerce and threaten social media companies into more aggressively censoring views that they dislike — including by summoning social media CEOs to appear before them for the third time in less than five months — is implicating, if not already violating, core First Amendment rights of free speech. Now they are going further — much further. The same Democratic House Committee that is demanding greater online censorship from social media companies now has its sights set on the removal of conservative cable outlets, including Fox News, from the airwaves.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday announced a February 24 hearing, convened by one of its sub-committees, entitled “Fanning the Flames: Disinformation and Extremism in the Media.” Claiming that “the spread of disinformation and extremism by traditional news media presents a tangible and destabilizing threat,” the Committee argues: “Some broadcasters’ and cable networks’ increasing reliance on conspiracy theories and misleading or patently false information raises questions about their devotion to journalistic integrity.”

Since when is it the role of the U.S. Government to arbitrate and enforce precepts of “journalistic integrity”? Unless you believe in the right of the government to regulate and control what the press says — a power which the First Amendment explicitly prohibits — how can anyone be comfortable with members of Congress arrogating unto themselves the power to dictate what media outlets are permitted to report and control how they discuss and analyze the news of the day?

But what House Democrats are doing here is far more insidious than what is revealed by that creepy official announcement. Two senior members of that Committee, Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Silicon-Valley) and Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA) also sent their own letters to seven of the nation’s largest cable providers — Comcast, AT&T, Spectrum, Dish, Verizon, Cox and Altice — as well as to digital distributors of cable news (Roku, Amazon, Apple, Google and Hulu) demanding to know, among other things, what those cable distributors did to prevent conservative “disinformation” prior to the election and after — disinformation, they said, that just so happened to be spread by the only conservative cable outlets: Fox, Newsmax and OANN. In case there was any doubt about their true goal — coercing these cable providers to remove all cable networks that feature conservative voices, including Fox (just as their counterparts on that Committee want to ban right-wing voices from social media) — the House Democrats in their letter said explicitly what they are after: namely, removal of those conservative outlets by these cable providers.

Saagar Enjeti: Dem Ask To DEPLATFORM Fox News Is Gravest Threat To Press Freedom In Modern Memory

Hassan Rouhani Keeps Iran Nuclear Deal Open to Joe Biden Despite Pressure From Hardliners

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is facing intense domestic pressure over his government's last-minute agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to maintain inspector access to Iranian nuclear facilities, undercutting Iranian lawmakers who last year voted to end access unless American sanctions were lifted.

Iran will follow through on its threat to withdraw from the Additional Protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which affords IAEA inspectors access to nuclear facilities. However, Rouhani's government reached a "temporary bilateral technical understanding" with IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi to retain access for the next three months.

The number of IAEA inspectors allowed in the country will not change, but inspections will be more limited. Iran will also stop sharing video recorded by cameras at some nuclear facilities for the next three months. This footage will be destroyed if American sanctions are not lifted by the end of the three months, or handed over to the IAEA if they are.

The U.S. welcomed the compromise, but Iranian lawmakers were furious and have opened litigation against Rouhani's administration, the state-run Fars News Agency reported.

Iranian officials should be charged over shooting down of Ukrainian plane, UN expert says

Many high level Iranian officials should be charged for the shooting down of a Ukrainian commercial airliner in January 2020, a UN human rights expert has said, describing the killing of the 176 people aboard as a “profound and serious indictment” of the country’s civil and military authorities. Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, delivered a 45-page letter to the Iranian government which was made public on Tuesday, outlining her findings from a six-month investigation into the disaster, and complaining about the lack of Iranian cooperation, which has left many of her questions unanswered.

Callamard issued a particularly strong condemnation of the Tehran government’s treatment of the victims’ families, who she said had been harassed and threatened, denied the return of remains and personal effects, and forced to go along with officially staged “martyr” funerals.

Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was shot down by an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air defence missile battery shortly after it took off from Tehran’s international airport, at a time of high tensions, five days after a US drone strike killed an IRGC commander, Qassem Suleimani. The plane was bound for Kyiv but had 55 citizens and 30 permanent residents of Canada aboard. After denying responsibility for several days, Tehran said the Boeing 737-800 was shot down by mistake by an air defence crew who mistook it for an incoming US missile.

“The inconsistencies in the official explanations seem designed to create a maximum of confusion and a minimum of clarity. They seem contrived to mislead and bewilder,” Callamard, said in the letter, which was sent to Tehran 60 days ago with a set of questions but has yet to get a reply.

US is stopping war in Yemen by actually continuing to support it?

Last public statue of Spanish dictator Franco is removed

The last public statue in Spain of the former dictator Francisco Franco has been removed from the city gates of Melilla, a Spanish enclave and autonomous city on the north-west African coast.

Without much fanfare, a group of workmen took down the statue on Tuesday, using a mechanical digger and heavy drills to chip away at the brick platform on which the statue stood, before lifting it off by a chain around its neck and carting it away in bubblewrap on a pickup truck.

The statue, erected in 1978, three years after Franco’s death, commemorated his role as commander of the Spanish Legion in the Rif war, a conflict fought in the 1920s by Spain and France against the Berber tribes of the Rif mountainous region of Morocco.

“This is a historic day for Melilla,” Elena Fernandez Trevino, in charge of education and culture in the enclave, said on Monday after the local assembly voted to take the statue down, pointing out that it was “the only statue dedicated to a dictator still in the public sphere in Europe”.

Biden's Sleepy Start EXPOSED. NO Checks, NO Minimum Wage, NO Infrastructure

Krystal Ball: Make The Rich PAY For Pandemic Destruction Of Working Class

Romney, Cotton Condemned for Offering $10 Minimum Wage With Added Xenophobic Touch

Republican Sens. Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton on Tuesday attempted to counter the popular push for a $15 federal minimum wage with legislation that would raise the national wage floor to just $10 by 2025 while also taking steps to ensure undocumented workers are excluded from the pay increase—a proposal that progressives roundly dismissed as an "insulting" non-starter.

Morris Pearl, chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement that Romney (R-Utah) and Cotton's (R-Ark.) combination of xenophobia and a meager pay increase produced "an anti-immigrant, low-wage bill masquerading as an attempt to help American workers."

"The Romney/Cotton minimum wage bill is pathetic," said Pearl. "There is nowhere in the United States where $10 an hour is enough to live on today. That will be even more true in four years. While tens of millions of Americans live and work in poverty, this bill would increase wages for only 3.5 million workers. By comparison, the Raise the Wage Act would increase wages for nearly ten times as many Americans, 32 million."

Ohio congressional candidate Nina Turner slammed the proposal on Twitter, writing that "$15 is already the compromise position."

Formally titled the Higher Wages for American Workers Act, the Republican legislation would gradually phase in a $10 federal minimum wage over the next four years and thereafter index it to inflation every two years. The minimum wage in Arkansas, Cotton's home state, is already $11 an hour.

Romney and Cotton's bill would also require employers to use E-Verify—a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) system—to ensure that companies don't hire undocumented workers and heighten penalties on business that continue to do so, measures that Romney's office said are designed to prevent undocumented people from benefiting from the minimum wage increase.

Briahna Joy Gray: How Dems Weaponize Empathy, Identity To Kill Progress

Heh, identity politics brawl ready to blow up?

AOC criticizes Manchin over apparent targeting of Biden’s nominees of color

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has stepped into the intensifying dispute around the treatment of women and people of color nominated to top jobs in the Biden administration, as the confirmation process in the US Senate begins to sour. The leftwing Democratic congresswoman waded into the debate amid growing concerns in progressive circles that Joe Biden’s nominees from minority backgrounds are being singled out for especially harsh scrutiny.

Several women of color are facing daunting hurdles to confirmation with Republicans withholding backing and the Democratic majority in the Senate imperiled by the opposition of the conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin. The senator from West Virginia announced on Friday he would oppose the candidacy of Neera Tanden to become the first Asian American woman to fill the post of budget director. On Monday he also indicated that he was having doubts about Deb Haaland, who would become the first Native woman to take a cabinet seat. ...

In a tweet on Monday, Ocasio-Cortez turned the spotlight onto the record of Manchin himself. She pointed out that the Democratic senator had voted to confirm Jeff Sessions as Donald Trump’s first attorney general despite the fact that the former senator from Alabama was dogged with accusations of racism throughout his career. “Jeff Sessions was so openly racist that even Reagan couldn’t appoint him,” Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that as attorney general, Sessions went on to preside over the brutal family separation policy at the US border with Mexico.

“Yet the first Native woman to be Cabinet Sec is where Manchin finds unease?” she posted.

Justice Democrats Sell Out Progressives Again -- Protecting Neera Tanden

Citing Concerns About Corporate Power, Bernie Sanders Votes Against Biden's Choice for USDA Chief

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday was the lone progressive to vote against Tom Vilsack reprising his role as secretary of agriculture, citing concerns that progressive advocacy groups have been raising since even before President Joe Biden officially nominated the former Obama administration appointee.

The Senate voted 92-7 to confirm Vilsack, with Sanders (I-Vt.) and six Republicans opposing his appointment. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) was the only member who did not vote.

In a statement on his decision, Sanders first said that "I have known Tom Vilsack for many years and look forward to working with him as our new secretary of agriculture."

"I opposed his confirmation today because at a time when corporate consolidation of agriculture is rampant and family farms are being decimated, we need a secretary who is prepared to vigorously take on corporate power in the industry," Sanders explained. "I heard from many family farmers in Vermont and around the country who feel that is not what Tom did when he last served in this job."

The Hill reports Sanders made similar remarks about Vilsack to journalists after the vote, saying that "I think he'll be fine, but not as strong as I would like."

Biden Canceled Trump's "Remain in Mexico" Policy, But Asylum Seekers Still Waiting in Squalid Camps

White House denies ‘kids in cages’ hypocrisy charge as detention centers reopen

One person’s “kids in cages” is another’s “reopening overflow facilities.”

The Biden White House is being accused of hypocrisy for reopening border facilities to house migrant teenagers — including one that both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris savaged then-President Donald Trump about on the campaign trail and before.

Biden blasted Trump repeatedly for separating families and failing to reunite them, decrying during an October debate that migrant children were “ripped from their [parents’] arms and separated.”

Harris, then a senator, said in 2018 at the peak of the family separation controversy that Trump’s treatment of migrants was a “crime against humanity.”

But on Monday the Department of Health and Human Services reopened a facility in Texas to house up to 700 migrants ages 13 to 17. A second facility in Florida also is being reopened. The decision rankled immigration advocates and sparked allegations of hypocrisy given the previous Biden-Harris condemnation.

Rochester officers involved in Daniel Prude's death won’t face charges

Police officers shown on body camera video holding Daniel Prude down naked and handcuffed on a city street last winter until he stopped breathing will not face criminal charges, according to a grand jury decision announced Tuesday.

The 41-year-old Black man’s death last March sparked nightly protests in Rochester, New York, after the video was released nearly six months later, with demonstrators demanding a reckoning for police and city officials. ...

Lawyers for the seven police officers suspended over Prude’s death have said the officers were strictly following their training that night, employing a restraining technique known as “segmenting”. They claimed Prude’s use of PCP, which caused irrational behavior, was “the root cause” of his death.

The video made public on 4 September shows Prude handcuffed and naked with a spit hood over his head as an officer pushes his face against the ground, while another officer presses a knee to his back. The officers held him down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing. He was taken off life support a week later.

The county medical examiner listed the manner of death as homicide caused by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint” and cited PCP as a contributing factor.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, poet and founder of City Lights bookshop, dies aged 101

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet, publisher, painter and political activist who co-founded the famous City Lights bookshop in San Francisco and became an icon of the city himself, has died aged 101. Ferlinghetti died at home on Monday night. His son Lorenzo said that the cause was interstitial lung disease. ...

In 1953, he co-founded the City Lights bookshop and publishing company with friend Peter Dean Martin, who left soon after, with the mission to democratise literature and make it accessible to all. “We were young and foolish,” he told the Guardian in 2019. “And we had no money.”

While most bookshops across the US closed early and on weekends at the time, City Lights stayed open seven days a week and late into the night, fostering a countercultural community that attracted the likes of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. City Lights initially focused on selling paperbacks, which were cheaper but looked down on by the literary establishment, and publishing poetry, offbeat and radical books by the likes of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Paul Bowles, Gary Snyder and Gregory Corso. ...

In 1958, Ferlinghetti published his own first collection, A Coney Island of the Mind, which sold more than 1m copies. He went on to write more than 50 volumes of poetry, novels and travel journals. As a publisher, he maintained a lifelong focus on poetry and books ignored by the mainstream, even as it became harder in the face of behemoth, profit-driven presses.

He self-identified as a philosophical anarchist, hosting many sit-ins and protests against war at City Lights. He regarded poetry as a powerful social force and not one reserved for the intellectual elite, saying, “We have to raise the consciousness; the only way poets can change the world is to raise the consciousness of the general populace.”



the horse race



US Capitol rioters ‘came prepared for war’, Senate hears in testimony

Testifying on Tuesday in the first congressional hearing on the US Capitol attack, the chief of Capitol police who resigned over the riot said the pro-Trump mob which stormed the building “came prepared for war”. Merrick Garland would seem to agree. In a confirmation hearing on Monday which set the scene for Tuesday’s session before the Senate homeland security and rules committees, Joe Biden’s nominee for attorney general said he would expand the criminal investigation into the 6 January assault, telling Congress domestic terrorism is a greater threat to American democracy than it has been for decades. ...

Describing the events of 6 January as “not necessarily a one-off”, Garland, currently a federal judge, pledged to use the full powers of the justice department to prevent a repeat attack. “I intend to look more broadly at where this is coming from, what other groups there might be that could raise the same problem in the future,” he said. ...

Garland’s hearing saw him quizzed on his definition of domestic terror by one of the Republican senators accused of egging the seditionists on. Joshua Hawley of Missouri was photographed with a clenched fist in a display of solidarity with the “stop the steal” crowd outside the Capitol, shortly before violence erupted.

Hawley asked Garland if he thought violence against federal property during racial-justice protests was a form of domestic terrorism. Without mentioning Hawley’s actions on 6 January, Garland replied that to disrupt democratic processes, as in the Capitol insurrection, did fit the definition. “Attacking a courthouse at night” did not.

Aaron Maté: Pelosi’s 9/11 Commission For Capitol Riots Will End TERRIBLY

Senate hearing on January 6 coup: D.C. police were warned of armed attack on Congress

On Tuesday, the Senate Homeland Security Committee and the Senate Rules and Administration Committee held a joint hearing on the security failures that allowed the US Capitol building to be overrun by a pro-Trump mob headed by far-right militia groups and white supremacists on January 6. The testimony of former and current police officials at Tuesday’s event, the first public congressional hearing into the attempted coup, highlighted their complete failure to respond to clear warnings contained in their own intelligence assessments and those of the FBI of a violent and a coordinated attack on the Capitol.

In the course of the hearing, the heads of Metro D.C. Police and the US Capitol Police at the time of the insurrection admitted that their departments possessed intelligence reports warning of a violent attack on Congress in advance of the storming of the Capitol. But in the place of any serious explanation for the stand-down of security forces in the face of numerous threats to Congress from fascistic forces mobilized by former President Donald Trump, the Democratic chairs of the two committees suggested a narrative of “intelligence” or “communications” failures, which began to fall apart even as the hearing progressed.

The witnesses were the former chief of the Capitol Police, Steven Sund, the acting chief of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, Robert Contee, the former Senate sergeant-at-arms, Michael Stenger, and the former House sergeant-at-arms, Paul Irving.

For the first time, Sund acknowledged in his testimony that the Capitol Police were sent a copy of an explicit warning issued by the FBI office in nearby Norfolk, Virginia the day before the attempted coup, stating that violent Trump supporters were coming to D.C. and talking about waging “war.” ... Acting D.C. Metropolitan Police Chief Contee acknowledged that his police department also received the FBI memo in the form of an email. He testified that it did not occur to him that the email from the FBI on the eve of the January 6 “Save America” march was a priority.

Sund acknowledged that the intelligence bulletin had been relayed to the Capitol Police through its Joint Terrorism Task Force on January 5, but claimed that neither he nor anyone else in the police leadership saw the memo. Sund said he became aware that the memo had been received by the intelligence department within the Capitol Police less than 24 hours prior to the congressional hearing.

Despite the mountain of evidence that actionable intelligence was directly sent to the various police agencies charged with defending the Capitol in advance of the attack, the testifying police chiefs maintained there was an “intelligence failure.”



the evening greens


Pro-Fossil Fuel Senators Grill Deb Haaland as She Bids to Become First Indigenous Cabinet Secretary

1 in 3 Freshwater Fishes—Vital to Food and Jobs for Millions—Face Extinction

The world's freshwater fishes are in "terrible trouble," with nearly a third facing extinction if humanity doesn't swiftly change its ways to prevent major losses that would impact not only the species at risk but also hundreds of millions of people, according to a report released Tuesday by 16 conservation groups.

Published ahead of a crucial United Nations biodiversity summit scheduled for May, The World's Forgotten Fishes (pdf) details the "dazzling diversity" of freshwater fishes; their importance to food security, jobs, and ecosystems; threats posed by current human behavior; and how scientists suggest tackling the extinction crisis.

Although the various species of freshwater fish provide livelihoods for 60 million people and feed at least 200 million globally, particularly vulnerable and Indigenous communities across Africa, Asia, and South America, when it comes to conservation, they are "overlooked and undervalued," writes WWF International executive director Jon Hutton in the report's foreword.

"Freshwater fishes are also critical for the health of all kinds of ecosystems, and support food webs that extend from birds to bears, and from mountains to mangroves," he adds. "Beyond that they drive multibillion-dollar industries for anglers and aquarium-lovers alike, while historically they've been entwined in cultures on every continent."

As Hutton outlines: "There's no mystery about why freshwater fish numbers are falling so precipitously: habitat degradation, poorly planned hydropower, pollution, over-abstraction of water, unsustainable sand mining, the introduction of invasive non-native species, wildlife crime and, of course, climate change are among the factors pushing fish populations to the brink."

The report from WWF and other organizations calls for urgent action to safeguard the 18,075 known species of freshwater fishes, warning 80 species have already been declared extinct by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species—16 in just 2020. Over the past half-century, populations of migratory freshwater fish have dropped by 76% and mega-fish by a "catastrophic" 94%.

Deb Haaland faces hostile Republican questioning in confirmation hearing

Deb Haaland, seeking to make history as the first Native American to hold a cabinet secretary position in the US, has weathered a torrent of hostile questioning from Republicans during her confirmation hearing as secretary of the interior. ... Haaland is considered a progressive on the climate crisis and has spoken out on the impact of fossil fuel development upon the environment and Native American tribes, positions that Senate Republicans were keen to attack during a sometimes contentious confirmation hearing. ...

Republicans repeatedly assailed Joe Biden’s decision to pause oil and gas drilling on federal lands as calamitous for jobs. As interior secretary, Haaland would oversee the management of lands that make up nearly a third of America’s landmass, including tribal lands. At times the questions were extremely pointed, with Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, asking Haaland: “Will your administration be guided by a prejudice against fossil fuel, or will it be guided by science?” Importantly for the chances for Haaland’s nomination, Joe Manchin, a Democrat who represents the coal heartland of West Virginia, said that he wanted to see the “evolution, not elimination” of coal mining.

Haaland said: “We want to move forward with clean energy, we want to get to net zero carbon” but also struck a conciliatory note with her questioners. The nominee said that changes to energy use “are not going to happen overnight” and that she looked forward to working with the senators. At one point when Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, asked why she supported a bill protecting grizzly bears, Haaland responded: “Senator, I believe I was caring about the bears.”

Haaland had to repeatedly correct Republicans who said Biden had scrapped, rather than paused, oil and gas leases but acknowledged her role as a progressive champion would have to change somewhat if she were confirmed. “If I’m confirmed as secretary, that is far different role than a congresswoman representing one small district in my state,” she said. “So I understand that role, it’s to serve all Americans, not just my one district in New Mexico. I realize being cabinet is very different; I recognize there is a difference in those two roles.”

During later questioning, Haaland raised the disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic upon Native Americans and raised concerns over tribes such as the Navajo being subjected to polluted water. In a response to a question from the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders about the opening up of an area sacred to native Americans in Arizona to mining, Haaland said she would “make sure that the voice of the tribal nation is heard on the issue”.

Fossil Fuel Executives Gloat About Profits, PR From Texas Winter Storm Crisis

As a severe winter storm swept Texas last week, cutting electricity from millions of residents in freezing temperatures and causing nearly 70 deaths so far, some energy executives saw an upside to the catastrophe. “Obviously, this week is like hitting the jackpot,” boasted Roland Burns, the chief executive and chief financial officer of Comstock Resources, a shale drilling company that benefited from the sudden demand for natural gas, in a call with investors last Wednesday. The price for gas, said Burns, has been “incredible.”

Marshall McCrea, the co-chief executive of pipeline firm Energy Transfer, told investors last Wednesday that his company has “been able to benefit,” given its ability to transport gas from storage facilities near Houston to power plants across the state. The company, McCrea said, has transported large volumes of gas in Texas and capitalized on “very strong commodity prices.” Energy Transfer, when reached for comment, said that McCrea’s comments “are pretty clear.”

Ronald Mills, the vice president of investor relations at Comstock Resources, said the company apologizes for the use of the word “jackpot” to describe natural gas prices last week. “That description was inappropriate and insensitive to the millions of Texans that did not have electricity or power, including many of our own employees who suffered through the same since we are based in the Dallas area,” said Mills in an email to The Intercept.

The price of natural gas, which skyrocketed as power plants and industrial consumers scrambled to secure additional supply, benefited other energy interests. Macquarie Group, an investment bank that is the second-biggest physical gas supplier in the U.S., reported a windfall of $210 million from the swing in gas and electricity prices. The company also owns Griddy, a residential energy utility that has billed customers as much as $16,752 and $8,000 in recent days.

There was another “upside” to the Texas storm, McCrea noted during the call. “Just over the last four or five days,” he added, “the number one thing that everybody is recognizing, I’ve already said, and we all know on this call, how important fossil fuels are for this country, in this world.”


Also of Interest

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

Even By Democratic Party Standards, Censoring Fox News Is An Insanely Stupid Idea

Corporate Lawyers Line Up for Justice Department Top Slots

The Betrayal At The Heart of Sanders, AOC and Corbyn’s Refusal To Use Power

Why did Governor Cuomo give nursing homes immunity from Covid deaths?

Biden’s Three Options for Afghanistan: Leave Now, Extend Deadline, or Stay Indefinitely

Biden Commits To Forever War On Afghanistan

Israeli checkpoint killing of Palestinian was an execution, report claims

Gaza Suffers $1.5m Losses as Israel Open Floodgates, Destroys Crops

'We deserve more': an Amazon warehouse’s high-stakes union drive

Is Citadel’s Hedge Fund a Harmless $35 Billion Minnow or a $235 Billion Killer Shark?

A corporate, commodified Black History Month is taking hold.

As Australia Reaches Deal With Facebook Following News Blackout, Critics Warn Corporate Power Plays Won't Save Journalism

Ahmaud Arbery killing remembered one year on

Beaver believers: Native Americans promote resurgence of 'nature's engineers'

Coastal Annapolis Becomes 25th US Community to File Climate Suit That Aims to #MakePollutersPay

Mount Etna illuminates night sky with 1,500-metre lava fountain

Jimmy Dore: Cuomo Says Don't Trust "Experts" On Covid To Distract From Scandal

Rising: Are Cotton, Hawley, Romney SERIOUS About Raising Minimum Wage?

Max Alvarez: ON THE GROUND From Alabama Union Organizing. Could This Set Off A Flood?

Krystal and Saagar: Genius Behind Iowa DISASTER Raises MILLIONS For New Media Venture

Krystal and Saagar: Bloomberg CAUGHT Screwing Over His Campaign Staffers AGAIN


A Little Night Music

Memphis Slim - Steppin' Out

Memphis Slim - Beer Drinking Woman

Memphis Slim - Sittin' on Top of the World

Memphis Slim - Everyday I Have The Blues

Memphis Slim - Old Taylor

Memphis Slim, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells - No

Memphis Slim - The Life I'm Living

Memphis Slim - St. Louis Boogie

Memphis Slim & the House Rockers - Rockin' the House


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22 users have voted.

Comments

Yesterday afternoon have finally returned to normal here at my sister-in- laws with no lasting damage. There are so many that were not so lucky and with all the other natural disasters that play out here in Texas, many were low income or minority communities. Would love to see some progress in the area of green energy but am not holding my breath.

Hoping Haaland is confirmed because she is such a powerful voice and really means what she says. Thanks for the article about the beavers and their role in protecting the environment. Last year did help build some man made dams for beaver trying to restore them to some of the streams in New Mexico. It was heartening to see where they had returned to the stream further upriver where a group had previously built some man made dams.

It would be nice but will never happen when there is nothing but positive news and compassion to the people in what is being done.

Have a great evening!

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14 users have voted.

Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.

This ain't no dress rehearsal!

joe shikspack's picture

@jakkalbessie

glad to hear that things have settled down for you in texas. it seems to me that this might be the time for left-leaning folks in texas to start making some demands about energy; demanding a less corrupted regulatory system and more green elements. certainly the issue has everybody's attention there just now.

i am hopeful that haaland will be confirmed. unlike neera tanden, haaland does have some republican support, or at least some reps seem to be willing to give some deference to biden on this pick.

wow, beavers in new mexico? cool!

have a great evening!

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6 users have voted.
ggersh's picture

on a good note this guy was released and not "charged" for walking home from work w/out wearing a jacket, the friggin nerve he has. s/

Pigs, fuckin pigs

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/2021/02/22/charge-dropped-against-black-...

Police drop charge against Black teen who was walking on Plano street during snowstorm
Rodney Reese, 18, was headed home from work when officers arrested him.

EDIT: Stay safe everyone

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10 users have voted.

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

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

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

joe shikspack's picture

@ggersh

it's good to see that black people walking in the snow is not on its own considered suspicious behavior in texas.

have a great evening!

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4 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

Perhaps it is something in the air there.

Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 was shot down by an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air defence missile battery shortly after it took off from Tehran’s international airport, at a time of high tensions, five days after a US drone strike killed an IRGC commander, Qassem Suleimani. The plane was bound for Kyiv but had 55 citizens and 30 permanent residents of Canada aboard. After denying responsibility for several days, Tehran said the Boeing 737-800 was shot down by mistake by an air defence crew who mistook it for an incoming US missile.

Iran Air Flight 655 Was shot down by the USS Vincennes shortly after taking off from Bandar Abbas International Airport, killing all 290 0n board. The US claimed that the Vincennes crew thought that the Airbus 380, squawking on the IFF Mode III (civilian) and climbing was an F14 tomcat diving to attack the Vincennes.

The key difference, as I recall it, is the the UN didn't say anything about the US warships deliberate murder of the crew and passengers of Iran Air 655.

What's in a name department:

“the only statue dedicated to a dictator still in the public sphere in Europe”.

Uh really? No remaining statues of, Columbus, Fr. Junipero Serra, Assorted Kings and Queens, Caesers, Emperors, or Oliver Cromwell?

Thanks, of course, for the news and blues.

be well and have a good one

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13 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

well, yes, but, of course the u.s. is a fully-registered "exceptional" nation at the un and iran is most certainly not.

where exceptionality fails, please insert "indispensable." void where prohibited by law, batteries not included, not a flying toy.

Uh really? No remaining statues of, Columbus, Fr. Junipero Serra, Assorted Kings and Queens, Caesers, Emperors, or Oliver Cromwell?

heh, perhaps she means modern dictators.

have a great evening!

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5 users have voted.
The Liberal Moonbat's picture

https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2020/07/22/cancel-culture-defeat-n248519

Opinions? Does this sound plausible, or might this just be another case of self-cognizant "right-wingers" (as opposed to the "Extreme-Right-in-denial" that they're opposing here) having too much faith in the market?

The thing that scares me most is the number of people who DO think "cancel culture" is a good thing: Stone-throwing mobs are the heart and soul of human Evil, people; Führers are secondary, and ultimately, the supreme irony of their fate is to go out as scapegoats. It's evolutionary biology turned putrid, and that has been my thesis since 4th grade.

Granted, the number of Americans who are creationists, or who believe America enjoys "special protection from God" is also pretty scary, but that seems to be changing...but what good is exchanging one stupid idea for another, especially when the new one is more intrusive?

If anyone could give my young, isolated, traumatized, overinformed-underpowered Asperger's-and-OCD bony non-ass some reassurance, I'd welcome it.

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9 users have voted.

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!

@The Liberal Moonbat

bunch of monkeys with clothes on

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5 users have voted.
The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@QMS My big problem is feeling alone inside - or rather, far worse: NOT being alone at all, but feeling surrounded by hostiles.

2016 made so many people feel the way I did in 2004; I could've helped them. I'd been there - but they only made it worse. The Human Hivemind struck again, complete with all the hallmarks.

It's the same, tremendously embittering story I've seen far too many times: The smarter person tries to lift others up - but what happens instead? The stupid drag the smarter person down.

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5 users have voted.

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!

joe shikspack's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

well, if you could point to cancel culture say, stopping people from committing mass murder with hellfire missiles or, stop the oppression of the palestinian people - you know something that useful and morally righteous - then i guess you could make a case for it.

if it's something that is applied to assorted celebrities or nobodies on the internet who say dumb or obnoxious things, well, i'm not so sure i have much use for it.

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5 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

real definitions in the form of operational rules. Let me just take a wee ramble here:

There is an article above about the removal of the last statue of Franco, clearly cancel culture, as was the removal of all statues of Hitler and Mussolini. The article brags that it was the lst statue of a dictator in Europe, so they have all been canceled. Saddam Hussein was canceled too, to vociferous cheering, probably by the author of that article too.

There is another form of cancellation, the destruction of entire cultures of peoples, maybe through war, and maybe through pogroms. Should we honor or disavor the perpetrators of such behaviors?

The phrase, dare I say "buzzword" cancel culture is a neologism, invented specificly to apply to and decry some behavior akin to shunning, or, as the author says bullyng. It is as old as the hills, very much so in this country, since inception. The earliest colonies expelled or exiled persons for various perceived failings, and sroups and societies have ever since in one way of another. Our churches have long indulged in that, shaming and shunning folks for various real, imagined or suspected improprieties, immorality, and whatever . Were talking about everything from murder to suspected child molestation or sex out of wedlock or thievery or homosexuality or violation of standards of dress. Somehow the need for the phrase "cancel culture" to describe this behavior never arose.

It seems to have become an enormous concern when the targets became white male sexual predators who used positions of power and influence to be long term serial molesters of others, Confederate "heroes", other slavers to whom monuments were erected, Columbus, a slaver, torturer, thief and more who is responsible for a total genocide, the complete elimination of the Taino people from the earth, and Fr. Junipero Serra, lately made a saint, who was little better than Columbus. Toss in George Armstrong Custer too, I'm sure he was targeted at least once, and other leaders of the genocidal wars against the indigenous population of North America. This is the complaint, "those people" are cancelling the Esteemed Nathan Bedford Forrest and, heaven forbid, Jefferson F. Davis. And the Stars and Bars, for Gawds sake. So that is what we're really talking about and it is very much a bourgeois issue.

Should somebody be fired and shunned everywhere they go for offhand use of a derogatory term toward somebody 12 years ago? No, but that isn't what this issue is really about. This is about the serial abusers should they be kept on in their position of power and continue to recieve their munificient compensation. The author seems to say yes, and to boycott anybody who would dare to fire them and reward those who would keep them on. If you have the strs and bars as part of your trademark do not take it off, of the right thinking portin of the populace will boycott you for kowtowing to cancel culture

He does have a point, boycott inappropriate corporate and political behavior, but I think he errs in his discernment of what that is. Frad Hampton and Malcolm X were canceled, physically, by the "good guys". The bad guys, meanwhile, support banning the stars and bars and must be punished for it. That is absolutely bassackwards.

be well and have a good one

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5 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@enhydra lutris ...but it's all fun and games until they come after somebody YOU like, for a reason YOU don't think is fair. It's the same as with all socially-sanctioned violence (the police, the military, etc): Do you trust them to only go after those who deserve it? Give me a "lone wolf" who has no choice but to stand on the merits of his own actions over a buck-passing mob that offers its appendages the illusion of freedom from personal responsibility any Kʼin of the Alautun.

Should the term "cancel culture" even exist when "moral panic", "witch hunt", and "mob mentality" already do? Probably not; I sure did't coin it - all the more reason, though, that this trick of justifying "cancel culture" by taking the term and escalating it straight to Godwinian levels is stupid (I mean really, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED to Godwin's Law? First it screwed us over by being enforced under Bush, only for it to screw us over AGAIN by being waived 16 years too late - worst of both worlds); the issue has become more complicated than that, because that is what groupthink always does: It shrinks people's minds down to an "Us VS Them" worldview, and ANYONE or ANYTHING in sight not marked as "Us" becomes "Them" by default - the result is it that it is the innocent, weak, and invisible who suffer most.

There can be no defending or excusing chimp-rage; that is what this is about. As with so many moral matters, the cause, and hence solution, is really as much better left to doctors and scientists than clergy and politicians. The 2011 Fukushima incident taught me (slightly painfully) that activists can't be relied upon to know what they're talking about, no matter which "side" they're purportedly on.

If you wish to study a granfalloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon.
- Bokonon

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5 users have voted.

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!

enhydra lutris's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat @The Liberal Moonbat

was overused and often incorrectly.However, in this cae, the outrage at the newly invented concept of cancel culture was very much all about the statuees of Lee, Jckson, Forrest, Jeff Davis and all the boys as well as the stars and bars and other "momentos" of "southern culture" and about Columbus and Harvey Weinstein. Times change and the willingness of folks to talk about the Cosby's and Weinsteins coincided with the dam bursting that held back the black indignation and rage at still being abused and suppressed and then daily reminded of their status by the presence of the monuments to Confederate Glory scattered all over the country and suddenly a lot of prominent icons and idols were being trashed instead of just somebody who allegedly was "easy" and all of the talking heads lost it, because it ws their friends and their cultural momentos that wre under attack. And everybody with a stars and bars license plate holder or decal or radiator cover went all "me too" with their outrage at having their glorious "culture" attacked and canceled like that.

EDIT - it occurs to me that you may think my example of Franco (and saddam) and Europe having canceled all of its dictators was a Godwin, but I think that is simply US exceptionalism. We have conceptually elevated Hitler, and by association Mussolini, Franco and the rest along a scale of Hitler supreme evil (and the rest lesser evils(tm), but not so much really. Franco was in the news, but you don't find statues of Trujillo, Batista, Pinochet and all those throughout South America. Here, those who enslaved people, and then started and fought a bloody war to protect and preserve their "right" to continue to do so, and who also fought to try to extereminate the indigenous population of this country are not benign nor trivial, they were not one whit better than Mussolini, Franco or Saddam Hussein, arguably worse. The point is that no such persons have monuments to them elsewhere, except Columbus, and correctly so and ours should go too. It is not proper to exalt such people.

be well and have a good one.

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6 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

The Liberal Moonbat's picture

@enhydra lutris FWIW, sorry for the delayed reply; things to do, places to go, and I resolved this year to abstain from the Internet every Saturday.

I don't know about you, but I came to this site to get away from nasty, nonfunctional arguments, so I don't want to have one with you; please read what I said again. I feel I should've already addressed your point.

I could care less about statues; not all of them belong there, that's for sure (what about the 9/11 Memorial, or whatever they've got there now? The case could be made that it's as morally offensive as any centuries-old statue - heck, what about the Reagan Memorial???), but they're also not going to jump off their pedestals and bite anyone. "Cancel culture" is NOT being restricted to people who deserve it, nor are those who deserve it the majority of targets.

I don't think Weinstein and Cosby even count as targets (and seriously, who ever cared about Weinstein outside of Hollywood? Were those two not rich and famous, their misdeeds would've been lucky to be remembered as script-fodder for "true crime" TV - said wealth and influence may have helped them get away with their crimes, but those crimes were blue-collar in nature, and worse stories are innumerable); they predate the current wave - AFAIK, the term "cancel culture" started in reaction to what they did to Roseanne Barr, who did not deserve what happened to her (for comparison, not only has Mel Gibson NOT been canceled, but he's presently working on a SEQUEL to the most overtly bigoted movie he ever made: https://entertainment.ie/cinema/movie-news/mel-gibsons-next-film-will-be...); she deserves sympathy for many reasons, and while I never watched her old show, nor would I have watched the reboot, the fact that she promised "everything would be the way it was" struck me as a testament not just to her suffering and wishes, but a VERY BROADLY relatable message of complete and utter disenchantment with how the last 30 years have gone compared to the hopeful, spiritually-liberated zeitgeist we briefly enjoyed at the end of the Cold War (and I'm tempted to say that such a message is what got her canceled as much as anything).

Just to put a button on it: When it comes to what to do about morally-dubious monuments, we should ALL be following the Italian example - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/06/bolzano-italian-to...

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0 users have voted.

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!

Pricknick's picture

I have to say, is a much improved journalist since he left the dregs of what the intercept has turned into.
I was a subscriber for a few years and left before he did. Nice to see him back.
Thanks as always joe.

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12 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

joe shikspack's picture

@Pricknick

yep, greenwald is one of those people who seems to be better without the editorial assistance of a large organization. i suppose that the resources of a large org would be useful if he were to do serious investigative journalism, but what he is doing now seems valuable to me.

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4 users have voted.
Pricknick's picture

@joe shikspack
investigative journalism?
I appreciate whatever level of journalism knocks on peoples minds and helps them understand in something other than a political and legalese language.

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5 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

joe shikspack's picture

@Pricknick

i was thinking of when greenwald was actively sorting out the information in snowden's files. that no doubt required the assistance of a bunch of people with a variety of talents, it's not likely the sort of thing that a one-man shop can really do well.

but, as i said, i am quite pleased with the work that greenwald is churning out now. nobody else is doing it and it needs done.

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6 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

Here's a couple good tweets.

And some blues:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF0-jLXEeAM width:400 height:240]

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10 users have voted.

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

@Azazello Oh gawd, the use of religious words to describe a military organization? That's it, I have to get a copy of 1984 to re-read it.

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8 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

yep, thank goodness for the internets so that the hypocrisy of the powerful can be endlessly repeated in their own words.

wow, i never considered nato to be something that required my faith. regardless of my religious beliefs or lack thereof, my tax dollars seem to fill their coffers anyway. what need for my faith do they have when i can't elect a true representative that won't squander my tax dollars on ridiculous sabre rattling?

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6 users have voted.
lotlizard's picture

@Azazello  
Faith in this NATO?

https://www.quora.com/Are-you-for-or-against-nuclear-war/answer/Thierry-...

Thierry Etienne Joseph Rotty, Senior Controller at NATO

I am in favour of using nuclear weapons.

I strongly believe it is unethical to pour trillions of dollars into weapons you do not use.

The present reality I find it so hard to wrap my head around is, in Germany now it’s the right-wing populists who question NATO and favor détente and rapprochement with Russia, and the pro-NATO, “all parties united against the Right” establishment who are the dangerous warmongers, whose fealty to the U.S. seems to be taking Europe into Cold War 2.0, complete with Dulles-brothers style brinkmanship, E.U. sanctions against Venezuela, etc.

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10 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

@lotlizard

in Germany now it’s the right-wing populists who question NATO and favor détente and rapprochement with Russia

Questioning NATO was what got right-wing populist Trump in trouble with NatSecCom.
He said some things about NATO, before he was even elected, that NatSecCom didn't like and next thing you know there was Russiagate.
Things are better now. Grampa Joe likes NATO.

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6 users have voted.

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

snoopydawg's picture

@Azazello

We refused to give them any vaccines because we don’t really like them, we’re just using them as Connor fodder in our Russia war. I think it was Spain that gave them some?

Max told Jimmy that one vaccine was supposed to be free until Gates got involved. I’d love to know what his agenda is.

Isn’t it weird that Russia has allowed nato to surround themselves? We wouldn’t do that because it’s not safe so why’d you think Russia has?

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7 users have voted.

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

Mind boggling.

The U.S. Air Force Just Admitted The F-35 Stealth Fighter Has Failed

Man, the stuff we could have gotten for the $1.5 trillion. One military analyst said that NATO starting a war with Russia is insanity as the Russian weapons systems actually work.

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12 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@MrWebster

heh:

The F-35 is a Ferrari, Brown told reporters last Wednesday. “You don’t drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays. This is our ‘high end’ [fighter], we want to make sure we don’t use it all for the low-end fight.”

at last, the u.s. military industrial complex has achieved italian engineering and reliability standards and now we have an overpriced fleet of sunday-go-to-meeting warplanes.

pffffttt!

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9 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

if congress tries to get rid of their voice. And if they fight then how will the Supremes rule on it? Also are any republicans speaking out about it? I’m not seeing anything on my news rounds.

I remember how shrike used to vigorously defend the TPP. I’m seeing it popping up more often in the last few weeks. Well I guess that they should pass it and make it official since they are pretty much doing a lot of it already. But oop, China signed their deal last year and I don’t know if that will make a difference. But that 2nd tweet. Malaysia was allowed in even though it was doing heinous things to kids. Obama decided that it was okay for them to continue doing it. Ugh!

Shocked I say.

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9 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

it will indeed be interesting to see fox's next move and whether they have any support from the journalism profession. what the dems are doing is way beyond the pale.

i predict that tpp will be resuscitated. the oligarchs really wanted that one badly.

oh my, biden and the dems want to shovel some money at their donors? what a shock! sounds like we're in for a deluge of clever rhetoric from the health care industry. i can't wait to see democrats mouthing their corporate-approved talking points.

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7 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

But he said that it’s the center left that is doing it when it’s the repubencrats that are. The thing about the creeping censorship and what Saagar is discussing is that the government has already doing trial runs on it with its persecution of Assange. Once again it’s democrats being the more effective evil by doing it while their base cheers them on because they don’t like who they’re doing it to. He was 1st charged with rape and then new things kept being added on. People don’t like rapists so Assange should go to prison. When it didn’t work they pinned Russia Gate on him, but this time it stuck and they don’t care if Biden kills freedom of speech as long as Assange goes to prison. .

Oh AOC, you just had to do it didn’t you? You finally go after Manchin but not on his holding up minimum wage, but for ID politics for Smeera. Seriously? Welcome to the complete sellout side of the democrats. Thanks for finally clearing that up.

"Harris, then a senator, said in 2018 at the peak of the family separation controversy that Trump’s treatment of migrants was a “crime against humanity and when I’m president I will close them down on day one." What and then open them up again on day 2? The flagrant hypocrisy.

“I intend to look more broadly at where this is coming from, what other groups there might be that could raise the same problem in the future,”

Too bad that he won’t counter in people’s economic situations. I’d start there.

Well another day full of yucky news. I’m very anxious for spring to get here so I can get out and about. It seems a lot colder this year and I’m not enjoying it. Maybe it’s the wind. Lots of it this winter.

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8 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

well, to be fair, kopmala never said what she would do beyond day one. Smile

heh, it seems like ever since trump left office, the wind here has picked up, too. i wonder if nature (which is said to abhor a vacuum) is trying to make up for the gales of wind that gasbag trump was blowing out.

have a good one and give sam a scritch!

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6 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

Mollie has been gone for awhile this time. I hope everything is ok with her. And Mark from Queens has been gone about a year. Others too. Edg?

The Ian article is great. Thanks!

Now Machin isn’t opposing Tanden because of stuff like the union, but he is opposing her and there’s a good chance she won’t get in. What he’s really doing, though, is trying to stop Hillary Clinton’s primary proxy from being in the Biden administration, because that’s what she is.

Let the fucker retaliate (though he probably wouldn’t much care, she’s Hillary’s servant, not his.) It’s a 50/50 Senate, and Bernie is a powerful committee chairman. He can make Biden’s life Hell AND, more to the point, Biden already isn’t doing most of what Bernie wants despite Bernie being super nice to him. Being nice doesn’t work. Threatening Biden’s legacy might. Sanders can have exactly the power Manchin wields, and more, the second he wants it: the second he decides that making them remember that if the poor people he represents don’t get something, neither do the rich.

A compromise is where you get something and so do I. What progressives do far too often is capitulate: they get nothing.

Use your power, or you don’t have it.

How much power does Hillary have over Biden do you think? I doubt that he is even involved in day to day operations like he would have been back before his decline so others are running the show. Kamala or is she still in training? Giggle.

She’s out so I’ll hold on to them. Thanks.

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6 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i haven't heard from any of the folks that you mentioned. i join you in hoping that everything is going well for them.

ian was right on target. i don't know what's wrong with progressives, trying to figure out why these people are such a bunch of wimps is maddening.

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3 users have voted.

am I the only one that missed it:

Trump's children and former staffers to get Secret Service protection at taxpayers' expense: report

As one of Donald Trump's final abuses of the office of the presidency, he extended Secret Service Protection beyond himself and his wife Melania –– as is guaranteed in the Former Presidents Act –– to 14 additional family members and former administration staffers, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
...
Those protected by Trump's 11th-hour directive will include his youngest son Barron (until he's sixteen), Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and members of their own families. Trump also saw to it that many of his former staff receive the same protections, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and former National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien. Vice President Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, are also included.

This 6-month, 24-hour security detail is expected to cost American taxpayers millions of dollars. Although the Secret Service does not typically divulge the cost of their operations, it's believed to be in the tens of millions of dollars annually.
...

This is not in keeping with the SS mission. There's no USG interest in protecting former office holders or their families. (Ten years for a former President and spouse was really a quite sufficient perq imo.) There should be no deviation from the Former President's Act without formal Congressional approval if special circumstances warrant consideration of a request.
s

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5 users have voted.
mimi's picture

[video:https://youtu.be/vtQthwrWhqI]

As leaks expose UK op to 'weaken' Russia, suppression of Grayzone reporting backfires

and this from a day before
[video:https://youtu.be/IstXmSlN4oM]

Hidden Russiagate docs expose more misconduct, evidentiary holes: ex-investigator

beyond my paygrade to excerpt or comment about. This material is not a result of hacking /s

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7 users have voted.