The Evening Blues - 3-26-21



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Billy Boy Arnold

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold. Enjoy!

Billy Boy Arnold - I Wish You Would

"Turn off your televisions. Ignore the Newt-Mitt-Rick- Barack reality show. It is as relevant to your life as the gossip on “Jersey Shore.” The real debate, the debate raised by the Occupy movement about inequality, corporate malfeasance, the destruction of the ecosystem, and the security and surveillance state, is the only debate that matters."

-- Chris Hedges


News and Opinion

Worth a full read.

The US military is poisoning communities across the US with toxic chemicals

One of the most enduring, indestructible toxic chemicals known to man – Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF), which is a PFAS “forever chemical” – is being secretly incinerated next to disadvantaged communities in the United States. The people behind this crackpot operation? It’s none other than the US military. As new data published by Bennington College this week documents, the US military ordered the clandestine burning of over 20m pounds of AFFF and AFFF waste between 2016-2020. That’s despite the fact that there is no evidence that incineration actually destroys these synthetic chemicals. In fact, there is good reason to believe that burning AFFF simply emits these toxins into the air and onto nearby communities, farms, and waterways. The Pentagon is effectively conducting a toxic experiment and has enrolled the health of millions of Americans as unwitting test subjects.

AFFF was invented and popularized by the US Armed Forces. Introduced during the Vietnam War to combat petroleum fires on naval ships and air strips, AFFF was the whizz kid of chemical engineering that forged a synthetic molecular bond stronger than anything known in nature. Once manufactured, this carbon-fluorine bond is virtually indestructible. Refusing to become fuel, this herculean bond overpowers and tames even the most incendiary infernos.

Almost from the moment they started using AFFF, the military amassed worrisome evidence about the environmental persistence of synthetic carbon-fluorine compounds, their affinity for living things, and their impact on human health. As the US Armed Forces became the largest consumer of AFFF in the world, troubling questions about what happens after the fire were brushed aside. US military bases at home and abroad encouraged the promiscuous spraying of AFFF in routine drills while firefighters were told it was as safe as soap. ... As we now know, exposure to trace amounts of these “forever chemicals” is strongly linked to a host of cancers, developmental disorders, immune dysfunction, and infertility. Exposure has also been linked to aggravated Covid-19 infections and weakened vaccine efficacy.

From Portsmouth, New Hampshire to Colorado Springs, Colorado, the last decade has witnessed communities near military bases waking up to a nightmare of PFAS contamination in their water, their soil and their blood. ... In its initial survey of military bases in December 2016, the Armed Forces identified 393 sites of AFFF contamination in the United States, including 126 sites where PFAS compounds infiltrated public drinking water. (The Department of Defense has active remediation plans at a small fraction of those sites.) In 2019, DOD admitted those numbers were “under-counted.” The Environmental Working Group’s popular map of PFAS contamination puts the current number of polluted military sites at 704, a number that continues to rise.

The fightback against western sanctions is on!

Biden pledges to prevent China from becoming the world’s ‘leading’ country

US President Joe Biden pledged to prevent China from becoming the world’s “leading” and “wealthiest” country by continuing to close ranks with allies and boosting America’s investment in technology.

Casting America’s competition with Beijing as the most important front in a generational struggle between democracy and autocracy, Biden reiterated a plan to convene a democracy summit and more than double the amount of investment in science and technology as a percentage of GDP.

“I see stiff competition with China,” Biden said in his first press conference as president. “China has an overall goal, and I don’t criticise them for the goal, but they have an overall goal to become the leading country in the world, the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world. That’s not going to happen on my watch, because United States is going to continue to grow and expand.”

Krystal Ball: Is WaPo Reprinting CIA Talking Points On Bolivia?

Saudi accused of threat to Khashoggi UN investigator is human rights chief

The Saudi official who is alleged to have twice issued threats against the independent UN investigator Agnès Callamard is the head of the kingdom’s human rights commission, and formerly served as an aide to the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Awwad al-Awwad is alleged by a person familiar with the matter to have twice threatened to “take care of” Callamard at a January 2020 meeting with senior human rights officials in Geneva.

The Guardian first reported news of the threats earlier this week following an interview with Callamard in which she recalled being alerted to the threats by her UN colleagues. On Wednesday, the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) confirmed Callamard’s account.

“We confirm that the details in the Guardian story about the threat aimed at Agnès Callamard are accurate. After the threat was made, OHCHR informed Ms Callamard herself about it, as well as UN security and the president of the Human Rights Council, who in turn informed the relevant authorities,” said Rupert Colville, the spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights.

Matt Taibbi: American Press Puts SOVIET Propaganda To Shame

Much more detail at the link if you haven't been following this.

Murray Found Guilty of Contempt

Craig Murray, an ex-British ambassador and blogger, was found in contempt of court by a tribunal in Scotland on Thursday for articles he had written that the court says helped identify accusers of former First Minister Alex Salmond of sexual abuse. Murray faces up to two years in jail as well as a fine. The sentencing is set for May 7. ...

The judgement against Murray was leaked to the Scottish newspaper, The National, on Monday. On the same day Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was cleared by a cross-party inquiry of lying to Parliament about the Salmond affair. The inquiry looked into whether SNP officials, including possibly Sturgeon, conspired to arrange anonymous civil servants to level the sexual assault and attempted rape charges against Sturgeon’s political rival Salmond.


The defense is considering an appeal.

Biden spokesperson Jen Psaki worked for Israeli spy firm

President Joe Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki worked for an Israeli firm accused of involvement in surveillance of Palestinians under Israeli military occupation.

Psaki’s public financial disclosures show that she earned at least $5,000 as a “crisis communications consultant” for AnyVision. ...

In 2019, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that AnyVision’s facial recognition technology was being secretly used by Israel’s occupation army “to monitor West Bank Palestinians at checkpoints on the way into Israel – while using a network of cameras deep inside the West Bank.”

AnyVision’s president, Amir Kain, was former head of the Israeli defense ministry’s security department, and one of its advisers, Tamir Pardo, is a former head of the Mossad spying and assassination agency, according to Haaretz.

In other words, AnyVision was reportedly an integral part of what Israel’s leading human rights group B’Tselem recently described as an “apartheid regime” established to perpetuate “the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians.”

Trump Holdovers Accused of 'Sabotaging' Effort to Get Checks to 30 Million Social Security Recipients

House Democrats and progressive activists are accusing the leadership of the Social Security Administration—currently headed by Trump holdover Andrew Saul—of slow-walking the Biden administration's effort to distribute direct coronavirus relief payments to tens of millions of seniors and people with disabilities.

In a letter (pdf) to Saul on Wednesday, Democratic members of the House Ways and Means Committee raised alarm on behalf of "the nearly 30 million Social Security and Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries who are still awaiting their economic impact payments (EIPs)"—checks approved under the recently passed American Rescue Plan.

"We understand that these beneficiaries are waiting because the Social Security Administration (SSA) has not sent the necessary payment files to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)," the lawmakers wrote. "We are aware that the IRS asked SSA to start sending payment files two weeks before the American Rescue Plan became law on March 11, 2021. As of today, SSA still has not provided the IRS with the payment files that are needed to issue EIPs to these struggling Americans."

The House Democrats' letter came in the wake of news reports detailing the financial stress the delay has caused for seniors across the country as they struggle to cover basic expenses during the ongoing public health and economic crises.

"I'm having to put off everything—utility bills, cable. I had to be late on rent," 65-year-old Florida resident Mark Stevens told CBS News. "People in my situation are feeling lied to."

In the previous two rounds of payments approved during the Trump administration, the IRS used information already on file with the SSA to distribute payments to Social Security recipients, many of whom aren't required to submit tax returns. But SSA's unexplained delay in getting updated payment information to the IRS has held up the process of sending out the money, prompting confusion and anger.

Alex Lawson, executive director of advocacy group Social Security Works, said in a statement Thursday that Saul and deputy SSA commissioner David Black are "sabotaging the Biden administration by delaying relief checks."

A full month ago, the IRS asked the Social Security Administration for the necessary data to send Covid relief checks to Social Security beneficiaries," said Lawson. "Commissioner Andrew Saul and Deputy David Black have failed to supply the data. As a result, nearly 30 million seniors and people with disabilities—who are among those hit hardest by Covid—still haven't received their relief checks. They are counting on these checks for basic necessities like food and medication."

"President Biden can't stand for this any longer," Lawson added. "He must protect Social Security beneficiaries by firing Saul and Black immediately."

An SSA spokesperson told HuffPost that the agency intends to send the information to the IRS on Thursday. "A Democratic aide said that once Social Security sends the file to the IRS, it will still be more than a week before people will receive the checks," HuffPost reported.

Biden holds first press conference and pledges 200m vaccine shots in 100 days

In his first press conference as president, Joe Biden announced he had doubled his administration’s vaccination goal to 200m shots during his first 100 days as president. Biden’s decision to make the announcement at the beginning of his press conference represented a clear attempt to at least insulate one piece of news his administration hoped would not fall through the cracks at a briefing where a host of contentious issues were expected – particularly on immigration and the filibuster.

On immigration, Biden stressed that the situation at the southern border was not a crisis. The president recently appointed vice-president Kamala Harris as the point-person to try to tackle problems there. ...

Biden was also asked multiple times about his position on the filibuster. He agreed with the critique of Democratic senators that it is a relic of the Jim Crow era of American history designed to defend slavery. But rather than offering full-throated endorsement of ending the filibuster, he instead argued that there should only be a “talking filibuster”, where a senator could block legislation as long as they kept talking on the floor of the chamber.

Passing Med4All On State Level Seeing Support In Washington

'Yes or no?' U.S. lawmakers fume over Big Tech's answers on misinformation

In their first appearance before Congress since Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the chief executives of Facebook, Google and Twitter were asked by U.S. lawmakers whether their platforms bore some responsibility for the riot: “yes or no?” ... Only Twitter Inc CEO Jack Dorsey replied “yes” to the question, but said the “broader ecosystem” had to be taken into account. Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google parent Alphabet Inc, said the company always feels a sense of responsibility but it was a complex question.

Facebook Inc’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said his company was responsible for building “effective systems”. He also said that the rioters and former President Donald Trump should be held accountable.

Lawmakers widely slammed the platforms’ approach to false or dangerous content. The three companies have taken steps to curb misinformation but researchers have shown it is still widely present on the platforms. ...

“Your business model itself has become the problem and the time for self-regulation is over. It’s time we legislate to hold you accountable,” said Democratic Representative Frank Pallone, chair of the Energy and Commerce committee.

Some lawmakers are calling for Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability over user content, to be scrapped or rejigged. There are several pieces of legislation from Democrats to reform Section 230 that are doing the rounds in Congress, though progress has been slow. Several Republican lawmakers have also been pushing separately to scrap the law entirely.

Evanston, Illinois to Pay Reparations to Black Families Harmed by Decades of Racist Housing Policies

Los Angeles police clash with protesters in fight to evict major homeless encampment

Los Angeles officials have moved to evict a large homeless encampment from a major city park, sending police in riot gear to face off with unhoused residents and protesters supporting them. Late Wednesday night, hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Echo Park Lake, a public park in central LA, to denounce the planned expulsion of hundreds of people who have been camping out there.

The park has become a major battleground in the city’s worsening housing and homelessness crisis during the pandemic. A growing number of homeless residents have have sought refuge at the park over the last year, with more than 170 tents and makeshift structures set up as of this month.

Some residents who live in the neighborhood, which has rapidly gentrified, have increasingly complained to city officials and police, arguing that the encampment was unsafe and should be shut down. City leaders announced last fall that they would be closing the park for repairs in the new year, and that they would offer transitional housing to residents of the park. But as rumors have circulated that closure was imminent in recent weeks, they have repeatedly refused to provide details of when the encampments would be swept and what would happen to residents who refused to leave.

Supporters of the encampment have argued that temporary hotel rooms don’t provide a long-term solution and that some don’t want to leave the park, because they end up back on the streets with nowhere to go. Unhoused organizers have said that residents have built a safe community there that the city should not dismantle.

By Wednesday evening, hundreds of LAPD officers wearing helmets and holding batons had showed up to the park, leading to skirmishes between activists and police.



the horse race



David Sirota: FBI PROBES Cuomo Nursing Home Scandal

Andrew Cuomo’s Infamous Opsec Avoids Paper Trails. Will It Be Enough?

A few short months after his reign as a national media darling, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo now finds himself at the center of a swirl of investigations. The scandals revolve around his administration’s efforts to conceal the death toll resulting from a decision to send coronavirus-infected older adults back to nursing homes and a growing number of accusations that the governor’s cultivated atmosphere of bullying and performative dominance included his own sexual harassment and assault of women who worked for him.

As inquiries by the State Assembly, New York’s attorney general, and the U.S. Justice Department get underway, investigators are likely to encounter the same obstacle that complicated previous investigations into Cuomo’s inner circle: a scrupulously observed protocol of information security. This modus operandi has allowed the governor to wheedle, threaten, cajole, and otherwise operate the levers of power while leaving hardly any public record of his involvement.

For more than a decade, Cuomo has adhered to the maxim of his predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, who counseled: “Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an email.” So it is that well into the 21st century, Cuomo claims not to be comfortable with email, instead receiving information and relaying instructions through his lieutenants or, when necessary, by telephone. Cuomo is neither the first nor the only powerful politician to rely on such infosec to thwart attempts at accountability, but he has made an art form out of it. ...

Previous investigations into corruption in the Cuomo administration have reached all the way up to his inner circle, but publicly available records of those investigations show no indication that prosecutors ever found electronic records linked to the governor himself. Prosecutors never charged Cuomo with directing the corrupt activities of his top aides, some of whom were sentenced to years in federal prison.

The current investigations are different from those that came before. The nursing home scandal concerns not just ordinary corruption but the attempted cover-up of thousands of deaths. And the sheer number — eight as of the publication of this story — of people accusing Cuomo of personally sexual harassing or assaulting them makes that scandal markedly different from those that the governor has skated by in the past. The accumulation of scandals has also meant the collapse of a key pillar of Cuomo’s infosec regime: It always relied on fear to keep people who were privy to the conversations — but never emails — from talking, but with each new public allegation, more witnesses seem emboldened to come forward.

Jim Crow Redux: Georgia GOP Governor Signs “Egregious” Voter Suppression Law Targeting Black Voters

Georgia's Republican-led legislature passes sweeping voting restrictions

Georgia lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to legislation to impose sweeping new restrictions on voting access in the state that make it harder to vote by mail and give the state legislature more power over elections.

The measure was signed into law by Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, on Thursday evening. “Significant reforms to our state elections were needed. There’s no doubt there were many alarming issues with how the election was handled, and those problems, understandably, led to a crisis of confidence,” Kemp said during prepared remarks shortly after signing the bill.

It requires voters to submit ID information with both an absentee ballot request and the ballot itself. It limits the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, allows for unlimited challenges to a voter’s qualifications, cuts the runoff election period from nine to four weeks, and significantly shortens the amount of time voters have to request an absentee ballot.

The legislation also empowers the state legislature, currently dominated by Republicans, to appoint a majority of members on the five-person state election board. That provision would strip Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who stood up to Trump after the election, from his current role as chairman of the board. The bill creates a mechanism for the board to strip local election boards of their power.

Gloria Butler, a Democratic state senator, said the bill would make it harder to vote, especially for poor and disabled people. “We are witnessing a massive and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we’ve seen since the Jim Crow era,” she said just before the bill passed.

Saagar Enjeti: NYT's DISGUSTING Anti-Asian Smear Against Andrew Yang



the evening greens


American bald eagles have made 'strong return' from brink of extinction

The number of American bald eagles has more than quadrupled since 2009, according to a recent report by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The species, once on the brink of extinction, has grown to 316,700 birds and 71,400 nesting pairs in the 2019 breeding season. US officials say the “strong return” of American bald eagles is a reminder of the importance of federal conservation efforts and protections, such as banning the pesticide DDT.

Deb Haaland told the Associated Press that the growth of the species “is also a moment to reflect on the importance of the Endangered Species Act, a vital tool in the efforts to protect America’s wildlife”. ...

Haaland also said her department plans to review actions taken by the Trump administration “to undermine key provisions” of the Endangered Species Act, which was created in 1973, 10 years after populations of American bald eagles had dwindled to just 417 known nesting pairs.

African forest elephants face threat of extinction


Also of Interest

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

CNN's Defense of Chris Cuomo's Special COVID Privileges is Grotesque

U.S. Joins "Rules-Based World" on Afghanistan

Senators Pressure Biden Not to Return to Original Iran Deal

Russian Defense Advisor Accuses US of Waging Psychological War

Boot Camps For Crushing Democracy

Drone Manufacturers Are Amping Up Surveillance Capabilities In Response To Demand From Government Agencies

Documents Show Amazon Is Aware Drivers Pee in Bottles and Even Defecate En Route, Despite Company Denial

US employee says he received $915 in oily pennies as final wages

New York state lawmakers strike deal to legalize recreational marijuana

Eagles, otters and lambs, oh my! Step into spring with wildlife cams

CrossTalk | Russiagate forever

Rising: GA Voters See Fragile Democracy As Election Looms

Rising: Trump Eyes Social Media Platform 'FREESPACE' For Return

Rising: Neocon Bill Kristol Wants To ANNEX CUBA As US State


A Little Night Music

Billy Boy Arnold - Love Me Baby

Billy Boy Arnold - Low Down Blues

Billy Boy Arnold - Sweet Miss Bea

Billy Boy Arnold - I Ain't Got You

Billy Boy Arnold - Don't Stay Out All Night

Billy Boy Arnold - Every Day, Every Night

Billy Boy Arnold - Evaleena

Billy Boy - Rockin' Itis

Billy Boy Arnold - 99 Lbs

Billy Boy Arnold - Move On Down The Road


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Comments

Is John Kerry gaslighting for the TPTB?

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/545125-kerry-no-government...

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry on Tuesday said he believed the private sector was more likely to find solutions to climate change than government.

“I was convinced, and I remain convinced, no government is going to solve this problem,” Kerry said in remarks at the Institute of International Finance’s 2021 Washington Policy Summit.

“The solution is going to come from the private sector, and what government needs to do is create the framework within which the private sector can do what it does best, which is allocate capital and innovate and begin to take the framework that’s been created. ... We need to go after this as if we’re really at war.”

Kerry said the private sector will reap financial benefits from the energy transition.

“It’s a transition, yes, some people are going to have do things differently and begin to shift expenditure, shift priority and infrastructure transition and so forth,” he said. “But in all of that, none of that happens without jobs ... without people working, whether it’s pipefitters, electricians, construction workers across the board.”

Kerry predicted a “race to the new technology, whether it’s direct-air capture or better and more affordable storage, more effective geothermal ... there are technology opportunities that are going to create enormous wealthy for those that are venturesome and go out and chase those gold pots.”

The former secretary of State added that infrastructure and grid modernization “is critical to our remaining a powerful force, to jump-starting our economy post-COVID.”

Kerry emphasized the need to “reassert American leadership” on climate, noting that the U.S. comprises 15 percent of worldwide emissions, while “China is about 30 percent and when you add the [European Union] you’re well over 50 percent.

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CB's picture

@humphrey
"We need to go after this as if we’re really at war” then he should involve the US Defence Department and start directing some of those trillions of dollars, that have been wasted on making war against human beings in a dozen nations around the world, towards carbon capture and amelioration. Of course the war profiteers will have none of this. These corporations are addicted to their obscene profits from the war machine. No other corporations in the world have as high profit margins. Think of it - it is more profitable to kill, maim and destroy the livelihoods of innocent, mostly brown people in foreign countries that not one US citizen in a hundred could pick out on a fucking map.

I can guarantee that China will take the lead in commercial carbon capture by treating it as an infrastructure challenge. When it comes to infrastructure programs the Chinese are willing to make huge investments without the necessity of profit seeking. They understand wealth generation in their country will soon follow.

When the Chinese said they were going "Green" they meant it literally. The Chinese have already shown an inexpensive and low tech solution is available:


National Tree Planting Day: How does China make the planet greener?

Updated 18:11, 12-Mar-2021


>
By the end of 2019, China had restored forests across more than 33 million hectares of farmland and land classified as barren or degraded, according to the data released by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) in 2020. The total area of forests converted from farmland accounts for two fifths of the total area of the country's key afforestation projects in the same period.

Meanwhile the US government can clean up a problem left over from oil and gas production that has occurred in the last century and a half - methane leakage - which now accounts for about 20% of global warming.

There could be tens of thousands jobs for the oil and gas sector in repairing this. The only problem is there are no profits to be taken so this simple method to ameliorate the problem will be ignored by the US government.

Methane emissions from abandoned oil and gas wells underestimated
January 21, 2021

A recent McGill study published in Environmental Science and Technology finds that annual methane emissions from abandoned oil and gas (AOG) wells in Canada and the US have been greatly underestimated -- by as much as 150% in Canada, and by 20% in the US. Indeed, the research suggests that methane gas emissions from AOG wells are currently the 10th and 11th largest sources of anthropogenic methane emission in the US and Canada, respectively. Since methane gas is a more important contributor to global warming than carbon dioxide, especially over the short term, the researchers believe that it is essential to gain a clearer understanding of methane emissions from AOG wells to understand their broader environmental impacts and move towards mitigating the problem.
...
Thousands of undocumented AOG wells

To determine the number of AOG wells, the researchers analyzed information from 47 state, provincial or territorial databases as well as from research articles and national repositories of drilled and active wells in the US and Canada.

They found that, of the over 4,000,000 AOG wells they estimate to exist in the US, more than 500,000 are undocumented by the relevant state agencies. A similar picture emerges in Canada. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) only has records going back to 1955 although historical documents confirm that oil and gas activity in Canada began in the 1850s. Based on the various sources they examined, the researchers estimate that there are over 370,000 AOG wells in Canada. Over 60,000 of are not included in databases of provincial or territorial agencies.

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

heh, capitalism will save itself and us, as long as we can afford it. great. what a moron.

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7 users have voted.

@humphrey government is the problem.
Where have we heard that before?

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

Lookout's picture

...mainly in two events. Spent the day on Sisyphus Way pulling the road back up hill with the tractor. The joys of country living. We did avoid the damaging winds and tornadoes so really not too bad.

Palast has been working on GA voting for the last couple of years. They aren't just making voting illegal while being black, but also while being Asian.
https://www.gregpalast.com/voting-gangnam-style-the-rise-of-kim-crow/

Hate to see Craig Murray targeted, as if Julian wasn't bad enough. Such arrogance for the US or UK to preach human rights to others.

Well have a great weekend. Thanks for the news and bluz!

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15 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

joe shikspack's picture

@Lookout

we got plenty of rain this week, but not nearly as much as you did. glad that the tornadoes dodged your areas. sorry to hear that your driveway is in retreat.

greg palast appears to be doing good work in georgia, too bad that the rest of the press, politicians and regulatory agencies aren't doing their jobs.

my guess is that craig murray's case is one that will take a couple of years to sort out, but he'll eventually be exonerated. meanwhile, the state gets to persecute him.

have a good one!

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ggersh's picture

How the fuck we let our leaders get away w/bloody murder is beyond me.

Stay safe all and have a great weekend in your neck of the woods!

Oh here's Caitlin, I'm not sure whether she's laughing or crying/

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/03/26/the-entire-world-should-be-laugh...

The current representative of the US empire finally held his first full press conference yesterday, an embarrassing and undignified affair which saw a gaggle of obsequious imperial stenographers gather round to make believe that important policy decisions about the operation of the most powerful government in the world are actually being made by this dried up empty husk of a man who can barely think or talk.

EDIT: adding the link from yesterdays EB, hopefully it works today

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqNdKtahx58]

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15 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

I'm not sure whether she's laughing or crying

probably a little of both, but it's a dark humor.

have a great weekend!

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8 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

Anyone still on the fence about her?

She also sent out a letter asking people to look at their Twitter feeds and see if there were anyone they could get Jack to censor because she is fully on board with censorship.

This is big.

This asshole is going to be King Asshole before he’s done.

Sam just graduated puppyhood and is officially a dawg. I just heard her drinking from the toilet. Congratulations, little Sam.

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14 users have voted.

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

snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

McIntosh asks, “Some on the Left have looked at Biden’s record and his difference with the Bernie wing of the party, and they conclude that no progress is going to come out of the Biden administration. What’s your view?”

She replies:

Well, I think it’s a really privileged critique. We’re gonna have to focus on solidarity with one another, developing our senses for good faith critique and bad faith critique. Because bad faith critique can destroy everything that we have built so swiftly. And we know this because it has in the past, and it’s taken us so many decades to get to this point. We do not have the time or the luxury to entertain bad faith actors in our movement.

Such “bad faith actors,” Ocasio-Cortez says, only betray their disdain for the poor and oppressed by criticizing the president. Ocasio-Cortez adds a noxious dose of identity politics to the old Democratic trick of presenting left-wing opponents as aiding the right:

For anyone who brings that up [i.e., opposition to the Biden administration], we really have to ask ourselves, what is the message that you are sending to your Black and brown and undocumented members of your community, to your friends, when you say nothing has changed?... When you say ‘nothing has changed,’ you are calling the people who are now protected from deportation ‘no one.’ And we cannot allow for that in our movement.

I didn’t finish reading it, but it’s clear that she has gone full Obama on her voters and has become a full fledged neoliberal. 3 years is all it took.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/26/aoc-m26.html

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

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

yep, it appears that aoc has joined the other team. she's doing remarkable support work and gaslighting for the corpadems.

glad to see that new york fixed its problem with qualified immunity, i hope their solution spreads rapidly.

heh, i could never take anything that alfred e. newman said seriously to start with, which is why i have no expectations of him as transportation secretary.

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10 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

Alfred indeed. I just saw a tweet from 2015 of Obama defending the filibuster. Why? He wanted bills to be all bipartisan and shit. Now he is saying that it has to go because it’s Jim Crow and racist...stfu!

The Craig story reminds me a tad about Cuomo and all the sudden accusations against him. It’s the timing of it because if those women wanted people to know the real him they could have done when he was Mr. Covid. Bigger fall. So why now?

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10 users have voted.

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

@snoopydawg if you haven’t read this article/review of the new book about the Biden campaign (from the people who wrote Shattered about HER’s): https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/03/23/luck-m23.html

And interesting quote:

The ruling class had no fear of Sanders himself, or of fellow DSA members like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, the authors note “was interested in expanding her political turf beyond the boundaries of the hard left” anyway. Democratic leadership knew these are team players with marching orders they will not disobey. They are not oppositional figures, they are part of the political establishment, and they play a critical role in its defense.

In 2020, Sanders and the DSA members of Congress were not victims of some scheme to sideline them, they were active, knowing participants in a plan to suppress the real “scary bunch”—their own supporters—who mistakenly supported them believing they were genuine opponents of social inequality and war.

(Italics mine)

I read Shattered and the authors are hardly lefty but are honest. It was a book that revealed a lot more than maybe they intended. Sounds like “Lucky” about Biden’s run does too.

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7 users have voted.

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

snoopydawg's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter

They are not oppositional figures, they are part of the political establishment, and they play a critical role in its defense.

That came transparent when Bernie did nothing as congress passed the biggest transfer of wealth in history. Did nothing with the $15 raise that he’s telling people is still coming even though he knows damn well that companies have said no it won’t get passed. Democrats bought them time to get their robots in order and then minimum wage will be a thing of the past because no one has jobs. Think they won’t just let people die? Look at how easily they send men and women to die for their causes. No thought at all about anyone’s life.

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4 users have voted.

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

Azazello's picture

Uncle Joe, front man for the oligarchy, told us what the new cold war is going to be about in yesterday's press conference.This is how they hope to manufacture consent. This is the new meta-narrative; democracy vs. autocracy.
From the transcript:

Justin: (50:00)
All right, just to follow up on the meeting of democracy, is that where you expect in a multilateral way to make these decisions about sanctions or?
Joe Biden: (50:11)
No, that’s not going to make the decision. That’s where I make sure we’re all on the same page. All on the same page. Look, I predict to you, your children or grandchildren are going to be doing their doctoral thesis on the issue of who succeeded autocracy or democracy, because that is what is at stake, not just with China, look around the world. We’re in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution of enormous consequence. Will there be middle class? How will people adjust to these significant changes in science and technology? The environment? How will they do that? And our democracy is equipped because all the people get to speak, to compete. It is clear, absolutely clear. And most of the scholars I dealt with at Penn agree with me around the country, that this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies. If you notice, you don’t have Russia talking about communism anymore, it’s about an autocracy. Demand decisions made by a leader of a country. That’s what’s at stake here. We’ve got to prove democracy works.

If you notice, he's saying, "Communism is no more, we can't use that anymore, so let's try autocracy". Yeah, that's the ticket. It's not "the free world" vs. commynism anymore, it's the democracies vs. the autocracies. They seem to believe that they can run the same scam again, one more time, just using a slightly different story line.
What a crock.

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12 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

heh, good enemies are so hard to find.

have a great weekend.

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6 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@Azazello

especially since it did nothing while 500,000 of its citizens died. Paraphrasing, but it was a doozy. I posted about it in the OT this morning.

We’re in the midst of a fourth industrial revolution of enormous consequence.

We’re also in the midst of the 6th extinction and plummeting towards adding our species to the list, but Joe wants to push the envelope into nuclear war and for everything to happen sooner.

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10 users have voted.

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

Azazello's picture

@snoopydawg

We’ve got to prove democracy works.

OK, start proving it Joe.
Lots of different metrics you could use; hunger, poverty, incarceration rate, health care, life expectancy, income and wealth inequality. The whole world's watching, let's get to it.

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12 users have voted.

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

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Azazello

and the raw truth (that the US is no longer a democracy, if it ever really was, but an oligarchy if not a full-on autocracy) is becoming more and more obvious.

"Democracy vs. autocracy" is a hard sell when you're living in an autocracy (and know it).

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9 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Not that I am a fan of Copmala.

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8 users have voted.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/545161-arkansas-governor-signs-...

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) signed a bill into law Friday that allows medical doctors to decline to treat patients if their belief systems don't align with the service being provided.

SB289, The Medical Ethics and Diversity Act, grants doctors the right to refuse treatment based on religious or moral objections.

The measure, which will go into effect this summer, stipulates that health care workers and institutions can choose not to provide certain treatments to patients only in nonemergency situations.

Hutchinson rejected a similar measure in 2017. A statement released by Hutchinson's office stated that he signed this new measure because it limited health care providers' right to deny to certain health care services, not people.

"The bill was changed to ensure that the exercise of the right of conscience is limited to 'conscience-based objections to a particular health care service,' " Hutchinson said in the statement.

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7 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

one wonders if the bill precludes a medical accreditation authority from stripping doctors of credentials who refuse to perform life-saving surgeries, such as when the health of a mother is at risk during childbirth.

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6 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

not at all willing to give up the filibuster, even though they never use it, but blame all of their inability to even attempt to achieve anything on the fact that it exists. How very, very strange, heh.

be well and have a good one

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9 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

heh, you'd think that letting the turtle man go nuclear would be a win-win for dems, they'd get nothing done and there would be a republican villain to blame it on. what's not to love for a democrat?

i guess they just like getting nothing done in a more bipartisanny way.

have a great weekend!

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8 users have voted.

I don't give a flying damn if it is bad.
I want to be informed so I can be prepared.
I was planning a drive up to Colorado Springs. If I do, I will buy bottled water for coffee and for brushing my teeth. I would not have thought of that without your work, joe.
Thanks for all you do, my friend.
You are a treasure.

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10 users have voted.

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

enhydra lutris's picture

@on the cusp
from home and when they get empty fill them from Glacier water refill stations or similar dispensers, usually about 40 cents per gallon out here, so as not to add to the ever expanding mountain of empty plastic bottles that never actually get recycled. It's cheaper too.

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 --

@enhydra lutris We have discussed going, not going, and going won the day. I have a small cabin selected to rent, will just firm up the dates this weekend.
I do not expect shops and museums to be open, but we just wanted to take day drives and admire the scenery.
And the Glacier water idea is very practical.
Thanks.

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4 users have voted.

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

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8 users have voted.