The Evening Blues - 10-12-21
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features New Orleans r&b singer Art Neville. Enjoy!
Art Neville - What's Going On
I have visited sweatshops, factories, and crowded slums. If I could not see it, I could smell it. The foundation of society is laid upon a basis of . . . individualism, conquest and exploitation . . . A social order such as this, built upon such wrong and basic principles, is bound to retard the development of all. The output of a cotton mill or a coal mine is considered of greater importance than the production of healthy, happy-hearted and free human beings. We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name."
-- Helen Keller
News and Opinion
“People vs. Fossil Fuels’’: Winona LaDuke & Mass Protests Call on Biden to Stop Line 3 Pipeline
From Columbus to Enbridge: Colonial Exploitation Continues
It's somehow fitting irony as Indigenous Day approaches on Oct. 11 — once known by another name — that a new Columbus is about to pump oil through Line 3, the last tar sands pipeline. That is the colonial-like corporation Enbridge. ...
In one narrative, the Canadian corporation won. Columbus conquered anew, proof that might and money remain the rulers. Then, there's another. That's the Ballad of the Water Protectors — a movement born in the battles in northern Minnesota and North Dakota, a movement that will grow and transform the economy of the future. ...
We all just recently learned two more blatant things about Enbridge that should give everyone pause — especially our government leaders like Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, whose cowardly silence makes them complicit in this egregious crime. First, after piercing an aquifer in January — an aquifer that is still bleeding 100,000 gallons of water a day — Enbridge covered it up for as long as it could until it was caught and fined $3.3 million by the Department of Natural Resources. This is the kind of people we are dealing with.
We also learned the pipeline isn't even adequately insured. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission required Enbridge to obtain $200 million of "environmental impairment liability" insurance, in addition to general corporate liability coverage of $900 million, and to include the state of Minnesota and several American Indian tribes as additional insureds on its policies. But Enbridge recently submitted a report to the Public Utilities Commission saying it will likely not be able to obtain this insurance "in the near future." ...
Meanwhile, a Code Red has just been issued for the planet in the latest U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. With this warning, Minnesota's approval of the line, from the Public Utilities Committee to the courts, makes us look like archaic climate crisis co-conspirators. We also look increasingly like a police state, especially in northern Minnesota. The repressive police brutalization of Line 3 opponents using rubber bullets, chemical sprays and "pain compliance" have come to the attention of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) for "Violations of Anishinaabe Human Rights from Enbridge's Line 3." ...
Approaching this day for uplifting Indigenous peoples, here's a suggestion. It's time to end conquest and begin survival. Code Red for the environment means that we need to move away from fossil fuels and to organic agriculture, and to local and efficient energy. Fortunately, tribal nations are leading the way in the north. It's time to quit acting like Columbus.
Andrew Jackson statue vandalized with paint in DC
Biden Tells Supreme Court Torture Is a State Secret
When Abu Zubaydah was apprehended in Pakistan in 2002, the George W. Bush administration falsely characterized him as chief of operations for al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s number three man. For the next four years, the CIA sent Zubaydah to its “black sites” in Thailand and Poland where he was viciously tortured. In 2006, Zubaydah was taken to Guantánamo, where he remains to this day. He has never been charged with a crime.
The torture of Abu Zubaydah is thoroughly documented in the 2014 report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In fact, several of the justices at the October 6 Supreme Court oral argument in United States v. Zubaydah referred to his treatment as “torture.” ...
Nevertheless, the Biden administration told the high court that Zubaydah’s well-known torture is a “state secret” because former CIA Director Mike Pompeo said publicizing it would harm national security. Thus, Solicitor General Brian Fletcher argued, the two contractors who orchestrated Zubaydah’s torture in Poland should not be permitted to testify in a Polish court’s criminal investigation into the treatment of Zubaydah.
But as Justice Elena Kagan said, “At a certain point, it becomes a little farcical, this idea of the assertion of a privilege, doesn’t it? I mean, if everybody knows what you’re asserting privilege on, like, what exactly does this privilege.… It’s not a state secrets privilege anymore.”
“Ultimately, the question in this case is whether torture can be kept secret. In a democracy, the answer to that question has to be no,” attorney Joseph Margulies, who represents Zubaydah, told Truthout. “The state secrets doctrine must never be used to prevent an accounting for torture done in our name. If ‘state secrets’ means ‘protect torture,’ before long we won’t have a state to protect.” ...
This case is a pivotal test of the willingness of the Supreme Court to check and balance the executive when it perpetrates torture and other war crimes in its “war on terror.” In 2016, Margulies said that Abu Zubaydah is “the poster child for the torture program, and that’s why they never want him to be heard from again.”
Rotting Red Sea oil tanker could leave 8m people without water
The impact of an oil spill in the Red Sea from a tanker that is rotting in the water could be far wider than anticipated, with 8 million people losing access to running water and Yemen’s Red Sea fishing stock destroyed within three weeks. Negotiations are under way to offload the estimated 1.1m barrels of crude oil that remains onboard the FSO Safer, which has been deteriorating by the month since it was abandoned in 2017. The vessel contains four times the amount of oil released by the Exxon Valdez in the Gulf of Alaska in 1989, and a spill is considered increasingly probable.
The oil will spread well beyond Yemen and cause environmental havoc affecting Saudi Arabia, Eritrea and Djibouti, according to the latest modelling, which is unlike previous studies because it examines the impact more than a week after the spill.
Three-way talks between the Houthi rebels, the UN-recognised government of Yemen and the UN have foundered, despite repeated warnings, including at the UN security council, of the impact if the tanker explodes, breaks up or starts leaking. UN officials have been unable to secure guarantees to maintain the vessel, including its rotting hull, which is now overseen by a crew of just seven. ...
The UN has been seeking Houthi permission to inspect the ship, but the Houthis want undertakings that the vessl will also be repaired, an exercise that requires money the UN does not have available.
US to give humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, Taliban say
The United States has agreed to provide humanitarian aid to a desperately poor Afghanistan on the brink of an economic disaster, but refused to give political recognition to the country’s new rulers, the Taliban said on Sunday. The statement came at the end of the first direct talks between the former foes since the chaotic withdrawal of US troops at the end of August.
The US statement was less definitive, saying only that the two sides “discussed the United States’ provision of robust humanitarian assistance, directly to the Afghan people”. ...
The Taliban said the talks held in Doha, Qatar, “went well”, with Washington freeing up humanitarian aid to Afghanistan after agreeing not to link such assistance to formal recognition of the Taliban.
Iraqi Journalist: Amid Low Election Turnout, “Iraq’s Streets Littered with the Memories of Our Dead”
Turnout at Iraqi national election sluggish as many boycott polls
Iraqis have turned out in low numbers in a national election, with many boycotting a poll that people feared could reinforce a political system that had failed them. Nationwide turnout at the sixth ballot since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was 41%, the electoral commission said. In recent elections, turnout has averaged just over 65%, according to non-profit the International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
Earlier, there were fears it would be as low as 25%, with the country’s disillusioned youth and middle classes largely staying home. Ahead of the poll, there were widespread claims that voting for a political class, which is accused of doing little to provide basic services or secure the country’s citizens, would preserve the status quo. ...
The vote was largely seen as a lack of faith in the democratic system introduced after the US invasion. The contest for influence in Iraq’s 329-seat parliament is fought between political blocs who, depending on their performance, have sway over the choice of prime minister, which goes to a Shia nominee, president, ascribed to a Kurd, and the parliamentary speaker, who by convention is a Sunni.
Horse trading for the positions is expected to take many months – a process that is likely to result in ministries again being carved up between blocs. “The election allows a veneer of democracy,” said Munther Mansour, a Baghdad resident. “But nothing that comes afterwards is democratic.”
US Middle Class Has LEAST WEALTH IN HISTORY
'We Can Do All of It': Jayapal Urges Biden to Push for at Least $3 Trillion
Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington is urging her fellow congressional Democrats and President Joe Biden to agree on at least $3 trillion in safety-net and climate spending in their emerging reconciliation package, a push that comes as right-wing lawmakers are attempting to water down the package and strip it of key progressive priorities.
"We have the House, Senate, and White House," Jayapal, the chair of the 96-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), tweeted late Sunday. "This is our opportunity to invest in child care, healthcare, climate action, paid leave, education, housing, and our roads."
"We don't have to leave some of these popular things behind," she added. "We can do all of it."
In an interview with the Associated Press late last week, Jayapal argued that Biden's proposed compromise of between $1.9 and $2.2 trillion—down from $3.5 trillion over 10 years in the original Build Back Better plan—is "too low" and said she wants the top-line figure to be closer to $3 trillion. Jayapal and other progressive lawmakers have repeatedly stressed that they view $3.5 trillion in spending as a significant compromise, given that they initially advocated for around $6 trillion. ...
Jayapal's latest comments came as several corporate-backed Democrats are working to pare back their own party's reconciliation package by imposing more strict means-testing on the bill's social and climate programs, slashing billions in funding, and attempting to completely remove benefits that progressives view as essential.
Axios reported last week that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is telling colleagues that they must choose just one out of three proposed investments—the expanded child tax credit, paid family medical leave, or child care subsidies—and cut out the other two. Manchin has also voiced support for total spending of $1.5 trillion, a proposal that—according to the Economic Policy Institute—would support nearly 2 million fewer jobs than the original Build Back Better plan.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), for her part, is reportedly pushing for $100 billion in climate-related cuts from the reconciliation package—an effort that environmentalists immediately rejected as a "cruel and unfathomable" non-starter.
"Sinema is out of touch with her constituents and with what's happening across the globe on climate," Varshini Prakash, executive director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said in a statement last week. "Maybe if she actually took the time to speak to the people of her state, she'd realize how much their families need her to deliver action on climate."
Big pharma has a powerful new shill, Kyrsten Sinema, fighting drug price reform
“The pharmaceutical lobby is very savvy,” Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat from California, said earlier this week. “They pick the one or two people they need to block things, on the relevant committees or at the relevant time.”
“It may differ from Congress to Congress,” explained Khanna, who is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “We try to get 90-95% [of the caucus]. They are focused not on 90% , but the blockers.”
In the current Congress, Big Pharma appears to have zeroed in on Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat from Arizona, as one of their lead obstructionists to help kill or gut the Democrats’ drug pricing plan. In the 2020 election cycle, pharmaceutical political action committees suddenly funneled more money to her than they did the whole six years she served in the US House.
Pharmaceutical companies can charge up to four times as much in the United States for name-brand pharmaceuticals than in other countries, in part because Congress barred Medicare from using its bulk purchasing power to negotiate lower drug prices. President Joe Biden and most Democrats support lifting that prohibition in their reconciliation legislation, a move that would save hundreds of billions of dollars – but Sinema has emerged as the party’s most prominent opponent to the plan. ...
But it’s clear now that the pharmaceutical industry has been courting Sinema for some time. Indeed, in March 2021, as pharmaceutical Pac money was flooding into her campaign coffers, drug lobbyists were already bragging to Beltway reporters that they may have found their lead blocker in Sinema.
Dayton Police Dragged Paraplegic Man Clifford Owensby from His Car; NAACP Says Arrest Was “Unlawful”
Nothing fishy here.
No charges for Maryland officers who shot and killed Black man during chase
Four Maryland police officers will not be charged for fatally shooting a Black man they said fired first during a late-night foot chase in January. No evidence was found that Kwamena Ocran, 24, fired at his pursuers. Nonetheless, a Maryland grand jury declined to charge the officers from the Gaithersburg police department – due to lack of evidence.
The four members of a plainclothes street crimes unit told investigators they saw a “muzzle flash” from a gun aimed at them by Ocran, according to statements released by Montgomery county prosecutors. One officer said he heard a round pass by his head. All four officers fired on Ocran, who was running away. He was hit eight times, including twice in his “left lateral back”, according to a 12-page prosecutors’ report. ...
The subsequent shooting was not recorded on video because Gaithersburg’s plainclothes officers were not required to wear body cameras. Another officer, who was wearing a camera, recorded footage of a gun next to Ocran’s body but investigators could not find physical evidence he had fired it. Crime scene technicians failed to find shell casings from Ocran’s gun in three metal detector sweeps. They were only able to find the 23 shell casings from the officers’ guns, prosecutors said.
Christopher Sandmann, the Howard county deputy state’s attorney, told the Washington Post that while investigators prepped Ocran’s hands for gunshot residue analysis, there was a “mistake or miscommunication” and his hands were not swabbed. According to Sandmann and the Howard county state’s attorney, Rich Gibson, investigators did find gunshot residue on the right sleeve of Ocran, but grand jurors were told by an expert witness it could have been transferred by the officers’ shots.
US schools gave kids laptops during the pandemic. Then they spied on them
When the pandemic started last year, countless forms of inequality were exposed – including the millions of American families who don’t have access to laptops or broadband internet. After some delays, schools across the country jumped into action and distributed technology to allow students to learn remotely. The catch? They ended up spying on students. “For their own good”, of course.
According to recent research by the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), “86% of teachers reported that, during the pandemic, schools provided tablets, laptops, or Chromebooks to students at twice the rate (43%) prior to the pandemic, an illustration of schools’ attempts to close disparities in digital access.”
The problem is, a lot of those electronics were being used to monitor students, even combing through private chats, emails and documents all in the name of protecting them. More than 80% of surveyed teachers and 77% of surveyed high school students told the CDT that their schools use surveillance software on those devices, and the more reliant students are on those electronics, unable to afford supplementary phones or tablets, the more they are subjected to scrutiny. ...
Thousands of school districts across the United States have installed surveillance software on school-provided devices to monitor their students’ online interactions. ... These programs, such as Bark, Gnosis IQ, Gaggle, and Lightspeed, can cost the schools tens of thousands of dollars to implement, and they can be set up to search for language and online behavior indicating the possibility of violent tendencies, suicidal ideation, drug use, pornography use, or eating disorders.
John Roberts is no longer the leader of his own court. Who, then, controls it?
When Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the decisive vote in 2012 that upheld Barack Obama’s signature achievement in office, the Affordable Care Act, he reportedly did so following a month-long campaign by fellow conservatives to try to get him to join their side. His decision to side with liberal colleagues inspired ire on the right but it also cemented the chief justice’s role as the leader of his own court.
That was then.
Last week, as the supreme court began a new session that will include rulings on abortion, gun rights, and torture, Roberts no longer holds the coveted role of sitting in the court’s ideological center. The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett means Roberts – who has sought to portray himself as an “institutionalist” seeking to protect the court’s legitimacy – no longer has the sole power to cast the deciding vote in any ruling. ...
Legal experts disagree over the voice that will ultimately be seen as driving the majority’s opinions this session, which has been described as “the most important” one the court has faced in “decades”, and likely to be “tumultuous”.
[See article for an assortment of opinion as to which conservative justice(s) will drive the court. - js]
VA Dem Says QUIET PART OUT LOUD About Biden Collapse
Kim Iversen: Past 5 Presidents Deemed ILLEGITIMATE By Voters, MSM CREATED Election Fraud Hysteria
Indigenous protesters urge Biden to stop approving fossil fuel projects
Hundreds of protesters led by Indigenous activists from across the country demonstrated in front of the White House on Monday to demand that Joe Biden stop approving fossil fuel projects and declare the climate crisis a national emergency. The rally marks the start of five days of demonstrations calling for greater attention to climate injustices as Native American leaders and tribal members head to the capital to publicize their demands.
The demonstrations are part of People v Fossil Fuels protests, organized by a coalition of groups known as Build Back Fossil Free, who are urging the Biden administration take further action to reduce carbon-producing fossil fuel projects.
Monday’s demonstrations fell on a federal holiday in the US that until recently was officially dedicated to Christopher Columbus. However, spurred by national calls for racial equity and decolonization, communities across the country have over the years paired or replaced it with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
The protests were non-violent but dozens of demonstrators were subjected to police use of a long range acoustic device, which emits a piercing sound, according to video footage captured by Indigenous campaigners. The use of the device, ostensibly for crowd control, prompted criticism online with users tweeting, “Why is police force necessary? [They’re] not doing anything!!!!” and “There were less police protecting the capital from traitors,” in reference to the 6 January attacks.
Outside the White House, the words “Expect Us” were spray-painted on the base of a statue of Andrew Jackson, the seventh US president who is infamous for, among other things, leading the violent and lethal repression of Native American peoples in a displacement known as the Trail of Tears. “Expect Us” is part of the phrase “Respect Us, or Expect Us,” which many Indigenous women have been using while demonstrating against the Canadian oil company Enbridge’s $9bn upgrade of an oil pipeline designed to carry oil from Alberta, Canada, to Wisconsin.
'Days without eating': Madagascar sees world's first 'climate change famine'
Kerry has lots of platitudes to cover for the fact that the U.S. and other world elites have no real intention of responding to the climate crisis in any way that will actually mitigate the damage being done. Kerry is still a useless piece of shit.
Cop26: world poised for big leap forward on climate crisis, says John Kerry
The world is poised to make a big leap forward at the UN Cop26 climate summit, with world leaders “sharpening their pencils” to make fresh commitments that could put the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement within reach, John Kerry has said. Kerry, special envoy for climate to Joe Biden, gave an upbeat assessment of the prospects for Cop26, which begins in Glasgow at the end of this month, saying he anticipated “surprising announcements” from key countries.
“The measure of success at Glasgow is we will have the largest, most significant increase in ambition [on cutting emissions] by more countries than everyone ever imagined possible. A much larger group of people are stepping up,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “I know certain countries are working hard right now on what they can achieve.”
Kerry cautioned that there was “still a lot of distance to travel in the next four weeks” and that the progress he anticipated was not yet “signed, sealed and delivered”. That view echoes private soundings the Guardian has taken from the UK hosts, the UN and other key figures.
But he said Cop26 could set the scene for further progress to follow swiftly. “There is not a wall that comes down after Glasgow,” said Kerry. “It is the starting line for the rest of the decade.”
But Kerry, one of the pivotal figures at the talks, also acknowledged the outcome would fall short of a fully fledged deal meeting the aims of the Paris accord, which binds nations to hold global heating to “well below” 2C, with an aspirational limit of 1.5C.
California justice department to investigate enormous oil spill
California’s justice department is investigating the spill off the coast of Huntington Beach earlier this month, which sent thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean, the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, announced on Monday. ... Bonta said the state’s justice department would work with other state, local, and federal authorities to determine the cause of the spill and what, if anything, could have been done to prevent or minimize the disaster.
Officials have previously said the cause remains under investigation, and they believe the pipeline was probably damaged by a ship’s anchor several months to a year before it ruptured.
Experts have warned the spill probably won’t be the state’s last, with numerous ageing oil rigs offshore.
The US senator Alex Padilla of California said: “It is unacceptable that Californians are once again facing the devastating effects of an offshore oil spill. The trade-off between oil production and environmental harm is simply not one we should be making any longer, especially given how fossil fuel emissions are exacerbating the climate crisis.”
Outcry after federal agents kill eight wolf cubs adopted by Idaho school
Conservationists in Idaho are speaking out against the “inhumane” killings of eight wolf pups that were part of a pack adopted by a high school since 2003. The killings were discovered after biologists who tracked the pack noticed its den was empty this spring. Obtaining a “mortality list” from the state department of fish and game, conservationists realized that agents from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had killed the pups.
Several Idaho conservation groups sent a letter to the secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack, requesting that he “immediately suspend the killing of wolf pups on all public lands by the USDA federal agents”.
“There is nothing biologically sound or socially acceptable about killing wolf pups on federal lands, especially when wolves are under significant eradication pressure,” the letter said. “Wolf pups pose no threat to domestic livestock – in Idaho, or anywhere in the western United States.” In response, Jenny Lester Moffitt, undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, said the USDA wildlife services division “prefers to use non-lethal methods”.
“However, in some situations – such as that in Idaho – it is necessary to use lethal control methods.” According to the USDA, agents “determined that removing juvenile wolves would encourage adult wolves to relocate, thereby reducing the total number of wolves requiring removal”.
Michel Liao, a student at Timberline high, the school which adopted the pack, condemned the killings. “They’re justifying killing these wolf pups as a form of humane management even though these wolf pups pose no danger,” Liao told the Idaho Statesman. “It’s a very dangerous message for the federal government to support the killing of pups that can’t defend themselves.”
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Deathly Silence: Journalists Who Mocked Assange Have Nothing to Say About CIA Plans to Kill Him
Anyone Who’d Support Going To War Over Taiwan Is A Crazy Idiot
Talks Between China and India to Defuse Border Tensions Fail
China is not Yesterday’s Enemies
The Science Of Propaganda Is Still Being Developed And Advanced
Bellingcat funded by US and UK intelligence contractors that aided extremists in Syria
Iraqi Cleric Sadr’s Bloc Performs Well in Vote, Emerges as Kingmaker
German election chaos in Berlin — what happens now?
Amid Calls to 'Fire DeJoy,' 20 State AGs File Suit Over Plan to Sabotage Postal Service
A Nice Change of Tempo: “Let ’Em Have It, Boys, Let 'Em Have It. Fuck These People."
Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan Was Gathering His Own Market Intelligence
A Quarter of All 'Critical' US Infrastructure at Risk From Flooding: Report
24 More Nations Join Global Methane Pledge Welcomed as 'Great Start' But Inadequate
NDCs, climate finance and 1.5C: your Cop26 jargon buster
Hillary Clinton Called "War Criminal" By Crowd In Ireland
Bill Maher SHUT DOWN Over Trump-Russia Conspiracy
Are US spies behind Pandora Papers? And shady Facebook 'whistleblower' wants more censorship
Dismal Jobs Report Frustrates WH, Voters Turn Down Work Over LOW Wages, Not Unemployment Benefits
A Little Night Music
Art Neville - My Babe
Art Neville - Cha-Dooky-Doo
Art Neville - Hook Line and Sinker
Art Neville - That Old Time Rock'n'Roll
Art Neville - The Dummy
Art Neville - Messed Around & Fell In Love - Unissued Demo Recording
Art Neville - Heartaches
Art Neville - Bella Mae
Art Neville - Another Blues Stringer
Art Neville - Zing Zing
Comments
Good evening, Joe
Art Neville music---predictably, especially, "That old time Rock and Roll." greatly enjoyable.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Negotiations are under way to offload the estimated 1.1m barrels of crude oil that remains onboard the FSO Safer, which has been deteriorating by the month since it was abandoned in 2017."
OTOH, My blood pressure was rising as I read this article. Drinking water and fish which keeps 3 countries alive and healthy is threatened---and Now, NOW, they are negotiating to remove the spilled oil. OMG
NYCVG
Who are the stewards of the earth?
Not govt. or corp. Must be us. Alls that's left.
Favorite Neville Bros. tune ..
A mind that does not detest bad government is foolish.
evening nycvg...
yep, the failure of negotiations between the multiple parties to the yemen conflict and their backers is likely to result in widespread destruction. it's a slow-motion disaster.
it's a shame that the parties have no conscience. seems like a metaphor for the wider climate damage being inflicted by ruling elites.
oh well, glad the music is good. have a great evening!
Hope cops didn’t think they were untouchable
The highlights
Sam was released from the hospital at 1 today since she was doing so well and is now home, but has lots and lots of drugs to take for weeks on end. That’s the good news. The bad news is that she can’t go for walks for 4 weeks. Yikes! I had them tell her that, but it’s still going to come down on me. I’m boiling a chicken for her and will add rice and pumpkin for dinner for her for awhile. She keeps asking if it’s done yet? After getting home she went and found her toy and was so happy to have it again. It’s the little things.
Yup!
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
- Kevin Alfred Strom
Having watched the video it is impressive and frightening.
Too bad that TPTB uses technology for the wrong reasons when it could be better used to benefit mankind.
Good the here the positive report on Sam.
evening snoopy...
glad to hear that sam is doing so well! i hope her time in captivity goes well for both of you. at least it sounds like she's going to be eating well.
caitlin is spot on about the sort of people that run our world. every time science makes an advance, these stupid ruling elites start working out ways to use it for military purposes. you can't do science with the desire to help mankind, because everything that you discover will be turned into a weapon.
Thanks
She gave me the biggest hug when they brought her to the car. One nurse had tears even. She said she’d never seen a dawg give hugs before. Lots do, but they aren’t Sam..heh.
Good appetite tonight and got 3 of the drugs in. There are 9 of them and the schedule is baffling for me for now. All day long she will be getting one or more. 2 have to be dissolved and given with a syringe. Lucky for me I’ve gone through this before with my 2nd beagle..lol after awhile it got hard to trick her to take them.
Here’s her pig.
She had just gotten done with laying whilst squeaking the hell out of it. Look at how happy she is to be home. That look was absent on Sunday.
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
- Kevin Alfred Strom
great news, friend.
Keep her chicken and rice in the Sam bowl!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Thanks for the EB's Joe
The end is near....for my childrens sake I hope I'm so fucking wrong
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/10/12/oh-great-theyre-putting-guns-on-...
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
Heh!
So they’re worried that after destroying the planet and go to escape from what they broke they will have to worry about those who they want them to protect them? Good!! Or have fun living in space without any support to keep them living. Imagine thinking space is a better option than the wide world with open spaces and sunshine. Idiots.
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
- Kevin Alfred Strom
All it proves is that ameriKKKa's "best and brightest"
aren't really the best nor the brightest, see Mother Earth for proof.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
evening ggersh...
sadly, i think you are quite right about the proximity of the end. i join you in hopes that we are both wrong for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
i'm sort of glad that the rich people are having to worry about what the end means for their security, their troubled sleep is probably the closest thing to justice that we'll get.
You are not
wrong.
Sad, but true.
Time is spent on how to protect themselves from us.
NYCVG
Tillerson Praises Monroe Doctrine,
Warns Latin America of 'Imperial' Chinese Ambitions
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcpRJsOXigY]
evening cb...
dear latin america, look out a successor empire is coming to take up our role in exploiting you.
Except that the non-aligned South American
leaders such as in Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador are saying that the opposite is true. They are welcoming the Chinese who are proving to be honest brokers in mutually beneficial enterprises.
Good evening, joe ...
I thought this was good:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G26SgLXipoc&list=PLR1VVi2S5xz_oArsDsumzf... width:600 height:360]
Their next segment is good too, here.
This is funny:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY2f69nIahs width:600 height:360]
¡Huelga!
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC8ljpr6yuo width:400 height:240]
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
evening azazello...
thanks for the videos. i wonder if merck's ripoff will make it to the mainstream news. probably not, pharma runs lots of ads on mainstream teevee, i hear.
yep, whoever was doing obama forgot to use the words "sanctimonious purists," that would have really given it an air of authenticity.
heh, looks like friday the 13th could come on a wednesday for john deere.
have a good one!
Obama is right
He did what he was asked to do by his donors and not the voters. And it is basic Obama to screw over the people in S. Chicago with his library that won’t have any documents or books in them. Well maybe he will load it up with the books he wrote that were all about him. Hopefully he sees the video and hears what Jimmy said about him. Gah! Weird though isn’t it that he just faded away but the media won’t let go of telling us still whatever Trump says even 10 months after he left office. Shitlibs are still writing about him all the time too. Keeps them angry I guess after they said they couldn’t wait for him to leave…go figure.
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
- Kevin Alfred Strom
Dems continue to squabble over Build Back Better.
It is quite apparent on which side Pelosi is on.
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/576394-sanders-expanding-medicare-...
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/10/12/democrats-reconciliation-agenda...
evening humphrey...
heh, pelosi was looking for some legislation that would cap her career. perhaps she'll settle for legislation with some nice language in it but not enough resources to fulfill the promise of the nice words.
i guess we'll see.
Pelosi was just awarded the
Women for Peace award which goes well with Obama’s peace prize. I guess voting for every war that comes along counts as being peaceful. Not what I’d call peaceful, but then I’m anti war. Speaking of being anti war, Tulsi is bragging about how she got sent to one of the wars not many knew we were fighting and is now an Lt. Cornel. How she squares droning people to death as being anti war is mind boggling don’t you think? Especially when they slice and dice people with blades coming from the drone. I can’t believe that someone thought up that way to kill people. How do they sleep at night?
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
- Kevin Alfred Strom
Award
Me? I’d want every woman and girl to have a place to sleep and enough to eat and not have to worry about going bankrupt if they got sick and, and, and!
How funny and par for the Kamala
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
- Kevin Alfred Strom
Not sure Tulsi would characterize herself as anti-war
She has fairly consistently opposed regime-change wars, but has supported military actions against Islamic terrorists (her terms not mine). This is certainly a position that can be criticized. On the other hand, she is much better on most issues than all but a handful in Congress.
Thanks for the information on her views
I wasn’t aware of that. I wonder what we’re doing where she is at? I didn’t see her explanation of her deployment.
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
- Kevin Alfred Strom
Thank you
for covering this.
I have checked out completely from following the daily goings on in DC. The Constant Charade is a bore.
But a summary from a trusted voice like yours is completely interesting to me. I appreceiate your coverage.
NYCVG
The video is for information purpose only. Don't bother watching
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ0J-csn_Ek]
The point of this comment is below!
heh...
i guess that cia agents are always looking out for bugs, but who knew that crickets were their mortal enemies?
Anti-China McCarthyism 2.0 rampant in Australia
"Watch her. She's a rat-fucker..." (Aussie slang for Chinese)
Any Europeans around?
This reads like something unhinged, but it makes specific claims RE several European countries; if anyone could confirm/refute them, it would help me know how terrified to be.
http://oneworld.press/?module=articles&action=view&id=2240
I've made my view of the US military and sabre-rattling toward China 100% clear - but if ANYTHING could force me to side with them, it would be China's Hell-On-Earth "social credit" system.
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!
evening moonbat...
heh, that piece certainly does read as a little unhinged. like most unhinged essays, it starts with one thing and gets to the end of times and the mark of the beast in pretty short order.
from what i have read about the social credit system, it does sound undesirable and ripe for exploitation. on the other hand, i have not read that european responses to the covid crisis create a similar social credit system or are intended to become one. i think that those claims require much more extensive documentation.
have a great evening!
Fair point; thanks
Still, this ongoing treadmill of involuntary technological conformity THAT DOES NOTHING TO IMPROVE QUALITY OF LIFE is bad enough.
I'm reminded of Cassiodorus's theme of "failure of political imagination" - could it be that Communism has simply turned out to be a larger (but presumably unintentional) model of the Clintoncrat Party's function (i.e. suppressing alternatives by monopolizing and thought-policing the search for them)?
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!
There are significant differences
between Americans and Chinese. Americans value individualism whereas the Chinese relate more to the group collective. They are thus more likely to look at how their individual acts affect the whole rather than how it affects themselves personally.
We saw this reflected in the massive lock-downs due to the SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan (a city of 8.5 million - slightly larger than NYC) at the beginning of the outbreak. It didn't take a massive police or military presence to keep people in self isolation. Thousands of workers self organized in teams to bring food and other necessities to those in need. For the most part, there were only a scattered few who disobeyed. Most accepted and hunkered down for the duration.
The social credit system is actually valued by the overwhelming majority of the Chinese, over 90% of whom are satisfied with their government. The SCS is not uniform throughout the country.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geFRWPz-z6w]
Color me PROFOUNDLY skeptical
First off, I've long been skeptical of the whole "Asians collectivist, Americans individualist" cliche for any number of reasons (I briefly studied Japanese under a grad student from Japan who was quite the fun character and anything BUT a collectivist, and talked about how most people in Japan were "sheeple" and was looking forward to seeing American individualism up-close, only to discover "*mock stare of astonishment*...YOU SHEEPLE TOO!"); so much of America never stopped being crippled by cult-ideology and peasant-mentality.
The toll that Imperialist Abrahamism has taken upon the world is an elephant in the room that almost NOBODY talks about (you'd think the "decolonialization" crowd would be all over it, but nooooo, they play very nice with Rome and Riyadh, only acknowledge the existence of Jews when and how it's convenient to The Narrative™, and are much more concerned with demanding Pagan Reconstructionists prove they're not the Klansmen and Nazis who hate THEM as much as they do any darkie by submitting their freedom of thought to approval before the Central Board of Inclusivity™).
But I digress!
What China DOES still have that America hasn't had in generations that would explain the citizenry's cooperation is a functioning social contract. People know where they stand with the CCP - but don't expect it to last; aforementioned contract boils down to "obey the government, and the government will deliver a rising standard of living", and it is already running out of sustainability. I read a good article in The Economist (not exactly a publication known for rushing to rock the boat) about China secretly being in an economic and environmental "death-spiral"...and that was in 2018.
What do older people here think? How much credible warning did the world get before the USSR collapsed?
Don't even get me started on the inherent evil of groupthink; collectivism is NOT GOOD. Just look at ants ("Nature's Nazis", as I like to call them) and how well they get along with anything else.
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 Economist is a very biased source
of reliable information about China. They have been predicting communist China's failure and impending financial collapse for over a decade.
Filial piety is still very strong in China with most children sending a portion of their income home to support their family. Every Chinese New Year, hundreds of millions travel at considerable expense to their home districts to celebrate the event with their families.
Russia's dogmatic Communist ideology was rigid and inflexible and literally shattered whereas China has continually reinvented itself. In fact, so much so that they define it as "Socialism with Chinese characteristics".
[video:https://youtu.be/GucGntiKux4?t=434]
imo, this one world think tank, tanked quite a bit
and should drown to th botom of the ocean or at least not taken seriously..
just my 0.03 cents (adjusted to inflation).
Not reading BS is a skill few respect.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Ah, just who I wanted to "see"...
My question to you: Is this much true?
Sadly "not reading BS" is not a very useful skill if one cannot reliably distinguish (to use an archaic Americanism) shit from Shinola to begin with.
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!
Updated: I am a simple woman who reads C99p for
news items (this started accidentically, because some folks on dailykos must have hated me so much, that they banned me in a second) and I landed here and never left, because ir felt the right place to be. Other than scanning news.google.com and news.google.de I don't read anything much on the internet unless I follow a link that was posted here. I am not sitting behind a computer screen the whole day (luckily) and before retirement it was my job to watch US mainstream TV news to alert correspondents about items which might have been interesting for them. I cleaned up archives (not online archives, but tape libraries and paper archives)
I am not a researcher. I boycotted facebook from the first time I heard about Sugarboy and never used it. I do not do twitter or follow any other social media platform. I boycotted Amazon.com, but I started to buy all my used english books from them. I have met Mr. Besoz in his days in 1994 at a conference without knowing who he was and what he was up to. By 1996 it became obviously clear what he was up to and then he was a dead man (in a moral or ethical sense) to me. As I worked for the dpa and ARD German TV in Washington DC, our correspondents managed two times to interview him and I saw most of what was filmed about him.
So, Here in Germany in the evening news, I didn't hear about anything considering Italy's regulations (it is possible they mentioned something, but usually I am too tired and fall asleep too often. I don't know if what you asked me, is true or not and would have to research it. You know, it is just too much and I am not going to research it.
All I can observe here in my neighorhood woods, is that vaccination issues and covid regulation - give the common man on the street the power to show their character flaws quite openly. They use all the regulatory stuff to exercise power over their fellow neighbore. They get frustrated, if not verbally abusive which can go overboard and end in physical violence in demonstrations etc.
Basically I say WTF, leave me alone. I am glad that I can avoid reading too much about covid and co. since JtC has introduced 'The Dose' essays for that. I can avoid them easily and often I do.
OK, I will research it, but not anymore today. If I find something worth it, I will send it to you.
Italy first in Europe to require all employees to have COVID health pass
https://www.euronews.com/live
Thank you, but please...
...don't twist your spine on my account, not for this. : )
Some things are worth pursuing if they're very easy, but NOT if they're not...and knowledge without power can be a horrible thing.
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!
Hey, joe!
Love all the Neville family. What an amazing family, and even more amazing that family is so gifted. Great genes, huh?
Not only did I get through the 8 cases on the docket I mentioned yesterday, I actually had one more added. So, 9 for 9.
Not sure how we find water 10 years from now, much less drinkable water. Not sure anything grown in the ground will be non-poisonous.
All the movements for better we have tried have been stop gap, at best. It doesn't bode well, but miracles have happened.
We are due for another.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
yep, the neville family are an incredibly talented bunch.
congratulations on getting through your docket! that sounds really impressive to me.
well, miracles would be helpful. i suppose that humanity has been near a nasty tipping point once before and the miracle of nitrogen fixing occurred. not to disparage that miracle, but, i think we need an even bigger one now.
At least one major press still speaks for the people....
https://www.theonion.com/american-support-for-indigenous-peoples-day-sig...
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!
lol…harsh, but possibly true
To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.
- Kevin Alfred Strom
Funny
and sad.
America today. Me and only me and mine matter.
NYCVG
My reaction is that
Americans are so freaking tired and overworked that they'd do about anything for a day off.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Ditto (more or less)
Every politician knows that talk is cheap, and now they've lowered themselves from tossing scraps of incremental "progress" to pure illusions...
...the good news? This may be what it looks like before the jig is up.
An Illustrative Personal Story: When I was in middle school, I, like many in my age bracket, collected Magic: The Gathering cards - and at my school, nobody really knew how to play (thus heavily distorting our understanding of the value of many cards - an understanding of the byzantine formal rules can sometimes make the difference between seeing certain cards as totally stupid, or incredibly powerful), and only some people cared about the whole 'rarity/value' thing; all I cared about was the game itself.
There was this fellow a grade above me who'd somehow marked me as someone who could be taken advantage of whenever he noticed I had cards he wanted; first he offered me what seemed like a generous trade, and while it was from one standpoint, from another it was heavily in his favor; I took it. Then, I had a card I REALLY couldn't comprehend the point of (see above), so I think he was able to get it out of me for nothing; I had no idea at the time how severe a steal that was. Finally, I got a weird card that was impressively valuable in BOTH our eyes. We agreed to meet and haggle over it. Perhaps, by this point, I'd grown a small edge of suspicion.
He made several offers, most of which I forget the specifics of save the last one, because having said no to everything else, he got desperate and tried to sell me on something REALLY cheap-o; the best common-knowledge analogy I can think of would be something like 'Hey, I'll give you a bag of store-brand white flour for that tin of imported Beluga caviar!' He did his best to hype it up, betting everything on his ability to exploit my naivete. Ultimately, though, I said no to that too...and instead of making another offer (I would've still been game), he just gave up and walked away. For whatever reason, that was the last time he tried to hustle me for Magic cards.
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!
Never was a Magic player myself,
but I know that stuff like that did go on.
You may be right in that a fair number of people are close to done being fooled.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Is it possible that the people
didn't accept the results of the past five elections because it's become increasingly clear that we don't live in a democracy? That those Presidents do not reflect the will of the people? I notice that the trend Iverson describes starts at about the same time as the "Washington consensus" and just before the point where, I believe, our government began its transformation into a bunch of bad political theater in earnest (when the Clintons run the Democratic side of things and Newt Gingrich and his band of crazies run the Republicans, not much that's useful for the people is going to get done. And indeed, that's how it proved to be.)
Secondly, in the years 2000 and 2004, it was completely obvious that the president was installed (not elected) in the Oval Office by a combination of election fraud and judicial malfeasance. No one who participated in that fraud or malfeasance ever had to pay a price for it. Nor did the people who rode that wave of criminality and sociopathy to the White House. We just, as a society, swept it under the rug, even when the people who rode that wave started, in short order, dismantling the basis of our legal system and hundreds of years of moral and legal precedent. Even when they got us into a war based on lies, which ended up killing over a million people, including thousands of our own soldiers, and left countless more broken people who you will now find, often, sitting in a box on a city sidewalk, or, if they're lucky, manning a cash register at the local WaWa for minimum wage.
Such things tend to cast a shadow of a doubt on the veracity and value of elections.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
afternoon cstms...
heh, i think that it's a mix of things.
some people don't accept the entire electoral system and see it as rigged, producing candidates that are "pre-approved" and virtually interchangeable.
other people accept the system, but in some elections, feel that there are manipulators within it that have robbed their party of its due.
then there is, what i would guess is the majority of folks who feel that the system is rigged, but feel that one candidate is clearly better than the other and get pissed when a manipulation occurs and the "wrong" candidate is installed.
i can't wait until the next rich pageant of corruption.
Yeah, you're probably right--
I can even understand how a Democrat would feel that way in the early part of this century. I was one of them. Back then, it was pretty clearly a nasty faction inside one party committing the fraud.
But it's hard to understand how anybody could continue to feel that way after 2016. The intense upsurge of partisanship in the past five years is beyond reason. It's never been more obvious that both sides are willing to commit fraud to get what they want. It's not like Hillary and her peeps weren't frantically committing every kind of fraud known to man to stop Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination. The people's response to the Sanders campaign took them (and, I believe, Bernie) by surprise, so much that they had to make a bunch of hasty moves to contain it; because they had to act so hastily, most of what they did was hanging right out where the public could see it.
Apparently, a lot of people are better than I am at unseeing things.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver