The Evening Blues - 7-28-22



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: George "Harmonica" Smith

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues chromatic harmonica player George "Harmonica" Smith. Enjoy!

George Smith - Blues In The Dark

“All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

-- Friedrich Nietzsche


News and Opinion

The Phoniest, Most PR-Intensive War Of All Time

The president and first lady of Ukraine have posed for a romantic photoshoot with Vogue magazine, wherein President Volodymyr Zelensky waxes poetical about his love for his darling wife.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: how is Zelensky making time for a Vogue photoshoot amidst his busy schedule of PR appearances for other major western institutions?

I mean this is after all the same Volodymyr Zelensky who has been so busy making video appearances for the Grammy Awards, the Cannes Film Festival, the World Economic Forum and probably the Bilderberg group as well, and having meetings with celebrities like Ben Stiller, Sean Penn, and Bono and the Edge from U2. It’s as busy a PR tour as he could possibly have without having a discussion about the strategic importance of long-range artillery with Elmo on Sesame Street.

Oh yeah, and also isn’t there like a war or something happening in Ukraine? You’d think he’d probably be somewhat busy with that too.


Call me crazy, but I’m beginning to suspect that there might be a concerted effort to manipulate the way we think about the war in Ukraine. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say it’s the most aggressively perception-managed war we’ve ever experienced.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February we have not only been smashed with mass media propaganda unlike anything we’ve ever seen while Russian media are purged from the airwaves, we’re also seeing the new media element of unprecedented amounts of online censorship, algorithm-boosted propaganda, and social media trolling.

So we’ve literally never seen this much overall effort put into manipulating the way the public thinks about a war. Which makes sense, given that it’s a profoundly dangerous proxy war which stands to benefit ordinary people in no way, shape or form.

I mean, can you imagine if people were allowed to just think their own thoughts about their government’s economic warfare against Russia which is hurting them financially and pushing millions toward starvation with the full awareness and approval of the US government? Or if Americans were allowed to wonder if the billions they are pouring into this proxy conflict could be better spent at home? Or if people started objecting to a needless conflict for geostrategic domination threatening their lives and the lives of everyone they know with the risk of nuclear annihilation?

Can’t have that.

There is a night-and-day difference between wanting to tell people the truth about something and wanting to manipulate their perception of something. There are times when true facts can be used to influence people’s perception one way or the other, but if your agenda is to manipulate perception rather than tell the truth you will necessarily be forced to rely on lies, half-truths, distortion, and lies by omission wherever the truth doesn’t serve that agenda.

If they were telling us the truth about this war, they wouldn’t be censoring Russian media. They wouldn’t be censoring online voices who disagree with the official narratives about Ukraine. They wouldn’t be continually blasting us in the face with mass media perception management, and they sure as hell wouldn’t be putting Ukraine’s celebrity-in-chief on the cover of Vogue magazine.

We are being manipulated, and we are being deceived. And we are being manipulated and deceived because our perceiving clearly on our own would go against the interests of the empire. They are lying to us because the interests of the people and the interests of the empire are, as usual, squarely at odds.

WashPo Beginning To Question Pentagon’s Ukraine Lies

Those wily Ukrainians are always thinking up ways of picking the pockets of U.S. citizens:

Ukraine Government Asks US to Provide ‘Gas Lend-Lease’

The Ukrainian government on Tuesday asked Washington to provide Kyiv with a “lend-lease” program to import natural gas from the US to ensure Ukraine has enough gas for heating this winter, Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal said on Tuesday. ...

According to Foreign Policy, one of the proposals that has been floated by Ukrainian officials would be for the US to provide Ukraine with 6 billion cubic meters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) without collecting payment for two years. The US would deliver the LNG to terminals in Europe, where it will be shipped to Ukraine via pipeline. ...

It’s estimated that the 6 billion cubic meters of LNG would cost about $8 billion. So far, the US has authorized $54 billion to spend on the war in Ukraine, more than half of which is for military aid. But the US is expected to spend more as the current funding is only meant to last through September 30.

Russia Breakthrough Ukraine Donetsk Fortifications, MSM Focus on Kherson, US Navy Carrier to Taiwan

Russian economy doing better than expected despite sanctions, says IMF

Despite damaging Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s economy appears to be weathering the storm better than expected as it benefits from high energy prices, the IMF said Tuesday. ...

International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook upgraded Russia’s GDP estimate for this year by a remarkable 2.5 percentage points, although its economy is still expected to contract by six percent. ...

While major economies including the United States and China are slowing, the report said, “Russia’s economy is estimated to have contracted during the second quarter by less than previously projected, with crude oil and non-energy exports holding up better than expected.”

Meanwhile, despite the sanctions, Russia’s “domestic demand is also showing some resilience” due to government support.

Max Blumenthal on Elite Control and Popular Resistance

Falls in Europe’s crop yields due to heatwaves could worsen price rises

Yields of key crops in Europe will be sharply down this year owing to heatwaves and droughts, exacerbating the impacts of the Ukraine war on food prices.

Maize, sunflower and soya bean yields are forecast by the EU to drop by about 8% to 9% due to hot weather across the continent. Supplies of cooking oil and maize were already under pressure, as Ukraine is a major producer and its exports have been blocked by Russia.

Large parts of Europe have been afflicted by drought and hot weather in recent weeks, including Spain, southern France, central and northern Italy, central Germany, northern Romania and eastern Hungary. Cereal yields are down about 2% overall, compared with the five-year average, though a handful of crops such as sugar beet and potatoes are doing better than average.

According to the latest monthly edition of the Mars Bulletin, published this week by the EU’s Joint Research Centre, drought and heat stress in many regions coincided with the flowering stage for key crops, and water reservoirs in many places are at levels too low to meet the demand for irrigation.

One China Eyepoking Too Far: Biden Signals US Not Backing Down on Pelosi Taiwan Visit as China Promises Military Response

The US is run by spoiled children who won’t take “no” for an answer. While I am not privy to what China has in the way of plans for Taiwan, and I welcome being corrected, I have yet to see any of the neocons make a substantiated allegation that China intended to invade Taiwan prior to the US meddling by arming Taiwan and supporting its nationalists. My impression from a considerable remove is that China was clearly not happy about Taiwanese declarations of independence, but was prepared to be patient and let time do its work.

Specifically, China over time is becoming more affluent, which more high-level, well-paid technical and professional positions. And China has been encouraging Taiwanese to take them. See this 2018 article from Forbes:

On February 28, Beijing announced 31 measures that make it easier for Taiwanese to work, invest and study in China. Wages are 60% lower in China than in Taiwan for ordinary, entry-level jobs, according to ManpowerGroup. But even without the new measures, Taiwanese can earn 1.2 to 1.3 times more pay in China than at home for skilled, non-entry level jobs.

The pay gap in favor of China for these skilled positions is even greater than it appears, since the cost of living is lower in China than Taiwan.

So if China could get more Taiwanese to live in China, or simply see it as not problematic to move back and forth, it would establish among the Taiwanese the notion that China and Taiwan were in practical terms not separate, and the Taiwanese would be worse off by denying themselves opportunities in China. In other words, China could over the long term, say a 20 year horizon, use commerce, not force, to achieve its ends. ...

As far as China is concerned, there is not putting lipstick on this pig. The US is demonstrating, just as Russia has charged, that it is not agreement capable. ... As with provoking Russia, the US may be about to get what it sought with Taiwan and find out that the results are not to its advantage.

Geez, I thought Obama was a wimp, but Brandon sure out-underperforms Obama by a mile:

Hawkish senators make moves to take over Biden’s Iran policy

In June, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, addressed donors at the AIPAC New Jersey Spring Leadership Dinner and declared that President Biden should halt efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal and instead pursue a new approach. As Jewish Insider reported, Menendez declared “in the absence of hearing a plan in a classified setting, then I intend to create… legislation that will ultimately dictate what a plan should be.”

Despite the Biden administration going out of its way to cater to the whims of Menendez, including rhetoric calling for a “longer and stronger” nuclear deal that led to costly delays in negotiations during Biden’s first months in office, Menendez has continued to undermine the administration’s efforts to restore the Iran nuclear deal. This was most apparent in February, when Menendez responded to forward progress in nuclear negotiations by declaring his opposition to restoring the JCPOA in a long-winded speech on the Senate floor, exacerbating doubts in Tehran about whether Biden could deliver on sanctions relief. Now, Menendez has followed through on his threat to “dictate” the terms of Biden’s Iran policy by introducing a new bill.

His latest legislation with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another dyed-in-the-wool Iran hawk, mandates that Biden detail a full strategy on Iran and establish a “task force” with a primary function of relaying intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program to Congress and the public every 120 days. ...

At first glance, the legislation could appear just duplicative and unnecessary. Much of the data the task force would forward to Congress is already publicly reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency every 90 days, [...] however, there are plenty of indications that the legislation would not be used to enhance congressional and public knowledge, but to sabotage diplomatic efforts that can avert threats from Iran’s nuclear program. One such indication is that the task force would be required to report on “clandestine nuclear facilities, including nuclear facilities and activities discovered or reported by Israel or other allies or partners of the United States.”

Thus, the task force would not just report out a careful interagency assessment of intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program, but it would also be required to include information — including potentially raw intelligence — from parties that may have a strong interest in stoking U.S.-Iran conflict. Particularly given that the report would need to be submitted at least partially in unclassified form and on the State Department’s website, this requirement could open the door to both members of Congress — like Menendez and Graham — and outside groups beating the drums for war on the basis of cherry-picked and false intelligence.

Biden Appointing “Brutal” Right-Wing Judges

Democrats introduce bill requiring term limits for US supreme court justices

US House Democrats have introduced a bill to establish term limits for supreme court justices, after an unprecedented term in which the highest court produced a series of deeply conservative rulings upending American law. ...

The Supreme Court Tenure Establishment and Retirement Modernization Act (Term), would establish 18-year terms for supreme court justices and establish a process for the president to appoint a new justice every two years. After an 18-year term, justices would be retired from active judicial service.

If the bill were to take effect, the nine justices now on the court would essentially be forced into senior status in order of reverse seniority, as jurists were appointed under the new mechanism. ...

The bill is unlikely to pass. Republicans have vigorously shot down any attempts to change the makeup of the supreme court. Even if the measure passed the Democratic-controlled House, it would probably die in the Senate, where it would need the vote of 10 Republicans in addition to all Democrats to overcome the filibuster.

Despite pressure from Democrats, Joe Biden has also not indicated any support for changing the way appointments are made, rejecting the idea of expanding the number of justices on the court.

Indiana investigates abortion doctor who treated 10-year-old rape victim

The Indiana state attorney general has launched an investigation into the doctor who performed an abortion on a 10-year-old rape victim.

According to Kathleen DeLaney, a lawyer acting for the doctor, Caitlin Bernard, a notice from the Indiana attorney general, Todd Rokita, regarding his investigation arrived on Tuesday.

“We are in the process of reviewing this information. It’s unclear to us what is the nature of the investigation and what authority he has to investigate Dr Bernard,” DeLaney told CNN. ...

According to DeLaney, Bernard is considering taking legal action against “those who have smeared my client”, including Rokita, who previously said that he would investigate whether she violated abortion reporting or child abuse notification laws.

In a statement to the Guardian on Wednesday, Rokita said: “The baseless defamation claim and other accusations are really just attempts to distract, intimidate and obstruct my office’s monumental progress to save lives. It will take a lot more than that to intimidate us.

“The doctor alone brought this case to the press. She used a 10-year-old girl – a child rape victim’s personal trauma – to push her political ideology. She was aided and abetted by a fake news media who conveniently misquoted my words to try to give abortionists and their readership numbers an extra boost.”

RECESSION CONFIRMED?: GDP Falls Smacking Biden In Face

Fed announces another three-quarter-point increase in interest rates

With the US economy teetering on the edge of a recession and inflation running at a four-decade high, the Federal Reserve announced another three-quarter of a percentage point increase in its benchmark interest rates on Wednesday, the second such increase in just over a month.

In a statement, the Fed said it was “highly attentive to inflation risks”.

“Recent indicators of spending and production have softened. Nonetheless, job gains have been robust in recent months, and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher food and energy prices, and broader price pressures,” the Fed said.

The central bank added that Russia’s war against Ukraine is “causing tremendous human and economic hardship” as well as “additional upward pressure on inflation” and weighing on global economic activity. ...

The hike raises the Fed’s cost of borrowing to between 2.25% and 2.5% and is the Fed’s fourth rate increase this year. It comes as central banks worldwide seek to calm price rises with higher rates. Fed chair Jerome Powell indicated that there would be more outsized increases ahead if inflation is not brought under control.

Dems ACTUALLY Might Pass Climate Bill, Corporate Tax Hike

U-turn as Manchin agrees deal with Democrats on major tax and climate bill

Senator Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat infamous for thwarting his own party’s most ambitious policy goals, announced he has signed on to a domestic policy bill that would pay down the national debt, lower healthcare costs and address the climate crisis.

After reaching a deal with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, Manchin said the new policy package was called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and included “realistic energy and climate policy”. ...

In a statement on Wednesday, Manchin offered few specifics about the package but noted that it “invests in the technologies needed for all fuel types – from hydrogen, nuclear, renewables, fossil fuels and energy storage” and that it “does not arbitrarily shut off our abundant fossil fuels”. ...

Democrats say the bill will generate $739bn through a 15% corporate minimum tax, prescription drug savings and other means. It excludes surtaxes on people making at least $10m a year, ending Democrats’ push to make the wealthiest Americans pay more taxes.

The proposal would invest $396bn in energy security and fighting climate change, and $64bn to bolster healthcare. Manchin also indicated that provisions to reform the permitting process for energy infrastructure, including gas pipelines, would be included in the deal.



the horse race



Democrats Hate The LEFT So Much They Are Campaigning For Far Right Candidates In Detroit

Andrew Yang Joins GOP & DEMOCRATS To Form A Viable New Party: The Forward Party



the evening greens


Worth a look, much more at the link:

US power companies secretly spending millions to protect profits and fight clean energy

The CEO of the biggest power company in the US had a problem. A Democratic state senator was proposing a law that could cut into Florida Power & Light’s (FPL) profits. Landlords would be able to sell cheap rooftop solar power directly to their tenants – bypassing FPL and its monopoly on electricity. “I want you to make his life a living hell … seriously,” FPL’s CEO Eric Silagy wrote in a 2019 email to two of his vice-presidents about state Senator José Javier Rodríguez, who proposed the legislation.

Within minutes, one of them forwarded the directive to the CEO of Matrix, LLC, a powerful but little-known political consulting firm that has operated behind the scenes in at least eight states. Rodríguez was ousted from office in the next election. Matrix employees spent heavily on political advertisements for a candidate with the same last name as Rodríguez, who split the vote. That candidate later admitted he was bribed to run.

Hundreds of pages of internal documents – which are only coming to light now because Matrix’s founders are locked in an epic feud – detail the firm’s secret work to help power companies like FPL protect their profits and fight the transition to cleaner forms of energy. ...

The issue extends to several states. Records obtained by Floodlight and the Orlando Sentinel show that Matrix consulted for FPL, as well as another Florida company, Gulf Power, and Alabama Power. Matrix affiliated groups have also worked to advance power companies’ interests in Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and in front of the Environmental Protection Agency, public records show. ... Big power companies operate as monopolies with captive customers in much of the south-east US. They are supposed to be closely regulated, but their profits and unchecked political spending makes them some of the most powerful entities in a state.

Earth Overshoot Day: Humanity used more resources than Earth can generate

Looking for someone to blame for the extreme heat? Try Wall Street

There are many to blame for the climate crisis and its extreme weather impacts. Executives of fossil fuel companies bear the greatest responsibility. More than anything else, it has been their great deceit – their burying of climate science, funding of climate denial, and spending of billions to kill climate policy – that has prevented us from transitioning away from an economy powered by coal, oil and gas. Compromised politicians, including the entire Republican party and the Democratic coal baron Joe Manchin, deserve special condemnation, too.

In the cast of climate villains, however, another character rises to claim a special place on center stage: Wall Street. ... Since the Paris Agreement, the six largest US banks – Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs – have provided $1.4tn in financing to the fossil fuel industry. Indeed, since that heralded day in the French capital, the world’s four largest funders of fossil fuel expansion have all been US banks. So much for “American leadership”.

It’s not as if Wall Street hasn’t been warned. The environmental group Rainforest Action Network started campaigning to get Bank of America to end coal financing in 2010. In 2016, Indigenous-led protests demanding that banks end their financing of the Dakota Access pipeline shut down bank branches across the country. Cities, including Seattle and San Francisco, committed to cutting ties with the banks funding the pipeline.

In more recent times, the outcry has spread from activists to customers and investors. This year, more than 38,000 customers joined a campaign urging their bank to end fossil fuel financing. Thousands more have pledged to cut ties with their bank altogether if there isn’t progress soon. At JPMorgan Chase’s 2020 shareholder meeting, 49.6% of investors voted in favor of the bank aligning its financing with the goals of the Paris agreement.

In response to this pressure, US banks have released a spate of climate promises, committing to achieve net zero by 2050 and reduce emissions by 2030. But the hard truth remains: Wall Street’s financing of coal, oil and gas was higher in 2021 than it was in 2016, the year after the Paris agreement was adopted. Last year alone, US banks provided $64bn in financing to the corporations most rapidly expanding their coal, oil and gas operations – never mind the fact that such development will lead to a level of climate change that will make today’s extreme heat seem like a breezy day in the park.


Also of Interest

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

US Should Not Fund Ukrainian ‘Blacklist’

Zelensky & Wife Do A Vogue Magazine Photo Shoot

Chile’s New Constitution on a Knife-Edge

Progressives Slam Senate Passage of $76 Billion 'Corporate Giveaway'

Prices of New Houses Plunge, Sales Crater to Lockdown Level, Inventories Pile Up to Highest Since 2008

FINALLY: Biden Moves To Combat Gas Prices

How Small Businesses CRUSHED By Inflation

BBC Caught Copying Story Directly From British Military


A Little Night Music

George Harmonica Smith - Leaving Chicago

Muddy Waters & George Harmonica Smith - Walking thru the park

George "Harmonica" Smith - Blowin' The Blues

George "Harmonica" Smith - Hawaiian Eye

George Smith – No Time For Jive

"Little George" Smith - Blues Stay Away

George Harmonica Smith - Situation Blues

George Harmonica Smith - On my mind

William Clarke - Tribute to George Smith

George "Harmonica" Smith - Got My Mojo Working


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Comments

Pricknick's picture

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13 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@Pricknick

the thing, it speaks for itself. Smile

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6 users have voted.

THAT’S an @Pricknick internet Win.

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5 users have voted.

Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

joe shikspack's picture

@gjohnsit

great piece, glad to see that lee camp has landed on his feet and is working out new ways to bypass the man and connect with an audience.

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6 users have voted.
CB's picture

The country has lost major towns and cities to Russia.
What is Ukraine's President doing? Volodymyr Zelensky is posing for the cover of Vogue. Palki Sharma tells you all about it.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM72TWJHSsU]

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9 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@CB

heh, i guess we are all in the cheap seats of the zelensky theatre of war.

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5 users have voted.

@CB
The chair sort of swallowing Zelensky and making him look small. The center is in the background, a small lamp. The wife somewhat drab. Color wise, all muddier than more usual for Leibowitz.

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5 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

Russia says that Lavrov will get back to Blinken on the prisoners exchange when he’s not so busy. Smile Grimer did plead guilty, but she said that she packed the marijuana stuff on accident because she was recovering from Covid. Almost every comment I’ve seen on exchanging her for some Russians has been homophobic and worse. I wonder what those people would say if it was Lebron or some other male basketball player who got caught with drugs overseas? I’m appalled at the low IQ comments on this matter. I thought that Americans had grown up, but apparently not. I feel bad for anyone who gets caught up in other countries legal systems.

Nancy Pelosi should keep her buttocks home and do a zoom meeting with people in Taiwan instead of wasting so much money having the military try to keep them safe as she travels there. China has said that her going there is their red line and that something might happen if she goes there. If we’re so concerned that China’s economy is going to over take ours then we should quit giving tax breaks to companies that offshore their business over there. Gawd’s nightgown it’s not rocket science!

Of course Biden is appointing right wing judges because he knows that they will roll back any progressive legislation that helped the working class. Democrats have changed so much that they want their previous good legislation rolled back. It’s why right after the Supremes gutted Roe, Biden wanted to appoint an anti abortion judge in Kentucky. Screw the women there. If that wasn’t in your face to women I don’t know what is. Biden also wants 100,000 MORE cops and don’t forget that democrats gave the capital cops $2 billion so they can spread themselves across the country. Democrats want to make sure that when the country goes to hell and people try to rise up there will be enough cops to stop it. Also just read that shitlibs are saying that this is Thee Most Important Election of Our Lifetime! Why? Because if republicans take over it’s game over for the country. Guess they didn’t notice how Pelosi didn’t even try to block Trump’s agendas and gave him almost everything he asked for. Except that last bailout for the working class. Biden cut it in half. And that Biden is continuing many of the things that they bitched about Trump doing? Good lord will they ever wake the fck up and see that democrats are the more affective evil?

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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.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

heh, it's pretty funny that blinken expects to snap his fingers and get lavrov's attention after refusing to talk with him for so many months. it's like he thinks that no matter how infantile and insulting his behavior is, his russian counterpart will always snap to and respond politely.

it will be interesting to see if the u.s. comes to its senses rather than starting something that won't be easy to stop. i think that our current crop of official nincompoops might just be stupid enough to make a huge mistake.

being a democrat means always having an excuse at the ready.

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10 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

just as US ships move in to the S China sea. I’m sure that Taiwan will have its boats and planes in the air too and boy that sounds crowded. Pelosi is now inviting others to go with her which is an even more direct confrontation with China. This just seems so boneheaded and costly while so many Americans are hurting. Fck this government. Biden and the pentagon says that there is nothing they can do to keep her from going. Bull. Biden can pull her passport and the military can keep the plane from taking off. That’s what people on Twitter have been saying anyway. Just beyond asinine.

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7 users have voted.

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

I’d say they @joe shikspack damn well Are stupid enough

Thanks as always, joe

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5 users have voted.

Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .

Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .

If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march

Lookout's picture

...but it's what we got. An insane world bent on greed and conflict.

Kind of a one upmanship situation where we ain't holding the cards. We use diplomacy based on insult, and it hasn't been effective. Imagine that. Blinky is trying to insult Russia into a prisoner exchange, and I'll be surprised if it works out.

The Ukrainian proxy war continues to look bad for Ukraine, but not much in the MSM about it.
I'm not a Judge Napolitano fan but at least he has antiwar voices on his show:
Like Scott Ritter (19 min) and Douglas Macgregor (24 min)

To me the turning event happened in Alaska when China declared they can't no longer be bullied. History may look back at that moment as being the change of global power.

Thanks as always for the news and blues!

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8 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@Lookout

heh, i guess we're all like comic hero howard the duck, trapped in a world that we never made.

our foreign policy is now run by arrogant jackasses with nothing to recommend them. worst of all their idiocy bores me and i can't wait for them to be expelled like a dish of bad prunes.

have a great evening!

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enhydra lutris's picture

So once we take out China's productive capacity, in our dreams, where do we get stuff? The profound idiocy baffles me; if you lose, things is bad, BUT if you win ... you also lose ;-(. I don't expect Joe or any of those clowns to figure it out, but surely somebody in the pentagon can see that, or maybe not.

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 --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

yeah, it appears that our too clever by half ruling elites can't get their heads around the idea that it would be ok if maybe instead of dominating everything on the planet, we could just get along and cooperate.

oh well, fool spectrum dominance, here we come!

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6 users have voted.
CB's picture

@enhydra lutris
If Klaus Schwab has his way you won't need any stuff - and you'll be happy about it.

Meanwhile, the WEF is banning fertilizer in many countries. But no worry!

There are "green" alternatives:

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7 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

@CB
of container sips delivering "goods" to our shores, stuff we no longer make, much of it made in China, that stuff. Wink

be well and have a good one

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3 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 --

snoopydawg's picture

I read somewhere how the US diplomats have no history in the countries they are involved in like they did in days past. Take Lavrov for instance and Blinken and you can see the difference in their diplomacy.

Eric Zeusse has an interesting essay on China and Russia.

On 27 September 2021, the brilliant geostrategic analyst Brian Berletic headlined “US War Plans with China Taking Shape”. He linked to and analyzed the then-latest draft of the U.S. Government’s detailed plans to conquer China. (The plan had been drawn-up in 2016, but sounds like today.) The objective of these plans is for the U.S. Government to continue into the indefinite future the U.S. Government’s dominance over the entire world, and to do this by conquering first Russia, and then China — conquering both of the now-rising superpowers — thereby not only extending its presently existing global dominance, but even increasing that, with the ultimate goal being for the U.S. to become the world’s first-ever all-encompassing global empire (by crippling both Russia and China).

Yeah good luck with that Biden with the neocompoops you have in your administration. 2016 was when Obama decided to pivot to Asia and started planning out what is happening now. Of course they probably thought that Hillary Hellabitch was going to be president and would have started the Ukraine conflict earlier and now in her 2nd term she’d be moving on to China. It seems that Trump’s presidency gave both Russia and China time to get more prepared for the planned wars.

Eric got his thinking from this essay.

https://web.archive.org/web/20220429035113/https:/journal-neo.org/2021/0...

The guys at Rand have been busy… but didn’t they think that we’d lose against Russia?

After reading more of the latter I think there’s a lot hubris and arrogance in thinking that America would come out the winner in war between us and China. Especially since we are so dependent on China for so many things we need. Dumb fcks sending our manufacturing to China!

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7 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

every time i read some account of the ruling effete's big plans for the globe, i fall into disbelief that this bunch of clowns could have wound up running anything more complex than a small amusement park.

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6 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

it’s downright scary and beyond stupid. The US thinks that it’s okay to use nuclear weapons as long as less of America is destroyed compared to how much Russia and China are.

It’s the function which Ukraine is serving for the U.S. Government. Berletic makes clear that he does not believe that the U.S. Government expects things to extend so far as getting into a direct nuclear conflict between the U.S. and either Russia or China; however, I have published elsewhere evidence that at least ever since 2006, the U.S. Government has abandoned the prior (mutually shared, both U.S. and Russia) “Mutually Assured Destruction” or “M.A.D.” meta-strategy, which formerly had guided both countries’ nuclear-weapons strategy and designs. M.A.D. was the meta-strategy in order to prevent such a nuclear war from ever occurring. In America, it has been replaced by what is unofficially called “Nuclear Primacy”, or the design and deployment of nuclear weapons so as to win a nuclear war against Russia and/or China: aiming for all-out nuclear-war victory by the U.S. Government. Such ‘victory’ would be defined as consisting of the United States being destroyed less than any of its nuclear-war opponents would be destroyed (thereby maintaining, or even increasing, its existing control over the entire planet). They say that “the benefits of nuclear primacy may exceed the risks” (the destruction to the American side), and that among the possible “benefits” mentioned would be to “stave off the emergence of a peer competitor,” and to be “forcibly exporting democracy.” The U.S. Government’s “Nuclear Primacy” meta-strategy says that there are ‘acceptable’ levels of destruction of America in a nuclear war against Russia and/or China, so long as America ‘comes out on top’ globally, at the end. Berletic unfortunately just assumes that the U.S. Government remains committed to the M.A.D. meta-strategy. To me, that is instead an open question. In fact, existing evidence (such as I have linked to) indicates that the U.S. Government is now guided by the “Nuclear Primacy” meta-strategy: arming to win a nuclear WW III, not to prevent one.

I doubt either country would let more of their countries be destroyed just so America can come out on top. Putin has said that any world without Russia in it isn’t worth having. I think the neopoops should take that as a warning. Don’t start! Guess I’ll read up on how far a nuclear blast travels and see what my chances are in going out in the first round if they hit the Air Force base here. It’s 15-20 miles from me. Good gravy these guys are fcking nuts!

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