The Evening Blues - 10-27-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues guitarist Eddy Clearwater. Enjoy!
Eddy Clearwater - A Time For Peace
"In the old days murderous thugs just grabbed whatever land they wanted and killed anyone who tried to stop them. That still happens today too, but now the thugs have to make up liberal-sounding, sympathy-pulling justifications for it, like “spreading freedom and democracy” or “Israel has a right to defend itself.”"
-- Caitlin Johnstone
News and Opinion
Worth a full read. Here's a snippet to get you started:
Patrick Lawrence: Full-Dress Irrationality
Whenever Joe Biden speaks, you have to make sure your bullshit detector is switched on, to borrow Hemingway’s pungent phrase. As is well-documented, our president has spent his public life making it up as he goes along. No surprise, there was a lot of boilerplate junk in the two much-noted speeches Biden gave last week, one in Tel Aviv after attending a session of Israel’s war cabinet, the other when he dropped it on the American public that they were about to spend a lot more money financing Israeli violence, war in Ukraine and provocation across the Taiwan Strait.
We had better listen carefully this time. Biden has sold a lot of snake oil off the back of his buckwagon over the past half-century. What he has on offer now is too consequential simply to dismiss. Biden is diabolically leveraging the obvious urgency of the Israel–Palestine crisis to lock us into confrontation with most of the world—or at the very least a great deal of it. Late-imperium America would darken the 21st century but for the lights others, primarily in the non–West, insist upon to illuminate our way forward from the mess U.S. hegemony has made.
After addressing Americans from the Oval Office last Friday, Biden went to Congress with a request for new aid for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, with assorted odds and ends bringing the total spend to $105 billion. Here are the passages in Biden’s address that, amid perilous crises in West Asia and across both oceans, we ought to scrutinize carefully, the deceptively simplistic phrasing notwithstanding:
American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us, America, safe. American values are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with. To put all that at risk if we walk away from Ukraine, if we turn our backs on Israel, it’s not worth it.
That’s why, tomorrow, I am going to send to Congress an urgent budget request to fund America’s national security needs, to support our critical partners…
It’s a smart investment that’s going to pay dividends for American security for generations, help us keep American troops out of harm’s way, help us build a world that is safer, more peaceful, and more prosperous for our children and grandchildren.
American leadership, everyone wants to be our friend, national security at risk, our children and their children: Biden’s speech reads like a nostalgia piece when you think of how long America’s purported leaders have traded in this stuff. The Tel Aviv speech gives the same impression: Israel is a democracy defending freedom and human rights, etc. We have heard all this for decades, O.K. Ukraine is also a democracy defending freedom: It is new to the repertoire, but we hear this fable incessantly, too.
It is one thing to recognize how hollow the familiar rhetoric coming out of Washington is and has long been. It is another thing altogether to realize, as we must, that it is different this time—or is as it was, say, when the U.S. escalated in Vietnam. This is the Biden regime’s cover story as it tips us into full-dress irrationality.
Let us parse a few phrases from the above-quoted passage for their veracity.
American leadership holds the world together and other nations welcome it. Since the traumatizing attacks of September 11, 2001, America has made itself the primary source of global disorder in this century—this by common consent for some years. And America’s conduct abroad has at this point earned the resentment of the global majority, whether we count this in terms of population or the number of nations critical of U.S. foreign policy.
The new budget request will fund America’s national security needs. The new spending Biden proposed last Friday has nothing to do with the nation’s national security, as a glance at a map will make perfectly plain, but in one respect: America and Americans will be less secure for it, not more. Beyond our shores, Israelis will be yet less secure than the decades of U.S. military support have already made them. Europeans will be less secure. The people of Taiwan will be less secure. This is the price we and the rest of the world must pay for the Washington policy cliques’ insistence on prolonging U.S. preeminence long past its moment in world history. This is what I mean by the reign of irrationality.
The money we will spend in Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan will keep U.S. troops out of harm’s way and make the world safer and more peaceful and prosperous for generations to come. As Kelley Vlahos at Responsible Statecraft put it last Friday, West Asia is now a tinderbox in consequence of Israel’s savagery. American troops stationed in Iraq and Syria—this in gross violation of international law—are already under drone and rocket attacks launched by no one is certain who. Our children and theirs will prosper in safety? Ridiculous. I haven’t heard the phrase “imperial overstretch” since Chalmers Johnson left us 13 years ago. We are now living what he foresaw.
Biden neocon war drums beat louder
Israel targeting, censoring journalists for covering assault on Gaza
On Wednesday an Israeli airstrike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the south of Gaza targeted and killed the family of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh. The victims of Dahdouh’s family include his wife, his high-school-aged son, seven-year-old daughter, and a grandson. According to reports from Al Jazeera, 12 members of the Dahdouh family are dead, nine of whom were children, and others are still missing.
The family was staying in the camp, having fled to the south of the Gaza strip after the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) dropped leaflets in the north urging civilians to evacuate. Dahdouh remained behind to continue covering the bombardment. Al Jazeera’s Walid al-Omary told the press that the murders were part of Israel’s “relentless targeting of Palestinians,” and stated that in spite of the fact that the family had evacuated, the “Israeli army targeted them. This is proof that there isn’t a single safe zone in Gaza.” Al Jazeera released a statement condemning the targeting of journalists and their families, and encouraging “the international community to intervene and put an end to these attacks on civilians, thereby safeguarding innocent lives.”
The murder of Dahdouh’s family followed reports on Monday that just two weeks ago, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Qatar to “tone down” the state-owned news network’s coverage of the slaughter in Palestine. Axios reported that three sources who attended a meeting with Blinken “said he asked the Qataris to ‘turn down the volume on Al Jazeera’s coverage because it is full of anti-Israel incitement.’” ...
The targeting and censorship of journalists is a longstanding policy of the Israeli regime in its effort to cover up and whitewash the crimes committed by the IDF against Palestinians. In May 2022, Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was targeted and gunned down by the IDF while covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Her murder was an open attempt to prevent objective reporting on the brutal suppression of Palestinians, which has now escalated to open genocide.
The International Federation of Journalists reports that at least 23 journalists have been killed since October 7 as of this writing. Dozens more have been injured and more are missing. The Egyptian Journalists Syndicate reports that in addition to the deaths, injuries and missing journalists, over 50 media institutions have been destroyed in the airstrikes which have targeted the homes of journalists, and a further 30 journalists have been arrested in the West Bank. Late Wednesday night, two more journalists, Saed al-Halabi and Mohammed Labad, were killed in a targeted attack. “[T]he Israeli occupation army continued to target the houses of journalists, where the bombing of the house of journalist Said Al-Halabi led to his martyrdom,” according to a press release from the Forum of Palestinian Journalists (PJS). Al-Halabi worked for Al-Aqsa TV and was killed at his home in Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip. Labad was killed in a blast near his home in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City.
Israeli forces enter new phase of war against Hamas with Gaza raid
Israeli forces entered a new phase of their war against Hamas in Gaza on Thursday, launching a substantial but limited raid into the coastal strip, in what was described as a probing action in preparation for a more sustained ground offensive. Infantry backed by tanks and armoured bulldozers moved in under cover of night and attacked Hamas targets in an hours-long raid into the north of the territory, as officials raised the number of hostages confirmed to be held by the militant Islamist group to 224.
The Israeli raid, which moved about a kilometre into Gaza from the border fence, came as EU leaders prepared to call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” to shelling to get urgently needed aid into the territory, according to the final draft of a text to be approved at a summit in Brussels on Thursday.
More than 7,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry, and there are fears the toll could rise further if Israel pushes ahead with the ground invasion. The UN said on Thursday that “nowhere is safe” in Gaza.
Hamas’s armed wing said on Thursday that “almost 50” Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip since the attacks on 7 October have been killed in Israeli bombing raids on the Palestinian territory.
The Israeli military said Thursday’s operation, which came as heavy strikes continued, was designed to search for tunnel systems and test Hamas’s responses, not least from teams Israel believes are equipped with Kornet anti-tank guided missiles, a source of major concern for Israeli military planners. According to a military spokesperson, at least one Israeli tank came under anti-tank fire during the operation, but Israeli forces later left without incurring casualties.
"Gaza Is Being Strangled": UNRWA Calls for Immediate Ceasefire as Humanitarian Crisis Deepens
Arab nations condemn Israel’s Gaza assault during UN debate
Arab nations have linked hands with the Global South to challenge Israel and its western backers to end the bombing in a Gaza at the start of a rare two-day emergency debate at the UN general assembly. In a fierce warning on Thursday the Iranian foreign minister said that if what he described as the genocide did not stop the US would “not be spared from this fire”.
The debate was occasionally unsettling for the US, as diplomats from across the globe challenged what they frequently described as Washington’s unqualified support for Israel since the Hamas attack that killed 1,400 people. Since then, according to the Palestinian authorities, more than 7,000 people have been killed in Gaza, with Israel pounding the territory with airstrikes.
The tone of the debate was set by its title – Illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. A large majority of nations in the assembly will probably condemn Israel if a non-binding vote is called on Friday. ...
In a stark warning, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said : “I say frankly to the American statesmen who are managing the genocide in Palestine that we do not welcome an expansion of the war in the region. But if the genocide in Gaza continues they will not be spared from this fire.” He insisted progress was being made to secure the release of hostages seized by Hamas.
Ayman Hussein Abdullah Al-Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, lambasted the language used by Israel saying “the Israeli government … called for wiping out Palestinians of the face of this Earth, called them animals unworthy of life”. In a joint statement the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco, on Thursday condemned the targeting of civilians and violations of international law in Gaza. Their statement said the right to self-defence did not justify breaking the law and neglecting Palestinians’ rights. The Arab ministers also condemned forced displacement and collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza.
US targets Iran by launching airstrikes on Syria
Strikes by Islamists on US bases in Syria and Iraq raise fears of escalation
Islamist militia linked to Iran have continued to strike US bases in Syria and Iraq, intensifying a campaign of violence that will raise fears of a regional conflagration. The attacks have been claimed by groups either directly controlled by Tehran or sharing the ideology of other groups currently fighting Israel. On Thursday, a US base at Kharab al-Jir in Syria was attacked for the second time in two days, and a base in western Iraq was also hit.
More than a dozen small-scale strikes on US bases in the region have wounded 24 US soldiers and caused the death of one civilian contractor. Washington is rushing anti-missile batteries to the region to protect its principal bases and allies. ...
Even without a ground offensive by Israeli troops into Gaza, the rising death toll there is likely to bring further escalation. One Iraq-based and Iran-supported group, believed to be a front for the long-established Kateb Hezbollah, last week issued a statement threatening attacks on US military bases in the UAE and Kuwait. Paramilitaries from militia in Syria that are controlled by Iran have been deployed close to the Golan Heights, in a further threatening move.
On Wednesday, leading officials of the three principal Islamist extremist groups currently at war with Israel met in Beirut to discuss the conflict. After the meeting in Lebanon, a brief statement said Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had agreed with Hamas’s Saleh al-Arouri and Palestine Islamic Jihad’s leader, Ziad al-Nakhleh, that the three – along with other Iran-backed militants – wanted to achieve “a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestine” and halt Israel’s “treacherous and brutal aggression against our oppressed and steadfast people in Gaza and the West Bank”.
Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with Israeli troops along the border between Lebanon and Israel since the day after the 7 October attacks. Both sides appear to have be trying to avoid escalation. An estimated 40 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in the clashes so far, while the Israeli military has also announced some deaths among its ranks. Israeli officials have said they would retaliate aggressively in the case of a cross-border attack by Hezbollah from Lebanon, but fear the organisation’s arsenal of about 150,000 rockets and missiles. Both sides are trying to pre-empt any blame for further and greater hostilities.
Biden SENDS MORE US TROOPS Into Harm's Way After ANTI-IRAN AIRSTRIKES In Syria
Genocide Joe gets busy:
US Airstrikes Target Eastern Syria
The Pentagon said Thursday night that it launched airstrikes in eastern Syria that targeted two facilities “used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and affiliated groups,” a significant escalation that makes a regional war more likely amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the strikes were in response to the series of rocket and drone attacks that have targeted US bases in Iraq and Syria in recent weeks, which the US is blaming on “Iranian-backed militias,” referring to Shia militias that operate in the region.
The US has said Iran is responsible for the attacks on US troops, although the Pentagon acknowledged it has no evidence Iran directed them. ... The spate of attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria was due to President Biden’s full-throated support for Israel’s onslaught on Gaza.
Politicians Demand Still-More Israel Censorship, w/ Brad Polumbo. PLUS, Lee Fang: Is Biblical Prophecy a Key Reason for GOP Israel Support? Have Conservatives Abandoned Free Speech?
Hamas delegation travels to Moscow for talks on foreign hostages in Gaza
A senior Hamas delegation has travelled to Moscow to meet Russian foreign ministry officials in the organisation’s first high-profile international visit since it launched a raid in southern Israel on 7 October, killing an estimated 1,400 people and taking another 220 hostage.
The delegation was led by Mousa Abu Marzook, a founder and political leader of Hamas, who met the Russian deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov. Marzook, who lives in exile in Qatar, travelled to Moscow after an earlier meeting in Doha with Bogdanov and the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani. ...
“Abu Marzook, a member of the political bureau of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, is in Moscow,” said the Russian foreign ministry in a statement. “Contact with him took place in pursuit for the immediate release of foreign hostages held in the Gaza Strip, and issues related to ensuring the evacuation of Russian and other foreign citizens from the territory of the Palestinian enclave were discussed.”
Earlier this month, Bogdanov had said he wanted to meet Hamas representatives in Qatar in order to discuss the release of Israeli hostages. At least six of the 220 hostages held by Hamas have Russian citizenship, according to the Israeli government. ...
Vladimir Putin this week warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza could lead to a broader regional conflict, saying that “our main task is to stop the bloodshed and violence … otherwise, further escalation of the crisis is fraught with grave and extremely dangerous and destructive consequences. And not only for the Middle East region. It could spill over far beyond the borders of the Middle East.”
When you realize your government and all its allies bet all their middle east foreign policy chips on a psychotic cult leader. https://t.co/9wHSIqlYJS
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 26, 2023
6700+ Dead Palestinians NAMED By Health Ministry After Biden Asserts Numbers Are Cooked
Biden Accused of 'Genocide Denial' After Casting Doubt On Civilian Death Toll in Gaza
The largest Muslim American civil rights group on Wednesday led condemnation of U.S. President Joe Biden for saying he had "no confidence" in Palestinian health officials' Gaza casualty reports—figures deemed reliable by United Nations agencies, human rights groups, international and Israeli mainstream media, and even the U.S. State Department.
Speaking at a Wednesday afternoon White House press conference, Biden—who earlier this month declared his "rock-solid and unwavering" commitment to Israel following a Hamas-led attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis—said that "I have no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed."
"I'm sure innocents have been killed, and it's the price of waging a war," the president continued. "But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using."
Responding to Biden's remarks, Palestinian American poet, author, and activist Remi Kanazi said: "Genocide denial has a long sordid history. Israel and Joe Biden know exactly what they are doing when they play down the death toll in Gaza."
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) demanded Biden apologize for his "shocking and dehumanizing" comments.
"The Israeli government has openly admitted that it is targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure," CAIR executive director Nihad Awad said in a statement. "Journalists have confirmed the high number of casualties, and countless videos coming out of Gaza every day show mangled bodies of Palestinian women, and children—and entire city blocks leveled to the ground."
"President Biden should watch some of these videos and ask himself if the crushed children being dragged out of the ruins of their family homes are a fabrication or an acceptable price of war," said Awad. "They are neither. Biden should apologize for his comments, condemn the Israeli government for deliberately targeting civilians, and demand a cease-fire before more innocent people die."
After former U.S. Congressman Justin Amash (R-Mich.), who is Palestinian American, said that "several" of his relatives including an infant cousin were among at least 18 people killed in last week's Israeli airstrike on the Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, journalist Briahna Joy Gray asked Wednesday if Biden thinks he's lying.
I wonder if Biden thinks former US congressman Justin Amash is lying about his three dead Palestinian relatives. Is the UN lying about 30 dead international school students? Is the video of the Al Jazeera’s Arabic bureau head grieving over his dead wife fake? https://t.co/YqG8FBARsW
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) October 25, 2023
While it is nearly impossible to immediately verify Gaza casualties because Israel does not allow foreign journalists into the besieged strip, many experts say figures provided by Palestinian health officials—including branches of the Palestinian Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank—are accurate. They say not only do U.N. agencies, international media, and Israeli news outlets rely upon them, but that the Israeli government and military have rarely if ever challenged the figures following the numerous wars Israel has waged against Gaza in recent decades.
"Everyone uses the figures from the Gaza Health Ministry because those are generally proven to be reliable," Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, toldThe Washington Post on Tuesday. "In the times in which we have done our own verification of numbers for particular strikes, I'm not aware of any time which there's been some major discrepancy."
"Unfortunately, when reality is too difficult to stomach, Israel and so many of its allies prefer to deny it or bury their head in the sand," Shakir said in a separate interview with The Guardian. "As long as they can create a fog of war and misinformation about what's taking place, it provides cover for this to continue. To continue to have 100-plus Palestinian children killed every day."
Mohammed El-Kurd, The Nation's Palestine correspondent, wrote that Biden's denial "isn't just racism. He's preemptively minimizing the scale of death the Israeli regime has planned for Gaza."
UN General Assembly to vote on resolution calling for humanitarian truce in Gaza
All 27 EU leaders call for ‘humanitarian corridors and pauses’ in Gaza
Leaders of the 27 EU member states have unanimously called for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” of the shelling in Gaza to allow food, water and medical supplies to reach Palestinians. An official declaration will be issued after a two-day summit of leaders in Brussels.
The agreement was reached late on Thursday after further concessions to Spain, which sought mention of a “ceasefire” – considering this to be a stronger message from the EU. But the demand for a ceasefire from the Spanish president was also a strategic move designed to extract other concessions in the text. Pedro Sánchez persuaded other EU leaders to agree to support a peace conference on a two-state solution – a call that is now in the formal declaration. ...
The deal follows days of bickering over the language in what one diplomat said was a week of “difficult discussions” over a situation everyone agreed was “horrific”.
In calling for “pauses” in the conflict to allow trucks with humanitarian aid to enter safely, the declaration stated: “The European Council expresses its gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and calls for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses.”
It is understood three member states, including Israel’s close ally Germany, that favoured the phrase “windows” felt an earlier text involving the phrase “humanitarian pause” suggested a permanent ceasefire and would undermine Israel’s right to defend itself.
BREAKING from Gallup: "Biden’s job approval rating among Democrats has tumbled 11 percentage points in the past month to 75%, the worst reading of his presidency from his own party. This drop has pushed his overall approval rating down four points to 37%, matching his personal…
— Waleed Shahid (@_waleedshahid) October 26, 2023
Dem Voters REVOLT Against Biden Over Strong Israel Support Per Poll
Congressman Dean Phillips to launch Democratic primary bid against Biden
Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota who is relatively unknown on the national US stage, is set to launch a long-shot campaign to primary Joe Biden in New Hampshire on Friday.
The New Hampshire secretary of state’s office confirmed Phillips is scheduled to file paperwork to get on the ballot there on Friday morning. ...
Phillips, who has represented western suburbs of Minneapolis since 2019 in Congress, has pointed to the US president’s age in discussing his potential primary run, saying the next generation of leaders should step up. Biden is 80 years old; Phillips is 54.
The congressman is the heir of the Phillips Distilling Company and co-owned Talenti gelato. His run in 2018 for Minnesota’s third congressional district flipped the seat from Republican control. With a slogan of “everyone’s invited”, Phillips calls himself an “eternal optimist” and “bipartisan believer”.
There’s little difference between Phillips and Biden on policy: Phillips has voted with Biden’s legislative agenda nearly 100% of the time, the White House pointed out.
Georgia must redraw maps to give Black voters fair shot, federal judge rules
Georgia Republicans must redraw congressional and state legislative maps to give Black voters in the state a fair shot at electing the candidate of their choice, a federal judge ruled on Thursday in a decision that could result in an additional Democratic seat in Congress.
When Georgia Republicans drew the state’s 14 congressional districts last year, they placed the lines in such a way that they weakened the influence of Black voters in the west metro-Atlanta area, violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, Judge Steve Jones ruled on Thursday.
Jones gave Georgia lawmakers until 8 December to draw an additional majority-Black district in the west metro-Atlanta area, and said the court would draw a map if the legislature could not come up with a new plan by then. Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, a Republican, on Thursday called for a special session of the legislature to convene on 29 November to redraw the districts.
Georgia is likely to appeal the ruling and to try to drag out the redrawing process as long as possible. A lengthy legal dispute is to the state’s advantage because federal courts have been hesitant to intervene when elections are close.
Environmental crime money easy to stash in US due to loopholes, report finds
Secrecy and lax oversight have made the US a hiding place for dirty money accrued by environmental criminals in the Amazon rainforest, a report says. Illegal loggers and miners are parking sums ranging from millions to billions of dollars in US real estate and other assets, says the report, which calls on Congress and the White House to close loopholes in financial regulations that it says are contributing to the destruction of the world’s biggest tropical forest.
“We are trying to show that the US is the easiest place to hide dirty money, which is a major problem not just in terms of national security, drug trafficking and kleptocratic corruption but also environmental crime,” said Ian Gary, the executive director of the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (Fact) Coalition, which produced the report.
For the first time in 2021, the US came top in the world financial secrecy index released by the Tax Justice Networks, as a result of money laundering and gaps in its financial transparency laws. The study by Fact draws attention to the impact this has on environmental crime in the Amazon, a region of global importance due to its impact on the climate. The report lists six case studies of links between forest destruction and companies in the US.
Florida, which has strong cultural and linguistic connections to South America, was found to be a hotspot. The report cites the case of Goldex, formerly the second biggest gold exporter in Colombia, which supplied more than 45 tonnes of gold, worth $1.4bn, to two US refineries, including Republic Metals Corp (RMC) in Miami. ...
The problem was not isolated to Florida. In Maryland, the former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo allegedly bought properties to hide and launder $1.2m he received in bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht for a contract to build the cross-Amazon interoceanic highway and other projects. Odebrecht has admitted paying bribes and a US court has ordered funds to be sent back to Peru. Toledo denies any wrongdoing. Other case studies linked a Nevada firm to purchases of illegal timber from the Loreto region of the Peruvian Amazon, and a Connecticut company to forest clearance for a palm oil plantation in indigenous land.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Israel Has Permanently Lost The Argument
Palestinian Health Ministry Releases Names of Palestinians Killed After Biden Questions Death Toll
Palestinians outraged at US, Europe for 'bias' towards Israel's war on Gaza
Surveillance soldiers warned of Hamas activity on Gaza border for months before Oct. 7
Pro-Palestinian Instagram account locked by Meta for ‘security reasons’
Russian Lawmakers Back Massive Military Spending Increase
Senate Votes Down Bill to Withdraw Troops from Niger
Stop locking young people out of legal process in climate cases, say experts
Mangrove photography awards 2023 – in pictures
The Palestine Exception to Free Speech: Censorship, Harassment Intensifies on Campus Amid Gaza War
WARMONGER Speaker? Johnson FLIPS On Ukraine Funding, Backs ISRAELI ATTACK On Iran
A Little Night Music
Eddie Clearwater - A Real Good Time (1962)
Clear Waters (Eddie Clearwater) - A Minor Cha Cha (1959)
Eddie Clearwater - Doin' the model
Eddy Clearwater - Check up on my baby
Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater - Cool Blues Walk
Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater - Came Up The Hard Way
Mud Morganfield - Jimmy Johnson - Eddy Clearwater - Young Fashioned Ways
Eddie Clearwater - Boogie Woogie Baby
Eddy Clearwater - Midnight groove
Eddie "The Chief" Clearwater - A Good Leavin' Alone
Eddy The Chief Clearwater - Rawa Blues Festival 2006
Comments
The targeting of Hamas is pure unadulterated BS
Have a great safe weekend bluesters, I hope to engage with y'all
come Monday
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
Where's humanity going to shit now
UK Edition
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...
it could not be more obvious that the israelis are engaging in a war of extermination on palestinians, not on hamas.
thanks for the juice media video, i had missed that one and it was a good laugh after a week of really awful news. pie was excellent, too.
Biden will not pull his support for Israel
.
Biden and the neocons and other presidents have been putting pressure on Egypt to accept Palestinians. Seems like this plan has been in the works for many years. After they get to Egypt they are supposed to go into other cities and start living their lives there. Dunno how other countries do checks for jobs, but good luck to them now since all their paperwork and stuff has been blown to smithereens.
Aaron Mate on Biden’s Armageddon from Gaza to Ukraine.
What more can we say about this heinous crime by Israel who has permission from people who have the power to stop it? I feel so helpless and I can’t imagine what Palestinians are thinking because no one is interested in stopping this carnage. Or is this massacre and slaughter?
So many pro Israel folks think that this conflict just started on 10/7 and they either don’t know the history or they are just ignoring it. Heh…I’m having fun reminding them of the history. And when they say that they should release the hostages I ask if they mean the hostages that Israel has…no answer.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
evening snoopy...
i doubt that there is anything one can say to biden and his herd of ilk to cause them to end their psychopathic slaughter of people all over the globe. there is something deeply wrong with them and they are impervious to reason. i will be glad to spend the next couple of days ignoring the news and listening to music.
Good for you, joe!
I am gonna eat a pizza, made by Dear One, sleep late in the morning, do absolutely nothing activist, because I have no stake in the primacy of either of those books, and just hope for the best.
Music is a legal way to drift one's mind and body away, away, without cops knocking on the door, looking for drugs.
Have a great weekend and enjoy your music, my friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
perhaps i will dream of a world without magic books and religion while my mind is adrift.
have a great weekend!
To attribute de-dollarization to a geopolitical revolt
....is not really an accurate analysis of what's been happening to the US dollars place in the world. From the 1950s to the present day, the US knew that as long as it maintained the world's confidence in its financial affairs, as long as the US Treasury honored its foreign contracts, and as long it practiced ethical, neutral, and balanced financial operations — the world's confidence and trust would be unshakable. As long as the US maintained a peaceful and economically secure domestic population, one that experienced good health with an improving lifespan — the US financial stability could be trusted.
But then, the US government turned rogue.
International trade is facilitated when foreign central banks purchase and hold common trading currencies (Pound, Euro, Yen, or USDollars). US dollars is the currency most commonly used for trade. Foreign banks acquire the Dollar reserves used for trade by purchasing US debt in the form of US Treasuries. Treasuries were stable and abundant, and they pay interest to banks that hold them.
But when the Neocons reached a critical mass of positions of authority in the Federal Government, during the long overlap between Bush—Clinton—Bush II, all hell broke loose when they unleashed a violent strategy to seize global supremacy as Ruler of the World. Leading up to this, the Treasury was looted by the Military Industry, and society suffered as regulations flew out the window. A vast income and wealth gap opened between the super rich and the general population. Taxes were cut for the wealthy, which greatly underfunded the government. Thus, unsustainable borrowing soared. Members of Congress rapidly became multi-millionaires, and the American standard of living began to tumble and picked up speed. After 2001, the government became lawless and aggressively unhinged. The central banks of politically independent foreign nations were cheated, sanctioned, and boycotted. The dollar was increasingly weaponized against rival nations. Their US Currency reserves were stolen from their central banks, along with the gold that they stored in the US.
The sell off of US Debt investments (de-dollarization) is, nonetheless, a carefully measured decision made by a growing number of foreign central banks, based on the terrible financial decisions and insane borrowing by the government in the US. The US economy will suffer for years to come, the unintended consequences of the politically corrupt Neocon control over US Foreign Policy. De-dollarization and the ongoing loss of Reserve Currency privileges is the world's economic response to the aggressive and deceptive fiscal policies of the US, which many nations consider Acts of War. A diplomatic silence remains in place on these issues to avoid dangerous confrontations.
Finance expert Lena Petrova, CPA just dropped an excellent explanation of the unavoidable economic disaster the the US is facing. The why, the when, the what it will look like is left to your experienced imagination.
.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
evening pluto...
yep, it looks like within a few months the neocons could destroy our military and economy both in a futile attempt at global domination. i wonder what comes next after that.
Boo-YA
.
Should have asked him what the consequences of perjury is. This is the new speaker of the house. Gaetz says that McCarthy derailed all the previous guys who were running for it.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Sadly, you can be relatively certain that nothing will happen
to Mayorkas and nothing will really change very much with regards to the governments illegal campaigns against so called "disinformation" and "misinformation".
be well and have a good one
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 --
I don't really have much use for the new speaker but for once
he was telling the truth.
Like waiting for the College of Cardinals to elect a new Pope
They could have done that neat-o thingy with black or white smoke coming out of the Capitol dome.
And announce “Habemus Oratorem” (“We have a Speaker”) when a candidate finally gets a majority.
There are some that support the ongoing genocide.
The results of the vote. Of course US and Israel among those voting no.
evening humphrey...
it looks to me like the no votes and abstentions demonstrate the extent of u.s. influence in the face of a program of genocide.
I note that Iraq abstained. Can you think of any reason other
than the fact that we are occupying part of their country why they might do so?
be well and have a good one
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 --
heh...
i was thinking that they perhaps didn't want any more u.s. attention or reoccupation. i would suspect that the u.s. still meddles in the choices of its leadership and has a relationship with its deep state.
2 items from the Danish press—alas, just the non-paywalled parts
(1) Social media blocking posts and users that mention Palestine? (Politiken.dk)
https://politiken.dk/kultur/medier/art9590351/Har-du-studset-over-at-bru...
(2) A resident of Gaza the newspaper had interviewed earlier texts the staff in a panic (Information.dk)
https://www.information.dk/udland/2023/10/eksplosion-ved-skole-sender-ad...
evening lotlizard...
i've seen quite a bit of reporting of people having their postings about palestine blocked or shadow banned. i think that i read that meta had admitted doing it, but i am not postive about that.
yay, free speech! demockery!
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs. There were a
couple of moments or words there where Mud sounded just like his dad.
Have a great weekend, be well and have a good one
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 --
evening el...
i have a cd or two around here somewhere of mud and there are many of those moments where he sounds very much like his dad. his accent isn't quite as thick, but his vocal tones, phrasing and assorted idiosyncracies are very similar.
have a great weekend!
The meds wore off again
.
I still think the time Biden shook hands with an invisible person was his finest Biden. But his forgetting that he’s supposed to call on certain people is funny as hell. Waiting for some world leader to spill the beans on their talks with him. Can you imagine the jokes they tell after they met with him?
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
heh...
biden seems to foil his aides' best efforts to choreograph his public appearances.
Almost everything he does is scripted.
If there isn't a telepromter present you can see him flipping the pages at the lectern. If he actually ad libs on occasion that is when he is prone to gaffs. That is why he has his minders
babysitterspresent.I hope people read the article on how the IDF had warned
.
Israel’s command that they had been watching Hamas doing nefarious things at the border for months, but they were told not to worry about it. This just gives more credence to the attacks either being let done on purpose so Bibi could get his genocide going or that some parts of Israel were working with Hamas. The more we learn the more things don’t quite add up.
I posted on it before I saw that you included it so I deleted my comment about it.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
yep...
none of the scenarios that you mention can be ruled out. it's definitely worth thinking about.
I doubt that this will get front page coverage.
Yoon and US looking for trouble?
.S. Korea, U.S. to stage joint large-scale air drills next week
Yonhap
South Korean and U.S. forces stage drills for reaction to possible ‘Hamas-style’ attack by North Korea
These are relatively large exercises. Cheorwon is near DMZ. Yoon is really pushing this peace through strength nonsense. He's in trouble domestically. His ongoing campaign to suppress critical media is drawing critical comment in columns in conservative mainstream media which shortly after they are published are disappearing. I saw one poll in which his support was as low as 25 percent. I think he's actually looking for a military confrontation with North Korea to extricate himself from growing public dissatisfaction with his administration. He's also threatening consequences against Russia if it transfers any missile technology to North Korea in return for alleged shipments of 1000 containers of military supplies, not clear exactly what it is, from NK to Russia.
This article below is an overview by Nodutol on the general geopolitical situation Yoon has placed South Korea in, which is viewed unfavorably domestically, to satisfy US goals in Asia. It's fairly long but it explains the relationship of media and labor suppression domestically necessary to change South Korean foreign and economic policy in unpopular ways to please the US and Japan.
ASIAN NATO’: BROUGHT TO YOU BY SOUTH KOREAN REPRESSION
Ju-hyun Park Oct 10
I found it amusing the author calls the Camp David non-alliance alliance among the US, Japan and South Korea, JAKUS. But this author is a serious as a heart attack.
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
i guess biden and his neocon minions won't be satisfied until every country on the planet is drawn into planet-threatening hostilities.
great.
Hi Joe
語必忠信 行必正直
The leadership of the US and its allies with regards to the
genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.
Meanwhile over here:
What will the Senate say about this?
Maybe the Russians made them do this. /S
Gryllidae.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gryllidae
Who in the Senate works for ordinary Americans anymore? With few exceptions they only care about lobbyists, donors, and special foreign interests.
But those asswipes won’t condemn this
And of course if any of them do then AIPAC will pull their funding and get someone to run against them. Effing cowards is what they are. Selling their souls to AIPAC.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Not just AIPAC but the MIC
Got to keep those campaign contributions arriving on schedule.
Also Too!
A nice cushy job will be waiting when
you stop being a public servant.you retire.You can not hear sound in a vacuum. That is the way the
Israeli leadership wants it!
What will it take until we hear "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"?
Caitlin Johnstone@caitoz
Cutting off communications
語必忠信 行必正直
FWIW.