The Evening Blues - 2-13-24
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features jazz singer Nina Simone. Enjoy!
Nina Simone - I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
“Actions may speak louder than words but patterns scream the loudest.”
-- Christine E. Szymanski
News and Opinion
Ignore What Western Officials Say About Israel; Watch Their Actions Instead
Another fake, stupid story is making headlines in the mass media today about how bad and wrong President Biden secretly believes Israel’s actions in Gaza are. NBC News is now reporting that Biden has been referring to Benjamin Netanyahu as an “asshole” in private conversations and saying the assault in Gaza “has to stop”.
“Biden has grown steadily more frustrated with the rising Palestinian civilian death toll in Gaza — now a reported 28,000 — and Netanyahu’s reluctance to pursue a long-term peace agreement,” NBC News reports.
Buried all the way down in paragraph 15 of the article, we get to the real story:
“Yet, even as Biden has escalated his rhetoric, he is not yet prepared to make significant policy changes, officials said. He and his aides continue to believe his approach of unequivocally supporting Israel is the right one.”
All the relevant information in this news story that’s getting so much attention today is contained in paragraph 15. None of the words outside of paragraph 15 matter. Paragraph 15 is the whole entire story.
The Biden administration keeps feeding these bogus stories to the press about how “frustrated” they are with Israel’s insistence on massacring civilians with unbelievable savagery, without ever actually making any meaningful policy changes or taking any meaningful actions to stop it. The White House has expressed “concerns” about Israel’s actions in Gaza in more than 20 statements, all without any actual, real-life steps having been taken to curb those actions in any way.
It’s absurd to pretend that the things Biden is privately thinking and feeling about Israel and Gaza are of any interest or significance when Biden is actively backing Israel’s atrocities and bombing anyone in the middle east who tries to stop them. Biden’s feelings aren’t going to stop kids from getting ripped to shreds by Israeli massacres Rafah.
(As an aside, it’s also absurd to pretend Biden thinks anything of any relevance at all given what we now know about the state of his cognitive decline. Even if he really did call the Israeli prime minister an asshole in private conversations, for all we know he was talking about a long-dead Israeli prime minister from his senate days like Ariel Sharon. Hell, he could’ve been talking about the president of Mexico.)
The White House could end this with a phone call, just as it ended the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon with a phone call in 1982. Israel is fully dependent on the United States to perpetrate these mass atrocities in Gaza, and the Israelis are fully aware of this. The genocidal massacres have continued in Gaza for four months because the US empire wants them to continue.
But the shitlib media have taken this ridiculously fake “Biden wants Netanyahu to stop but he just won’t” story and run with it. MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell just got together with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius to tell their brainwashed viewers that we’re looking at a “showdown” between the brave and righteous Biden and the sinister and murderous Netanyahu.
Really these institutions are just telling American progressives what they want to hear, in the same way Israeli officials provide liberal-sounding messaging for western audiences while spouting genocidal rhetoric in Hebrew to their own citizens. The Biden administration is feeding pleasing sound bites to the mass media about the president saying mean things about Netanyahu in order to placate their base, while having their foot firmly on the gas pedal of concrete actions toward continuing the genocide in Gaza.
This is just what Democrat presidencies look like. Republican presidents like Trump and Bush just come right out say things like they invaded Syria “to take the oil” and they invaded Iraq because God told them to, whereas the Bidens and the Obamas have to make it look pretty. Obama spent eight years feeding eloquent words to the public while continuing and expanding all the most depraved aspects of the Bush administration, thus accomplishing the necessary straddle of facilitating the violence and tyranny of the empire while simultaneously allowing liberals to feel good about themselves.
That’s why you’re seeing this phony song and dance about Biden and Netanyahu being secretly at odds, even while the Biden White House explicitly says “We’re going to continue to support Israel” when asked if they’ve ever threatened to withhold military support if Israel commits war crimes in Rafah.
Western officials keep babbling about how “concerned” they are about what’s happening in Gaza without actually doing anything. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, British Labour leader Keir Starmer, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly have all been making use of the word “concern” with regard to Gaza so as to be seen as publicly fretting about Israel’s actions without actually presenting any concrete opposition to them.
The correct response to all this lip service to the stated values of the liberal international order is to ignore their words and watch their actions. This is good advice for government policy on Israel and Gaza, and it’s good advice for all other government policy too.
Words can be used to spin narratives and manage perception in ways that concrete actions cannot. Disregard the narrative spin and the public statements and watch the concrete, physical movements of money, weapons and resources. That’s how you penetrate through the distortions of the propaganda matrix and distinguish fact from empty word stories.
Ignore their official public statements and the unofficial public statements they feed the press; watch their actions instead. Disregard what they say and watch what they do. That will show you their true position. That will tell you who they are.
Biden joins international calls for Israel to halt planned Rafah offensive
Joe Biden has added his voice to growing international calls for Israel to drop plans for an all-out military assault on the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, after a ferocious hostage rescue operation that killed dozens of Palestinians. Speaking after talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House on Monday, the US president said: “A major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan for ensuring the safety and support of more than 1 million people sheltering there. ...
Biden said that the US had been working “day and night” on efforts to agree a six-week pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas as a stepping stone to a longer ceasefire. He said that “key elements of the deal are on the table” although gaps remained. ...
Earlier, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, congratulated the soldiers who mounted the dramatic rescue of two Israeli hostages in the city, where more than 1 million Palestinians have fled seeking shelter, describing it as a “perfect operation”. The Israeli military launched airstrikes on nearby buildings to support the rescue, killing at least 67 Palestinians. Hamas later claimed that other Israeli hostages were also killed in the bombardment.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, furiously rounded on the Israeli leader amid growing international alarm at the rising death toll in Gaza – which reached 28,340 on Monday – saying that Netanyahu “doesn’t listen to anyone”. Responding to Netanyahu’s statement that refugees in Rafah would be evacuated from the area before a major military offensive, Borrell said: “Where? To the moon? Where are they going to evacuate these people to?”
Will Egypt Ditch Camp David Accords If Israel Invades Rafah?
It is being widely reported based on press leaks that the Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has privately threatened Israel. Cairo is said to have warned that the 1978 Camp David Peace Treaty will be suspended “with immediate effect” if the government of Binyamin Netanyahu tries to take over the Philadelphi Corridor at the Gaza-Egypt Border and if it expels the Palestinians of Gaza into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula at the Rafah border crossing as a result of an invasion of Rafah City. Israel attempted to convince an Egyptian delegation to Tel Aviv on Friday that Cairo should cooperate with the Israeli war plan, but allegedly was rebuffed.
The peace treaty has been the cornerstone of Egyptian-Israeli relations for nearly half a century.
The Egyptian government had not said much in public about these reports until yesterday. Mahmud `Abd al-Raziq of al-Khalij 35 reports reports that on Sunday, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a stern warning to Israel that any operation in Rafah City would have “severe consequences.” ...
In an interview with Sky News, the former deputy head of Egyptian military intelligence, Gen. Ahmad Ibrahim, had said that from his country’s point of view any Israeli take-over of the Philadelphi Corridor would constitute a breach of the Camp David Accords. He warned that Egypt’s military is “powerful.” ...
It seems clear that even countries that are more or less at peace with Israel, whether formally (Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates) or informally (Saudi Arabia) have their hair on fire about the proposed Rafah operation.
Although American newspapers depict Egypt as broke, desperate, and easily manipulated, my own estimation is that Cairo absolutely will not accept the Palestinians of Gaza as refugees on its soil. The Sinai is already a security problem for Cairo, and 2 million radicalized Palestinians would make it ungovernable. No amount of debt forgiveness would make such a bitter pill go down.
Biden FEEDS MEDIA With VENTS About Bibi While DOLING OUT Cash for Israel's GENOCIDE
EU Foreign Policy Chief to World Leaders: 'Stop Saying Please' and Cut Off Arms to Israel
The European Union's top foreign policy official said Monday that the Biden administration and other governments professing concern about the grisly death toll in the Gaza Strip should stop supplying so much weaponry to the Israeli military as it carries out one of the most devastating bombing campaigns in modern history.
Pointing to U.S. President Joe Biden's statement late last week that Israel's war on Gaza has been "over the top," E.U. High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said during a press conference in Brussels, "Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed."
Borrell then extended that suggestion to the rest of the international community, saying if governments believe that "this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe they have to think about the provision of arms."
"Everybody goes to Tel Aviv, begging, 'Please don't do that, protect civilians, don't kill so many.' How many is too many?" Borrell asked. "It is a little bit contradictory to continue saying that there are 'too many people being killed, too many people being killed, please take care of people, please don't kill so many.' Stop saying please and [do] something."
Update: EU's Borrell on US+Israel:
"If you believe too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms"
"Everybody goes to Tel Aviv begging"
"Netanyahu doesn't listen to anyone. They're going to evacuate. Where? To the moon?"
"Stop saying please & do something!" pic.twitter.com/g8uiprUia2— Rosie Birchard (@RosieBirchard) February 12, 2024
Bombs, Disease, Starvation: Canadian Doctor Describes the Desperate Situation Inside Gaza
Israel Is 'Obliterating Entire Families With Total Impunity' in Gaza, Amnesty Finds
In the wake of Israel's bombardment of Rafah in Gaza early Monday—and with the threat of a ground invasion looming—Amnesty International released a report detailing four strikes on the supposed "safe" zone that the organization said must be investigated as war crimes.
The strikes killed at least 95 civilians and 42 children, yet Amnesty could not find any evidence that the attacks—carried out against residential dwellings in December and January—hit legitimate military infrastructure or targets. Amnesty said its report shows "how Israeli forces continue to flout international humanitarian law, obliterating entire families with total impunity."
It is a war crime to either target civilians or indiscriminately pursue a military target in a way that harms civilians.
"Entire families were wiped out in Israeli attacks even after they sought refuge in areas promoted as safe and with no prior warning from Israeli authorities," Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International's senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement. "These attacks illustrate an ongoing pattern of Israeli forces brazenly flouting international law, contradicting claims by Israeli authorities that their forces are taking heightened precautions to minimize harm to civilians."
Israel BOMBS Medics Rescuing 6 Year Old Girl
Biden must do more to free Israeli-held US grandmother, rights group says
An influential Arab-American group sought to increase pressure on Monday on the Joe Biden White House to use its influence with Israel to help free a US-Palestinian grandmother detained by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank. Samaher Esmail’s family also alleges that she has been beaten and denied access to medical attention.
At a briefing in Washington DC, Robert McCaw of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the detention of Esmail – one of three US citizens recently arrested by the Israel Defense Forces in the West Bank and Gaza – had shown that being an American was “no protection from Israel’s discriminatory, abusive and violent targeting of Palestinians”.
According to a lawyer who visited Esmail last week, the 46-year-old grandmother was covered in bruises along her wrists, arms and back. She was also only semi-coherent. “The American government needs to do more to protect Palestinians, especially Palestinian Americans, from Israel’s government, and they should start now by securing the release of Samaher and all other Palestinian American prisoners,” McCaw said at Monday’s briefing.
Esmail’s sons Suliman and Ibrahim Hamed urged the US government to do more to demand their mother’s release from Israeli detention and return her home to the US for medical treatment. They said if she was guilty of anything, it was of being a Palestinian American woman “who dares to demand justice and express her opinion”, Suliman Hamed said. “My mom was viciously beaten and taken into unlawful custody by the Israel forces from the West Bank.”
Esmail was detained in a dawn raid in early February in the village of Silwad, according to accounts from family members. It was part of a sweep of military arrests that advocates say has affected hundreds of Palestinians since Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel. The IDF confirmed last week that Esmail had been arrested for “incitement on social media”, adding that “suspects arrested in the operation were transferred to the security forces for further questioning”.
Military Judge to Rule on C.I.A. Torture Program in Sept. 11 Case
A defense lawyer asked a military judge on Monday to dismiss the Sept. 11 conspiracy charges against a Saudi prisoner who was tortured in C.I.A. custody, describing the secret overseas prison network where the man was held as part of a “vast criminal international enterprise” that trafficked in torture.
Defense lawyers in the case have said for years that the case should be dismissed based on a rarely successful legal doctrine involving “outrageous government conduct.”
On Monday, Walter Ruiz became the first defender to present the argument to a military judge on behalf of Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who is accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers with money transfers and travel arrangements.
The interrogation and detention program as carried out on his client so “shocks the conscience,” he said, that Mr. Hawsawi should be dropped from the conspiracy case.In a nearly daylong presentation, Mr. Ruiz used government documents to argue that the prisoner was sexually assaulted in his first month of detention, waterboarded by C.I.A. interrogators without permission, deprived of sleep and kept isolated in darkened dungeonlike conditions starting in 2003.
In order to build their cases against former C.I.A. prisoners, prosecutors had so-called clean teams of federal agents reinterrogate the defendants at Guantánamo Bay in 2007, without using or threatening violence.But “no matter how many cleaners they bring into this court, they cannot clean it up,” Mr. Ruiz said. “It smells and reeks of coercion, torture, brutality and depravity.” ...
The timing of the argument suggests that Col. Matthew N. McCall, the fourth judge to preside in the case, will be able to decide the potentially case-turning issue before he retires later this year. The judge has a busy schedule of testimony about the C.I.A. program and the F.B.I. role in it this month and later in the year.
US Senate moves forward $95bn Ukraine and Israel aid package
After many setbacks and much suspense, the Senate appeared on track this week to approve a long-awaited package of wartime funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as Republican opponents staged a filibuster to register their disapproval over a measure they could not block.
The Senate passed a procedural vote on Monday, voting 66 to 33, to move the bill forward.
Senators had worked through the weekend on the roughly $95bn emergency spending package, which cleared a series of procedural hurdles as it moved toward final passage. The chamber voted on the legislation on Monday night following hours of debate and a talking filibuster led by Republican senator Rand Paul and joined by a coterie of Donald Trump’s allies in the chamber.
On Monday, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said the weekend votes demonstrated “beyond doubt that there’s strong support” for advancing the foreign aid package.
If the bill passes the Senate as expected, the bill would next go to the Republican-led House, where next steps are uncertain. Though a bipartisan majority still supports sending assistance to Ukraine, there is a growing contingent of Republican skeptics who echo Trump’s disdain for the US-backed war effort.
Senate $61B to Ukraine to stop Tump in 2024
Your tax dollars at work:
US spends more than $7m a year to keep up superyacht seized from Russian oligarch
The US government has said it is spending more than $7m a year to maintain a superyacht it seized from a sanctioned Russian oligarch, and urged a judge to let it auction the vessel before a dispute over its ownership is resolved. Authorities in Fiji seized the 348ft (106-meter), $300m Amadea in May 2022, pursuant to a US warrant alleging it was owned by Suleiman Kerimov, a multibillionaire sanctioned by the US treasury department in 2014 and 2018 in response to Russia’s activities in Syria and Ukraine.
Efforts to auction the yacht are being challenged by Eduard Khudainatov, who led Russian state oil and gas company Rosneft from 2010 to 2013. Khudainatov claims ownership of the Amadea, and has said it cannot not be forfeited because he has not been sanctioned.
In a court filing late on Friday federal prosecutors in Manhattan told the US district judge Dale Ho that the $600,000 average monthly maintenance bill for the Amadea has been “excessive”, justifying an auction. They also said talks to have Khudainatov pay for the yacht’s upkeep have broken down. Prosecutors have said in previous court filings that Khudainatov is acting as the Amadea’s “straw owner” to disguise Kerimov’s role, and that maintenance payments are essential to preserving a yacht’s value.
Khudainatov has until 23 February to reply to prosecutors’ request. In a statement, his lawyers said the motion to sell the vessel was “premature” and urged Ho to deny it until he “determines whether the seizure was unconstitutional”. The seizure came as Washington ramped up sanctions enforcement against people close to Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, to pressure Moscow to halt its war against Ukraine.
Immigrant child laborers are being killed in US factories. Companies are walking away with fines
Duvan Thomas Pérez was just 16 when he was fatally injured while cleaning machinery at a Mississippi slaughterhouse. The penalty for the Mar-Jac Poultry processing plant was just $212,646 in federal fines and 17 safety citations, despite the incident being one in a series.
“Mar-Jac Poultry is aware of how dangerous the machinery they use can be when safety standards are not in place to prevent serious injury and death. The company’s inaction has directly led to this terrible tragedy, which has left so many to mourn this child’s preventable death,” the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) regional administrator, Kurt Petermeyer, said in a statement last month.
But it was not the first time the factory had had a workplace death or faced citations for safety procedure violations in recent years. Despite previous incidents, and as the Mississippi factory became notorious, Mar-Jac continued to receive only fines.
Now experts, outraged at the latest death, are demanding stronger consequences for companies that violate safety procedures – and use child labor. Experts are also arguing that Pérez’s death highlights how immigrant minors may be more vulnerable to dangerous working conditions.
“The fines imposed by Osha on this particular poultry plant are not sufficient to deter massive exploitation of child migrants, especially undocumented child migrants,” Elora Mukherjee, a professor of law at Columbia Law School in New York, said. “The fine is more than $200,000, [but] the profits that this company and other [similar] companies make are far, far greater,” she said.
SCOTUS SCORNS CO Trump Ballot Removal
Trump asks US supreme court to keep election interference case frozen
Lawyers for Donald Trump asked the US supreme court on Monday to keep on hold the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results while he prepares to challenge a recent appeals court ruling that found he was not immune from prosecution.
The former US president also asked the nation’s highest court to stay the US court of appeals for the DC circuit order that prevented him from seeking what is known as an “en banc” rehearing of the case by the full bench of appeals judges.
“President Trump’s application easily satisfies this Court’s traditional factors for granting a stay of the mandate pending en banc review and review on certiorari by this Court,” Trump’s lawyers John Sauer, John Lauro and Greg Singer wrote in the 110-page petition.
The petition argued that Trump had met the key tests for the supreme court to grant a stay because there was a strong likelihood it would hear the case and because without a stay, Trump would suffer “irreparable injury” if the case proceeded to trial in the interim.
DNC SUES RFK Jr In Ballot Access War
Oil firms and green groups challenge Biden plan for offshore drilling leases
Oil and gas companies and environmental groups on Monday filed dueling legal challenges to the Biden administration’s five-year plan to offer drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico.
The petitions to a US appeals court come four months after the interior department unveiled a congressionally-mandated plan for offshore leasing that included just three sales, the lowest since the government began publishing the schedules in 1980.
The American Petroleum Institute (API), an oil and gas trade group, said it was challenging the policy because it would leave Americans at risk of relying on foreign energy sources. ...
Environmental group Earthjustice filed a separate petition challenging interior department’s plan on behalf of eight other environmental organizations. They allege the federal agency failed to adequately consider the health impacts the offshore drilling plan would have on local communities.
Climate Scientist Defeats Deniers, Hopes to Empower Others to Speak Out on Global Crisis in Media
Human Activity Pushing More Than 1 in 5 Migratory Species Toward Extinction: UN
As world governments gathered in Uzbekistan Monday for the United Nations conference on migratory species, they centered the theme "Nature Knows No Borders"—an idea that a new landmark report said must take hold across the globe to push policymakers in all countries and regions to protect the billions of animals that travel each year to reproduce and find food.
The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) marked the opening of the 14th Conference of the Parties (CMS COP14) to the United Nations biodiversity treaty by releasing the first-ever State of the World's Migratory Species report, showing that nearly half of migrating species are declining in population.
The crisis is especially dire for more than 1 in 5 species that are threatened with extinction, and 70 species listed under the CMS which have become more endangered, including the steppe eagle, the Egyptian vulture, and the wild camel.
The populations of nearly all species of fish listed in the U.N. treaty, including sharks and rays, have declined by 90% since the 1970s.
The two biggest drivers of endangerment and threatened extinction are overexploitation—including incidental and intentional capture—and habitat loss, and both are directly caused by human activity.
Seven in 10 CMS-listed species are threatened by overexploitation, while 3 in 4 of the species are at greater risk of dying out due to habitat loss, as humans expand energy, transportation, and agricultural infrastructure across the globe.
The climate crisis and planetary heating, pollution, and the spread of invasive species—thousands of which are introduced by humans—are also major threats to migratory species, the report says.
"Unsustainable human activities are jeopardizing the future of migratory species—creatures who not only act as indicators of environmental change but play an integral role in maintaining the function and resilience of our planet's complex ecosystems," said Inger Andersen, undersecretary-general of the U.N. and executive director of the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP). "The global community has an opportunity to translate this latest science of the pressures facing migratory species into concrete conservation action. Given the precarious situation of many of these animals, we cannot afford to delay."
Great Lakes average ice cover drops to 6%, one of lowest levels ever recorded
The average ice cover over the five Great Lakes was just 6% last month, placing it among the least icy Januarys since records began 50 years ago, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa).
The Great Lakes – Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario – are located at or near the US-Canada border, and are connected by a network of smaller lakes and rivers that span a combined surface area of 95,000 sq miles, making it the largest freshwater system in the world.
While some year-to-year variation in ice cover is normal, scientists say global heating is driving ice loss and warmer water temperatures, and is likely to worsen if no action is taken soon.
“In direct response to warming air temperatures, we are observing rapid ice loss and warming summer water temperatures,” said Professor Sapna Sharma, an expert in environmental stressors on lakes at York University in Toronto. “If the planet continues to warm, 215,000 lakes may no longer freeze every winter and almost 5,700 lakes may permanently lose ice cover by the end of the century.”
The Great Lakes hold more than 20% of Earth’s freshwater, with half of that in Lake Superior, the largest and most northerly of the five. Ice records show a 25% drop in basin-wide ice cover, and a trend toward fewer frozen days across the Great Lakes since 1973. “There is a trend: a 5% decline in average ice cover per decade, which may not sound huge but it is a substantial decrease,” said James Kessler, a physical scientist and ice expert at Noaa’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
How the CIA Destabilizes the World
Chris Hedges: Israel Destroyed My University. Where is the Outrage?
Dutch Court Blocks Weapons Parts for Israel
What Has the Putin Interview Achieved?
25 Years of Venezuelan Defiance
Judge moves ahead with Fani Willis hearing but documents not turned over
Stone age wall found at bottom of Baltic Sea ‘may be Europe’s oldest megastructure’
Irish Politician Clare Daly Slams EU, US For Backing Genocide In Gaza
Rand Paul FLAMES Senate Dems After They RAM THROUGH $60B More for UKRAINE
Liberals Tie Themselves IN KNOTS Pretending Biden’s Not Demented!
Matt Hoh: Why No Ukraine Negotiations?
A Little Night Music
Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddam
Nina Simone - Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
Nina Simone - Feeling Good
Nina Simone - I put a spell on you
Nina Simone - You Don't Know What Love Is
Nina Simone - Sinnerman
Nina Simone - I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl
Nina Simone - The House of The Rising Sun
Nina Simone - Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out
Nina Simone - My Baby Just Cares For Me
Comments
There are no adequate words for this
.
More flaunting of the ICJ decision and showing the world that America stands for nothing.
Congress also has no shame showing we the people that they don’t give a rat’s ass about our needs and puts to rest the lie that there is no money for the things Americans desperately need.
But sure go out and stand in hours long lines to vote for the people who show you who they are and what is most important to them…
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening snoopy...
with any luck, this transparent flaunting of the icj decision will make it easier for the court to decide to make a finding of genocide and to rule that the u.s. is complicit.
Hopefully the new South Africa action will light a fire
under the justice’s buttocks, but if it does then what? Is there any country that can make Israel stop killing people? I read that Russia was going to drop supplies into Gaza and nothing since. What happened to the 1,000 ships coming from Turkey? Did they set sail and get boarded or sunk?
Anyone heard anything about the Norwegian case against Israel or SA case against the uk, France, ect? Justice sure moves slowly.
I can’t imagine a more disgusting bill coming out of congress than this one that green lights genocide. I’m thinking that the plans for another canal are true and Israel and its enablers are going to take Gaza' oil and gas. Must be a lot of people having stock in the companies that have been tasked to do both.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
heh...
well, i can only hope that sextus empiricus was correct.
Have you heard about this?
Good lord. The extent congress is going to support Israel’s genocide is hard for me to comprehend. I guess it’s not so abnormal since we’ve killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of Muslims during our wars of terror in their countries, but we didn’t see actual videos of them doing it like we are Israel’s. By the time any country steps up to stop the slaughter Israel will have finally succeeded in the final solution. I stopped reading Twit again last night because I was overwhelmed by the carnage.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
yep...
i have heard some talk that the u.s. is quietly sanctioning south africa, but the details have been scarce so far. it disgusts me, but doesn't surprise me in the least that the legislature is moving to punish south africa for its impertinence.
Egypt has walked back claims that they will abandon the
.
Camp David accords and those 2 Israeli hostages were actually rescued earlier this month or in January….but they definitely weren’t rescued on Super Bowl Sunday. If I can find the 2 tweets I’ll post them.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
heh...
i guess genocide joe got on the phone with the mexican president and exerted leverage to keep him from abandoning the camp david accords.
that extended
version of Clare Daley
rocks.
no wonder there’s a
two minute limit in the ep
thanks for nina wish I’d
hipped to her earlier in life
remember to breath ‘dawg
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
evening tb&u...
that clare daly speech reminds me of how awful all of our u.s. politicians are.
For those still looking for some closure
.
...on the aftermath of Tucker Carlson's interview in Russia, may want to check out this story posted above, on the Evening Blues Story List. It was written by Tony Kent, a former Australian Ambassador to Russia, and published at Consortium News:
What Has the Putin Interview Achieved?
.
But even more interesting is Ben Norton's video review of the Carlson–Putin Interview. Or is it a warning? You decide. Norton turns the entire interview on its head as a psy-op against the Left and the Chinese.
Ben Norton is currently living in China, where he is attending university and studying for an advanced degree.
Not sure if this has been posted here yet.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Another one
The Vladimir Putin Interview - Part One
People have been commenting on Putin’s talks with reporters and how he sits with them for hours and answers their questions in full without looking at notes or having to read a teleprompter. Then they imagine Biden doing the same and they crack up. Or if Blinken, Sullivan or Kirby could even get history right or not lie about how exceptional America is. I’ve seen lots of comments on how we don’t have statesmen anymore, but propagandists. If the poo gets close to going through the fan do we have anyone who can talk our way down like Kennedy did during the Cuban missile crisis? Sadly that answer is no.
BTW Schryver has some excellent essays on his site. He’s up there with Big Serge.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Thanks for the heads-up on this writer.
I found William Schryvers to be sublimely knowledgeable and expressive. I loved his introduction:
.
From there, I was pulled into a critique of the interview, contoured by rich historical context. I knew many of the facts, but now I could see exactly how they shaped the narrative. The insights were fascinating.
I look forward to reading Part II.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I will post it when he does
I hope people will look at his other essays which you can find by clicking on his name at the top. I like how he gets to the point quickly.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening pluto...
heh, i am pretty amused by all of the hoo-hah about the carlson/putin interview. i wonder how long the chattering class is going to go on spewing about it, mostly betraying a trivial understanding of the material as if perhaps they really only listened to it in order to find gotcha points to score.
i didn't get all the way through norton's presentation, but in the 10 minutes or so that i listened to he never mentioned that allying with russia against china has been republican (and adopted by dems) policy since kissinger and nixon. russiagate blew that up and it's not going back. the u.s. is just going to have to figure out how to deal with a world where russia and china are allied. u.s. diplomacy is not currently good enough to figure out a way to drive a wedge between them.
That's right
.
Allying with Russia... that reminds me:
Russia and China had been trying, since 2000, to make a gas and oil deal, but some sort of bad blood was keeping them apart. I learned about that after the Kyiv overthrow, when that gas and oil deal suddenly became possible.
Although Obama had entered office hoping for a positive reset with Russia, an aggressive US diplomatic assault on Russia began fairly early in his presidency, when the State Department began closing Russian embassies. Neocon control over the Dems and the Executive branch was completed under Obama. Republican hatred of Obama gave him cover, and he declined to nominate a Supreme Court Justice.
Not only did overthrowing Ukraine's government in 2014 immediately end Kissinger delicate balance policy forever, it was a direct provocation against Russia. This was the Neocon's sick obsession with Russia, in action. Like all things Neocon, it backfired spectacularly, and the oil deal between Russia and China suddenly became possible. It was the largest fossil fuel contract the world had ever seen and it accelerated the economy of both countries. Neocons flooded into the Democratic Party, and neo-Nazi militants flooded into Ukraine.
In Washington, RussiaGate hysteria came along and blurred the money laundering racket, the political payoffs, and the US election meddling from Ukraine. By the end of 2016, the Neocons and the Propaganda State were in charge, the Left was wiped off the political spectrum, and the Progressives became tools of the Duolopy, along with Bernie Sanders.
Eight years later, Neocons control the Federal government from non-elected positions of power, and it's time for people to accept that. It's a coup. The Presidential election is a pointless exercise to prolong the delusion of a Federal Democracy. Meanwhile, the world has moved on.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
It appears to me --
-- that the anti-China schtick that one sees in SOME Republicans, from Carlson to Ramaswamy to maybe Trump, is an attempt to appear friendly to the neoconservatives (the primary audience of the schtick) while still claiming the freedom to oppose Project Ukraine, given that Project Ukraine is a grift with some very specific beneficiaries (some of whom they oppose):
"the reason you need a new class to come into power in the United States is because this one is useless" -- Vijay Prashad
Hmmm…
.
2nd tweet
It’s even longer than what I’ve excerpted. Let me know if anyone wants to read the rest of it.
BTW wasn’t Kamala in charge of the border? If so shouldn’t she also be impeached?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
This complaint was written
....by the Prison Industrial Complex. It states that an applicant who applies at the border to enter the US and is turned away should instead be arrested and sent to prison in the US.
More Neocon insanity trying to solve the problem that they started in the first place with their anti-communist policy of murder and mayhem and overthrowing "Leftist" governments in Latin America.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Good evening Joe, et. al. Thanks for the EBs, Joe.
Thanks for Nina, good assortment, though she's always good all the same.
That was a good column by Jeffrey Sachs, I sure hope he gets his wish, but I figure that the odds are negligible or less. It's funny, the cia isn't a constitutionally mandated piece of the government, so all it would take to get free of them is enough legislators with a conscience and some cojones. but that won't happen either. Ah well.
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...
yep, sachs lays out why the cia as it is currently existing is a detriment to a democracy and should be radically reformed.
enormous cojones. imagine if you will a vast army of torturers, assassins, election riggers and their managers suddenly cast off without a salary - as they will no doubt see it wronged by congress. what happens next?
Other Asia news
I don't have access to SCMP. I recommend Bertrand's "show more" link.
Could Indonesia Return to Military Rule? Allan Nairn on the "Massacre General" Running for President
S. Korea vows 'overwhelming response' if N. Korea provokes
There was a CSIS sponsored interview of Yoon's former ROK National Security Advisor, Kim Sung-han, today in which he discussed that subordinate military commanders would not need to contact higher authority for orders as to how to respond to provocations by North Korean forces, but could immediately react on their own appropriately, with force multiple times (2x-3x) that of the North Korean action in order to increase the effectiveness of their reaction in terms of deterrence. What could possibly go wrong? This is the same Kim Sung-han who got the ax after expressing reservations about 155mm artillery shell shipments to the US in support of the Ukraine war. Judging from his conversation with Victor Cha, he still appears to be loyal to the Yoon administration policies.
The Impossible State Live Podcast: Is North Korea Really Ready for War?
I only put the link here as a reference to Dr. Kim's elaboration on the ROE announcement by South Korea which seems to deviate from prior SOP on the DMZ and the maritime Northern Limit Lines. If there is a military provocation there, or outright violence, usually careful consideration from the highest level goes into the response, to a avoid excessive military escalation. This makes it sound like it's going to be left to commanders on the scene to decide how to respond, while encouraging them to act forcefully. At about the 22 min mark there is discussion about the Nuclear Consultative Group to give South Korea a role in planning nuclear war operations against North Korea. This is pie in the sky stuff.
Even though the South Korean public may be somewhat inured to the possibility of war with North Korea, creating an atmosphere, if not the reality of increased military tension with North Korea, supports the administration's neo-McCarthyite attacks on the political opposition (the democratic party for the most part and its leader Lee Jae-myung) as "state enemies" and agents of the north.
Thanks for EBs Joe. Enjoyed listening to Nina.
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
i sure hope that the chinese will not fall into the neocon trap. i am amazed at the patience of the prc in the face of ridiculous levels of provocation.
thanks for the news from that corner of the world!
To me, this all boils down to insane anti-communist
...operatives, supported and embedded by the US Neocon-run State Department. These operatives/politicians are being positioned and subsidized to control the destiny of South Korea in order achieve the military aims of the US Empire. After one scrapes away all the intricacies of history and local politics, of course.
What else can it be? South Korea is pivotal to US attacks on China. I don't see a way out for them.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Right
Tim Shorrock had a post up today that made that very point. Kirby had made some comment about Israel to the effect that we don't give Israel their assignments every day to perform, they do their own thing as a sovereign state. We don't control them, etc. Tim distinguished the cases of South Korea, and Japan, they are very much subject to US control. Have been since 1945. Although in the case of Japan, I don't think people give Japan enough credit for manipulating the US. That is the LDP is very much encouraging the US, to encourage them to militarize. They also encourage the US to take a strategic view of Asia that mirrors their own interests. Imo it's a negative feedback loop. Japanese PR is very effective. They have this reputation as a pacifist country after WWII. They are in the process of doubling their defense budget, arming up with offensive weapon systems, and clearly have their own neoliberal or neo-imperialist designs on their neighbors who were occupied by them in the past.
The prior Moon administration in South Korea was trying to carve its own path for South Korea not necessarily independent of the US, but knowing that with their millennium plus experience as a unified Asian state, it knew better how to deal with its neighbors than the US. The US put all kinds of pressure on them to get in "lock step" with US policy, emphasizing that there could be "no daylight" between US and South Korean policy. They threatened South Korea with sanctions for marginal commercial interaction with the north of any kind. It was blatant. They resented the military agreements Moon made with Kim in North Korea to defuse tension near the DMZ, and pushed to get rid of them from day one. Now with the corrupt US puppet Yoon in there, a dictator wanna be, the US policy blob is so pleased with itself. Camp David was a dream come true for the US neocons. All contact with the north was cut off, and Yoon is kissing Japan's butt, very un-Korean like. While the US thinks its dream has come true in the so called trilateral partnership with South Korea and Japan, Camp David rather than being a bloc, as the neocons call it, is actually a very flimsy construction. In order to keep itself in power, the South Korean conservatives acting as US and Japan's agents in the current administration will have to resort to various schemes in an administration that is proving itself more and more authoritarian and less responsive to public interests and basic governmental competence.
People need to keep a close eye on Japan as well. Americans always have this warm and fuzzy feeling toward Japan, that is undeserved. That was Moon Jae-in's very point, and why the US hated him, and one reason why Lee Jae-myung is hated as well. The South Korean political opposition wants to deal with Russia, China and North Korea on their own initiative. I think among South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, Japan and Taiwan have the more effective US lobbies. South Korea actually has the least influence on US policy in the far east. I think Japan and Taiwan both manipulate the US into an aggravated anti China posture. Although, we in the US like to think our great strategies (sic) are products of our own genius. The LDP in Japan manipulates the US into following policies it favors.
I think Tim takes a more positive view of Japan than I do mainly because he has had contact with the Japanese people over an extended period of time. I make a large distinction between what the Japanese people may want, and what the governing LDP party wants. The latter clearly want to make Japan "great again," in a way its neighbors don't want and maybe its own people don't want for good reason. And the US is encouraging this greatness/militarist turn for its own misguided reasons. imo
語必忠信 行必正直
Korea marks the beginning of the US long losing streak
...in global military encounters. They have not won any of the wars they've started since. The US sees Korea as land they own and control. They now conduct their coercive aggression, globally, more like an organized crime protection racket. Geopolitically, South Korea is regarded as a US strategic foothold positioned in the center of so-called communist nations. It is the indispensable geopolitical anchor the US must hold to secure military domination over the Eastern Hemisphere. Just as Israel is the key geopolitical anchor that secures US dominance over the Middle East. It's hard to imagine a scenario where the US allows Korea to chart its own destiny. Does the US intend to rescue the South Korean population from retaliation for attacks launched from there? They failed to do that in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, war waits while the US scrambles to produce supersonic weapons. It's a sad fate, but there is time for people to get out. if they are so inclined.
The US is about to hold its first Neocon Presidential Election. People should pay attention to that.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato