The Evening Blues - 3-20-24

Submitted by joe shikspack on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 3:08pm


eb1pt12

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Schoolboy Cleve White

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Louisiana harmonica player Schoolboy Cleve White. Enjoy!

Schoolboy Cleve - She's Gone

"If you're defending a lie, you can only defend it with obfuscations and other lies. You can't defend a lie with the truth."

-- Harvey Bialy

News and Opinion

It’s Journalistic Malpractice To Say Gazans Are Starving Without Saying Israel Is Starving Them

The mass media are printing some amazingly depraved headlines about a new UN-backed report on starvation in Gaza from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, who says half the enclave’s population is now at the highest-possible threat level for starvation.

The New York Times has a real corker out titled “Famine Is Projected for Northern Gaza, Experts Say”, subtitled “A global authority on food security said that in the coming months, as many as 1.1 million people in Gaza could face the severest levels of hunger.”

A casual news consumer could get multiple paragraphs into this article assuming that people in a place called Gaza are suffering from some kind of famine caused by natural events, like a drought or something. Not until paragraph four would they encounter the word “Israeli”, and not until paragraph five would they encounter the line “Israeli’s bombardment and a near-total blockade.”

At a time when only 20 percent of news readers ever make it past the headline of a given story, this is an extremely destructive and propagandistic act of journalistic malpractice. The editors of The New York Times know exactly what they’re doing packaging a story about Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians like it’s a troubling prediction about the weather.


Contrast the New York Times’ headline with that of Al Jazeera’s report on the same story: “Gaza headed towards famine amid Israeli aid curbs: What to know”. That’s the normal way to present a story about a deliberately inflicted famine upon an imperiled population. If a population was being deliberately starved by siege warfare from a nation like Russia, China or Iran, we may be absolutely certain that the name of that nation would appear in the headline.

But because the western media exist to generate propaganda and not to report the news, we get headlines like “Gaza faces famine during Ramadan, the holy month of fasting” from the BBC, and “Famine in northern Gaza is imminent as more than 1 million people face ‘catastrophic’ levels of hunger, new report warns” from CNN, and “Famine imminent in northern Gaza, says UN-backed report” from Reuters, and “‘Catastrophic levels of hunger’ in Gaza mean famine is imminent, says aid coalition” from The Guardian.

We saw this with Saudi Arabia’s US-backed starvation of Yemen as well. When the mass media talked about Yemen at all (usually they just ignored it), editors consistently obfuscated the fact that this was a population being deliberately starved by a cruel blockade and the deliberate targeting of food infrastructure. The fact that it was being made possible by the United States was almost never mentioned.

This is a very good example of how western propaganda works, by the way. The mainstream western press don’t generally make up whole-cloth lies (though they will uncritically print claims made by western government agencies who have an extensive history of lying); what they do is rely on half-truths, distortions and lies by omission to give their audiences a wildly slanted picture of what’s going on in the world. By always going out of their way to tell you an enemy of the US-centralized empire is committing an atrocity the millisecond it looks like they might be, while being furtive and obfuscatory about the crimes of the US and its allies, they give their audience a skewed understanding of who is and is not committing the real evils in our world.

This doesn’t typically happen as a result of any grand monolithic conspiracy; it’s mostly just the natural consequence of having all the major news platforms controlled by wealthy and powerful people who each have a vested interest in manufacturing consent for the status quo upon which their wealth and power are premised. The oligarchs control the media, and they hire the executives who run the media, and the executives hire the editors who write the headlines and guide the reporters to report a certain way, and this gives rise to a system where everyone working for the outlet conducts themselves in a way that just so happens to suit the powerful people on top.

Then before you know it you’ve got editors at The New York Times — a paper that’s been published by the same family for over a century — packaging a story about starvation caused by an Israeli siege to look like it’s a story about an innocent crop failure. Odds are nobody told them to do that; they just learned over the years that that’s how you rise to the top in an outlet like The New York Times.

BIDEN KNEW: Israel Bombed Gaza Targets Without Intelligence

Chris Hedges: Israel’s Trojan Horse

Piers allow things to come in. They allow things to go out. And Israel, which has no intention of halting its murderous siege of Gaza, including its policy of enforced starvation, appears to have found a solution to its problem of where to expel the 2.3 million Palestinians. If the Arab world will not take them, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken proposed during his first round of visits after Oct. 7, the Palestinians will be cast adrift on ships. It worked in Beirut in 1982 when some eight and a half thousand Palestine Liberation Organization members were sent by sea to Tunisia and another two and a half thousand ended up in other Arab states. Israel expects that the same forced deportation by sea will work in Gaza.

Israel, for this reason, supports the “temporary pier” the Biden administration is building, to ostensibly deliver food and aid to Gaza – food and aid whose “distribution” will be overseen by the Israeli military. ... This “maritime corridor” is Israel’s Trojan Horse, a subterfuge to expel Palestinians. The small shipments of seaborne aid, like the food packets that have been air dropped, will not alleviate the looming famine. They are not meant to. ...

If the U.S. or Israel were serious about alleviating the humanitarian crisis, the thousands of trucks with food and aid currently at the southern border of Gaza would be allowed to enter any of its multiple crossings. They are not. The “temporary pier,” like the air drops, is ghoulish theater, a way to mask Washington’s complicity in the genocide. ... “Why would Israel, the engineer of the Gaza famine, endorse the idea of establishing a maritime corridor for aid to address a crisis it initiated and is now worsening?” writes Tamara Nassar in an article titled “What’s the Real Purpose of Biden’s Gaza Port?” in The Electronic Intifada. “This might appear paradoxical if one were to assume that the primary aim of the maritime corridor is to deliver aid.”

When Israel offers a gift to the Palestinians you can be sure it is a poison apple. That Israel got the Biden administration to construct the pier is one more example of the inverted relationship between Washington and Jerusalem, where the Israel lobby has bought off elected officials in the two ruling parties. ...

Israel, by design, is creating a humanitarian crisis of such catastrophic proportions, with thousands of Palestinians killed by bombs, shells, missiles, bullets, starvation and infectious diseases, that the only option will be death or deportation. The pier is where the last act in this gruesome genocidal campaign will be played out as Palestinians are herded by Israeli soldiers onto ships. How appropriate that the Biden administration, without whom this genocide could not be carried out, will facilitate it.

Democratic Senator: Biden Must Halt Arms to Israel if Restrictions on Gaza Aid Are Not Lifted

UN says Israeli restrictions on Gaza food aid may constitute a war crime

Israeli restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza may amount to the war crime of deliberate starvation, the UN has said, as the White House called for unimpeded access for aid to the coastal strip. Amid mounting and catastrophic hunger in parts of Gaza, and official UN figures for hunger levels which are the worst seen under the current classification system, the Biden administration added it was “deeply concerned” following a report about potential famine.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, said Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid may amount to “starvation as a method of war”. His comments follow the UN secretary general on Monday describing the food shortages as “entirely man-made” and an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, the international standard for measuring food crises, warning of imminent famine in the territory’s north.

“The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime,” Turk said. While aid agencies blame Israel for blockading Gaza, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government says it is facilitating aid and the UN and relief groups are at fault for any issues over the quantity and pace of delivery.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: The Israeli Government is Criminal


Kushner DROOLS Over Gaza 'Valuable Waterfront Property'

Jared Kushner says Gaza’s ‘waterfront property could be very valuable’

Jared Kushner has praised the “very valuable” potential of Gaza’s “waterfront property” and suggested Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the strip. The former property dealer, married to Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, made the comments in an interview at Harvard University on 8 March.

Kushner was a senior foreign policy adviser under Trump’s presidency and was tasked with preparing a peace plan for the Middle East. Critics of the plan, which involved Israel striking normalisation deals with Gulf states, said it bypassed questions about the future for Palestinians.

His remarks at Harvard gave a hint of the kind of Middle East policy that could be pursued in the event that Trump returns to the White House, including a search for a normalisation deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable … if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner told his interviewer, Harvard’s Middle East Initiative faculty chair, Prof Tarek Masoud. Kushner also lamented “all the money” that had gone into the territory’s tunnel network and munitions instead of education and innovation. ...

Kushner also said he thinks Israel should move civilians from Gaza to the Negev desert in southern Israel. He said that if he were in charge of Israel his number one priority would be getting civilians out of the southern city of Rafah, and that “with diplomacy” it could be possible to get them into Egypt. ... Responding to a question about whether the Palestinians should have their own state, Kushner described the proposal as “a super bad idea” that “would essentially be rewarding an act of terror”.

Biden's Sanctions Against Israeli Settlers Ignores State's Role in West Bank Violence: Shane Bauer

Documents reveal alleged pattern of Israeli harassment of Unrwa workers on West Bank

UN staff working with Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been subjected to a systematic campaign of obstruction and harassment by the Israeli military and authorities since the beginning of the conflict in Gaza five months ago, according to internal UN documents obtained by the Guardian.

The documents record hundreds of incidents ranging from the alleged blindfolding and beating of UN staff at checkpoints to the use of UN facilities by Israeli troops as firing positions during raids on refugee camps in which Palestinians were killed.

The documents have been compiled by Unrwa, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine, which has provided essential services to the Palestinians in the occupied territories for decades. The agency has been at the centre of a bitter controversy after being accused by Israel of collaborating with Hamas in Gaza. It denies the charge and says no solid evidence has been presented to support the allegation.

Juliette Touma, Unrwa’s spokesperson, said the incidents in the West Bank – where the agency runs 96 schools and 43 health clinics for 871,000 registered refugees – detailed in the internal documents were “part of a wider pattern of harassment that we are seeing against Unrwa in the West Bank and Jerusalem”.

A spokesperson for the IDF said they had “no issues with Unrwa in the West Bank”, adding: “We are not trying to harass them. There is nothing we intentionally do to disturb their important work. We are unable to verify these claims and we have not been presented with evidence [for them]. We have a good relationship with Unrwa and other organisations in the West Bank.”

Canada to halt arms sales to Israel after non-binding vote in house of commons

Canada will halt future arms sales to Israel following a non-binding vote in the house of commons. The foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, told the Toronto Star her government would halt future arms shipments. “It is a real thing,” she said on Tuesday.

The decision follows a parliamentary motion, introduced by the New Democratic party (NDP), that called on the governing Liberals to halt future arms exports to Israel. The New Democrats, who are supporting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s minority government, have expressed frustration with what they see as his failure to do enough to protect civilians in Gaza.

The motion – which passed 204-117 with the support of Liberals, Bloc Québécois and the Green party – also called on Canada to work “towards the establishment of the state of Palestine”.

The successful vote late on Monday followed a last-minute deal between the Liberals and the NDP, which had previously called on the government to “recognize the state of Palestine”. The vote does not appear to change Canada’s position that Palestinian statehood should come as the result of a negotiated settlement with Israel.

Imperialism’s “final solution” to the Palestinian question

Monday’s announcement by the White House that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to send a “team of officials” to Washington to discuss the impending onslaught on Rafah proves yet again that US imperialism is a direct participant in the genocide against the Palestinians. The Associated Press reported that the meeting would take place in the coming days and include “military, intelligence, and humanitarian experts,” an unmistakable sign that what is under discussion is how best to carry out a bloody onslaught on the 1.5 million Palestinians crammed into Rafah. News of the meeting came a day after Netanyahu vowed at an Israeli war cabinet meeting that no amount of international pressure would halt his fascistic government from assaulting the last remaining refuge for Palestinians in Gaza. “We will operate in Rafah,” Netanyahu said. “This will take several weeks, and it will happen.” In response, President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu Monday to reaffirm his administration’s support for Israel. ...

Those who think that American imperialism can act to check such unrestrained savagery are fooling themselves. The massacring of civilians through indiscriminate bombardments and their starvation by withholding the most basic necessities for human life are not only the products of the Zionist regime’s bankruptcy and its decades-long illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. Such crimes against humanity arise out of more than three decades of uninterrupted US imperialist-led wars of aggression, in which Washington laid waste to entire societies as it sought to offset its precipitous economic decline through the ruthless deployment of military force.

The barbaric crimes committed by American imperialism over the past three-and-a-half decades are too numerous to document. From the bloodbath of Iraqi civilians and poorly armed conscript soldiers during the first Gulf War, to NATO’s savage air war on Yugoslavia in 1999, the neocolonial occupation of Afghanistan from 2001, the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, NATO’s destruction of Libya in 2011, and the bloody intervention in Syria in 2014, American imperialism has an unmatched record for brutalising impoverished and oppressed peoples throughout the world. President Biden, who played a prominent role in many of these operations, will oversee the discussions on the Rafah onslaught.

This barbarism has now reached a new stage with the developing third world war between the great powers, which are engaging in a redivision of the world. The US and European imperialists are waging war on Russia in Ukraine, where they have willingly sacrificed upwards of half a million Ukrainians in order to secure their dominance over Russia’s raw materials and the Eurasian landmass. They are escalating the war with Russia and preparing for war with China even at the risk of triggering a nuclear conflagration that would spell the end of human civilisation on the planet. Washington has also seized on Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians to set the stage for a regional escalation of the conflict throughout the Middle East to confront Iran, which the US ruling class views as an obstacle to its regional dominance.

These seemingly insane policies are rooted in the contradictions of crisis-ridden capitalism, to which the imperialists have no answer but the programme of world war. Just as German imperialism under the Nazi regime in the 20th century saw the extermination of European Jewry as necessary to advance its economic and geostrategic ambitions, so American and European imperialism have concluded in the 21st that a “final solution” to the Palestinian question is required.

Ex-Mississippi officer gets 20 years for ‘Goon Squad’ torture of two Black men

A former Mississippi sheriff’s deputy was sentenced on Tuesday to about 20 years in prison for his part in torturing two Black men last year.

Hunter Elward was sentenced by US district judge Tom Lee, who handed down a 241-month sentence. Lee is also due to sentence five other former law enforcement officers who admitted to subjecting Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker to numerous acts of racist torture.

Before sentencing, Lee called Elward’s crimes “egregious and despicable”, and said a “sentence at the top of the guidelines range is justified – is more than justified”. He continued: “It’s what the defendant deserves. It’s what the community and the defendant’s victims deserve.”

In January 2023, the group of six burst into a Rankin county home without a warrant and assaulted Jenkins and Parker with stun guns, a sex toy and other objects. Elward admitted to shoving a gun into Jenkins’ mouth and firing in a “mock execution” that went awry.


the horse race


Trump lawyers urge US supreme court to dismiss election interference case

Lawyers for Donald Trump urged the US supreme court to find that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts they take in office and, therefore, dismiss the federal criminal case against Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The arguments from Trump came in a brief submitted to the court Tuesday before oral arguments on 25 April, when the justices will consider whether and to what extent a former president has absolute immunity from prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts.

“The court should restore the tradition,” Trump’s brief said, “and neutralize one of the greatest threats to the president’s separate power, a bedrock of our republic, in our nation’s history. The court should uphold the president’s immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts.”

In the 67-page filing, Trump re-advanced the argument that he enjoyed absolute immunity from prosecution because the conduct charged by the special counsel Jack Smith over his plot to stop the transfer of power fell within the “outer perimeter” of his duties as president.

The filing contended that all of Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat, from pressuring his vice-president, Mike Pence, to stop the 6 January 2021 certification to organizing fake slates of electors, were protected activity.


the evening greens

Only seven countries meet WHO air quality standard, research finds

Only seven countries are meeting an international air quality standard, with deadly air pollution worsening in places due to a rebound in economic activity and the toxic impact of wildfire smoke, a new report has found.

Of 134 countries and regions surveyed in the report, only seven – Australia, Estonia, Finland, Grenada, Iceland, Mauritius and New Zealand – are meeting a World Health Organization (WHO) guideline limit for tiny airborne particles expelled by cars, trucks and industrial processes.

The vast majority of countries are failing to meet this standard for PM2.5, a type of microscopic speck of soot less than the width of a human hair that when inhaled can cause a myriad of health problems and deaths, risking serious implications for people, according to the report by IQAir, a Swiss air quality organization that draws data from more than 30,000 monitoring stations around the world.

While the world’s air is generally much cleaner than it was in much of the past century, there are still places where the pollution levels are particularly dangerous. The most polluted country, Pakistan, has PM2.5 levels more than 14 times higher than the WHO standard, the IQAir report found, with India, Tajikistan and Burkina Faso the next most polluted countries.

But even in wealthy and fast-developing countries, progress in cutting air pollution is under threat. Canada, long considered as having some of the cleanest air in the western world, became the worst for PM2.5 last year due to record wildfires that ravaged the country, sending toxic spoke spewing across the country and into the US.

Scotland’s pledge to cut emissions by 75% by 2030 ‘no longer credible’

Scotland’s pledge to cut its climate emissions by 75% by 2030 is “no longer credible” and cannot be met, the UK’s climate watchdog has said.

In a damning report submitted to the Scottish parliament, the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) accused the Scottish government of repeatedly failing to live up to its legally binding targets.

Despite missing the annual emissions reductions required by law in eight of the last 12 years, ministers still have no meaningful plans for hitting that target after failing to produce the climate change strategy due last year, the CCC said.

Its action and policies “continue to fall far short” of what was needed. Most sectors, such as housing, transport and farming, remained so far behind their interim targets “the acceleration required [to] meet the 2030 target is now beyond what is credible”.

In response to the committee’s conclusions, Oxfam warned the Scottish government’s credibility was “now firmly on the line” and Friends of the Earth Scotland accused ministers of “an embarrassing and abject failure”.

Also of Interest

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

Armed With US Weapons, Israel Carpet Bombs Genocide Convention

Without Extensive Narrative Manipulation, None Of This Would Be Consented To

TikTok and Israel

The 2024 Implications of US Involvement in Ukraine and Gaza

Ukraine's Demographics Again Dictate To End The Fight

Craig Murray: Assange, Truth & UN Shenanigans

South Carolina woman posthumously wins settlement over Black ancestral land

INTERVIEW: When the war is over so is Netanyahu

Ron Paul WAS RIGHT: Fmr Congressman SLAMS Victoria Nuland On Tucker Carlson Show

SUSPENDED: Israeli SPOX Caught in LIE About Gaza Food Aid

Bibi DEFIES Biden On Rafah Invasion After HEATED Phone Call

Saudi Backed Mnuchin PLOTS TikTok Purchase

Russia attrition war and fear of summer collapse

A Little Night Music

Schoolboy Cleve - Beautiful Beautiful Love

Schoolboy Cleve - My Baby Done Gone

Schoolboy Cleve - Here I go again

Lightnin' Slim (Feat. Schoolboy Cleve) - Wonderin' And Goin'

Lightnin' Slim (Feat. Schoolboy Cleve) - Sugar Plum

Schoolboy Cleve - Really I Apologize

Schoolboy Cleve - If Its Love You Want Come To Me

Schoolboy Cleve - I'm Him

Lightnin' Slim (Feat. Schoolboy Cleve) - West Texas

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The Evening Blues
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Schoolboy Cleve White
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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 6:37pm
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.

It’s beyond bewildering why liberals who once said "F the Man" are now in favor of government censorship. If the Supremes side with Biden then I’m betting that we will see a lot of bitching when Trump takes this even farther. Remember when they said he was at war with the press just because he was calling out their lies?

The Brownstone Institute just published a “A Close Look at the Amici Briefs in Murthy v. Missouri [Missouri v. Biden]” and they are perfectly appalling.

Judging by their content, the leaders of many of America’s top institutions have already abandoned the First Amendment.

Our institutions have become corrupted, and they offer the veneer of “free markets” to justify the federal government siphoning billions of taxpayer funds to obedient organizations to quash the First Amendment.

The Brennan Center Defends the National Security State (John Brennan perhaps?)

The Brennan Center, a Democratic advocacy group housed at NYU Law, justified the abridgments on free expression under the ever-vague justification of national security.

Its brief to the Supreme Court warned that the injunction prevents the government from working together to warn the American public about “Russia and other actors from interfering in American politics,” without any hint of irony or recognition of the debunked “Russiagate” hysteria surrounding the 2016 election.

The Brennan Center went further, defending the role of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, in curating Americans’ newsfeeds. The brief downplays CISA’s actions as “minimal governmental involvement in content moderation” that does not amount to a First Amendment violation.

But this ignores CISA’s well-documented role at the center of the government’s censorship operations. As Brownstone has explained:

These determinations were not based on veracity; CISA targeted “malinformation,” truthful information that the agency labeled inflammatory.

This is not just a theory from the plaintiffs; the defendants admit and often celebrate this process.

The ACLU’s Conspicuous Silence

While the politicization of the ACLU has been well-documented over the last decade, it remains remarkable that the country’s most prominent civil liberties organization has decided not to support plaintiffs in what may amount to the most consequential First Amendment case of the last half-century.

“As this Court held in Norwood v. Harrison, it is ‘axiomatic that [the] state may not induce, encourage or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish.’ For several years now, the federal government’s social media censorship campaign has been violating this principle with abandon.”

Conclusion

The most powerful forces in the country are weaponizing fear—of Russia, of mass shootings, of cyberbullying—to justify the erosion of our constitutional liberties. They flex their political power, their economic strength, and their infiltration of academia in pursuit of a permanent control over the flow of information. In response, the defenders of our Bill of Rights remain committed to the foundations of our legal system: precedent, facts, and the rule of law.

Barrett questioned whether the government should be allowed to censor if someone is being doxxed. Way to miss the forest. Websites by themselves have the ability to take down certain content without any help from the government. Great job, Pelosi using all the arrows in your quiver to block her appointment…oh wait.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 7:25pm
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@snoopydawg

been captured by AIPAC and the Zionist regime.

“We want Congress to tell TikTok that their time is up. We’re done with the lies the platform spreads about the Jewish people and Israel.”

The Jewish Federations of North America

I want to know if people spouting pro Zionist BS really believe what they are spouting. I can’t believe that anyone could look at Israel cutting off all food and water to gaze is not intent on killing people. Maybe James Comey can weigh in on this intent.

Speaking of….. a blast from the past.

Seven ways FBI contradicted Clinton’s email claims

The Justice Department this week exonerated Clinton of allegations that she mishandled classified information.

But in the process, FBI Director James Comey opened the door to new charges that she lied to Congress and the American public.

Republican lawmakers are promising to refer to the FBI potential misstatements that Clinton made under oath during an 11-hour testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. That referral could lead to a new investigation, once again putting Clinton under the glare of the Justice Department.

Here are some of the statements Clinton has said on Capitol Hill and elsewhere contradicted by the FBI this week:

While Peter Navarro reported to prison today, Eric Holder, Lois Lynch and many other people who defied congressional subpoenas are laughing their buttocks off because they were never prosecuted for doing the same damn thing.

As are Brennan and Clapper who both lied to Congress numerous times. Brennan said that none of Obama’s 26,000 bombs killed a single civilian. Clapper said that the NSA doesn’t spy on the American people and then he went on the Telly and admitted that he didn’t tell the truth, but gave the most truthful answer he could.

There are many others who should have been prosecuted, but weren’t. Even Trump failed to prosecute people who should have been.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 7:48pm
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@snoopydawg

Or ‘America really does have 2 justice systems'

Guilty!—But Not Really Guilty?

In 2011, then Homeland Security Advisor to President Obama, John Brennan, swore before Congress that drone-targeted assassination missions near the Pakistani border had not led to “a single collateral death.”

That was an obvious lie with grave consequences, given that Brennan was sworn under oath and was one of the top officials in the US national security community. Yet there were no subsequent repercussions.

But the next year, once again, Brennan lied to Congress, assuring the Senate Intelligence Committee that his CIA had not secretly accessed senate staffers’ computers.

In 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also lied under oath to Congress when he laughably stated that the National Security Agency did not spy on American citizens. Later, when called out by senators, Clapper fudged in a televised interview. “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying no.” Try that contortion with the IRS.

The Justice Department’s Inspector General concluded that Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director and interim director, had lied repeatedly to a variety of officials, including FBI Director James Comey, various FBI agents, and officials of the Office of the Inspector General.

On some of these occasions, McCabe was sworn under oath.

Subsequently, she destroyed thousands of emails and some devices, some of which were under subpoena. FBI Director James Comey found that “any reasonable person” should have known it was illegal to transmit classified information in such a sloppy fashion.

Comey, however, found that “Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

In addition, the Office of the Inspector General of the Justice Department found that Comey had broken the law by violating both DOJ and FBI policies, as well as the FBI’s employment agreement—especially by retaining in his personal safe copies of four bureau memos concerning a confidential conversation with President Trump. Despite the damning IG report, the (Trump) Department of Justice chose not to prosecute Comey.

Hur noted that Biden had unlawfully and knowingly removed and retained classified files since his senate days—or possibly over a half-century. Biden had also removed the files to multiple locations, few of which were secure.

In addition, Biden was on tape at least as early as 2017, admitting that he was in violation of the law. Yet he did not come forward for nearly six years. And when he did contact authorities, it was only in fear that his own DOJ’s special counsel was soon to indict Trump for the very same exposure—willfully retaining files at his home that he knew were classified.

His mind is gone

Translated, Biden was likely guilty but, in Hur’s view, too cognitively challenged and thus too sympathetic a figure to be found guilty—but apparently not enough impaired to serve as President of the United States.

Finally, we come to the case of Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutor Fani Willis. Judge Scott McAfee chose not to remove her from leveraging a racketeering charge against Trump despite clear evidence that she had lied under oath and was likely guilty of obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and fraud.

What are the common denominators of such exempted criminality?

First, we can start by identifying those who were not exempted due to an asymmetrical application of our laws. Trump advisor Peter Navarro was convicted and sentenced to jail for failure to obey a congressional subpoena in the manner that both Eric Holder and Hunter Biden were not.

Trump was indicted for making false statements in a manner that Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Wade, and Willis were not. Biden disclosed classified materials. Comey likely did as well. And Clinton clearly violated the law by knowingly using an unsecured server for classified material. None were indicted.

Almost all the prosecutorial decisions not to pursue these guilty parties—a McCabe, a Comey, a Brennan—are couched with excuses and contextualizations rarely, if ever, offered to most Americans.

Our criminal justice system no longer treats the accused equally under the law. If the defendant is deemed a conservative, like a Michael Flynn, Peter Navarro, or Donald Trump, then the full force of prosecution falls upon them.

But if a Biden, Brennan, Clapper, Clinton, Holder, or Willis, then the state contorts itself to find excuses, exemptions, and mitigating circumstances not to pursue justice

Clinton met with Lynch while her office was investigating his wife and then Comey charged the wording in his report from grossly negligent to a lesser charge and she walked off into the woods carrying a glass of wine in one hand and the Sword of Damocles in the other.

Say again, Pelosi? No one is above the law in America.

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Submitted by joe shikspack on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 7:43pm
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@snoopydawg

heh, the brennan center name is for justice william j. brennan, not spook john o. brennan.

the brennan center and the aclu both used to be useful institutions. sad to see them slip into irrelevance carried by the currents of politics.

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Submitted by lotlizard on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 8:09pm
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@joe shikspack  
After all, U.S. “democracy” or “justice” isn’t “the real McCoy” — it just plays one on TV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_McCoys

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 8:18pm
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@lotlizard

That’s brilliant and so spot on! Thanks for the chuckle.

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Submitted by lotlizard on Thu, 03/21/2024 - 1:44pm
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@snoopydawg  
You always are a bright spot and have something uplifting to say.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 8:23pm
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@joe shikspack

Seems like all the once good organizations have been captured by the PTB. I do not get how people can sell out their principles. But like the first article I posted says, when a door is closed a window opens. Other groups are stepping up.

The Supremes have made some bad decisions in the past, but boy if they gut the 1st amendment it’s game over. The game has been on life support since the patriot act and the only right still really standing is the 2nd. But many states have been going after it. So far the court has stood behind it.

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

Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 9:48pm
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@joe shikspack

Or two other possibilities: the court sides with the Biden administration and for censorship, or simply kicks the can down the road to wait for the trial phase. In that case, the core problem could stay in litigation for many years!

Does the court hold the trial or does it mean a jury trial? And if a jury trial which district is it held in? If it’s Washington, home of TDS we’re screwed. Unless it’s held during his 2nd term and people are afraid to give him that much power.

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

Submitted by joe shikspack on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 10:18pm
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@snoopydawg

lets look at what the issues the scotus was addressing:

Issue: (1) Whether respondents have Article III standing; (2) whether the government’s challenged conduct transformed private social media companies’ content-moderation decisions into state action and violated respondents’ First Amendment rights; and (3) whether the terms and breadth of the preliminary injunction are proper.

so it looks like this engagement is a preliminary fight. contested is whether the plaintiffs have standing to bring the suit - a no will eject the suit from the system. issue 2 looks like a request for determination of how to classify the administration's actions (obviously plaintiffs and government characterize them differently). and issue 3 looks like a government challenge to an injunction issued by a lower court.

so, i am guessing that if the scotus says the plaintiffs have standing and that there is something hinky about the government's actions then the case will continue working its way through the system below the scotus level. how they decide on issue 3 will determine whether the government has to knock off bullying social media while the case proceeds.

maybe otc will correct me if i got something wrong.

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Submitted by on the cusp on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 10:24pm

@joe shikspack n/t

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

Submitted by snoopydawg on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 10:29pm
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@joe shikspack

I understand now. The other thing is what if the court rules against Biden, but he keeps doing it anyway. There is no one who can hold him accountable unless congress decides to impeach him. That won’t fly unless republicans win big in both houses.

My guess is democrats will hold the house and republicans the senate. Both parties like that arrangement because then neither have to do anything. The only thing they are doing now is voting or not to give defense industries more money.

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

Submitted by joe shikspack on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 10:51pm
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@snoopydawg

The other thing is what if the court rules against Biden, but he keeps doing it anyway. There is no one who can hold him accountable unless congress decides to impeach him. That won’t fly unless republicans win big in both houses.

then it's up to the people. they can hold a sort of "people's impeachment" of the whole government, if necessary.

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Submitted by on the cusp on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 10:54pm

@joe shikspack a few times before, iirc.

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

Submitted by soryang on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 10:11pm
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...to Irish independence, UK suppression efforts, and then the UK moving on to Zionist project. The US inherited the imperial mantle. I never understood why US elites and other power trippers were so enamored of the UK. The model of aristocratic rule over a world empire was the big attraction I suppose. My ancestors also suffered under British rule. Fortunately they left Ireland before WWI.

Imperial Japan followed the Cromer model of UK imperial rule over Egypt and US and UK gunboat diplomacy in East Asia. Eventually resulted in WWII in the Pacific.

Tim Shorrock hasn't posted on X since Mar 17, I hope he's well. So I took a look at Simone Chun's thread for stories. She has pinned to her thread a Counterpunch piece she did a while back on the strategic significance and risks of the new JAKUS partnership (Japan, Korea, US); sounds like?

She also had a link to a Hankyoreh lengthy article on Yoon's former defense minister fleeing to Australia as the new ambassador to escape a legal investigation of obstruction of justice before the election. It appears he already may have discarded his hand phone to hide evidence of presidential complicity. He did give his new phone to investigators before he left the country.

The South Korean presidential office senior secretary had to resign after the public uproar against the not so subtle threats he directed at left of center MBC reporters.

I noticed Aircraft Spots (on his twitter thread) used to have excellent open source positioning data on US air operations in East Asia, stopped reporting for all practical purposes last year sometime. Looks like he signed off on Feb 10 for "lack of interest."

The Roosevelt CSG is in the South China Sea, near Singapore according to USNI, while the USS America amphibious assault group is in Okinawa. Singapore is of course proximate to the Malacca Straits, the choke point for "strangling China." The USS Reagan CSG is in port Yokosuka Japan. The Eisenhower CSG is in the Red Sea. I once wanted to work in Yokosuka. I count myself lucky that I never did.

Thanks for the EBs Joe!

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Submitted by joe shikspack on Wed, 03/20/2024 - 10:39pm
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@soryang

heh:

I never understood why US elites and other power trippers were so enamored of the UK.

my theory is that the ruling elites secretly envied the brits for heritable titles and other goodies granted by a monarchy. the u.s. elites quickly sought to convince the little people that they were people of special merit but feared that everyone would find out the truth that they were the usual corrupt, power hungry grifters that always float to the top. an inherited title is some protection from the discovery that a given member of the ruling elite is merely another upper class twit of no special ability except having been born into a monied or otherwise powerful family.

thanks for the video and the asian region updates!

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