The Evening Blues - 4-26-24
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features New Orleans piano player, singer and songwriter Larry Williams. Enjoy!
Larry Williams - Marie, Marie
"It’s just a tough situation, with victims on both sides. On one side you’ve got people being slaughtered in droves by genocidal massacres and siege warfare, while on the other you’ve got people whose feelings get hurt when these atrocities are opposed. Hard to say which is worse."
-- Caitlin Johnstone
News and Opinion
Chris Hedges: Revolt in the Universities
Student protesters across the country exhibit a moral and physical courage — many are facing suspension and expulsion — that shames every major institution in the country. They are dangerous not because they disrupt campus life or engage in attacks on Jewish students — many of those protesting are Jewish — but because they expose the abject failure by the ruling elites and their institutions to halt genocide, the crime of crimes. These students watch, like most of us, Israel’s live-streamed slaughter of the Palestinian people. But unlike most of us, they act. Their voices and protests are a potent counterpoint to the moral bankruptcy that surrounds them.
Not one university president has denounced Israel’s destruction of every university in Gaza. Not one university president has called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire. Not one university president has used the words “apartheid” or “genocide.” Not one university president has called for sanctions and divestment from Israel.
Instead, heads of these academic institutions grovel supinely before wealthy donors, corporations — including weapons manufacturers — and rabid right-wing politicians. They reframe the debate around harm to Jews rather than the daily slaughter of Palestinians, including thousands of children. They have allowed the abusers — the Zionist state and its supporters — to paint themselves as victims. This false narrative, which focuses on anti-Semitism, allows the centers of power, including the media, to block out the real issue — genocide. It contaminates the debate. It is a classic case of “reactive abuse.” Raise your voice to decry injustice, react to prolonged abuse, attempt to resist, and the abuser suddenly transforms themself into the aggrieved. ...
There are many shameful periods in American history. The genocide we carried out against indigenous peoples. Slavery. The violent suppression of the labor movement that saw hundreds of workers killed. Lynching. Jim and Jane Crow. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya.
The genocide in Gaza, which we fund and support, is of such monstrous proportions that it will achieve a prominent place in this pantheon of crimes.
History will not be kind to most of us. But it will bless and revere these students.
Former NYT Middle East correspondent Chris Hedges was reading a poem for Palestinian children at Princeton's protest for Gaza when campus police appeared to interrupt him.
He was just led away from the protest to chants of "shame" and "let him speak." pic.twitter.com/qq0n3rzNlB
— Jesse Bunch (@JesseBunch_) April 25, 2024
US troops begin construction of Gaza aid pier as questions remain over distribution
US troops have begun construction of a maritime pier off the coast of Gaza that aims to speed the flow of humanitarian aid into the territory, the Pentagon has said, but the complex plan to bring more desperately needed food to Palestinian civilians is still mired in fears over security and how the aid will be delivered. “I can confirm that US military vessels, to include the USNS Benavidez, have begun to construct the initial stages of the temporary pier and causeway at sea,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj Gen Patrick Ryder told reporters.
About 1,000 US troops will support the military effort, including in coordination cells in Cyprus and Israel. The US president, Joe Biden, has ordered forces to not step foot on the Gaza shore. A third party will be driving trucks down the pier on to the beach.
Concerns about the risk to American troops getting caught up in the conflict were underscored on Thursday as news emerged of a mortar attack near the area where the pier will eventually touch ground. No US forces were present, however a UN team inspecting the site were forced to take shelter. In a statement, the Israeli military said it would provide security and logistics support for the pier and an Israeli military brigade, which includes thousands of soldiers, along with Israeli Navy ships and air force, would work to protect US troops who are setting up the pier.
A senior US military official told reporters that the US is on track to begin delivering aid using the new port and pier by early May. The official said deliveries through the sea route initially will total about 90 trucks a day and could quickly increase to about 150 trucks daily. Aid groups have said they have broad concerns about their safety and reservations about how Israeli forces will handle security.
Israel escalates war with Lebanon, plans Rafah invasion
Israel’s conflict with Lebanon is entering a “different phase” of “higher-intensity conflict”, in the assessment of Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Marjayoun in southern Lebanon. She writes that, on Wednesday, “Israel carried out the largest number of strikes in a single day,” hitting 40 separate targets with fighter jets and artillery. The assault continued into the early hours of Thursday morning, targeting not just southern Lebanon but also the east of the country.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told reporters, “Half of the Hezbollah commanders in south Lebanon have been eliminated… and the other half hide and abandon south Lebanon to [Israel Defense Forces] IDF operations.” An official IDF statement explained that the strikes were not carried out in response to any specific attack but as “part of the effort to destroy the organization’s infrastructure in the border area.”
Roughly 250 Hezbollah fighters have been killed since the latest round of fighting began after October 7, and more than 70 Lebanese civilians. Over 90,000 have been displaced, forced to leave around 100 southern towns and villages under threat of bombardment, and hundreds of acres of farmland damaged.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned Thursday after visiting the country and writing of “communities suffering throughout,” that tensions in Lebanon “are on the brink of exploding. It simply cannot continue like this.” He went on, “People fleeing southern villages in search of a safe place end up in overcrowded shelters. Their livelihoods have been destroyed, but we have insufficient funding to help them. There is a feeling of desperation…
“People must be able to go back to their homes and jobs, farmers to their lands, and children to their schools. Families and children are being caught at the centre of a regional crisis here.”
These are the consequences of initial skirmishes heralding a major and far more destructive war. Haaretz’s Ravit Hecht wrote Thursday that the Israeli government is “signalling that after the Rafah operation, whose duration nobody knows, the army will deploy for a more substantial campaign up north to push Hezbollah away from the border”. She cited one government minister as saying, “First Rafah, then Hezbollah, then Iran.”
No Outside Probe, US Reiterates as Gazans Reportedly Buried Alive in Mass Grave
A Biden administration spokesperson once again brushed off calls for an independent investigation into how hundreds of Palestinians found in mass graves near Gaza hospitals died when asked Thursday about new reports that many of the victims were tortured, summarily executed—and in some cases, buried alive by Israeli invaders.
During a Thursday U.S. State Department press conference in Washington, D.C., a reporter noted Gaza officials' claim that mass grave victims "including children were tortured before being killed" and that "some even showed signs of being buried alive, along with other crimes against humanity."
Noting calls by Palestinian officials and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk for an independent probe into mass graves, the reporter said that "this administration repeatedly said that it asks... the Israeli government to investigate itself."
"How does it ever make sense that the United States asks the accused party to examine itself and provide reports that you have previously said that you actually trust?" the reporter asked State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel. "What's wrong with an independent, scientific, forensic investigation?"
Patel replied: "We continue to find these reports incredibly troubling. And that's why yesterday you saw the national security adviser for this to be thoroughly investigated."
Reporter: Evidence at Gaza mass graves show torture and signs of being buried alive, Palestinians called for an independent investigation, what’s wrong with that?
Patel: We’re asking Israel
Reporter: You’re asking the accused to investigate itself?
Patel: We’re asking Israel pic.twitter.com/fIWO3MHPwv
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) April 25, 2024
While National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Wednesday called reports of mass grave atrocities "deeply disturbing" and said that "we want answers" from Israel, he did not call for an independent investigation.
When the reporter pressed Patel on the legitimacy of asking Israel to investigate itself, Patel said, "we believe that through a thorough investigation we can get some additional answers."
Thursday's exchange followed a similar back-and-forth on Tuesday between Patel and Said Arikat, a journalist for the Jerusalem-based Palestinian news outlet al-Quds who asked about the mass graves.
At least 392 bodies—including numerous women and children—have been found in mass graves outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, where Palestinian Civil Defense and other workers have been exhuming victims for nearly a week. Officials believe there are as many as 700 bodies in three separate mass graves.
Based on more recent exhumations, local Civil Defense chief Yamen Abu Sulaiman said during a Wednesday press conference that "we believe that the occupation buried alive at least 20 people at the Nasser Medical Complex."
"There are cases of field execution of some patients while undergoing surgeries and wearing surgical gowns," he stated, adding that some victims showed signs of torture and 10 bodies had medical tubes attached to them.
Gaza Civil Defense official Mohammed Mughier told reporters that "we need forensic examination" to definitively determine the causes of death for the 20 people believed to have been buried alive.
Previous reporting on the mass graves quoted rescue workers who said they found people who were apparently executed while their hands were bound, with some victims missing heads, skin, and internal organs.
Other mass graves have been found in Gaza, most notably on the grounds of al-Shifa Hospital, where Israeli forces last month committed what the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor called "one of the largest massacres in Palestinian history."
It's also not the first time there have been reports of Israeli troops burying victims alive during the current war, in which Palestinian and international officials say Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 122,000 Gazans, including at least 11,000 people who are missing and feared dead. Israeli forces attacking Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia last December reportedly bulldozed and buried alive dozens of injured patients and displaced people.
‘Israel hates the people of Gaza so much because they refuse to vanish’
Atlanta Police Violently Arrest Emory Students & Faculty to Clear Gaza Solidarity Encampment
Police allegedly use rubber bullets and teargas at university protest in Georgia
Police have carried out multiple violent arrests at Emory University in Decatur, Georgia, in what appears to be the first campus crackdown in recent days to involve rubber bullets and teargas after students set up an encampment in solidarity with Palestine and against Cop City.
On Thursday, Emory students set up multiple tents on the campus’s lawns in protest against the university’s ties to Israel, as well Atlanta’s Cop City, a police and fire department training center that is being constructed on a 171-acre plot in a forest south-east of Atlanta.
In a statement released on Mondoweiss, student organizers wrote, “We are students across multiple Atlanta universities and community members organizing against Cop City and the genocide of Palestinians at the hands of US imperialism. We are demanding total institutional divestment from Israeli apartheid and Cop City at all Atlanta colleges and universities.”
The statement accused the university of being uniquely “complicit in genocide and police militarization” and said the protesters’ fight against Cop City “is interconnected with global movements against oppressive state practices, most notably the Palestinian struggle for liberation”.
You cannot stop an idea whose time has come.
End apartheid. End this genocide. Free Palestine. Free them all. End white supremacy. End racism everywhere. End settler colonialism. pic.twitter.com/AMobAA5zII
— Rupa Marya, MD (@DrRupaMarya) April 25, 2024
CAMPUS CRACKDOWN After ADL Says Protestors Foreign Terrorists
House speaker condemned for remarks on pro-Palestine student protests
Progressive activists have condemned Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, for “willfully spreading misinformation” and “inciting violence” in a TV interview about student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
Johnson, who was booed and heckled during a press conference at Columbia University on Wednesday, when he said Hamas “backed” the protests in a CNN interview. There is no evidence Hamas has had any role in the student protests, though the organization has praised the demonstration. The Republican went on to make sweeping, incendiary claims: “Some of these students apparently are unaware of the atrocities of October 7 or they’re denying it.
“They deny that women and children were brutally raped and murdered, that infants were placed into ovens and cooked alive. The things that happened there are unspeakable and yet they’re out there waving flags for the very people who committed those atrocities. That is not who we are.”
The assertion that infants were cooked alive in ovens during Hamas’s attack on 7 October, which left 1,200 people dead and 240 taken hostage, is hugely controversial and widely disputed, apparently stemming from an unverified report of one such alleged case that spread on social media. Johnson’s remarks were attacked by Justice Democrats, a progressive group that has been sharply critical of Israel’s conduct of the war.
Usamah Andrabi, a spokesman, said on Thursday: “Republican extremists like Mike Johnson, and the Democrats aligning with them, are willfully spreading misinformation and inciting violence against young people who are peacefully protesting a genocide. “Instead of doing anything to stop the US-funded assault on Gaza that has destroyed every university and killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians – almost half of which are children – and brought widespread famine and destruction, our elected leaders are attacking college students in tents for having more moral clarity than any of them have shown in the halls of power.”
This video is unbelievable.
Students and teachers are being arrested for protesting US support for atrocities in Gaza. Now reporters are getting assaulted and arrested for covering the protests. But remember, democracy is on the ballot.pic.twitter.com/Gsl1zbnPKq
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) April 24, 2024
USC cancels main commencement ceremony amid Gaza protests
The University of Southern California (USC) has canceled its main stage graduation ceremony, citing new safety measures as student protests over the Israel-Gaza war have surged on the campus. ... Police arrested dozens of students and activists at USC this week on trespassing charges. ...
USC announced the move to cancel its ceremony on Thursday, a day after more than 90 protesters were arrested on campus. The ceremony was scheduled for 10 May. The university already canceled a planned commencement speech by the school’s pro-Palestinian valedictorian, citing safety concerns. ...
The Los Angeles police department said more than 90 people were arrested on Wednesday night during a protest on the campus for alleged trespassing. One person was arrested for alleged assault with a deadly weapon.
Elsewhere in Los Angeles, a new protest camp sprung up at UCLA in California, with local news reports saying dozens of tents were erected on Thursday morning. Video posted on social media showed a large number of students at what appeared to be a peaceful rally.
INTEL RoundTable: Weekly Intel Wrap-Up
Congressworms appear to be in competition to spew the most inflammatory rhetoric about protests ...
Senior Democrat calls for arrests of ‘leftwing fascists’ urging Gaza ceasefire
Protesters calling for Israel to cease fire in its war with Hamas who have disrupted US public events and infrastructure are practicing “leftwing fascism” or “leftwing totalitarianism”, a senior US House Democrat said, adding that such protesters are “challenging representative democracy” and should be arrested.
“Intimidation is the tactic,” said Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the House armed services committee. “Intimidation and an effort to silence opposition … I don’t know if there’s such a thing as leftwing fascism. If you want to just call it leftwing totalitarianism, then that’s what it is. It is a direct challenge to representative democracy now.”
Smith was speaking – before the outbreak this week of mass protests on US college campuses, many producing arrests – to the One Decision Podcast and its guest host Christina Ruffini, a CBS News reporter. Ruffini asked Smith about protests in his district, including vandalism at his home and a town hall meeting disrupted by protesters demanding an end to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza prompted by attacks by Hamas on 7 October. ...
“What they are trying to do is they are trying to silence opposition and intimidate decision-makers. I’ve been doing town hall meetings for 34 years now, in some pretty hotly contested environments … [but] I have never had a town hall that I couldn’t keep under control enough so that people had the chance to say their piece.
“But [the protesters’] goal and their objective was not to get their point across. It was to silence anyone who dared to disagree with them, to make sure that only one voice was heard. And their other goal was to intimidate. That’s why they’re showing up at member’s houses.”
Columbia Students File Civil Rights Complaint After Arrests, National Guard Threat
A day after Columbia University officials warned it may call on the National Guard to remove nonviolent student protesters who have been occupying campus lawns since last week in solidarity with Gaza, advocacy group Palestine Legal on Thursday filed a federal civil rights complaint demanding an investigation into the school's "discriminatory treatment of Palestinian students and their allies."
The school discriminated against pro-Palestinian protesters last week when President Minouche Shafik summoned New York Police Department officers in riot gear to arrest more than 100 students, said Palestine Legal.
The complaint details how the escalation against students, who have set up an encampment on campus to demand Columbia divest from companies that work with the Israeli government and to support calls for a cease-fire in Gaza, is part of a monthslong pattern of the university's targeting of pro-Palestinian students.
According to Palestine Legal, students of all backgrounds who have demanded an end to Israel's U.S.-backed massacre of Palestinians in Gaza "have been the target of extreme anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic harassment, including receiving multiple death threats, being harassed for wearing keffiyehs or hijab, doxxed, stereotyped, being treated differently by high-ranking administrators including... Shafik, an attack with a chemical agent that led to at least 10 students requiring hospitalization and dozens of others, including a Palestinian student, seeking medical attention, and more."
Columbia student Maryam Alwan, who Palestine Legal is representing in the complaint to the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, said the university has "utterly failed to protect [her] from racism and abuse."
"Beyond that, the university has also played a role in this repression by having me arrested and suspended for peacefully protesting Israel's genocide in Gaza," said Alwan. "The violent repression we're facing as peaceful anti-war protesters is appalling. Palestinian students at Columbia deserve justice and accountability, not only for Israel's decadeslong oppression and violence against our people, but for the racism and discrimination we've experienced here on Columbia's campus."
Palestine Legal is representing four students in the case, as well as Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, which was suspended from the campus late last year after holding anti-war protests.
The group called Columbia's threat to call in the National Guard "gravely concerning."
"Columbia's vicious crackdown on student protests calling for Palestinian freedom amidst an ongoing genocide should alarm us all. Students have always been at the forefront of the most pressing social issues of the day," said Palestine Legal staff attorney Sabiya Ahamed.
College campuses have been the sites of frequent pro-Palestinian protests since October, and the NYPD's crackdown on Columbia students last week galvanized students at universities across the country.
The Biden administration has said little about the student demonstrations, but President Joe Biden referred to them broadly as "antisemitic protests" this week.
"We urge federal civil rights officials to do what Columbia has disgracefully failed to," said Ahamed. "Ensure the rights of Palestinian and allied students are protected at a moment when their voices are most essential."
Larry Johnson Briefing of the UNSC: Deciphering the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage
Stock markets fall after sharp US growth slowdown
America’s leading stock indices came under pressure on Thursday after official data revealed that US economic growth slowed sharply to its weakest rate in almost two years. But as high interest rates take their toll on the world’s largest economy, inflation continues to loom large. ...
Gross domestic product increased at an annualized rate of 1.6% in the first quarter, significantly short of the 2.4% rate expected by economists.
But a closely watched measure of inflation also rose faster than anticipated, raising questions about the Federal Reserve’s next steps in its fight to bring down price growth.
The so-called “core” personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index – which strips out volatile food and energy costs – rose 3.7% in the first three months of the year, according to a report published by the commerce department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The same measure rose by 2% in the last quarter of 2023. While economists had expected an acceleration, the reading was higher than the average 3.4% forecast.
ByteDance would shut down TikTok in US rather than sell it, sources say
ByteDance would prefer to shut down TikTok rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the US, four sources said.
The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance’s overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely, said the sources close to the parent.
Though TikTok is ultra-popular, boasting more than a billion users, it still operates at a loss, accounting for a small share of ByteDance’s total revenues and daily active users. The parent company would rather have the app shut down in the US in a worst-case scenario than sell it to a potential American buyer, they said.
A shutdown would have limited impact on ByteDance’s business, while the company would not have to give up its core algorithm, said the sources, who declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
ByteDance said late on Thursday in a statement posted on Toutiao, a media platform it owns, that it had no plan to sell TikTok, in response to an article by The Information saying ByteDance is exploring scenarios for selling TikTok’s US business without the algorithm that recommends videos to TikTok users.
US supreme court eyes returning Trump immunity claim to lower court after arguments
The US supreme court on Thursday expressed interest in returning Donald Trump’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election back to a lower court to decide whether certain parts of the indictment were “official acts” that were protected by presidential immunity.
During oral arguments, the justices appeared unlikely to grant Trump’s request for absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, with both Trump’s lawyer and the justice department’s lawyer agreeing there were certain private acts that presidents would have no protection for.
But the chief justice, John Roberts, and the conservative justices suggested that presidents should have some level of immunity and would favor the presiding trial judge in the case deciding whether any acts in the indictment were official and should be expunged.
The subsequent questions explored how to decide what actions were official and what actions were purely private, potentially to develop a test for a lower court to apply to the indictment, and whether a test should consider Trump’s motives or purely objective facts.
If the supreme court remands the matter back to the presiding US district court judge Tanya Chutkan, it would almost certainly inject new delay into the case that could preclude it from going to trial before the November election .
‘Privileged access’: pro-plastic lobbyists at UN pollution talks increase by a third
The number of fossil fuel and petrochemical industry lobbyists has increased by more than a third at UN talks to agree the first global treaty to cut plastic pollution, analysis shows.
Most plastic is made from fossil fuels via a chemical process known as cracking, and 196 lobbyists from both industries are at the UN talks in Ottawa, Canada, where countries are attempting to come to an agreement to curb plastic production as part of a treaty to cut global plastic waste, according to analysis by the Center for International Environmental Law (Ciel).
The 196 lobbyists registered for the talks represent a 37% increase from the 143 lobbyists registered at the last talks, in Nairobi. This in turn was a 36% increase on the previous year’s number. Increased plastic production is a major part of the fossil fuel industry’s plans for the future, and any attempts to curb production, such as those being discussed at the UN talks, are an obvious threat to their profits.
According to Carbon Tracker, BP expects plastics to represent 95% of net growth in oil demand from 2020 to 2040, and the International Energy Agency estimates plastic demand will make up 45% of growth for oil and gas mining to 2040. Fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists are also gaining greater access to sessions with member states to push their agenda, according to Ciel. They outnumber the delegates from the European Union, and there are three times more fossil fuel and chemical industry lobbyists than independent scientists from the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastic Treaty. ...
“Some may argue that everyone enjoys equal access, but that is simply not true. Lobbyists are appearing on country delegations and are gaining privileged access to member-state-only sessions, where sensitive discussions unfold behind closed doors,” Delphine Lévi Alvarès, global petrochemicals campaign coordinator at Ciel said. “Beyond the troubling number of lobbyists present at the negotiation talks, behind-the-scenes industry lobbying activities and events take place around the world in the months leading up to negotiations.”
New rule compels US coal-fired power plants to capture emissions – or shut down
Coal-fired power plants would be forced to capture smokestack emissions or shut down under a rule issued on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). New limits on greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric plants are the Biden administration’s most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the power sector, the nation’s second-largest contributor to the climate crisis. The rules are a key part of Joe Biden’s pledge to eliminate carbon pollution from the electricity sector by 2035 and economy-wide by 2050.
The rule was among four separate measures targeting coal and natural gas plants that the EPA said would provide “regular certainty” to the power industry and encourage them to make investments to transition “to a clean energy economy”. They also include requirements to reduce toxic wastewater pollutants from coal-fired plants and to safely manage so-called coal ash in unlined storage ponds.
The new rules “reduce pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants, protect communities from pollution and improve public health – all while supporting the long-term, reliable supply of the electricity needed to power America forward”, the EPA administrator, Michael Regan, told reporters at a White House briefing.
The plan is likely to be challenged by industry groups and Republican-leaning states. They have repeatedly accused the Democratic administration of overreach on environmental regulations and have warned of a looming reliability crisis for the electric grid. The rules issued on Thursday are among at least a half-dozen EPA regulations limiting power plant emissions and wastewater pollution. ...
The power plant rule marks the first time the federal government has restricted carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired power plants. The rule also would force future electric plants fueled by coal or gas to control up to 90% of their carbon pollution. The new standards will stave off 1.38bn metric tons of carbon pollution through 2047, equivalent to the annual emissions of 328m gas cars, the EPA said, and will provide hundreds of billions of dollars in climate and health benefits, measured in fewer premature deaths, asthma cases, and lost work or school days.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Biden Increases Spying on Americans
Quashing University Protests And Banning TikTok To Make The Kids Love Israel
US penalties aren’t stopping Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians
UK Armed Israel Days After IDF Killed 3 UK Aid Workers
Yemen’s Houthis Target Two Ships in Gulf of Aden
Pentagon Confirms Delayed Withdrawal Of U.S. Troops From Niger
Michael Tracey: America First, or Ukraine First?
Flint residents grapple with water crisis a decade later: ‘If we had the energy left, we’d cry’
Michigan doctor who revealed Flint water crisis now takes on child poverty
“People Are Going to Die”: Supreme Court Case on Idaho Abortion Ban Threatens ER Care Across U.S.
Zionist EMBARRASSS Herself at Pro-Palestine Protest
A Little Night Music
Larry Williams - Bony Moronie
Larry Williams - She Said Yeah
Larry Williams - Short Fat Fannie
Larry Williams - Dizzy Miss Lizzy
Larry Williams - Bad Boy
Larry Williams - Let Me Tell You, Baby
Larry Williams - Oh Baby
Larry Williams - Peaches And Cream
Larry Williams - Boss Lovin'
Larry Williams - Slow Down
Comments
the best friend of US in the middle east
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is caught doing mass murder
and trying to bury their crimes
with friends like that
who needs enemies?
thanks for the EB's joe
I gotta just chill
evening qms...
yep, it just goes to show that bibi is no silver-tongued, barack "we tortured some folks" obama.
Hey wait just one minute
Just last Feb. Atlanta police claimed they were understaffed but showed up in force to take down peaceful protesters. Next time I see a violent crime going to call the cops and tell them there is a peaceful protest, please come and protect me.
evening mr w...
sounds like a viable strategy.
have a great evening!
The Jewish students who have been arrested
.
should sue their university for anti semitism and the cops for brutality assaulting them. They should take what Bibi says and turn it against him.
"leftwing totalitarianism"
But of course Smith will demand that all the people who are being accused of leftwing totalitarianism should vote for Biden anyway. I don’t think that’s going to go over well.
Jonathan Cook says that the focus on the protests by Bibi, Johnson, et al is to keep the mass graves stories buried.
Naked Capitalism has a lot of good tweets about the protests.
Mr. Fish from the Hedges article.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
evening snoopy...
heh, if you read the article about smith, he seems to think that what needs to happen is for these citizens "to be heard" by their representatives. they don't need remedies for their greivances, they just need "to be heard."
Ah yes, getting back to messaging
-
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massage the mind and there will be no troubles
in some made-up universe for mass consumption
sheesh
A song for your thoughts
“When there's no fight over programme, the election becomes a casting exercise. Trump's win is the unstoppable consequence of this situation.” - Jean-Luc Melanchon
More on the Israel-Iran attack
.
Fact or fiction?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
yeah...
i don't know how much credit to give the story at this point. some folks that i generally feel are pretty accurate are panning the story for what seem to be pretty good, logical reasons, so i'm waiting for some more evidence one way or the other.
it seems to me that if this really happened, we'd be seeing some sort of israeli retaliation against russia in syria and we haven't seen that yet.
hell, the news feeds wouldn't tell us
-
-
if Bibi had a neutron bomb stuck in his butt
although that would be a good visual for a
cartoonist
Sloppy ill-written story raises doubts
"Netanyahu had cut a deal with Biden allowing Israel to explode a ‘salted’ nuclear weapon over Jordan."
But: "Backing up Israel was Jordan"
That makes NO sense. Jordan agreeing to allow itself to be bombed back to the 19th century or worse? Does not compute.
Now if the author(s) meant "over Iran", there might be some logic to it - but they should have said so.
I have also never heard - but of course the Lying Media would never tell us - that there was any use of EMPs in (or before, or after) 2015 in Yemen or anywhere else, by Israel or anyone else. Israel tip its hand that blatantly and show that it does so have nukes, when it has spent decade upon decade obfuscating the issue? That does not compute either.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Yay…
.
No probable cause.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
well, it's a start...
on the other hand, the lazy cops have 2 years to clean up their paperwork and file it properly.
If they would pay for the gas and motel
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
All hail
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Well that has gotten me to change my mind
.
I’ma going to vote for Biden now…l
A few replies say Biden remembers when Beau died playing NFL football. Others say that he is holding an Australian football.
Geez how lame!
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs. It's Friday night
and things aren't really looking up any, though, of course, they aren't really looking too much worse either. At least this generation's youth is beginning to understand that the government isn't their friend and has no respect for their rights or welfare. It's a start.
Have a great weekend.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
yep, it's been a week of pretty awful news and i can only hope that people are waking up. i guess we'll see.
have a great weekend!
Evening joe and bluesters
That’s some pretty heavy snark and insight from Caitlin.
I'd love to know what Dustin Hoffman has to say about plastics now.
Cheers all
evening janis...
yep, i appreciate caitlin's snark, it seems to me that it drives the point home and maybe gets past people's internal censors because it's humor.
heh, plastics used to be the future, now they're the end.
Hi bluesters
Hi all, Hey Joe,
GREAT artist, awesome tunes Joe! This guy wrote some outstanding songs. I always loved the Beatles "Slow Down" and Dizzy Miss Lizzy. And the Stones She Said Yeah was great too. For Bony Maronie I will go with Johnny Winter's version. He killed it. When you have THAT crowd covering yer stuff, you made it! Too bad his personal life was a bit of a wreck.
At least the plastics lobbyists are in numbers to ensure good outcomes, for them. Yeah that cat )(catalytic) cracker is the single most dangerous place on a refinery. When I worked as a laborer at one it was clear, the old-timers were nervous of the dang thing. I was 18 and didn't do it for long as I felt I would eventually ride a shock wave out of the place, into heaven no doubt.
Don't worry about scrubbing the air clean at coal plants, that will get undone before it starts.
Thanks for the great tunes! Have a great weekend!
Happy trails all!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
evening dystopian...
in a town with some amazing songwriters, williams really stands out. yeah, his personal demons cut short his career, but look at what he accomplished in a pretty short span of years. he's definitely part of the american songbook.
heh, i used to think that there were too many plastic people, and now, given the plastic content in people's bodies, it's pretty much true.
have a great weekend!
Hey Joe,
Thanks again for the great sounds!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
Larry Johnson"s speech to the UN
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if interested in his words instead of watching the video.
https://sonar21.com/my-speech-to-the-unsc-regarding-nord-steam/
First thought was how exciting for him to speak to the UN, but then how sad that America has made it mockery of the robust body. There’s another word, but I can’t think of it. But America uses it as its own tool and it ignores whenever it’s convenient for it to. It uses it to punish countries that isn’t minding American dictates, but it ignores it when it goes against America’s interests. But kudos for Larry to speak there.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
perhaps 'august body'
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works better?
thanks for the linky
Thanks…
That did cross my mind as I was writing it, but then my mind went blank….and it didn’t sound right either. Hey, you live with my mind. I’m quite tired of living with it.
Heh…take my mind..no I’m serious…you take it.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
I would trade you
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but you may get the short end of the stick