The Evening Blues - 7-16-24
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features r&b saxophone player Earl Bostic. Enjoy!
Earl Bostic - C Jam Blues
“It all had to be squeezed and squeezed again, to provide a thrill, to provide enjoyment. What did people mean, with their simply determined enjoying of themselves?”
-- D.H. Lawrence
News and Opinion
There’s An Important Lesson In All These Democrats Wishing Trump A Speedy Recovery
All the high–profile Democrats who’ve been wishing Trump a speedy recovery from his assassination attempt after years of calling him an existential threat are the same people who now treat George W Bush like a cuddly wuddly snugglepoo after years of calling him an evil dictator. The enmity between these factions is a performance, like cage fighters who hug warmly after weeks of trash talk once their match is over and admit all the drama was really just about promoting the fight and selling Pay-Per-Views.
Their actions show you that their conflicts are fake and they’re no more enemies than actors on the stage are enemies, so why should you treat their performance as real? Why buy into the drama of their pretend elections and feigned opposition when they themselves do not? They’re showing you it’s all fake. Believe them.
The two “sides” of mainstream politics are not fighting against one another, they’re only fighting against you. Their only job is to keep you clapping along with the two-handed puppet show as they rob you blind and tighten your chains while your gaze is fixed on the performance.
I have been briefed on the shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania.
I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well. I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information.
Jill and I are grateful to the Secret…
— President Biden (@POTUS) July 13, 2024
I have been briefed on the shooting at former President Trump’s event in Pennsylvania.
Doug and I are relieved that he is not seriously injured. We are praying for him, his family, and all those who have been injured and impacted by this senseless shooting.
We are grateful to…
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 14, 2024
There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former President Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.…
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 13, 2024
All of Trump’s Democratic Party well-wishers prove that for all the whining in recent years about the death of decorum and how vitriolic US partisan feuding has become, they really are all buddies who only pretend to believe the other side is an existential threat to the world.
In Washington they’re all on the same team and have generally cordial relationships with the people on other side of the aisle. They just encourage normal Americans to feed all their discontent with the status quo into a hyper-emotional political environment where the barely-existing divisions between the two major factions are inflamed by mainstream pundits and politicians so that their anger will go toward the completely ineffectual activity of voting instead of more direct and revolutionary measures. From the perspective of the empire managers it’s hostile partisan rage for thee, amicable cocktail party relations for we.
“Blank Check” for Genocide: Court Dismisses Palestinians’ Case Against Biden Admin over Gaza War
UK foreign secretary repeats ceasefire call as Israel continues to pummel Gaza
Israeli air and naval strikes continued to pummel Gaza as the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, reiterated his demand for a ceasefire during a visit to Jerusalem. Strikes on central Gaza followed two days of particularly deadly attacks including one in a humanitarian zone in southern Gaza that killed at least 90 people when Israeli forces targeted the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif.
Hamas has maintained that Deif survived the attack despite public speculation among Israeli officials, but the attempt has further strained already fragile ceasefire negotiations that have dragged for months. “There is no doubt that the horrific massacres will impact any efforts in the negotiations,” the Hamas spokesperson Jihad Taha said on Sunday.
A source close to the negotiations said Qatari mediators remained determined to overcome this latest obstacle, despite the risk that the attempt on Deif’s life could stall talks. They pointed to notable examples where Hamas was reluctant to negotiate but did not disengage entirely, including after an Israeli strike in a Gaza refugee camp last October that killed 120 people, and the assassination of the founder of Hamas’s military wing, Saleh al-Arouri, in Beirut earlier this year.
“Talks still continued then, and they’re going to continue regardless of whether one side wants to take a step back and review,” they said. A second track of negotiations to avert a war between Israel and Lebanon, they added, appeared to be proving more productive for mediators including the White House.
UNRWA Chief Decries Israel's Destruction of Agency Headquarters
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees expressed horror Monday over Israeli forces' destruction of the key aid organization's headquarters in Gaza City, which Israel's military recently attacked and left in ruins.
"Shocking," Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), wrote in a social media post, which included photos of the bombed-out headquarters complex.
"UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, turned into a battlefield and now flattened," Lazzarini continued. "Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law. United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting purposes. Every war has rules. Gaza is no exception."
Shocking.@UNRWA headquarters in #Gaza, turned into a battlefield & now flattened
Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.
United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting… pic.twitter.com/XVOm5UjJeM
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 15, 2024
Photos of UNRWA's destroyed headquarters emerged following a deadly weekend of Israeli bombings across the Gaza Strip that were overshadowed in the media by the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday.
More than 140 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded on Saturday and Sunday, including in Israeli airstrikes on a so-called "safe zone" in southern Gaza.
Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA's head of external relations, told Al Jazeera on Monday that "the last week has been one of the deadliest weeks in Gaza since the war started."
"The images coming out of the UNRWA headquarters are really shocking," said Alrifai. "What I saw today in the footage is unrecognizable."
UNRWA and its infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, have been major targets of Israel's far-right government since its latest assault on the Palestinian enclave began in October following a deadly Hamas-led attack. Israeli officials have repeatedly claimed—without providing evidence—that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations.
Nearly 200 UNRWA facilities in Gaza, most of which have been serving as shelters for displaced people, have been damaged during Israel's war on the besieged territory, Alrifai noted Monday. Around 500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on UNRWA facilities, according to Alrifai.
"It speaks volumes to the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law," she said.
Israel's aerial and ground attacks on Gaza continued Monday as much of the territory's population is facing catastrophic levels of hunger. Since the start of the assault, Israel has dramatically restricted the flow of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, depriving Palestinians of food, medicine, clean water, and other basic necessities.
Reuters reported that Israel "struck the southern and central Gaza Strip" on Monday and "blew up several homes."
"Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose," the news agency added. "The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the al-Bureij and al-Maghazi historic refugee camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi camp."
Scott Ritter: Israel is LOSING the War and the IDF will be Crushed on Lebanon Front
Orban is making the neoliberal eurocrats look like idiots. Not that it took much.
Top EU officials to boycott informal meetings hosted by Hungary
Top EU officials will boycott informal meetings hosted by Hungary while the country has the EU’s rotating presidency, after Hungary’s pro-Russian prime minister Viktor Orbán held a series of rogue meetings with foreign leaders about Ukraine that angered European partners. The highly unusual decision to have the European Commission president and other top officials of the body boycott the meetings was made “in light of recent developments marking the start of the Hungarian (EU) presidency”, commission spokesperson Eric Mamer posted on Monday on X.
Hungary took over the rotating role on 1 July and since then Orban has visited Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, China, and the United States on a world tour he has touted as a “peace mission” aimed at brokering an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. That angered many leaders in the EU, who said they had not been informed in advance of Orbán’s plans. His government is friendly with Russia and has gone against the policy of most EU countries on support for Ukraine. ...
In an interview with Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet on Monday, Orbán’s political director said the prime minister had briefed the leaders of other EU countries “in writing about the negotiations, the experiences of the first phase of the peace mission and the Hungarian proposals”.
“If Europe wants peace and wants to have a decisive say in settling the war and ending the bloodshed, it must now work out and implement a change of direction,” said Balázs Orbán, who is not related to the premier. “A realistic assessment of the situation, realistic goals and the right timing – that’s our approach.”
Ukraine AI drones, new wonder weapon plan
France: failure to agree on new PM puts leftwing coalition in ‘stalemate’
The leftwing coalition that won most seats in France’s snap general election is facing division after its leading party said it was suspending negotiations with the others over a failure to agree on a prime minister. Just one week after the election, the fragile unity within the New Popular Front (NFP) fractured on Monday when France Unbowed (LFI) accused the Socialist party (PS) of “unacceptable methods” in vetoing suggestions over who should lead any new administration. ...
In an angry statement, LFI accused the PS of playing into the hands of Macron – whose centrist alliance Ensemble pushed the far-right National Rally (RN) into third place – by putting the leftwing alliance into a “deadlock”. “Is the PS playing for time to allow the NFP to crumble and abandoning the programme on which it was elected? We will not allow this stalemate to facilitate presidential manoeuvres,” it wrote.
Macron has said he would not work with a government led by LFI. Both LFI and RN have said they would launch a motion of no confidence in any government that included the other. “The PS has chosen to veto any candidacy [for prime minister] from the NFP, with the sole aim of imposing its own, arguing that it would be the only one acceptable to Emmanuel Macron. It is thus making the president of the republic the decision-maker on our alliance, even though it has been formed against him and his policies,” the LFI statement said.
Pakistan’s government seeks to ban party of former PM Imran Khan
Pakistan’s government is seeking to ban the party of the imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan. The move comes days after a supreme court ruling made the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) the largest party in the country’s parliament.
The information minister, Attaullah Tarar, said the government would also go to court to press for treason charges against Khan, who was removed from power in a no-confidence vote in 2022 and drew large crowds of supporters on to the streets before his arrest and jailing in August 2023.
Tarar said the move to ban the PTI was because Khan’s supporters had targeted military installations during violence after his earlier arrest on corruption charges in May last year and over allegations of foreign funding.
Despite a severe crackdown, millions voted for the PTI in elections in February this year and the party, which was forced to field candidates as independents, claimed victory amid allegations of massive vote rigging in favour of the ruling government. Protests erupted across the country days after the elections. The supreme court ruled last week that the PTI was a political party and eligible for 20 further seats in a post-election dispute that arose from its candidates running as independents. The ruling handed PTI members seats reserved for women and minorities. ...
Sayed Zulfi Bukhari, a close [Kahn] aide and adviser on international affairs and media, said: “This is a move towards a soft martial law. This is a sign of panic as they have realised the courts can’t be threatened and put under pressure.”
The Vampire Squid is bloating:
Goldman Sachs raises banker pay and bonuses after 150% surge in quarterly profit
Goldman Sachs has increased banker pay including bonuses by 17% after profits more than doubled in the second quarter, following a rebound in dealmaking.
The Wall Street firm said it spent $4.2bn (£3.2bn) on compensation and benefits for its 45,300 staff in the three months to June, up almost a fifth from the same period last year. That figure accounts for salaries and pensions, as well as the amount being put aside for individual bonuses that are distributed at the end of the financial year.
Overall, Goldman has spent $8.8bn on compensation and benefits for staff since January, which the bank said reflected “improved operating performance”. Financial filings show that Goldman’s profits surged 150% to $3bn in the second quarter, up from $1.2bn last year.
Profits were boosted by a jump in business deals, with its investment bankers helping guide firms through a fresh wave of mergers and takeovers. That includes ExxonMobil’s $60bn takeover of Pioneer Natural Resources in May, for which Goldman acted as a broker alongside the rival banks Morgan Stanley and Citigroup.
Goldman’s chairman and chief executive, David Solomon, said: “We are pleased with our solid second-quarter results and our overall performance in the first half of the year, reflecting strong year-on-year growth in both global banking and markets and asset and wealth management.”
Peter Buxtun, whistleblower who exposed Tuskegee syphilis study, dies aged 86
Peter Buxtun, the whistleblower who revealed that the US government allowed hundreds of Black men in rural Alabama to go untreated for syphilis in what became known as the Tuskegee study, has died. He was 86. Buxtun died on 18 May of Alzheimer’s disease in Rocklin, California, according to his attorney, Minna Fernan.
Buxtun is revered as a hero to public health scholars and ethicists for his role in bringing to light the most notorious medical research scandal in US history. Documents that Buxtun provided to the Associated Press, and its subsequent investigation and reporting, led to a public outcry that ended the study in 1972.
Forty years earlier, in 1932, federal scientists began studying 400 Black men in Tuskegee, Alabama, who were infected with syphilis. When antibiotics became available in the 1940s that could treat the disease, federal health officials ordered that the drugs be withheld. The study became an observation of how the disease ravaged the body over time.
In the mid-1960s, Buxtun was a federal public health employee working in San Francisco when he overheard a co-worker talking about the study. The research was not exactly a secret – about a dozen medical journal articles about it had been published in the previous 20 years. But hardly anyone had raised any concerns about how the experiment was being conducted. “This study was completely accepted by the American medical community,” said Ted Pestorius of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, speaking at a 2022 program marking the 50th anniversary of the end of the study.
Buxtun had a different reaction. After learning more about the study, he raised ethical concerns in a 1966 letter to officials at the CDC. In 1967, he was summoned to a meeting in Atlanta, where he was chewed out by agency officials for what they deemed to be impertinence. Repeatedly, agency leaders rejected his complaints and his call for the men in Tuskegee to be treated. He left the US Public Health Service and attended law school, but the study ate at him. In 1972, he provided documents about the research to Edith Lederer, an AP reporter he had met in San Francisco. Lederer passed the documents to the AP investigative reporter Jean Heller. Heller’s story was published on 25 July 1972, leading to congressional hearings, a class-action lawsuit that resulted in a $10m settlement and the study’s termination about four months later.
Who is J.D. Vance and What Does He Really Believe?
Trump names JD Vance, once one of his fiercest critics, as 2024 running mate
Donald Trump named JD Vance, the Ohio senator who has aligned himself with the populist right, as his running mate at the Republican national convention on Monday. ... When Trump first ran for office, Vance’s eventual nomination to run alongside him would have seemed implausible. Vance, a venture capitalist who rocketed into the public eye with his 2016 memoir turned Netflix movie Hillbilly Elegy, was once among Trump’s conservative critics.
“I’m a never-Trump guy, I never liked him,” Vance said during an October 2016 interview with Charlie Rose. Trump was, by Vance’s estimation at the time, a “terrible candidate”. He even wondered aloud, in texts to a former roommate, whether Trump was more of “a cynical asshole like Nixon”, or worse, “America’s Hitler”.
Since then, Vance has undergone a dramatic transformation into a Maga power figure and close ally of the former president who has supported some of Trump’s more authoritarian impulses, like questioning the results of the 2020 election and, in a 2021 podcast interview, suggesting Trump should purge civil servants from the federal government if re-elected. ...
Vance has already vied for Trump’s blessing once before, while campaigning for a seat representing Ohio in the US Senate. During the primary, Vance pitched himself as a Trump-style rightwing populist. He criticized “elites”, fired off contemptuous tweets about crime in New York City, promoted the racist and antisemitic “great replacement” theory on Tucker Carlson’s show and grew a beard. He faced a storm of negative ads from the conservative, free market-oriented Club for Growth, which pointed to his past identity as a “never Trumper” as proof of his phoneyness.
The tech billionaire Peter Thiel, who had previously backed Vance’s venture capital startup, poured record-breaking sums of money into the race, and Trump endorsed Vance – ushering in his victory in the primary. When he beat the former Democratic congressman Tim Ryan in the November 2022 general election, it cemented his place on the Maga right.
How Third Parties Can Help Break the US Ruling Class’s Stranglehold Over Politics
Climate crisis is making days longer, study finds
The climate crisis is causing the length of each day to get longer, analysis shows, as the mass melting of polar ice reshapes the planet. The phenomenon is a striking demonstration of how humanity’s actions are transforming the Earth, scientists said, rivalling natural processes that have existed for billions of years.
The change in the length of the day is on the scale of milliseconds but this is enough to potentially disrupt internet traffic, financial transactions and GPS navigation, all of which rely on precise timekeeping.
The length of the Earth’s day has been steadily increasing over geological time due to the gravitational drag of the moon on the planet’s oceans and land. However, the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets due to human-caused global heating has been redistributing water stored at high latitudes into the world’s oceans, leading to more water in the seas nearer the equator. This makes the Earth more oblate – or fatter – slowing the rotation of the planet and lengthening the day still further.
The planetary impact of humanity was also demonstrated recently by research that showed the redistribution of water had caused the Earth’s axis of rotation – the north and south poles – to move. Other work has revealed that humanity’s carbon emissions are shrinking the stratosphere.
China’s emissions of two potent greenhouse gases rise 78% in decade
Emissions of two of the most potent greenhouse gases have substantially increased in China over the last decade, a study has found. Perfluorocarbons are used in the manufacturing processes for flat-panel TVs and semiconductors, or as by-products from aluminium smelting. They are far more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2, and can persist in the Earth’s atmosphere for thousands of years, unlike CO2 which can persist for up to 200 years.
A research team led by Minde An at Massachusetts Institute of Technology examined the emissions of two specific perfluorocarbons, tetrafluoromethane and hexafluoroethane, both with atmospheric lifetimes of 50,000 and 10,000 years respectively. By analysing atmospheric observations in nine cities across China from 2011 to 2021, they found that both gases exhibited an increase of 78% in emissions in China and, by 2020, represented 64-66% of global emissions for tetrafluoromethane and hexafluoroethane. However, while levels of fluorocarbon emissions are increasing at an alarming rate, CO2 still accounts for about 76% of total greenhouse gas emissions.
The increase in emissions from China was sufficient to account for the global emission increases over that same period, suggesting that China is the dominant driver in tetrafluoromethane and hexafluoroethane release into the atmosphere globally. The emissions were found to mainly originate from the less populated industrial zones in the western regions of China, and are thought to be due to the role of perfluorocarbons in the aluminium industry. China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of aluminium, with the country’s production reaching a record-high output of 41.5m tonnes last year.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Testimonies From the Mawasi Massacre: 90 People Buried in the Sand
As NATO Bids Farewell to Reality, Moscow and Beijing Pursue Win-Win Deals With Türkiye
Medhi Hasan discovers Blue Maga
Sceptics say EVs will overwhelm the grid. In fact, they could be part of the solution
Secret Service Director Makes UNBELIEVABLE Excuse for Lack of Snipers on the Roof
Teamsters Prez KNIFES BIDEN AT RNC: Praises JD Vance
A Little Night Music
Earl Bostic - Up There in Orbit
Earl Bostic - Special Delivery Stomp
Earl Bostic - Because of You
Earl Bostic - Summertime
Earl Bostic - Night Train
Earl Bostic - Cherokee
Earl Bostic - Let's Move Out
Earl Bostic - Ubangi Stomp (1954 Original)
Earl Bostic - Harlem Nocturne
Comments
lightning rods and bugs
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hardly matters whom so ever trumpet chose as vp
the media will pull out the swords in any case
personally would rather have seen Tulsi
thanks for the EB's joe!
Vance
Tulsi would be best on foreign policy, I think. After listening to Glen Greenwald’s video above, I like Vance’s record on domestic policy and him personally. Certainly an improvement over Pence so maybe his other choices will be better, couldn’t be worse. Greenwald believes Vance was the best choice. You’re right, though, the media and PTB will sabotage everything Trump-related.
Anya
evening qms...
yep, the mainstream media certainly leaves no doubt as to whose side it's on. i did some reading and listening today about vance and while i'm not wild about him, as greenwald said, given the alternatives he was a decent choice.
i guess now that it's not a good time for the media to slam trump, they'll probably be flinging poo at vance with all they've got.
It is interesting how many different ways
.....environmental news can be slanted, in this case against China for aluminium production (see below **). Coincidently, this month China is making environment-friendly headlines for its historically rapid reduction in potential greenhouse gas emissions via major expansions in alternative energy resources — an astounding achievement that no other country in the world has the capability or will to match. Most countries in the world are expected to blow right past their promised emissions goals. (As I've long said, I'm counting on China, alone, to rescue the planet from the ravages of climate change. At the present moment China has launched two spacecraft to intercept and deflect an incoming asteroid, as if it were on a direct collision course with Earth. The US is not really rocket capable, at this time.)
.
The four-page independent analysis and report, including detailed data, can be read here. This is also currently breaking news.
Because the US plans to attack China and destroy its economy and infrastructure, within the next two years, ninety-nine percent of everything written and published about China is crafted into a derogatory smear, or is a defamatory lie. Staying on top of the propaganda and calling it out is the only deterrent we have. The Neocons will try to whip the American people into peak hate and fear prior to a direct attack on China.
(** China is the only efficient aluminium producer left in the world, so emissions unique to aluminium smelting come from China (until China passes the technology to Estonia, perhaps. In a fit of bitter jealousy, the US and the Western allies have placed a 100% tariff on aluminium imported from China. Ordinary consumers will pay 100 percent of those tariffs in increased prices. This will be called 'inflation', which the government captures and pockets at the docks — never to be accounted for. All tariffs, however, should be refunded to US consumers, who actually pay the tariffs in the form of inflationary price hikes.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
No we never do learn from history
Croesus of Lydia feared the rise of Cyrus' Persian Empire, and mounted a pre-emptive strike, first taking the precaution of consulting the Delphic oracle. Her answer was typically...Delphic: "If you attack Persia, a great empire will be destroyed". One was - Croesus'.
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
evening pluto...
yeah, it's kind of funny, the guardian a few days, maybe a week ago had an article about china's dramatic performance in alternative energies ahead of their commitments to zero-emissions (i posted it in an eb). i guess they felt they had to make up for good china news with some bad china news.
interestingly the u.s. is the world's largest importer of aluminum and aluminum products, followed by germany. it would be unsurprising to find that the west has exported its pollution to china and is a big customer for the products.
I guess they are still trying to get Biden to step away
from the campaign:
The "reactive instead of proactive" thing is a bit off the mark. The Democratic Party was never proactive. It was always the investment of an economic class, whose primary movers put their trust in an elite political class. Everyone else plays along because they want to have careers. A year ago there were a small number of people making decisions for the whole party. And they decided for Biden. Well, now that it's obvious that "running Biden" is the equivalent of "handing a trifecta to the Republicans," the folks worried about their "legacy" (primarily Obama) are now giving out orders to the career-hungry to "be concerned." An endorsement of Genocide Joe is the equivalent of "I'm not concerned to improve my rank at this point." Will it matter? A legacy is a very little thing for the elites. The vast majority of participants in this process are bending with the wind.
“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
Lol….
Another ship that sailed. Trump was/is Obama’s legacy. He will never live that down. If he had kept half his promises and bailed out the people instead of the banks Hillary would have sailed to election. But her dismissing how it looked for her to get paid big $$$ for giving speeches to the banks went over like a lead balloon.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
And now for the contrary opinion:
Of course, Kyle Kulinski, whose soul contains a core of Democrat fool, can't really see that who's running for President in any particular year was never his choice to begin with.
“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
Bernie was a stark reminder
....that the Democratic wanted nothing to do with New Deal or working class values. The Dems had all gone Neoliberal, or gone home. The CIA and Neocons shuffled in to fill the empty seats. The agency and State Department overflow were appointed to the National Security Council.
I have no idea where voters think they are steering the country. Like you say, voting is toy steering wheel, stuck to the dashboard with a suction cup.
Hillary either believed that everyone was clueless, or she believed the nation was behind her Imperialist world-view all the way. Probably both. What's going on in the the world right now is exactly what Hillary wanted. In that sense, she won big and we lost. She was the author of the pivot to China. She won the whole thing.
The Neocons dropped the Republicans after Bush. The Republicans were obsessed with Domestic issues. Immigration (foreigners!), monetizing healthcare, starving the poor, monetizing education, eliminating social spending, and militarizing the police. Making America the kind of place that Republican Jesus would like to live.
Trump doesn't seem to have Imperial instincts. But he's still doesn't know how to spot the Neocons.
My view is that the military controls warfare. They are not giving control of nukes to any President. That has never been the case. Otherwise, dissolving the government and starting over with a decent constitution is not on the ballot, so I have no reason to vote.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Yup…
The Reagan Democrats took control during Clinton’s term and never did anything again to help the poor and working class. Clinton gutted welfare and gave us more cops. Biden’s crime bill did lots of damage to the poor and especially blacks. He gleefully went after crack cocaine users because the upper classes could afford powder cocaine. I just watched his speech on it and boy he sure changed his tune when it was his son addicted to drugs…maybe I saved it because it was so mean spirited.
I think Hilary thought that the country was dying to vote for her and everything she stood for. Remember she wanted a no fly zone over Syria to keep Russia grounded and not be able to fight ISIS. Libya was her baby and if there’s a gawd she will join Albright’s ghost in hell. But you’re right. We got Hillary’s dream world with Biden. And our nightmare.
I couldn’t believe the base was so gung-ho to vote for CIA and ex military democrats, but they sure embraced them because Trump addled their brains. Did you read the blue maga article? He nailed the shitlibs. They also embraced the Bush neocons and still do. David Frum is a regular. Sheesh!
It should be. People have been voting for the people who steered the country to where it is now. No one has ever been held accountable and both sides have hero worship for people who don’t give 2 shits about us. Just strange.
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 cass...
heh, the democrats in congress can read the polling and i am pretty sure that their freak out is going to continue as long as biden's numbers are in the toilet. nobody wants a sure loser at the top of the ticket. i am pretty amused that they think that negative charisma harris would be able to beat trump.
I am sure --
-- that the Democrats will find some activity or other that will keep them busy right up to the moment when they are booted out of office at the end of the year or the beginning of the next. Maybe replacing Biden will be that activity, and maybe it won't. I personally would like to see the Democratic Party go the way of the Whig Party.
“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
heh...
from your lips to the flying spaghetti monster's ears!
Yah but, what if Biden does win in Nov? hard boiled eggs.
With a lot of electoral "stuff" the democrats could pull off a Biden victory if the vote totals are not too far apart. After working back in the day on the ground during elections, I still am not sure who won the 2020 election.
Whoever wins will not matter in terms of improving our lives. Foreign policy same militarism.
The proverbial shyte will hit the wall. Anybody know how to preserve/can hard boiled eggs?
leave the shell on and coat them with paraffin. Read
Chichester for more ideas.
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 mr w...
i suppose if biden does win in november, it might be worth looking into building a fallout shelter to put those preserved eggs in.
Ahhhh good one.
Eggs probably outlast us.
The courts screwed up on the
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genocide decision. If it’s against US law to be complicit in genocide and it has signed treaties and agreements then it’s not a foreign policy overreach by the court, but uphold the law. That’s how I see it. The government also can’t hold secret meetings to pass secret laws that are unconstitutional and yet it keeps doing it. Aren’t we a nation of laws? Or is that just when it convenient for government? Poo…
If Starmer and Lammy are serious about Israel stopping the genocide then they need to shut down US weapons flights from their base in Cyprus.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/07/16/us-special-forces-secret-flights-f...
I wonder if the UK is still sending its weapons to Israel? Have they shut down all trade with Israel like the genocide convention insists or are they just flapping their lips? Like Erdogan has been ?
Blue MAGA…
Medhi…that ship sailed a decade ago. Anyone wanting Biden to drop out is HR'd and the echo chamber dawg piles them. Anyone being critical of the Hellabitch was banned before the country actually voted. And of course IT didn’t use a private email server or destroy 30,000 emails that had been subpoenaed…or, or…
That’s a great article. I’ve witnessed everything he says.
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, in some ways the court decision might be fortuitous. as i understand it, if a jurisdiction refuses to adjudicate war crimes committed by its own, then jurisdiction passes to the international body.
starmer and lammy don't really want to stop the genocide. they just want to slow it down and go back to the good old days when everybody pretended that palestine was going to get statehood while the genocide proceeded.
Many of us were expelled／forced to emigrate from The Other Place
after the site owner opted to impose political conformity in 2016.
Recs and hide rates are like the little food pellets and electric shocks of Skinnerian behavorial modification.
TOP’s social dynamics pressure and shape members‘ psychology and personal interactions in the same way a cult would.
Yep….
You absolutely nailed it!
Well said. It was easy to be anti war when Bush was president, but once Obama continued doing what Bush did I starter getting pushback. Arguing about Obama’s use of drones has stayed with me. I was told that they saved our troops lives instead of his admitting that we had no right being in the country.
Now those anti war folks are fully behind supporting Ukrainian Nazis because they were told to hate Putin.
One person pointed out the cheering of Russians being killed as well as Biden’s support of Israel’s genocide on the site. Twas the truth, but he was HR'd. I read the site daily because it’s like rubbernecking a train crash.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Was there more than one shooter?
.
Very interesting article with lots of interesting information.
The Trump Assassination Attempt: A Serious Audited Investigation is Urgently Needed
"Cops weren’t on the roof cuz it was sloped."
That’s what Cheedle told us even though the shooter who took out Crooks was on a sloped roof.
It doesn’t matter that some of the security was outsourced to local cops because the secret service is in charge of making sure the are is secure. That’s their job! Their only job.
“Three snipers were stationed inside building used in Trump assassination attempt.
Like I said…watch this space.
Seems our cops are much better at beating us up than protecting us.
ETA more
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Hmmm…..
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
heh...
i bet we're going to be hearing about this for quite a while to come. some of the things that i've heard so far make me wonder how trump managed to make it through his first term of office.
But will we ever see the truth?
Or will congress create a committee to investigate it and it ends up like the Warren commission and the 9/11 investigations?
Those cops inside the building watched Crooks for 30 minutes, took his picture, watched him use a rangefinder and they did nothing but call in. That seems like awful suspicious behavior at any event let alone at one with a VIP. Trump should have been removed.
The sniper said he asked for permission to shoot, was told no, but after shots fired he shot anyway. He said he was arrested and fired. That seems mighty strange don’t you think?
Cheatle's excuse for cops not being on the roof is so bogus you can drive a truck through it. Lots of Trump's regular service were removed to cover Jill Biden’s event. Why? Had that happened before? So many questions….
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 think it's fairly likely...
that we will never see the truth. how long have they covered up the truth about jfk's assassination?
i don't expect to live long enough to get the real lowdown on either of these events.
meantime, i have my suspicions and they'll have to do.
Paul Craig Roberts said that the deep state
had to move Saturday because lawfare had failed and Trump hadn’t picked his veep yet and Biden wasn’t going to step down so if he was killed the republicans would be SoL for a candidate. So many theories.
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. A really
nice batch of classics there.
I'm guessing that the F-16s either haven't arrived or were rushed directly into deep bunkers. I figure that if they did so much as a recon or strafed a Rus civilian that the Ukies would have made a very big dead out of it. OTOH, if they tried to fly a real mission the Rus would certainly have noted downing at least one somewhere on Sputnik.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
i am guessing that the f-16's haven't arrived yet. i expect a big splash when they do.
have a great evening!
What a Speech by Lavrov!
I loved the speech Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave today at the UN Security Council meeting. He references George Orwell's Animal Farm. He makes note of the US disregarding UN resolutions on the Golan Heights. He even said that, "history did not end..." so we need to get on with the multi-polar world... It is sad that it won't be covered anywhere in the heritage media.
evening tht...
it is quite a barn-burner of a speech. i am sure that you are correct that it will not be covered in the u.s. media.
thanks for the video and have a great evening!
The German interior ministry has now, by unilateral decree —
— that is, by pure executive power, with no court proceeding and no involvement of the judiciary — banned and raided the opposition magazine Compact and seized its computers, cellphones, website, inventory, and financial assets.
https://apnews.com/article/germany-far-right-magazine-compact-banned-c28...
Looks very much like a trial balloon for banning the populist AfD party itself, before the three eastern German state elections in September with the AfD leading in the polls.
The globalist war coalition’s neoliberal “democracy”, ain‘t it great? But as has been said, if you don‘t believe in freedom of speech and the press even for people you vehemently disagree with, you don‘t believe in freedom of speech at all.
afternoon lotlizard...
heh, smells like demockery to me.
have a good one!
Evening joe and bluesters
I loved the Special Delivery Stomp video, and sax.
Something I don’t get, is how Trump became a hero to ‘regular’ people who think he will save them from a future governed by elitists, yet he only associates with elitists. You just have to look at his biggest supporters, Musk, Peter Thiel, and probably most of the wealthiest cabals, and venture capitalists like Vance. How do people rationalise the contradiction? Even as american society grows older by the year it still seems stuck in an early childhood state, or even worse, regressing.
Folks did give Bernie their all & that turned out to be a mirage
so nowadays I don‘t blame anyone who thinks, “Hey, why not let the billionaire and tenacious fighter guy try this time? At least he has his own $$, he won’t just take my hard-earned $$ and then when push comes to shove, roll over for his ‘good friend’ Hillary or Joe Biden or whoever.”
I find the analogy to Bernie somewhat interesting,
but Bernie's intentions were originally valid. Who knows how things would have progressed had he become the democrat candidate. At least we know beforehand who Trump would roll over for.
In 2016, both Bernie and Trump were non-establishment candidates
The irony is, the GOP proved to be, and still is, more open to bottom-up, brushfire-among-the-grassroots type change than the Democrats were and are, with their top-down centralized party structure.
The GOP will let its primary rules play out, even if the result is to nominate a non-establishment figure — indeed, even if old-guard party elites are 100% sure it will spell doom in November. E.g. Goldwater in 1964 and Trump in 2016.
Whereas the Democrats will game the rules state by state on the fly, pull weird stunts (claiming Bernie supporters were “throwing chairs” in Nevada; announcing Hillary had won the California primary before polls had even opened; purging 150,000 voters from the primary voter rolls in Brooklyn, etc.), in short, go to almost any length to prevent the nomination from going to a non-establishment figure.
Because I don't trust or have faith in either,
consideration of one or the other is not something I'd contemplate.
I do though appreciate your diverse knowledge, perception, and perspective.