The Evening Blues - 8-21-24
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features jazz cornet player and bandleader King Oliver. Enjoy!
King Oliver - Riverside Blues
"It is an easy thing to call names; any fool is equal to that ... and the weapon of vituperation is generally used by those who lack brains for argument or are upon the wrong side."
-- Martha Finley
News and Opinion
Politicians In Dystopialand Warn Other Candidate Will Cause Dystopia
One bizarre thing about modern US presidential races is watching politicians in one of the most dystopian civilizations ever to exist warning people that the other candidate wants to lead them into a dark dystopia, which depending on the party they label “communism” or “fascism”.
Yesterday I saw an amazingly idiotic tweet by Chuck Schumer responding to an equally idiotic tweet by Donald Trump. Trump had tweeted an AI image of Kamala Harris addressing the DNC convention in Chicago with a crowd full of red flags beneath a giant hammer and sickle, the suggestion of course being that Harris is a communist and the Democrats are a communist political party.
“The guy who loves Putin is projecting again,” Schumer said in response to Trump’s tweet.
I mean, where do you even start with this? Russian president Vladimir Putin is not a communist, Russia is not a communist country, and the Soviet Union ended more than three decades ago — all facts that the average fifth grader could have told the majority leader of the US senate.
Perhaps more significantly, Kamala Harris is about as far from a communist as anyone could possibly be, and the Democratic Party is devoutly capitalist. Ideologically Harris is much, much closer to Donald Trump than she is to communism, and from a communist point of view there isn’t a great deal of difference between Harris and Trump. They’re both imperialist lackeys of neoliberal capitalism, are both devoted to the US empire’s goal of stomping out communism around the world by any means necessary, and are both pledged to continue the exploitation, oppression, ecocide and warmongering of the status quo capitalist order if elected.
But this is all these freaks do every four years. Trump, who spent his entire presidential term ramping up cold war aggressions against Moscow, is accused of wanting to turn America into a fascistic autocracy ruled by Vladimir Putin. The Democrats, who play just as crucial a role in preserving the capitalist status quo as Republicans, are accused of trying to institute communism. All while campaigning to lead a nation that is arguably more dystopian than anything they claim the other candidate wants to create.
The US is the most tyrannical regime on the entire planet. No other power structure on earth has spent the 21st century killing people by the millions in wars of aggression. No other government is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases, waging nonstop wars around the world, and working to destroy any population on earth who disobeys its dictates via invasions, proxy conflicts, bombing campaigns, starvation sanctions, staged coups and covert ops.
This is all held in place using the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed. Americans are the most propagandized population on earth, successfully manipulated into thinking, speaking, laboring, spending, acting and voting exactly how the powerful want them to in a mind-controlled dystopia — all while believing themselves to be free. This propaganda machine extends its reach throughout the world, with most of its firepower focused on its close allies who are effectively member states in a globe-spanning empire.
In running against the other party, Democrats fear-monger about being rounded up in Fascist prisons and Republicans fear-monger about being placed in Communist gulags.
And meanwhile both parties join hands to cage two million Palestinians in an actual death camp.
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) August 18, 2024
The only reason the US empire isn’t seen for the horrifying blood-soaked dystopia it is is because of that very propaganda machine, which normalizes and glorifies this freakish status quo through both its “news” media and its mainstream culture manufacturing centers in New York and Los Angeles.
From the heart of this tyrannical nightmare, politicians warn that if you don’t vote for them you will find yourself in a nation that has been transformed into a tyrannical nightmare.
But what else are they going to do? Campaign on their actual policies and point out their actual differences from the other candidate? They don’t have any real differences. They’re both auditioning for the job of temporary mid-level management of the US empire, and you don’t get to have that job if you are in any way opposed to the interests of that empire.
Either of them will preside over the continuation of imperialist extraction, warmongering, militarism and genocide. Either of them will preside over the continuation of capitalist exploitation and ecocide. Either of them will preside over the continued expansion of authoritarian measures like surveillance, censorship, propaganda, government secrecy, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, and the war on journalism.
But they can’t just come out and say that. They wouldn’t be this close to getting the job if they were the types to say that. Saying that would wake people up to the reality of how profoundly unfree they really are, opening up the possibility for the birth of a real revolutionary movement.
So they babble about the other candidate wanting to usher you into some frightening future dystopia, hoping you won’t notice that dystopia is already here.
Alastair Crooke: Might US Pull the Plug on Israel?
Ceasefire elusive as Blinken leaves Middle East, with future Israeli presence in Gaza key sticking point
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that “time is of the essence” to secure a Gaza ceasefire, as he wrapped up a Middle East tour with an agreement between Israel and Hamas still elusive. The deal “needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead,” Blinken told reporters in Doha before departing for Washington, as he reiterated his call for Hamas to accept a “bridging proposal” for a deal, which he said Israel had accepted, and asked both parties to work towards finalising it.
Blinken and mediators from Egypt and Qatar have pinned their hopes on the bridging proposal which aims to narrow the gaps between the two sides in the 10-month-old war, after negotiations last week paused without a breakthrough. The US expects the ceasefire talks to continue this week.
Hamas is not directly participating in these negotiations and has said the latest proposal on the table veers too closely to Israel’s demands. However, on Tuesday, the militant group said comments by US president Joe Biden that they were backing away from an agreement with Israel were “misleading”. ...
One of the main sticking points to an agreement has been Hamas’s longstanding demand for a “complete” withdrawal of Israeli troops from all parts of Gaza, which Israel has reportedly rejected. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/21/israel-hamas-cease... Blinken was asked in Qatar about Israeli troop withdrawal terms within the ceasefire framework and about a report in US publication Axios that quoted Netanyahu as saying he may have convinced Blinken that Israel should keep troops in the Philadelphi corridor, a strategic strip on the Gaza-Egypt border.]
“The United States does not accept any long-term occupation of Gaza by Israel,” Blinken said. “More specifically, the agreement is very clear on the schedule and the locations of [Israel Defense Forces] withdrawals from Gaza, and Israel has agreed to that. So that’s as much as I know. That’s what I’m very clear about.”
Countries fueling Israel’s Gaza war may be complicit in war crimes
Israeli tanks, jets and bulldozers bombarding Gaza and razing homes in the occupied West Bank are being fueled by a growing number of countries signed up to the genocide and Geneva conventions, new research suggests, which legal experts warn could make them complicit in serious crimes against the Palestinian people.
Four tankers of American jet fuel primarily used for military aircraft have been shipped to Israel since the start of its aerial bombardment of Gaza in October. Three shipments departed from Texas after the landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling on 26 January ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. The ruling reminded states that under the genocide convention they have a “common interest to ensure the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide”.
Overall, almost 80% of the jet fuel, diesel and other refined petroleum products supplied to Israel by the US over the past nine months was shipped after the January ruling, according to the new research commissioned by the non-profit Oil Change International and shared exclusively with the Guardian.
Researchers analyzed shipping logs, satellite images and other open-source industry data to track 65 oil and fuel shipments to Israel between 21 October last year and 12 July. It suggests a handful of countries – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Gabon, Nigeria, Brazil and most recently the Republic of the Congo and Italy – have supplied 4.1m tons of crude oil to Israel, with almost half shipped since the ICJ ruling. An estimated two-thirds of crude came from investor-owned and private oil companies, according to the research, which is refined by Israel for domestic, industrial and military use.
Israel relies heavily on crude oil and refined petroleum imports to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles and operations, as well as the bulldozers implicated in clearing Palestinian homes and olive groves to make way for unlawful Israeli settlements.
In response to the new findings, UN and other international law experts called for an energy embargo to prevent further human rights violations against the Palestinian people – and an investigation into any oil and fuels shipped to Israel that have been used to aid acts of alleged genocide and other serious international crimes.
Ray McGovern: The Paths of Resistance to Israel
HRW: Israeli Airstrikes on Yemen Were ‘Possible War Crime’
Human Rights Watch released a report on Monday that said the July 20 Israeli airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Red Sea port of Hodeidah could be a war crime since the attack caused disproportionate harm to civilians.
The Israeli airstrikes, which came in response to a Houthi drone attack that killed one civilian in Tel Aviv, targeted oil storage tanks, shipping cranes, and a powerplant. The strikes killed six civilians, all employees of the Yemen Petroleum Company, and caused an estimated $20 million in damage.
“The attacks appeared to cause disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects. Serious violations of the laws of war committed willfully, that is deliberately or recklessly, are war crimes,” HRW said.
According to the Yemen Data Project (YDP), the Israeli attack resulted in more civilian harm than the hundreds of strikes the US and the UK have launched on Yemen since January combined.
'History Is Watching': Gaza Doctors Urge Harris to Back Israel Arms Embargo at Democratic Convention
As humanitarians opposed to the U.S. government's support for Israel's assault on Gaza continued to protest during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Tuesday, American doctors who recently volunteered in the besieged enclave implored the party's presidential nominee Kamala Harris—based on the carnage and heartache they have witnessed—to embrace an arms embargo on Israel and an immediate cease-fire.
"We are here to deliver a policy that saves and improves lives," Uncommitted National Movement co-founder Abbas Alawieh said in opening remarks at Tuesday's press conference. "We are here because we want to win a better world."
Alawieh slammed the "hypocritical action" of Biden administration officials who, while "saying they want a cease-fire," continue "to send more and more weapons" to far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "murderous government," which "is using those weapons to kill civilians" and is "preventing any hope for all captives, Israeli and Palestinian, to be reunited with their families."
Such support, Alawieh added, is also "preventing any hope of a departure from the horrors that we are seeing our siblings in Gaza experience with more than 16,000 children... being killed using U.S. weapons."
"The Uncommitted National Movement mobilized Democratic voters—more than 740,000 nationally—specifically around the idea that our candidate, regardless of who they may be, needs an updated approach to their Gaza policy," Alawieh continued. "Specifically, our stance is that our government should embrace an arms embargo. Stop sending weapons that are being used to kill civilians."
"Vice President Harris is engaging with us on this issue," Alawieh added. "Her team is engaging with us on this issue. We do view that as a positive step in the right direction. We want to be very clear that what we need to see urgently is for the bombs to stop. Stop sending bombs if you want us to believe that you want a cease-fire."
Biden's Cruel and Orwellian Remarks on Gaza at the DNC
An observation from George Orwell—“those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future”—is acutely relevant to how President Biden talked about Gaza during his speech at the Democratic convention Monday night. His words fit into a messaging template now in its eleventh month, depicting the U.S. government as tirelessly seeking peace, while supplying the weapons and bombs that have enabled Israel’s continual slaughter of civilians.
“We’ll keep working, to bring hostages home, and end the war in Gaza, and bring peace and security to the Middle East,” Biden told the cheering delegates. “As you know, I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza. A few days ago I put forward a proposal that brought us closer to doing that than we’ve done since October 7th.”
It was a journey into an alternative universe of political guile from a president who just six days earlier had approved sending $20 billion worth of more weapons to Israel. Yet the Biden delegates in the convention hall responded with a crescendo of roaring admiration.
Applause swelled as Biden continued: “We’re working around-the-clock, my secretary of state, to prevent a wider war and reunite hostages with their families, and surge humanitarian health and food assistance into Gaza now, to end the civilian suffering of the Palestinian people and finally, finally, finally deliver a ceasefire and end this war.”
In Chicago’s United Center, the president basked in adulation while claiming to be a peacemaker despite a record of literally making possible the methodical massacres of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Orwell would have understood. A political reflex has been in motion from top U.S. leaders, claiming to be peace seekers while aiding and abetting the slaughter. Normalizing deception about the past sets a pattern for perpetrating such deception in the future.
And so, working inside the paradigm that Orwell described, Biden exerts control over the present, strives to control narratives about the past, and seeks to make it all seem normal, prefiguring the future.
The eagerness of delegates to cheer for Biden’s mendaciously absurd narrative about his administration’s policies toward Gaza was, in a broader context, the convention’s lovefest for the lame-duck president.
Hours before the convention opened, Peter Beinart released a short video essay anticipating the fervent adulation. “I just don't think when you’re analyzing a presidency or a person, you sequester what’s happened in Gaza,” he said. “I mean, if you’re a liberal-minded person, you believe that genocide is just about the worst thing that a country can do, and it’s just about the worst thing that your country can do if your country is arming a genocide.”
Beinart continued: “And it’s really not that controversial anymore that this qualifies as a genocide. I read the academic writing on this. I don’t see any genuine scholars of human rights international law who are saying it's not indeed there. . . . If you’re gonna say something about Joe Biden, the president, Joe Biden, the man, you have to factor in what Joe Biden, the president, Joe Biden, the man, has done, vis-a-vis Gaza. It’s central to his legacy. It's central to his character. And if you don’t, then you’re saying that Palestinian lives just don’t matter, or at least they don’t matter this particular day, and I think that’s inhumane. I don’t think we can ever say that some group of people’s lives simply don't matter because it’s inconvenient for us to talk about them at a particular moment.”
Underscoring the grotesque moral obtuseness from the convention stage was the joyful display of generations as the president praised and embraced his offspring. Joe Biden walked off stage holding the hand of his cute little grandson, a precious child no more precious than any one of the many thousands of children the president has helped Israel to kill.
Phil Giraldi : US Searches for New Enemies
Former Saudi official alleges Prince Mohammed forged king’s signature on Yemen war decree
A former Saudi official on Monday alleged that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman forged his father’s signature on the royal decree that launched the kingdom’s yearslong, stalemated war against Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Saudi Arabia did not respond to questions over the allegations made without supporting evidence by Saad al-Jabri in a BBC interview first published Monday. Al-Jabri later acknowledged the allegations separately in detail in a statement to The Associated Press.
The kingdom has described al-Jabri as “a discredited former government official.” Al-Jabri, a former major general and intelligence official who lives in exile in Canada, has been in a long dispute with the kingdom as his two children have been imprisoned in a case he describes as an attempt to lure him back to Saudi Arabia. Al-Jabri also alleges that the crown prince wants him assassinated.
“I am not a dissident, nor did I put myself in this situation by choice,” al-Jabri told the AP. “I was a high-ranking Saudi official who dedicated himself to safeguarding his country, recognized for saving thousands of Saudi and Western lives. Now I am a father doing everything possible to secure the release of his children.”
Biden approves nuclear strategy refocusing on China threat
Joe Biden has approved a US nuclear strategy to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea, according to a New York Times reported on Tuesday. On Tuesday, the White House said the plan was approved by the US president earlier this year and was not a response to a single country or threat. ...
Biden approved the revised strategy – called the Nuclear Employment Guidance – in March, according to the Times, but an unclassified notification of the policy change has not yet been presented to Congress.
After years of nuclear arms reduction efforts, the administration has been signalling willingness to expand the US arsenal to counter China and Russia’s nuclear strategies more recently. In February, the US warned allies that Russia could be planning to put a nuclear weapon into space. ...
In June, Pranay Vaddi, a senior director of the national security council, warned that “absent a change” in nuclear strategy by China and Russia, the US was prepared to shift from modernization of existing weapons to expanding its arsenal. Vaddi also alluded to the highly classified document, saying it emphasised “the need to deter Russia, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and North Korea simultaneously”.
Azerbaijan to BRICS, Armenia to Collective West
No doubts US is behind Nord Stream sabotage acts — Lavrov
Nobody has any doubts left that Washing is behind explosions at Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on the air with Rossiya-1 television.
"The United States - nobody has any doubt left thus far - is behind explosions at Nord Streams, which left Europe without the cheap Russian fuel and accordingly without the sustainable base of economic development," the minister said.
Legal Scholar Jonathan Turley on "The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage"
New Orleans jury hears case against city over sexual assault of teen by officer
A federal jury in New Orleans has started hearing arguments about whether the city is liable for the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl by an on-duty police officer. ... The officer in question, Rodney Vicknair, died in prison earlier this year from brain cancer. He had served less than six months of a 14-year sentence after pleading guilty to violating the teenager’s rights by sexually abusing her in 2020.
According to authorities, in May 2020, Vicknair – who was 53 at the time – was on the clock when he escorted the teenager to undergo a forensic examination known as a rape kit after another man had sexually assaulted her. Vicknair then gave the girl – 14 at the time – his cellphone number and offered her friendship as well as mentorship. In the ensuing months, authorities say that Vicknair and the teenager spoke on the phone and exchanged messages on the social media platform Snapchat.
Vicknair would often stop by the teenager’s house unannounced and uniformed, authorities said. Over time, Vicknair allegedly made sexual comments to her, asked her for sexually suggestive photographs, and exposed his genitals to her on video calls. In September 2020, the officer arrived at the house of the teenager – who had turned 15 – and told her to get into his vehicle, court documents state. Federal prosecutors said he then locked the door and sexually assaulted her.
In September 2020, Vicknair’s own agency arrested him on state counts of sexual battery, indecent behavior with a juvenile and malfeasance in office. He was also suspended from the force. Federal authorities then charged Vicknair, and he pleaded guilty in November 2022.
The family of the victim argue that the city and its police department are liable for her abuse, saying both could have done more to prevent him from using his position to assault her.
Activists launch 'Abandon Kamala Harris' campaign over Gaza policy
The Abandon Biden campaign that for months worked in key swing states to turn voters away from US President Joe Biden over his unwavering support for Israel’s war on Gaza has officially relaunched its movement with a new aim: Abandon Kamala Harris. Organisers within the campaign had been deliberating over their next steps after Biden dropped out of the presidential race last month. They told Middle East Eye they would make the official announcement during a press conference on Monday in Chicago, where the Democratic National Convention is taking place.
"On Monday, we're beginning Abandon Harris," Hassan Abdel Salam, a human rights professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and a founder of Abandon Biden, told Middle East Eye. ...
"In terms of electoral strategy, at the very minimum, we ask the American people to make sure that they never vote for the genocide or Kamala Harris," Abdel Salam said. At this point, we want people to "receive the information, the message that she is a genocider and that morally, we can never support her, and that strategically, we need to punish her in order for us to buy power, because we've been thoroughly ignored".
Abdel Salam said they are also considering whether to endorse a single candidate or even a range of third-party presidential candidates, because "almost all Abandon Biden leaders find Mr Trump to be despicable".
Andy Levin, Pushed Out of Congress by AIPAC, Calls for Change in U.S.-Israel Policy
Democrats warned to keep euphoria in check as election remains on knife-edge
Anxious Democratic strategists are quietly trying to douse the euphoria engulfing Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign by warning that her surge in popularity masks an election contest that is on a knife-edge and could easily be lost. As the vice-president basks in adulation and optimism at the Democratic national convention in Chicago, key supporters are cautioning that more trying times lie ahead after an extended honeymoon period following her ascent to the top of the ticket in place of Joe Biden. ...
A recent compilation of national polls by 538, a polling website, showed Harris leading Trump by 46.6% to 43.8%. But Chauncey McLean, the president of Super Forward, a pro-Harris Super Pac that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Harris’s campaign, suggested that the poll figures concealed sobering realities.
“Our numbers are much less rosy than what you’re seeing in public,” he told an event hosted by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics on the convention’s opening day on Monday.
He described Pennsylvania, which he identified as the most critical of seven battleground states, as a “coin flip” between Harris and Trump. And despite the apparent resurrection in the Democrats’ prospects, the race overall remains as close as ever.
“We have it tight as a tick, and pretty much across the board,” Reuters quoted McLean as saying. To win, he said, Harris must capture one of three states – Pennsylvania, North Carolina or Georgia. Recent surveys in the first two have recorded her with a narrow lead or neck-and-neck with Trump, while Trump leads by a wider margin in Georgia, a southern state that Biden won narrowly in 2020.
Will Uncommitted BEND THE KNEE To Kamala?
RFK Jr.'s billionaire veep prefers the billionaire backers of Trump to the billionaire backers of Harris. Kind of a revealing statement, actually.
RFK Jr considers dropping out to help Trump, running mate says
Robert F Kennedy Jr is considering abandoning his campaign as an insurgent independent presidential candidate in order to help the election of Donald Trump, his running mate has said.
The startling disclosure was made by Nicole Shanahan, Kennedy’s vice-presidential candidate, who said the pair were considering dropping their campaign over fears it might help elect Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, as president.
Shanahan’s remarks, made on the Impact Theory With Tim Bilyeau podcast, were close to an all-out admission that Kennedy’s campaign had more in common with Trump than Harris. Kennedy was a member of the Democratic party and attempted to run as its nominee before choosing to stand as an independent.
“There’s two options that we’re looking at, and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and [Tim] Walz presidency because we draw votes from Trump,” said Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley attorney, reportedly worth $1bn as a result of her former marriage to Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google. “[Or] we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump … and we explain to our base why we’re making this decision.”
Shanahan said the conundrum was “not an easy decision” but added that her sympathies lay more with Trump and his wealthy backers than with Harris’s campaign, which has its own moneyed supporters. “If we are splitting hairs, I would say that I trust the future of this county more under the leadership of Trump and the [Peter] Thiels [the founder of PayPal and a leading Trump backer] and the JD Vances [the Republican vice-presidential nominee] than I do right now under Harris and the Reid Hoffmans [a Democratic-supporting mega-donor],” she said.
Australia could save thousands of bats a year with simple tweak to wind turbines
Australian windfarm operators are being urged to embrace a simple measure used overseas that scientists say could dramatically reduce the number of bats killed by turbines.
Curtailment – lifting the wind speed at which turbines start spinning – is used in some European countries and parts of the US and Canada, but rarely in Australia. A global study published in the journal BioScience found it was an effective way to limit bat deaths.
Most wind turbines “cut in” at wind speeds of about 3 metres per second and reach maximum output at between 10 and 15m/s. The researchers found increasing the speed at which turbines start turning to 4.5m/s reduced bat deaths on average by 40%. Greater reductions were possible at a higher cut in speeds.
Emma Bennett, an ecologist, has undertaken bird and bat surveys at operating windfarms since 2005. She has estimated bat mortality in Victoria – where there is extensive data – at between 25,000 and 50,000 bats per year. ...
Bennett led a four-month trial at a Victorian windfarm that lifted the cut in speed to 4.5 m/s, with the results showing a 54% reduction in bat deaths, but only a 0.16% reduction in energy output and just a 0.09% cut in revenue for the windfarm operator.
Climate crisis threatens medical blood supply in US amid extreme weather
The climate crisis is threatening the medical blood supply in the US, with this summer’s record heat contributing to an emergency blood shortage, the American Red Cross has warned.
As summers in the US get progressively hotter, blood drives across the country to persuade people to donate are facing challenges. In the month of July alone, when more than 130 million Americans were under heat advisory warnings, the American Red Cross said that turnout at almost 100 of its blood drives was affected by the weather.
Record heat in July and other extreme weather combined with typical seasonal obstacles, such as summer leisure travel, drove a shortfall of more than 19,000 blood donations across the country, the organization said. Its national blood inventory plummeted more than 25%, while hospital demand for lifesaving blood products has remained constant.
“That’s a very fast drop in just about a month, and that limits our ability to meet hospital requests for blood,” Rodney Wilson, the senior biomedical communications specialist for the American Red Cross, said. “So as hospitals request blood to treat patients, we’ve had to limit our distributions of some of those key types that they need the most, because there isn’t enough for everybody.”
Wilson said that the number of cancelled blood drives due to heat and extreme weather was higher this summer than last year.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Revisionist Zionists dare the U.S. to pull the plug on their Nakba agenda
Israel Sought to Bypass Foreign Agent Law to Spread Propaganda in US
Gaza War, Lack of Palestinian Labor Drives Decline of Israeli Economy
What Should You Do to Prepare for the Climate Change Storm?
Rare full blue supermoon lights up the sky – in pictures
Journalist Richard Medhurst Interview On His UK Arrest Under Terrorism Act
You’ve Been Lied To About Cow Farts & Climate Change – New Research
As Gaza War Is Largely Ignored on DNC Stage, Doubts Grow over Blinken's Claims on Ceasefire Talks
A Little Night Music
King Oliver & His Orchestra - Shake It And Break It
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band - Dipper Mouth Blues
King Oliver - The Trumpet's Prayer
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band - Canal Street Blues
King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band - High Society
King Oliver and His Dixie Syncopators - Wa Wa Wa
King Oliver & His Orchestra - St James Infirmary
King Oliver - Too Late
King Oliver and His Dixie Syncopators - Doctor Jazz
Comments
This is true.
Edited to add:
This is also true.
evening humphrey...
i can't wait to see what happens when the thousands of people at the dnc who are pushing the democraps to impose an arms embargo and force a ceasefire reach the conclusion that the democraps will not under any circumstances stop the genocide.
i wonder if michelle obama actually believes the crap that she's spewing.
Maybe this will go viral
And the uncommitted will see what the dem bases thinks of Muslims.
On a Sid note, Biden's speech started close to midnight EST. when most people had gone to bed.
lol….the Important people in the party don’t speak on the 1st night. Nothing says that you are a has been to be scheduled live Biden was.
Oh how sad.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Pffft…
I would Shirley take an escalator these days. But here’s what else she said:
Doesn’t that mean that she felt no hope when Biden was president?
And hope for what? Kamala still hasn’t told us what she would do as president. How can you have hope for a blank slate?@;$ why the hell isn’t the base asking this question? Are we just gonna get 4 years of hope that she will do good things?
Good grief. I hope I live long enough to see what history says about this time period.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
I was wondering about that.
See, we can hope for a President who doesn't have dementia, and maybe a bit less of a threat of nuclear war, and maybe the genocide in Gaza will have killed everyone there so we can move on to other things. See? There's room for hope!
And also this:
That's actually called trust -- you are to trust whatever power actually runs the White House with your fortune and your life. Unfortunately for the Democrats, this hard reality is in effect regardless of who wins.
“One of the things I love about the American people is that we can hold many thoughts at once” - Kamala Harris
Spot on
Also…Caitlin:
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
Chuck shouldn’t throw stones
.
The guy who loves Putin is projecting again,” Schumer said .
This from the guy who has bent his knees to Netanyahu his entire career and flies everywhere year to swear fealty to Israel.
The Joy and Happiness campaign?
The oligarchy is throwing a party for itself inside while ignoring the angry protesters outside. Can democrats be more out of touch with their base?
Old man yelling at clouds…
They must have doubled his meds like they did for the SOTU. Oy seems obvious to me that they withheld his meds from the debate to make his true condition to be obvious. Later that night he seemed fine.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
evening snoopy...
yep, euphoria and lies. available in any size package you want. get 'em while they're hot.
This is a brilliant gaslighting deprogramming
... video — for family and friends, perhaps. And a distraction from the DNC Dumpster Fire. The video is called "A Documentary about Psychopaths and Society." It is simple, powerful, and provocative — and it is semi-suppressed on Google. You will need to log in on Youtube to confirm that you are old enough to be deprogrammed from all the propaganda and misinformation debris clogging your intellectual arteries.
I'm really glad I watched it. I remember now the essential questions that matter.
It's clear that conscious enlightenment and self-awareness are not going to develop in enough people to mount a political or moral rescue of the US. I think most people instinctively understand that a crushing dystopia of haves and have-nots is waiting for Americans. This has been true for a long time. Americans will downsize their dreams and adapt to life in the Feudal States of the Capitalist Plantation.
Fo my part, I'd like to opt for the Shared Prosperity of a Communal Republic, instead. I like the idea of a People's Congress with thousands of regional representatives, who can propose and confirm the country's policies and laws. I also like the idea of a modern government that makes its money, not from taxes (which go to pensions and health care), but from smart public investments in new industries and emerging businesses that improve the country and environment — and that make the People feel good about their lives. Why spend money on anything else? The People should be the treasure of the nation.
Populations don’t like wars. They have to be lied into it.
That means we can be “truthed” into peace. — Julian Assange
evening pluto...
interesting video, thanks!
sounds ok, i suspect that it may be possible after the failure of the current system. people will have to organize to pick up the pieces and survive.
Thanks heaps Pluto!
This is a wonderful presentation. The questions asked at the conclusion are very relevant. How does one personally create a neutralising effect on the psychopathic character? - Simple, be the opposite.
I think psychopaths are fundamentally quite weak, and when denied reinforcement, lose their power. They can be hard to identify, but there’s a reason they have to puff themselves up. The other types of psychopaths are harder to identify because they have learned the art of seduction, and people like to be seduced.
Somewhere in the presentation it was stated that “We need full access to the range of our emotional experiences”. We also need more Havel’s.
Ukraine continues it's retreat towards Moscow
I realize what a horrid tragic defeat the liberation of Kursk is but...
There is a pocket that is without bridges to re supply or retreat. It's roughly 500 Km big and contains 3,000 conscripts, mostly untrained as in zero training, doing their mandatory year of service with the promise that they won't be in combat. Most can bribe their way out of serving, what's left are those too poor to pay.
Ukraine for it's part is ok letting those conscripts alone. At some point they will end up POWs and have to be fed and sheltered. Ukraine is said to have taken or controls around 1250km east of that Kursk pocket. Most info is via geolocation of videos posted by Russians as there is very little info from the Ukrainians. Sometimes soldiers pose with removing a flag or a highway sign giving the name of a town.
Seems like more video shot from aircraft. Ukraine seemingly operates aircraft within the liberated portions of Kursk.
evening ban nock...
yes, i am sure that the ukronazis will continue slouching towards moscow and russia will never respond. and when the ukronazis reach moscow, the hundreds of thousands of ukronazis that have died fighting russia will be reborn. yes, that's the ticket.
heh, yes, a certainty, i tell you.
@ban nock
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs. So, seemingly
the Azeris are looking toward BRICS. The USofA spent shitloads of money building a pipeline to get Caspian oil to "Europe" without going through Russia. That pipeline connects Baku (Azerbaijan) to Ceyhan (Turkiye). Sounds like another self-inflicted foot wound. Heh.
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 interesting that both ends of the pipeline are interested in joining brics. there must be steam erupting from the neocons' ears.
Last night I mentioned that the Israeli economy
.
was hurting, but I didn’t know it was this bad.
And new construction is way down because it use’s Palestinian laborers.
And hundreds of thousands of people had to vacate their homes. That’s gotta be costing a prettiest penny.
I’d think people would be quite upset about the news. Maybe they are all we just aren’t hearing about it.
“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt
heh...
i believe that i read that the credit rating agencies are downgrading israeli debt as well, raising the cost of borrowing which must add an extra sting. i guess the u.s. is on the hook not only for the costs of whatever war israel wants to pursue, but probably also for the costs of rebuilding its economy afterwards.
The RFKII thing is misleading....
https://x.com/nicoleshanahan/status/1825244341084078247?t=h9xw41DkJoXSrE...
"Stay tuned. We're just getting started." - says the person who reputedly just said it was almost over.
https://new.reddit.com/r/RFKJrForPresident/comments/1exr2s0/more_evidenc...
https://new.reddit.com/r/RFKJrForPresident/comments/1ey7b04/i_dont_think...
Guess who really doesn't like the idea?:
https://new.reddit.com/r/RFKJrForPresident/comments/1exhnia/for_anyone_w...
Personal reminder: DESPAIR AND CYNICISM ARE THE ENEMY'S WEAPONS OF CHOICE! We've seen these mini-psyops multiple times already (like the ludicrous occasion when they tried to turn Joe friggin' Rogan's words for TULSI into words for Kamelhump).
The full interview from which this rumor sprang :
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!