The Evening Blues - 10-3-24
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features delta blues singer and guitarist Skip James. Enjoy!
Skip James - Hard Times Killing Floor Blues
"Americans: hurricane relief please
Washington: Sorry did you say send thousands more troops to the middle east to support Israeli warmongering?
Americans: no, hurricane relief
Washington: Okay you drive a hard bargain but those troops are on their way to the middle east right now."
-- Caitlin Johnstone
News and Opinion
These Are US Wars. These Are Biden’s Wars.
Politico has an obnoxiously propagandistic and deceitful article out titled “Biden approaches limits of influence on Israel,” yet another in the mountain of imperial media spin pieces that have come out over the last year trying to wash this administration’s hands of its criminality by portraying it as an innocent, passive witness to the US-backed atrocities and military brinkmanship we’ve been seeing in the middle east.
Politico’s Jonathan Lemire and Robbie Gramer report, completely falsely, that Biden may be unable to stop “what his administration has spent a year trying to prevent: regional war.” They falsely assert that the Biden administration now has “far less say in shaping events,” because “Netanyahu and his government have consistently ignored American counsel as to how to prosecute the war in Gaza.”
These are just lies. They’re lying.
As many have correctly pointed out over the last year, US presidents absolutely do have the power to stop Israeli warmongering dead in its tracks by threatening to terminate the military support Israel depends on, and past presidents have exercised this power. An Israeli air force official admitted last month that the atrocities we’ve been seeing in Gaza for an entire year could only be sustained for a few months without US support.
An arms embargo or the threat thereof would have stopped this long ago. Israeli warmongering isn’t getting worse and worse because the Biden administration can’t control Israel, it’s getting worse and worse because the Biden administration knowingly refuses to make use of the control that it has.
We saw this illustrated in a recent exchange at a State Department press conference. State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller was asked by reporter Tom Bateman about accusations that “you have simply not used leverage to get what you want,” citing Ronald Reagan’s well-documented phone call to the Israeli prime minister during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 — which stopped the assault instantly.
“So there have been a number of times over the course of this conflict where direct US intervention with the government of Israel has led them to take steps that they were not previously doing — to take steps when it comes to humanitarian access, to take steps with regards to the shape of their military operations,” Miller replied, adding, “I’m not going to speak to all those publicly. Some of them have been reported over time.”
.@tombateman: In 1982 Reagan phoned the PM of Israel and told him to stop bombing Beirut or US-Israel relations would be endangered…you have not used leverage
Miller: Every country makes their own decisions…
Tom: Reagan did stop the bombing, Begin stopped it 20 minutes later pic.twitter.com/81xed6BK68
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) October 2, 2024
This is actually a rather damning admission by Miller, because it shows that Biden has been exerting some influence over Israel, which means what we’ve been seeing from Israel is more or less what the Biden administration wants to happen. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be happening.
The other day Miller let the words “We’ve never wanted to see a diplomatic resolution with Hamas” escape from his lips while dodging pointed questions from reporter Prem Thakker, a position which of course makes all this administration’s talk about ceasefire negotiations completely meaningless.
Despite the nonstop churn of White House press releases disguised as news stories in the mainstream media about how “angry” and “frustrated” Biden is with Netanyahu and how powerless he is to divert Israel off the war path, this administration is just as responsible for these wars as Netanyahu himself. These are US wars. These are Biden’s wars.
Another article from Politico titled “US officials quietly backed Israel’s military push against Hezbollah” reports that White House officials Amos Hochstein and Brett McGurk “told top Israeli officials in recent weeks that the U.S. agreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s broad strategy to shift Israel’s military focus to the north against Hezbollah,” supposedly “to convince the group to engage in diplomatic talks to end the conflict.”
Got that? This same outlet which told us the Biden administration supports Israel’s warmongering in Lebanon is simultaneously publishing articles about how powerless Biden is to rein in Israel’s warmongering.
Absolutely pathetic. No matter how much you might despise the mainstream press, it’s not enough.
Understanding Iran's overdue retaliation, w/Dr. Foad Izadi
Israel Planning Major Attack on Iran
Israel is planning to launch a “significant retaliation” attack against Iran over the Iranian missile barrage that targeted Israel on Tuesday, which was a response to several Israeli escalations in the region. Israeli officials acknowledged to Axios that the situation could lead to a full-blown regional war, which would involve the US.
According to the Axios report, Israel could target oil production facilities inside Iran or other strategic sites. Israeli officials say that if Iran hits back, then all options will be on the table, including strikes on Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities.
“We have a big question mark about how the Iranians are going to respond to an attack, but we take into consideration the possibility that they would go all in, which will be a whole different ball game,” an Israeli official told Axios.
Other options being considered are attacks on Iran’s air defenses or targeted assassinations. Israel has a history of killing people inside Iran, including the July 31 assassination of Hamas’s political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.
But, as we now know, "would not support" does not mean "would exert leverage to stop," nor does it really mean "hasn't been working behind the scenes to plan and execute." Fucking liar.
US would not support Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, says Biden
Joe Biden has said he would not support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites, as the US sought to temper Israel’s response to Iran’s missile attack on Tuesday and contain a rapidly escalating regional conflict.
Biden’s comments came after the top Israeli diplomat at the UN warned his country’s retaliation for an Iranian salvo of nearly 200 ballistic missiles would be heavier than Tehran “could ever have imagined”.
On the same day, the Israeli chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, warned: “We have the capabilities to reach and strike any point in the Middle East”, a reality that Israel’s enemies would “soon understand”
Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of his top security officials at the Israeli defence headquarters, the Kirya in Tel Aviv, on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the country’s options after a round of conversations with Washington.
As Israel contemplated opening a fourth front with its regional enemies, eight Israeli soldiers were confirmed killed and a significant number wounded in three clashes with Hezbollah, following Israel’s first significant ground incursions across the Lebanese border since 2006.
Prof. John Mearsheimer : Does US Want War?
"Don't Do It": Lebanese Lawyer Warns Israel Against Using War to Create a "New Middle East"
Six killed in Israeli airstrike on medical centre in central Beirut, Lebanon says
Israeli airstrikes are still being reported across Beirut and the Lebanese health ministry says at least six people have been killed and seven injured in an Israeli attack on a health centre in the central suburb of Bachoura. It is a war crime to target health workers.
The medical centre belonged to the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Organisation. ... Israeli airstrikes have killed paramedics across Lebanon over the last two weeks, including airstrikes that killed 14 emergency health workers over the weekend. On Monday, six more paramedics were killed in the west Bekaa, all of them belonging to the Islamic Health Organisation. ...
Israel has also been accused of targeting health workers in Gaza, including by killing them in airstrikes on hospitals and ambulances as well as arresting and torturing them. It denies targeting medics and claims Hamas uses civilians as human shields.
AMB Chas Freeman : Why Israel is Isolated
Dozens killed in Israeli strikes and ground operations in southern Gaza
More than 70 people have been killed in a series of intensive ground operations and airstrikes by the Israel Defense Forces in southern Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said on Wednesday.
Israel has continued to strike what it says are militant targets across Gaza nearly a year after Hamas’s 7 October attack triggered the war in the territory, and even as attention has shifted to Lebanon and Iran.
The health ministry in Gaza said at least 51 people were killed and 82 wounded in the operation in Khan Younis that began early on Wednesday. Records at the European hospital show that seven women and 12 children, as young as 22 months old, were among those killed. Another 23 people, including two children, were killed in separate strikes across Gaza, according to local hospitals. ...
Residents said Israeli planes had carried out heavy airstrikes as its ground forces staged an incursion into three neighbourhoods in Khan Younis. Mahmoud al-Razd, who said four relatives were killed in the raids, described heavy destruction and said first responders had struggled to reach destroyed homes. “The explosions and shelling were massive,” he said. “Many people are thought to be under the rubble, and no one can retrieve them.”
Eight Israeli soldiers killed in clashes with Hezbollah in Lebanon
Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed and a number of others wounded in three exchanges with Hezbollah in heavy fighting inside Lebanon. The largest group of soldiers, from the commando brigade and including an officer, was involved in a clash with Hezbollah in a village north of the Israeli border community of Misgav Am, while two other soldiers from the Golani brigade were killed in a separate incident.
Claims of significant losses had been circulating since early on Wednesday when Hezbollah had said it had inflicted casualties on a group of Israeli soldiers attempting to assault the Lebanese village of Odaisseh, not far from the border.
The casualties in the second incident appear to have taken place in the neighbourhood of Maroun-el-Ras. Hezbollah said its fighters wounded and killed a group of Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon after detonating an explosive device. Hezbollah also claimed it had destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks with guided rockets in the Lebanese border town of Maroun el-Ras. ...
The deaths appeared to signify the first substantial clashes between Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and Hezbollah since Israel said it had initiated a limited ground incursion into Lebanon to target Hezbollah’s infrastructure along the border, and came as Israel announced it was deploying additional forces to the fight in southern Lebanon.
US judge sides with pro-Palestinian students over canceled 7 October vigil
The University of Maryland cannot block students from holding an event on 7 October to mourn those killed in Gaza, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday, allowing students to move forward with it.
Students with the school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) had reserved a room in July to host the event. In August, school leaders met with them to share concerns about the event and pressure they had been receiving to cancel it. On 1 September, the school’s president announced he was canceling all student-sponsored events on 7 October and would only allow school-sponsored events.
The school cited security concerns in support of its decision and said school officials had received death threats as news of the event spread.
The decision to cancel the event probably violated the students’ first amendment rights, Peter Messitte, a US district judge appointed by Bill Clinton, wrote in a ruling on Tuesday. The school could have also taken other steps short of canceling the event to bolster security, including hiring additional personnel or even law enforcement.
“The decision of the University to revoke SJP’s reservation was clearly neither viewpoint- nor content-neutral. It came about for reasons that the Constitution simply does not countenance: fear of disruption, and anger of opponents. Again, the case authority emphatically rejects these reasons,” he wrote.
Harris & Walz Don't Understand The First Amendment
US Wealth Gap Report Fuels Call to 'Unrig Our Tax Code'
As a Capitol Hill battle over the "GOP tax scam" looms, U.S. Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse on Wednesday pointed to a new nonpartisan government analysis about soaring wealth inequality as proof of the need for serious reforms.
Whitehouse (D-R.I.) sought the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, which details trends in the distribution of family wealth—including projected Social Security retirement and disability benefits—in the United States from 1989 to 2022.
"Adjusted for inflation, the wealth held by families in the United States almost quadrupled between 1989 and 2022, rising from $52 trillion (in 2022 dollars) to $199 trillion, at an average rate of about 4% per year," the CBO found. "Over that 33-year period, family wealth was unevenly distributed, and that inequality increased."
"In 2022, families in the top 10% of the distribution held 60% of all wealth, up from 56% in 1989, and families in the top 1% of the distribution held 27%, up from 23% in 1989," the office said. "The share of wealth held by the rest of the families in the top half of the distribution shrank from 37% to 33% over the same period. Families in the bottom half of the distribution held 6% of all wealth in both 1989 and 2022."
The report comes as Congress prepares for a tax debate due to next year's expiration of policies signed into law in 2017 by then-President Donald Trump, the Republican facing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in this November's election.
Throughout the current election cycle, Trump and congressional Republicans have campaigned on extending policies from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and also benefited wealthy individuals.
"This report should add urgency in Congress as the Trump tax scam expires next year and we negotiate future tax legislation," Whitehouse said of the CBO analysis. "Do we want to reward billionaires, who have already captured so much of the nation's wealth, or do we want to de-corrupt the tax code, ensure the wealthy and big corporations pay their fair share, and reduce the deficit, all while making necessary investments to better the lives of all Americans?"
Julian Assange SPEAKS OUT Against Deep State, ‘Wolves In MAGA Hats’: Interview
Jill Stein SOUNDS OFF On Dem Ballot Lawfare, Lesser Of 2 Evils
EPA’s drinking water limits for PFAS are under threat – and that’s nothing new
Several unexpected plaintiffs are behind a legal challenge aiming to kill the Environmental Protection Agency’s groundbreaking new drinking water limits for highly toxic PFAS: the US’s water utilities, represented by their major trade groups. But utility industry opposition to clean water regulations is nothing new. Though utilities’ mission is to provide the US with clean and safe water, their trade groups have for decades often fiercely opposed initiatives to improve quality.
Utilities have successfully helped kill, delay or weaken virtually all proposed limits on toxic substances like lead, the rocket fuel perchlorate, and carcinogenic disinfectants. The utility industry also lobbied to weaken the Safe Drinking Water Act’s 1996 revision, which is largely why the EPA since then has only successfully set a new limit for one contaminant – PFAS – and that still may be undone, said Erik Olson, senior adviser to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Action Fund, who also lobbied on the legislation.
The US now faces a baffling scenario in which those who are responsible for cleaning its water are considered to be the biggest obstacle to safe water, public health advocates say. Utilities often work “arm and arm” with the chemical industry to attack rules, Olson said. “It has been across the board that when the EPA tries to advance strong new rules, many utilities fight against it,” he added.
Two major trade groups lead the campaigns – the American Water Works Association (AWWA) and Association of Metropolitan Water Companies, the former of which was a public health group at its outset. They represent thousands of utilities, though not all utilities nationwide agree with the trade groups’ positions. The cost for membership is baked into customers’ bills, creating a situation in which consumers are funding the attacks on their water quality.
Major storms contribute to thousands of deaths up to 15 years later, study finds
Major storms such as Hurricane Helene, which obliterated towns and turned roads into rivers after surging inland from Florida last week, have a far longer and more devastating impact upon lives than previously thought, contributing to thousands of deaths up to 15 years after they have swept through, a new study has found. In terms of lives lost, hurricanes are generally thought to be short, sharp events. More than 150 people are thought to have died across five states after Helene tore across the southern US as a category 4 storm, with fatalities caused by rising floodwaters, car crashes or falling trees and debris.
But new research has found that big storms have an impact upon mortality that lingers much longer – for up to 15 years, ultimately causing far more deaths than first apparent. Each tropical cyclone hitting the US causes an average 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths in total, it calculates, a death toll so vast that as much as 5% of all deaths along the eastern coast of the US since the 1930s have been the result of such storms. ...
The study, published on Wednesday in the Nature journal, analyzed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data for states hit by hurricanes between 1930 and 2015. The researchers were able to calculate “pre-storm” norms for states and then track the death totals once a hurricane hit, with the echo of these storms often overlapping with the next big storm event. What they found, according to Solomon Hsiang, a climate and public policy expert at Stanford University who co-authored the research, was surprising – rather than a single spike in deaths from high winds and floodwater, hurricanes cause a persistent trickle of deaths for years afterwards. Certain groups suffer relatively high risks of post-hurricane deaths, the research found, such as infants and the Black population. ...
The new study does not provide a definitive answer as to the exact cause of these extra deaths but comes up with potential factors, such as the fallout from resulting economic and job losses after storms, suddenly overstretched local government budgets that underfund health providers, the release of environmental toxins as storms hit industrialized areas and the unhealthy impact of stress upon those who have to endure hurricanes.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
The Middle East Is Always At War Because The West Keeps Pushing It That Way
Iran Attacked Israel Only After U.S. Rejected Its Moderate Stance
‘A Measure of Justice’ – US Complicity in Strikes on Gaza, Lebanon Slammed
‘We will resist’: defiance amid destruction in Beirut’s deserted suburbs
Biden’s Gaza Genocide Is Now Biden’s Greater Middle East War
The US Tries to Pressure Türkiye into Putting Its Russian Missile Systems Under American Supervision
The Death Throes Of The American Empire & Western Hegemony
‘The Earth is crying out for help’: as fires decimate South America, smoke shrouds its skies
Julian Assange SPEAKS OUT For First Time Since Freed From Prison
"Starving Gaza": Al Jazeera Film Shows U.S. Keeps Arming Israel as It Uses Hunger as a Weapon of War
STALKED at Airports? Tulsi Gabbard Says She Was TARGETED by Kamala Harris
HALF Of Ukraine Land Has Been Sold To Western Corporations!
Elites Are Sh*tting Their Pants Over 1st Amendment At WEF Forum!
A Little Night Music
Skip James - Crow Jane
Skip James - Devil Got My Woman
Skip James - Look Down The Road
Skip James - Special Rider Blues
Skip James - Drunken Spree
Skip James - All Night Long
Skip James - Cypress Grove Blues
Skip James - Catfish Blues
Skip James - 22-20 Blues
Skip James - Illinois Blues
Comments
the Skip James plucking is good
.
almost an antidote to the headlines
a fistful of salt with the machinations
of the gubbmit' media enterprise
thanks joespk
question everything
evening qms...
yep, skip james had an unique way of pickin' the blues, and it sure was good.
have a great evening!
this from the Stein campaign today
.
~
~
People, Planet, Peace
question everything
heh...
that jill stein interview upstairs on breaking points was quite good. she didn't let any dem talking points survive.
More from Jill Stein.
Well that was quick! It seems a partial agreement was reached.
https://thehill.com/business/4915046-port-strike-deal-reached/
who stood staunchly behind the striking workers
.
WTF. In what universe is this even remotely true?
Don't buy it. It is electioneering writ large.
question everything
I saw that workers get a huge pay raise
but nothing yet on AI use which is a huge concern. But good news for us poor peons.
evening humphrey...
i kind of figured that the strike wouldn't last long because of the vast amounts of money that the ports stand to lose every hour they are shut down.
i hope that the union wasn't too hasty in accepting a deal before all of the details are settled, though.
And there it is…
.
There’s a video of their ad, but who wants to listen to them?
How times have changed.
Notice how Israel said that it needs to use propaganda to get people to support whatever Israel does. Boy they sure learned a lot of lessons from the Nazis. Blehh! And yet too damn many people support Israel no matter what it does or how heinously it does it.
Homeland Security has spent $1 billion housing migrants, but it says that it doesn’t have enough money to support hurricane victims. This should help…
Gotta wonder if they will say that were including the $600 we owed you so you only get $150.
Yves links to an article that says some Israeli jets were destroyed because they didn’t have enough time to get airborne.
Link ICYMI
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/10/bidens-israel-policy-has-led-us-...
Humphrey reports that many countries have told Israel that they can’t use their airspace to attack Iran. That would cost a lot of extra gas.
Oil went up $5 after Iran’s attack. I paid $3.59 Monday and then gas went down to $3.44 elsewhere. My station finally lowered its price today. Rats!
decided today to fill my heating oil tanks
.
before the prices spiral
going to get cold soon enough
don't have the money, but maybe
less so in a couple months
normally the prices drop near election time
but can't count on that this time around
waiting for the wood delivery @ $250/chord
question everything
Related to your comment.
"We’re broke!"
"I wonder why?"
Day after day I read stories about how much money states are giving to migrants while not giving any to hurting people and making rules against Americans living on the streets. I wondered if this was done intentionally to drive up more division so that people rise up. Gee it’s not like we’ve been paying taxes our whole lives while people illegally cross the border and get things that we are denied.
Yup this.
And then the king gets to live in a castle and luxury along with all the court jesters. They get so many perks while they deny their subjects of the same things. And every 4 years after the subjects have been screwed 6 ways to Sunday, instead of insisting on change they get all excited to play the homecoming game again. And again. And pretend that there’s a lick of difference between the red king and the blue king who don’t give a rat’s ass about them and give money away to people who aren’t the legal subjects.
I would guess --
that much if not most of the foreign "aid" is actually wages, and so for instance the Ukrainian economy is being propped up (in whatever portion of Ukraine is actually controlled by the government) so that the government can pay its cops, press-gangs, IT assistance, front-line troops and so on, to do the work of US proxies. Meanwhile the country is a fully-owned subsidiary of BlackRock and the banking cartels, no?
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Speaking of Blackrock.
One experience w/ disaster payments
The 750 dollar payment was an initial payment only. I viewed the payment sequence as basic necessities (survival); displacement payments if you had to relocate to help defray that expense maybe a couple of grand, depends on household size? I'm not sure, I don't know the laws. Then the loss of permanent residence payments. For my neighbors without flood insurance (no commercial home insurance covers flood loss here in FL) they received substantial outright grants in the thousands of dollars to help defray rebuilding costs. These payments were up to ten times the displacement payments (I'm guessing based on local hearsay). My understanding is (again from hearsay) that to get the grant type home repair payments there was a somewhat cumbersome application process and a waiting period to get the money. People told me they needed assistance filling out the forms and had to wait a while to get the payment.
If you had FEMA subsidized flood insurance you could recover more than this. Of course damages had to be itemized, the FEMA inspector came to your home to verify losses, and one had to fill out a detailed itemization of losses as Krystal described on Breaking Points in their discussion of flood losses in NC. The FEMA sent a follow up inspector. If you accept the FEMA flood insurance payment, you are required to rebuild. Because of my age, my personal lack of construction tools/eqt required and no network in this milieu, I have to have FEMA flood insurance. My neighbors in the trades who didn't have flood insurance got gratuitous rebuilding grants from FEMA, but from the numbers they told me, it was only a fraction of the real cost to restore their properties. Some neighbors are still restoring their homes. Others gave up and sold their homes "as is" to flippers and other real estate investors. Even with the flood of transient workers to the region, it was difficult to find a contractor to work on your damaged/destroyed home, because thousands of homes were damaged at the same time. Regular general contractors wouldn't consider taking on a piddling job worth less than a hundred grand (again anecdotal) so the market was tight, and there were a lot of fly by night operators selling their services. Buyer beware.
This is anecdotal, the only regs I actually looked at in this process were the ones referenced in the FEMA manual on flood insurance. Flood insurance is federally subsidized. All privately administered contracts are the same really as far as I can tell. The FEMA controls the adjusters, the claim process, and the payout. I make no claims to legal accuracy, or what will happen to those who have damages from Helene or any other storm.
語必忠信 行必正直
evening snoopy...
wow, all the best people are coming out to support killer kamala! i'm sure that she'll be glad to have their support.
$750 samoleans! don't hold your breath, fellas, there might be some needy dictator somewhere that we have to supply with some extra bombs.
WTF! Previously as mentioned above in the EB's we were led
to believe that Israel was committing its genocide without Washingtons prior knowledge.
heh...
for some reason, that old song, "how could you believe me when i told you that i love you when you know i've been a liar all my life," just popped into my head.
Hard to tell how much damage was done but the Iranians
did pretty good.
Israel and the US better think twice with regards to their response.
heh...
it seems the numbers keep going up. perhaps as more satellite imagery becomes available, actual damages can be assessed. i'll be interested to know if iran managed to destroy a bunch of f-35's.
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs. It isn't much but
it looks like the Rus ae going to take about a billion of what we stole from them back.
https://www.rt.com/russia/605139-us-banks-asset-freeze/
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...
seems pretty reasonable, considering what the west has been doing to russia's assets.
have a great evening!
I suppose that Caitlin could have added unarmed civilians
including women and children.
I read that Hezbollah is targeting Israel’s helicopters
that go in to rescue the injured.
Iran showed that it’s easy to do large scale bombings without killing civilians, but as Aaron said Israel has a doctrine that targets civilians and hospitals.
Many of the judge’s guests think that Israel has signed its death warrant.
As for Palestinians and Jews living side by side in solidarity with the 2 state solution would anyone think that Jews and Nazis would have buried the hatchet in Germany? That comes from the article I posted this morning. Anyone read it?
He sites Israel as a blood thirsty bully.