The Evening Blues - 11-18-24



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Casey Bill Weldon

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta slide guitarist Casey Bill Weldon. Enjoy!

Casey Bill Weldon - I Believe I'll Make A Change

"Everything bad that happens under the Trump administration will have happened because the Democratic Party was too corrupt and evil to run a good campaign with a good platform and a good candidate."

-- Caitlin Johnstone


News and Opinion

Everybody duck! The neocon death cult is at it again:

Biden lifts ban on Ukraine using US weapons to strike deeper into Russia

Joe Biden has lifted the ban on Ukraine using long-range missiles to fire into Russian territory by permitting them to be used against Russian and North Korean forces in the Kursk region. The US president will allow Ukraine to use US-made Atacms rockets, which have a range of 190 miles (300km) – a decision being justified by the presence of North Korean troops fighting alongside Russia against Ukraine.

Though there was no public comment from the White House, the story first appeared in coordinated briefings to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the news agencies Reuters and Associated Press. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, appeared to confirm the news, though he said any proof about the change in policy would emerge on the battlefield, if and when the missiles are used.

“Today, there’s a lot of talk in the media about us receiving permission for respective actions. But strikes are not carried out with words. Such things are not announced. Missiles will speak for themselves. They certainly will,” Zelenskyy said.

Poland’s foreign minister welcomed the news. “With the entry into the war of North Korea troops and the massive airstrike of Russian missiles, President Biden responded in a language that Putin understands,” Radosław Sikorski wrote on X.

But Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy head of the Russian upper house’s international affairs committee, warned Moscow’s response would be immediate. “This is a very big step towards the start of world war three,” the Tass state news agency quoted Dzhabarov as saying.

Alastair Crooke : The West Lusts for War

Biden Ramps Up Nuclear Brinkmanship On His Way Out The Door

The New York Times reports that the Biden administration has authorized Ukraine to use US-supplied long-range missiles to strike Russian and North Korean military targets inside Russia — yet another dangerous escalation of nuclear brinkmanship in this horrific proxy war.

The Times correctly notes that authorizing Ukraine to use ATACMS, which have a range of about 190 miles, has long been a contentious issue in the Biden administration for fear of provoking military retaliations against the US from Russia. This reckless escalation has been authorized despite an acknowledgement from the anonymous US officials who spoke to The New York Times that they “do not expect the shift to fundamentally alter the course of the war.”

As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp notes, Vladimir Putin said back in September that if NATO allows Ukraine to use western-supplied weapons for long-range strikes inside Russian territory, it would mean NATO countries “are at war with Russia.” This is about as unambiguous a threat as you’ll ever see.


NYT reports that Biden’s policy shift “comes two months before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, having vowed to limit further support for Ukraine.” And it is here worth noting that last week it was reported by The Telegraph that British PM Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron had been scheming to thwart any attempt by Trump to scale back US support for Ukraine by pushing Biden to authorize long-range missile strikes in Russian territory.

But it is also true that the day before the US election Mike Waltz, Trump’s next national security advisor, had himself endorsed the idea of authorizing long-range missile strikes into Russia with the goal of pressuring Moscow to end the war. His plan for disentangling the US from the conflict entails ramping up sanctions on Russia and “taking the handcuffs off the long-range weapons we provide Ukraine” in order to pressure Putin into eagerly accepting a peace deal.

So while this is being framed as an administration that’s more hawkish on Russia executing a maneuver that’s designed to hamstring the peacemongering of an incoming administration that’s less favorable to assisting Ukraine, in reality it may just be goal-assisting the next administration in a policy change it had planned on implementing anyway.

Either way, it’s insane. Putin ordered changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine in September in order to ward off these sorts of escalations by lowering the threshold at which nuclear weapons could be used to defend the Russian Federation, and they’re just barreling right past that bright red line like they barreled over the red lines which led to the invasion of Ukraine. And the fact that they’re adding yet another nuclear-armed state into the mix with North Korea is just more gravy for the nuclear brinkmanship pot roast.

At one point in 2022, US intelligence agencies reportedly assessed that the odds of Russia using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine was as high as fifty percent, but the Biden administration kept pushing forward with this proxy war anyway. These freaks are taking insane risks to advance agendas that stand to yield the slimmest of benefits even by their own assessments.

We are living in dark and dangerous times.

Biden greenlights ATACMS to hit Russia, spiting Trump. Russia missile strike targets Ukraine energy

Ray McGovern : Will Kiev Use US Missiles On Moscow?

Israeli strike on Beirut kills Hezbollah media chief Mohammed Afif

Hezbollah’s chief spokesman has been killed by an Israeli airstrike on Beirut, as Israel intensifies its air offensive in Lebanon despite ongoing indirect negotiations for a ceasefire.

Mohammed Afif, who has been the public face of Hezbollah for months, was killed in a strike on offices of the Ba’ath party in Ras al-Nabaa, central Beirut. The attack in the busy residential area came without warning, and appeared to damage to neighbouring buildings.

The son of a prominent Shia cleric, Afif managed the Hezbollah-run TV network Al Manar before taking over as head of the militant Islamist group’s media relations. Since the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of Hezbollah, on 28 September, Afif became one of the group’s most prominent officials, holding several press conferences in Beirut.

Analysts said Asif was the first official with such a role to be killed by Israel, as all previous targets had military or senior leadership posts. Until Sunday, there had been no Israeli airstrikes on central Beirut since mid-October.

Witnesses saw four bodies at the scene of the strike, which took place a day before Lebanon was expected to deliver its response to a US-delivered ceasefire proposal. There was no official word on the exact death toll.

Rightwing settlers in Israel welcome ‘dream team’ of Trump and his hardline appointments

Rightwing settlers and extremist nationalist Zionists in Israel have described top officials in Donald Trump’s new administration as a “dream team” which will offer a “unique and special opportunity” to expand Israel’s hold on occupied territory and permanently end any prospect of a Palestinian state.

Palestinian groups and leftwing NGOs in Israel have been shocked by Trump’s appointment of outspoken supporters of the projects of far-right Israeli activists and say the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has been emboldened by Trump’s victory.

“The series of appointments announced by US president-elect Donald Trump should worry everyone who cares about Israel’s future,” an editorial in the leftwing newspaper Haaretz warned. ...

Trump’s picks have surprised even hardliners. The nominee for secretary of state, Republican senator Marco Rubio, has said he opposes a ceasefire in Gaza and believes Israel should destroy “every element” of Hamas, whom he described as “vicious animals”, while Elise Stefanik, proposed as ambassador to the United Nations, has called the UN a “cesspool of antisemitism” for its condemnation of deaths in Gaza.

The new US ambassador to Israel is set to be Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian who backs the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and has called a two-state solution in Palestine “unworkable”. During a visit to Israel in 2017, Huckabee said: “There is no such thing as a West Bank. There’s no such thing as a settlement – they are communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”

Pope Francis Urges Genocide Probe of Israel's War on Gaza

In a new book set to be released this week, Pope Francis I endorsed a genocide investigation into Israel's war on Gaza—which has killed or maimed more than 150,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened millions more over the past 13 months.

"In the Middle East, where the open doors of nations like Jordan or Lebanon continue to be a salvation for millions of people fleeing conflicts in the region: I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory," the pontiff wrote in his latest book, which goes on sale in some countries on November 19.

"According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide," the Pope added. "It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies."

The Pope's words echo last week's finding by a United Nations expert panel that Israel's annihilation of Gaza is "consistent with the characteristics of genocide."

Ladies and gentlemen, "the only democracy in the middle east," demonstrates its democratic principles:

Israeli Settlement Minister Wants West Bank Annexation, No Voting or Land Rights for Palestinians

Israeli Minister of Settlements and National Missions Orit Strock has said she’s working to ensure Israel can annex as much land in the West Bank as possible during the incoming Trump administration but said the Palestinians that live there don’t have rights to the land and shouldn’t have the right to vote.

“My office is working at full throttle to ensure that if sovereignty [annexation] is applied, it will cover the maximum area possible,” Strook told the Israeli media, according to Middle East Eye.

When asked what will happen to the Palestinians who live in the occupied territory, Strock said, “All people have human rights, though the national right over the land belongs solely to the people of Israel. They can stay here, as human beings, of course, and to be a Jewish state, we should grant them full human rights, in my view.”

When asked to clarify what rights the Palestinians would have, she said, “national rights over this land belong only to the Jewish people. I think a model needs to be found, but they shouldn’t be able to vote for the Knesset [Israeli parliament], right?”

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese calls David Lammy a 'genocide denier'

The United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories has accused British Foreign Secretary David Lammy of being a "genocide denier" and said the UK has done "nothing" to prevent atrocities in Gaza. In an interview with Middle East Eye in London on Wednesday, Francesca Albanese took aim at Lammy in response to comments he made in late October denying that Israel is committing genocide.

"I hadn't realised that Mr Lammy was a lawyer," she said, referring to Lammy's legal background. "As a politician, you might say that for political convenience," she suggested, adding that would still make someone "a genocide denier". However, she saw such remarks from someone familiar with law surprising. "Because excuse me? What are you saying?"

On 29 October, Lammy suggested that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza because millions of people have not been killed. Terms like genocide, Lammy told parliament, "were largely used when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the Second World War, the Holocaust, and the way that they are used now undermines the seriousness of that term". ...

"But it's not the numbers of those killed that determines whether or not there is genocide, and any lawyer would know that." Albanese noted that "certain jurisprudence might have inclined Mr Lammy to conclude what he said".

"But by doing so, he's denying that genocide occurred in the case of Australia or Canada or the United States, where the genocide was carried out primarily not through mass killing but through cutting the bloodline of the Aboriginals so that they could disappear in the white European coloniser's society."

Trump Pledges to CRACK DOWN On Pro-Palestinian Speech!

Haitian immigrants flee Springfield, Ohio, in droves after Trump election win

From a tiny office behind a Haitian grocery store on Springfield’s South Limestone Street, Margery Koveleski has spent years helping local Haitians overcome bureaucratic red tape to make their lives in the Ohio city a little bit easier. But Koveleski – whose family is Haitian – has noticed a major change recently. Haitians are now coming to her to figure out how to leave.

“Some folks don’t have credit cards or access to the internet, and they want to buy a bus ticket or a plane ticket, so we help them book a flight,” she told the Guardian recently. “People are leaving.” Koveleski, leaders in Springfield’s Haitian community, and others have relayed reports of Haitians fleeing the city of 60,000 people in recent days for fear of being rounded up and deported after Donald Trump’s victory in the 5 November presidential election.

“The owner of one store is wondering if he should move back to New York or to Chicago – he says his business is way down,” Koveleski remarked. Trump has repeatedly said he would end immigrants’ temporary protected status (TPS) – the provision through which many Haitians are legally allowed to live and work in the US – and deport Haitians from Springfield once in office.

As Jacob Payen, a co-founder of the Haitian Community Alliance who runs a business that includes helping Haitians in Springfield to file tax returns, said: “People are fully aware of the election result, and that is why they are leaving; they are afraid of a mass deportation. ...

Springfield’s Haitian community has been in the spotlight since Trump falsely accused immigrants here of eating pets during a presidential debate in September. Since then, the city has seen false bomb threats and marches by neo-Nazi groups after having experienced a revival in recent years in large part because of Haitians who took jobs in local produce packaging and machining factories that many previously there found undesirable.

Louisiana court amends ruling that bars school displays of Ten Commandments

A federal appeals court in New Orleans on Friday temporarily limited the scope of a ruling that Louisiana’s law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments in all classrooms next year is unconstitutional.

US district judge John deGravelles’ ruling that the law is unconstitutional remains in effect under the order from the fifth US circuit court of appeals. However, the appellate court temporarily blocked a part of the ruling that requires state education officials to notify public schools statewide that the law has been struck down.

State attorneys said in an emergency stay motion filed on Wednesday that deGravelles’ finding that the commandments posting requirement is unconstitutional only affects five local school systems that are defendants in the case. They said deGravelles overstepped his authority when he ordered that schools in all 72 districts be notified of his finding. They asked that the notification requirement be paused immediately while they appeal all of deGravelles’ order. That broader appeal was filed later on Friday night.

Friday’s fifth circuit order was a temporary “administrative stay” granted in response to the state’s emergency request. The order may be altered or lifted as the appeal progresses. Judges Jerry Smith, nominated to the court by Ronald Reagan, and Kurt Engelhardt, nominated by Donald Trump, voted to grant the stay in a one-sentence order. A footnote said Judge James Graves, nominated by Barack Obama, would have denied the stay.



the horse race



Experts sound alarm as Trump mulls pardons for January 6 attackers

lf Donald Trump follows through on his promise to pardon people who participated in the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, attorneys and lawmakers who oppose such moves would not be able to stop him, according to legal experts.

If Trump does issue the pardons, it could indicate to many of his supporters that there was nothing illegal about the riot to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, and would undermine the US constitution, the experts said.

“It gives the message that Trump decides what is and is not actionable under the criminal laws of the United States,” said Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law who has studied constitutional law and the separation of powers. ...

The federal government has filed criminal charges against more than 1,500 people. More than 1,000 people have pleaded guilty or been found guilty. The FBI is also still searching for people who allegedly participated in the attack. During his campaign, Trump said that issuing “full pardons with an apology to many” would be a top priority.

Presidents issuing pardons is nothing new, and they are allowed to do so under the constitution. The long list includes President George Washington, who issued a presidential pardon in 1795 to people engaged in Pennsylvania’s Whiskey Rebellion; President Gerald Ford, who gave his predecessor, Richard Nixon, “a full, free, and absolute pardon” for crimes he committed as president; and President Bill Clinton, who pardoned Marc Rich, a fugitive financier who fled the United States after his indictment.

Anya Parampil on why Kamala lost

Trump converts voters in deep-blue California – was it all about the economy?

Donald Trump on 5 November expanded his coalition across the United States, and he did so even in deep-blue California. While Kamala Harris unsurprisingly beat out Trump in the Golden State – receiving about 60% of the vote – the former president nonetheless pulled off a victory, winning eight counties that supported Joe Biden in 2020.

It may take years to fully understand the dynamics that contributed to the shift, but experts and political observers have so far pointed to the economy and diminished voter enthusiasm as key elements.

Notorious for taking weeks to fully tally the election results, California is still finishing up its count. With more than 1m ballots left to sort through, the results could change, but as of Friday evening, Trump appears to have flipped eight counties from voting Democrat to Republican in the presidential race: Butte, Merced, Stanislaus, Fresno, San Joaquin, Inyo, San Bernardino and Riverside.

The counties are concentrated in the state’s interior, from the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles to the agricultural heartland in the Central Valley. They’re generally more rural and not as progressive as population centers on the coast, and several are closely split between the parties while others are predominantly Democratic. Half of the counties backed a mix of Democrats and Republicans in US House races while one – Merced – supported a Democrat in its sole House contest. More than 1 million people voted for Trump in those areas, which are home to almost 7 million people.

Polling by the Associated Press and Norc at the University of Chicago suggest that California voters saw the economy as the most important issue facing the country, ahead of immigration, the climate and abortion access. It’s a trend seen across the country, said Mark Baldassare, the survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California, with voters feeling negatively about the economy and angry and dissatisfied at those currently in power.

Progressives Roundly Reject Idea of Rahm Emanuel as DNC Chair

Progressives were left fuming and flummoxed over reporting Friday that Rahm Emanuel is considering running for chair of the Democratic National Committee, with many leftists wondering whether the party has learned anything from its loss of the White House, Senate, and, arguably, the country's working-class voters.

Axios first reported that Emanuel—President Joe Biden's ambassador to Japan and a former congressman, Chicago mayor, and chief of staff to former President Barack Obama—is mulling whether to seek the top DNC post. Current DNC chair Jamie Harrison, who was elected to the post in 2021, is unlikely to seek a new term, which would begin in March.

Emanuel has some powerful backers among the war-and-Wall Street wing that has dominated the Democratic party for decades.

"If they said, 'Well, what should we do? Who should lead the party?' I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and I would bring him back from Japan, and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee," prominent political consultant David Axelrod, who ran both of Obama's successful presidential campaigns, said Wednesday on his podcast.

Axelrod followed up the next day with a post on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, in which he wrote of Emanuel, "Dude knows how to fight and win."

Reaction came fast and furious, with Jonathan Cohn, policy director at the group Progressive Massachusetts, asking on the social network Bluesky, "How is this not a sick joke?"

Center for International Policy executive vice president Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) writing on X that "if you assembled a team of top scientists and told them to come up with a plan to ensure that the Democratic Party continues to lose working-class voters, I doubt they could do better than 'Make Rahm Emanuel head of the DNC.'"



the evening greens


Fossil fuel bosses get ‘red carpet’ at Cop29 despite concerns over influence

The host country of this year’s UN climate summit, Azerbaijan, has rolled out “red carpet” treatment to fossil fuel bosses and lobbyists, the Guardian can reveal. At least 132 oil and gas company senior executives and staff were invited to the Cop29 summit, and had special badges denoting they were guests of the presidency.

That was equivalent to red-carpet treatment at a UN climate summit, Cop experts told the Guardian. Holders of the special host country badges include the head of Saudi oil company Aramco and the chief executive of BP.

The revelations came as some of the world’s most senior voices on the climate raised concerns over the influence of the global fossil fuel industry and petrostates at the UN talks, which reached their midway point on Friday night. Countries are gathered in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, to establish ways of raising the cash that developing countries need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and cope with the impacts of the climate crisis.

Trump Picks Climate-Denying Oil & Gas Magnate as Energy Sec. He Once Drank Fracking Fluid on Live TV

Trump Taps Fracking CEO Chris Wright for Energy Secretary

In a move that alarmed green groups, Republican President-elect Donald Trump on Saturday tapped Chris Wright—the CEO of a fracking company who denies the climate emergency—as his energy secretary.

Wright, who leads the Denver-based oil services company Liberty Energy, is a Republican donor whose nomination to head the Department of Energy is backed by powerful fossil fuel boosters including oil and gas tycoon and Trump adviser Harold Hamm.

"Chris has been a leading technologist and entrepreneur in Energy. He has worked in Nuclear, Solar, Geothermal, and Oil and Gas," Trump said in a statement announcing his choice. "Most significantly, Chris was one of the pioneers who helped launch the American Shale Revolution that fueled American Energy Independence, and transformed the Global Energy Markets and Geopolitics."

Trump—who has promised to increase fossil fuel production beyond the record-setting levels of the Biden administration—also said Wright would serve on a new Council of National Energy led by Doug Burgum, his pick to run the Interior Department.


Also of Interest

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

On Way Out, Reckless Biden Allows Deep Russia Strikes

English Outsider On Trump's Cabinet Of Curiosities And How Little It Matters

Leaks expose secret British military cell plotting to ‘keep Ukraine fighting’

Craig Murray: Two Weeks in Beirut

“America First” Means Stomping Out Free Speech In The US In Order To Help Israel

Deliberate Lies About Amsterdam Violence

Patrick Lawrence: Donald Trump’s Middle Finger

Trump SHOWDOWN With Senate GOP Over Matt Gaetz Nomination

BIDEN lame duck, approves ATACMS strikes into Russia


A Little Night Music

Casey Bill (William Weldon) - We Gonna Move (To The Outskirts Of Town)

Casey Bill Weldon - You Shouldn't Do That

Casey Bill Weldon - Guitar Swing

Casey Bill Weldon - Give Me Another Shot

Casey Bill Weldon - Somebody Changed The Lock On My Door

Casey Bill Weldon - I'm a Stranger In Your Town

Casey Bill Weldon - The Big Boat

Casey Bill Weldon - Go Ahead, Buddy

Casey Bill Weldon - Has My Gal Been Here?

Casey Bill Weldon - You Just as Well Let Her Go

Casey Bill Weldon - Guitar Swing (take 3)


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Comments

snoopydawg's picture

.

If Trump does issue the pardons, it could indicate to many of his supporters that there was nothing illegal about the riot to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, and would undermine the US constitution, the experts said.

Trump supporters went to the capitol to protest cuz they felt the election was rigged and seeing the evidence of late I admit that some things look hinky. But they didn’t have any intention of being violent or going inside and confronting congress. And maybe the protesters wouldn’t have turned violent if the cops hadn’t started using tear gas and rubber bullets against them while they were being peaceful.

And once they were allowed in by cops opening doors for them how many tried to get to the chamber where congress was? And who told the congress that they were under threat and we saw them acting like chickens? Most people peacefully walked through the capitol and then they left on their own. Or once told to leave they did.

We now know that Pelosi had a professional film crew filming the 'riot' and that the)6 committee selectively told a story that just wasn’t true. And why haven’t the republicans released all the footage of the day?

Yes some people did commit violence and deserve to be held accountable, but the majority did not and they don’t. People who didn’t enter the capital or commit violence have been arrested and sentenced….

What needs to happen now is to look at what the undercover government agents did to create this farce. My opinion is that it was a false flag so that government could come up with more unconstitutional policies and scare people into not doing anything….

Just my $.02 and maybe I’m wrong. Plus the trials should have been moved out of DC and into a neutral state.

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11 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

it sounds like trump is preparing to issue pardons on a case by case basis, so i would imagine that the recipients of pardons will be well vetted. i'd be surprised if trump gave out pardons to people who committed violence.

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6 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

.

Operation 'Dark Winter' Resumes as Massive Russian Strikes Again Cripple Ukrainian Power Grid

He says that Ukraine has been using the ATACMS since April as well as storm shadows and other missiles and Ukraine is mostly out of them now. Plus they’ve been using HIMARS that have hit Russian targets including in Kursk. You know….where all those NK troops are fighting for Russia…./s
Funny how we haven’t been shown any evidence of that.

And so far no one from the WH or pentagon has confirmed Biden changing his mind.

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9 users have voted.
QMS's picture

@snoopydawg
to change at this point
when is the last time he
was engaged enough to
express something cognitive?
reading a teleprompter is not
quite expressing his opinion
take the keys away before
he wrecks something else
useful idjit

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9 users have voted.

question everything

snoopydawg's picture

@QMS

but he will get the blame if things go south. Plus when he was in Poland he said that Putin couldn’t be allowed to stay president. And then there’s his involvement in the coup and his family being tied in with the Ukraine oligarchy. If he was capable of deciding that I think he would.

Lauria:

Biden staked his legacy on Ukraine. He was involved in the 2014 coup, in allegedly shady practices there with his son and then in provoking Russia to invade in 2022. He foolishly believed he would prevail in bringing down Putin with an economic, information and proxy ground war.

From another Lauria article on the madness of Blinken

Blinken at the time was Obama’s deputy secretary of state. To support the president’s position, he told a conference in Berlin:

“If you’re playing on the military terrain in Ukraine, you’re playing to Russia’s strength, because Russia is right next door. It has a huge amount of military equipment and military force right on the border. Anything we did as countries in terms of military support for Ukraine is likely to be matched and then doubled and tripled and quadrupled by Russia.”

Hey, Antiny, guess what has happened? You brainless idiot. Just as you knew it would.

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snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

Blinken wrote an op-ed with Robert Kagan titled American first is making the world more dangerous.

Back then, the result was an even greater global conflagration. But after World War II, when Americans stayed engaged, built strong alliances with fellow democracies, and shaped the rules, norms and institutions for relations among nations, we produced unprecedented global prosperity, democracy and security from which Americans benefited more than anyone. It wasn’t a perfect world, but it was far better than the alternative. (then we offshored all our factories that made us prosperous…)

So here is the challenge: Can we find a foreign policy of responsible global engagement that most Americans support, that draws the right lessons from our past mistakes, that steers between the equally dangerous shoals of confrontation and abdication, and that understands the difference between self-interest and selfishness? Such a policy would rest on four pillars:

After admitting that the Iraq and Afghanistan fiascos made America look like an idiot in front of the whole world he outlined why America needs to get back to hegemonic ways. It’s a psychotic opinion….read to see.

No wonder America keeps losing wars with this type of people in charge.

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i skimmed simplicius' article, and i don't see anything i disagree with. i completely agree with the analysis that the longer range missiles are not going to be able to make a difference. ultimately, if biden did actually make this decision, it's a stupid and futile effort to extend a lost campaign and avoid accountability while in office.

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soryang's picture

When Ray talks about N.Korea he says "all indications are..." Nonsense. I haven't seen one objective primary indication of North Korean troops fighting in the Ukraine conflict. Mostly, this story is an effort to catapult the war propaganda, debilitate any Trump effort to wind down the conflict with Russia, and to bolster and encourage the new "trilateral alliance" in Asia with South Korea and Japan. Incidentally, this gives Yoon and Ishiba the opportunity to play "great statesmen" on the world stage, and positive coverage in the media they both desperately need.

The anti-Trump/ propaganda angle is this. During his prior administration, Trump withered before anti-North Korean propaganda after his overture to Kim Jong-eun, up to the Hanoi summit debacle. He almost undermined the Indo-Pacific agenda with his positive moves toward North Korea, but he ultimately cowered before the anti-North Korea bogeyman campaign that never fails. Bootstrapping this anti North Korea, anti communist agenda that has a long history and is embedded in the American psyche is an additional tool to discourage a successful Trump approach to Russia. It also has the added benefit of helping Yoon and the LDP stay in power in their respective countries and attempts to move Trump to support the tri-lateral alliance/bloc politics in Asia, rather than lessen the US commitments there or his efforts to "make Japan and South Korea" pay more for the US alliance.

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語必忠信 行必正直

joe shikspack's picture

@soryang

yep. i have yet to see any evidence that there are north korean troops fighting ukrainians in russia or ukraine. i have also yet to hear any reasonable explanation as to why the u.s./the west has any right to say anything about russia having the troops of any nation on its soil at its own invitation. the idea that the u.s. gets to bomb any nation that has representatives of another nation as its guests is plainly ridiculous.

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10 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

.

Biden has always been an arrogant twit. 2nd tweet. On NATO expansion…

If we do that then Russia would have to look towards China and maybe Iran. Biden said that everyone knew that wasn’t an option….good call, Joe you blithering idiot.

Whenever I start having an ounce of sympathy for Biden getting dementia just as he finally became president I remember how he has always been a mean and racist SoB.

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6 users have voted.
QMS's picture

@snoopydawg
the of the US as the leader of the
'free world' or whatever is
convenient to the message
being promulgated in favor
of basically bad decisions?

up
6 users have voted.

question everything

snoopydawg's picture

@QMS

Or maybe Biden thinks that just because he says something it’s the gawd’s honest truth? It’s his arrogance that irks me and always has. He thinks that he is gawd’s gift to the world…hey Joe, you aren’t. How so many people thought he would make a good president after knowing his history was just beyond me. And the "we will push him left" was just idiotic. Knowing Biden of the last 50 years there was no chance of making him do anything.
I just hope that we survive the next 60 days of his presidency.

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8 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Chairman Xi Jinping, agreed on November 16 that humans, not artificial intelligence (AI), should control nuclear weapons.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20241118/ai-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-push-a-nucle...

In the normal course of affairs, that would mean that the US has already put some sort of AI in control of our nukes. However, the article goes on to state:

Earlier this year, researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Northeastern University, and the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative, tested several AI models as decision-makers in war simulations and concluded that AI had a tendency to start arms race and nuclear confrontations in different scenarios.
Leonkov notes that the US military started to use AI in the army from 2018. It was expected that the tool could be integrated into nuclear deterrence architecture, including intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems and even nuclear command, control and communications.
However, authorities soon realized that AI is prone to errors and can be disrupted by cyber-attacks or confused by incoming contradictory data.

I find this in no way reassuring insofr as our exceptionalist geniuses will for sure decide that they can, all the same, somehow train it.

be well and have a good one

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7 users have voted.

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 --

QMS's picture

@enhydra lutris
.
putting a programmed computer
in charge of anything (other than maths)
is not a bright idea
brwahago

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question everything

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

not to worry, i'm sure that the u.s. has the worlds most exceptional and indispensable computers to be found on earth. hell, i'm wondering now if ai informed biden's decision to allow the ukronazis to use atacms against invisible north koreans in kursk.

have a great evening!

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QMS's picture

@joe shikspack
.
were only a consequence of bad acid trips
my how things have changed
somehow it creeped into machine intel

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question everything

snoopydawg's picture

.

hit the beach in Russia?

B from MoA:

The ATACMS missiles Ukraine had so far been allowed to fire, mostly against Crimea, have been carriers of cluster ammunition with a reach of some 160 kilometer.

We do not know yet if the new authorized use for ATACMS munition on targets within Russia is only relevant for the cluster ammunition missile type or for high explosive ATACMS missiles with a reach of 300 kilometer.

However, the Russian President Vladimir Putin has correctly pointed out that ANY use of ATACMS requires the involvement of NATO (U.S/UK) assets for acquiring the targeting data and for planing and programming the missile's mission.

Also simplicius has stated that Ukraine has already been using ATACMS and other country’s LR missiles. Russia hasn’t responded to their use. At least not against NATO countries.

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QMS's picture

@snoopydawg
.
in Ukie land
thanks uncle sam

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question everything

enhydra lutris's picture

@snoopydawg

have been against targets in disputed (ex-ukie) territory as opposed to globally recognized Mother Russia.

be well and have a good one

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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 --

usefewersyllables's picture

@enhydra lutris

the Karachev arsenal last night puts that distinction-without-a-difference to rest.

Now we will see which of our assets they decide to waste. Will it be a NATO installation, or will they just cut to the chase and frag something directly on US soil- like maybe Hawaii? There's precedent there.

https://archive.ph/4PceR

Too bad the VP is MIA, probably still hung over from her "why am I not 50 points ahead" epiphany. If there was ever a case where the National Command Authority has clearly lost his goddamned marbles, this is it. I think a good time to employ the 25th Amendment is now at hand.

Like I've said more and more often here lately: keep your loved ones close.

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

snoopydawg's picture

.

October 19

Moa

At the time of writing the above I did not know that the idea for this campaign came from RAND, the Pentagon's think tank which often proposes strategic ideas. In a commentary about Russian/North Korean and Chinese cooperation published on October 11, three days before the start of Zelenski's campaign, a RAND analyst wrote:

What Should the United States Do?
Given the differences in the objectives of Russia, China, and North Korea, the United States should be mounting major information operations against these three countries to highlight their differences and fuel distrust among them. Doing so would increase the likelihood of decoupling at least some of their partnerships. Some examples of potential information operations seem obvious.
...
Information operations are also possible against Russia and North Korea.
...
[T]he United States should recognize that North Korean military advisors are supporting Russian use of North Korean military supplies in occupied areas of Ukraine.
...
The South Korean Defense Minister has said that North Korea will likely send more of its troops to support Russia, probably on the battlefield. Given Russian attitudes, those troops may well serve as cannon fodder. The North Korean elites need to hear what Kim may do to their sons.
...
This new cooperation between Russia and North Korea is hardly a signal of a budding long-term alliance and U.S. information campaigns could help speed its demise.

Heh…I think Russia and NK have just signed a defense pact. Boy that RAND guy is as precipitant as Biden was. Both were wrong.

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snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

Good grief. She kept trying to hit the guy who just grabbed her arm to keep her from doing it. They tried to get away from her and she just kept following them and trying to hit him. And she wanted people to call the cops on them.

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

well, she certainly acts like a zionist.

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snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

that would require large supplies of popcorn. Smile

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@humphrey I want to know the truth about JFK before I die. Answers to somehow make me get over the trauma I experienced as a child.

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

snoopydawg's picture

@on the cusp

I’m betting that Israel had something to do with it. Or that T will keep the information hidden.

Anyone want to take me up on it?

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@snoopydawg It will be redacted, only released when Israel no longer is a thing, which may happen before I die.

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

@on the cusp the Stones told you.
When you understand the roles of two figures in the JFK/RFK killings,
you know the CIA (for lack of detailed information across departments, that will have to suffice)
did it.
both of those figures went to work on the Glomar Explorer in 1973.
I believe that some of the more relevant recent disclosures involved the
CIA connection to Claude Barnes Capehart, information that was sought for years
by a local judge who understood the situation, yet I believe he died in advance of this
resolution.
It was US,
and any other explanation serves the purpose of
keeping things confused.
critical mission.

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@kelly that approx. 2 weeks prior to his assassination, he had let it be known he was disbanding the CIA. From there, virtually all info we have obtained can be questioned.
I just want to know the truth.
Americans have the right to know.

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

@on the cusp They cant hand you the truth.
It will have to come from somewhere else.
Until everyone alive at the time is dead.
Maybe then.
As no other connection between Thane Eugene Cesar and Capehart are known to me,
the fact they both went to work on the Glomar in 1973 will have to suffice.
The noise level on these topics is insane.
You really have to focus to hear/find RFK make the complaint that Cesar was the assassin.
A lot of murky stuff suggesting otherwise, IIRC.
Knowing a few things about Capehart's claims which took place nearby and directly involved my Aunt's brother-in-law, it is real to me.
What blew my mind was finding out in a circuitous manner that Cesar also boarded in 73.
I really dont think raising a Russian sub was their sole task.
They sure as hell werent drilling for oil or chasing nodules.

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@humphrey I am tired of looking at hay wire.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

add it to the long list of reasons that the democrats deserve to go the way of the whigs.

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satire?

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