The Evening Blues - 4-18-16
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features sould and r&b singer Sam Moore. Enjoy!
Sam Moore - Hold On, I'm Comin'
"The government deals with the citizens from whom it has a its mandate in a base and disingenuous manner, and fails completely to maintain equal justice among them. ... I marvel that no candidate for the doctorate has ever written a realistic history of the American Department of Justice, ironically so called. It has been engaged in sharp practices since the earliest days and remains a fecund source of oppression and corruption today. It is hard to recall an administration in which it was not the center of grave scandal. ...
Its favorites are, to all intents and purposes immune to criminal processes, whatever their offences, and its enemies are exposed to espionage and persecution of the most aggravated sort. It takes advantage of every passing craze and delusion of the mob to dispose of those who oppose it, and it maintains a complex and highly effective machine for launching such crazes and delusions when the supply of them lags."
-- H.L. Mencken
News and Opinion
This is an interesting article, it has interesting information about the growth of autonomous robotic technologies applied to making war. The author seems to feel that these "advances" can't be stopped and that the way to limit the damage that these weapons might cause is to have a means of accountability for human users of them. I have little faith that human justice systems are up to the task of providing accountability.
Humans Can't Escape Killer Robots
Over the last 15 years, the idea of "killer robots" has morphed from science fiction to reality, with unmanned systems now a common feature in post–9/11 conflict zones. Just about everyone fighting the multi-sided war in Iraq and Syria, for instance, has used drones, from the US and Russia to the Syrian government and Hezbollah to the Islamic State. ...
This is the topic of a United Nations–led meeting — entitled the "Meeting of Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems" — wrapping up Friday in Geneva. The goal for many at this session is to fight a looming future, to ban the technology and ensure that a human stays at the center of the most important decision in war.
But that ship may already have sailed — without need of a crew.
These talks are in a race against technologic and military change. According to New America's World of Drones database, at least 86 countries have military drones. Some are remote operated models like the US Predator, but each new generation of the technology — like the American Reaper or Global Hawk, or Israeli Heron or Harpy — is becoming more autonomous in the tasks it can perform, the human role moving away from remote control and toward management and supervision.
More is on the horizon. There are at least 20 examples of weapons systems that the UN's Geneva meeting is trying to keep off the battlefield that are already well into development. Among the examples are autonomous drone programs in the US, France, China, and the UK designed to operate as "loyal wingmen" in the air and even take on enemy air defenses on their own. ...
It is hard to imagine a future with any outright ban of autonomous technology, even in war. To do so is to imagine a world in which a military pilot is driven to his base by his robotic car, and then fights a battle in which all sides have agreed to use only older technologies.
Nine more Guantánamo Bay prisoners released as population dwindles to 80
As Barack Obama prepares to visit Saudi Arabia, the Saudi royal family has taken custody of nine longtime Guantánamo Bay detainees, bringing Obama closer to his goal of shuttering the infamous detention facility. ...
The transfer also clears another statistical milestone for the administration. There are now more detainees approved to leave Guantánamo, 26, than there are so-called “forever detainees”, the term lawyers use to describe those whom the administration has insufficient evidence to charge but claims are too dangerous to release. ...
Perhaps the most high-profile of the detainees released to Saudi Arabia is Tariq Ba Odah, a persistent hunger striker and critically ill man who was never charged with a crime.
US Justice Department officials, backed by the Pentagon, had launched an unusual secret legal bid to prevent Ba Odah, who was cleared for transfer in 2010, from challenging his continued detention in court.
Ba Odah’s weight had dwindled to under 75lb. His transfer prevents the administration from having to address the fallout from his long-expected death inside Guantánamo Bay.
Ba Odah’s attorney, Omar Farah of the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused the US of playing “Russian roulette” with Ba Odah’s life and called its treatment of Bah Odah “one of the most appalling chapters in Guantánamo’s sordid history”.
Congress Spurns Pentagon Call for New Base Closures
For years, the Pentagon has been pushing for a new round of domestic base closures, arguing that several sites within the US serve no military purpose and cost a lot of money to keep open. Congress has shot them down every time.
The latest Pentagon report, however, warns that the growing overseas deployments and shrinking number of troops as the budget priorities switch to weaponry are making this even more glaring, and that by 2019, 22% of US bases will be “excess,” including fully 33% of all US Army bases.
How Western Intervention in Yemen Gave Al Qaeda the Upper Hand
They have done it again. The US, Britain and regional allies led by Saudi Arabia have come together to intervene in another country with calamitous results. Instead of achieving their aims, they have produced chaos, ruining the lives of millions of people and creating ideal conditions for salafi-jihadi movements like al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
The latest self-inflicted failure in the “war on terror” is in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Sunni states intervened on one side in a civil war in March 2015. ...
The real winners in this war are al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which has taken advantage of the collapse of central government to create its own mini-state. This now stretches for 340 miles – longer than the distance from London to Edinburgh – along the south coast of Yemen. AQAP, which the CIA once described as the most dangerous protagonist of “global jihad” in the world, today has an organised administration with its own tax revenues.
Unnoticed by the outside world, AQAP has been swiftly expanding its own statelet in Yemen in 2015/16, just as Isis did in western Iraq and eastern in Syria in 2013/14. Early last year, President Obama contemptuously described Isis as being like a junior basketball team that would never play in the big leagues. Likewise in Yemen, the American and British governments misjudged the degree to which AQAP would benefit from Operation Decisive Storm, the ill-chosen Saudi name for its military intervention that has proved predictably indecisive. ...
This will have an impact far beyond the Middle East because what makes the atrocities orchestrated by Isis in Paris and Brussels so difficult to stop is that they are organised and funded by a real administrative apparatus controlling its own territory.
Obama Administration Plans Further Escalation in Iraq, Syria
Over the weekend, US officials reiterated that the Obama Administration has designs on dramatic escalation of the ground wars in Iraq and Syria, with near-term plans to send as many as 200 more ground troops into northeastern Syria to “train” the Kurds.
The expectation is that the US forces will play a key role in the battle over ISIS capital city of Raqqa, though the Kurdish YPG has been predicting the capture of Raqqa within a matter of weeks for well over a year now, and hasn’t made a serious effort to attack the city.
There are also plans for a significant escalation in Iraq, though the timing of this is less certain because of the ongoing political row over Prime Minister Hayder Abadi’s cabinet.
Islamic State's Income Has Dropped 'by a Third'
The size of the population under the control of the Islamic State (IS) and the militant group's income have both fallen by about a third, according to a report by a US-based analysis firm released on Monday
A fall in oil output following air strikes on production facilities, combined with a loss of tax revenue due to a smaller population, meant IS was now coming up with new levies to impose on people to try to bump up its funds, said research group IHS.
About 50 percent of the group's revenue comes from taxation and confiscation, 43 percent from oil and the rest from drug smuggling, the sale of electricity, and donations, the report said.
It calculated that between mid-2015 and March this year, IS's income dropped from around $80 million a month to $56 million a month.
Syrian civilians become victims of Turkey shelling Kurds
Turkey Denies Shooting at Fleeing Syrian Refugees
HRW: Turkey Responded to Fleeing Aleppo Residents With Live Ammunition
After a Turkish-backed rebel offensive against ISIS in Aleppo Province turned into a disaster, Turkish border troops were scrambling to keep some 30,000 refugees displaced by the ISIS counter-offensive from fleeing into Turkey, that’s getting them some serious criticism.
Human Rights Watch reported on Friday that Turkish border guards responded to the refugees approaching the border with live ammunition, opening fire on the crowds to drive them back. The refugees have since stayed along the border, waiting.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that there are refugees from the ISIS counteroffensive, but insists that they didn’t shoot that them, and that the whole incident is just made up. This is not the first time Turkey has been accused of shooting at refugees.
Turkey Rounds Up 100 People Accused of Links to US-Based Muslim Cleric
Executives of a major Turkish company were among 100 people detained by police on Monday over allegations of funding the movement of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, state media said.
The raids were the latest police operations targeting thousands of supporters of the US-based cleric, accused of leading what prosecutors described as a "Gulenist Terror Group" trying to overthrow Erdogan. Gulen denies the accusations. ...
Those held are accused of charges of membership and funding of a terror group and spreading terrorist propaganda, it said. The report added that they included 41 employees of Islamic lender Bank Asya, which was founded by followers of Gulen and seized by the government last year.
Various companies, including ones involved in media, mining, furniture, and cable-making, have been probed and their executives detained during police operations targeting Gulen's followers.
Gulen and Erdogan were once allies but their relationship broke down police and prosecutors seen as sympathetic to Gulen opened a corruption probe into Erdogan's inner circle in 2013. Thousands of police officers, prosecutors, and judges were sacked or reassigned for alleged links to Gulen.
Israeli cabinet to meet on Golan, to underline land won’t be relinquished
The Israeli government is to hold its first ever cabinet meeting at a location on the Golan Heights on Sunday, in an effort to underline Israel’s determination never to relinquish the strategic ridge despite anticipated international pressure to do so.
According to a Channel 2 report on Friday evening, the first clause of a draft agreement aimed at settling the brutal civil war in Syria, being worked on with the support of the US, Russia and other major world powers, specifies that the Heights, captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 war, is Syrian territory and must be returned to Syria.
Israel extended its law to the Heights in 1981, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly furious that the international community is deliberating the notion of Israel giving up the area.
Israeli soldier who executed wounded Palestinian charged with manslaughter
The Israeli military has charged a soldier who shot a wounded Palestinian assailant as he lay on the ground with manslaughter.
The defendant, a conscript infantry medic whose name has been barred from publication, was captured on video firing once into the head of the man after he had been shot by other soldiers while taking part in a stabbing attack on 24 March. ...
Defence lawyers say the soldier took action fearing the Palestinian had a hidden bomb. Prosecutors, citing testimony by the soldier’s comrades and his apparently calm disposition, see it as an illegal shooting motivated by revenge.
The soldier was initially held on a murder warrant. The lesser manslaughter charge, reflecting a view that the killing was not premeditated, could mean a jail term of up to 20 years.
Bernie Sanders: US "Can't Be Blackmailed" by Saudi Arabia
The Saudi Arabian government has threatened to sell of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets should Congress pass a bi-partisan bill led by US Senator Chuck Schumer that could hold the kingdom responsible for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The New York Times reported Friday.
Of the 22 co-sponsors of the measure, known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, 12 are Republicans and 10 are Democrats. The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill's passage and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon.
The administration, which argues the legislation will put Americans at legal risk overseas, has been lobbying so intently against the bill that some lawmakers and families of September 11 victims are infuriated.
In their view, the Obama administration has consistently sided with the kingdom and has thwarted their efforts to learn what they believe to be the truth about the role some Saudi officials have played in the terror plot.
"It's stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens," said Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in the World Trade Center on September 11.
The U.S. needs to take a harder stance against Saudi Arabia, Senator Bernie Sanders said on Sunday in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” saying parts of the Saudi ruling family have funded the “extremely right-wing fundamentalist ideology” of Wahhabism in schools around the world. “Saudi Arabia is playing a very dangerous role in fomenting fundamentalism all over the world.”
Asked about reports that Saudi Arabia would sell American assets if Congress approves a bill allowing victims of 9/11 attacks to sue the Saudi government, Sanders said the U.S. “can’t be blackmailed.”
Is the Seafood You Eat Caught by Slaves?
Brazil's Lower House Votes to Impeach President Dilma Rousseff
Brazil's lower house of Congress voted to impeach President Dilma Rousseff on Sunday night, pushing the embattled leader a major step closer to being forced out of office.
It is now up to the Senate to decide whether to see the impeachment process through and temporarily suspend Rousseff. She is accused of presiding over an effort to hide the real size of national deficits by manipulating the budgetary accounts.
Deputies announced their vote one by one during the rowdy session that began on Sunday afternoon and included cheering, jeering, confetti bombs, and some scuffles.
Rousseff's Workers Party conceded defeat when it was clear there was no chance of preventing pro-impeachment support reaching the necessary two-thirds majority. The vote, at the time, stood at 314 in favor, to 110 against.
"The fight is going to continue now in the streets and in the federal Senate," Jose Guimaraes, the leader of the governing Workers' Party in the lower house, said as he accepted the defeat. "We lost because the coup-mongers were stronger."
[See also: Dilma Rousseff impeachment: what happens next in Brazil - js]
Brazil political crisis: Lower house of congress votes to impeach Rousseff
Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Obama Immigration Order Shielding 4 Million From Deportation
The fate of a plan to offer work permits to more than 4 million undocumented immigrants residing in the United States hangs in the balance, as Supreme Court justices prepare to hear the last major case of President Barack Obama's presidency on Monday.
In the case – United States v. Texas – lawyers will defend the president's plan against accusations of unilateral overreach.
The House of Representatives, Texas and 25 other states are mounting challenges to Obama's initiative, which was part of a November 2014 executive order to spare millions of unauthorized immigrants from deportation. The states which are challenging Obama have governments which are Republican-dominated — an indication of just how politically polarizing the issue of immigration has become. ...
Obama's plan seeks to help parents who have kids born in the US but are not citizens themselves, protecting them from deportation through a process called "Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents" (DAPA). His executive action also expands "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" (DACA) to provide benefits to non-citizens who arrived in the US when they were children.
'Ditch Dodgy Dave': Anti-Austerity Protest Brings 150,000 to the Streets of London
A protest calling on David Cameron to resign has brought more than 150,000 people onto the streets of London on Saturday afternoon.
The March for Health, Homes, Jobs and Education was organized by activist group the People's Assembly Against Austerity. The demonstrators called for an end to austerity, and demanded that David Cameron quit over the Panama Papers revelation that he profited from his father's offshore investment fund.
People's Assembly National Secretary Sam Fairbairn said:
"The Tories are increasingly out of touch with the reality of life for most people. Every time they say 'we all in it together' it's another slap round the face of millions of people. The revelations that have unfolded with the 'Panama Papers' show the super-rich hiding their wealth in tax havens on an industrial scale. This means they avoid taxes that would pay for all the social benefits that are currently under attack and people are understandably angry. We're now seeing the potential for big unrest across the country and it wont be long until this government face a movement for change they can't control."
Thousands have taken to the streets in London today for the @pplsassembly March for Health, Homes, Jobs & Educationhttps://t.co/byfR1oYXPC
— Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) April 16, 2016
Chris Hedges: Revolution Is in the Air
The sustained, daily civil disobedience at the Capitol by demonstrators denouncing the capture of our political system by corporate money is part of one of the largest and most important movements for social justice since the Occupy uprising. Join it.
The protesters, organized by Democracy Spring, have converged on Washington from across the country. ...
“We the people demand a democracy free from the corrupting influence of big money and voter suppression,” they shouted. “We demand a democracy where every vote is counted and every voice is heard. Democracy Spring!”
The hundreds of arrests this past week have been largely ignored by a corporate media whose lobbyists, along with those of other corporations, are a familiar presence on Capitol Hill. The mass media’s blackout of the largest number of arrests at the Capitol in decades is one of innumerable examples of our corporate coup d’état. And until corporate power is overthrown—and it will be overthrown only from the streets in sustained acts of civil disobedience—the nation will continue to devolve into an authoritarian police state. Corporations will continue to strip us of our remaining rights, carry out the deadly assault on the ecosystem, impoverish workers, make a mockery of our democracy and cannibalize what is left of the country. The system of corporate power is incapable of reform. It must be destroyed.
We will have to do this together. No one will do it for us. And as the numbers in the streets swell—and I will be with the protesters in Washington again on Monday—the corruption of our political system becomes ever more apparent.
Democracy Awakening: Mass Civil Disobedience Planned on Capitol Hill to Cap Week of 900+ Arrests
Who writes these headlines?
Pennsylvania takes states allowing medical marijuana to new high
Pennsylvania on Sunday became the 24th US state to legalize a comprehensive medical marijuana program.
The Democratic governor, Tom Wolf, signed the bill into law in the afternoon, surrounded by a jubilant crowd of supporters at the Capitol building in Harrisburg. ...
The bill’s drafters say it could take two years to write regulations and get retailers opened, but a provision allows parents to legally administer medical marijuana to their children before the bill takes effect in a month.
The bill sets standards for tracking plants, certifying physicians and licensing growers, dispensaries and physicians. Patients can take marijuana in pill, oil, vapor, ointment or liquid form, but will not be able to legally obtain marijuana to smoke or grow.
Sanders's scathing Clinton attack invigorates Brooklyn crowd
Bernie Sanders rallied a huge crowd in his home borough of Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon with a speech that drew stark and sometimes scathing comparisons with his rival, Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Sanders, who has become more sarcastic about Clinton of late — including in the ninth and fieriest debate between the two last Thursday — mocked the former secretary of State for her refusal to release the transcript of her paid speeches to corporations, including Goldman Sachs.
Noting that Clinton has received as much as $225,000 per speech, Sanders said: “Now, if you give a speech for $225,000, it must be a pretty damn good speech, must be a brilliant and insightful speech analyzing all of the world’s problems, must be a speech written in Shakespearean prose. And that is why I believe Secretary Clinton should share that speech with all of us.”
Sanders devoted a significant portion of his hour-long address in Prospect Park to assailing Clinton for issue after issue on which he suggested she was insufficiently liberal or flat-out wrong: free-trade agreements; fracking; the war in Iraq; her refusal to call for a $15 per hour minimum wage; and her reluctance to support raising the income cap on Social Security contributions.
“I have challenged Secretary Clinton, and challenged her and challenged her — and she still refuses to come on board” on Social Security, Sanders said.
New York Primary’s Dirty Little Secrets Come Out of the Shadows
According to OpenPrimaries.org, 43 percent of Americans identify as politically independent. In New York state, voters who haven’t chosen a party affiliation total more than 2 million – more than 20 percent of all registered voters in New York. Unfortunately for them, they will be shut out of tomorrow’s New York primary where the stakes for the country’s future have never been greater.
New York state is one of only 11 U.S. states that hold a “closed primary,” meaning that unless you are registered as either a Republican or a Democrat, you are precluded from voting in that party’s primary on April 19 in New York. Not only will Independents be barred from voting but those registered as Greens (about 26,000) or part of the Working Families Party (about 48,000) will also be locked out. This hits the Bernie Sanders campaign hard because he has won by large margins in states with open primaries where independents were allowed to vote. According to a national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted March 3-6, Sanders led Hillary Clinton 59 percent to 35 percent among independents. Sanders has also been endorsed by the Working Families Party which is actively engaged in his New York campaign.
What is particularly outrageous to the millions of Independents that have been barred from participating in closed state primaries this year is that all taxpayers pay for these primaries – and yet, only registered Republicans and Democrats get to cast a vote. That hits people as decidedly un-American and fuels growing anger at a system perceived as rigged for the benefit of the one percent. ...
According to the New York Daily News, a lawsuit will be filed by Election Justice USA today on behalf of “hundreds of New York state voters” who are alleging that their party affiliations have been fraudulently changed to “not affiliated” or “Independent” by an invisible hand, which will mean they will be barred from casting an immediately recorded vote in tomorrow’s primary. The disenfranchised voters learned of the switch when they checked the status of their registrations online.
Pope Francis Thanks Bernie Sanders for Advocating the 'Moral Economy'
Pope Francis met with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in the Vatican on Saturday morning and the two discussed the need for morality in the world economy.
Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs said that the meeting took place in Domus Santa Marta, the pope’s residence, where Sanders had slept Friday night after addressing a Vatican conference on social justice.
Sachs, who has advised the United Nations on climate change, said Sanders thanked the pope for his pronouncements on the need for morality in the global economy and statements in defense of the environment.
"The pope thanked the senator for coming to the meeting and for coming to speak about the moral economy," Sachs said.
The meeting lasted about five minutes, said the economist Jeffrey D. Sachs, an adviser to the Sanders campaign who said he had been present.
The senator’s wife, Jane Sanders, and Msgr. Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, who organized the conference, were also at the meeting, Mr. Sachs said. Michael Briggs, a spokesman for the Sanders campaign, said no photographs were taken, in accordance with rules at the guesthouse.
Bernie Sanders takes 41 of Colorado's 78 DNC delegates, as Hillary Clinton claims 25
Bernie Sanders scored a decisive victory Saturday in Colorado, taking a majority of the national delegates with a stronger-than-expected showing at a divided state Democratic convention.
The Vermont senator captured 41 delegates from the state's 78-member delegation, inching him closer to front-runner Hillary Clinton in what the campaign suggested is a larger shift in the presidential race.
The margin gives Sanders a clear hold on Colorado — enough to overcome Clinton's advantage among the state's dozen superdelegates.
"It definitely shows the trend for Bernie Sanders in the state of Colorado is still really strong," said state Rep. Joe Salazar, a top Sanders supporter. "I think he's trending toward a win for this presidential nomination."
Sanders supporters outside Clinton's Clooney fundraiser in LA shower her motorcade in $1,000. pic.twitter.com/ivbu024IcG
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) April 17, 2016
Bernie Sanders Supporters Demonstrate Outside George Clooney-Hosted Hillary Clinton Fundraiser
Approximately 100 Bernie Sanders supporters demonstrated outside of a George and Amal Clooney-hosted Hillary Clinton fundraiser Friday night in San Francisco's upscale Nob Hill neighborhood.
Clinton and her aides arrived at the home of venture capitalist and Democratic donor Shervin Pishevar around 6:30 p.m. for the fundraiser, which kicked off at 7 p.m. Tickets to the event cost roughly $30,000 per person or $350,000 per table. ...
Holding signs that read “Hillary: You can’t sit with us unless you have money” and “$353,000 for Dinner? And you thought SF home prices are high,” while banging pots and pans, protesters were vocal about Clinton’s ties to big money.
George Clooney, agreeing w the Sanders protesters, says $350k for a fundraiser "is an obscene amount of money" https://t.co/fzedPLZOSq
— Liz Kreutz (@ABCLiz) April 16, 2016
Bill Clinton Mocks Berniecrats: ‘Shoot Every Third Person on Wall Street’
Bill Clinton took aim at Bernie Sanders supporters on Friday. “I think it’s fine that all these young students have been so enthusiastic for her opponent, and it sounds so good, just shoot every third person on Wall Street and everything will be fine,” Clinton told NBC News, according to reporter Brad Jaffy. Clinton later said that “that’s a joke, it’s a total joke.”
Bernie Sanders hit back at Clinton on Friday, tweeting an earlier version of this article. “We should be encouraging young people to get involved in politics, not disparaging them. This seems to be a pattern,” Sanders tweeted.
Inside Panama Papers: Multiple Clinton connections
Hillary Clinton recently blasted the hidden financial dealings exposed in the Panama Papers, but she and her husband have multiple connections with people who have used the besieged law firm Mossack Fonseca to establish offshore entities.
Among them are Gabrielle Fialkoff, finance director for Hillary Clinton’s first campaign for the U.S. Senate; Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining magnate who has traveled the globe with Bill Clinton; the Chagoury family, which pledged $1 billion in projects to the Clinton Global Initiative; and Chinese billionaire Ng Lap Seng, who was at the center of a Democratic fund-raising scandal when Bill Clinton was president. Also using the Panamanian law firm was the company founded by the late billionaire investor Marc Rich, an international fugitive when Bill Clinton pardoned him in the final hours of his presidency. ...
The Clintons themselves do not appear to be in Mossack Fonseca’s database, nor does it appear that their daughter, Chelsea, or her husband, Marc Mezvinsky, who co-founded a hedge fund, are listed. But Bill and Hillary Clinton’s connections to people who have used offshores is fuel for her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders. ...
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon declined to answer specific questions about her connections but referred to Clinton’s earlier comments that criticized the behavior last week. Bill Clinton’s office and the Clinton Foundation declined to comment.
State Department, Judicial Watch reach agreement on depositions of Clinton aides
Lawyers for conservative legal watchdog Judicial Watch struck a deal with the State Department to go forward with depositions from former aides to Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton over the private email server she used during her time as secretary of State, according to Politico.
The agreement, which came Friday night, calls for sworn depositions from Clinton’s former chief of staff Cheryl Mills, her longtime aide Huma Abedin and information technology specialist Bryan Pagliano, who set up the server.
A federal judge is expected to sign off on the plan as early as next week.
US and China lead push to bring Paris climate deal into force early
The US and China are leading a push to bring the Paris climate accord into force much faster than even the most optimistic projections – aided by a typographical glitch in the text of the agreement.
More than 150 governments, including 40 heads of state, are expected at a symbolic signing ceremony for the agreement at the United Nations on 22 April, which is Earth Day. ...
But leaders will really be looking to see which countries go beyond mere ceremony and legally join the agreement, which would bind them to the promises made in Paris last December to keep warming below the agreed target of 2C.
So far, the US, China, Canada and a host of other countries have promised to join this year - boosting the hopes of bringing the Paris deal into force before the initial target date of 2020 – possibly as early as 2016 or 2017, according to officials and analysts.
That is well before the timeline originally envisaged at Paris. ...
The accelerated timeline would have one obvious advantage for Barack Obama. The standard withdrawal clause on any such agreement would force a future Republican president to wait four years before quitting Paris, according to legal experts.
Air pollution increases 69 per cent as coal named top polluter
Air quality across Australia has deteriorated to alarming levels with the coal industry the nation's worst polluter, new data has shown.
The most concerning rise in air pollution is from PM10, a coarse pollution particle about the width of a human hair. Nationally, total PM10 emissions have increased 69 per cent in one year, and 194 per cent in five years.
The figures come from the National Pollutant Inventory's 2014-15 report which collects information about toxic pollution. Non-profit legal practice Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) spent the weekend analysing the figures, which were released on Friday. ...
Air pollution kills more than 3000 people in Australian every year, almost three times the annual road toll, and costs the nation more than $24 billion in health care costs each year.
Oil prices fall after OPEC deal fails
The price of oil fell on Monday after a weekend meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) failed to yield a deal on a worldwide supply cap.
The OPEC countries and Russia met in Qatar this weekend to finalize a deal capping worldwide oil supplies at January levels through the fall. But, Reuters reports, the deal fell apart when Saudi Arabia said Iran must sign the deal as well.
Iranian officials have long resisted capping their production, saying they want to increase their oil exports now that sanctions on the sector have been lifted. Accordingly, OPEC’s supply plan faltered, and analysts were left pinning Saudi Arabia with the blame.
$30 oil ‘within days’
After talks in Doha, Qatar failed to reach a deal on an oil-production freeze, analysts are reassessing oil prices, with some even predicting U.S. crude could tumble to as low as $30 a barrel.
U.S. crude-oil prices lurched between losses of around 4% and 6% on Monday , beginning with an initial sharp plunge in Asian trading hours. At last check, WTI for May slid $1.55, or 3.8%, to $38.83 a barrel, while Brent crude dropped $1.42, or 3.3%, to $41.67 a barrel. Prices drew some support from news of a cut in production by Kuwait.
Crude prices have rallied around 30% since February on hopes of curbs on output.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Here’s a Way to Shut Down Panama Papers-Style Tax Havens — If We Wanted To
Would Hillary Overthrow a Government Run by Bernie?
Racial Justice Takes Center Stage in New York Primary
Our media is just this dumb: Easily suckered press screws Bernie Sanders again
Why Bernie Sanders' movement is much larger than this election
Release of Clinton’s Wall Street Speeches Could End Her Candidacy for President
Barack, Hillary and the Libya Crime
Is Hillary Clinton Above the Law?
Jill Stein: The Democratic Party 'fakes left,' marches right
A Little Night Music
Sam Moore and Mavis Staples - Take Me To The River
Sam Moore with The Funk Brothers - Your Love Keeps Liftin' Me Higher, Ain't Nothin' Like the Real Thing
Sam Moore sings Ray Charles - I Can't Stop Loving You
Sam and Dave - Soul Man
Sam And Dave - Wrap It Up
Sam And Dave - You Don't Know Like I Know
Tower of Power w/Sam Moore - I Thank You/Mr. Pitiful
Comments
Every day Obama keeps invalidating the ONLY reason...
I voted for him. He promised to end the wars, and here he is ESCALATING them.
I feel like a political parent. "I'm not MAD, I'm just very, very disappointed in you, and I'm not going to trust you again."
Ugh. And freaking Clinton. "Just a Joke?" FUCK YOU! During the Bush administration and the administration chaired by your fucking wife, people go to jail and get investigated by the cops for those kind of "Jokes". You don't get to just walk away from the system you set up. Unless of course you're freaking Clinton, because No rules apply to you. I guarantee if Bernie had said that Hillary's policy towards the Immigration Problem was to "Shoot every third Illegal Immigrant", we'd be having a VERY different discussion today.
Sigh. So going on with my world tour of Cool Folk Metal, here's Korean... Yes, Korean Folk Metal. (This music is REALLY freaking Diverse, and awesome, and the people who have been calling it "Racist" are freaking morons.)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzICEUFEVds]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
evening dmw...
yeah, i had no idea how much of a disappointment obama would turn out to be. he seemed like a decent guy and it turns out that, under the jocular, nice-guy exterior is a monster war criminal. the sad thing is that so many people are still totally fooled by him and avoid any thought about the awful things that he has done.
hillary, on the other hand, does not have the same natural teflon coating that obama and bill have. stuff is going to stick to her and it's going to be ugly.
On that note, I was amused to read here
…that Israel named their latest killer drone technology The Harpy.
That factoid comes on the heels of the one I discovered last night:
During Hillary's ever-more lucrative "I'm Off to Be the Wizard" speaking tour, guess who paid her the highest fee of all, like twice the rate paid by Goldman Sachs, the multinational corporations, or the defense industry?
That's right. The Federated Jewish Charities. They claim they pooled the money people donated for Jewish causes — and put it into the Clinton's pocket. The only non profit that paid to play. She got $850,000 for that little chat. I wonder what they're buying. Or, maybe they were laundering funds for a proxy. Charities seldom give all their money away to a politician.
Oh, well. US charities funding terrorism and chaos in the Middle East is not unheard of. And that is, after all, Hillary Clinton's neocon agenda.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Ah, Come ON, Guys!
It's really hard to refute that "Jews are buying US Politics" crap when you pull stuff like that.
Of course, this is just another instance of "Leadership" doing the exact opposite of what folks gave the money for, IMHO.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
And we get forced onto the high-wire
to point out FACTS and not smell anti-semitic. My late hub was a non-practicing Jew, Slovakia dead strewn behind. And I anti-semitic? Hell no---I am anti Zionism, that train left my station long ago.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Sorry, not YOU GUYS, the guys pulling this crap...
Israel is one of those subjects that nobody wants to touch with a 20 meter cattleprod, precisely because of all the associations.
I'll just say my opinion is that I don't like Right Wingers, no matter what their religion.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I'll take the Right Wing over a Neocon any day.
The last Neocon standing so far in 2016 is Hillary Clinton. All the Neocons (and useful tools) dropped out of the Republican primaries.
The Bush family have been reliable Neocon embeds in American politics since 1928. I don't think it is far fetched to imagine Jeb Bush could be nominated at the Republican Convention, and win.
If he is not, the Republican Neocons announced in the National Review that they will be voting for Hillary Clinton.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
I know you understand this has little to do with Jews
…as a people or as a religion. It is driven by a geopolitical supremacist movement known in the US as Neo-Conservatives, or Neocons. It attracts a fair number of psychopaths who seek to rule the world by any means, especially violence, de-population, and destruction. The US government has been rife with Neocons for decades. People like Henry Kissinger and Madeline Albright, Hillary Clinton's mentors, are examples of hard-core Neocons. Dick Cheney and most of the Bush administration were determined Neocons. Israel's government is filled with them, as well. The citizens of Israel, not so much.
Some Jews may be Neocons, but Neocons are not Jews. They are supremacists bent on ruling the world (in the case of the US) and the entire Middle East (in the case of Israel).
Neocons are the people who have kept the US in war since WWII, and the reason that half of the US Federal revenues are diverted — from the needs and betterment of the people and their nation — to global dominance through force, threat, and sabotage and subversive trade arrangements that set the stage for corporate ownership of the world's resources. Being the psychopaths they are, they regard the coming de-population of the world through the violence of nature to be part of their strategy. That's why the Environmental movement could achieve far too little, and much too late.
But I share your frustration with people pointing to Jews when discussing Neocons. Deliberate and spurious accusations of anti-semitism have successfully prevented the American people from discussing the Neocon extremists that have seized control of their government. The Neocons are gutting the nation and crushing the American people in order to achieve their mad dreams of Empire.
They are already failing, as they were fated to do, and taking the people down with them. The ill-fated Daily Kos is a highly effective Neocon factory. It now looks like a cross between the Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Stepford Wives. Those poor souls are lost to us forever. Mind control and social engineering run amok.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Hillary article published in Israel - Zionist war monger
Following up on the $850K speaking fee to Hillary, she has been clearly outspoken about her support of the genocidal Zionist effort.
BDS was used to stop the racism in South Africa and is being used against Israel.
This the article she published
Fighting oppression, inequality and injustice on Passover
Here is an analysis of her article and here positions.
Clinton Takes Pandering to New Heights in 'Torah Lesson' on Why Palestinians Don't Deserve Human Rights Clinton brazenly compares BDS movement for human rights with the Pharaoh.
She tried to stop the agreement with Iran in support of Israel and this video of Ray McGovern says that she knew exactly what she was doing in the vote for war on Iraq and she tried to get us into war with Syria. I linked this in a previous diary. This is one of the worst statements about her war mongering.
April 18, 2016 The Democratic Presidential Candidates on U.S. Foreign Policy Ray McGovern, former Army Captain and CIA presidential briefer discusses the foreign policy of Clinton and Sanders
She is dangerous.
Especially with the rising revolt against oligarchs she might clamp down like what is happening in Turkey.
Hillary article published in Israel - Zionist war monger
Following up on the $850K speaking fee to Hillary, she has been clearly outspoken about her support of the genocidal Zionist effort.
BDS was used to stop the racism in South Africa and is being used against Israel.
This the article she published
Fighting oppression, inequality and injustice on Passover
Here is an analysis of her article and here positions.
Clinton Takes Pandering to New Heights in 'Torah Lesson' on Why Palestinians Don't Deserve Human Rights Clinton brazenly compares BDS movement for human rights with the Pharaoh.
She tried to stop the agreement with Iran in support of Israel and this video of Ray McGovern says that she knew exactly what she was doing in the vote for war on Iraq and she tried to get us into war with Syria. I linked this in a previous diary. This is one of the worst statements about her war mongering.
April 18, 2016 The Democratic Presidential Candidates on U.S. Foreign Policy Ray McGovern, former Army Captain and CIA presidential briefer discusses the foreign policy of Clinton and Sanders
She is dangerous.
Especially with the rising revolt against oligarchs she might clamp down like what is happening in Turkey.
heh, i wouldn't rule out money laundering...
perhaps it was more in the way of a gratuity for work already performed given that the normal channels (corner office sinecure, highly-compensated board appointments, etc.) were foreclosed given the short timeline for acquiring gratuities between her sos gig and the time when she would have to admit she was running for office.
The ongoing ethnic cleansing of Shiite muslims
…is not yet complete. There's much work left to do. Although the US did make great strides destroying Yemen, the last Shiite enclave in the Saudi coastal region. That happened when the US finally relented and sent the Saudis advanced fighter jets and cluster bombs. Yemen was dead the next day. (Thanks Hillary. Enjoy that massive contribution the Saudis slipped to the Clinton Foundation).
Wait, weren't the Saudis supposed to go after ISIS? (As if….) Oh well. I guess that Sunni terrorist organization will live to fight another day. They can assist Hillary with the Shiite genocide the Neocons are so intent upon. Next stop, Iran.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
the
Sunnis, they cross their arms when they pray, while the Shiites keep their arms down by their sides. Sunnis observe five daily prayer sessions; Shiites condense the five prayers into three sessions. So, the Shiites have to go. They are, like, blasphemers.
True dat, hecate. But the Sufis, now they dance. Never trust
a "spiritual" leader who can't dance.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
dancing
is a well-known Suspicious Activity, generally disfavored by authoritarians everywhere. It gets the juices flowing. In both the brain and the body.
A much surer way of experiencing reality, fer sure. I knew you
would know :=)
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
Last time I did that involve alcohol and the Crystal Method
Although I must say the lead up DJ's were better at getting the audience pumped. Even made a variant drink that night, because they ran out of lime juice. (Kamikaze with Cranberry Juice. Freaking awesome if you're looking to get hammered... not that I do anymore...)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SVeCTOimRk]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Perfect placement, I think, either "side"
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
American Camping Association
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-gives-likely-las...
Hope that link works. ACA is, I believe, a non-profit -- correct me if I'm wrong. Why would they pay 10% of their annual operating budget to hear Hillary talk about her time as a scout? I believe ACA includes groups that recruit foreign-born "campers" to work (at slave wages) in the US. There's more to this story; will fill in later -- it's floating around on different places on the toobz.
Evening Blues. It's what's for breakfast.
At least, that's the case in my night owl world. And I like waking up with the news, especially with joe's selection magic. It's like a theme park with every crazy attraction you can imagine.
I'm off to ride this one from today:
How Western Intervention in Yemen Gave Al Qaeda the Upper Hand
Because I'm shocked! Just shocked! It's such an original concept. No one could have foreseen…. Tootleloo.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
evening/morning pluto...
heh, but all of those other conflicts - iraq 1&2, somalia, afghanistan, ukraine, libya, syria - they all went so well. i mean, yemen was just going to be a slam dunk.
surely this must be the outcome that they wish for.
New posts @ Attawapiskat & First Nations News
I have posted three new articles starting here.
Please help the Resilience Resource Library grow by adding your links.
First Nations News
evening martha...
thanks for staying on this story, i hope that the attention that it is getting in the press will lead to a national moment where change and healing are made possible.
Thanks for the link to your updates, Martha. Eish, you're right;
the usual sturm und drang from the bureaucrats and politicos - "full of sound and fury signifying nothing"...
Back in SA, in my impudent youth, I worked for 5 years trying to help rural development agencies co-operate with stakeholders and federal gov wallahs. I know all about the heartbreak of endless hours, days and nights of futile hard work of rural development within an unjust racist structure. Sigh. I wish everyone well. Sigh.
Thanks for the conscientizing work you do on this urgent necessity of saving young lives. It is soulmaking work.
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
A Sign of the Times
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
evening jnh...
heh, trust is a two-way street. i see no reason that people of any age who are not wealthy 1%ers should trust hillary.
Thanks for the Mencken quote
Joe, thanks for that H.L. Mencken quote. If he were here today, he might not be the least bit surprised that Martha Stewart(!) went to federal prison but none of the Wall Street guys who crashed our entire economy.
"We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty."
evening rmw...
yes, that mencken was a shrewd observer of people and society at large - as well as a deeply cynical thinker. i doubt there's anything happening today that he would be surprised by. to the extent that anything has gotten worse, mencken would no doubt view it as a natural progression.
Evening Joe & c99%-ers.
A quick drive by to say hi & thanks to Joe for the news & Blues medley.
I found this superb post on Killary's neocon fanboys club - a great reference/one-stop shop article on her warmongering credentials :
https://raniakhalek.com/2016/04/16/is-hillary-clinton-more-dangerous-tha...
And finally, someone says it loud and clear on a leading feminist blog :
http://feministing.com/2016/03/23/when-the-feminist-establishment-candid...
You all have a great evening.
evening funkygal...
thanks! those are both quite excellent articles that point out some of the great ironies of hillary clinton's positioning herself as a feminist or anti-racist.
Evening joe. Mighty tasty stuff from Sam Moore. Democracy
Spring are doing some tasty stuff also. First we take Manhatten, then we take the nomination...
Have a great evening,
Resilience: practical action to improve things we can control.
3D+: developing language for postmodern spirituality.
evening gerrit...
sam and dave were a big part of the soundtrack of my youth, i'm always happy when the wheel of the blues list works its way around to them.
have a good one!
Evening, Joe!
Sam Cook is an uplift vs your news. It's mean and deadly out there.
An anecdote: early 2000's, I went to my son's college graduation. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach. The Guest speaker was a former President of the University, who told the audience about his new business venture, DRONES. He explained the military concept. There were no peacetime concepts at the time. I thought it sounded interesting to wage battle and death from a secret site in Nevada, although it was all fuzzy then. And it played out, I was dismayed. So awful, for operators, for innocents on the ground. Smarted right up, I did, when there were US military drone flyovers of US soil. There were butt-end photos of boats way below, with transom names and numbers. My welcome to Homeland Security. Small shock, awe is not right.
Back to Sam Cook, know all the lyrics.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Jesus, I won't edit for my brain lapse
Sam Moore, not Sam Cook, but I can See Clearly Now is also fine.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
evening riverlover...
wow, what a memory! interesting the difference in affect between the entrepreneur's enthusiasm for creating and building an invention and the sad uses to which the invention has been put.
You mean this Steve?....
Lived in the town Insitu got its start. Met him at parties. Not the nicest guy in the world.
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20060901/hidi-sliwa.html
Yes he was at Embry-Riddle.
You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again you did not know. ~ William Wiberforce
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Evening Joe
Quick thought about TOP (I know boring)
Why don't people just stop flagging anything - If Kos want's his
businesssite moderated let him pay $ for the privilege.“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire
I guess you saw Kos' New Directive
My sense is that the flames have been fanned, Bob Johnson is all over it. Good Rex, good dog.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Another one?
At this point, the commandments from high are becoming unintentional self parody.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuVEgiZs6hY]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
All kumbaya OT
served with 2 sides of irony. Kinda sweet, in a make-believe world. Just watch for knives, they are already showing, over there.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
I saw it when there was
about 3 comments - time for a return visit I think.
Bob Johnson has been pretty entertaining lately
If I understood his post correctly Dkos moderation now works like this:
Once a user proves themselves a good citizen they are trusted enough to be involved in moderation process
Paid staff then judge said moderation
If the trusted user makes a bad call they are sanctioned
There reward for doing a good job is - nothing-zilch.
I used to think Steve Jobs was Markos's hero - now I suspect it was P.T. Barnum
Cannot make this stuff up.
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire
evening steve...
i have always suspected that for some users of kos' utilities, the ability to dispense sanctions is their favorite feature - one that gives them a great sense of belonging and satisfaction.
i paid little attention to them, but there seemed to be a number of folks that spent most of their time monitoring the hidden comments.
Better hope those flaggers pony up! Got this email wanting $$$$
"[divineorder], I'm writing to you today about Daily Kos' finances. We've set big goals for ourselves this year so that we can run our biggest-ever election year programs—and we're committed to running those programs to stop Trump and take back the Senate.
About one-third of our revenue comes from readers like you—we literally could not do the work that we do without you. But here's the thing: A lot of our readers don't start contributing to us or to endorsed candidates until late-summer or fall, when the election is right around the corner. We've built that expected surge into our budget, but we still need to raise $250,000 this month to fully fund our plans for this election.
Right now, we are $115,293.24 away from our goal.
Can you chip in $5 to keep Daily Kos fighting?
Daily Kos is a small organization. We have just 48 staff working to serve tens of millions of readers. As president, I work hard to keep costs down, but we have expenses like any other major website—like staff and servers.
Our business model changed a few years ago so that we’re more dependent on the readers we write for and the community we work with. We think that's a good thing, but it does mean we need your help. So, please chip in if you can.
Thank you,
Will Rockafellow
President, Daily Kos"
BwahahahahahahahahhahahahahaahahahahahaahBwahahahahahahahahhahahahahaahahahahahaah
Bwahahahahahahahahhahahahahaahahahahahaah.
"fully fund our plans for this election."
Eh. Nope. Nada from me.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Love the article about Hill's emails
Is Hillary Clinton Above the Law?
snip
snip
She not only put American diplomacy at risk, she put senior officials at risk of being assassinated and put herself at risk of being blackmailed. And she thinks she deserves to be President???
The intelligence community is seething. Manning got 35 years for leaking much lower level information. Clinton doesn't even get prosecuted?
I did too
And recommend others read it. If it was anyone but Hillary who had done what she did with her emails, they would have been charged already. And apparently the FBI is pissed that they can't go after her. And they were pissed when Petrayous got a slap on the wrist for his crimes.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
At the end of the article, he writes
I doubt it that if any of the Hillary supporters read this article it would change their minds.
Hell, Steven D and bobswern posted two diaries at TOP listing a lot of heinous things Hillary has done and her supporters won't budge.
In steven's diary, one poster said he was voting for her for Those reasons
How the hell can you argue with people who see all of the hideous things Hillary has done but they don't care and are going to vote for her anyway?
Again, I don't get it.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
I've taken some time
to discuss the issues with the very few Clinton supporters in my county's Dem party here in Ohio. (I still don't see how she won Ohio) By and large they are what most of us political junkies would call republicans, or if we were gracious, republican lite. I saw it at TOP. That's why I'll not go there anymore. I made this comment a while back. The Dem party is divided into the "fuck you I've got mine" wing and the rest of us.
I do understand there's a lot of people that voted for her that did so because of name recognition and the fear that was shoved on them by the Clinton campaign saying Bernie couldn't win in Nov. These are people just busy surviving that don't have the time or sometimes the means to research the candidates. Low information. But the ones in my Dem party who are elected officials, and the ones at TOP are a different story. Life is good for them. They want nothing to change. Oh, and fuck the poor. And when Hillary takes us off to war they'll be singing her praises. And when she screws us over on SS and Medicare they'll be making excuses for her. Just like they do now for her Wall Street money grubbing and her chronic lies...
Heard Karl Rove working for her - might explain OH
from someone involved in election integrity here in OH
I didn't hear the methods used here, but the AZ fiasco was similar to the 2004 OH election
People here have done some consulting for the Bernie campaign and this is a first that the democrats have been interested
they said that in 2004, Soros dumped a lot of $ on Kerry and told him not to contest the election here in OH
evening tn...
it seems to me that if the "justice" department does not do something about this, the "little people," the ones that are held accountable for their breadcrumb sins are going to hit the ceiling.
May I live long enough to shake Chelsea Manning’s hand
after she receives a presidential pardon and a Medal of Honor.
Have you seen this?
Pdf of newspaper being distributed in NY [City, I think] by The Indypendent and The Occupied Wall Street Jounal:
http://battleof.nyc/battle-of-new-york.pdf
Damn. There's some good stuff there.
Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.
Thomas Payne sort of good.
Nice broadside, if that's the right term, don't know whether it's actually print paper in the City. Delicious.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
evening featheredsprite...
thanks for the link!
i knew that it was coming in print form, but i hadn't seen it.
I suppose the only way to stop the killer robots is to stop
those who create war, create enemies, and create the lies and propaganda to support it. It's a shame to me that Bernie Sanders isn't on this bandwagon, which I think is most crucial along with the central banks and democracy itself. His so called revolution is now an inhibitor in my opinion in fighting back against the lies because Sanders himself accepts most of those lies. It's similar to me with what has happened under Obama where much of the left/progressives/democrats have given Obama a free pass with U.S. imperialism, I see the same free pass given Sanders.
But if it's Clinton, we know what we'll get. The left likes to protest wars when they don't like the messenger so maybe a Clinton in the White House would spur some action.
Either way, the MIC is going to be a tough nut to crack if it's crackable at all. The lemmings are more dependent on it and more intertwined with it than they think.
Directly or indirectly
…one in four Americans work for the US War Machine.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
In effect our entire lives revolve around it,
from the conditioning in school to the ruling class media propaganda system to the self contained political system to the Homeland Security apparatus after 9/11. It's so ingrained everywhere it's hard to imagine how to end it. I was going to suggest a global outlawing of all war, but that's already been done, all wars now are effectively illegal.
Hell with it, save the whales, we can't save ourselves.
evening al...
i'm not sure that stopping the killer robots is possible. once the technology is out there, it's going to be damned hard to keep it from being built and used.
i agree with you that bernie's greatest shortcoming is his failure to articulate an anti-war, anti-imperialist policy. i think that he may have greater personal reserves of decency than the other candidates running for the presidency, but that is no substitute for leadership in taking down the mic. if we want it taken down, it is probably up to us to convince the movement that it needs to be done and apply pressure as a movement from the outside.
Hey joe,
ya, I remember when the drones came out and how some of us were warning that if we didn't stop it there'd be drones in every cop shop, etc. Now look at it. Somehow we have to break the illusion that is the U.S. military and the U.S. government role on the planet. It's made out to be a world's policeman type of situation to Americans, who largely accept that except many are calling for other nations to foot more of the bill, like Sanders. That's dangerous imo, it simply continues the grand illusion and pushes us farther away from breaking it down. Like everything would be OK as long as we shared more in the costs for the mass murder.
You know I've been pushing for years to get this more attention, that it's mass murder and grand larceny on a massive scale for the ruling elite but it's tough to get people to focus on it. It's perplexing with deep sociological connections. There are only so many people out there that are willing to do something, that are active. I've long thought that if we all focused on one damn thing we could get it done. End U.S. Imperialism and all imperialism, End Rule by the Rich, that's the bottom line to me. I think getting there incrementally is going to take centuries, if we have that long.
German friends are surprised when I say U.S. commits war crimes
and U.S. presidents are war criminals.
But the way I figure it, setting an example by honestly speaking out is sort of a duty at my age.
It is a duty, you're right. I've felt like quiting so many
times and one thing keeps me going, I know too much.
Interesting about your German friends but I suppose propaganda is propaganda whether in English or German.
Glad you did not quit. eom
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
it's a shame they are surprised, because
if they were actually reading some alternative media and grasp it, they wouldn't. I am always amazed how little really crosses over from the US to Germany in the main stream media of Germany. They are so timid and always trying to express things moderately, at least that's how I had the feeling during the last years.
Thanks for trying to open the eyes of some Germans.
Excellent panel - 3 books on drones
A panel at Annapolis book festival on April 16
First book about how there was a directive that US would not carry out assignation. They put a trailer on the CIA lawn, and another structure that looked like a construction shelter and ran a cable. Someone else was on the control panel for the drone, but the cable allowed a CIA operative to really push the button. It got the name Monkey Switch because it could be a monkey pushing the button.
Next book by Scott Shane of NY Times about consequences. We put Anwar al-Awlaki, an American on the kill list, and murdered him. Obama told how his rantings about attacking US citizens made us all at risk. 2 weeks later a drone killed his 16 year old son which showed our true colors. I have heard this many times. What I didn't realize that there are something like 70,000 (someone could check and see if I got it right) youtubes of him out on the web. By the murder we created a martyr. On the computers of the solder who murdered other solders in TX, the Boston bombers and the San Bernardino murders were videos of him. Like Nixon and Kissinger who waged war in Vietnam and other places in order to stay in power in the US, Obama and the military created a monster who is really threatening. Since anyone can buy drones everywhere, what will they say when they are killing people here in the US?
The third book was about the strategic failure of Obama's drone warfare.
I didn't see the whole thing but it was very well done. The start of the video shows how small the audience was
Panel Discussion on Drone Warfare
Drones target the defenseless, living in defenseless villages
It’s Guernica by assembly line, from the comfort of one’s air-conditioned bunker.
It looks to me that they are going to steal another election
Look at all the voting irregularities, people's party affiliation being changed behind their backs and all of the lawsuits being presented.
Was it in Michigan that Clinton went to the strong leaning Bernie polling stations and gave speeches about his wife? How isn't that election fraud when just because he's there, there's all the secret service protection people and cars that made it harder for people to vote.
I'm thinking in conspiracy territory when I look back after Gore lost to Bush and member after member of congress got up in front of the congress and told about voting irregularities and Gote just sat on his ass and didn't contest the decision. He said it would have torn the country apart. Funny, Obama said the same thing about holding Bush and Cheney accountable for their war crimes.
And Kerry promised us that he would fight if it looked like the election was stolen, and yet he didn't.
So even if Bernie wins somehow they are still going to give it to Hillary.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
And WWBD?
That will be interesting, and telling.
You bet it will.
What exactly are people going to do if and when Bernie says, fun’s over, yay Hillary, now it’s back to the veal pen.
There will be wailing and gnashing of the teeth,
then the song will play, again, "Don't get fooled again", until the next time because it is to be and always will be according to how it was written.
Man, my little digits are worn to the bone.
Very interesting convos tonight. It's like being in the waiting room at the maternity ward. (Or so I've heard.)
Whaddya think? Did I go too far?
Improve the Resilience Resource Library by adding your links.
Vote Smart - Just the Facts - 40,000 politicians by name or zipcode
In Re: What The USS Donald Cook...
and Polish Navy Were Doing Off Kaliningrad When They Were Buzzed By the Russian Air Force.
In 1986, my basic job was to sit Alert as a copilot in a KC-135, tasked with refueling B-52s on their way to targets in the Soviet Union, with nuclear weapons, in case of WWIII.
One morning, (not while on Alert) I took off from Grand Forks AFB, ND, as #13 of a sixteen-ship MITO (minimum interval take-off...taking off one after another, with 12 second spacing), 8 B-52s, followed by 8 KC-135s. We joined up with another 16 heavies from Minot AFB, as well as a group of F-15s from the NORAD unit, the "Spittin' Kittens", and headed north, over the pole (actually crossed over the top of the Earth at about 89 degrees north).
If you saw "Dr. Strangelove", you learned that there was a point after which the bombers could no longer be called back from their mission. We flew to that point...turned around, and came back. Just because. These sorts of provocations go on all the time. Just because. Your tax dollars at work.
"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X
One might say the peace plan is to shoot every third Palestinian
Yes, Hillary is a Neocon
Hey joe, you still awake? Hello to all from the beautiful CA
coast. We had awesome good luck in Monterey a few days ago, were able to observe some baby seals young coming onto to the beach which were young enough to still have their umbilical cords still attached.
Interesting aggressive behavior among the mothers, who would bite another's pup if it got too close. Whew!
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Wow, it's all too awful in fact,
I did phone banking today, because what else is there to do? It is dangerous to get to that point of real disillusionment. OMG I hope they won't steal the election with their dirty tricks again.
I just pray.
Good Night.
For those who never have enough about anything
this article seems to wrap up and explain quite nicely "hillarious l'affair Guccifer ".
An Odd Cloud Rolls Toward Hillary Clinton’s Campaign: The Case of an Arrested Romanian Hacker - Posted on Apr 18, 2016 - By Bill Blum
The banality of “Guccifer” - the hacking l'enfant terrible.
Tired of this internet shit. I want my pencil and my paper back and my post office delivering the mail without snooping and scanning it. Is that too much to ask?
Good evening, Joe. Thanks.
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 --
Hating is Learned
I just decided not to hate. Partly because of the first post here, but before that, reading the other posts, scattered elsewhere about this nice blog, I detected the teaching of hate. We should not do that, we should really try to transcend that. Even as we believe the Clinton machine as malevolent, we must not hate. Instead, we must fight, but fight fair.
There is utility in hate, political utility. Hate, being an emotion, delivers motion to causes. All emotions do so. But it destroys from within; it enables you to accept half-truths and act upon them in your cause. It is a weapon, ultimately. Think of Rush Limbaugh.
We have something better. We have Truth. As long as we stay true to our reality-based community, and do not descend into the emotional part, we do not have to exhibit motion. We can stay still in place, because that is where we belong.
Come tomorrow, we will know something about the dynamics of politics, this is an auspicious moment, remember it! I.e., don't drink too soon, the young folk claim to be flocking to the polls, hoping and believing that Bernie will prevail.
But whatever happens, I am still on the side of good. Right here, where I've always been.
Bernie is a win-win.
It’s a Bhagavad-Gita moment… Arjuna’s heading into battle…
http://toseventhheaven.blogspot.de/2010/04/14-krishnas-advice-to-arjuna-...