The Evening Blues - 1-22-18



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Henry Townsend

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features St. Louis blues musician Henry Townsend. Enjoy!

Henry Townsend - Walk All Night

“The media represents world that is more real than reality that we can experience. People lose the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. They also begin to engage with the fantasy without realizing what it really is.
They seek happiness and fulfilment through the simulacra of reality, e.g. media and avoid the contact/interaction with the real world.”

-- Jean Baudrillard


News and Opinion

SNL almost gives away the game. Intentional or oversight?

What Even Matters Anymore?

Republicans Have Four Easy Ways to #ReleaseTheMemo — and the Evidence for It. Not Doing So Will Prove Them to Be Shameless Frauds.

Social media last night and today have been flooded with inflammatory and quite dramatic claims now being made by congressional Republicans about a four-page memo alleging abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act spying processes during the 2016 election. This memo, which remains secret, was reportedly written under the direction of the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, GOP Rep. Devin Nunes, and has been read by dozens of members of Congress after the committee voted to make the memo available to all members of the House of Representatives to examine in a room specially designated for reviewing classified material.

The rhetoric issuing from GOP members who read the memo is notably extreme. North Carolina Republican Rep. Mark Meadows, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, called the memo “troubling” and “shocking” and said, “Part of me wishes that I didn’t read it because I don’t want to believe that those kinds of things could be happening in this country that I call home and love so much.” GOP Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania stated: “You think about, ‘Is this happening in America or is this the KGB?’ That’s how alarming it is.”

This has led to a ferocious outcry on the right to “release the memo” – and presumably thereby prove that the Obama administration conducted unlawful surveillance on the Trump campaign and transition. On Thursday night, Fox News host and stalwart Trump ally Sean Hannity claimed that the memo described “the systematic abuse of power, the weaponizing of those powerful tools of intelligence and the shredding of our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights.”

Given the significance of this issue, it is absolutely true that the memo should be declassified and released to the public — and not just the memo itself. The House Intelligence Committee generally and Nunes specifically have a history of making unreliable and untrue claims (its report about Edward Snowden was full of falsehoods, as Bart Gellman amply documented, and prior claims from Nunes about “unmasking” have been discredited). Thus, mere assertions from Nunes — or anyone else — are largely worthless; Republicans should provide American citizens not merely with the memo they claim reveals pervasive criminality and abuse of power, but also with all of the evidence underlying its conclusions.

President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have the power, working together or separately, to immediately declassify all the relevant information. And if indeed the GOP’s explosive claims are accurate – if, as HPSCI member Steve King, R-Iowa, says, this is “worse than Watergate” — they obviously have every incentive to get it into the public’s hands as soon as possible. Indeed, one could argue that they have the duty to do so.

FBI ‘Failed To Preserve’ Five Months Of Text Messages Between Anti-Trump FBI Agents

The FBI “failed to preserve” five months worth of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI employees who made pro-Clinton and anti-Trump comments while working on the Clinton email and the Russia collusion investigations.

The disclosure was made Friday in a letter sent by the Justice Department to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC). ...

Strzok and Page were significant players in the Clinton and Trump investigations. As deputy chief of counterintelligence, Strzok oversaw the Trump investigation when it was opened in July 2016. Weeks earlier, he had wrapped up his work as one of the top investigators on the Clinton email probe. Both worked on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation until July 2017. ...

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of HSGAC expressed concern over the missing text messages, which were sent during a key period of the Russia investigation. During that time frame is when the Steele dossier was published by BuzzFeed News, when Strzok participated in a Jan. 24 interview with then-national security adviser Michael Flynn, and when James Comey was fired as FBI director. The end date of the missing Strzok-Page texts is also significant. That’s because May 17 is the day when Mueller was appointed to take over the FBI’s probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.

Foxes in Charge of Intelligence Hen House

We learned in recent days that the FBI and the National Security Agency “inadvertently” deleted electronic messages relating to reported felonies, but one noxious reality persists: No one in the FBI or NSA is likely to be held to account for these “mistakes.” It is a 70 year-old tradition. Today’s lack of accountability is enabled by (1) corruption at the top of intelligence agencies; (2) the convenient secrecy behind which their leaders hide; (3) bureaucratic indignities and structural flaws in the system; (4) the indulgence/complicity of most of the “mainstream media;” and (5) the eunuchs leading the Congressional “oversight” committees, who — history shows — can be bullied by threats, including blackmail, a la former longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

It is a safe bet, though, that neither the FBI nor NSA have deleted their holdings on key Congressional leaders — including House Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi, who used to boast about her very long tenure as head of the House Intelligence Committee, only to complain later that “they [intelligence officials] mislead us all the time.” In fact, Pelosi was briefed by the NSA and CIA on all manner of crimes, including warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and torture.

The lack of intelligence accountability has created a kind of perfect storm, enabling felonies and lesser mischief ordered by those sitting atop the intelligence community. While press reports indicate that the Congressional oversight committees now have “explosive” documentary proof — not yet deleted — of such crimes, it remains to be seen whether the committees will have the courage to do their duty under the law. Even if they try, the odds are against their being able to make much headway, in the face of stiff resistance from the heads of intelligence agencies and a suborned/frightened “mainstream media.”

The CIA Bull in Glenn Simpson’s Russia Shop

In criminal trials the rule for prosecuting and defending lawyers is the same. Never ask a witness a question unless you already know the answer. The corollary rule for defending lawyers is – if the answer to your question will incriminate your client, don’t ask it, and hope the prosecutor fails to do his job. ...

Simpson’s collaborator in the dossier and his business partner, Christopher Steele, is facing trial in the London High Court, charged with libels he and Simpson published in their dossier. Together, they are material witnesses in two federal US court trials for defamation, one in Miami and one in New York. If they perjure themselves giving evidence in those cases, they are likely to face criminal indictments. If they tell the truth, they are likely to face fresh defamation proceedings; perhaps a civil racketeering suit for fraud; maybe a false statement prosecution under the US criminal code.

One question for them is as obvious as its answer. Who do an American ex-journalist on US national security and an ex-British intelligence agent go to for sources on Russian undercover operations outside Russia in general, the US in particular? Answer — first, their friends and contacts from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); second, their friends and contacts from the Secret Intelligence Service or MI6, as the UK counterpart is known.

Why then did the twenty-two congressmen, the members of the House Intelligence Committee who subpoenaed Simpson for interview, fail to pursue what information he and Steele received either directly from the CIA or indirectly through British intelligence? The answer noone in the US wants to say aloud is the possibility that it was the CIA which provided Simpson and Steele with names and source materials for their dossier, creating the evidence of a Russian plot against the US election, and generating evidence of Russian operations. If that is what happened, then Simpson and Steele were participants in a false-flag CIA operation in US politics.

A Coming Russia-Ukraine War?

The situation in the Donbass region of south-eastern Ukraine has been a feature of Russia’s political talk shows for the past couple years, along with the military campaign in Syria and more recently the stages in the preparation for presidential elections on March 18. Focus on the Donbass conflict increased in the closing weeks of 2017 as military action on the front lines separating the forces of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk enjoying Russian support from Ukrainian militias and armed forces reached an intensity not seen for more than a year. This is despite the heralded exchange of military prisoners by both sides before New Year’s under talks supervised by the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Kirill.

Then, this past Thursday came a wholly new development – a draft law passed by the Ukrainian Parliament that could effectively end Kiev’s participation in the conflict resolution process known as the Minsk Accords. Although observers in the United States and Western Europe may have missed it, many Russians believe this development amounts to a declaration of war.

According to Dmitri Kiselyov, head of all Russian television and radio news services, the new law, which awaits Poroshenko’s signature, makes preparations for war and includes language indicating a bellicose new approach to the conflict. The mission in Donbass is no longer described as an “anti-terrorist operation.” Rather, the mission now is to send armed forces against “military formations of the Russian Federation” in Donbass. Military headquarters are established to coordinate the operation to be waged in Donbass. While up until now the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Lugansk were considered under the Minsk Accords as negotiating parties, now there are only “occupation administrations” of the Russian Federation on these territories, with Russia identified as an “aggressor.”

“This makes it all the more convenient for Ukraine to start a war,” Kiselyov says, noting that it could have the added benefit of enabling Ukraine not to pay its foreign debts and to ensure Poroshenko’s continued grip on power.

Turkey plans Syria 'safe zone' as shelling of Kurdish area resumes

Turkey has resumed shelling a Kurdish enclave inside Syria on the third day of a military campaign that the government says aims to create a “safe zone” across the border.

The fighting is ongoing in villages and towns around Afrin, which is controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Union party (PYD) and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara says is the Syrian arm of a terror group that has fought a decades-long insurgency inside Turkey.

The Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım said the aim of the campaign, dubbed “Operation Olive Branch”, would be to create a zone inside Syria’s borders that was 30km (19 miles) deep. Turkish officials also said they wanted to significantly degrade the military capabilities of the YPG, which they say has 8,000 to 10,000 fighters in Afrin.

The “safe zone” would probably be secured and administered by Turkey’s Syrian rebel allies, creating a buffer zone with the Turkish border. Turkish officials have also hinted that it could be used as a safe area for civilians who wish to return to Syria, modelled on other parts of the country that Turkey had seized from Isis in an offensive called “Euphrates Shield” that was launched in the summer of 2016.

Syria: Update on Turkish offensive on Kurdish-controlled Afrin region

FSA commander says 25,000 Syrian rebels back Turkish force in Syria

Around 25,000 Free Syrian Army rebels are joining the Turkish military operation in northern Syria with the goal of recapturing Arab towns and villages seized by the YPG Kurdish militia almost two years ago, a rebel commander said on Sunday.

Major Yasser Abdul Rahim, who is also the commander of Failaq al Sham, a main FSA rebel group in the operations room of the campaign, said the rebels did not seek to enter the mainly Kurdish city of Afrin but encircle it and expel the YPG. ...

The mainly Arab rebels accuse the Syrian Kurdish militia of forcibly displacing Arabs from the villages in what they say is a deliberate policy of ethnic cleansing. The YPG denies these allegations. ...

The rebels taking part in the assault are mainly the same factions that took part in the Turkey-backed operation launched in 2016 to drive Islamic State from the border and to prevent further expansion of YPG influence.

Up to 1,000 more U.S. troops could be headed to Afghanistan this spring

The U.S. Army is readying plans that could increase the total force in Afghanistan by as many as 1,000 U.S. troops this spring beyond the 14,000 already in the country, senior military officials said.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has not signed off on the proposals for the new forces, which are part of a broader strategy to bolster Afghan forces so that they can pound the Taliban during the upcoming fighting season.

The possible increases have the support of the Army’s senior leadership, which has been working to determine the mix of troops required to execute a strategy centered on a new combat formation. ...

Military officials said that some troops, particularly at the headquarters level, might come out of Afghanistan as new forces move into the theater and that they expect the total force this spring to be about 15,000 troops.

Trump’s plan for the war increased the number of troops from 8,500 when he took office to about 14,000 today. The president also lifted restrictions on U.S. warplanes, triggering a major spike this winter in airstrikes aimed at Taliban formations and its leadership.

It’s time we saw economic sanctions for what they really are – war crimes

The first pathetic pieces of wreckage from North Korean fishing boats known as “ghost ships” to be found this year are washing up on the coast of northern Japan. These are the storm-battered remains of fragile wooden boats with unreliable engines in which North Korean fishermen go far out to sea in the middle of winter in a desperate search for fish. ... The reason so many fishermen risk and lose their lives is hunger in North Korea where fish is the cheapest form of protein. The government imposes quotas for fishermen that force them to go far out to sea. Part of their catch is then sold on to China for cash, making fish one of the biggest of North Korea’s few export items.

The fact that North Korean fishermen took greater risks and died in greater numbers last year is evidence that international sanctions imposed on North Korea are, in a certain sense, a success: the country is clearly under severe economic pressure. But, as with sanctions elsewhere in the world past and present, the pressure is not on the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who looks particularly plump and well-fed, but on the poor and the powerless.

The record of economic sanctions in forcing political change is dismal, but as a way of reducing a country to poverty and misery it is difficult to beat. UN sanctions were imposed against Iraq from 1990 until 2003. Supposedly, it was directed against Saddam Hussein and his regime, though it did nothing to dislodge or weaken them: on the contrary, the Baathist political elite took advantage of the scarcity of various items to enrich themselves by becoming the sole suppliers. Saddam’s odious elder son Uday made vast profits by controlling the import of cigarettes into Iraq.

Saddam Hussein and his senior lieutenants were rightly executed for their crimes, but the foreign politicians and officials who were responsible for the sanctions regime that killed so many deserved to stand beside them in the dock. It is time that the imposition of economic sanctions should be seen as a war crime, since it involves the collective punishment of millions of innocent civilians who die, sicken or are reduced to living off scraps from the garbage dumps.

People should be just as outraged by the impact of this sort of thing as they are by the destruction of hospitals by bombing and artillery fire. But the picture of X-ray or kidney dialysis machines lacking essential spare parts is never going to compete for impact with film of dead and wounded on the front line. And those who die because medical equipment has been disabled by sanctions are likely to do so undramatically and out of sight. Embargoes are dull and war is exciting. ... Sanctions are just as much a collective punishment as area bombing in East Aleppo, Raqqa and Mosul. They may even kill more people than the bombs and shells because they go on for years and their effect is cumulative.

If Trump is an authoritarian, why don’t Democrats treat him like one?

You’d think that Democrats in Congress would jump at the opportunity to impose a constraint on Donald Trump’s presidency – one that liberals and Democrats alike have characterized as authoritarian. Apparently, that’s not the case. Despite being in the minority, Democrats last week had enough Republican votes on their side to curb the president’s ability, enhanced since 9/11, to spy on citizens and non-citizens alike.

In the House, a majority of Democrats were willing to join a small minority of Republicans to do just that. But 55 Democrats – including the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi; the minority whip, Steny Hoyer; and other Democratic leaders of the opposition to Trump – refused. After the House voted for an extension of the president’s power to spy, a group of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans attempted to filibuster the bill. The critical 60th vote to shut down the filibuster was a Democrat.

With the exception of Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept, a press that normally expresses great alarm over Trump’s amassing and abuse of power has had relatively little to say about this vote (or this vote or this vote). This is despite the fact that the surveillance bill gives precisely the sorts of powers viewers of an Academy Award-winning film about the Stasi from not long so ago would instantly recognize … to a president whose view of the media a leading Republican recently compared to Stalin.

It was left to the Onion to offer the best (and near only) comment:

Pelosi: ‘We Must Fight Even Harder Against Trump’s Authoritarian Impulses Now That We’ve Voted to Enable Them’

Jeffrey Sterling, Convicted of Leaking About Botched CIA Program, Has Been Released From Prison

Jeffrey Sterling former CIA agent convicted under the Espionage Act for talking to a New York Times reporter, has been released from prison after serving more than two years of his 42-month sentence, and is now in a halfway house.

Sterling’s case drew nationwide attention because the Obama-era Department of Justice unsuccessfully tried to force the reporter, James Risen, to divulge the identity of his sources for “State of War,” a book in which he revealed the CIA had botched a covert operation against Iran’s nuclear program. Risen reported that instead of undermining the Iranians, the CIA had provided them with useful information on how to build a nuclear bomb. ...

After the guilty verdict, Sterling requested that he serve his sentence at a prison near St. Louis, where he lived with his wife. The government sent him to a prison in Colorado. Earlier this week, he was released from that prison and has been assigned to a halfway house in St. Louis.

Catalonia: Ex-leader Puigdemont vows to form government from abroad

Carles Puigdemont: court rejects new bid to arrest Catalan ex-president

Spain’s supreme court has rejected a request from prosecutors to reactivate the international arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont after the deposed Catalan president flew to Denmark from Belgium to speak at a conference on Monday.

Puigdemont, who fled Spain at the end of October after being sacked by the Madrid government, is facing possible charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds over his role in the push to split Catalonia from Spain. He will be arrested the moment he sets foot on Spanish soil.

The decision to reactivate the arrest warrant was postponed until the Catalan parliament is restored to normal activity, the court said in a statement on Monday. Speaking in Brussels, Spain’s foreign minister, Alfonso Dastis, said: “Mr Puigdemont is subject to a process in Spain. Outside, for the moment, his movements are free within the European Union, but we’ll see.”

The warrant was dropped in December over discrepancies between Belgian and Spanish law that would limit the charges under which Puigdemont could be extradited and therefore be charged with on his return.

Charges Dropped Against 129 Trump Inauguration Protestors — But Dozens Still Face Prison

The government's case against the J20 defendants is falling apart. In December, a jury acquitted the first six defendants facing decades in prison for their participation in an anti-capitalist and anti-fascist march during Donald Trump’s inauguration; on Thursday, the U.S. Attorney’s office dismissed charges against an additional 129 defendants. That leaves just 59 defendants still facing trial in connection with the January 20, 2017, protest.

“We’re pleased to see that the U.S. Attorney’s office is finally acknowledging that it doesn’t have, and never had, evidence to prosecute the majority of the people whom they charged,” Scott Michelman of the D.C. American Civil Liberties Union told The Intercept. “It’s unfortunate it took them a year to succumb to that reality. In the meantime, they put a great number of innocent people through a lot of hardship for no good reason.” ...

Among those still charged is journalist Aaron Cantú. According to his lawyers, Cantú faces 75 years in prison for doing his job — reporting on social movements and protests. (Disclosure: Cantú is a personal friend and has contributed to The Intercept.) Along with 233 other demonstrators, journalists, medics, and legal observers, Cantú was surrounded by riot police, detained on the street for seven hours, arrested, and jailed overnight. Like his co-defendants, he was eventually charged with eight felonies — including inciting a riot, engaging in a riot, conspiracy to riot, and several counts of property destruction. ...

According to the U.S. Attorney’s motion to proceed, “The government is focusing its efforts on prosecuting those defendants who: (1) engaged in identifiable acts of destruction, violence, or other assaultive conduct; (2) participated in the planning of the violence and destruction; and/or (3) engaged in conduct that demonstrates a knowing and intentional use of the black-bloc tactic on January 20, 2017, to perpetrate, aid or abet violence and destruction.”

How precisely prosecutors selected the remaining 59 defendants — or how they divided them among those categories — remains unclear. Along with Cantú, the 58 still charged include an organizer who never attended the march, medics, and citizen journalists.

Dems Cave On Trump Border Wall - Gov. Shuts Down Anyway

Senate Democrats cave on DACA and vote to reopen the government

After a sixty hour stand-off in the Senate that led to a government shutdown at midnight Friday evening, Democrats gave up their demands for immediate protection of roughly 690,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children (also known as Dreamers) and voted to reopen the government with assurances that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will bring a separate immigration bill to the floor in early February. ...

The continuing resolution will only keep the government open through February 8th. If new funding is not appropriated before then, another shutdown will ensue.

'Even Worse Negotiator Than Trump': Progressives Slam Schumer for Caving to GOP on #TrumpShutdown

Critics of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) slammed him for caving to Republicans after he announced Monday that the necessary number of Democrats would support a three-week spending bill to end the #TrumpShutdown without first reaching an agreement to protect undocumented youth known as Dreamers.

Schumer's announcement alarmed immigrant rights advocates and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA)—or Dreamers—who have urged Democrats to "stand strong" and resist a spending measure that doesn't include a permanent DACA fix.

"It's official: Chuck Schumer is the worst negotiator in Washington—even worse than Trump," CREDO political director Murshed Zaheed said. "Any plan to protect Dreamers that relies on the word of serial liars like Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, or Donald Trump is doomed to fail."

"The fact is, Republicans do not want to protect Dreamers, and they won't do it unless Democrats force their hand by insisting that a clean DREAM Act is attached to a must-pass spending bill," Zaheed continued, adding, "in getting outmaneuvered by Sen. McConnell today, Chuck Schumer has failed dreamers and let the entire Democratic Party down." ...

"That's not what moral courage or leadership in the face of Trump's hate looks like, and it sure as hell isn't a display of competent negotiating skills," Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America added. "Today's cave by some Senate Democrats was not only a stunning display of moral and political cowardice, it was a strategically incoherent move that demonstrates precisely why so many believe the Democratic Party doesn't stand for anything."

Fossil Fuels Are Dead, Dems Allow Mass Surveillance, Radioactive Water



the evening greens


Trump administration could be sued over pesticide threat to orca and salmon

Commercial fishermen and environmental groups could file lawsuits against the Trump administration, if it fails to follow a recommendation by one of its own agencies to protect salmon, sturgeon, orca and other endangered species in the Pacific north-west. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) recently issued a long-awaited opinion on three organophosphate pesticides – chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion.

It did so after a long court fight. Environmental groups sought publication of the opinion while the Trump administration, supported by pesticide manufacturers, pushed for a two-year delay. The 3,700-page federal report was issued on 29 December. The scientists warned that the widely used pesticides pose a threat, through run-off into rivers and oceans, to dozens of endangered and threatened species.

In March 2017, however, the EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, reversed an Obama-era effort to ban the use of chlorpyrifos on fruits and vegetables. ... “Pacific salmon are the life blood of our industry and the orca in the north-west depend on them too,” Glen Spain, north-west regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), told the Guardian.

Spain said he represents a $1bn industry which has lost thousands of jobs as salmon stocks have shrunk, due to overdevelopment of dams and the use of dangerous pesticides. “The Trump administration is supposed to be about jobs, isn’t it?” he said. Spain said the PCFFA was talking to lawmakers but would consider suing the EPA if it did not at the least follow the main recommendations of the NMFS and restrict pesticides.

At Berlin March, Tens of Thousands Demand End to Industrial Agriculture

Tens of thousands of people—and more than 100 tractors—swarmed the streets of Berlin this weekend to demand a food system transformation nourished by political policies that foster ecological farming.

"Farmers and consumers from all over Europe have made it clear that they are fed up with current policies that benefit huge food and agriculture corporations, at the expense of the environment, peasant farming, and public safety," said Adrian Bebb, food and farming campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe, and among the estimated 33,000 that took part in the Saturday march.

"Policymakers at the European and national level need to listen, and use the upcoming reform of the EU's common agricultural policy to build a better food system for the future," he added. According to the more than 100 groups that organized the march, policies must shift so that industrial agriculture is dumped in favor climate- and farmer-friendly practices.

A good place to start they say, is by banning the controversial weedkiller Roundup. "Food is political—more and more people realize this. But politicians nurture an agricultural sector that detrimentally affects the environment and animals in the name of productivity," said Jochen Fritz, a spokesperson for the organizers. 


Also of Interest

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

Senate Democrats Defend Voting in Line With Donald Trump on NSA Surveillance Bill

The US is Arming and Assisting Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, While Congress Debates Prohibition

The Next Kurdish War Looms on the Horizon

How the Labor Movement Is Thinking Ahead to a Post-Trump World

Trump Sets Records for Seating Federal Judges

San Francisco or Mumbai? UN envoy encounters homeless life in California

Class war in the American west: the rich landowners blocking access to public lands


A Little Night Music

Henry Townsend - Heart Broken Man Blues

Henry Townsend - Can't You See

Henry Townsend - She's Got What I Want

Henry Townsend - Henry's Worry Blues

Henry and Vernell Townsend - Why do we love each other

Henry Townsend - My Sweet Candy

Henry Townsend - I Asked Her If She Loved Me

Henry Townsend - Cairo's My Baby's Home

Henry Townsend - The Train Is Coming

Henry Townsend - Tired of Being Mistreated


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The Aspie Corner's picture

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

joe shikspack's picture

@The Aspie Corner

well, perhaps while the u.s. is slipping in many areas, we're still number one in military spending. we may also be #1 in propaganda. hard to say, but given the emphasis that the military has put on "information warfare," that the u.s. would be #1 at propaganda in proportion to it's efforts in other areas would be no surprise.

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Azazello's picture

Evening all,
That's a good quote you started out with, joe. It describes exactly what has happened in this country. My generation, the so-called Boomers, is where it started. We were the first generation to have been born with television in our lives since birth. We're 3 or 4 generations into it now and it just keeps getting more and more ridiculous. We've got a TV personality for a president and the Democrats are salivating over the possible nomination of another one. Oh well ...
Here's my new favorite tune:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuMDG5RvdXs&list=RDtuMDG5RvdXs width:400 height:240]

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

yeah, perhaps one day we won't be known as the "boomers," instead we'll be known as the idiot box generation.

i saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by teevee, amusing themselves within an inch of their lives, dragging their drunken, foggy asses off the couch only when the national anthem plays at 1am, howling for a hipster fix, a plot twist that truly entertains, bring on the big o... apologies to ginsburg.

love that willie tune!

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hecate's picture

@joe shikspack
howl is very good, joe. You should keep going. ; )

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@joe shikspack Az and Joe, yes yes yes.
I started withdrawing from tv when Night Gallery went off the air. Difficult. It still holds my eye when it's in a room. I wonder how much it contributes to onset of dementia; there seems to be more of that around.
There's an enormous amount of data on it every second, many scan lines, many pixels, but the information content is thin. I learn more in a couple seconds of looking at the NWS weather forecast online than in many minutes of tv forecasts.
Arthur Clarke, IIRC, once wrote a story about brains being eventually filled by the data content of the tv scan lines and people just zoning out permanently. This medium _is_ the message. TV induces a passive state, almost hypnotic. And then the content. Most programs contain healthy (heh!) doses of propaganda, wrapping the real material, advertising. Billions and billions spent on research on how to manipulate the audience, all that poured into eager passive eyes.
I miss the days of Gilligan's Island, Lost In Space, and My Mother The Car, when you couldn't confuse the show with reality. Now they blur that line to the max.
We have screens everywhere, flat ones on walls, tiny ones in pockets (and hands), the folding one in front of me. Fahrenheit 451, anyone? Wall screens? Seashells in our ears? Interactive programs?
Nah, I'm just an old curmudgeon.

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orlbucfan's picture

@joe shikspack Rec'd!!

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Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

mimi's picture

up-side down world shit going on. Max Blumenthal's Ukraine report, oh boy, does it get under the skin or what? Nobody is walking their talk. Everybody is lying, pretending, and hiding.

It's midnight here and my head can't deal with reading more and commenting this late. Tomorrow there is already the next thing to read. Chased around by the news. That's no life. How do you handle your own work?

Have to pay attention, that I don't get buried or scared. But all of it really, really doesn't sound good to me.

Good Night. Tomorrow is another day, I still believe in the sun rising. So, there is that. And that's good.

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joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

How do you handle your own work?

i don't know. it's what i do. as frank zappa points out, i can't look away.

i sometimes entertain the notion that maybe some (admittedly minute) contribution that i make to the world might make a difference. other times, i cynically embrace the absurd. yet other times i brood about the hopelessness of it all.

a lot of the time i immerse myself in nature, music and art which seems to be restorative for me, along with my now more regular weekend news fasts.

good luck. i hope this helps.

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mimi's picture

@joe shikspack @joe shikspack
[video:https://youtu.be/OA21fkcUKh4]
I love that conversation. Lucky Luke. Lucas is not a dick. He made my son once a hearty compliment which somehow sometimes helps to go on. So from a Mom to a Dad, thanks to that family.
and thanks to them too ...
[video:https://youtu.be/BW09IAs5GpI]
and isn't that ... oufff ... something?
[video:https://youtu.be/u_4xQ20tM5g]
Can you grasp the pathology of the rich?
[video:https://youtu.be/k1crOvxJwsY]
oh yes, unfortunately, I can, shit.

Good Morning from Germany, the sun came up again. No shit. Smile

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snoopydawg's picture

Leilani Farha, UN special rapporteur on adequate housing, says ‘unacceptable’ squalor amid US wealth violates rights law

“In international human rights law,” Farha said, “providing shelter to people who are homeless is the absolute minimum standard for any country, regardless of resources.”

“Did you know you have a right to housing?” she asked, referring to article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That’s something your government is supposed to do,” Farha said. “I hate to tell you, you’re being ripped off.”

It's good to see that the UN is paying attention to what's happening here, especially because things are getting worse and even more worse when the republicans gut the social programs.

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i am glad that the un is focusing on the pitiful squalor that many americans are being reduced to by the 1%, too.

i have two reasons. one because i have a dream that one day people will wake the hell up and create a world where governments exist for the sole purpose of promoting the general welfare and will compete with each other, not to see how many humans they can subjugate or kill, but on the basis of the quality of life of their citizens. two, because i hope that people of the world will recognize that we, "the people" have lost control of our leviathan government and will take pity on usians when it is time to take the monstrous instrument that rules us (u.s.) and tries to rule them as well - down.

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snoopydawg's picture

This is happening here and it's on a trail that people have hiked since people started living here. There's a trail that goes up to a waterfall and it's one of the best known hikes here. Unfortunately it's too popular. Close to 5,000 people hiked it on Memorial Day. I have hiked the trail since I was 10 years old and the last time I went up was 7 years ago. The fact that he can close part of it is shocking. I didn't know that this had happened. He also installed a zip line on top of the falls. How can a private citizen do this? (see article)

This is Mount Ogden and it's full of hiking trails all across the foothills. The people who commented on this are just fine with him closing the trail because ... reasons.

IMG_1776_0.JPG

The video shows the city and the trail to it. I muted it and fast forwarded it. It would have been good if the man wasn't in it.

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

that the hungry, hungry capitalist bastards will do whatever they can to extinguish the idea of a public good or commonly-held thing.

they want it all.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

drop back by later this evening, and share a couple thoughts about the Kabuki Theatre that we've just witnessed over the past 72-plus hours, but wanted to say hello, and thanks for tonight's EB, before everyone checked out for the evening. I'm in the not so envious position of dodging nasty weather (rain) when I walk 'the B.'

Anyhoo, nothing about the Dems' capitulation [today] surprised me. From what the Repubs' budget point man (Mulvaney) said all weekend, Schumer misrepresented his so-called proposal for billions of dollars to build a wall. (Claiming to support the authorization of an expenditure, is a far cry from pledging to 'appropriate' said expenditure.) In the past, Dems have so easily punked their Base, that I figure that the Dem Leadership truly hasn't recognized that their Base now has other sources of info, therefore, can't be as easily mislead as they once were.

BTW, we're currently experiencing a heatwave, in comparison to the average temps over the past several weeks. Not particularly wanting to go back to single digits, but sure hope that this trend doesn't last. To show how much the climate has warmed, though--our old stomping grounds hit the minus 30's (for this year) during the cold snap that we had. In the old days, we'd have seen minus 50 or minus 60 temps by January. This is bad news--see below.

Climate Hot Map

Global Warming Effects Around the World

Fairbanks—Alaska's second-largest city—is in a sub-Arctic interior region. Much of the city and the surrounding area are characterized by permanently frozen ground (permafrost). Rising temperatures are already degrading this permafrost, damaging forests as well as roads, buildings, and other infrastructure.

Alaska is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the United States. In Fairbanks, mean annual temperature rose about 2.5° F (1.4° C) over the past century, and the frost-free season lengthened by about half again longer.

Permafrost temperatures have risen throughout Alaska since the late 1970s.

Permafrost degradation is projected to raise the cost of maintaining affected public infrastructure by 10-20 percent (U.S. $4 billion to $6 billion) by 2030, and another 10-12 percent (U.S. $5.6 billion to $7.6 billion) by 2080. At-risk structures include the Alaska Railroad and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline—both of which bisect the Fairbanks area.

Everyone have a nice evening!

Bye


"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."--Lao Tzu


"Purity test"??
I've come to flag that phrase, like many others, as a tool of neoliberalism in order to shut down intelligent conversation. When someone disagrees with you, their issues are not lesser than yours. The lines that they draw are not inferior to yours. They are not being "pure" when they honor those lines. Rather, they are acting with principle.
--SnappleBC

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

joe shikspack's picture

@Unabashed Liberal

what amuses me is that, no matter whether the democrats own all three branches of government and can do whatever they want - or if they are utterly out of power and control nothing, they always come up with a rationale that requires them to cave to the republicans.

ok, maybe, it's not that. maybe it's that no matter how many times lucy pulls away the football, the base er, charlie brown still participates in the charade.

we're having something of a heat wave here, too. it hit 60 degrees here today. after that last cold snap, though, i am happy for the respite.

have a good time puddle hopping with the b. i hope that he is doing well. give him a scritch for me!

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

@joe shikspack

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

hecate's picture

Thanks for the Baudrillard. He was a Berkeley who was not a bishop, who ate cheese. I noticed the other day that some bad person has gone to the library, Descarga-0.jpgxeroxed Baudrillard's The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, and uploaded it to a tube. The Hairball would have made perfect sense to Baudrillard, for, as that quote indicates, he understood that humans with tubes no longer have real lives, but instead live in tubes. It is natural, then, that the Americans selected to be their president a pixelman, who lived in their tubes. Very soon now, their presidents will be Power Rangers, or Teletubbies.

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joe shikspack's picture

@hecate

heh. i wonder how baudrillard would have considered our evolution from the silver screen reality (raygun) to our small screen luminary and the implications for plot variety. :0

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a poem at the NYC Women's march the other day

Halsey's raw, vulnerable poem about sexual violence becomes an empowering rallying cry

you have to scroll down to see her reading the poem from the stage

later in the article is the text

suggest watching and listening first

of the many areas of pain, the way women have been treated and beat down is a major area

i showed this to a few women today, and they agreed that this is what it is like to be a woman

when this issue is translated into politics, there will be major change

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joe shikspack's picture

@DonMidwest

when this issue is translated into politics, there will be major change

a friendly amendment - when this issue transcends the politics of class, there will be major change.

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snoopydawg's picture

It's very powerful and sad. Too many women are silently crying.

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