The Evening Blues - 10-18-16



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bobby "Blue" Bland

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features r&b singer Bobby "Blue" Bland. Enjoy!

Bobby "Blue" Bland - I Pity The Fool

"Police in China can do whatever they want; after 81 days in arbitrary detention you clearly realise that they don't have to obey their own laws. In a society like this there is no negotiation, no discussion, except to tell you that power can crush you any time they want - not only you, your whole family and all people like you."

-- Ai Weiwei

"We're a country that allowed waterboarding and indefinite detention, and we're a country where the NYPD Intelligence Division has police files on what Muslims think of the State of the Union address."

-- Matt Apuzzo


News and Opinion

Have we not become what we as a nation deplore?

“Guantánamo Diary” Author Freed After 14 Years of Imprisonment

Mohamedou Slahi, author of a bestselling memoir recounting his imprisonment and torture by the United States government, has been sent home to his native Mauritania after more than 14 years in Guantánamo Bay.

Slahi became the prison’s best-known detainee last year after publishing “Guantánamo Diary,” in which he recounts how he was rendered by the CIA in 2001 to prisons in Jordan and Afghanistan and then taken to Guantánamo. He wrote of being beaten, subjected to sleep deprivation and freezing temperatures, and blasted with music and other abuses, but also described with incredible openness and generosity his relationships with his American guards and interrogators. ...

Slahi has never been charged with a crime by the United States. He admits to having joined and fought with the mujahideen in the early 90s against the Soviet-backed Afghan government, and U.S. authorities claim he helped recruit and facilitate travel for Al Qaeda fighters. A federal judge ordered his release in 2010, saying that he was not a member of Al Qaeda when the U.S. picked him up, and that evidence against him was tainted by torture (the government appealed that ruling.)

Anti-IS coalition launches Mosul offensive

Battle for Mosul: Iraqi forces converge in decisive battle against Isis

raqi forces, supported by US-led airstrikes and special forces, advanced on Mosul from the east and the south on Monday in the first phase of a long-planned offensive to retake the city from Islamic State.

The advance on Monday evening aims to liberate Iraq’s second biggest city, an Isis stronghold where its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared the establishment of a caliphate two years ago.

The Kurdish forces, known as peshmerga, advanced steadily in long armoured columns across the Nineveh plain to the east of Mosul, pausing at each deserted village to allow engineers to search for mines and booby traps left by Isis.

Peshmerga officials claimed their tanks had destroyed two Isis suicide truck bombs. By the end of the first day in the attempt to oust the jihadi group from their last major Iraqi stronghold, Kurdish leaders said their forces had captured 200 sq km (77 sq miles).

Most of the local population on the Nineveh plain has fled since Isis seized the area in the summer of 2014.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi army has also moved into villages to the south of the city, where local tribes had ousted Isis on their own.

Early reports suggested the peshmerga advance from the east met relatively little resistance while the Iraqi army and Shia militias advancing from the south faced tougher opposition and more difficult terrain.

Mosul offensive: officials confirm US troops are on the ground

Latest departure from Obama’s pledge involves ‘forward air controllers’ spotting for airstrikes to ensure accuracy, as part of offensive to reclaim city from Isis

Although the battle to oust Islamic State from Mosul is led by Iraqi military forces and Kurdish peshmerga auxiliaries, elite international forces are playing a major role in a fight that Baghdad and Washington consider pivotal in the defeat of the jihadi group.

In a statement on Monday morning, the American general in charge of the coalition’s war in Iraq and Syria, Lt Gen Stephen Townsend, openly acknowledged the presence of “forward air controllers” amongst the US “advisory” contributions to the battle.

Those controllers – known as Joint Terminal Air Controllers, or Jtacs, and drawn from US special operations forces – are the troops on the ground who spot for airstrikes, in an attempt to ensure greater accuracy of aerial bombardment. Their presence indicates that US troops, while not formally in a combat role, are on the frontlines and willing to use substantial airpower on Iraq’s second city.

Moral qualms of a US Drone technician

Russia halts Aleppo strikes after overnight bombardment

Russian and Syrian warplanes have halted their bombardment of the rebel-held districts of east Aleppo, Russia’s defence minister has said, in advance of an eight-hour “humanitarian pause” that Moscow has announced for Thursday.

Airstrikes stopped at 10am local time (7am GMT), Sergei Shoigu said.

On Monday night, Lt Gen Sergei Rudskoi said militants, the wounded and sick would be allowed to evacuate to the neighbouring rebel-held province of Idlib during a pause in fighting between 8am and 4pm on Thursday.

Russia says the pause is designed to separate moderate fighters from extremist militants, but Syrian rebels have rejected any withdrawal from the city. “The factions completely reject any exit – this is surrender,” said Zakaria Malahifji, the political officer of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim group.

Syria: Russia halts Aleppo air strikes ahead of planned truce, calls on rebels to leave city

Good Deaths in Mosul, Bad Deaths in Aleppo

Note how differently The New York Times prepares the American public for civilian casualties from the new U.S.-backed Iraqi government assault on the city of Mosul to free it from the Islamic State, compared to the unrelenting condemnation of the Russian-backed Syrian government assault on neighborhoods of east Aleppo held by Al Qaeda.

In the case of Mosul, the million-plus residents are not portrayed as likely victims of American airstrikes and Iraqi government ground assaults, though surely many will die during the offensive. Instead, the civilians are said to be eagerly awaiting liberation from the Islamic State terrorists and their head-chopping brutality.

“Mosul’s residents are hoarding food and furtively scrawling resistance slogans on walls,” writes Times’ veteran war correspondent Rod Nordland about this week’s launch of the U.S.-backed government offensive. “Those forces will fight to enter a city where for weeks the harsh authoritarian rule of the Islamic State … has sought to crack down on a population eager to either escape or rebel, according to interviews with roughly three dozen people from Mosul. ...

So, the message is clear: if the inevitable happens and the U.S.-backed offensive kills a number of Mosul’s civilians, including children, The New York Times’ readers have been hardened to accept this “collateral damage” as necessary to free the city from blood-thirsty extremists. The fight to crush these crazies is worth it, even if there are significant numbers of civilians killed in the “cross-fire.”

By contrast, the Times routinely portrays the battle for east Aleppo as simply a case of barbaric Russian and Syrian leaders bombing innocent neighborhoods with no regard for the human cost, operating out of an apparent lust to kill children.

Rather than focusing on Al Qaeda’s harsh rule of east Aleppo, the Times told its readers in late September how to perceive the Russian-Syrian offensive to drive out Al Qaeda and its allies. A Sept. 25 article by Anne Barnard and Somini Sengupta, entitled “Syria and Russia Appear Ready to Scorch Aleppo,” began:

“Make life intolerable and death likely. Open an escape route, or offer a deal to those who leave or surrender. Let people trickle out. Kill whoever stays. Repeat until a deserted cityscape is yours. It is a strategy that both the Syrian government and its Russian allies have long embraced to subdue Syrian rebels, largely by crushing the civilian populations that support them.

Note how the “rebels” are portrayed as local heroes, rather than a collection of jihadists from both inside and outside Syria fighting under the operational command of Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, which recently underwent a name change to the Syria Conquest Front. But the name change and the pretense about “moderate” rebels are just more deceptions.

As journalist/historian Gareth Porter has written: “Information from a wide range of sources, including some of those the United States has been explicitly supporting, makes it clear that every armed anti-Assad organization unit in those provinces [of Idlib and Aleppo] is engaged in a military structure controlled by Nusra militants. All of these rebel groups fight alongside the Nusra Front and coordinate their military activities with it.

US-Russia Tensions Escalating Over Fate of Assad

All right. Game time. Get ready to play "Spot the Whopper" in this Washington Post article. Ready? Start reading, folks! - For extra credit, read the whole article and dig the fnords.

The long history of the U.S. interfering with elections elsewhere

While the days of its worst behavior are long behind it, the United States does have a well-documented history of interfering and sometimes interrupting the workings of democracies elsewhere. It has occupied and intervened militarily in a whole swath of countries in the Caribbean and Latin America and fomented coups against democratically elected populists.

The most infamous episodes include the ousting of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 — whose government was replaced by an authoritarian monarchy favorable to Washington — the removal and assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba in 1961, and the violent toppling of socialist Chilean President Salvador Allende, whose government was swept aside in 1973 by a military coup led by the ruthless Gen. Augusto Pinochet. ... “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people,” Kissinger is said to have quipped. ...

Aside from its instigation of coups and alliances with right-wing juntas, Washington sought to more subtly influence elections in all corners of the world. And so did Moscow. Political scientist Dov Levin calculates that the “two powers intervened in 117 elections around the world from 1946 to 2000 — an average of once in every nine competitive elections.” ...

After the end of the Cold War, the United States has largely brought its covert actions into the open with organizations like the more benign National Endowment for Democracy, which seeks to bolster civil society and democratic institutions around the world through grants and other assistance. Still, U.S. critics see the American hand in a range of more recent elections, from Honduras to Venezuela to Ukraine.

Hiding US Role in Yemen Slaughter So Bombing Can Be Sold as ‘Self-Defense’

To hear US corporate media tell it, the US was dragged into a brand new war on Wednesday.

US destroyers in the Gulf of Aden launched airstrikes against Houthi rebels, a Shia insurgent group currently withstanding a massive bombing campaign from a Saudi-led coalition in a year-and-half conflict between largely Shia rebels and the Saudi-backed Sunni government in Yemen. The Pentagon insisted that cruise missiles had been fired onto the USS Mason on Sunday and Wednesday from Houthi-controlled territory, and called the airstrikes a “limited self-defense” response.

Needless to say, US media followed the Pentagon’s lead. The fact that the United States has been literally fueling Saudi warplanes for 18 months while selling weapons and providing intelligence support to the Gulf monarchy—acts which even the US State Department believes could expose the US to war crimes prosecution—was either downplayed or ignored. Nor did media recall the US’s long history of drone warfare in Yemen, where the military and CIA have been carrying out long-range assassinations since 2002, killing more than 500 people, including at least 65 civilians.

[See article for detailed analysis of both print and television coverage. - js]

As is often the case with war, the issue of “first blood”—or who started the fighting—gets muddied. Governments naturally want global audiences and their own citizens to view their actions as defensive—a necessary response to aggression, not aggression itself. US corporate media are aiding this official spin in their reporting on the US bombing of Yemen.

Pentagon Still Not Sure About Claim Ship Attacked Off Yemen Coast

Reports on Saturday night that the USS Mason came under attack for the third time in less than a week off the coast of Yemen were quietly rolled back by the Pentagon, who have since noted they aren’t really sure about that, and reiterated today that they are still “assessing” the claim.

Reports following the “attack” and the warship’s “retaliation” indicated that the Pentagon believed there was a strong possibility that no missiles were fired at the ship at all, and the detection of the missiles was the result of a radar malfunction. ...

It is unclear what the Pentagon is actually doing to “assess” whether the missiles fired at the USS Mason were real or not, but it appears the ship is being left parked off the Yemeni coast, despite initially being presented as just passing through into the Red Sea.

Taliban and Afghanistan restart secret talks in Qatar

The Taliban and representatives of the Afghan government have restarted secret talks in the Gulf state of Qatar, senior sources within the insurgency and the Kabul government have told the Guardian.

Among those present at the meetings held in September and October was Mullah Abdul Manan Akhund, brother of Mullah Omar, the former Taliban chief who led the movement from its earliest days until his death in 2013.

The two rounds of talks are the first known negotiations to have taken place since a Pakistan-brokered process entirely broke down following the death in a US drone strike of Omar’s successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor. ...

No Pakistani official took part in either the October or September meetings, according to a member of the Taliban’s leadership council, the Quetta Shura. He said Islamabad has lost much of its traditional influence over a movement it has been associated with since it rose to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s.

But according to the Taliban official, a senior US diplomat was present in the Qatar meetings. The US embassy in Afghanistan declined to comment on the claim.

In Somalia, U.S. Escalates a Shadow War

The Obama administration has intensified a clandestine war in Somalia over the past year, using Special Operations troops, airstrikes, private contractors and African allies in an escalating campaign against Islamist militants in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.

Hundreds of American troops now rotate through makeshift bases in Somalia, the largest military presence since the United States pulled out of the country after the “Black Hawk Down” battle in 1993. ...

The Somalia campaign is a blueprint for warfare that President Obama has embraced and will pass along to his successor. It is a model the United States now employs across the Middle East and North Africa — from Syria to Libya — despite the president’s stated aversion to American “boots on the ground” in the world’s war zones. This year alone, the United States has carried out airstrikes in seven countries and conducted Special Operations missions in many more.

American officials said the White House had quietly broadened the president’s authority for the use of force in Somalia by allowing airstrikes to protect American and African troops as they combat fighters from the Shabab, a Somali-based militant group that has proclaimed allegiance to Al Qaeda.

In its public announcements, the Pentagon sometimes characterizes the operations as “self-defense strikes,” though some analysts have said this rationale has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is only because American forces are now being deployed on the front lines in Somalia that they face imminent threats from the Shabab.

What the NYT Left Out About Obama's 'Secret War' in Somalia

Leaders to meet in Berlin for Ukraine peace talks

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, will host a meeting in Berlin with the Russian, Ukrainian and French presidents on Wednesday to discuss efforts towards peace in eastern Ukraine in their first summit in a year, her office has said. ...

The agreement brokered by France and Germany in Minsk in February 2015 has helped end large-scale battles between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine, but clashes have continued and efforts to reach a political settlement have stalled.

The four leaders have held sporadic meetings to discuss the accord’s implementation, the last of them in Paris in October last year.

How the hell can you have a democracy when the law that governs is secret and agreements between your country and others are undisclosed to the public? Welcome to American Demockery.

Despite Post-Snowden Outcry, Report Details 'New Era of Secret Law'

In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. government began creating what has now become an "unprecedented buildup" of secret laws, and even the recent public backlash against them has not stopped widespread use of covert rules that impact Americans' everyday lives without their knowledge, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice.

The Department of Justice has kept classified at least 74 legal memos, opinions, and letters issued by the department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) from 2002 to 2009 on national security issues—from torture to mass surveillance—according to the report, The New Era of Secret Law (pdf), written by Elizabeth Gotein, co-director of the center's Liberty and National Security Program.

And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court, which rules on intelligence collecting activities, is also hiding 25 to 30 opinions issued between 2003 and 2013 "that were deemed significant by the Attorney General." In fact, most of the significant case law written before National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations remains undisclosed.

Fully 42 percent of binding agreements between the U.S. and other countries are also unpublished, the report finds.

WikiLeaks says Ecuador cut off Julian Assange's internet access

Julian Assange’s internet was cut off by Ecuador, WikiLeaks has said, deflecting blame from the US and British governments, which have sparred with Assange for releasing sensitive material.

Ecuador has reiterated its determination to protect Assange despite the internet link of the WikiLeaks founder being “intentionally severed”, as WikiLeaks said.

WikiLeaks did not immediately release more information about the incident, and the tweet attracted a storm of comments and speculation on social media from across the world.


Many felt it was no coincidence that the internet was cut just after WikiLeaks had released another batch of emails from the campaign manager of the US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.


Kansas militia members charged for targeting Somali community

Three alleged militia members accused of plotting to bomb a Somali immigrant community in Kansas were formally charged Monday with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, the latest development in a case that underscores the threat of domestic terrorism at a time when the U.S. national security debate has increasingly focused on international groups.

Federal prosecutors say Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright, and Patrick Stein are members of The Crusaders, a militia with “sovereign citizen, anti-government, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant extremist beliefs.”

The case began several months ago when the FBI received a tip from an informant who attended several Crusaders meetings, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Kansas. The source told the feds the group planned to attack Muslims — whom they referred to as “cockroaches” — in southwestern Kansas.

The militia members met regularly, according to the complaint, and communicated through an app called Zello that encrypted their phone conversations. The FBI found that the group “routinely expressed a hatred for Muslims, individuals of Somali descent, and immigrants” and was able to identify the architects of the evolving terror plot.

Head of police chief group regrets law enforcement's role in black oppression

The head of the biggest group of police chiefs in the US apologised on Monday for the role law enforcement has played in the country’s historical persecution of African Americans and other minorities.

Terrence Cunningham, the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), said police needed to understand that deep and intergenerational mistrust had been caused by officers being the “face of oppression” during a “dark side” of American history.

“For our part, the first step in this process is for law enforcement and the IACP to acknowledge and apologise for the actions of the past and the role that our profession has played in society’s historical mistreatment of communities of colour,” said Cunningham. ...

His statement was the deepest public expression of regret by a law enforcement official of his standing since unrest over police treatment of African Americans spread across the US after an officer fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014.

Clinton emails: records suggest state department pressured FBI

A senior US state department official sought to shield Hillary Clinton by pressuring the FBI to drop its insistence that an email on the private server she used while secretary of state contained classified information, according to records of interviews with bureau officials. ...

Although the FBI decided against declassifying the email’s contents, the claim of interference added fuel to Republicans’ belief that officials in President Barack Obama’s administration have sought to protect Clinton, a Democrat, from criminal liability as she seeks to succeed Obama in the 8 November election. ...

One FBI official, whose name is redacted, told investigators that Kennedy repeatedly “pressured” the various officials at the FBI to declassify information in one of Clinton’s emails. The email was about the deadly 2012 attack on a US compound in Benghazi, Libya, and included information that originated from the FBI, which meant that the FBI had final say on whether it would remain classified. ...

Other officials have made similar complaints to investigators of unusual pressure not to mark information as classified in Clinton’s emails last year. According to earlier documents the FBI released in September, at least one official at the state department told investigators that there was pressure by senior department officials to mislead the public about the presence of classified information in Clinton’s emails ahead of their public release.

A summary released on Monday showed at least two other state department officials making similar allegations.

One official who worked in the state department’s office that deals with freedom of information requests told investigators they felt “intimidated” by senior department officials if they suggested any of Clinton’s emails on Benghazi contained classified information, and named Kennedy as one of the officials who pressured “employees to not label anything as classified”.

FBI documents: State Dept. aide asked FBI to change classification of Clinton email

A senior State Department official asked for the FBI’s help last year to change the classification level of an email from Hillary Clinton’s private server, and there was a “quid pro quo” discussed that would have allowed the FBI to deploy more agents in foreign countries, according to bureau records released Monday.

Ultimately, the FBI rejected the request, which would have which would have allowed the State Department to archive the message related to the 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in the basement of its Washington headquarters “never to be seen again,” according to the FBI files that were made public as part of the agency’s response to Freedom of Information Act requests.



the horse race



Donald Trump's dark warning that dead will rise to rig the election

Donald Trump has continued an unprecedented effort by a major presidential candidate to effectively declare the presidential election invalid before voters have even had their say.

On Monday, just over three weeks before election day, the Republican nominee repeated his unsupported claim that voter fraud was rampant and specifically stated in a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin that ballots cast by undocumented immigrants led to Barack Obama’s victory in North Carolina in 2008. “People who died 10 years ago are still voting,” he claimed.

Trump’s Wisconsin appearance came after a series of provocative tweets culminating on Monday morning when he wrote: “Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!” Never before has a major presidential candidate in effect rejected the results before the election has been held.

In remarks that were mostly scripted Trump spoke darkly about the election he has long described as “rigged” and made specific unfounded claims about in-person voter fraud.

Previously Trump has only spoken in dogwhistles about voter fraud in “certain communities”.

Sanders Champions Colorado Single Payer Effort as Model for Nation

"Millions of people are watching what you do," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told voters in Boulder, Colorado on Monday.

The progressive firebrand and former presidential candidate had traveled to the Rocky Mountain foothills to campaign on behalf of a state ballot measure that would establish a state-run, single-payer health care system in Colorado—one that he said could be a model for the nation.

"The current American healthcare system is dysfunctional and it has to change," Sanders told the crowd of more than 2,000 at the University of Colorado Boulder's Farrand Field. "Colorado can send a shot that will be heard all over the country and all over the world." 

Colorado's Amendment 69, a citizen-initiated measure, would eliminate private insurance and establish a statewide program to provide universal healthcare coverage, known as ColoradoCare, for all residents.



the evening greens


Exxon asks court to throw out New York state's climate change case

Exxon Mobil Corp asked a federal court on Monday to throw out a subpoena from New York state that would force the oil company to hand over decades of documents as part of a wide-ranging inquiry into whether it misled investors about climate change risks.

The filing means Exxon has now requested the US district court in Fort Worth, Texas for injunctions against two major climate subpoenas: one issued by New York and another from Massachusetts that the company challenged in June.

Exxon, which for more than a decade has acknowledged the risks of climate change, has criticised the prosecutors’ inquiries as politically motivated.

A group of state attorneys general, led by New York, said in March they would go after the world’s largest publicly traded oil company for allegedly violating securities laws by soft-pedaling the dangers of climate change and efforts to fight it.

Judge Ed Kinkeade has yet to rule on Exxon’s requests in the high-profile case.

Report from Standing Rock: 100+ Militarized Police Deployed Against Native American Water Protectors

US Senate could block landmark HFC climate treaty, legal experts warn

The jubilation and relief that flowed from United Nations climate talks in Rwanda over the weekend may be short-lived in the U.S., where legal experts say the agreement risks being blocked by Republican senators.

Weary U.N. diplomats finalized a deal Saturday to phase out the use of most HFCs, which are chemicals used in refrigerators and air conditioners and by other industries. The agreement was designed to accelerate a shift to safer substitutes for some of the world’s fastest growing and worst greenhouse gases. ...

But American experts on international environmental law say ratifying the new HFC agreement would almost certainly require a two-thirds vote from the Senate. If enough countries formally agree to join, the new agreement could take effect in 2019.

“This is different from Paris, in that it requires ratification — and that’s concerning to me,” said Michael Wara, and expert on energy and environmental law at Stanford. “This is going to require getting Republicans to vote for it.”

Norwegian Youth Taking Government to Court Over 'Unconstitutional' Arctic Drilling

Taking a page from young people in the United States and elsewhere who are standing up for their right to healthy environment, Norwegian youth on Monday filed suit against their country's government for expanding Arctic oil drilling despite increasingly dire warnings about the impact such activity is having on the planet's climate.

The plaintiffs, which include Greenpeace Norway and the nation's largest youth-led organization, Nature and Youth, are arguing that Norway has violated citizens' and future generations' constitutional right to a healthy environment, citing Article 112 of Norway's Constitution:

Every person has the right to an environment that is conducive to health and to a natural environment whose productivity and diversity are maintained. Natural resources shall be managed on the basis of comprehensive long-term considerations which will safeguard this right for future generations as well. The authorities of the state shall take measures for the implementation of these principles.

This marks the first time that environmental clause is being tested in court.


Also of Interest

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

NYT’s Absurd New Anti-Russian Propaganda

US Allies are Funding ISIS (and Hillary Knew All Along)

How Israel Became a Hub for Surveillance Technology

Hillary Clinton Liked Covert Action if It Stayed Covert

Extremist militias recruiting in fear of Clinton winning election, activists say

To Build the Political Revolution, Grassroots Group Endorses 22 "People's Candidates"

State of Ohio to Investigate Satirical Tweet That Fooled Drudge and Limbaugh

Billionaire claims he has been harassed after blocking access to public beach

MIT sets nuclear fusion record

Chuck Berry, 90, announces first album in 38 years


A Little Night Music

Bobby "Blue" Bland - You Got Me

Bobby "Blue" Bland - I Can't Put You Down Baby

Bobby "Blue" Bland - Honey Child

Bobby 'Blue' Bland - Farther On Up The Road

Bobby Bland - I'm Sorry

Bobby "Blue" Bland - Cry Cry Cry

Bobby Bland - These Hands (Small but Mighty)

Bobby Blue Bland - Turn On Your Love Light

Bobby Blue Bland - Yield Not To Temptation



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joe shikspack's picture

i'm going out to dinner with the kid tonight, i'll check in later on this evening.

have a great evening!

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Azazello's picture

Enjoy your dinner, I'm going to watch Bernie soil himself. I check back later too, if I see anything noteworthy.

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

enhydra lutris's picture

electoral politics. There's a Seagrams and water around here somewhere with my name on it as it is already.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

the Canadian mix!

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joe shikspack's picture

the peri peri chicken was pretty good.

have a great time with bernie.

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enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

thanks! enjoy that nice drink with your name on it. Smile

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Azazello's picture

Of all the Three Ts of global corporatocracy, TISA may be the worst. It puts all government services up for privatization and makes it near impossible to reverse said privatizations. Huffington Post

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

Pluto's Republic's picture

"Fuck the EU"

They (the Europeans) have been absolutely despicable and two-faced, with their lips sewn to America's ass. The only reasonable thing they've done is letting their NATO troops commit war crimes with the US — then sticking the American people with the bill because they refuse to pay their share of NATO costs.

So, the American people are paying for this entire thing with their sweat and taxes. They pay not only for the US, but they pay Israel's costs and they pay for NATO, too. And what they can't pay, they stick their kids with, making them indentured servants of the US plantation. They are too scared of (weak, despised, politically isolated) Trump to put a stop to it by defeating Hillary and collapsing the Democratic Party with their votes.

So, it all works out karma-wise, I guess.

How you doin' Azazello?

Yr friend,

Pluto

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
mimi's picture

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joe shikspack's picture

with any luck, both parties will implode soon.

it probably won't do us much good, but the schadenfreude will go well with popcorn in the cheap seats.

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OLinda's picture

“Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!”

I don't see how Republican leaders can deny Trump's accusations when they keep pushing tough voter ID laws to stop rampant voter fraud.

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joe shikspack's picture

like the clintons, the republicans think that they can have it both ways if they use their best oily rhetoric and parse things just right.

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WindDancer13's picture

Republicans push voter ID laws and the Democrats turn their heads to it.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

Bisbonian's picture

While the days of its worst behavior are long behind it

before I found the first whopper.

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"I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” —Malcolm X

joe shikspack's picture

well done!

that was a pretty amazing article.

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WindDancer13's picture

Associated Press reports that there will be an increase in Social Security benefits next year. Note: There was no increase in 2016. The increase from 2015 added $4.00 to my monthly check. The 2017 increase will be a whopping 0.3 percent. For me that equals an extra $2.76 in my pocket each month. Wow!

But wait! There is more! There will also be an increase in the amount that Social Security recipients get to pay for Medicare Part B...which the benefit increase will not be enough to cover. The net changes will mean a decrease in available income.

I lied about the good news. Mea culpa.

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

joe shikspack's picture

yep, there our government goes again, living up to the bright promise of america.

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WindDancer13's picture

Amy Goodman was charged for participating in a riot. From Bill Moyers:

The Democracy Now! host is free but a documentary maker who was also arrested for committing journalism faces a potential 45 years in prison.

Since when did people participating in a protest who are attacked by dogs and pepper sprayed become a riot?

And she is not alone in this effort by the government to get shut down any form of real journalism:

Just last week, Deia Schlosberg, a producer on the film How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change, was arrested and charged with three felonies, all conspiracy charges, that carry a sentence of up to 45 years in prison. The charges stemmed from Schlosberg’s filming of an Oct. 11 protest that briefly shut down five oil pipelines that bring about 15 percent of the oil used each day to America from Canada’s tar sands.

From the Comment section:

But thank God this blatant abuse of 1st Amendment rights is being taken up as a crusade by MSM outlets across the US, whose journalistic consciences have been outraged by this base attack on the most fundamental of American freedoms....O wait...... (Jon Cloke)

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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass

snoopydawg's picture

Since when did people participating in a protest who are being attacked by dogs and pepper sprayed become a riot?m

In the Assange diary on DK that accused him and f being a pedophile, comment after comment went on about Putin cracking down on his people who were protesting and his locking up of journalists.
The Obama administration has cracked down on protesters from OWS, BLM to the DAPL protests and journalists were arrested in Ferguson and the two journalists that were arrested at the DAPL protests and I haven't seen one diary over there about it there.
Their selective coverage of anything that would show Obama or Hillary in a bad light shows that they like to cherry pick the information they cover.
Especially on the email leaks. They only report on the ones that don't damage Hillary and leave out the ones that do.
"See, this is a 'nothingburger'"

Kennedy asking the FBI not to classify documents or unclassify some of them has gotten the attention of Chavetz and I'm sure that someone is going to be dragged in front of congress again soon.
They aren't letting this issue go.
https://oversight.house.gov/release/chaffetz-nunes-statement-new-fbi-fil...
Nor should they. If that person from the navy has to spend years in prison because he had photos of his submarine, then what Hillary and her merry band has done needs to be prosecuted too.
We have already seen the two laws on classified information between manning and Petraeous.
She's spending 35 years in prison and he's getting his career up and running after only paying a $100,000 fine after giving his mistress classified information to write a f'cking book. Manning did it to show us that our government and military were committing war crimes.
Gawd I'm tired of seeing good people go to prison while bad people don't because of their connections!

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

mimi's picture

all the other words you can forget.

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mimi's picture

WTF.

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mimi's picture

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joe shikspack's picture

it's not a debate, it's a spectacle. that's all they have been in modern times.

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joe shikspack's picture

chuck sure had a way with those words. i'm looking forward to hearing his most recent ones.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

enjoyable evening with 'the kid' this evening. Wink

Here's a link and excerpt from a piece I saw earlier today--says volumes about 'who' FSC is, IMO.

Bill Gates, Tim Cook, Bernie Sanders: Here's the list of 39 people the Clinton campaign was considering for VP

Oliver Darcy, 8h

A hacked email published by WikiLeaks revealed on Tuesday the "first cut of people" the Hillary Clinton campaign was considering for vice president.

The list of 39 people was sent by campaign chairman John Podesta to Clinton on March 17 — two days after Clinton's successful March 15 Democratic primary romp — and included a mix of accomplished businesspeople and politicians. . . .

Here's the full list, in the same way it was sent to Clinton:

Javier Becerra
Julian Castro
Eric Garcetti
Tom Perez
Ken Salazar . . .

Although Warren and Bernie were listed, I don't believe for a NY second that FSC would have seriously considered selecting either of them. You may notice, it's mostly a list of former DLCers/New Dems.

The frame of the Common Dreams piece was interesting, and unlike most of the MSM pieces that I've read about the main Warren/Sanders rally in Colorado. IOW, those pieces emphasized that the two were campaigning to help get FSC elected--not to see that a single-payer system is implemented. Or, put another way, their primary mission was to scare the bejesus out of folks, so that they won't vote for a third party candidate (over FSC).

See you Guys after the Debate tomorrow evening. Heard that FSC will have Mark Cuban and Meg Whitman as her guests. Wonder who 'the Donald' will have slated to sit in his VP box--Monica, maybe?

Wink

Hey, gotta run 'the B' out before nightfall. Everyone have a nice evening!

Bye

Mollie


“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore– to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

The SOSD Fantastic Four

Available For Adoption, Save Our Street Dogs, SOSD

Cole - SOSD

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

joe shikspack's picture

heh:

Podesta said in the email that he "organized names in rough food groups."

i love the way that podesta gave bernie his own "food group."

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

if it's accurate.

Here's an excerpt and link,

WORLD NEWS | Tue Oct 18, 2016 | 8:23pm EDT

Ecuador acknowledges limiting Julian Assange's web access

. . . Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has long backed Assange's right to free speech and has also supported Clinton publicly.

"For the good of the United States and the world ... I would like Hillary to win," he told broadcaster Russia Today last month.

Color me disappointed that Correa would support FSC (not that I expected him to support DT); but, I'm still grateful that he has given Assange asylum in their Embassy. IIRC, he graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he received a MS and PhD in economics. So, it's probably not surprising that he would have a bit of a neoliberal mindset.

Good point. I didn't catch that about Bernie being in his own Food Group--considering FSC's right-wing ideological bent, I'm not surprised. Wink

Mollie


“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit and therefore– to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

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

Pluto's Republic's picture

…from Ecuador.

They operate like Wal-Mart. Convince a small country to go all in on one specific product with a lucrative trade agreement.

Once all they grow is roses, you own them.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Big Al's picture

"prices of roses have risen due to unforeseen shortages in crop production".

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karl pearson's picture

Pres. Obama's brother Malik Obama is coming as Trump's guest. Malik is a big Trump supporter.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obamas-half-brother-donald-trum...

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karl pearson's picture

Pres. Obama's brother Malik Obama is coming as Trump's guest. Malik is a big Trump supporter.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-obamas-half-brother-donald-trum...

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OLinda's picture

I believed Wikileaks when they said they had multiple sources on this, but it is still good to see an acknowledgment from Ecuador.

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Crider's picture

The Government of Ecuador respects the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries, it does not interfere in electoral processes in progress or support a candidate in particular.

In that sense, Ecuador, in exercise of its sovereign right, has temporarily restricted access to part of its communications system in its embassy in the UK.

This temporary restriction does not prevent the WikiLeaks organization to carry out his journalistic activities.

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joe shikspack's picture

but i wish they would be more transparent as to why they took this action. i read their statement and it appears that the motive for this action is somewhat opaque.

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mimi's picture

I support a Constitutional amendment requiring term limits for all politicians and advisors to politicians. 12 month and you are out. Or three warnings and you get fired. Or sign upfront a contract that you can be fired anytime. Why should they have better conditions than the lowly working class people. They don't even get a term, just the limits without any terms.

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MsGrin's picture

and then back away quietly...

It's worth watching the vid.
http://freebeacon.com/politics/clinton-campaign-bus-dumping-human-waste-...

Have a good evening, y'all!

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'What we are left with is an agency mandated to ensure transparency and disclosure that is actually working to keep the public in the dark' - Ann M. Ravel, former FEC member

joe shikspack's picture

heh, it's a what clinton wants to do everywhere. take a gigantic crap, make a big stinky mess and roll on out of town. Smile

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mimi's picture

Ecuador Cuts Internet Access for Julian Assange to Preserve Neutrality in U.S. Election
I don't know may be all of this had been said already, but they put it together.

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tapu dali's picture

Converting CO2 to ethanol

Sounds quite interesting!

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There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

janis b's picture

that is, if you're still awake. Otherwise, good morning.

I was happy to see your reference to Ai Weiwei. He is inspirational ...

[video:https://youtu.be/CbHRU9k2zNA]

...

Artistically, philosophically, and politically.

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ThoughtfulVoter's picture

Democratic heads roll after video shows agitators planted at Trump rallies by Valerie Richardson

Robert Creamer, founder of Democracy Advocates and the husband of Rep. Janice D. Schakowsky, Illinois Democrat, stepped down from the campaign Tuesday, a day after Scott Foval was fired from his post as national field director of Americans United for Change.

The two 16-minute videos were released Monday and Tuesday after a yearlong undercover investigation headed by Project Veritas’ James O’Keefe, known for his hidden-camera probes into Planned Parenthood, ACORN and voter fraud.

Mr. O’Keefe said the investigation reveals “compelling evidence of a dark-money conspiracy” and that he would continue to release videos as part of a series titled “Rigging the Election” until voters go to the polls on Nov. 8.

The first video shows Democratic strategists discussing how they hire agitators — including union members, homeless people and the mentally ill — to incite violence by provoking Trump supporters on camera at campaign stops.

Project Veritas released a second video Tuesday showing Mr. Foval brainstorming over ways to commit voter fraud, such as by busing people from one state to another, while appearing to indicate that it had already been done in Iowa.

The whole story here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/18/undercover-video-shows-d...

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joe shikspack's picture

wow, it's just a tidal wave of slime.

given the provenance of the video (and its producer's penchant for manipulation), i wonder if there's any truth in it.

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