The Evening Blues - 10-19-18



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Otis Rush

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features the recently departed Chicago blues guitarist and singer Otis Rush. Enjoy!

Otis Rush - I Cant Quit You Baby

"Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves."

-- Eric Hoffer


News and Opinion

Trump says it appears Khashoggi is dead and consequences may be ‘severe’

Donald Trump has said he presumes that Jamal Khashoggi is dead, and said the consequences for Saudi Arabia could be “very severe” if its leaders are found to have ordered the dissident journalist’s killing. Trump made the remarks after being briefed on the investigation by his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, on Pompeo’s return from a trip to Riyadh and Ankara.

In another sign the Trump administration was dropping its defence of Riyadh and beginning to distance itself from the Saudi monarchy over Khashoggi’s suspected murder, the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, announced he would not attend this week’s government-sponsored investment conference in the Saudi capital, joining a growing exodus of western corporate leaders and politicians.

Trump also ended his administration’s refusal to discuss Khashoggi’s fate. Asked if he thought to Saudi exile was dead, the president told reporters: “It certainly looks that way to me. It’s very sad. It certainly looks that way.” As to the US response if Saudi Arabia’s rulers were found to have been responsible for what appears to have been a grisly murder in the country’s Istanbul consulate, Trump said: “Well, it’ll have to be very severe. I mean, it’s bad, bad stuff. But we’ll see what happens.” ...

A Turkish forensic science team left the consul general’s residence early on Thursday after conducting a nine-hour sweep of the building and of consular vehicles. The consulate was also searched for a second time. Of particular focus to investigators appeared to be the garage below the consul general’s home, and parts of the property’s garden were dug up. ... It was not immediately clear what the search revealed, but investigators took several boxes and bags away with them. The Turkish interior ministry promised the results would be “shared with the world”.

Turkish and US media published details from a three-minute audio recording on Wednesday that Turkish officials described as proof that Khashoggi had his fingers severed during an interrogation. His killers then allegedly beheaded him and cut up his body with a bone saw brought by a forensics specialist who travelled with the assassination team.

Trump comments at Montana rally in praise of violence against US journalist

Donald Trump has praised Greg Gianforte, the Congress member from Montana, for violently attacking a Guardian reporter, saying that someone who performs a body slam is “my guy”.

Trump described in glowing terms the physical assault that occurred on 24 May 2017 when Ben Jacobs, the Guardian’s political correspondent, was asking Gianforte a question about health care policy in the course of a special congressional election in Bozeman, Montana. The US president incited cheers and chants from a crowd of about 8,000 supporters on Thursday night when he said: “Greg is smart. And by the way, never wrestle him. You understand. Never.”

As the cheers rang out across an aircraft hangar in Missoula, Trump went on to say: “Any guy that can do a body slam … he’s my guy.”

Trump’s comments mark the first time the president has openly and directly praised a violent act against a journalist on American soil.

Giving his first detailed account of the Gianforte attack on Jacobs, Trump went on to tell the Missoula crowd that he had learned of the incident while he was in Rome in a gathering of world leaders. He expressed his immediate dismay. “We endorsed Greg very early. But I heard that he body-slammed a reporter. This was the day of the election or just before, and I thought ‘Oh, this is terrible! He’s going to lose the election.’” Trump continued: “And then I said, ‘Wait a minute, I know Montana pretty well, I think it might help him.’ And it did.”

The line prompted another massive cheer from the Montana crowd.

Dissident Saudi Academic Madawi Al-Rasheed on Khashoggi’s Disappearance, U.S.-Saudi Relations & More

Be Skeptical Whenever The Political/Media Class Converges On A Single Narrative

The Trump administration has ended its weeks-long silence on the disappearance of the Saudi Arabian Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. ... The dominant anti-establishment criticism of the mainstream coverage of this story has been that they’re only upset at the Saudi royals now because their bloodshed finally touched a member of the political/media class, who are meant to be untouchable. And hey, that could be it, who knows. ... We are being told that Khashoggi had an unpleasant encounter with the business end of a bone saw, but we’ve seen no evidence of it. We’ve been told that there is audio footage of this happening but only unnamed Turkish officials are cited as the source of this claim. ... Whenever you see the politicians and media all converge in agreement across political lines upon a single narrative with a great deal of focus and promotion, it’s time to turn up the dial on your skepticism, especially when that narrative involves foreign policy. ...

This crucial strategic region is a nonstop story of constantly shifting alliances as immensely powerful movers and shakers fight to put themselves in dominant positions like kids playing king of the mountain. Last year alone we saw world-shaking events like the sudden unified pivot against Qatar and the so-called “anti-corruption” purge of high level members of the Saudi royal family by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the de facto decision maker of the Saudi government who is being openly accused of direct complicity in Khashoggi’s alleged murder. As noted in a solid Off-Guardian take titled “Jamal Khashoggi: or why you don’t trust the MSM even if they say what you want to hear“, we can look a little further back to when Saddam Hussein was the “good guy” in the Middle East because he was fighting Iran. There are no stationary alliances in the region with the exception of the nuclear-armed Israel for however long it exists, so we could be looking at yet another Game of Thrones-like shift in alliance.

Saudi Arabia has been a staunch ally of the US for decades, gaining the support of the most powerful military force in the history of civilization in exchange for the petrodollar deal, a strong military/intelligence/economic asset in a key strategic region, and (perhaps most importantly) a completely opaque and unaccountable government that can get away with perpetrating unfathomable evils that the US and its western allies could never get away with. But that doesn’t mean that can’t change as oil and energy dominance shifts and the empire restructures its assets to the benefit of the plutocrats and their lackeys. If it does change, we can expect to see a drastic shift in the narratives the pundits and politicians advance about Saudi Arabia, very much like the shift in narratives we’re seeing now. One thing’s for certain: there’s no way the empire would turn against such a vastly useful geopolitical asset just because they made some journalist into a jigsaw puzzle.

Evidence suggests crown prince ordered Khashoggi killing, says ex-MI6 chief

A former head of MI6 has said all the evidence suggests Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind the death of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and that the theory that rogue elements in the Saudi military were responsible was “blatant fiction”. Sir John Sawers told the BBC his assessment was based on conversations with senior Whitehall sources and his knowledge of the Turkish intelligence services. ...

Sawers, who was head of the British secret intelligence service until 2014, also claimed that the crown prince would only have acted if he believed he had licence from the White House to behave as he wished. “I think President Trump and his ministerial team are waking up to just how dangerous it is to have people acting with a sense that they have impunity in their relationship with the United States,” Sawers said. “If it is proven, and it looks very likely to be the case, that [Prince Mohammed] ordered the killing of the journalist it is a step too far – one that the UK, the EU and the US are going to have to respond to.”

Sawers said he respected the thoroughness and professionalism of the Turkish intelligence services: “The level of detail that is coming out from Turkish security sources is so clear that some form of tape must exist.” He suggested the tensions between Turkey and Saudi Arabia over the past decade would mean Turkey “will be monitoring very closely what goes on inside Saudi offices. They may well have had the consulate general bugged in some way, or there may have been other devices carried out by the squad that carried out the assassination that they were able to intercept. The level of detail is very damning of the hit squad, and [their reported identities] show how close are they are to the crown prince”. ...

He predicted that members of the Saudi royal family, business community and conservative religious clerics will take advantage of the crown prince’s involvement to undermine him. “There will be a reaction inside Saudi Arabia to this dreadful killing and there will be some correction.”

John Bolton pushing Trump to withdraw from Russian nuclear arms treaty

John Bolton is pushing for the US to withdraw from a cold war-era arms control treaty with Russia, in the face of resistance from others in the Trump administration and US allies, according to sources briefed on the initiative. Bolton, Donald Trump’s third national security adviser, has issued a recommendation for withdrawal from the 1987 intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty (INF), which the US says Russia has been violating with the development of a new cruise missile.

Withdrawal from the treaty, which would mark a sharp break in US arms control policy, has yet to be agreed upon by cabinet and faces opposition from within the state department and the Pentagon. A meeting on Monday at the White House to discuss the withdrawal proposal was postponed.

Bolton, who has spent his career opposing arms control treaties, is seeking to shrug off the traditional role of national security adviser as a policy broker between the agencies, and become a driver of radical change from within the White House. Former US officials say Bolton is blocking talks on extending the 2010 New Start treaty with Russia limiting deployed strategic nuclear warheads and their delivery systems. The treaty is due to expire in 2021 and Moscow has signaled its interest in an extension, but Bolton is opposing the resumption of a strategic stability dialogue to discuss the future of arms control between the two countries.

Netanyahu Attacks Israeli Human Rights Group B’Tselem for Criticizing Israeli Occupation at U.N.

Caravan of 3,000 Central American migrants crosses into Mexico

Thousands of Central American migrants have defied Donald Trump and streamed over the international bridge from Guatemala into Mexico, where they clashed with riot police in an attempt to continue their journey north. Singing the Honduran national anthem and chanting “Yes we could!” the crowd of about 3,000 people – including entire families pushing wheelchairs and strollers – walked across the bridge over the muddy Suchiate river on Friday afternoon.

Locals cheered and handed out bottles of water, while Guatemalan police officers stood to the side of the road and watched the migrants pass. ...

An army helicopter hovered on the northern bank of the river, where the crowd ran into a line of Mexican police with riot shields, who fired pepper spray at the migrants. The dramatic scenes came a week after a group of migrants set out from the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, to escape crushing poverty and the violence which has turned their country into one of the most dangerous nations in the world. ... Illegal immigration to the US from Mexico is much lower than in the early 2000s, but growing numbers of families are fleeing the “northern triangle” of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador to escape poverty, violence and the early effects of climate change.

Carlos Omar Caballeros, 48 was travelling with his 17-year-old daughter who didn’t want to be named because they were fleeing threats and extortion by one of the many street gangs that dominate the region. He was scornful at Trump’s threat to withhold aid to the Honduran government of President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was re-elected in December amid allegations of widespread electoral fraud. Like many Hondurans, Caballeros blames the US for supporting the 2009 military coup against the country’s elected government. “They destabilise our country, wreck our economy, and protect the corrupt, who keep all the money the US sends. We don’t care if they stop the aid – we never see any of it,” he said.

Trump baselessly claims Democrats are behind migrant caravan

Donald Trump thrust a caravan of migrants heading toward the US border into the midterm election campaign, saying at a rally on Thursday night that the race will be “an election of the caravan”. A group that now numbers about 3,000 people has left Honduras and has reached Guatemala’s border with Mexico, with the ultimate goal of reaching the US – infuriating Trump. “It’s going to be an election of the caravan. You know what I’m talking about,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Missoula, Montana, declaring his intention to use the migrants’ journey as a bludgeon against Democratic candidates. ...

Trump claimed, without any supporting evidence, that Democrats were behind the caravan, and raised conspiracy theories that the Central Americans had been paid to come to the United States for political reasons. “Now we’re starting to find out – and I won’t say it 100%, I’ll put a little tiny question mark at the end. But we’re probably not going to need it, but we have the fake news back there,” he told the crowd, adding a familiar jab at news reporters covering his campaign appearances. “A lot of money’s been passing through people to come up and try to get to the border by election day, because they think that’s a negative for us. Number one, they’re being stopped. And number two, regardless, that’s our issue.”

Trump appeared to be referring to a video posted by the Florida representative Matt Gaetz, which he claimed showed women and children being given cash to “storm the US border @ election time”. He suggested without evidence that the source could be “Soros? US-backed NGOs?” referring to George Soros, an American billionaire who is the frequent subject of rightwing conspiracy theories.

Chinedu Okobi Died After Being Electrocuted by Police. Tasers Are Not “Less Lethal” Weapons.

Chinedu Okobi should be alive right now. At the very most, he should be in a hospital receiving mental health treatment. By now, he likely would’ve been released back to the care of his family. Local police have not responded to my repeated requests for more information about Chinedu’s death, but this much we know: While he was technically unarmed, meaning that he had no gun or knife or illegal weapon on his body, he was armed in a very American way. He was a big Black man, a dark-skinned Nigerian who was 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed 330 pounds. In the eyes of American police, that might as well be armed. This nation has long since weaponized blackness.

This country has also weaponized mental illness. Chinedu lived with mental illness. He received treatment, took medications, and worked hard to balance his life the best he could. I never knew it. What I do know is that in this country, when someone is having a mental health crisis, police are called — which is like bringing in a bulldozer to fix a leaky faucet. It’s a stupid system. Chinedu needed to go to the hospital. He needed medical treatment. Instead, he was surrounded by officers who appear to have repeatedly used a Taser on him until he died. Let me phrase that another way: Chinedu was still shot, but by guns that electrocute people to death instead of tearing apart their flesh and organs with bullets. In the name of being safer than guns, hundreds of thousands of police officers have now been armed with Tasers, but they aren’t safe — not at all. ...

Since 2000, American police have killed at least 1,000 people with Tasers. They are horrible. The primary company that makes them, Taser, has changed its name to Axon — just like Corrections Corporation of America, the notorious private prison company, changed its name to CoreCivic. It’s an attempt to escape their baggage, but it’s the same old shit. And Axon has gotten a complete pass for what the company makes. The company deflects from the fact that they make machines that send uncontrollable electricity into people’s bodies. The problem, of course, is that the human body simply was not built to take these surges of electricity. Axon advertises these weapons as “less lethal,” but the comparison to guns and other weapons would be cold comfort for the more than 1,000 people who have died from the electric shocks.

Worse yet, the “less lethal” moniker has meant that many cities and states don’t have robust regulations for how law enforcement is supposed to use these weapons. So the mythical “less lethal” marketing is working — for the company, not for victims of the weapons. That such dangerous shocks would be administered to people with mental illnesses is especially upsetting. Every single day in this country, hundreds of thousands of nurses treat adults and children who are living with mental illness. Those patients are regularly in crisis, and nurses consistently face them down without ever having to electrocute them into submission. If five police officers were unable to do the same thing with Chinedu without killing him, the problem is not Chinedu — it’s the police officers.

South Carolina Is Lobbying to Allow Discrimination Against Jewish Parents

The Trump administration s considering whether to grant a South Carolina request that would effectively allow faith-based foster care agencies in the state the ability to deny Jewish parents from fostering children in its network. The argument, from the state and from the agency, is that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act should not force a Protestant group to work with Jewish people if it violates a tenet of their faith.

The case being made by South Carolina is an extension of the debate around RFRA, which is more commonly associated with discrimination against LGBTQ people, but by no means applies exclusively to that group. If granted, the exemption would allow Miracle Hill Ministries, a Protestant social service agency working in the state’s northwest region, to continue receiving federal dollars while “recruiting Christian foster families,” which it has been doing since 1988, according to its website. That discrimination would apply not just to Jewish parents, but also to parents who are Muslim, Catholic, Unitarian, atheist, agnostic or other some other non-Protestant Christian denomination.

Miracle Hill covers Greenville, Pickens and Spartanburg counties, and its foster care services have becoming increasingly in demand as an opioid epidemic has torn through a generation of young parents. The fight over its policy has been written about in the local press and was first covered nationally by The Nation.

The request has been made to the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency has been quietly taken over by hardline evangelical activists, a perk for their unwavering support of Trump’s presidential bid and his administration.

Democratic Consulting Firm Teams Up With Hospital Industry to Battle Nurses Union

The hospital industry has partnered with a major Democratic consulting firm in an unusual alliance against Massachusetts’s nurses and the bulk of its progressive infrastructure. At issue is a ballot initiative that aims to improve patient safety by limiting the number of patients that can be assigned to a single nurse. If passed, the initiative, known as Question 1, will make Massachusetts the second state in the country to have nurse staffing limits in place. ...

Most local labor groups and the Massachusetts Democratic Party have come out in support of Question 1. Its backers include Boston Mayor Marty Walsh; U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey; and U.S. Reps. Katherine Clark, Jim McGovern, Joe Kennedy III, and Michael Capuano. A majority of likely voters polled by Suffolk University and the Boston Globe in mid-September supported the ballot initiative. But a formidable opposition campaign, funded by the hospital industry and led by a prominent Democratic consulting firm, threatens to derail the nurse staffing effort. The opposition campaign, rallying under the banner of “the Coalition to Protect Patient Safety,” has raised more than $13 million since January; 95 percent of those funds have come from the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association. Through an aggressive advertisement blitz, the coalition has worked hard to argue that Question 1 could destroy the state’s renowned health care system.

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker recently said he’ll be voting “no” on the measure, citing hotly disputed cost projections. Recent polling also reflects a shift in public opinion, suggesting that the opposition’s campaign is working. For the first time this year, polls now show that a majority of likely voters oppose Question 1, including a University of Massachusetts Lowell/Boston Globe poll from October that found 51 percent plan to vote against it. ...

Dewey Square Group, a prominent political consulting firm that often works with Democratic candidates, liberal groups, and labor unions, is leading the opposition campaign. Consultants from the firm have been paid over $800,000 since April for their efforts, according to state campaign finance data. ... In 2016, Dewey Square was hired by the Massachusetts Teachers Association to run a campaign on behalf of labor and progressive groups against a ballot measure that would have raised the state’s cap on charter schools. The measure, rejected by more than 62 percent of voters, failed. That the consultants who led the 2016 campaign on behalf of liberal groups are now leading the campaign against those same organizations has sparked intraparty turmoil in the state.

Barbara Madeloni, who stepped down as president of the 110,000-member Massachusetts Teachers Association this past summer, told The Intercept that she “doesn’t know how [Dewey Square consultants] sleep at night” while leading the opposition campaign. “The ways they’re running it, their comfort with distortions and misinformation, and that they’re aligning with people who are really looking to undermine the well-being of the patients of the commonwealth — well, they’re just exposing themselves as mercenaries,” she said. “Quite honestly, there’s a part of me that’s embarrassed to have ever worked with them.”

Good right up until the solution at the end:


California rethinks life sentences for thousands of non-violent third-strike offenders

California will reconsider life sentences for up to 4,000 non-violent third-strike criminals by allowing them to seek parole under a ballot measure approved by voters two years ago, according to court documents obtained by the Associated Press. The state will craft new regulations by January to include the repeat offenders in early release provisions.

The state parole board estimates between 3,000 and 4,000 non-violent third-strikers could be affected, said a corrections department spokeswoman, Vicky Waters, “but they would have to go through rigorous public safety screenings and a parole board hearing before any decision is made”.

Under California’s controversial three strikes law, people who commit three felonies can be jailed for 25 years even if the third offence is considered minor.

Last month, a three-judge appellate panel in the second appellate district in a Los Angeles county case ruled that third-strikers must be included under Proposition 57’s constitutional amendment. It requires parole consideration for “any person convicted of a nonviolent felony offense” regardless of enhancements under California’s three strikes law.

Governor Jerry Brown, who leaves office in January, will not appeal.

Democrats Face Ridicule and Ire for Letting GOP Ram Through Six More Right-Wing Judges

Less than a week after Senate Democrats cut a deal allowing Republicans to fast-track 15 of President Donald Trump's right-wing judicial picks in exchange for a recess that freed vulnerable lawmakers to hit the campaign trail, the GOP—surprising no one who has paid the slightest attention to American politics in recent decades—reneged on their so-called "truce" with the minority party on Wednesday and convened another hearing to start ramming through six more judges to lifetime federal court positions.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee protested the hearing by refusing to attend and firing off an indignant letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)—the chairman of the committee—but it was immediately obvious to most observers that the Democratic leadership let Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) walk all over them... again.


"To me, it's a sign that they didn't just get stuffed in a locker here; they had their lunch money taken," Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice and the former spokesperson for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), told the New York Times. "If the Democrats were going to fast-track all those Trump judges to get out of town for the rest of October," Fallon added, "the least they could have gotten for their trouble was a commitment from McConnell to not still hold hearings while the Senate was adjourned."



the horse race



GOP candidate improperly purged 340,000 from Georgia voter rolls, investigation claims

Georgia secretary of state and gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp improperly purged more than 340,000 voters from the state’s registration rolls, an investigation charges. Greg Palast, a journalist and the director of the Palast Investigative Fund, said an analysis he commissioned found 340,134 voters were removed from the rolls on the grounds that they had moved – but they actually still live at the address where they are registered.

“Their registration is cancelled. Not pending, not inactive – cancelled. If they show up to vote on 6 November, they will not be allowed to vote. That’s wrong,” Palast told reporters on a call on Friday. “We can prove they’re still there. They should be allowed to vote.”

Palast and the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda filed a lawsuit against Kemp on Friday to force him to release additional records related to the state’s removal of voters. Under Georgia procedures, registered voters who have not cast ballots for three years are sent a notice asking them to confirm they still live at their address. If they don’t return it, they are marked inactive. If they don’t vote for two more general elections after that, they are removed from the rolls.

Georgia removed more than 534,000 voters that way in 2016 and 2017. Using databases employed by commercial mailing firms, analysts commissioned by Palast’s group found that 334,134 of those citizens actually still live at the address they registered. Of the rest, 41,797 had in fact moved out of state, and 8,990 moved from one county to another within Georgia. More than 19,000 had died. Others could not be determined.

Provocateur James O’Keefe Has More Ambush Videos On Key Senate Races, He Tells Secretive GOP Donor Confab

The notorious conservative activist James O’Keefe is at it again. This week, O’Keefe — known for undercover videos aimed at embarrassing liberals and Democrats — went after Sen. Claire McCaskill, a centrist Democrat running for re-election in Missouri. Through his nonprofit Project Veritas Action, O’Keefe released a video showing McCaskill campaign staffers making comments about their belief that she could be more liberal than some might imagine.

Observers noted after the release that the most purportedly salacious aspect of the film — a suggestion that McCaskill carefully conceals her support for gun control — is hardly true: McCaskill’s support for various gun control policy is no secret. She voted for the last major gun control legislation in the Senate in 2013 and has openly campaigned for what she calls “common-sense gun safety” measures that include expanded background checks for those seeking to purchase firearms. The attack on McCaskill, however, was only the latest in O’Keefe’s signature style — often selectively edited undercover videos featuring contrived and less-than-truthful attacks against liberals and Democrats — and it’s not going to be his last foray into the 2018 midterm elections.

At a gathering attended by Republican politicians and major religious right donors in North Carolina late last month, O’Keefe promised more undercover tapes on Democratic Senate candidates. ... Prodded by Tony Perkins, the Family Research Council president who had introduced him at the podium, O’Keefe noted that he would begin by releasing a video on the Missouri Senate race, followed by Arizona, then Florida and “a lot of the swing states.”



the evening greens


Politicians say nothing, but US farmers are increasingly terrified by it – climate change

Farmers around here are itching to go after that amber wave of soya beans, but there was that 5in rain a couple of weeks ago and then a 7in rain, and it drives even the retired guys batty. Those beans aren’t worth much at the elevator thanks to a Trump trade war with China, but they’re worth even less getting wet feet in a pond that was a field which the glacier made a prairie bog some 14,000 years ago – until we came along and drained it. This year, crops in north-west Iowa are looking spotty. Up into Minnesota they were battered by spring storms and late planting, and then inundated again in late summer. Where they aren’t washed out, they’re weedy or punky. If you go south in Buena Vista county, where I live in Storm Lake, the corn stands tall and firm. Welcome to climate change, Iowa-style.

It’s the least debated issue of the midterm political season. The weather is the top topic of conversation at any cooperative elevator’s coffee table, along with the markets. Everyone knows that things have been changing in sweeping ways out here on the richest corn ground in the world. It’s drought in the spring and floods in the fall – what were considered 500-year floods in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines 30 years ago are now considered 100-year floods. Iowa has been getting soggier in spring and fall, with scary dry spells interspersed, and more humid at night by as much as a third since 1980.

Everyone knows it has been getting wetter and weirder, especially Dr Gene Takle, a Nobel prize-winning climate scientist at Iowa State University. Takle predicted 20 years ago the floods we see today, already linking it to climate change back then. Farmers just saw ponding and called the tiling company to install more. We’re on our way to doubling the size of the northern Iowa drainage system in the past 30 years as the upper midwest has grown more humid and extreme.

This drainage system is delivering runoff rich in farm fertilizer to the Mississippi river complex and the Gulf of Mexico, where the nitrate from Iowa and Illinois corn fields is growing a dead zone the size of New Jersey. The shrimping industry is being deprived of oxygen so Iowa farmers can chase 200 bushels of corn per acre – and hope against hope that corn will somehow increase in price as we plow up every last acre. That flow also is creating a toxic source for Des Moines Water Works, which is facing up to $100m in improvements to remove agricultural chemicals from the Raccoon river that supplies 500,000 thirsty denizens. The waterworks sued our county over it, along with two others, but a federal judge threw out the case because you simply can’t sue an Iowa drainage district. And that means that there is no way to regulate agriculture as it responds to extreme weather and market consolidation that seeks immediate return.

Meanwhile, those huge rainfalls on exposed black dirt wash it to the vales even from the flat ground of our neighborhood. We are losing soil at two to three tons an acre a year. Nature can regenerate the soil at only a half-ton a year. So we are washing our black gold down the river four to six times faster than we can regrow it.

'Making Sacrifices for All of Us,' Indigenous Water Protectors Arrested at Pipeline Company's Shareholder Meeting

Admired by fellow activists for "making sacrifices for all of us," two Indigenous water protectors were arrested in Dallas on Thursday for demonstrating at a shareholder meeting of Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), which is responsible for several contentious fossil fuel projects including the Dakota Access, Bayou Bridge, and Mariner East 2 pipelines.

Waniya Locke and Cherri Foytlin are reportedly facing charges of disorderly conduct for disrupting the meeting to protest the 163-mile Bayou Bridge Pipeline—which, if completed, would haul 480,000 barrels of crude oil daily through Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin, the largest wetland and swamp in the country. Alarmed by the threat to water resources, wildlife, and local communities, landowners and water protectors are battling construction efforts in court and on the ground. After disrupting the meeting, Locke and Foytlin were detained by police and brought out a back exit. While handcuffed, the pair led a crowd of supporters in a call-and-response chant—"What do you do when your water is under attack? Stand up, fight back!"—before they were forced into the back of a police car.

"They've shackled grandmothers, used attack dogs on people, lied, stole, bribed, maimed, and poisoned, all over the lands," Foytlin of the L'eau Est La Vie (Water Is Life) camp in south Louisiana said about the company's behavior and tactics . "From my perspective, [CEO Kelcy] Warren and ETP have well-earned every bit of bad karma that the universe can muster." Opponents of the Bayou Bridge project have decried the actions of ETP's private security, alleging that in Louisiana, they have "abducted" water protectors to unlawfully deliver them to local police—so they can be charged under a newly enacted state law that criminalizes peaceful protests that interfere with energy infrastructure—and even intentionally sunk boats carrying activists and journalists.

In addition to his company's hostile response to anti-pipeline activists and contributions to the global climate crisis, Warren has been sharply criticized for his own behavior, including his suggestion at an industry conference earlier this year that anyone who damaged the Dakota Access Pipeline "needs to be removed from the gene pool."Denouncing the company's dirty energy construction on Indigenous lands, Locke, who also participated in the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline charged, "This is the continued genocide of Indigenous peoples—destroying our homelands, destroying our way of life."


Also of Interest

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

The bad behavior of the richest: what I learned from wealth managers

Native American Sovereignty Is Under Attack. Here’s How Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Test Hurt Our Struggle.

The Rats Revolt


A Little Night Music

Otis Rush and His Band - Double Trouble

Otis Rush and His Band - My Baby's A Good 'Un

Otis Rush - Groaning The Blues

Otis Rush - My Love Will Never Die

Otis Rush - I'm Satisfied

Otis Rush - Keep On Loving Me, Baby

Otis Rush - It's Hard For Me To Believe, Baby

Otis Rush w/Duanne Allman - You Reap What You Sow

Otis Rush - Homework

Otis Rush and Friends at Montreux 1986


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Raggedy Ann's picture

Gotta jump in here while I have the time. The news brings the blues but the blues brings the toe-tapping! Thanks for the great tunes, joe. Otis has me jammin'!

Looking forward to the weekend - no serious plans, but just happy to be off and doing other stuff. My grandson is looking for a job, so we'll put him to work on Saturday and give him a little cash for his help.

Have a beautiful evening and weekend, folks! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

joe shikspack's picture

@Raggedy Ann

hope you have a great weekend with the grandson and otherwise!

keep those toes tappin'.

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divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

NCTim's picture

Back in the day, shuffle through the crates. About forty years ago, I hunted quite awhile before finding the Cobra I Can't Quit You 45 in decent shape.

RIP

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

joe shikspack's picture

@NCTim

doing well, thanks! the weather's turning and i'm getting outside more to enjoy it now. we're getting the house set up for fall and winter putting the plastic back on the windows, the glass in the screen doors and all that happy stuff. i'm now entertaining thoughts about where i'd like to do a short road trip to watch the leaves turn.

i hope that you're doing well and having a great time.

yep, those old cobras were not produced in large numbers, but they sure had a bunch of great records. i was really happy when they started releasing the stuff on cds. the cobra box set is one of my favorite compilation sets.

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WindDancer13's picture

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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

@WindDancer13

heh. trump has certainly been good for the late night comedy industry.

have a great weekend!

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

in a bit, to clarify my comments from last evening regarding the Cuomo interview. After rereading my comments, and the replies, realized that I badly botched conveying my main point.

(Meaning, it had little to do with the difference between MA and TM. Or, the fact that, for some reason, Cuomo decided to zero in on MA plans, rather than the entire Medicare program.)

Anyhoo, I'll take another shot at it, after we have dinner. (Promise to make it short and sweet, since I usually don't get into real 'heavy' topics, on Fridays.)

Speaking of 'non-heavy' topics--okay, very pleasant ones--here's a Tweet that made me smile, partly, because (unless something changes) we hope to add one of these little fellas to our household sometime this winter.

BTW, it's getting quite nippy, lately--we should see freezing temps sometime this weekend. Of course, I love it--makes me think back to our glorious days in Interior Alaska.

Pleasantry

Thanks for tonight's excellent compilation of News & Blues, Joe. Also, really liked tonight's quote--as my signature line reflects. Smile

Hey, Everyone have a nice weekend!

Later.

Bye

[Edited: Deleted duplicate sig line/rearranged two sentences.]

Blue Onyx

"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."
~~W. R. Purche

"Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves."
~~Eric Hoffer

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

joe shikspack's picture

@Unabashed Liberal

thanks for putting up info about medicare. perhaps the diversity of comments reflects the general bafflement people feel when they look into medicare. there's a lot of information out there, but not a lot of it really helps us come to a comprehensive understanding of what the choices are, what's on offer or what the changes that are being touted by politicians will do to the program.

have a great weekend and enjoy the weather!

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

@Unabashed Liberal

and do it in a nutshell, here's an excerpt from a PNHP piece.

What does 'Medicare for All' mean?
Does Anyone Really Know What ‘Medicare for All’ Means?

By Elisabeth Rosenthal and Shefali Luthra
The New York Times, October 19, 2018

. . . More than 120 members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors of a bill called the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, up from 62 in 2016. And at least 70 have joined Capitol Hill’s new Medicare for All Caucus.

But some worry the terms “Medicare for all” and “single payer” are at risk of becoming empty campaign slogans.

In precise terms, Medicare for all means bringing all Americans under the government’s insurance program now reserved for people 65 and over,

while single-payer health care would have the government pay everyone’s medical bills.

But few are speaking precisely. . . .

The kicker is, that after I read this piece, I saw that one of the PNHP 'fellows' misrepresented the crux of the argument of this piece. Yikes!

Hey, I'm beyond frustrated by the (likely intentional) inaccurate/misleading/distorted rhetoric of many Dem Party lawmakers, and their apparatchiks--including Dem-sponsored organizations which claim to be 'protectors' of our entitlement programs, meaning Social Security and Medicare--yet, who continually make claims which are easily disputed by their own proposed legislation.

Hey, off my soapbox, for now . . .

Blue Onyx

"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."
~~W. R. Purche

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

divineorder's picture

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Really admire the water protectors. American political leaders are documented climate criminals.

OMG, check this out, you will see many many familiar faces.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

joe shikspack's picture

@divineorder

yep, if americans and their government cannot grasp the consequences of their inaction to mitigate climate change in short order, well, there are two choices i guess, revolution or a big party. i wonder if we could combine the two concepts. Smile

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divineorder's picture

@joe shikspack

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

so even Scientific American is getting overtly political, this month publishing a piece by Stiglitz titled The American Economy is Rigged:

Americans are used to thinking that their nation is special. In many ways, it is: the U.S. has by far the most Nobel Prize winners, the largest defense expenditures (almost equal to the next 10 or so countries put together) and the most billionaires (twice as many as China, the closest competitor). But some examples of American Exceptionalism should not make us proud. By most accounts, the U.S. has the highest level of economic inequality among developed countries. It has the world's greatest per capita health expenditures yet the lowest life expectancy among comparable countries. It is also one of a few developed countries jostling for the dubious distinction of having the lowest measures of equality of opportunity.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

joe shikspack's picture

@UntimelyRippd

heh, anybody with one brain cell to rub against another is horrified these days.

i wonder what would happen if there was a strike of scientists and engineers.

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lotlizard's picture

@joe shikspack

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@UntimelyRippd Reaganomics adherents that got old, got sick, got to questioning.
An awesome, very understandable piece.
Thanks so much.

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

Pluto's Republic's picture

BolivianCat.png

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PUTIN-CLINTON-FOUNDATION_0.jpg

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____________________

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

1) Internal KSA plot to get rid of MbS so they can get out of Yemen?
2) MbS that out of touch*?
3) US Whitehouse gave green light either out of ignorance (yes, that out of touch*) or in league with #1?

*Journ servants of the Elite don't expect to be treated like rabble. Maybe the War Powers Act on Yemen was to be avoided?

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Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.