The Evening Blues - 10-23-15
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features swamp pop guitarist, singer and songwriter Dale Hawkins. Enjoy!
Dale Hawkins - Susie Q
"The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits - ah! that is another matter - twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent - the sky is the limit."-- Smedley Butler
News and Opinion
For giant corporations, incinerating people is a perfect analog for any ordinary business transaction. IBM leveraging their "business experience" to "find, fix and finish" people seems a perfect fit for the official big data provider of the holocaust.
Drones, IBM, and the Big Data of Death
In 2010, IBM employees delivered a talk at IBM’s Analytics Solution Center in Washington, D.C., titled “An Introduction to Edge Methods: Business Analytics and Optimization for Intelligence.” The audience was “the Defense and Intelligence communities,” and IBM’s goal was to explain to them how the company could help them with “managing large volumes of data” to derive “invaluable” insights. Among its already-existing governmental customers, IBM explained, was the ISR Task Force.Although buried in reams of corporate management gobbledygook (IBM, it turns out, is “Mission Focused” and “Performance Driven”), the talk’s key theme was that IBM was offering prospective new government clients its “expertise in integrating business and technology services” using its “commercial consulting methods.” That is, IBM was bringing what it had learned from managing Big Data for corporate America to the military and intelligence worlds.
Keep that in mind as you examine the secret ISR study, and you’ll see that the Pentagon’s drone program uses data analytics in almost precisely the same way IBM encourages corporations to use it to track customers. The only significant difference comes at the very end of the drone process, when the customer is killed.
For instance, according to the ISR study, the drone program seeks to “find,” “fix,” and “finish” its “high-value individuals.” Meanwhile, in IBM’s description of Big Data for the private sector, there are precisely equivalent goals: to “acquire,” “retain,” and “personalize” a corporation’s “high-value customers.”
Edward Snowden's Lawyer on the Government's War on Whistleblowers
Army judge in Chelsea Manning case now working at Guantánamo
The Army judge presiding at the Sept. 11 terror trial has added a new adviser to his staff — the former military judge who presided at the 2013 court martial of Private Chelsea Manning.
Retired Army Col. Denise R. Lind, who finished her career this month on the Army’s Court of Criminal Appeals, has been hired by the Pentagon division responsible for the war court here as a “senior attorney adviser.” She will work with the Military Commissions Trial Judiciary, whose chief is Army Col. James L. Pohl, the 9/11 judge. ...
As an Army judge, Lind presided over the court martial of Manning, then Bradley Manning, and convicted the soldier of violating the Espionage Act by leaking more than 700,000 government files to the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks. Manning had opted for a judge-only trial rather than have the case heard by a military jury.
Lind then sentenced Manning to 35 years in prison. ...
New York attorney Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, observed portions of the Manning trial and sued on behalf of the civil liberties legal group to secure the release of unclassified rulings and motions in the case as swiftly in federal court.
On Wednesday, Ratner described Lind as “a pro-government judge,” and her sentence of Manning “severe.”
Ignoring U.S. Destabilization of Libya, GOP Benghazi Hearing Asks Clinton All the Wrong Questions
Hillary Clinton exposed the Benghazi boondoggle, but masked the real scandal
Lost in tiffs over Sidney Blumenthal and private email accounts is the fact that we shouldn’t have been in Libya at all – and Clinton was a driving force behind it
The whole circus is a classic GOP move: they take an actual scandal – in this case, why was the US involved in Libya – and turned their investigation into a complete farce. Lost in the minute details of that one night in Benghazi is the much more critical question of why we ever decided to bomb Libya and remove Gaddafi in the first place, given the chaos and destruction that has followed. While Clinton’s Benghazi emails have been a hallmark of this presidential campaign, everyone seems to either forget or conveniently ignore that Clinton was the driving force behind yet another military intervention disaster by the US. And yet even in a more than five-hour hearing about the country, only one or two questioners even brought the subject up. ...
As for the presidential candidates in 2016, they are all trying to out-aggressive each other. Beyond Rand Paul, who is almost an asterisk at this point, almost all the candidates want the military to be more involved in Syria (but don’t say how, or for what ends). Even Bernie Sanders has endorsed Obama’s plans to not end the Afghanistan war and the continuing use of drones. It’s quite sad there remains no anti-war voice running for president, considering the last three large-scale military interventions by the United States (Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) have turned into complete disasters.
The fact that this committee hearing has devolved into a shouting match between committee members over Sidney Blumenthal and who had Clinton’s email address really says it all: no one really knows and no one really cares. In the end, the Republicans will have handed Clinton a victory.
Victims of U.S. Rendition & Torture Starting to Reclaim Rights Says Council of Europe Rights Chief
Fallout from the Gaza Blockade
A lawsuit has been filed in the United States against former Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for his role in the 2010 Israeli commando attack upon the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in which eight Turkish citizens and one American citizen were killed by Israeli forces and over 50 Turkish passengers were wounded.
The trial would be the first time a former Israeli Prime Minister would be put on trial for reasons of international terrorism.
The family of Furkan Doğan, the American citizen who appears to have been executed in the attack — shot five times, including point blank to the head, according to the family’s lawyers — filed the lawsuit in the Central District Court of California. Notice of the trial was handed to Barak on Oct. 20 in Los Angeles when he spoke in the Distinguished Speaker series of Southern California.
According to a press release from the Turkish International Humanitarian organization that sponsored the Mavi Marmara ship, charges against Barak include his planning and leadership in the murder of Furkan Doğan and others in international waters, willful killing, attempted willful killing, intentionally causing serious injury to body or health, international terrorism, plundering, intentionally causing damage to property, restriction of people’s freedom and instigating violent crimes.
US Adds Planes to Turkey, Mulls ‘No-Fly Zone’ in Syria
Trying to Block Russian Warplanes Risky, Pentagon Warns
12 more US warplanes were deployed to Turkey today as part of what officials call “routine rotations” for the ongoing bombing of Syria and Iraq. The planes are slow-moving A-10 Thunderbolts, designed as close support planes for ground troops, and are being planned for use backing “Arab and Kurdish militants” on the ground.
This new deployment comes amid reports of a serious debate going on in the administration on a dramatic buildup of the war in Syria, aimed at spiting Russia for its own anti-ISIS war. Secretary of State John Kerry is said to be leading a push for a show of force, including declaring a “no fly zone” in northern Syria and attempting to block Russia from the area militarily.
The State Department sees that as the ultimate move to really stick it to Russia, but the Pentagon is much less upbeat about the idea, issuing a report warning about the massive amount of military resources needed to enforce a no-fly zone and warning that trying to bar Russia from parts of Syria risks “an inadvertent clash.”
Panic in Aleppo as Syrian Military, ISIS, Other Forces Advance on City
The ever-growing displacement of civilians across Syria continues to grow, with more and more civilians fleeing from the wreckage of Aleppo and the surrounding area amid offensives and counteroffensives by multiple major factions, including the Syrian military, ISIS, and other rebel groups aimed at the city.
The focus of the ISIS offensive in the villages just north of the city, with an aim to secure a supply line between Aleppo itself and their holdings elsewhere in the province, centered on Jarabulus. ...
The Syrian military, meanwhile, has its own offensive going in Aleppo, backed by Shi’ite militias. This is one of two different offensives the military has going, the other in neighboring Hama, both aimed at securing supply routes between those cities and the capital of Damascus.
"Seeking Asylum is Not a Crime": European Rights Chief on Refugee Crisis & "Shameful" U.S. Response
Germany to push for compulsory EU quotas to tackle refugee crisis
Merkel is said to want hundreds of thousands of refugees brought directly from Middle East to control numbers and avoid perilous journeys
Germany is to push for more ambitious and extensive common European Union policies on the refugee crisis, according to policymakers in Berlin, with compulsory and permanent quotas for sharing the distribution of probably hundreds of thousands of people who will arrive directly from the Middle East.
Also on Berlin’s agenda are new European powers replacing some national authority over border control, and the possible raising of a special EU-wide levy to fund the policies.
The plans, being prepared in Berlin and Brussels, are certain to trigger bitter resistance and major clashes within the EU. Berlin backs European commission plans to make the proposed scheme “permanent and binding”. But up to 15 of 28 EU countries are opposed.
The plans will not apply to the UK as it is not part of the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone and has opted out of EU asylum policy, saying it will not take part in any proposed European refugee-sharing schemes.
Angela Merkel appears determined to prevail, as she grapples with a crisis that will likely define her political legacy. The German chancellor is said to be angry with the governments of eastern and central Europe which are strongly opposed to being forced to take in refugees. She is said to resent that these EU member states are pleading for “solidarity” against the threats posed by Russia and Vladimir Putin while they resist sharing the burdens posed by the refugee crisis.
Fear and xenophobia poison Polish polls
Call it the Polish paradox. As voters head to the ballot box on Sunday to pick a new parliament, the mood is decidedly at odds with the facts.
The country has taken in few refugees during Europe’s year of desperate migration – yet the campaign is marked by introspection and xenophobia (“migrants carry very dangerous diseases,” said the head of the frontrunner rightwing party last week).
The Polish economy is one of Europe’s most robust – but the talk is of mismanagement, tax avoidance and surrender to Germany. Poland should be a confident, big European player but it appears mired in fear, recrimination and an almost pathological antipathy to the idea of change.
“They are not talking about the issues that matter,” said one voter, Janina Zurowska-Filipek, a fruit and veg seller from Warsaw. “They are promoting fear of immigrants when, in fact, migrants are not going to come to Poland. They want to go to rich countries.”
“We have reached the limit of our capacity to absorb changes,’’ said Jacek Kucharczyk, director of the Institute of Public Affairs. “We are about to give the country to a bunch of political extremists who have been smart enough to send consoling signals to people who are scared. We are going through a kind of counter-Reformation.”
Israeli Atomic Energy Panel Endorses Iran Nuclear Deal
Israel’s far-right government continues to loudly rail against the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran every chance they get, saying it ensures a massive nuclear war in the future and is an “existential threat” to Israel, the subject of massive lobbying efforts by the government. A panel for Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission says it’s just fine.
The panel, according to Israeli media reports, was charged with analyzing the technical details of the pact, and came back affirming that they are sound, and that the deal does indeed do everything Western supporters say it does, and would keep Iran’s civilian nuclear program limited to civilian purposes.
"Everybody is a Suspect": European Rights Chief on Edward Snowden's Call for Global Privacy Treaty
Obama Vetoes 2016 Military Spending Bill
As promised by the White House, President Obama has vetoed the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the $612 billion annual military funding bill. The argument centers around the bill’s use of Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO) budget to bypass spending caps on domestic programs.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R – KY) vowed to see an override of the veto, expressing confidence the Senate could get the votes after passing the NDAA 70-27 earlier this month. The real question is where the House of Representatives vote goes.
The House passed the NDAA 270-156, well short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto.
Despite Widespread Opposition, 'Surveillance Bill in Disguise' Takes New Step Towards Passage
The U.S. Senate has moved forward the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA)—legislation denounced by its many critics as "a surveillance bill in disguise."
With bipartisan support, CISA passed 83-14 in a procedural vote on Thursday.
"The Senate just did a really bad thing," Techdirt's Mike Masnick wrote Thursday, and offered a list of the senators he said "just voted to increase surveillance and decrease trust in our internet companies, thereby harming the American economy and innovation."
As to why the legislation, touted by its supporters as strengthening national cybersecurity, is bad, Freedom of the Press Foundation's Trevor Timm has written that CISA is "really a surveillance bill in disguise." He continues:
The main crux of the bill is to carve a giant exception into all our current privacy laws so as to allow tech companies like Google and Amazon to hand over huge amounts of our information without any legal process whatsoever, as long as they have a vague cybersecurity purpose.
FBI director says its aircraft flew over Ferguson at request of local police
The FBI director, James Comey, said on Thursday that the agency used its aircraft above Ferguson, Missouri, last year at the request of local law enforcement to help keep track of unrest on the ground.
Comey did not go into details during a House judiciary committee hearing on Thursday, including how long the surveillance lasted.
But in response to questioning, he said the FBI uses airplanes during investigations of specific suspects in criminal, terrorism and espionage investigations and when local police request help during a “developing situation” or emergencies such as riots. He said the planes were never used for mass surveillance. ...
He said the FBI’s deployment of aircraft in Ferguson, where police and protesters clashed following the August 2014 police shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old, was similar to the help offered during riots in Baltimore last April that followed the death of 26-year-old Freddie Gray.
Israel Calls a Man Its Soldiers Killed a “Terrorist”: Until They Realized He Was an Israeli Jew
The Jerusalem Post today describes the killing of a man by two IDF soldiers after, the soldiers claim, he was acting erratically and tried to grab one of their guns. When he was fatally shot by the IDF, says the paper, he was “believed to be an Arab terrorist.” As it turns out, he was not an Arab Palestinian but rather an Israeli Jew. Upon learning this, the “terrorist” designation was officially and “immediately” rescinded. ...
When they thought he was a Palestinian Arab, he was labelled a “terrorist,” and then soon as they realized he was an Israeli Jew, the label was instantly withdrawn for that reason alone, even though the conduct was the same. That’s the manipulative, malleable concept of “terrorism” in a nutshell. As Rudy Giuliani put it in 2007 when asked whether waterboarding was torture: “It depends on who does it.”
All of those blues songs about the legal system and the prisons down south are still true...
Lawsuit Challenges a Mississippi Debtors Prison
Low-income residents of Jackson, Mississippi, are being coerced into working on a penal farm in a “modern-day debtors prison” for being unable to pay municipal fees and fines for misdemeanors, according to a class-action lawsuit filed in a federal court last week.
The suit alleges that the City of Jackson, in Hinds County, employs a “pay or stay” system in which impoverished plaintiffs who are unable to pay court-ordered fines must work off their debts at the county’s penal farm in nearby Raymond at a rate of $58 per day. Those unable or unwilling to work can sit out their debts in jail at a rate of $25 per day.
Seven Hinds County residents are listed as plaintiffs in the complaint, all impoverished black men. Many of them also have physical disabilities. ...
In May, the Department of Justice completed an investigation finding that the county jail in Raymond and the Jackson City Detention Center were “facilities in crisis.” In a 29-page report, the DOJ charged that Hinds County “violates prisoners’ constitutional rights at both jail facilities” and that officials “fail to protect prisoners from violence by other prisoners and from improper use of force by staff.”
Jail staff members were accused of being poorly trained and quick to use improper and excessive force against the incarcerated population. Conditions in the jails were filthy and “grossly inappropriate.”
In 'Extraordinary Victory,' FCC Votes to Cap Exorbitant Prison Phone Fees
Marking what one advocacy group called "an extraordinary victory for the millions of families of the incarcerated," the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday voted to cap the rates for all calls from prison, jails, and detention centers, ban most add-on fees imposed by prison phone service providers, and set strict limits on the few fees that remain. ...
The new rules (pdf) cap the cost of prison phone calls at 11 cents a minute for debit or prepaid calls in state and federal prisons, and reduce the cost of most inmate calls from $2.96 to $1.65 for a 15-minute in-state call, and from $3.15 to $1.65 for a 15-minute long-distance call. The new policy also cracks down on service fees and so-called "flat-rate calling," in which inmates are charged a flat rate for a call up to 15 minutes regardless of the actual call duration.
"Voting to endorse today’s reforms will eliminate the most egregious case of market failure I have ever seen in my 17 years as a state and federal regulator," FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said Thursday during the agency's monthly open meeting. "The system is inequitable, it has preyed on our most vulnerable for too long, families are being further torn apart, and the cycle of poverty is being perpetuated."
Rights groups have been calling on the FCC to provide relief from such high rates for more than a decade, and on Thursday they hailed the agency's vote as a step toward broader criminal justice reform.
Keiser Report: Empire of debt
Decrying Greedy Vulture Funds, Sanders and Warren Call for Relief in Puerto Rico
As Puerto Rico grapples with a deepening economic crisis and U.S. officials weigh whether—and how—to help, U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Thursday slammed the vulture fund investors that are fueling the debt disaster as well as the U.S. Treasury Department for its lax approach toward the U.S. territory.
At a Senate hearing Thursday, Warren said she supports congressional efforts to aid Puerto Rico, but urged the Treasury to be "just as creative in coming up with solutions as it was when the big banks called" for help during the 2008 financial crisis.
"I find it morally repugnant," Sanders added at the Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, "that vulture funds and Wall Street investment banks have been calling for even more austerity in Puerto Rico. In my view, the people in Puerto Rico should not be forced to suffer even more so that a handful of wealthy investors can make a 100 percent return on their investments."
The island commonwealth, home to 3.5 million people, currently faces a $72 billion debt and 45 percent poverty rate. A payment of more than $300 million is due to creditors on Dec. 1, and Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla warned Congress on Thursday that because his treasury expects to have a negative cash balance of $29 million by the end of November, "a default on some of our debt obligations is inevitable."
Meanwhile, Wall Street institutions like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and UBS—who bought up huge amounts of Puerto Rican debt at a discount and have been pushing the territory into crippling austerity measures to meet payments—continue to receive a steady flow of funds from the island.
"They are receiving 11 percent [interest rates] and children in Puerto Rico are going hungry—somehow that equation does not make a lot of sense to me," Sanders said at the hearing.
Goldman Sachs’ Rich Man’s Bank Backstopped by You and Me
Just when you thought Wall Street’s heist of the U.S. financial system couldn’t get any crazier, along comes a regulator’s report on FDIC-insured banks exposure to derivatives. According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), one of the regulators of national banks, as of June 30 of this year, Goldman Sachs Bank USA had $78 billion in deposits, and – wait for it – $45.7 trillion in notional amount of derivatives. (Notional means face amount of derivatives.) According to the OCC report, Goldman Sachs Bank USA’s notional derivatives are an eye-popping 563 percent of its risk-based capital. You and every other little guy in America is backstopping this bank because it’s, amazingly, FDIC insured. ...
Based on the data, it looks like the average taxpayer is backstopping a ton of risk at this FDIC insured bank and getting very little in return. ... Almost none of the promises that were made to the public about what was going to happen under Dodd-Frank financial reform is actually happening. The push-out rule was supposed to push these trillions of dollars of risky derivatives out of the insured banking unit to prevent another epic taxpayer bailout. ...
Welcome to another day at the casino where the model continues to be — heads they win, tails you lose.
US doctors advised to screen child patients for signs of hunger
Doctors should screen all their child patients for hunger, a national association of US pediatricians advised on Friday.
This is the first time the American Academy of Pediatrics has made such a recommendation, and the US secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack is expected to tout the new policy on Monday.
About 16 million children in the US live in households that struggle to put food on the table consistently, the AAP found in an examination of data from 2014. The US Department of Agriculture released data in September showing that the number of children getting enough food to stay healthy was at its highest since 2007. Numbers dipped drastically during the recession years, particularly in 2011, said Sarah Schwarzenberg, one of the policy statement’s lead authors.
But “it could be much higher”, Schwarzenberg said, referring to the number of children who receive an adequate amount of food. ...
The slide into food insecurity can occur with small changes to income, expenses or access to federal or state-funded programs, the AAP policy statement said.
“The demographic of food-insecure Americans extends beyond the areas of concentrated urban poverty and into suburbs and rural America, areas often mistakenly thought to be immune to this problem,” the authors wrote.
Long-shot Democrat Lincoln Chafee drops out of 2016 presidential race
Former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee ended his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president on Friday, becoming the second long-shot Democrat since last Tuesday’s debate to end his bid for the nomination.
Chafee joins former Virginia senator Jim Webb in withdrawing from the race, although Webb has said he is considering running as an independent.
Chafee, whose campaign announced his withdrawal in a statement, told Democrats at a meeting of the DNC’s Women’s Leadership Forum on Friday morning: “As you know I have been campaigning on a platform of Prosperity through Peace. But after much thought I have decided to end my campaign for president today. I would like to take this opportunity one last time to advocate for a chance be given to peace.”
Chafee used the address to plead for a pacifist foreign policy, denouncing hawkish Republicans who he said learned nothing from American mistakes in Vietnam and Iraq.
“From what I’ve heard none of the Republicans running for president want to understand anything about the Middle East and north Africa,” Chafee said. “Instead they prefer to espouse more bellicosity, more saber-rattling and more blind macho posturing.”
Life and Death on the Line as Rich Nations Evade Climate Obligations
Rich nations are blockading efforts to reach consensus on financial climate pledges in Bonn, Germany this week as the upcoming United Nations climate talks approach—a move which could derail the entire process, a bloc of developing nations said Thursday.
The Group of 77 (G77) and China, a coalition of nations and alliances that represent more than 80 percent of the world's population, said wealthy UN member states were shirking their financial responsibilities to help developing nations stave off the impacts of climate change and attempting to shift those obligations onto institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The latest blueprint of climate pledges reportedly omits key mechanisms that were included in previous drafts, such as financing for poorer countries and accountability for wealthier ones, according to AllAfrica.
"When you take out the issues of others, you disenfranchise them, and disempower those who suffer the most," said G77 chair and South Africa climate envoy Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko.
With the COP21 talks approaching fast, and no more chances to negotiate after the Bonn session ends this week, those roadblocks could mean a difference of life or death for frontline nations, Mxakato-Diseko said.
"It's a matter of life or death...and we are dead serious," Mxakato-Diseko told journalists in a media briefing on Thursday. While the G77 had come to an agreement on financial positions, she said, "developed countries have not negotiated, in the hope that it will be sorted [out] external to the agreement, where we are weakest."
Because the 'Time for Climate Action Is Now,' Oslo Makes Landmark Move to Ban Cars
As part of a plan to rein in carbon emissions, Oslo's new city council announced this week that the city's center would be car-free by 2019.
Ars Technica reports that the move, which aims to help the city halve greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels, "will make Oslo the first European capital where cars are permanently banned, plus it's a strong indicator that similar bans may be enacted in other major cities across the continent."
To make the shift, the Norwegian capital will boost its investment into public transportation and add roughly 37 miles (60 kilometers) of bike lanes, Reuters reports
Mexico Braces for Hurricane Patricia: 'Strongest Storm Ever Measured'
#Mexico Braces for #HurricanePatricia Strongest Storm Ever Measured https://t.co/X4r7N8ZGmv @NWSNHC @NWS @GOP #koch pic.twitter.com/eQm3oF1cQM
— MichaelLoBurgio (@MikeLoBurgio) October 23, 2015
A state of emergency has been declared over large sections along Mexico's Pacific coast on Friday as Hurricane Patricia, listed now as a Category 5 and described as the "strongest storm ever measured on the planet."
With sustained winds of over 160 mph and maximum speeds of 200 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center described Patricia as the "strongest hurricane on record" in eastern North Pacific Basins and forecasters are warning that coupled with those devastating winds, a powerful storm surge—featuring giagantic waves and massive inland flooding—could overwhelm coastal regions when it makes landfall in the coming hours.
"This is an extremely dangerous, potentially catastrophic hurricane," said NHC meteorologist Dennis Feltgen.
Writing for the Weather Underground blog, meteorologist Bob Henson said that "history is being made" as experts assessed the size and strength of the unprecedented storm. "Late Thursday night," Henson reports, "an Air Force Hurricane Hunter flight captured some of the most extreme observations ever recorded in 70 years of reconnaissance activity."
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Evictions and Resistance: On the Front Lines of London's Housing Crisis
Rebuffing Peace Chances in Syria
Bank Regulator’s Speech Shows the Extent of Financial Reform Failure
On debate night Bernie Sanders showed the promise — and limits — of his economic populism
A Little Night Music
Dale Hawkins - See You Soon Baboon, Four Letter Word
Dale Hawkins - Wildcat Tamer
Dale Hawkins - Teenage Dolly
Dale Hawkins/Roy Buchanan - My Babe
Dale Hawkins - Number Nine Train
Dale Hawkins - Tornado
Dale Hawkins - Back To School Blues
Dale Hawkins - Cross-ties
Dale Hawkins - La-Do-Dada
Dale Hawkins - Lifeguard Man
Dale Hawkins - Peaches
Dale Hawkins - Every Little Girl
Dale Hawkins - Hot Dog
Dale Hawkins - Everglades
Dale Hawkins - Little Pig
Dale Hawkins + James Burton - Who Do You Love
Comments
I really don't like this hurricane news
Patricia went from a tropical storm to a
Category 5 with now sustained winds
of 200mph and barometric pressure of
880mb in a little over 24 hours. People
who really should evacuate for such a
storm simply never had time. Heck,
you know this massive beast is off the
charts when the media haven't even
had time to get there to properly cover
it.
Let us all keep those in harm's way in
our thoughts and prayers.
Thanks for the news items, Joe.
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
Patricia is going to be a horrible mess.
The people never have enough time or the means to get out of the way of a hurricane. I live in Florida and that's just the reality. Unless you live on the coasts and have a mandatory evacuation order. It sucks. In fact, the news for the weekend is going to suck. I'm going to stay away from news sites and just wait for any donations that I can give to the inevitable victims of this storm.
"Most powerful storm ever recorded". I get a knot in my guts when I think about that.
This will happen again if we don't stop treating our skies as an open sewer.
it's pretty ugly news...
there are a lot of very poor people who are in a path to take the brunt of this storm. i can't help but think of the story that i read yesterday about climate change being a transfer of wealth from the global poor to the wealthy.
Disaster Capitalism
is what this is. Seems to permeate all aspects of 'oligarchical collectivist' globalization and the free market. From der Homeland to foreign policy and beyond. Part of me says I hope Texas washes away in a giant wave and yet I know that the people, land and critters that are taking the brunt of this are really not responsible. One of the saddest things about our rigged politics is the culture war. It's ussed by both sides in the kabuki show to keep humans fighting with each other instead of facing the real enemy. Yes it is the government, all parties included, as there is no more government just these evil fuckers who make their empty profits off human misery and planetary destruction. Benghazi! What a faked up boondoggle. But come on people what about Libya, Syria and now Africa. And yet HRC and even Bernie all say we need to kill the other and set the world on fire cause ? profit? who knows but they all lie and they all need to be drummed out of power. Poor people forget about it they are collateral damage and expendable when it comes down to the funny money markets that hedge their bets and make a killing off disasters. These disasters are an opportunity to make the markets soar.
evening shaz...
i wonder if at some point the disasters that are caused by the continuing climate denial and inaction will present more numerous opportunities than the capitalists can use, causing a violation of rahmbo's rule that one should never let a crisis go to waste. ptoooie!
Good Afternoon, Joe, scary times, so many refugees, so cold ...
Your lists are of such value, can't say it often enough.
I have just realized why I am supportive of Sanders. Compare the language of the IBM folks, as reported really brilliantly by Jon Schwarts of the Intercept in his article:
Drones, IBM, and the Big Data of Death with the language of Sanders uses, quoted in the article:
Decrying Greedy Vulture Funds, Sanders and Warren Call for Relief in Puerto Rico .
That's how murderous killing sound "IBM-style":
Yep, high-value individuals, you must get fixed as much as you need a final solution... Abstract euphemisms, right on. The article is a must-read for me. Words have meaning. Very good example given in this article.
Now listen to Sanders how he slanders vulture funds rip-offs: "Wall street should not believe to get blood from a stone."... he phrases of sustainable energy "in Puerto Island... the sunny island, you are an island, there is wind ...I do not understand
why you are producing electricity from oil... you have huge potential to lead ..".
Oh well, just thinking of sunny, windy island of Hawaii and compare it sunny windy island of Puerto Rico, one just wonders ... I better do not think about it and shut up.
The difference between Sanders and other politicians seems to be that he uses almost no euphemism and speaks the common man's language, it's not a trick or staged, it's his character to talk straight.
Thanks also for the article from the Guardian about the HRC Benghazi hearings. I needed that one. Hillary Clinton exposed the Benghazi boondoggle, but masked the real scandal.
Technocrat, revels in details, ... sounds to me she could use a bit of IBM-ish language too ... she does sometimes.
I am glad for the good ears and eyes and analytical skills of some writers and journalist. Life would be less interesting and less clear to me without them.
Some more reading to do. Have a good rest of the day, all.
Instead of "we came, we saw, he died," Hillary could have
Instead of "we came, we saw, he died," Hillary could have made an allusion to the IBM punch card era and said: "We came, and he got folded, spindled, and mutilated."
wow ... just too good! - /nt
Only connect. - E.M. Forster
well, actually not so good, if you consider this:
Populist, Pernicious and Perilous : Germany's Growing Hate Problem.
It's a long article, too much to excerpt, but it should be taken seriously.
That's just the icing on the cake. If you have the nerves read through the whole "cake'.
All what is happening in the corporate code language is to hide the final interpretation of them supporting murder of hate be it by drones or be it with other technologies. That the code language is not understood by the masses and sounds "intelligent, professional, logic, reasonable and technical", all things people, who don't feel they belong to this world of experts and professional technocrats, usually respect and believe to be good and correct and often being used by their own employers. So, you become the bystander, the "good German" so to speak.
The incitement of hate is so much more easy and powerful these days, that is why I take the technologies, who enable that, and the people, who use it recklessly in their demagoguery (unfortunately lately Netanyahu), very dangerous, if it's not controlled. And I don't see anybody able anymore to control it.
evening mimi...
when i started reading schwartz' story, i got to the part about ibm soliciting business from the drone murderers on the basis of their logistical experience - and my first reaction was to curse them for their shamelessness in the face of history. big companies like ibm and ford have pretty successfully submerged their histories of support for genocide.
as long as there is money to be made from mass killing, it appears that our captains of industry will in there pitching their services as accessories to murder.
yeah, people forget so easily, with regards for example
of BASF's involvement, I just remember a book I bought as a student way back in the 1970ies. I forgot about it over the years. It all comes back to haunt us again. I bet you with a lot of twists and turns, Germany will be in the middle of the whole mess again. I can't stand the thought, but feel it in my guts. And I hate that too.
Questions that the Benghazi panel needed to ask
but didn't
evening gj...
sometimes i wonder if the dems and reps are running a secret contest to see who can do the most vile things and still retain political power.
What is former General Clark doing these days? /nt
the last time he popped his head up in public...
he was calling for concentration camps for muslims.
uuuuuhhh, damning, sounds as if he has a
"tortured soul". How dangerous it is to excerpt quotes without the surrounding context. Amazing. Thanks for the article. I ran into him during the Las Vegas first Yearlykos conference. I remember not being able to make up my mind about him. I guess now that had its reasons.
That last sentence sums everything up.
I came here to escape from the love fest on kos for Hillary's 'performance' at the hearings yesterday.
Good God, that site used to be against the wars during the Bush administration, but since Obama was elected and Hillary was SOS, the site could care less about the thousands of innocent civilians who have been murdered by drones, bombings and what the troops do when they took part in invading countries that haven't threatened the U.S.
I like this statement too:
"The GOP either forget or conveniently ignore that Clinton was the driving force behind yet another military intervention disaster by the US."
Think about this. 35 countries had their elected governments overthrown and a brutal dictator was selected to run the country. The U.S. then dat back and didn't have any problems with them torturing or murdering the people as long as "US interests" got to steal those country's resources.
A new diary popped up on how someone's parents are now Hillary supporters because of the way she handled herself during the hearings n
Never mind that they thought that she was too hawkish and in the pockets of the banks and corporations.
I don't understand why or how her supporters can't see that.
I'm pretty sure that's why they voted for Obama over her last time.
And no one is looking into the shenanigans of their foundation.
When the state department would sell other countries weapons, they would receive a large donation to the foundation and then pay Bill to give a speech.
Gawd, I don't want them anywhere near the White House again.
But, what do we really know about Bernie's foreign policy?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
her supporters can't see it, because they fear that seeing it
and mentioning it in conversations would be seen and judged as either a sexist or racist attitude and they don't want to get bothered with online accusations of that sort. They can see it and admit to it only, if it's a Republican woman or afro-american, if it's a Democrat that's something else.
If somehow, someone can attach to your opinions the label of racism or sexism, most people try hard to not expose themselves to such "niceties".
Revolting
So here's an article that while understated expresses my thoughts on Benghazi and the damn e-mails.What about HRC's Libyan policy? Who cares about her damn e-mails what about her insane kill kill kill, foreign policy. I really got sick of her mad mug all over the place while she did her victory dance cause she WON Benghazi. Westlin' matches of political madness. Sorry but my lying eyes tell me this woman is at least as crazy as The Hairball is.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/gallery/2015/oct/22/hillary-clinton-f...
Way to distract from the real issue of what was done in Libya under hillary as SoS.....
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/22/hillary-clinton-ben...
Hashtag #IraqLivesMatter will never catch on or go viral because
The hashtag #IraqLivesMatter will never catch on or go viral because most people in the U.S. or Europe do not, in fact, believe that they do.
Like the bogus approach to Benghazi in the U.S., the whole discussion and polarization in the E.U. regarding refugees is a smokescreen in the sense that it keeps the focus off the West's bad actions and immoral policies that have led to this misery.
Truthfully now, isn't backing theocratic absolute monarchies who export extreme fundamentalist religious ideology all over the place just as bad as, or even worse than, supporting fascists or other kinds of dictators?
In a world where our elites truly valued democracy and human rights, every day the excesses and horrors of the Saudis and the other Gulf tyrants would be on the front page of Bild, agitating for U.S. and Europe policymakers to do something to bring democracy and human rights to those countries.
And note that none of those countries, even though they are Arab and Muslim and dependent on imported labor, have any intention of accepting even one of the Syrian refugees their meddling has led to.
(Background note: Bild is the largest circulation German newspaper. It is a Boulevardzeitung, which British speakers might translate as "tabloid" if not for the fact that in Germany the format is broadsheet and not tabloid. Bild is published by the Axel Springer company, whose founder was a "dedicated Cold Warrior," that is, fervently and militantly anti-communist. Axel Springer's politics might be compared to the politics of the American Henry Luce — publisher of the magazines Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated — and of his wife Claire Booth Luce.)
And they say the Tea Partiers
are too stupid to vote their own best interests. Hillary supporters have them beat hands down. First they demonize her to elect Obama, another right wing tool, and now she's Mother Mary, Joan of Arc, and Annie Oakley.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I'm enjoying the hell out of VL Baker aka beach babe in Florida
She is constantly poking the Hillary people at dkos. Whatever she posts makes the rec list, and it always stirs them up. I'm convinced it is for sport. Her provocative posts are sure entertaining me.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
love fest but only for the annointed
I have watched the site ebb and flow and it looks as if it is washing out Sanders as fast as it can.
I did like this quote:
From Attacks on Sanders
glitterscale
Thanks for the link
So true. The GOP went from flabbergasted, to lol, to taking full advantage of him. He could have driven a stake through the banks and the GOP. But he wasn't interested in either. He needed to save the banks and serve the .01%, and the GOP was cover and collusion. Rubinho family!
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I am pretty amazed that Jesselyn Radack,
who says at the end of the interview that there is a broader war on journalists and information, is finishing with an optimistic note, saying she believes, like Snowden, that technology and internet freedom will be able to control unconstitutional secret surveillance. She sees that the judicial branch will turn around and rule on those issue of uncontrolled surveillance and she thinks that the huge encryption efforts made by tec, are being successful, because of the fact that governments now try to outlaw encryption in response. Well, on the one hand she sees the judicial branch tackling the issues of freedom of speech violations, when it comes to whistleblowers and journalists, on the other hand they try to outlaw encryption which protects privacy rights of internet communication? Who will win? Did I misunderstand something?
heh, i have a less optimistic view of the likely outcomes...
than jesselyn does.
the courts, in my view, have been enormously deferential to executive power and state secrets. further, the courts have been quite ready to mete out capricious punishments to those whose leaking irritates the executive while ignoring the fact that often far more egregious behavior is never brought to the courts by the executive when their friends make a petraeus-sized boo-boo.
the fact that the government is attempting to outlaw encryption is a good sign, but probably not as good as one might hope. the government is capable of breaking strong encryption and it has considerable means other than brute force to get what it needs. outlawing encryption that the government doesn't have the key to is merely what the government wants, rather than needs. they don't want to have any barriers to being able to conduct mass surveillance, regardless of how low the hurdle is for them.
yep, I agree. That's why I mentioned it. But I think she
needs to have that optimism and if it's only to help her clients not to go nuts and into a deep depression. It's so irritating sad, all of it.
The Seven Stages of Donald
Looks to me like Republicans have entered the "Bargaining" stage as they come to grips with the likely possibility that Donald Trump may win the GOP Primary race.
Why some GOPers are still flailing about in the "Denial" stage,
But, many seem to be getting past "Denial" and are now actively "Bargaining".
Other related gleanings from Zero Hedge:
“I think he's now mounting a serious campaign,” a South Carolina Republican said. “His stump speech had matured and even though the novelty of his candidacy is wearing off, his straight talk is appealing to people who are so sick of being lied to by the political class.”
Another Iowa Republican agreed, saying, “The more time that goes by that he continues to lead — the more likely it is he wins. That simple. Also, comparatively, he is building a real campaign. More so than many others.”
According to POLITICO:
::
Is the the biggest Republican nightmare coming true?
Is there a huge silent majority out there that is wholeheartedly sick of duplicitous special-interest, big-money politics, which has made a mockery of representative government?
If a true majority come to believe that the mainstream candidates who proxy for select special interests — such as Big Pharma, the Weapons Cartels, and Wall Street — "are the ones who have hijacked the US government in the past century, not only is the Trump's nomination looking more likely but so also is the Trump presidency."
______________________________
Great line-up tonight, Joe. As per usual. Thanx.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
evening pluto...
any party that could put up a lunatic and a moron (mccain and palin) as presidential candidates can't pretend to be shocked when the base goes for a narcissistic kook like trump.
while trump may be a loose cannon, i'm thinking that there is not much difference in terms of the sheer amount of destruction that he or hillary would wreak. the difference is in the predictability of the targets of their aggression.
Portugal crosses the Rubicon
link
From what I understand this is legal, but not politically smart.
Isn't 'politically smart'
at this point in time an oxymoron? Lordy their is no smart in politics these days just vote for keeping the RW even crazier out of power. Then you still get them wielding power and get to watch the Dems. rollover and pretend they are somehow better. Quite unbelievable and fools no one but fools.
Doesn't that basically amount to a coup?
Unfolding events in Portugal bring to mind a similar coup in Australia that overthrew the Labor government of Gough Whitlam in 1975.
The British-American coup that ended Australian independence
Well, just another reason to despise Gerald Ford and his administration, besides Ford's pardon of Nixon and the 1974 Pinochet coup in Chile.
Counterpunch: U.S. meddling in Australian politics
Carter was also involved in the Suharto violence
Many people think Carter was basically an ineffective president. But as most presidents, he too has a lot of innocent civilian's blood on his hands.
He was partly responsible for creating, arming and funding Al quada.
And don't forget who his SOS was. Kissinger who Hillary relies heavily on for her foreign policy advice.
Kissinger was responsible for the Khmer Rouge regime.
And then there's the a Carter doctrine that made it policy that any oil sold was something about petrol dollars. I can't find the link for that, but you can google the Carter doctrine.
Here's an article about Jimmy Carter's blood soaked legacy
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/18/jimmy-carters-blood-drenched-legacy/
The CIA is responsible for over 50 coups and as I previously wrote, after the coups they installed brutal dictators. Remember the Duviers from Haiti?
And of course if Hillary is selected, we can look forward to many more wars, innocent civilian deaths and even more cover for Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.
Since the Monroe doctrine was signed, the U.S. has invaded countless countries and has the blood of close to 40-50 million civilian's deaths on its hands.
And people believe that they hate us for our freedoms?
They rightly hate us for what we've done to them.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Yes, look closely and it's disgusting. Suharto and East Timor?
It really stuck in my craw that the Frankfurt Book Fair had Indonesia as its guest-of-honor country this year. All the bloodbaths and the West's complicity in them were just swept under the rug. Helmut Kohl and Suharto were even fishing buddies (see lower left of photo):
Brutal dictator's iron-fist rule shaped Indonesia for decades
The Frankfurt Book Fair headline played up in the media was how the government of Iran and publishing houses with Iranian government ties withdrew because Salman Rushdie was guest speaker.
Iran bad, Indonesia good. That was the Edward Bernays type propaganda meme everyone reading about the fair was supposed to buy into.
Never mind that even the current regime in Iran never just up and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent people like the Western-backed Suharto regime did. Americans keep writing about how Iran has American blood on its hands — how much Iranian blood does America have on its hands? For starters, civilian airliner Iran Air 655 was shot down by the USS Vincennes killing 290, and that was just one incident in a long war Iraq launched against Iran because the U.S.put Saddam Hussein up to it. The West was all in, backing Saddam with intelligence and weapons — yes, including the poison gas we would later make such a fuss about.
I'm going to take a minute now to get that Frankfurt Book Fair directory out of the paper recycling bin. I want to check to see if there was even a stand or booth anywhere at the fair for East Timor.
Greetings Joe & Gang! Quick blurb about looming debt
limit vote.
But first, my Family suffered a considerable loss of property (beachfront) during one of the worse hurricanes to hit the US Gulf Coast--a Category 5 hurricane, "Camille." (1969)
The last time we were through the Mobile Bay area, we saw what was left of a beachfront Holiday Inn (after Camille)--a small pile of rubble. Amazingly, all this many years later, no one has bothered to clean up, much less, develop the property--it looked identical to how we remembered it decades ago.
Anyhoo, I'm sending positives vibes to all those in the path of 'Patricia.' As someone with quite an intimate knowledge of the destruction that hurricanes (Gulf Coast) and earthquakes (while in Alaska, and experiencing a 6.9 while traveling in California in 1989) can bring, I am very much in sympathy, and empathy, with their predicament. God Speed!
Here's an excerpt from an AP piece entitled, "Republican Leaders Struggle To Find Votes To Up Debt Limit."
Of course, the corporatist neoliberal lawmakers of all stripes, Washington Insiders, the One Percent, and institutional investors understand this 'code' to mean that there will have to be agreed upon 'entitlement' cuts.
Obviously, McCarthy is talking about either a Grand Bargain, or a mini-GB, in exchange for agreeing to raise the debt limit. If/When I see a piece that spells out 'what Bargain' was struck--I'll post it, ASAP.
I have a sinking feeling that the bipartisan PtB will be very cautious, and not release any details until the bill(s) has been voted on, and passed.
*Sigh*
(Sorry that this is disjointed. Pushed to finish my MOOC before the deadline, since I know that I can't finish it while we're traveling and out-of-town on business.)
Thanks, as always, for the excellent roundup, Joe!
Hey, Everyone have a nice evening!
Mollie
"Every time I lose a dog, he takes a piece of my heart. Every new dog gifts me with a piece of his. Someday, my heart will be total dog, and maybe then I will be just as generous, loving, and forgiving."--Author Unknown
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Well, crap. The AARP is gonna have to become more like the NRA,
or a lot of us seniors will be eating cat food.
The AARP Transmogrified into the NRA when...
...they became Major Backers of GWBush's Medicare Part D plan in 2003. There is more than one way to kill the elders who are useless eaters and unecessary. And you don't need a silencer.
In the local grocery store
…canned tuna for humans costs less that a can of Fancy Feast for cats. A tiny pouch of cat treats costs more than a premium loaf of bread.
That is to say, you have to be well off to eat cat food.
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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
The upscale end of pet food is amazing. Ever heard of Orijen?
Orijen pet food comes from Alberta, Canada and its USP (marketing jargon, "unique selling proposition") plays up things Canada has a competitive advantage in: fish, wildlife, ranching, nature, unspoiled wide open spaces (cough, just don't look at the tar sands, cough).
My friend in Philadelphia fed her last two Seeing Eye dogs exclusively on the Orijen product Six Fish.
There's also Orijen Regional Red:
A Seeing Eye dog is a working animal who, I guess, kind of deserves it. But wow.
you have to be well off to feed your cat ... and dog too.
... when I was a child my mother mixed the dog food up herself from raw meat (heart and stomach parts of cows), oat flakes and some veggies and some bones. Worked well. The butcher gave those away for pennies.
IBM software used to predict which teens will be adult criminals
taz.die tageszeitung (in German) Algorithms in the justice system
IBM's own website: IBM SPSS Predictive Analytics · Crime Prediction and Prevention · Combat crime before it even happens
Network World: IBM melds crime-fighting, big data analytics in one security package
"IBM i2 Intelligence Analysis software aimed at law enforcement, government or businesses looking to predict, disrupt and prevent criminal, terrorist and fraudulent activities"
That's easy, look into the board room of any major corporation,
and then follow the money to Washington and the state houses.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
These young people are our future!
http://richkidsofinstagram.tumblr.com/