The Evening Blues - 12-30-21
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features New Orleans blues guitarist Snooks Eaglin. Enjoy!
Snooks Eaglin - Money
"We're all mad here."
-- Lewis Carroll
News and Opinion
Guardian coverage fnords and all:
Biden to speak with Putin amid Russia’s increased presence near Ukraine
Joe Biden will speak on Thursday with Vladimir Putin regarding the Russian leader’s increased security demands in eastern Europe. The two leaders will discuss a range of topics, including “upcoming diplomatic engagements in Russia”, said US national security council spokesperson Emily Horne in a statement announcing the call.
Thursday’s talks come at the request of Russia amid Russia’s increased security presence near Ukraine as the US and its allies watch on warily. The buildup of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border has grown to an estimated 100,000 and has fueled fears that Moscow is preparing to invade Ukraine.
[What? No mention of Russia's 10,000 troop drawdown after drills were complete? Shocking! - js]
“This dialogue should, and we expect will, proceed on the basis of reciprocity. There will be topics where we can make meaningful progress and topics where we will have differences. That’s the nature of diplomacy,” said a senior Biden administration official in a background press call.
Biden, Putin to discuss Ukraine crisis in new call
Israeli Military Presents Iran Strike Scenarios, but Can't Say What They'll Achieve
The Israeli military has presented the country's political leadership with several possible scenarios for striking targets in Iran, but emphasized that it would be difficult to determine the outcome of such strikes or assess how it would affect Tehran's nuclear program.
The military says that as part of its preparations in past months for a possible attack on Iran, it has been acquiring advanced weapons, conducting air force training exercises and collecting new strike targets for Military Intelligence's target bank. The IDF was given an additional budget of 9 billion shekels ($2.9 billion) for this purpose.
Military officials said the IDF will be ready to strike Iran as soon as the government gives its approval. According to the military, it is also preparing for the consequences of striking Iran, including a round of fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip. In this scenario, the IDF is laying the groundwork to make the terror groups pay a heavy toll, and to make significant gains on these fronts.
According to the IDF's assessment, Iran has increased and improved its air defense array over the past years, making an air strike more complex. The Iranians have also managed to significantly increase their arsenal of long-range missiles, which can easily hit any point in Israel. Due to this development, the Israeli military signed several contracts over the past year worth billions of shekels in order to expand and strengthen Israel's air defense.
Gordon Brown: west is sleepwalking into Afghanistan disaster
The west is “sleepwalking into the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times” in Afghanistan, Gordon Brown has warned, as he called for a support package to save the country from economic and social collapse after the Taliban’s takeover. Four months after the western-backed government was overthrown following a mass military withdrawal, the former UK prime minister said the case for action was not based only on morals but also “in our self-interest”.
He said more than half the Afghan population was facing extreme hunger, including 1 million children at risk of starving to death, citing International Monetary Fund predictions that the country’s economy would contract by 20-30% in the next year. “No country in recent times is suffering from such ‘universal poverty’ in the way that Afghanistan may do,” Brown wrote in an article for the Times.
“It is ironic that when the whole international community is pledged to achieve the sustainable development goals – to free all the world from absolute poverty this decade – almost every citizen of Afghanistan will be condemned to that dire fate. Instead of no absolute poverty in any country, we will have the horror of practically an entire country living in absolute poverty.” Brown stressed the effects may be felt within Europe, given thousands of Afghans would be faced with the choice of starving or emigrating.
As Afghan Humanitarian Crisis Spikes, US News Coverage Plummets
Despite unprecedented levels of hunger and starvation for which U.S. sanctions bear important responsibility, Afghanistan has once again virtually disappeared from the most important single source of world news for most Americans.
Since September, which marked the end of U.S. efforts to evacuate its citizens and its foreign and Afghan allies, the evening news programs of the three dominant U.S. television networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS—have collectively devoted a grand total of 21 minutes—spread over ten story segments—to Afghanistan.
That marks a stunning plunge in evening news attention from a total of 427 minutes devoted to Afghanistan in the two previous months, about 75 percent of which were broadcast in August during the Taliban's takeover of the country and the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and allied personnel. Just one three-minute segment has aired since December 1.
"For the American networks this year, what was newsworthy was the fall of Kabul and the pullout of U.S. troops, not the fate of the Afghan people in the aftermath," noted Andrew Tyndall, editor of the authoritative Tyndall Report, which has monitored the three networks' nightly news broadcasts each weekday since 1988. ...
No more U.S. soldiers and marines on the ground, no more coverage on the evening news, and Afghanistan, despite Washington's enormous impact on the country, both through its military intervention and now through its sanctions, fades quickly into distant memory. Left behind: 23 million Afghans at risk of starvation to add to the roughly 176,000 Afghans killed during America's longest war.
Chomsky Blasts the "Torture" of Julian Assange & Biden's Provocative Acts Against China
NDAA signed this week by Biden bars him from closing Gitmo detention center, a longtime Democratic Party goal
The annual Pentagon policy bill President Joe Biden signed into law this week bars him from taking steps toward closing the controversial detention facility at the United States’ Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Biden, in a statement issued after signing the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act on Monday, criticized the language included in the bill, which precludes him from sending law of war detainees to certain countries or transferring them to prisons on U.S. soil. The Guantanamo By facility currently houses 39 detainees — all captured early in the American war on terror launched in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
“It is the longstanding position of the executive branch that these provisions unduly impair the ability of the executive branch to determine when and where to prosecute Guantanamo Bay detainees and where to send them upon release,” Biden said in the statement. “In some circumstances these provisions could make it difficult to comply with the final judgment of a court that has directed the release of a detainee on a writ of habeas corpus.” ...
Biden in July transferred one detainee, Abdul Latif Nasser, to his home country Morocco after he had been held without charges since 2002. It was the first transfer of a detainee from Guantanamo Bay since the Trump administration sent a man in May 2018 to his native Saudi Arabia to complete a 13-year sentence for terrorism-related charges to which he had pleaded guilty.
ONLY 50% Of 2020 College Grads Have Jobs So Far
If you're interested in the inflation issue, I highly recommend this article from Matt Stoller, it's really good and easy to follow.
We have a powerful weapon to fight inflation: price controls. It’s time we use it
Inflation is near a 40-year high. Central banks around the world just promised to intervene. However, a critical factor that is driving up prices remains largely overlooked: an explosion in profits. In 2021, US non-financial profit margins have reached levels not seen since the aftermath of the second world war. This is no coincidence. The end of the war required a sudden restructuring of production which created bottlenecks similar to those caused by the pandemic. Then and now large corporations with market power have used supply problems as an opportunity to increase prices and scoop windfall profits. The Federal Reserve has taken a hawkish turn this month. But cutting monetary stimulus will not fix supply chains. What we need instead is a serious conversation about strategic price controls – just like after the war. ...
After the war, the question was what to do with the price controls. Should they be released in one big bang as southern Democrats, Republicans and big business were urging? Or did price controls have a role to play in the transition to a postwar economy? Some of the most distinguished American economists of the 20th century called for a continuation of price controls in the New York Times. This included the likes of Paul Samuelson, Irving Fisher, Frank Knight, Simon Kuznets, Paul Sweezy and Wesley Mitchell, as well as 11 former presidents of the American Economic Association. The reasons they presented for price controls also apply to our present situation.
They argued that as long as bottlenecks made it impossible for supply to meet demand, price controls for important goods should be continued to prevent prices from shooting up. The tsar of wartime price controls, John Kenneth Galbraith, joined these calls. He explained “the role of price controls” would be “strategic”. “No more than the economist ever supposed will it stop inflation,” he added. “But it both establishes the base and gains the time for the measures that do.” ...
Today, there is once more a choice between tolerating the ongoing explosion of profits that drives up prices or tailored controls on carefully selected prices. Price controls would buy time to deal with bottlenecks that will continue as long as the pandemic prevails. Strategic price controls could also contribute to the monetary stability needed to mobilize public investments towards economic resilience, climate change mitigation and carbon-neutrality. The cost of waiting for inflation to go away is high. Senator Manchin’s withdrawal from the Build Back Better Act demonstrates the threat of a shrinking policy space at a time when large scale government action is in order. Austerity would be even worse: it risks manufacturing stagflation. We need a systematic consideration of strategic price controls as a tool in the broader policy response to the enormous macroeconomic challenges instead of pretending there is no alternative beyond wait-and-see or austerity.
Ranchers DROPPING LIKE FLIES As Meatpackers Fleece Public
![the horse race](https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8704/17115703217_42a5d5eb4c.jpg)
Matt Taibbi: Dems' Education Lunacies Will Bring Back Trump. Youngkin Win PROVED Parents Want A Say
Indictment of alleged Proud Boys leaders over US Capitol attack upheld
A federal judge has refused to dismiss an indictment charging four alleged Proud Boys leaders with conspiracy and obstructing an official proceeding during the 6 January attack on the US Capitol – a development that could have potential implications for Donald Trump.
On Tuesday, the US district judge Timothy Kelly rejected arguments by defence lawyers that Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl and Charles Donohoe are charged with conduct that is protected by the first amendment right to free speech.
He said they had multiple nonviolent options to express their opinions about the 2020 presidential election, in which former president Trump lost to Joe Biden. “Defendants are not, as they argue, charged with anything like burning flags, wearing black armbands, or participating in mere sit-ins or protests,” he wrote in a 43-page ruling. “Moreover, even if the charged conduct had some expressive aspect, it lost whatever first amendment protection it may have had.”
As reported by the Guardian last week, expectation is growing that Trump may face charges for trying to obstruct Congress from certifying Biden’s election this year as a House panel is collecting more evidence into the attack.
EVEN MSNBC SLAMS Pelosi's Defense Of Insider Trading
Warmer in Alaska Than San Diego This Week as Temperature Record 'Pulverized'
As parts of Alaska obliterated high-temperature records earlier this week, meteorologists and climate scientists warned that extreme heat and rainfall are the new normal in the nation's largest state and other Arctic and subarctic zones.
On Sunday, the town of Kodiak in southern Alaska hit 67°F—seven degrees warmer than the daytime high in San Diego—and shattering the December record for Alaska by nine degrees, according to the National Weather Service. The town also broke the local December record by more than 20 degrees. ...
A study published last month in Nature Communications noted that "as the Arctic continues to warm faster than the rest of the planet, evidence mounts that the region is experiencing unprecedented environmental change," with "the hydrological cycle... projected to intensify throughout the 21st century [and] increased evaporation from expanding open water areas and more precipitation."
The paper projected that Arctic winters will experience more rain than snow beginning sometime in the 2060s.
Extreme temperatures aren't just occurring during the Alaskan winters. In July 2019, Anchorage recorded an all-time high of 90°F. In July 2021, the record-breaking heatwave during which Lytton, British Columbia set a Canadian record of 121°F triggered a 2.7-magnitude cryoseism, or "ice quake," near Juneau, Alaska's capital, as 92-degree heat melted glacier ice that subsequently saturated into the soil and then rapidly refroze.
Wildfires—which accelerate global heating by releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere—are also increasing along with Alaska's rising temperatures.
Scientists also warn that thawing Arctic permafrost in the northern parts of the state constitutes a "geological time bomb" set to release potentially devastating quantities of methane—a super-potent greenhouse gas whose emissions are roughly 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide emissions over a 20-year period—into the atmosphere.
Plastic beads could make nets more visible to cetaceans, scientists say
Simple plastic beads could save the lives of some of the thousands of porpoises and other cetaceans that get caught in fishing nets each year, scientists say. Harbour porpoises use echolocation to find their prey and for orientation. However, their acoustic signals cannot pick up the mesh of a gillnet, and as a result they often become trapped.
Daniel Stepputtis, a marine biologist at the Thünen Institute of Baltic Sea Fisheries in Rostock, Germany, says a porpoise will notice floats and leadlines, “but when it detects two obstacles with a few metres of space in between, it obviously thinks ‘I can pass through there’.”
Stepputtis and his colleagues have come up with an elegant new concept to make the nets visible to aquatic mammals using echolocation. They fit the nets with transparent beads made of acrylic glass. The material has approximately the same density as water, so it adds hardly any extra weight to the fishing gear. But when it is hit by biosonar, the polymer sends back an extraordinarily strong echo, warning animals that there is something ahead.
The first trials of the technology, conducted off the Danish island of Funen in the western Baltic, have shown promise. Harbour porpoises hunting in the area kept clear of a bead-equipped net. ... The method may have some limitations, though. The scientists conducted another series of tests in the Black Sea, where a turbot fishery produces a very large bycatch of harbour porpoises. ... The researchers carried out 10 hauls each with a standard gillnet and a net fitted with the beads. Five porpoises were killed in the standard nets and two in the modified nets.
Stepputtis suggests the entangled animals might have been asleep. Dormant porpoises keep on swimming but only occasionally switch on their biosonar. For this reason, Stepputtis and colleagues are also using a new acoustic alerting device that emits synthetic porpoise warning signals. In field trials, the device reduced bycatch by almost 80%.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Russian Admiral: Israel Attack Did Minor Damage to Syrian Port
The Hounding of Julian Assange Leaves Honest Journalism With No Refuge
Throwing a Shoe at the Illegal US War on Iraq
Oklahoma Bill Would Empower Parents to Remove Books From School Libraries
How New England bungled its plan to transition to renewable energy
Ocean Heating This Century Could Create Hurricane Conditions Unseen in 3 Million Years: Study
Noam Chomsky on Rising Fascism in U.S., Class Warfare & the Climate Emergency
Andrew Cuomo FORCED To Return Book Earnings After Fraud
Homelessness in the US: Tiny home villages being built around Los Angeles
A Little Night Music
Snooks Eaglin - Malaguena
Snooks Eaglin - That's All Right
Snooks Eaglin - I hear you knockin
Snooks Eaglin - Hideaway
Snooks Eaglin - Nine Pound Steel
Snooks Eaglin - I Get the Blues When It Rains
Snooks Eaglin - Let The Four Winds Blow
Snooks Eaglin - Drop The Bomb
Snooks Eaglin - Playgirl
Snooks Eaglin - Sleepwalk
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Comments
Bill de Blasios' Good bye song
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-IZWISZ8CY]
de Blasio said in his final NYC Press Conference he'd leave the stage to this tune.
And he did. He'd instructed his production team to highlight the lyric that says "So long. So long. Sometimes you gotta, just walk on."
His remarks were focused on his love for the City and its people and how his guiding principle was empathy. He said that everyting he did was because of our support for him. Against what that guy in Albany and the DNC wanted. All credit went to the people who supported him no matter what the Media and Big Dems had to say.
He did mention that he fulfilled all of his campaign promises, a Truth, that even his critics have been forced to admit.
How many politician's get even a fraction of their goals met? And end with enduring Love.
NYCVG
I guess you ain't kidding
in spite of the deaths and corruption, sexual enhancements
and whatever else NY politicians get away with, we are supposed
to love this kinda kinky shit pol? Sorry, the guy is not a saint.
No love for sinners and all of that. Must be a local hang-up.
Glad you folks like the "love" you were given by this megalomaniac
crook. For who the bell tolls. Hope you get better with the next one.
truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security
You've got this so wrong
He delivered on every progressive goal that Bernie only could talk about.
NYCVG
evening nycvg...
it's a rare thing these days for a constituent to be so well pleased by the performance of a politician as you seem to be with the former mayor.
i am delighted that you've experienced that. i wish more of us could.
ahem ... love makes you blind
[video:https://youtu.be/EmXAy6lUPWw]
evening mimi...
but it's such a nice blindness. sometimes.
Good evening bluzers...
Liked your quote....it is a mad, mad,....world.
Love the Brandon story challenging Russia on Ukrainian aggression as the US, EU, et al pour in arms and mercenaries. We have become expert at projecting our sins upon others.
Same with Israel and Iran. What, Iran threatens Israel? Now who has already bombed who?
Brandon's summit of democracy should have been called the summit of hypocrisy....at least that's what I kept thinking.
Well hope you had a nice day. We're getting a last taste of warm weather, but it all changes after the new year.
Thanks for delivering all the news and music all through the year. Much appreciated!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
evening lookout...
yeah, that quote just seemed perfect to me today. many is the time that i read the news and i sit back for a moment and wonder aloud, "what is wrong with these people?"
other than that, it was a lovely day. pleasant weather, good company and good food.
looking forward to the new year, hoping for an increase in world collective sanity, though frankly, after all these years, not expecting too much.![Smile](https://caucus99percent.com/sites/all/modules/smiley/packs/kolobok/smile.gif)
have a great evening!
Russia! Russia! Russia! Is guilty of election interference!
I don't remember anything about this.
The Russians ran a few Facebook adds and Rachel came to the rescue of our democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinning_Boris
https://caucus99percent.com/sites/all/modules/bueditor/icons/x1.png
Some additional information about this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin_1996_presidential_campaign#T...
evening humphrey...
yep, we interfered in russia's elections and we didn't care who knew it. in fact the powers that be were so proud of their acheivement that they put it on the cover of time magazine at the time.
remember, we are exceptional, dammit!
Good evening Joe, thanks for the Evening Blues and
happy New Year's Eve Eve.
Seems to me that if the NDAA's restrictions on closing GITMO were such a big deal the Pres could've vetoed the damn thing even if it was only symbolic.
A)
B)
Geem maybe the US gummit just doesn't give a shit and the mass of the populace, trained to care only about what the press tells them to, follows suit.
Annnd ,,,,, Corruption is Real! No shit, I learned that from reading POGO and the newspapers in grade school. How is it that the populace as a whole isn't aware of how corrupt this country is? Could it be, once again, our friends in the Media and their gummit handlers?
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
i'm sure that if you pressed brandon about it, he'd just mumble something about making the perfect the enemy of the good and ramble off about how he'd like some more ice cream.
perhaps a better question is why the populace isn't aware that corruption could be largely eliminated and life could be better for everybody.
have a great evening!
Very sad news coming out of Boulder, co
Devastating wildfires with strong winds and 34,000 people have been evacuated, Costco sent people out of their store to be met with apocalyptic scenes. There is no snow on the ground either. We’ve been having strong winds all week too.
Pollack Pines in California has been crippled by snow and most people there have no power. They have generators, but now the gas supply has run out and the worst electric company in history is telling them no power for 2 weeks. To make things worse is people who got stuck on I-80 are going into the city using up any extra supplies. 80 is still shutdown so it’s hard for emergency vehicles to get anywhere and Nevada is turning people away from the border. We’re going from one severe weather event to another.
Lots of tweets in article.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/30/colorado-wildfires-evacu...
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
evening snoopy...
wow, that's awful. i was kind of hoping that the wildfires would let up once the weather got cold.
i guess not.
i wonder what it will take to get the government to take climate change seriously.
i hope you and sam (dispense scritch, please) are safe and warm and having a great evening!
Warmer now
I have to admit my walk this afternoon was quite brisk and uncomfortable with the wind, but since it was below 30 mpg and above 30 degrees Sam said I had to go. Scritch delivered and she is back to normal. Had a weird reaction to something yesterday and she was not herself. Might have been a toxin but it’s just a guess. Lasted about 6 hours and then she came out of it. Scared me tho.
How’s your winter this year? Normal or weird like so many other places. It’s weird to see Colorado not getting any of the storms coming from California like we have. They usually beat us in snow totals.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
heh...
our winter here has been warm and a little moist. in the last decade it seems that winter has not really come on until later in the season and this year is no exception to that so far.
i can remember when i was younger, we used to have snows starting at the very end of october and deep cold snaps in november and december. for the last decade for the most part it has stayed warmish until january/february.
so far this year we have not had a hard freeze and the plants are acting like they don't know what to do.
i guess we'll see if we get any snow here this year. my guess is that if we get it, it will probably be concentrated into a short burst in the next couple of months.
glad to hear that sam bounced back from whatever ailed her. have a good one!
When I was just a wee one
I’d walk to school uphill in both directions don’t you know and the snow would be way over my head. People had a hard time clearing their driveway because they couldn’t throw it on top of the piles. Lots of people had to shovel snow off their roofs too. I can’t remember the last time we got it that bad. Here’s what I remember.
I guess we’re all in for weird times. Bummer I really thought I’d be dead before everything fell apart.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Never thought I'd be a witness to the things I've seen.
Because I know what these things mean.
I believe it's important to write these things down.
Populations don’t like wars. They have to be lied into it.
That means we can be “truthed” into peace. — Julian Assange
The weather is going berserk due to climate change!
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211230-alaska-faces-icemageddon-...
Kamala has been cozying up to corporate donors.
heh...
gotta keep those labor costs down and undermine the american working class in its quest for living wages.
thanks kopmala!
This woman….
just loves to screw workers. A few years ago she sponsored a bill to bring in 300,000 guest workers here. Of course it passed with bipartisan votes.
Pelosi: "it’s a free country and we can do insider trading if we want to and there’s nothing you peons can do about it."
Today she did just that by making lots of stock purchases with many of her millions of dollars she got from 30 odd years of insider trading. Hey remember when shitlibs got upset about some republicans doing nefarious stock trades just after they got briefed about Rona? I do, but for some reason it was okay that Feinstein did a few too and now Pelosi has done what she has without anyone making a peep about it. Gotta love hypocrites.
ETA link.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nancy-pelosi-buys-millions-call-option...
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Try not to loose your lip on me
Thanks for the news and muse 'sic'
It's great to be able talk back to the headlines
even if they don't listen ..
truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security
evening qms...
just think, in one short century we have gone from grumbling at the newspaper, to the radio, to the teevee and now to the intertubes.
progress!
thanks for the tune and have a great evening!
Is Brandon's time running out?
Edited to add this.
The climate change President.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-30/u-s-loans-oil-to-exxo...
Brandon had a phone call with Putin today.
I noticed something a bit odd when I saw the first image, The picture frames seemed to be pointing the wrong way.
Later I found out why. It was so his handlers had something to look at. LOL
The second image was not taken today. ( just a rendition )
Late night Johnstone
Populations don’t like wars. They have to be lied into it.
That means we can be “truthed” into peace. — Julian Assange