The Evening Blues - 2-20-17
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues singer, songwriter and piano player Leroy Carr. Enjoy!
Leroy Carr + Scrapper Blackwell - Midnight Hour Blues
“You're miserable, edgy and tired. You're in the perfect mood for journalism.”
-- Warren Ellis
News and Opinion
Reince Priebus doubles down on Trump's assertion that journalists are the enemy of the people
The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017
Reince Priebus did the rounds on the morning shows Sunday — and affirmed President Donald Trump’s controversial tweet that the news media are the enemy of the American people.
Speaking on CBS show “Face the Nation,” White House Chief of Staff Priebus said that the president meant it when he called the media the enemy.
“I think you should take it seriously,” Priebus told CBS’ John Dickerson. “I think the problem we’ve got is that we’re talking about bogus stories… And I think the media needs to, in some cases, not every case… but in some cases, really needs to get its act together.”
John Oliver : 'Pres. Trump Dominates the News
Trump ally Roger Stone: Americans can now choose 'alternative' truths
In an interview with the Guardian around the publication of his book [The Making of the President], Stone gave a peek into his thinking that in turn goes some way to explain the baffling worldview of the 45th president of the United States. The lobbyist revealed the dystopian universe he inhabits in which people can choose the truth to which they subscribe.
Stone began by discussing how Trump courted a plethora of new rightwing websites such as Breitbart and Infowars during the election campaign as a way of bypassing mainstream media and reaching out to a previously untapped audience of disgruntled white working-class voters. “This is the election in which the tipping point was reached,” he said. “The pendulum swung away from the mainstream media, which lost their hammer-lock monopoly on the dissemination of political information.”
He went on: “Now you have a whole constituency of alternative media out there for Trump to appeal to. He very skillfully worked with that alternative media.”
It’s hard to disagree with that analysis. But the conversation got weirder when the Guardian asked Stone about the potential downside of the rise of “alternative” news.
Isn’t there a danger that information becomes entirely partisan – with half the country drawing its knowledge from rightwing websites and the other half from more liberal outlets? In that case, aren’t we all left at sea, not knowing what is true and what is false?
“I disagree,” he said. “At least people now have a choice. They can believe one outlet or the other outlet. Under the old system, they are only fed one truth, there was no alternative presented. When you have NBC, ABC and CBS moving in lockstep, then if they said something didn’t happen, it didn’t happen.”
So there can be a choice over the truth? Yes, he said.
After the terrible events #lastnightinSweden , IKEA have sold out of this: pic.twitter.com/Bs1XI7ffKG
— Jeanna Skinner (@JeannaLStars) February 19, 2017
People are confused after Trump alluded to terror attack in Sweden that never happened
Swedish people have taken to social media to express their confusion over President Donald Trump’s allusion to a terror attack in their country that didn’t actually happen.
“You look at what’s happening,” Trump told the crowd at a campaign-like rally in Melbourne, Florida on Saturday night. “We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden.”
“Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden,” the president continued. “They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like the never thought possible. You look what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris.”
Except, as Swedes pointed out on social media, nothing bad had happened the previous night in Sweden. “Sweden? Terror attack?” wrote former Prime Minister Carl Bildt on Twitter. “What has he been smoking? Questions abound.”
@sweden we all need to start to heal pic.twitter.com/1a1n14CB8J
— Virgile Le Maléfique (@Ad_Virgilium) February 19, 2017
US defense secretary visits Iraq: 'We’re not here to seize anybody’s oil'
With his boss having banned Iraqi citizens from entering the US and threatening to seize its oil, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis’s goodwill visit to Baghdad was always going to be a tough sell.
But within hours of arriving in the Iraqi capital on Monday, Mattis had told senior officials that the US would do neither, brushing aside earlier suggestions by Donald Trump that had strained already fraught ties on the eve of the most decisive phase of the war against the Islamic State (Isis). ...
Since the US joined the war against Isis in Iraq in August 2014, military cooperation has reached levels not seen since the US invasion 11 years earlier, officials from both sides have said. However, trust on the ground has often failed to match that shown in war planning rooms, with Iraqi troops frequently complaining that the US has not acted quickly enough to defeat a mutual foe, which had at one point seized five cities and more than one third of the country’s territory.
“They could have wiped them out in a weekend if they wanted to,” said Mudher al-Saade, a Corporal from Baghdad, who is staged to the southwest of Mosul. “Instead it has taken two and a half years to get this far. Why is that? Who do they want to help?”
A conspiracy theory that the US benefits from the presence of Isis, or played a direct role in creating the group, has broad currency among some Iraqi fighting forces, particularly the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMUs), an umbrella group of paramilitaries, which was brought under the control of the Government late last year.
Is the US really in a position to lecture Iraq on democracy, press freedom & protecting minorities?
Defense Confirms that Endless War in Iraq Will Continue Under Trump
One thing, it seems, that will not change under President Donald Trump is the United States military's occupation of Iraq after Defense Secretary James Mattis said Monday that he believed "we'll be in this fight for a while."
During his presidential campaign, Trump claimed that he had opposed the Iraq invasion from the start and boasted repeatedly that he had an undisclosed plan to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS or IS).
But that plan may end up being the same endless war, launched in 2003 by then-President George W. Bush and continued by his successor, President Barack Obama.
After meeting with military commanders and Iraqi leaders on Monday, Secretary Mattis announced that "he is open to any request from his military commanders to aid the battle to retake Mosul and launch a major battle to oust IS from the base of its so-called caliphate in Raqqa, Syria," AP reported.
And despite calls for the U.S. military to retreat after the so-called Battle of Mosul, Mattis indicated that U.S. involvement in Iraq will likely continue, telling reporters, "I imagine we'll be in this fight for a while and we'll stand by each other."
President Trump says he will create 'safe zones' in Syria and get Gulf states to pay for them
President Trump, speaking at a campaign rally in Florida on Saturday evening, said he wants to establish "safe zones" in Syria and other places instead of taking people into the U.S., and that the Gulf states would pay for those safe zones, saying that "they have nothing but money." ...
Trump repeated claims that thousands of people have entered the United States without vetting, despite the fact that legal immigrants and refugees go through an extensive process before entering the country. Trump has previously mentioned the idea of "safe zones" but has not specified that Gulf states would pay for them.
"We've allowed thousands and thousands of people into our country and there was no way to vet those people, there was no documentation there was no nothing. So, we're going to keep our country safe," Trump said.
He did not elaborate on what the "safe zones" would be but said people would be able to "stay there and live safely in their cities" until Syria is stabilized. He went on to say that "we want people that love us," in the United States.
Democratic Ex-Dove Proposes War on Iran
Rep. Alcee Hastings has sponsored a bill to authorize President Trump to attack Iran. Hastings reintroduced H J Res 10, the “Authorization of Use of Force Against Iran Resolution” on Jan. 3, the first day of the new Congress after President Trump’s election.
Hastings’s bill has come as a shock to constituents and people who have followed his career as a 13-term Democratic Member of Congress from South Florida. Miami Beach resident Michael Gruener called Hastings’s bill, “extraordinarily dangerous,” and asked, “Does Hastings even consider to whom he is giving this authorization?” ...
Speculation by people in South Florida as to why Alcee Hastings has sponsored such a dangerous bill reflect two general themes. One is that he is paying undue attention to the pro-Israel groups who raised 10 percent of his coded campaign contributions for the 2016 election. The other is that, at the age of 80, he seems to be carrying water for the pay-to-play Clinton wing of the Democratic Party as part of some kind of retirement plan. ...
Alcee Hastings’s voting record on war and peace issues has been about average for a Democrat. He voted against the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) on Iraq, and his 79 percent lifetime Peace Action score is the highest among current House members from Florida, although Alan Grayson’s was higher. ...
In the new Republican-led Congress, with the bombastic and unpredictable Donald Trump in the White House, Hastings’s bill could actually serve as a blank check for war on Iran, and it is carefully worded to be exactly that. It authorizes the open-ended use of force against Iran with no limits on the scale or duration of the war. The only sense in which the bill meets the requirements of the War Powers Act is that it stipulates that it does so. Otherwise it entirely surrenders Congress’s constitutional authority for any decision over war with Iran to the President, requiring only that he report to Congress on the war once every 60 days.
Rockets fired into southern Israel from Egypt's Sinai
Two rockets, apparently fired by Islamic militants in Egypt’s northern Sinai, have landed in southern Israel. The attack came a day after an Isis affiliate claimed that several of its members had been killed by an Israeli drone.
The incident is the second within the space of a month after four missiles were fired towards the Israeli Red Sea city of Eilat, suggesting an increase in tensions on Israel’s southern border.
The launches are the first time since 2015 that rockets have been fired at Israel from Egypt.
I can't decide who is more embarrassing, Trump or Lindsey Graham.
Lindsey Graham calls 2017 year of 'kicking Russia in the ass'
US Senator Lindsey Graham relayed a clear message to Moscow during the Munich Security Conference (MSC) this weekend.
"2017 is going to be a year of kicking Russia in the ass in Congress," Graham told leaders from around the world on Sunday.
US to deploy 1000 troops to Poland
The US Army's Europe headquarters located in Wiesbaden, Germany announced late Saturday that 1,000 US troops and their vehicles would be sent to northeastern Poland at the end of March.
The unit - part of 4,000 US troops being deployed in rotation along NATO's eastern flank under its "Atlantic Resolve" mission - will be located at Orzysz.
The Polish town lies 137 kilometers (85 miles) from Kaliningrad, Russia's heavily armed Baltic military exclave. ...
From Vilnius, President Dalia Grybauskaite of the Baltic nation of Lithuania told the news agency AFP that mission planning adopted at a NATO conference in Warsaw last year was "no longer sufficient."
"Without the support of the US air defense systems, we will not have full protection," she said.
Kim Dotcom extradition to US can go ahead, New Zealand high court rules
The high court in New Zealand has ruled Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the United States to face a multitude of charges including money laundering and copyright breaches.
US authorities had appealed for Dotcom’s extradition to face 13 charges including allegations of conspiracy to commit racketeering, copyright infringement, money laundering and wire fraud.
The German national, who has permanent residency in New Zealand, faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted in the US of piracy, which authorities say cost copyright owners hundreds of millions of dollars.
It is nearly five years since Dotcom, a self-described “internet freedom fighter”, was arrested in a dramatic police raid on his mansion near Auckland after the FBI shut down Megaupload’s servers.
A Corporate Defender at Heart, Former SEC Chair Mary Jo White Returns to Her Happy Place
Mary Jo White, whose tenure as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission under President Obama bitterly disappointed those who hoped she would aggressively enforce banking laws, is rejoining the corporate defense team at Debevoise & Plimpton, marking her sixth trip through the revolving door between various government jobs and the white-collar defense law firm she calls home.
Debevoise represents numerous major financial institutions under federal investigation, and White will now help those corporate clients manage their legal exposure. ...
White auditioned for the job promising to police Wall Street aggressively, and be “bold and unrelenting.” But once installed, she spent her time at the SEC operating like she still worked for Debevoise. Her tenure was marked by persistent delays on finalizing rules mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, including those on corporate political spending and disclosure of the CEO pay ratio. One anti-corruption rule requiring oil and gas companies to disclose payments to foreign governments got finalized so late that Republicans had the opportunity to scrap it earlier this month with a special review procedure.
Critics have charged that White continued the SEC’s tradition of light enforcement. James Kidney, a former SEC trial lawyer, attacked the agency in a scathing retirement speech in 2014, saying that it “polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors.”
Kidney added, “I have had bosses, and bosses of my bosses … who made little secret that they were here to punch their ticket. They mouthed serious regard for the mission of the commission, but their actions were tentative and fearful in many instances.”
"For-Profit President": A Look at How Trump Is Pushing Wholesale Corporate Takeover of the Gov't
DeVos doubles down on guns and grizzly bears in latest interview
In a new interview with Axios, DeVos explains what she wishes she’d said during her disastrous confirmation hearing. ...
DeVos still isn’t sure if the federal government should be involved in education, acknowledging that “there have been important inflection points” for government intervention but that she “can’t think of any now.” She thinks her infamous example of using guns in schools to protect students from grizzly bears was a “valid illustration.” DeVos now says she “absolutely” supports the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which at her confirmation hearing she said was a matter “best left to the states.” There will be lots of new schools that don’t look anything like normal schools — she “expects” there to be more “public charter schools,” “private schools,” “virtual schools,” and “schools of any kind that haven’t even been invented yet.” When asked how DeVos might change the education budget, she replied that she sees “opportunity” to make cuts but declined to specify further.
George Takei on 75th Anniv. of Internment of Japanese Americans & Why Trump is "The Real Terrorist"
Latino laborers fear deportation, but officials tell California farmers not to fret
You can see strawberry fields seemingly forever, details big and small – a rutted path, an orange tractor, a labourer’s checkered blue shirt – discernible on the plain. Yet depending who you ask, there are two completely contrasting ways to view what is happening in Ventura County, in a corner of California. Donald Trump’s immigration policies are spreading fear and threaten to scatter farm labourers, potentially disrupting America’s supply of fruit and vegetables. Or it is business as usual: no change, no drama – a busy, productive economy humming as normal.
Both versions, for now, are accurate – a dissonance stemming from ambiguity over current government policies and the fact that no one has any clue what will happen next.
“Today I heard they’re picking people up in Malibu,” said Javier Carranza, 38, pausing from hacking at weeds in a row of strawberry bushes. “I don’t know if it’s true but I can tell you we’re afraid. People don’t want to go out to stores or restaurants.” ... Carranza’s employer, Phil McGrath, is politically liberal, a rarity among California farmers who tend to be Trump-supporting conservatives. Trump, he said, could damage agriculture. “He’s scaring people and there’s already a labour shortage.”
George Samora, another farmer, agreed. “Nobody has enough workers.”
Trump administration memo called for 100,000 National Guard troops to round up undocumented immigrants, report says
The Trump administration is considering the mass mobilization of 100,000 National Guard troops to sweep up undocumented immigrants in 11 states, according to a draft memo, the Associated Press reported Friday. The 11-page proposal under review would give the governors of those states the ultimate say on whether to deploy these troops for that purpose. ...
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Air Force One Friday that the report was “100 percent not true.” The memo has been circulating among staff at the Department of Homeland Security for the past two weeks, the AP reported.
The DHS did not deny the existence of the memo, but said it was an early draft and not seriously considered.
Daniel Ramirez Medina's Lawyer: "Absolutely No Evidence" to Support DREAMer's Continued Detention
Vague Rules Let ICE Deport Undocumented Immigrants as Gang Members
Of the more than 680 people swept up during last week’s nationwide raids by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, none has attracted more attention than 23-year-old Daniel Ramirez Medina. Although he crossed into the United States illegally when he was a child, Ramirez Medina twice applied successfully for permission to stay in the country under the Obama Administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program.
The former California resident, who recently moved north to Des Moines, Washington, was detained on Friday when ICE went to his family’s home looking for his father, who is also undocumented and in removal proceedings.
ICE claims Ramirez Medina’s DACA status is null and void due to evidence of gang involvement outlined by government attorneys in a brief filed earlier this week. The sum of the evidence is a tattoo on his arm that immigration officials believe is gang related, and statements that he allegedly made in custody that “he used to hang out with the Sureno[s] in California,” that he “fled California to escape the gangs,” and that he “still hangs out with the Paizas in Washington State.” ...
In court this morning, attorney Mark Rosenbaum claimed the defense team had not seen “a single piece of evidence” proving gang affiliation, adding that ICE had not provided any information from its gang database on Ramirez Medina.
Liberal voters warn Democratic officials: resist Trump or be replaced
“Our message to Democrats is simple: fight Trump or we’ll find someone who will,” said Waleed Shahid, a co-founder of the progressive group All of Us and a former organizer with the Bernie Sanders campaign. This week, the group launched the political action committee We Will Replace You, the latest in a series of projects to warn Democrats that failures to oppose Trump’s agenda will have consequences.
The group argues that Democrats need to exercise the little political power they still have. The activists have a long list of demands: votes against “all Trump appointees”, opposing his supreme court nominee, using congressional procedures to “bring all business to a crawl to block Trump’s agenda and demand Steve Bannon be fired”. Elected officials, they say, should “publicly support impeachment if Trump is found to have broken the law or violated the constitution”.
The activists have already circled a number of Senate Democrats who have failed to meet their standards, including vulnerable and increasingly rare red-state Democrats, such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Both Democrats are up for re-election in 2018.
“The Democratic party establishment wants the support of the Tea Party of the left but they don’t want to earn it,” Shahid said, alluding to the 2010 movement that mobilized rightwing activists, confronted moderate Republicans and helped the party take control of the House in a wave.
“They say they love the grassroots activism, but they don’t want to take the next step and challenge the Democratic leadership.”
Would Keith Ellison Pursue Reconciliation or Lead Insurgency Within DNC?
Let’s Talk About Bernie’s Capitulation To The Democratic Establishment
Bernie has been bending over backwards to ingratiate himself so extensively to the Democratic establishment that today whenever you hear someone citing him as an authority on an issue, it’s a safe bet that they’re arguing in favor of the corporatist establishment. It’s obvious to anyone with some intuition and critical thinking skills that all the frenzy and freakouts over Russia are highly suspicious and are likely being used to manipulate us in a way that favors the political establishment, and Bernie’s been helping to forward that narrative. As we’ve discussed before, normal Americans do not actually care about Russia; the nationwide hysteria we’ve been seeing is deliberately manufactured, and Bernie has been helping to make this happen.
This is wrong. Bernie is wrong. We’re allowed to say that he’s wrong here. He should not be contributing to the psychological brutalization that the political establishment has been inflicting upon the American people month after month after month through media psy-ops and baseless fearmongering. He should not be collaborating with these intelligence agencies who lied to us about WMDs in Iraq in their attempt to force interventionism in Syria and increase tensions with a nuclear superpower. No.
Does this mean that Sanders isn’t a useful part of our team? He was obviously instrumental in waking a lot of us up and showing us how much power we have to fight the establishment, but does his subsequent capitulation to that establishment mean that his role in the revolution is over? Personally, I doubt it. Bernie has never been perfect when it comes to foreign policy, but he’s a consistently powerful voice when it comes to domestic policy and economic justice for Americans. That’s a great gift to our movement and it will remain so for however long Bernie keeps it up.
That said, Bernie is not our leader. He isn’t. The extent to which the establishment has sunk their talons into him proves that we can’t afford to allow him to lead us. They will use him to steer us in unwholesome directions and guide us away from our desire to destroy their sick institutions.
I missed this when it was first posted, Tucker Carlson does a surprisingly good interview with Glenn Greenwald:
Dem bubble: DNC chair candidate backs off ugly truth
As Construction Near Standing Rock Restarts, Pipeline Fights Flare Across the U.S.
Under orders from President Donald Trump, the Army Corps of Engineers on February 7 approved a final easement allowing Energy Transfer Partners to drill under the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Construction has restarted, and lawyers for the company say it could take as little as 30 days for oil to flow through the Dakota Access pipeline.
While the Standing Rock Sioux and neighboring tribes attempt to halt the project in court, other opponents of the pipeline have launched what they’re calling a “last stand,” holding protests and disruptive actions across the U.S. In North Dakota, where it all began, a few hundred people continue to live at camps on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, using them as bases for prayer and for direct actions to block construction. Last week, camps were served eviction notices from Gov. Doug Burgum and from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, demanding that they clear the biggest camp, Oceti Sakowin, by Wednesday and a smaller camp, Sacred Stone, within 10 days. ...
Now, most of the thousands of people that visited Standing Rock last fall have returned home, and some have taken up long-shot local fights against the oil and gas industry. In Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee it’s the Diamond pipeline; in Louisiana, the Bayou Bridge. In Wisconsin, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa actually voted to decommission and remove the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline from their reservation. ...
In at least four states, encampments built as bases for pipeline resistance have emerged. They face corporations emboldened by Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress, which have used their first weeks in power to grant fossil fuel industry wishes, overturning environmental protections, appointing Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, and reviving the halted Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipeline projects.
[See article for details of numerous sites of resistance across the US. - js]
Humans causing climate to change 170 times faster than natural forces
For the first time, researchers have developed a mathematical equation to describe the impact of human activity on the earth, finding people are causing the climate to change 170 times faster than natural forces.
The equation was developed in conjunction with Professor Will Steffen, a climate change expert and researcher at the Australian National University, and was published in the journal The Anthropocene Review.
The authors of the paper wrote that for the past 4.5bn years astronomical and geophysical factors have been the dominating influences on the Earth system. The Earth system is defined by the researchers as the biosphere, including interactions and feedbacks with the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere and upper lithosphere.
But over the past six decades human forces “have driven exceptionally rapid rates of change in the Earth system,” the authors wrote, giving rise to a period known as the Anthropocene.
“Human activities now rival the great forces of nature in driving changes to the Earth system,” the paper said. ... “In the equation, astronomical and geophysical forces tend to zero because of their slow nature or rarity, as do internal dynamics, for now. All these forces still exert pressure, but currently on orders of magnitude less than human impact.”
According to Steffen these forces have driven a rate of change of 0.01 degrees Celsius per century.
Expect to see more emergencies like Oroville Dam in a hotter world
Like many extreme events, the Oroville emergency is a combination of natural weather likely intensified by climate change. California regularly sees “atmospheric rivers” that deluge the state with rainfall, but in a hotter world, scientists anticipate that they’ll be amplified by an increase in the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.
Northern California is in the midst of its wettest rainy season on record – twice as wet as the 20th century average, and 35% wetter than the previous record year. It proved to be almost too much for America’s tallest dam to handle. Water managers were forced to use Oroville Dam’s emergency spillway for the first time ever, which then began to erode, posing the threat of a failure and catastrophic flooding of nearby towns.
While studies haven’t yet connected this extreme wetness to climate change (there are still several months remaining in California’s rainy season), what we’re seeing is consistent with climate scientists’ expectations of a hotter world.
Dams in the United States were built 50 years ago, on average. Since then, the Earth’s surface temperature has warmed about 0.75°C, and there’s now more than 5% more water vapor in the atmosphere as a result, which intensifies storms. With hotter temperatures, more precipitation falls as rain and less as snow, and California’s Sierra snowpack also melts earlier in the year. Climate change stresses California’s water infrastructure through all of these mechanisms.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Trump v. the Media: a Fight to the Death
You Are Not Defending 'The Press', Liberals, You Are Defending Powerful Corporations
How to Run a Rogue Government Twitter Account With an Anonymous Email Address and a Burner Phone
Why Do So Many Americans Fear Muslims? Decades of Denial About America’s Role in the World.
Donald Trump will use every weapon to stamp out the grassroots resistance
The Term “Deep State” in Focus: Usage Examples, Definition, and Phrasebook
James Baldwin and the Meaning of Whiteness
Why Did SEC Acting Chair Take an Ax to Enforcement Unit’s Subpoena Power?
Republicans push Texas as unlikely green energy leader
A Little Night Music
Leroy Carr And Scrapper Blackwell - Blues Before Sunrise
Leroy Carr - Gettin' All Wet
Leroy Carr & Scrapper Blackwell - How Long Has That Evenin' Train Been Gone?
Leroy Carr - Hold Them Puppies
Leroy Carr - It's Too Short
Leroy Carr - Alabama Woman Blues
Leroy Carr - Hurry Down Sunshine
Leroy Carr - Sloppy Drunk
Comments
IMO, the msm is the propaganda arm of the establishment.
It has ceased to perform the role it should in our society. It has betrayed all of us. It sucks.
The fact that someone from the Trump administration also criticizes the msm doesn't automatically mean that the msm acquires a new credibility it's lacked for at least a decade.
Because Trumpco criticized the msm,are we supposed to forget how it beat the drum for the Iraq invasion instead of challenging Bushco? How the NYT buries stories or delays them for over a year, at the request of the administration? How MSNBC took Cenk's show away from him after the White House complained he was too critical.
Please don't go down this road, folks. http://caucus99percent.com/content/frigate-ship-happens
Besides, the most that can come of it is removing Trump to get Pastor Pence. http://caucus99percent.com/content/impeach-impeach-part-2 Pass.
Thanks for this tour de force, Joe. FYI:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3-LXo9dLLI]
evening hw...
we have reached a point of institutional failure - and the corporate media are just another institution. they may be wailing about trump now, but they have no right to, given that their billions of dollars of free publicity for trump made his election possible.
i would rather imagine that it hasn't escaped the notice of the media bigwigs that trump is still driving their ratings as people continue to tune in for his latest outrage. so i would guess that a certain amount (probably most) of the media outrage coverage falls into the category of "good for business," and when trump calls the media "the enemy of the people," somewhere in an opulent corporate suite very wealthy men in suits are high-fiving each other and lighting cigars.
I have a somewhat different view of today's media.
I think media today is profit-driven, but not in the way that it used to be when two or three hometown newspapers, each owned by one family or one small group of partners, competed with each other fiercely to stay in business.
Now, all msm is in the hands of five to seven huge conglomerates, each of which would remain wealthy, even if its newspaper or cable station operated at a loss. Using its media subsidiaries to help ensure the propagandizing of Americans is more indirectly profitable to the parent company than, say, Comcast's worrying about whether MSNBC is turning a profit.
The coverage of Trump was favorable across the board until he locked down the hom, whereupon it turned negative. I think the PTN wanted Trump and Hillary to be the nominees, regardless if their media subsidiaries made money or not.
Maybe I'll do an essay on this.
... listening to Warren just now --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDpYBT0XyvA
... seems appropriate; he pretty much is the minstrel for the apocalypse --
... and here's another one --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvTv-I2Y390
When Cicero had finished speaking, the people said “How well he spoke”.
When Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said “Let us march”.
Good evening, joe y los bluesters
Reading the news here sure appears to me that we are looking at a whole lotta bull today?
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
evening do...
it's going to be another week of bull, i'm sure. i went on a news fast over the weekend because i was getting tired of the all-trump-all-the-time media barrage. i decided to take adventure of the 70-degree weather went down to maryland's eastern shore and watched some bald eagles and scads of geese, swans, ducks and other smaller birds fly around.
glad to see that you're seeing lots of cool wildlife in cr, thanks for the photo!
Glad you got out there! Sounds like a pretty diverse
lot you saw there.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
yeah, february...
isn't necessarily the best time to go bird watching down on the bay, but, well, the weather was right.
Those looks, the back glance and the glare
Poor animals continue to lose out as humans continue to plunder their land.
Great shot DO!
To thine own self be true.
Good Evening, Joe and bluesters, have to read
most of the EB tomorrow morning, but just wanted to say that I often enjoy what kind of 'quote of the day' you post exactly when. I love it when it appears to relate in its undertone to certain currents here on C99p.
Hedges has again written a great essay about Baldwin and another article on truthdig covers
Mark Zuckerberg's 'manifesto' and what the Observer thinks about it.
Have a good evening and night, all.
evening mimi...
thanks for the link to the zuckerberg piece, i got partway through it last week and got interrupted and then forgot to go back and read it.
sleep well!
Mark Zuckerberg is not what I'd call
one of America's most eminent thinkers. But I guess once you've amassed that much money, people pretty much have to listen to whatever twaddle you come up with.
native
Donald vs. the MSM ...
Evening all,
It's really not hard to figure out Donald Trump. He isn't making stuff up and he doesn't think he's lying. He's a Fox News viewer, that's all, just like millions of other older Americans. If you want to know what the president will say tomorrow just watch Fox News tonight, or ask your crazy uncle. ☛ HuffPo
Here's a piece by Ian Welsh that goes along with Johnstone's You are not defending 'the press' .... ☛ The Press is Trump's Enemy, Not the Left's Friend
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
evening azazello...
sadly a lot of people are getting so wrapped up in opposing the evil trump that i fear that it is going to be an impediment to getting people focused on changing the system. trump appears to be the best distraction that the 1% has ever come up with whilst they set to looting the planet.
Speaking of war
I'm no fan of the Ayatollahs but our history there since the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh for their oil is not pretty.
The political revolution continues
evening shockwave...
the cia overthrow of mossadegh is what opened up the political space for the revolution that dumped the shah. if the us doesn't like their results, perhaps it should stop tinkering with regime change - it is clearly not very good at creating democracy or democratic institutions. it would seem to be a lesson that has been repeated quite frequently.
I would think that after spending so many years in congress
that Hastings would have enough money for retirement already
which confirms that the Clintons haven't gone anywhere except for hiding from the public but they along with Obama are working behind the scenes to make sure that the 3rd way democrats stay inline. One article I read about this said that Obama is trying to save his legacy and that Eric Holder is part of Obamas's OFA
IMO, the Deep State are members of the trilateral commission, and the other think tanks full of people who have been involved with our government for decades.
Remember when Bush was talking about invading Iraq that James Baker tried to talk him out of it?
This article has good information about it and who is in it and what their goals are.
Just as many people have stated, the president is just a figurehead and doesn't actually have the power of being the most powerful man in the world.
There is much more information in this article which was written before Flynn's resignation and the media speaking about the Deep State.
In fact a lot of ex presidents have spoken out of the secret government.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/26/a-deep-state-of-mind-americas-sha...
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening snoopy...
sadly, for some people no amount of wealth and power is enough. apparently, hastings has the madness - a trait that he shares with the clintons and other members of the deep state.
Good evening Joe. Thanks for the EB. The msm can't avoid
bogus stories because that is most of what the President and Congress are putting out, and they have their dedicated propaganda machines to spread it unrebutted if the msm doesn't step up to refute it. Otherwise I'd say, hell yeah, don't report any of that shit.
Meanwhile, we'll create safe zones somehow paid for by the gulf states, but established by US troops. How does that work? Do the Saudi's pay for the funerals, or what?
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 think that what trump is promising his followers is some form of ritual humiliation to be heaped upon some group of middle easterners. it seems that what much of trump's followers want is not just jobs and prosperity, but vengeance upon their enemies.
If they would get out from under their beds,
climb the ladder into their big trucks and take the safety off their shotguns, maybe they wouldn't be so afraid of muslims. You'd think the people who think they're big bad Americans, home of the brave, wouldn't be so chickenshit. It's actually kind of funny.
(I tell that to my brother all the time when he sends me right wing crap about how the muslims are out to rape everybody's mother, install sharia law and take over our country. It's kind of a reverse psychology thing. but it doesn't work anyway.)
heh...
you're right, al. despite being "the home of the brave," this country reeks of fear.
I've got to give up the internet!
too depressing!
evening shahryar...
that's a pretty interesting version of midnight hour.
I have yet to see anyone clarify or try to clarify whether that
includes Fox news. Why hasn't any of the fake news reporters asked that?
It's obvious we need a movement. We could call it "From the Bowels". Actually, either a global movement or a national one outside the electoral process, i.e., having nothing to do with electing politicians and everything to do with seeking power to the people. It's pretty simple to me, if we don't change the political system to prevent rule by the rich, the banks, corporations, Deep State, etc., then we'll continue down this same path. We need millions and millions of people. It will take great organization and a lot of money, sort of like running a campaign for the office of president. The goal can't be a higher minimum wage, more jobs, and ending war, it has to be democracy.
If you don't have any democracy how can you have any pudding? You can't have any pudding if you don't have democracy!
That's all I got, man.
evening al...
whether or not fox news is fake news, it is certainly corporate news and as such part of the problem. as i see it, it's just another flavor of corporate brainwash, distracting people from taking appropriate actions to fix the system.
i think that we probably need a global movement. capital is global, the movement needs that sort of reach to bring capital under control so that democracy can be enacted.
Hi, Joe & Gang! Just a shout out, since
I've already lost one comment this evening, and have had two browser 'freeze ups' since that happened--whew! Hey, that's okay--I'm keeping track of my recent posting 'woes,' to make a case (to Mr M) that we need to shop for a new laptop.
Had something to post on GBI/UBI, but I'll just wait until I can get in here earlier tomorrow, in hopes that they'll be time for discussion.
Hey, Everyone have a nice evening!
Mollie
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers
Taro
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Crash Dump
I had something called a "crash dump" tonight. Like you, I need to shop for a new laptop, too.
Terror in Sweden!
https://twitter.com/Madly_Mad/status/833376708149596160
Maybe I have a weird sense of humour but this made me
and the comments are great.
I try to stick to funny or sarcastic stuff lately.
So horiffic!
Everyone needs to see this for themselves.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
Caitlin Johnstone posts a list
of corporate media that colluded with the Clinton campaign.
That would mean they had secret agreements with them(?)
How do we know? the Wikileaks link doesn't open.
Thanks Joe for the news and blues.
To thine own self be true.
some of the WikiLeaks proof of collusion
It looked like the NYT was asking Clinton to check a profile of her for accuracy, another time NYT wanted confirmation of quotes in a conversation between two people. There was a complaint by Podesta that "I just got f--cked by the New York Times." It didn't sound like collusion to me, it was more like editing.
To thine own self be true.
Hey, Karl--good to know
I'm not alone.
My screen didn't freeze--I just couldn't get out of the browser window (which I call freezing), nor could I close any of the other open windows. It's sure aggravating when you can't even manage to copy and paste a lengthy comment to NotePad.
Have a nice evening!
Mollie
"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."--Will Rogers
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Good Morning from EU territory, in an interview
with the German daily newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" Saudi Sec of State, Adel al-Jubeir, said that Saudi Arabia plans to send troops to Syria together with American troops. ("Saudi-Arabien plant, mit den USA Truppen nach Syrien zu schicken").
Na dann, viel Spass, soldiers. Killing is just awesome, isn't it?
oh lord, no words, just letting you know
Encrypted in Urine, Polish Museum Gets Holocaust Letters Detailing Medical Experiments