The Evening Blues - 4-17-24
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features one of the great voices of the Delta blues Eddie "Son" House. Enjoy!
Son House - Grinnin in Your Face
"Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing."
-- Edmund Burke
News and Opinion
US provides assurances to prevent Julian Assange appeal against extradition
The US has provided assurances to the high court in London in an attempt to prevent a last-ditch appeal by Julian Assange against extradition, but the WikiLeaks founder’s wife has dismissed them as “weasel words”.
[The high court] granted him permission to appeal but only if the Biden administration was unable to provide the court with suitable assurances “that the applicant [Assange] is permitted to rely on the first amendment, that the applicant is not prejudiced at trial, including sentence, by reason of his nationality, that he is afforded the same first amendment [free speech] protections as a United States citizen, and that the death penalty is not imposed”.
On Tuesday, details emerged of the assurances given by the US, which stated that he “will not be prejudiced by reason of his nationality with respect to which defences he may seek to raise at trial and at sentencing”. It referred specifically to him having “the ability to raise and seek to rely upon” the first amendment but also said that its applicability “is exclusively within the purview of the US courts”. The assurances also state: “A sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed on Assange.” ...
Stella Assange, his wife, tweeted: “The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the first amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty. “It makes no undertaking to withdraw the prosecution’s previous assertion that Julian has no first amendment rights because he is not a US citizen. Instead, the US has limited itself to blatant weasel words claiming that Julian can ‘seek to raise’ the first amendment if extradited.
Julian Assange Free SOON? Pressure MOUNTING On Biden
If The Mainstream Worldview Was Accurate, Gaza Wouldn’t Be Burning
The destruction of Gaza proves the entire mainstream western worldview is bullshit, because if the mainstream western worldview was accurate, the destruction of Gaza would not be happening.
By the mainstream western worldview I mean the general consensus about what’s going on in the world which is prevalent among mainstream western politicians and pundits and the creators of mainstream culture in New York and Hollywood. The worldview which takes it as a given that western democracy is real, that the US and its allies are basically good actors on the world stage even if they make mistakes from time to time, that the western news media pretty much tell us the truth about things (or at least the media which align with the mainstream political faction we support), and that the world works pretty much the way we were taught in school.
If the mainstream western worldview was accurate, the US and its western allies would not be helping Israel rain military explosives upon a walled-in civilian population that’s half comprised of children — because the mainstream western worldview maintains that the US and its western allies behave in an ethical way with high regard for human rights and wellbeing.
If the mainstream western worldview was accurate, the US and its western allies would not be assisting Israel while it deliberately starves civilians — because according to the mainstream western worldview that kind of collective punishment is a violation of the international law which the US and its western allies uphold and defend.
If the mainstream western worldview was accurate, we would not be continually reading stories about how large media outlets like CNN and The New York Times force their staff to slant their coverage in a way that benefits Israeli information interests — because per the mainstream western worldview the western press are reliable sources of information, and propaganda is something that is only used by bad guys like Putin and Kim Jong Un.
If the mainstream western worldview was accurate, Hollywood and the western news media would have spent six months united in passionate and consistent condemnation of Israel for its nonstop mass atrocities in Gaza — because the mainstream western worldview says we live in a truth-based society guided by ethical institutions.
If the mainstream western worldview was accurate, we wouldn’t see western officials standing behind podiums justifying the mass slaughter of civilians and denying obvious Israeli war crimes day after day and month after month — because in the mainstream western worldview murdering civilians and facilitating war crimes is something that is only done by illiberal, undemocratic countries to the east and the south.
If the mainstream western worldview was accurate, the US and its allies wouldn’t have spent this time bombing people in Yemen, Iraq and Syria who try to fight back in opposition to Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza — because the mainstream western worldview asserts that the US power alliance is an upholder of peace and stability throughout the world.
We simply are not seeing what we’d expect to be seeing with regard to Gaza if the mainstream western worldview was accurate. This is because the mainstream western worldview is not accurate — it’s a false narrative construct that has been carefully assembled inside each of our skulls by the most sophisticated propaganda machine that has ever existed.
In reality we do not live in a truth-based society that is guided by morality and governed by basically decent people — we live in a lie-based society that is guided by greed and the pursuit of power, and is governed by unelected sociopaths. We do not live in the kind of world we were taught about in school. We live in a corrupt, mind-controlled dystopia, under the thumb of an undeclared globe-spanning empire which requires more and more violence and tyranny to sustain.
Gaza should devastate any part of the mainstream worldview which still exists in your mind, because all the facts we are seeing right in front of our faces squarely contradict that worldview.
Changing your worldview is not easy. It takes work. It takes sincerity. It takes a willingness to sit in the discomfort of cognitive dissonance while staring at facts which prove our perspective is misinformed, and coming to terms with them. But it’s the only way for an individual to come to a truth-based understanding of the world, and one day it’s how we as a collective will move into the creation of a real truth-based society.
Anya Parampil: No Moral Equivalency -- Israel and Iran.
Netanyahu aims to trap west into war across Middle East, warns Iranian diplomat
Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to trap the west into a total war across the Middle East that would have incalculable consequences for the region and the world, Iran’s top diplomat in the UK has claimed, in his first interview since Tehran launched an unprecedented missile and drone attack against Israel at the weekend.
Seyed Mehdi Hosseini Matin also warned that if Israel made “another mistake” by launching an attack on Iran, there would be a response from Iran that was stronger, more severe, and administered without a warning like that issued before the weekend attack. ...
“The response to the next mistake of the Zionist will not take 12 days’ time. It will be decided as soon as we see what the hostile regime has done. It will be immediate, and without warning. It will be stronger and more severe,” said Matin, Iran’s chargé d’affaires in London. He ruled out Iran attacking civilian centres or building a nuclear weapon, even though he said Iran knew Israel was an undeclared nuclear state.
Both the US and EU have signalled further sanctions against Iran over its attack on Israel, while western leaders have also urged Israel to exercise restraint against escalation. The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said it was a “moment for calm heads to prevail” in a call with Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, on Tuesday.
Matin, who has been Iran’s senior diplomat in the UK since February 2022 when the ambassador was recalled, denied that Iran had made a strategic mistake by attacking Israel’s military bases, so shifting attention from Gaza to the wider regional conflict in which Iran’s long-term role came into question. Matin argued that the west was losing credibility in the Middle East in a way that would ultimately lead to the US leaving the region, and a peace being reached by regional powers alone.
Israel BLOCKS UN October 7 Investigation
Biden FLUBS Question About Israel Rafah Invasion, Names WRONG City
House Dems Voice 'Deep Concern' Over Biden Claim That Israel Is Legally Using US Arms
More than two dozen House Democrats on Tuesday challenged the Biden administration's claim that Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons in compliance with domestic and international law—an assertion made amid an ongoing World Court probe of "plausibly" genocidal Israeli policies and practices in Gaza.
Citing "mounting credible and deeply troubling reports and allegations" of human rights crimes committed by Israeli troops in Gaza and soldiers and settlers in the occupied West Bank, 26 congressional Democrats led by Texas Reps. Veronica Escobar—who co-chairs President Joe Biden's reelection campaign—and Joaquin Castro asked U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines "whether and how" their agencies determined Israel is lawfully using arms provided by Washington.
"We write to express our deep concern regarding the U.S. Department of State's recent comments regarding assurances from the Israeli government, under National Security Memorandum (NSM) 20, that the Israeli government is using U.S.-origin weapons in full compliance with relevant U.S. and international law and is not restricting the delivery of humanitarian assistance," the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Cabinet members.
The letter acknowledges the "grave concerns" of institutions and experts around the world regarding Israel's "conduct throughout the war in Gaza, its policies regarding civilian harm and military targeting, unauthorized expansion of settlements and settler violence in the West Bank, and potential use of U.S. arms by settlers, in additional to limitations on humanitarian aid supported by the U.S."
The legislators noted Israeli attacks on aid convoys, workers, and recipients—like the February 29 "Flour Massacre" in which nearly 900 starving Palestinians were killed or wounded at a food distribution site—and "the closure of vital border crossings" as Gazan children starve to death as causes for serious concern.
While the lawmakers didn't mention the International Court of Justice's January 26 preliminary finding that Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza, their letter highlights the "stark differences and gaps in the statements" made by Biden administration officials and "those made by prominent experts and global institutions"—many of whom accuse Israel of genocide.
The lawmakers' letter came amid reports of fresh Israeli atrocities, including a drone strike on a playground in the Maghazi refugee camp in northern Gaza that killed at least 11 children. Eyewitnesses described a "horrific scene of children torn apart."
Israel firing a missile at a playground full of children—adding to the thousands of children they’ve already killed—will get less media attention than Iran firing missiles it telegraphed well in advance, in response to an attack on its embassy, that hit nothing and killed no one. https://t.co/4ynCNYVuqv
— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) April 16, 2024
While Biden has called out Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" in Gaza—much of it carried out using U.S.-supplied warplanes and munitions including 2,000-pound bombs that can level whole city blocks—his administration has approved more than 100 arms sales to Israel, has repeatedly sidestepped Congress to fast-track emergency armed aid, and is seeking to provide the key ally with billions of dollars in addition weaponry atop the nearly $4 billion it gets annually from Washington.
This, despite multiple federal laws—and the administration's own rules—prohibiting U.S. arms transfers to human rights violators.
According to Palestinian and international officials, more than 110,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces since October 7. Most of the dead are women and children. At least 7,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out homes and other buildings.
Around 90% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forcibly displaced in what many Palestinians are calling a second Nakba, a reference to the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Arabs from Palestine during the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
A growing number of not only progressive lawmakers but also mainstream Democrats are calling for a suspension of U.S. military aid to Israel.
No Tech for Apartheid: Google Workers Arrested for Protesting Company’s $1.2B Contract with Israel
UN demands end to Israeli forces’ support of settler attacks on West Bank Palestinians
The UN and the UK have voiced grave concern over escalating violence in the West Bank, demanding that Israeli security forces “immediately” stop supporting settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territory. The comments came hours after two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli settlers in a northern village south of Nablus in the latest violent attack involving settlers in the increasingly tense West Bank.
Palestinians said the incident followed a clash when settlers entered Palestinian-owned land and assaulted residents, while settlers said it began with an assault on a Jewish person. Tensions in the West Bank have escalated sharply since the killing of a 14-year-old boy from a settler family at the weekend.
The violence brought to eight the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or armed settlers since Friday, as Palestinian authorities reported an increasing number of attacks by settlers across the West Bank. Palestinianwitnesses and video suggested that Israeli security forces had been present, standing by at some of the incidents.
Salah Bani Jaber, the mayor of Aqraba, a town near the northern city of Nablus, saw Monday’s settler attack. He said about 50 settlers, many of them armed, attacked members of his community and fired at Palestinian youths, killing two of them and wounding others. “There were Israeli soldiers at the scene who stood idly by watching the settlers,” he said. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said soldiers blocked its ambulances from reaching the area and tending the wounded. The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
George Galloway: NO CEASEFIRE NO VOTE
The Government’s New Spying Powers Are TERRIFYING!
The US isn’t just reauthorizing its surveillance laws – it’s vastly expanding them
The US House of Representatives agreed to reauthorize a controversial spying law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last Friday without any meaningful reforms, dashing hopes that Congress might finally put a stop to intelligence agencies’ warrantless surveillance of Americans’ emails, text messages and phone calls.
The vote not only reauthorized the act, though; it also vastly expanded the surveillance law enforcement can conduct. In a move that Senator Ron Wyden condemned as “terrifying”, the House also doubled down on a surveillance authority that has been used against American protesters, journalists and political donors in a chilling assault on free speech.
Section 702 in its current form allows the government to compel communications giants like Google and Verizon to turn over information. An amendment to the bill approved by the House vastly increases the law’s scope. The Turner-Himes amendment – so named for its champions Representatives Mike Turner and Jim Himes – would permit federal law enforcement to also force “any other service provider” with access to communications equipment to hand over data. That means anyone with access to a wifi router, server or even phone – anyone from a landlord to a laundromat – could be required to help the government spy.
The Senate is expected to vote on the House bill as soon as this week, and if it passes there, Joe Biden is likely to sign it. All Americans should be terrified by that prospect.
Section 702 is supposedly a foreign intelligence tool that allows the US government to surveil the communications of non-US citizens abroad without a warrant. But as many civil liberties groups have pointed out, intelligence agencies like the FBI also use it as a warrantless spying tool against Americans. The FBI abused its authority under the law no fewer than 300,000 times in 2020 and 2021, according to a ruling from a Fisa court judge. In arguing for the reauthorization of Section 702 late last year, Turner, chair of the House intelligence committee, shockingly suggested in a closed-door briefing that the law could be used to spy on Americans protesting against the war in Gaza.
Pro-War Uniparty Pushes BILLIONS To Ukraine, Israel
Tom Cotton DEMANDS Vigilante Violence Against Gaza Protests
Republican senator Tom Cotton calls for vigilantism to break up Gaza protests
The Republican senator Tom Cotton has urged Americans to “take matters into their own hands” when encountering pro-Palestine supporters, an apparent call to vigilantism as Israel’s military strikes in Gaza continued despite global calls for a ceasefire. Demonstrations on Monday by supporters of Palestine blocked roads in major US cities, including New York and Philadelphia; delayed flights at the bustling Chicago O’Hare and Seattle-Tacoma international airports; and caused traffic congestion on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.
Cotton, a Republican, eventually appeared on Fox News and labeled the protesters “criminals”. He also expressed his sympathy for the people whose commutes were interrupted by Monday’s demonstrations, which demanded that the US government drop its military support of Israel.
The far-right senator from Arkansas told the Fox News host Sandra Smith that as far as he was concerned, those who deserved his sympathies were “all those people who are trying to get to work or trying to pick up a kid”. He also said he “very worried about the diversion of police resources where it needs to be stopping crime in cities like San Francisco, where firefighters are having to go there when they might have calls for fires out”. He soon went further, arguing that people in his state would inflict bodily violence on the protesters, whom he called “antisemitic” and “pro-Hamas”.
“If something like this happened in Arkansas on a bridge there – let’s just say I think there’d be a lot of very wet criminals that have been tossed overboard, not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they’re blocking,” Cotton said. “If they glued their hands to a car or the pavement, well, [it would be] probably pretty painful to have their skin ripped off. But I think that’s the way we’d handle it in Arkansas.”
Cotton said he “would encourage most people anywhere that get stuck behind criminals like this who are trying to block traffic, to take matters in their own hands” and solve the problem without involving police.
CENSORSHIP: USC CANCELS Muslim Speaker Asna Tabassum Over Safety Threats
Backlash as USC cancels valedictorian’s speech over support for Palestine
The University of Southern California is facing intense backlash for the decision to cancel the valedictorian speech of a Muslim student at the commencement ceremony in May, a decision which the student has criticized as being silenced by anti-Palestinian hatred for her views on human rights.
In a missive to the USC community, the university’s provost, Andrew Guzman, wrote that the Los Angeles university took the unprecedented step of canceling Asna Tabassum’s planned speech because the “alarming tenor” of reactions to her selection as valedictorian – along with “the intensity of feelings” surrounding Israel’s ongoing military strikes in Gaza – had created “substantial risks relating to security”.
Guzman’s statement did not refer to Tabassum by name, or specify what about her speech, background or political views had raised concerns. Nor did it detail any particular threats.
The decision has been met with outrage from online commenters and the Council of American Islamic Relations (Cair) the US’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, who, in a statement said Tabassum described herself as “shocked … and profoundly disappointed” after being informed on Monday that she would be barred from addressing her fellow graduates at their 10 May commencement.
“The university is succumbing to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice,” Tabassum said in the statement. Cair dismissed USC’s decision as “cowardly” and called on the university to reverse course – but Guzman maintained that “there was no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement”.
Fed chair Jerome Powell: high inflation likely to delay rate cuts this year
The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, cautioned on Tuesday that persistently elevated inflation will probably delay any Fed interest rate cuts until later this year, opening the door to a period of higher-for-longer rates.
“Recent data have clearly not given us greater confidence” that inflation is coming fully under control and “instead indicate that it’s likely to take longer than expected to achieve that confidence”, Powell said during a panel discussion at the Wilson Center.
“If higher inflation does persist,” he said, “we can maintain the current level of [interest rates] for as long as needed.”
![the horse race](https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8704/17115703217_42a5d5eb4c.jpg)
US supreme court skeptical of using obstruction law in January 6 cases
The US supreme court expressed concern on Tuesday with prosecutors using an obstruction statute to charge hundreds of January 6 Capitol riot defendants, with the justices leaning towards a position that could jeopardize those prosecutions and the criminal case against Donald Trump. The Trump case was not mentioned at the argument. But a decision curtailing the use of the obstruction statute in connection with the Capitol attack could eliminate two of the four charges against the former president.
The case, which on its face involves a January 6 riot defendant named Joseph Fischer, became of sudden importance last year after Trump was also charged with obstruction of an official proceeding over his efforts to stop Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.
At issue is whether the obstruction statute passed under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002 in the wake of the Enron scandal could be used to prosecute general instances of obstruction, or whether it was intended to be used more narrowly for evidence tampering or document destruction.
If the supreme court decides that section 1512(c) of title 18 of the US criminal code was being used too broadly, it could cripple part of the case against Trump as the special counsel Jack Smith looks to draw a line at trial from the former president’s January 6 speech to the violence. And if the court moved to strike down the use of the obstruction statute, it could undercut the remaining conspiracy statutes used in the indictment against Trump.
The US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing for the justice department, found herself repeatedly pressed on those points by the justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas – and John Roberts, the chief justice.
Trump RESCUED By SCOTUS On Jan 6 Charges?
Trump faces contempt motion after social media posts about New York trial
About an hour after day one of Donald Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan closed, the former president published the first of what would be a series of posts on Truth Social about his disdain for the trial, specifically his required attendance. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, filed a motion in papers made public on Tuesday to hold Trump in contempt of court for violating a partial gag order in the case.
Prosecutors said that Trump had already violated his gag order three times, posting about the witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels on social media. They asked the judge to fine Trump $3,000 for the violation. Merchan said he will hold a hearing on the alleged violations on 23 April.
In his posts, Trump blasted Judge Juan Merchan for requiring Trump to attend the trial every day it is in session. The trial, centered on hush-money payments Trump funneled to the adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election, is expected to last at least six weeks. Daniels said she and Trump had a brief affair in 2006.
Attending the trial, Trump said, would mean he will have to miss the high school graduation of his son, Barron Trump. “Who will explain for me, to my wonderful son, Barron, who is a GREAT Student at a fantastic School, that his Dad will likely not be allowed to attend his Graduation Ceremony, something that we have been talking about for years,” Trump wrote on Monday afternoon after court ended for the day. Trump called Merchan a “Conflicted and Corrupt New York State Judge” overseeing “a bogus ‘Biden Case’”.
Trump said that he would also be unable to attend the US supreme court hearing arguments for his presidential immunity claims over the January 6 insurrection.
New Mexico’s rivers are most threatened waterways in US, report finds
New Mexico’s rivers, which include the Rio Grande, Gila, San Juan and Pecos, are America’s most threatened waterways, according to a new report. This is largely due to a 2023 US supreme court decision that left more than 90% of the state’s surface waters without federal protections from industrial pollution, according to state officials.
“Virtually all the rivers in New Mexico are losing clean water protections,” said Matt Rice, the south-west regional director of American Rivers, the conservation group that publishes the annual list. “It has the most to lose, and the threat is particularly acute there.”
New Mexico, New Hampshire and Massachusetts are the only states without permitting power to regulate how much pollution is in their surface water, making them dependent on federal protections from mining activities, wastewater, agricultural runoff and industrial pollution.
The Sackett v Environmental Protection Agency decision issued by the supreme court last May could affect more than half of the nation’s wetlands and up to 4.9m miles of streams, an agency official told CNN. In a landmark ruling, the court found that only “relatively permanent” streams, and wetlands with a “continuous surface connection”, are subject to Clean Water Act protections under the guidance of the EPA. In arid New Mexico, many of the state’s waterways only run during the rainy season or during snowmelt periods.
“This ruling, and lifting protections for half of the country’s wetlands, is a real, immediate threat to everything from the quality of our water, to the price of our water, to whether our communities can thrive and ecosystems can exist,” said Heather Taylor-Miesle, senior vice-president of advocacy and regional conservation for American Rivers. “A lot of places in the country that enjoy Clean Water Act protections have seen the rug pulled out for them, and as a result, we’re going to be dealing with a lot more pollution.”
Interesting article, maybe worth a peek.
‘Water is more valuable than oil’: the corporation cashing in on America’s drought
One of the biggest battles over Colorado River water is being staged in one of the west’s smallest rural enclaves. Tucked into the bends of the lower Colorado River, Cibola, Arizona, is a community of about 200 people. Maybe 300, if you count the weekenders who come to boat and hunt. Dusty shrublands run into sleepy residential streets, which run into neat fields of cotton and alfalfa.
Nearly a decade ago, Greenstone Resource Partners LLC, a private company backed by global investors, bought almost 500 acres of agricultural land here in Cibola. In a first-of-its-kind deal, the company recently sold the water rights tied to the land to the town of Queen Creek, a suburb of Phoenix, for a $14m gross profit. More than 2,000 acre-feet of water from the Colorado River that was once used to irrigate farmland is now flowing, through a canal system, to the taps of homes more than 200 miles away.
A Guardian investigation into the unprecedented water transfer, and how it took shape, reveals that Greenstone strategically purchased land and influence to advance the deal. The company was able to do so by exploiting the arcane water policies governing the Colorado River.
Experts expect that such transfers will become more common as thirsty towns across the west seek increasingly scarce water. The climate crisis and chronic overuse have sapped the Colorado River watershed, leaving cities and farmers alike to contend with shortages. Amid a deepening drought and declines in the river’s reservoirs, Greenstone and firms like it have been discreetly acquiring thousands of acres of farmland.
As US states negotiate how they will divide up the river’s dwindling supplies, officials challenging the Greenstone transfer in court fear it will open the floodgates to many more private water sales, allowing investors to profit from scarcity. The purchases have alarmed local residents, who worry that water speculators scavenging agricultural land for valuable water rights will leave rural communities like Cibola in the dust. ...
In February, a federal judge ruled that the Cibola-Queen Creek transfer was done without proper environmental review, ordering the federal Bureau of Reclamation to complete a more thorough evaluation. The US Department of Justice, which is representing the bureau in the legal proceeding, declined to comment on whether the bureau would be appealing the decision. Meanwhile, Greenstone – which appears to be the first water brokerage firm to sell rights to the Colorado River – could help chart the course of how the resource can be bought and sold in the west.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Patrick Lawrence: Could the Russians Seize Congress?
US Issues Assurances on Assange
Facebook designates Grayzone journalist Kit Klarenberg a ‘dangerous individual’
Glenn Greenwald: House Speaker Mike Johnson Enables Warrantless Spying on Americans
'UNSC failed its duty to maintain international peace:' Iran
Workers Stage Sit-Ins to Demand Google End Israeli Cloud Contract
Ukraine SitRep: The Power Plant War - Ideological Losses - More Signs Of Corruption
Revealed: how companies made $100m clearing California homeless camps
‘A roof over our people’s heads’: the Indigenous US tribe building hempcrete homes
Sudan's Crisis; CIVIL WAR Causes The WORST Refugee Catastrophe In The World
The Failure of the Media - Jimmy Dore, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen
Phil Giraldi: War In An Ocean of Lies
A Little Night Music
Son House - Levee Camp Blues
Son House ~ The Pony Blues
Son House w/Buddy Guy - How to Treat a Man
Son House - Death Letter Blues
Son House ~ Delta Blues
Son House - Preachin' Blues
Son House - Walking Blues
Son House - John the Revelator
Son House - Forever On My Mind
Son House ~ Government Fleet Blues
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Comments
Good evening joe et.al
-
'the illusion of justice' episode # infinity
not sure which is the weaker argument
on the fate of Assange: the United States
Embassy or the British Foreign Office
an embarrassment to both if legally scrutinized
thanks for the EB's
truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security
evening qms...
it looks like the justice department has just given the brits an admission that justice cannot be had in the u.s. courts. i guess we'll see what sort of lapdogs the brits really are soon.
"This is not how a free society operates."
.
Amazing how anyone still believes that there is an inch of difference between the two parties.
Pelosi bitched and bitched about how dangerous a president Trump was and then she voted to give him more power to spy on us. And then there was "we tortured some folks" Obama who did nothing to those who authorized it.
I’m sure that shitlibs will be all over Johnson for getting this passed…. any minute now….
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.
Only until genocide joe signs it.
be well an 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 snoopy...
that caitlin tweet is priceless, thanks!
i'd like to send it to my congressworms, but then they'd just want to shut down twitter, too.
Yeah she’s good with the words
Even though I can tell that daily writing on the horrors of the Gaza genocide are getting to her she still writes something new every day. She puts lots of energy into trying to wake people up to the lies we’re being told. And some of the people who respond to her on Twit shouldn’t be labeled as human.
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.
Caitlin said it all
Don't have the exact quote but something like "if you don't see Gaza is genocide then there is something wrong with you as a human." With Russiagate I kept my mouth shut with people who I knew and worked with for decades who utterly believed all the insane conspiracy theories. No rational discussion was possible. Same with the support of Israel for actions in Gaza and in the West Bank. Israel and its supporters have become a death cult.
evening mr w...
yep, it seems that as regards israel's genocide in gaza there are a lot of people who have lost their humanity in a cloud of delusion. i don't think that it's worthwhile trying to talk to most of them, so i just move along.
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs.
I like the way you led with absurd humor;
as if any assurances from the US would have any sort of non-zero credibility.
Then, following a cascade of assorted craziness and evil an equally absurd sucker punch;
as if Israel has ever done anything the UN told it to do and as if the UN could reasonably expect it to do so now.
finally, or entertainment, that killer picture of Johnson and Pelosi, a work worthy of Marcel Duchamp.
And this is actual reality, we are here living through this shit right this moment. That truly calls for a stiff drink.
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...
heh, i've been working on tomorrow's eb. better save some of that stiffener for tomorrow.![Smile](https://caucus99percent.com/sites/all/modules/smiley/packs/kolobok/smile.gif)
have a good one!
Hey, joe!
Did the barista AOC break the mold? /s.
After dinner, Texmex beef tacos par excellence, I watched the Jimmy Dore interview on the Duran you linked. I know his comedy and his you tube shows can aggravate people due to his spending so much time reading aloud what he puts up on the screen. Those are the typical complaints I hear, at any rate. Nevertheless, he not only held his own with the two participants, highly educated, credentialed, intensely experienced commentators, he educated THEM.
Kudos to Mr. Dore.
Bibi will do something evil, Iran will respond with some further demonstration of their military superiority, and so on, and so forth, and liquor stores are doing booming business.
I will be in transit tomorrow, in boring legal ed class for the afternoon, then Dear One will rescue me, and we will have some fun in Galveston.
Didn't someone sing a song about Galveston?
Thanks, joe. For the hard work that you always do, no matter how strange it might be at your house without that old doggie. I know that hurt.
Hugs.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
i think that a lot of smart (normal) people would run for office if the whole structure wasn't so corrupted by industry and ideologues.
yep, dore did well in the interview, i thought. of course he was singing from a 99% hymnal for the part that i watched and i assume throughout.
i guess we'll probably find out soon what sort of stupid shit bibi is going to do. i have to assume that he's going to move up the escalation ladder a step or two.
it's definitely eerily quiet around here a lot of the time without the dog. especially at meal times.![Sad](https://caucus99percent.com/sites/all/modules/smiley/packs/kolobok/sad.gif)
heh, going to galveston? take glen campbell:
have a good one!
Most sensible people see
how the politics of personal destruction rule the process. The only people who believe that they can run for office are either a) those with absolutely no skeletons in their closet that could be dragged out and aired publicly by the oppo research of their opponents; or b) the ones who are rich enough that they think they can bury the skeletons and buy the silence of those they've wronged.
Given that reality, and since there are essentially none of the former, I'm not at all surprised that we are "governed" by rich sociopaths.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.