The Evening Blues - 4-21-23



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Cub Koda

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues rock guitarist Cub Koda. Enjoy!

Cub Koda and The Houserockers - Riding In The Moonlight

"The challenges that young people are mobilizing against oppressive societies all over the globe are being met with a state-sponsored violence that is about more than police brutality. This is especially clear in the United States, given its transformation from a social state to a warfare state, from a state that once embraced a semblance of the social contract to one that no longer has a language for justice, community and solidarity - a state in which the bonds of fear and commodification have replaced the bonds of civic responsibility and democratic vision."

-- Henry Giroux


News and Opinion

I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that there was no evidence that the murder victim fired a gun as the police claim. This coming on the heels of an autopsy that found that the murder victim died with his hands over his head.

‘Cop City’ activist’s official autopsy reveals more than 50 bullet wounds

Official autopsy results for Manuel Paez Terán, an environmental activist police shot and killed three months ago during a raid in a Georgia public park near the planned site of a police and fire department training center, do little to advance the state’s version of events, including the notion that the activist shot first, wounding an officer.

Paez Terán, or “Tortuguita”, was one of the “forest defenders” camped throughout the public park less than a mile away from the planned center, known as “Cop City”, when dozens of officers entered the South River Forest south-east of Atlanta, Georgia, on 18 January. ...

The state’s narrative since then has been that Paez Terán fired first. The Georgia bureau of investigation (GBI), charged with investigating the killing, has only publicly released evidence to date supporting the idea, including a photo of the firearm allegedly used by the activist, and a purchase record of the gun. The officers who shot Paez Terán were from the Georgia state patrol, who generally do not wear body cameras; the state has said there is no footage of the shooting.

DeKalb county’s autopsy, released to the media through open records requests on Wednesday, offers no support for the notion that Paez Terán fired a weapon, stating that “gunpowder residue is not seen on the hands” or clothes of Paez Terán. Residue on the hands might indicate that a person fired a gun, but neither this analysis nor a test known as the GSR kit is foolproof, according to experts. Patrick Bailey, director of the DeKalb county medical examiner’s office, told the Guardian that the county forwarded evidence to the GBI for them to perform the GSR kit, or gunshot residue test.

Nonetheless, the autopsy report does little to clarify what actually happened that day, except for noting in 19 pages of clinical detail the 57 gunshot wounds that Paez Terán received, employing every letter of the alphabet more than once to label the injuries.

Commondreams has a somewhat different spin on this than The Guardian above:

'Obliterates the Police Narrative': Autopsy Shows Forest Defender Killed by Cops Never Fired Weapon

Progressives expressed disgust Wednesday after DeKalb County released an autopsy showing that cops shot Atlanta forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán 57 times and that there was no gunpowder residue on the victim's hands—debunking the government's claim Terán fired first.

The autopsy, which officials suppressed for three months, finally saw the light of day thanks to a public records request. Its results have prompted accusations of an attempted cover-up by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).

Terán, commonly known as "Tortuguita," was killed during a January 18 raid on an encampment in the Weelaunee Forest. They were part of a collective that occupied the suburban Atlanta forest in a bid to prevent the construction of a $90 million, 85-acre police and fire training facility popularly known as Cop City.

The GBI has alleged that Terán shot and injured a state trooper before multiple officers from a joint task force returned lethal fire. But the autopsy found no gunpowder residue on Terán's hands, in addition to revealing that cops riddled the 26-year-old activist's hands, torso, legs, and head with nearly five dozen bullets.

"Terán did not fire a gun which obliterates the police narrative," human rights lawyer Steven Donziger tweeted. "Evidence Terán was executed is overwhelming."

"Georgia police buried the official autopsy of Terán for months until it was forced into the open today by a public records request," Donziger added. "The GBI—the entity 'investigating'—clearly tried to craft a cover-up of an apparent police murder and failed."

"Now that the cover-up is unraveling, will the public demand accountability?" the Atlanta Solidarity Fund asked on social media. "Will [Georgia State Police] get away with murder?"

In a statement, Tortuguita's mother, Belkis Terán, said, "We are devastated to learn that our child, our sweet Manny, was mercilessly gunned down by police and suffered 57 bullet wounds all over their body."

While the official autopsy report provides additional information, Tortuguita's loved ones continue to demand answers from the GBI, whose probe of the incident is ongoing.

"We cannot even begin to determine what happened on the morning of January 18 until the GBI releases its investigation," said family attorney Brian Spears.

His partner, attorney Jeff Filipovits, concurred: "There is no conceivable reason to continue to delay the release of its investigation. Only then can our clients and the community fully assess what happened in the moments leading up to Manuel's death."

Family members continue to question the GBI's ability to fairly probe the events of January 18 given that the bureau was involved in planning and executing the forest clearance operation that led to Tortuguita's death.

"Manuel was camping on publicly owned land that was not even on the future site of Cop City. Law enforcement went in with weapons and shot pepper balls," said Tortuguita's father, Joel Paez. "They created a violent situation and were ready to kill anyone who resisted. Now they will not even meet with us to explain what happened."

Tortuguita's family continues to urge the GBI to publish the results of its inquiry now, including forensic test findings, all audio and video recordings of the shooting, and interviews with officers involved.

Following the release of Tortuguita's autopsy, Bernice King, daughter of slain civil rights organizer Martin Luther King, Jr. and a longtime Atlanta resident, posed a question about the future of Cop City: "How could this info regarding the police shooting of a protester of the Public Safety Training Center NOT raise more concerns about the center's placement and purpose?"

The Atlanta City Council gave the Atlanta Police Foundation, a private organization, permission to build Cop City in 2021, four years after the Atlanta City Planning Department recommended transforming the Weelaunee Forest—deemed one of four "city lungs"—into a massive urban park.

Several forest defenders were detained and charged with felonies—under a 2017 Georgia law that expanded the definition of "domestic terrorism" to include certain property crimes—during mid-December raids on their encampment.

More forest defenders were arrested on the same charges on January 18, the day police fatally shot Tortuguita—the first or possibly second time that police have killed an environmental activist in modern U.S. history, according to experts.

Additional people are facing prosecution as a result of Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's crackdown on demonstrations held since Tortuguita's killing.

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond announced what they called a "compromise" for Cop City in the wake of Tortuguita's killing, but opposition to the project remains strong among local residents.

"Cop City is something that no one in the community asked for, and survey after survey shows that the majority of Atlanta residents are opposed," Kamau Franklin from Community Movement Builders, one of the organizations fighting against Cop City, said in February. "The mayor continues to run roughshod over the desires of the community."

Days after cops killed Tortuguita, a coalition of more than 1,300 progressive advocacy groups published a letter demanding an independent investigation as well as the resignation of Dickens, a Democrat who they said parroted "the rhetoric of extreme right-wing Gov. Brian Kemp" when he condemned protesters rather than police officers following the shooting.

The groups pointed out that Dickens and the Atlanta City Council have the authority to terminate the land lease for Cop City and implored local policymakers to do so immediately.

The effort to halt the construction of Cop City suffered a major setback last week, however, when "the DeKalb County Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously rejected an appeal of the project's land development permit," Axios reported.

Tech Would Be Fine If We Weren’t Ruled By Monsters

Militarized robots are the anti-guillotine. They’re the final solution to the ancient “there are a lot more of us than there are of our rulers” problem. Everyone with wealth and power has been eyeing their incremental rollout with intense interest while trying to play it cool.

So many emerging technologies would be cause for celebration if our rulers weren’t so damn evil and our systems weren’t so damn oppressive. In a healthy society we’d be celebrating automation and AI giving us more and more abundance and free time; instead we’re terrified of police robots and technocratic dystopia.

The knitting of neurology and technology would have incredible implications if we didn’t know sociopathic intelligence agencies would immediately insert themselves into the use of those technologies. Virtual reality would be awesome if it wasn’t going to be used to create fake worlds for people to purchase fake goods in so that capitalism can continue expanding while we destroy the real world.

Futurists correctly predicted many of the innovations we’re seeing today, but what they generally didn’t predict was that those technologies would be used to give the powerful more power while everyone else continues to flounder and struggle in a profoundly unjust civilization.

All of this is only the case because we are ruled by tyrants and oppressed by tyrannical systems. It is in fact within our ability to change this. ...

The US and its allies don’t want their people to have freedom, they just want the story of having freedom so they can justify attacking “unfree” foreign countries. So they do this tightrope walk trying to erode as many western freedoms as possible while still keeping the story.

There’s this nonstop calculation of “How much freedom can we take away from our people while still saying we’re better than Russia and China?” And lately they’ve been walking right up to the line: imprisoning journalists, prosecuting dissidents, censoring the internet, etc. The desire to take away freedom from the people is so very, very seductive to those in power that they have a hard time walking that line between keeping the story of being free while eroding freedoms. This is why the hypocrisies of the empire are getting more and more obvious.

They pretend that they see things like free speech and democracy as signs of a healthy society, but they don’t. In reality they see them only as weapons of narrative manipulation to be used against their enemies, while giving away as little freedom and democracy as possible. In school we’re taught that our government protects our freedoms because of values that our society holds; in awakening to reality we discover that our government does not value those freedoms at all and sees them solely as propaganda weapons to advance their own interests.

EU folds on grain fight. Stoltenberg visits Kiev, flash in the sky. Absolut vodka ban.

Confusion over cause of flash in sky over Kyiv after Nasa denies involvement

A flash in the sky over the Ukrainian capital prompted confusion and alarm as city authorities said it was caused by a Nasa satellite reentering the atmosphere, while the US space agency denied involvement.

A “bright glow” was observed over Kyiv around 10pm local time, the head of Kyiv’s military administration Sergiy Popko wrote on Telegram.

An air raid alert was activated, Popko said, but “air defence was not in operation”.

Shortly after, the Ukrainian air force said the flash was “related to the fall of a satellite/meteorite”.

But a Nasa spokesperson denied this assessment, telling the AFP news agency that the satellite in question was “still in orbit”.

NATO Members GREENLIGHT Ukraine To Join; PROVOKING Russia Into WWIII?! Lt Col Daniel Davis Analyzes

US Announces $325 Million Arms Package for Ukraine

The Pentagon on Wednesday announced a new $325 million arms package for Ukraine that includes ammunition for the HIMARS rocket systems and anti-tank weapons.

The weapons are being provided to Ukraine through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows President Biden to send arms to Kyiv directly from Pentagon stockpiles.

The funds are being drawn from the $45 billion aid bill Congress passed in December, which is expected to be exhausted by the summer. To date, the US has authorized about $113 billion in spending on the war.

US Indo-Pacific Commander Says US Must Be Prepared to ‘Fight and Win’ a War With China Over Taiwan

Adm. John Aquilino, the commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, told Congress Tuesday that the US must be ready to “fight and win” a war against China over Taiwan.

“I’m responsible [for finding a way] to prevent this conflict today and — if deterrence were to fail — to be able to fight and win,” Aquilino told a House Armed Services Committee hearing.

The comments are the latest example of US military officials speaking openly about the fact that they’re preparing for a war with China. US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth also said recently that the US must be ready to beat China in a war in the Asia Pacific by beefing up its military presence in the region.

Brazil’s President Tells World To ABANDON U.S. Dollar!

MEPs condemn Suella Braverman over arrest of French publisher

Suella Braverman has been condemned by a group of MEPs over the arrest in London of a French publisher who was interrogated by counter-terrorist police about his political views and “anti-government” contacts.

Twelve MEPs wrote to the home secretary to express their outrage at the “scandalous treatment” of Ernest Moret, who was detained for almost 24 hours and whose iPhone and laptop remain in the hands of the British police.

The European politicians accused the British government of infringing basic human rights and abusing anti-terrorism laws. The French government is also being urged by French MPs to explain its role in the arrest of Moret in London on Tuesday.

Moret, 28, a rights manager at the radical publisher Éditions la Fabrique, had travelled to London for a book fair. He was quizzed by police about participation in a recent protest in France and asked if he supported Emmanuel Macron, in what his lawyer, Richard Parry, condemned as an “abuse of power”.

In their letter to Braverman, the MEPs – including politicians from France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Spain – accused the British government of complicity in the French government’s crackdown on protest. They wrote: “The police officers claimed that Ernest had participated in demonstrations in France as justification for this act – a quite remarkably inappropriate statement for a British police officer to make and which seems to clearly indicate complicity between French and British authorities on this matter.”

Israel: self-proclaimed ‘racist’ politician nominated as New York consul general

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has nominated a far-right politician who once boasted that she is “proud to be a racist” as his country’s top diplomat in New York. The appointment of May Golan was swiftly denounced by Israeli and American former diplomats, and the head of the largest Jewish denomination in the US, as an affront to the US and damaging for Israel.

A group of former Israeli ambassadors said they were “shocked” by the move. “Golan’s appointment is outrageous as she is a racist and divisive figure, which is the exact opposite from what Israel needs in such a critical place,” they said.

Golan, who is a member of the Israeli parliament for Netanyahu’s Likud party and a minister without portfolio in the current government, is a supporter of the ultranationalist faction in the ruling coalition that is attempting to curb the power of Israel’s courts in what has been described as a “judicial coup”.

She will take over from Asaf Zamir, who resigned last month after telling a meeting of American Jewish donors that he was “deeply concerned about the direction [Israel] is going in right now”.

Golan made a political name for herself by denouncing African refugees in Israel, calling them “Muslim infiltrators”, criminals and rapists. She said many have Aids, suggested they were spreading HIV by working as waiters, and demanded they be expelled from the country.

Dems DEMAND Chief Justice John Roberts Testify On Clarence Thomas' Undisclosed Trips

Judicial record undermines Clarence Thomas defence in luxury gifts scandal

Earlier this month, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas put out a statement in which he addressed the storm of criticism that has engulfed him following the blockbuster ProPublica report that revealed his failure to disclose lavish gifts of luxury vacations and private-jet travel from a Texan real estate magnate.

Thomas confirmed that the Dallas billionaire and Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow and his wife Kathy were “among our dearest friends”. Thomas admitted, too, that he and his wife Ginni had “joined them on a number of family trips during the more-than-a-quarter-century we have known them”. ... He emphasized that the friend in question “did not have business before the court”.

But a close look at Thomas’s judicial activities from the time he became friends with Crow, in the mid-1990s, suggests that the statement might fall short of the full picture. It reveals that a conservative organization affiliated with Crow did have business before the supreme court while Thomas was on the bench. In addition, Crow has been connected to several groups that over the years have lobbied the supreme court through so-called “amicus briefs” that provide legal arguments supporting a plaintiff or defendant. ...

Crow has never personally come before the supreme court, and denies ever trying to influence Thomas on any legal or political issue. But he has served on the boards of at least three conservative groups that have lobbied the supreme court through amicus briefs. Early in his friendship with Thomas, Crow sat on the national board of the now defunct Center for the Community Interest, which filed at least eight amicus briefs in supreme court cases backing rightwing causes such as sweeping crime off the streets and countering pornography.

He has also been a trustee for more than 25 years of the American Enterprise Institute, a thinktank advancing free enterprise ideas that has filed several supporting briefs to the court. In 2001 AEI gave Thomas a bust of Abraham Lincoln then valued at $15,000. Crow is an overseer of the Hoover Institution, a conservative thinktank based at Stanford University. In February, Hoover senior fellows led an amicus brief filed to Thomas and his fellow justices challenging the $400bn student loan debt-relief program introduced by Joe Biden.

Ex-CIA Mike Morell reveals, Blinken behind 'Intel officials Russia disinfo' letter

Book bans in US public schools increase by 28% in six months

Book bans in US public schools increased by 28% in the first half of the 2022-23 academic year, the writers’ organisation Pen America said on Thursday, describing a “relentless” conservative “crusade to constrict children’s freedom to read”.

Releasing a new report, Banned in the USA: State Laws Supercharge Book Suppression in Schools, Pen said the increase was over figures for the previous six months.

“Censorious legislation in states across the country has been a driving force behind new restrictions on access to books in public schools,” it said. “Since Pen America started tracking public school book bans in July 2021, [it] has recorded more than 4,000 instances of banned books … this includes 1,477 individual book bans affecting 874 unique titles during the first half of the 2022-23 school year.”

Book bans are more common in Republican-run states. According to Pen, “seven districts in Texas were responsible for 438 instances of individual book bans, and 13 districts in Florida were responsible for 357 bans”. It added: “Of the 1,477 books banned this school year, 30% are about race, racism or include characters of colour, while 26% have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.”

Pen also highlighted “the misapplication of labels such as ‘pornographic’ or ‘indecent’ by activists and politicians to justify the removal of books that do not remotely fit the well-established legal and colloquial definitions of pornography.

California police department under audit after officers’ racist texts are discovered

Amid outrage over text messages showing police officers in northern California using racist slurs and bragging about making up evidence and beating suspects, city officials voted to audit the troubled department.

The FBI and the Contra Costa district attorney’s office discovered the shocking messages while investigating officers within the Antioch police department suspected of crimes. Officials have named 17 officers who sent texts, including the president of the Antioch police union, but nearly half the department was included in the messages.

At a crowded Tuesday meeting at the city hall, where local media reports almost 70 people spoke, the Antioch city council voted unanimously to conduct audits of the department’s internal affairs unit as well as its hiring and promotional practices and department culture.

The text scandal has rocked the city of 115,000 residents about 45 miles (72km) east of San Francisco, which the mayor, Lamar Thorpe, said was once predominantly white but has diversified in the last 30 years. The city has seen multiple protests since the news broke, including from families of victims of police violence who were mentioned in the texts.

“The officers’ texts about my baby made me feel like he died all over again,” Kathryn Wade told the East Bay Times, which first reported on the texts. “The boasting and bragging about what you did to people is so heartbreaking. The threats you make on this community, Black and brown [residents], something needs to be done.” The police chief, Steve Ford, issued a statement last week apologizing and condemning “in the strongest possible terms – the racially abhorrent content and incomprehensible behavior being attributed to members of the Antioch police department in media reports.



the horse race



Biden may announce 2024 presidential campaign next week – report

The US president Joe Biden and his team may announce his re-election campaign by video next week, according to a source familiar with the matter on Thursday.

An announcement on Tuesday by Biden, 80, would coincide with the anniversary of his 2020 campaign launch four years earlier, the source said, asking not to be identified.

Biden aides have ramped up planning for the long-expected launch of the president’s bid for a second, four-year term in 2024. Last week, Biden said he would launch his campaign “relatively soon”.

Trump Wants To Use Ukraine Money To Solve Homelessness

RFK Jr. Launches Presidential Bid, Vows to Unwind the US Empire

On Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched his presidential bid to challenge President Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary and vowed to begin “unwinding” the American Empire.

In a speech announcing his run, Kennedy questioned President Biden’s motives in Ukraine and said it appeared the administration wanted to prolong the war. He said Ukraine was being treated as a “pawn” between two great powers. ...

Kennedy’s campaign website details his foreign policy vision. “As President, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will start the process of unwinding empire. We will bring the troops home. We will stop racking up unpayable debt to fight one war after another,” the website says.

“The military will return to its proper role of defending the homeland. We will end the proxy wars, bombing campaigns, covert operations, coups, paramilitaries, and everything else that has become so normal most people don’t know it’s happening. But it is happening, a constant drain on our strength,” it says.

Political Independents SURGE To ALL TIME HIGH



the evening greens


Germany plans to ban installation of most oil and gas heating from 2024

Germany plans to ban the installation of most oil and gas heating systems from next year, with proposals approved on Wednesday triggering angry divisions in the cabinet.

The radical plans are designed to transform Germany’s heating systems in an attempt to meet net zero emission targets that critics have called unworkable and discriminatory. About half of Germany’s 41m households currently use natural gas heating, and almost a quarter use heating oil.

Championed by the economics minister, Robert Habeck of the Greens, the bill is due to come to parliament in June. But the pro-business FDP has lashed out, calling it the equivalent of an “atomic bomb” for Germany and expressing concerns about its effect on the economy, the burden it will put on poorer households and the technical practicalities of implementing it.

The FDP’s leader, Christian Lindner, who is also the finance minister, indicated in a protocol note sent to his cabinet colleagues that he was prepared to support the bill only if changes were made. He said he feared the budget needed to carry out the task would in effect blow up Germany’s tight debt control mechanisms. The party’s general secretary, Bijan Djir-Sarai, said the proposal was not practical and would have to be changed.

The opposition CDU, which has said it would oppose the bill, has called it a “crowbar reform”, and Jens Spahn, the vice-parliamentary group leader, said his party would “do everything possible to ensure this law doesn’t happen in this form”.

Extinction Rebellion's Roger Hallam: It's not the climate, it's the system

Nearly 1 in 5 Americans Live in Communities With Harmful Air Quality

Roughly one in five Americans lives in counties that have high, unhealthy daily levels of pollution from manufacturing soot, vehicle exhaust and other fine particles, according to a new report from the American Lung Association.

The findings, part of the lung association’s annual “State of the Air” report, also indicated that more people are residing in such high-pollution areas nationwide than at any other time in the past decade. The report, which the lung association calls a “national report card on air quality,” is based on data compiled from electronic air quality monitors across the country.

The report also found that people of color disproportionately reside in communities with harmful air. About 64 million people of color live in areas that have received at least one failing grade from environmentalists for ozone or fine particle pollution, the report found.

The lung association’s review also found that more people are being exposed to high levels of fine particle pollution for longer periods, especially in the Western United States. Among the 25 American cities that have the unhealthiest air, the average number of days that residents were exposed to high levels of particle pollution increased to about 18 days from about 16 days since last year’s report. All but two of the 25 worst cities for daily particle pollution were located in the Western U.S.


Also of Interest

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

After the Ukraine Documents Leak, Mainstream Media Is Missing the Story

Chinese Diplomacy Seen as Threat to US ‘Peace,’ ‘Stability’

Russia And NATO Agree - The War In Ukraine Will Continue

Russia Accuses Ukraine of Sabotaging Grain Deal With Bribery Scheme

Vzglyad – “It’s Time for Russia to Change Its Position in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”

Is Labour Purging the Left? Inside the Party’s Embattled Selection Process

The Leonard Leo Presidential Primary

Russia’s Flagship Crude Sees Near-Record April Loadings

They cleaned up BP’s massive oil spill. Now they’re sick – and want justice

Me and the devil: Mississippi’s legendary blues festival – in pictures

Dominic Raab quits as UK deputy PM over bullying inquiry

This Is How They’re Going To CONTROL You!

Disinformation Watchdog Group HIDES Its Donor List!

McCarthy SCRAMBLES To Find Votes For $1.5T Debt Ceiling Bill As DEFAULT Looms


A Little Night Music

Brownsville Station - The Martian Boogie

Cub Koda - Random Drug Testing

Cub Koda and The Houserockers - Somebody changed the lock

Cub Koda and The Houserockers - Let's Get Funky

Cub Koda - Who Do You Love?

Cub Koda - Cadillac Jack

Cub Koda & The Houserockers ~ Anna Lee

Cub Koda - Courtin' In A Cadillac

Cub Koda and The Houserockers - Tough Times

Brownsville Station - Combination Boogie

Brownsville Station - Barefootin'


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Comments

dystopian's picture

Hi all, Hey Joe,

Apologies if I am being redundant... I saw Brownsville Station about '74 when Smokin' in Boys Room was a hit, they opened at a 3 act show. They blew me away. They were awesome. Cub was amazing. He was a great guitar player. And musicologist on top of it all. Will get back to listen to more later, gotta work, not sure on the shatshow that is our news. Smile

I did not have NATO goes NAZI on my bingo card, you?

Thanks for the great soundscape! Have a great weekend! I look forward to the albums posted on Saturday. The last month or so near half have been straight outta my collection. LOL Loved that first 'Savoy' Foghat album. Thanks again for all your efforts to keep us sonically sedated!

Hope everyone has good ones!

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10 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

joe shikspack's picture

@dystopian

i liked brownsville station back in the day and got a bunch of their albums, but lost track of cub koda after they disappeared from the airwaves. i'm glad to find that he did a bunch of good stuff after brownsville.

I did not have NATO goes NAZI on my bingo card, you?

i have been wondering what nato would evolve into since they joined the gwot with bush and now have been making noises about following the u.s. out of africa and into asia. i've kind of thought of nato as being a way for the u.s. to claim that they have international support for their imperialist acts with nato also assisting with the cost of operations by its participation.

along with some great blues stuff, i'll probably post some more foghat stuff over a period of time, i have a lot of their albums to clean up and post.

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6 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

We're About To Invade Sudan

On the 15th of April, 2023, extraordinary violence broke out across Sudan, seemingly out of nowhere. The “Rapid Support Forces” - a parallel Sudanese branch of the official military, basically your stereotypical African militia, armed mostly with anti-aircraft guns bolted onto Toyota pickups - launched a massive surprise attack against the Sudanese Defense Force, attacking the airport, Port Sudan, and Sudanese military forces (and civilians) across heavily populated areas in Khartoum. Almost a week later, after an incredibly pithy show of diplomacy by Blinken, diplomats have been shot at, beaten, and sexually assaulted, and the violence shows no signs of abating; Japan, France, and the US are mobilizing, ostensibly to rescue thousands of our citizens trapped in the crossfire, neighboring countries are getting involved, and the battle lines are being drawn. A new kinetic front of WW3 has been opened, and unfortunately for the people of Khartoum, it’s been opened right in their front yards.

I don’t know anything about this area of the world, but it seems like we are very against Russia building a base there and so we are doing our usual color revolution and as usual it’s the people there who are paying the price. He includes a map of the area to explain how important this area is to us and tells who the players are and for which side they play for. Worth a read. It’s supposed to be paywalled so if interested don’t wait to read it. Anyone knowledgeable enough about the area to tell how accurate it is?

from a state that once embraced a semblance of the social contract to one that no longer has a language for justice …..

Boy that’s a great quote to use before the news of how cops once again murdered an unarmed person and then lied about it. Cops in Utah killed a man and then said that they found a gun. Nothing about him pointing or using the gun before they shot him. They have already been cleared of any wrongdoing. It happened just a few days ago. Now we have citizens killing people before they commit any crime or actually threatened anyone.

Did Bibi just give Biden the finger with his nomination? I’m betting he’s still pissed at how Biden has been treating him… Smile

The leader of the free world?

The Republican nominee should just play videos like this over and over and ask people if they think that Biden is actually running the country now and if not don’t they think it’s time for a president that can…

Good roundup tonight. Thanks and have a great weekend. We might see the sun again next week…

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6 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

heh. the state department neocons and the cia are like termites. their infestations keep showing up all over the place ripping apart the fabric of countries all over the globe. so now they show up in sudan. surprise! (not)

heh, i think bibi is giving everybody the finger everywhere. he and his crew of deranged theocrat lunatics are going to do whatever they damned well please and anybody who points out their bad behavior is an antisemite who must be ignored.

now where did i put that executive order? and scene!

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7 users have voted.

about Michael Morell testifying that Antony Blinken told him to write the letter claiming the Hunter Biden laptop report was Russian disinformation, is vital to hear. With articles further exposing this travesty, it feels like there is no way the Democratic Party, and its bonding with the intelligence "community," can escape responsibility.

Unfortunately, now all they can do is say they were playing hardball. They can't say they weren't lying. We know the laptop contents are legit. They're not disinformation. They're not Russian disinformation. The Biden campaign lied to the public in order to win the election.

And their only defense for that has to be that Trump is so terrible that any crime is forgivable if it prevents Trump from being president.

I can't see what else they can say.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O8WPrMqIeOM

https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/new-testimony-reveals-s...

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11 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@Linda Wood

it will be interesting to see if anybody challenges the individuals that signed the document who have destroyed any shred of credibility that the intelligence community might have going forward. (not that they had a lot before this.)

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5 users have voted.

rings clear. Good music too! Heard of Brownsville Station, but Cub Cuda is a new
introduction.

thanks man

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7 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

giroux has been pretty spot on about a lot of things for quite a while. i haven't run across any of his articles recently, but in the past they were always pretty good.

have a great weekend!

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

good to see that some of the last vestiges of actual journalism have some fight in them.

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The images are clickable.

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snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

Ukraine has used the last 8 years to build defenses against the Russian invasion they knew was coming because Ukraine kept killing civilians. No more plain dirt trenches but reinforced with concrete and metal. But they don’t look very optimistic….

C38D549E-8D26-4981-B6C5-942C9CE2A326.jpeg

I posted a twitter thread on 12 or more cemeteries in Ukraine like seen on the right that were fresh graves and this picture was taken this week. I find this absolutely disgusting that Ukraine keeps throwing men away while knowing that they can’t win against Russia’s firepower!

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg

US/EU/NATO are not on the side of Ukrainian lives.
Exlensky and the lot need to pay for the devastation
they are allowing for their protectorate.
Apparently all those big bucks war provides does
nothing to increase their humanitarian bafflement.

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attempt to shape reality.

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

the paranoid lunatics strike again.

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enhydra lutris's picture

I did have "Tortuguita fired no weapon" on my Bingo Card but not "UFO over Kiev". Good to see that 49% identify as independent, but my Bingo Card still says that the uniparty will prevail all the same.

Good to hear Lula attack the almighty dollah and support BRICS, hope he stays alive long enough to make a difference.

I want to thank you for covering the role that all my aquatic cousins play in the war against global warming yesterday, forgot to mention it at the time.

Have yourself a great weekend. Be well and have a good one

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8 users have voted.

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 --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

yep, the tortuguita fired no weapon was on my bingo card, too. i was wondering if it will ever come out if he was a random choice of victims of the death squad or if they did prior research.

ufo's make great distractions, we probably ought to put a couple on our bingo cards in the future.

like you, i have been wondering if lula is going to make it through his term. i certainly hope so for the sake of the world and perhaps he's gambling that if the u.s. should choose to martyr him, his legacy will be enormous as the rest of the world does not seem to be in a mood to be cowed by cia thugs.

thank your cousins for me. Smile

have a great weekend!

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Pluto's Republic's picture

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic

care to show your dirty laundry too?
We all know Hunter is a drug swaddled
whoring crack head, but he is the son of
the presnit so .. protected.
Blinky won't shoulder the blame.

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@Pluto's Republic

that Morell never said Blinken told him to write the letter. But they can't deny that Morell said that Blinken's campaign colleagues thanked him for sending it and told him where to place it in the media, and they can't deny that Biden used it in the debate.

This member of Congress makes a good point:

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/sattwo-key-repub...

... Biggs, a member of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees that are currently probing the Biden family influence peddling allegations, said the revelation that Blinken allegedly was willing to accuse a nuclear superpower, Russia, of interfering in the U.S. election without evidence just to create a presidential debate talking point for Joe Biden made it impossible for him to deal credibly with foreign countries as America's chief diplomat.

"Let's talk about our allies who now don't trust us at all," he said. "And why would they? They think we're weak, untrustworthy. How in the world can he remain our spokesperson to the world? ... I just don't see how he can, and he should go. I think he's irreparably harmed the United States."

Even if Blinken skates on the possibility that he didn't actually order Morell to write the letter, the former high level "intelligence" "community" big shots who signed it, for whoever urged them to do it, are guilty of doing what the Congressman pointed out. They publicly accused a foreign government of doing something they knew that government had not done. And Congressman Biggs is right. It makes our government look like what it is, a gang of liars, a gang of thugs, a group of people who have no concern for the United States, and who targeted this lie to disenfranchise American voters.

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