The Evening Blues - 5-2-17
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago bluesman Homesick James. Enjoy!
Homesick James & Snooky Pryor - Drivin' Dog
“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution”
-- Aldous Huxley
News and Opinion
Greenwald is on fire today. Truly worth a full read.
Trump’s Support and Praise of Despots is Central to the U.S. Tradition, Not a Deviation From it
Since at least the end of World War II, supporting the world’s worst despots has been a central plank of U.S. foreign policy, arguably its defining attribute. The list of U.S.-supported tyrants is too long to count, but the strategic rationale has been consistent: in a world where anti-American sentiment is prevalent, democracy often produces leaders who impede rather than serve U.S. interests. Imposing or propping up dictators subservient to the U.S. has long been, and continues to be, the preferred means for U.S. policy makers to ensure that those inconvenient popular beliefs are suppressed. None of this is remotely controversial or even debatable. U.S. support for tyrants has largely been conducted out in the open, and has been expressly defended and affirmed for decades by the most mainstream and influential U.S. policy experts and media outlets.
[See article for a detailed condensed history of the US relationship with dictators since WWII. - js]
All of this history is now being erased and whitewashed, replaced with jingoistic fairy tales, by the U.S. media and leading political officials. Despite these decades of flagrant pro-dictatorship policies, the U.S. media and leading political officials have spent months manufacturing and disseminating a propagandistic fairy tale that casts Donald Trump’s embrace of dictators as some sort of new, aberrational departure from the noble American tradition. They have repeatedly claimed that the pre-Trump U.S. was devoted to supporting and spreading democracy around the world, while condemning and opposing tyranny. This is rank revisionism of the worst kind: jingoistic propaganda that should shame anyone endorsing it.
Like U.S. support for dictators, these recent bouts of propaganda are too numerous to comprehensively chronicle. ... Perhaps the worst example yet came yesterday in a Washington Post article by its White House Bureau Chief Philip Rucker, who made this claim: “Every American president since at least the 1970s has used his office to champion human rights and democratic values around the world.” He added: “In an undeniable shift in American foreign policy, Trump is cultivating authoritarian leaders.” ... What's really going on here is self-evident. Nobody remotely rational, nobody with even a fleeting understanding of U.S. history, believes that the U.S. only began supporting and heaping praise on dictators upon Trump’s inauguration. Responding to criticisms, the Post yesterday edited Rucker’s patriotic tribute to the U.S. by adding the italicized words: “Every American president since at least the 1970s has used his office at least occasionally to champion human rights and democratic values around the world.” But that claim is still false. Can anyone possibly believe that – even when U.S. leaders paid lip service to human rights improvements – there was anything remotely genuine about it?
What’s really infuriating those attacking Trump for doing what the U.S. government has been doing for decades – supporting and praising heinous tyrants – is that he’s denying them the ability to maintain the myths they desperately tell themselves about their own country. Being able to claim that the U.S. is devoted to spreading freedom and democracy in the world is central to their internal monologue. From the Washington Post newsroom to the corridors of the State Department, this is the fairy tale that they tell themselves every day in order to justify their position as global arbiters of the behavior of other countries. Once that veneer is removed, once that fairy tale is dispensed with, then the harsh reality stands nakedly exposed: what they are defending is nothing more than the illegitimate and arbitrary exercise of imperial power.
America Is Dropping So Many Bombs That We're Literally Running Out
As military news site Defense One reports, America is running short on the GPS-guided Small Diameter Bombs made by Boeing, newer models made by Raytheon, and even air-to-air missiles. Many of the existing stockpiles of bombs held by the US military are being diverted from the Pacific region to the Middle East and Africa, where the need is reportedly most urgent. ...
Since the beginning of Operation Inherent Resolve in August of 2014, the US has spent over $11.9 billion on military operations against ISIS. That includes over 19,607 strikes in Iraq and Syria alone, at a cost of roughly $12.8 million per day. And that doesn’t even count airstrikes in places like Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen.
That’s a fuck-ton of bombing. And someone has to supply those bombs so we can keep constantly bombing the shit out of those countries. But the US military is dropping them quicker than they can be restocked.
Trump appointee calls Syria bombing “after-dinner entertainment”
The Trump administration’s idea of dinner and a show apparently includes a missile launch — on Monday, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross called last month’s strike on Syria “after-dinner entertainment.”
While speaking at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in California, Ross described how a Mar-a-Lago dinner between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping ended with an unexpected announcement. “Just as dessert was being served, the president explained to Mr. Xi he had something he wanted to tell him, which was the launching of 59 missiles into Syria,” Ross said, according to Variety. “It was in lieu of after-dinner entertainment.”
“The thing was, it didn’t cost the president anything to have that entertainment,” he added, apparently forgetting that each Tomahawk missile used in the strike reportedly costs about $1 million each to replace, and that Syrian officials said that the strike claimed up to 15 lives.
More entertainment coming?
Thaad missile system is operational in South Korea
The U.S. switched on a controversial missile defense system in South Korea Tuesday, just hours after it flew a pair of strategic bombers over the region — a move described by North Korea as “reckless” and pushing the area “closer to nuclear war.”
Pyongyang is said to have viewed the incident – which saw two supersonic B-1B Lancer bombers fly from Guam to take part in military exercises with the South Korean and Japanese air forces – as “a nuclear bomb dropping drill” at a time when Donald Trump and “other U.S. warmongers are crying out for making a preemptive nuclear strike” on the North.
“The reckless military provocation is pushing the situation on the Korean peninsula closer to the brink of nuclear war,” the state-run KCNA news agency reported.
North Korea launches salvo of rhetoric, threatening nuclear test 'at any time'
North Korea has vowed to accelerate its nuclear weapons programme to “maximum pace” and test a nuclear device “at any time” in response to Donald Trump’s aggressive stance towards the regime.
The warning came as US military officials said a controversial missile defence system was now “operational” after being installed at a site in South Korea last week. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defence system – or Thaad – is designed to locate and intercept North Korean missiles in mid-flight, but its deployment has been met with opposition by China and confusion over who should foot the billion-dollar bill.
US Forces Korea said Thaad was “operational and has the ability to intercept North Korean missiles and defend [South Korea]”. But a US defence official told AFP the system had only “reached initial intercept capability” and more hardware would be added later this year to make it fully functional.
North Korea vowed to continue its nuclear tests in the face of what it called US “aggression and hysteria” – a reference to joint US-South Korean military drills that the North said were taking the peninsula “to the brink of nuclear war”.
Trump Says He’d Meet With Kim Jong Un Under Right Circumstances
U.S. President Donald Trump said he would meet with Kim Jong Un amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program if the circumstances were right.
“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump said Monday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”
The U.S. has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, and as recently as last week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. would negotiate with Kim’s regime only if it made credible steps toward giving up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. ...
Asked later about Trump’s comments, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that “clearly conditions are not there right now” for a meeting. He said “we’ve got to see their provocative behavior ratcheted down.”
Ukraine opens criminal probe against 94-year-old Jewish WWII hero
Ukrainian authorities have decided to open a criminal investigation into a 94-year-old Jewish WWII hero who is being accused of killing a Nazi collaborator. Col. Boris Steckler was warned that he is expected to stand trial for killing a Ukrainian nationalist in 1952.
Steckler was a senior officer in the Soviet Army and after the war was appointed as an officer in the KGB and was responsible for capturing Nazis and collaborators in western Ukraine. During a battle in the Rivne Oblast in western Ukraine, Steckler was involved in a confrontation with nationalists who cooperated with the Nazis. During the confrontation, a man by the name of Neil Hasiewicz, who was a propagandist and district judge during the war, was shot and killed.
Local nationalist groups recently filed a complaint against Steckler, accusing him of responsibility for the assassination of Hasiewicz—a fact that Steckler does not deny.
Meeting with Trump comes at time of crisis for Palestine leader
Expectations have been set low for meetings between US presidents and Palestinian leaders for many years now, but never as low as the hopes for Donald Trump’s first meeting with Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, Middle East observers argue. The Palestinian president will arrive at the White House facing a crisis of legitimacy among Palestinians, and new challenges to his leadership. He will meet the most vociferously pro-Israeli president in recent decades who has surrounded himself with Middle East advisers – foremost his son-in-law, Jared Kushner – with deep links to the Israeli settler movement.
Trump has claimed Kushner will be able to “broker a Middle East peace deal” where a succession of American statesmen have failed. But Dennis Ross, a US negotiator on the Middle East in three previous US administrations said there has seldom if ever been less hope of a grand bargain.
“There is no big deal – whether you call it the ultimate deal or the big deal,” Ross, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I have been working on this issue for 30 years and I can safely say we are at a low ebb between Israelis and Palestinians, not in terms of violence ... but a low ebb in terms of complete disbelief on both sides.”
“The combination of the psychological gaps, the practical gaps on the issues and the political gaps make it impossible to go from where we are to producing the ultimate deal,” Ross said.
French presidential elections: The final countdown
Greece reaches deal with creditors to pave way for bailout talks
Greece has reached a preliminary deal with its creditors that should pave the way for long-awaited debt relief talks, the Greek finance minister Euclid Tsakalotos said on Tuesday. ...
Tsakalotos added he was “certain” that the agreement would enable Greece to secure debt relief measures from its creditors, which he has said is vital to spearhead recovery in the country’s struggling economy.
A compromise is required to unblock a tranche of loans Greece needs for debt repayments of €7bn ($7.6bn) in July.
Under pressure from its creditors – the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund – the government agreed earlier this month to adopt another €3.6bn ($3.8bn) in cuts in 2019 and 2020.
Athens conceded fresh pension and tax break cuts in return for permission to spend an equivalent sum on poverty relief measures.
A government source on Tuesday said pensions are to be cut by 9% on average, ANA said.
Is North Carolina Still a Democracy?
NYPD Refuses to Disclose Information About Its Face Recognition Program, So Privacy Researchers Are Suing
Researchers at Georgetown University law school filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the New York City Police Department today for the agency’s refusal to disclose documents about its longstanding use of face recognition technology. The NYPD’s face recognition system, which has operated in the department’s Real Time Crime Center since at least 2011, allows officers to identify a suspect by searching against databases of stored facial photos.
Records pertaining to the NYPD’s program were requested in January 2016 by researchers at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology as part of The Perpetual Line-Up, a year-long study on law enforcement uses of facial recognition technology. After receiving public records from more than 90 agencies across the country, the study found that one in every two American adults is enrolled in a criminal face recognition network and that “few agencies have instituted meaningful protections to prevent the misuse of the technology.”
Despite the fact that numerous agencies disclosed similar information about policies, procedures, training, audits, contracts, and agreements relating to their use of facial recognition technology, the NYPD determined in January 2017 that it was unable to find any records responsive to the Center’s detailed records requests.
Instead, the NYPD sent the researchers a single memo outlining how officers should use the results of a facial recognition search, which confirms that the department has a specific unit, staffed with analysts, actively conducting facial recognition searches. The department also acknowledged that it located records relating to the purchase of facial recognition technology, but it denied access to those records in their entirety, according to the lawsuit filed today.
We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership
It’s official: John Deere and General Motors want to eviscerate the notion of ownership. Sure, we pay for their vehicles. But we don’t own them. Not according to their corporate lawyers, anyway.
In a particularly spectacular display of corporate delusion, John Deere—the world’s largest agricultural machinery maker —told the Copyright Office that farmers don’t own their tractors. Because computer code snakes through the DNA of modern tractors, farmers receive “an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.”
It’s John Deere’s tractor, folks. You’re just driving it.
Several manufacturers recently submitted similar comments to the Copyright Office under an inquiry into the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. DMCA is a vast 1998 copyright law that (among other things) governs the blurry line between software and hardware. The Copyright Office, after reading the comments and holding a hearing, will decide in July which high-tech devices we can modify, hack, and repair—and decide whether John Deere’s twisted vision of ownership will become a reality.
Police shooting of Texas teen in moving car violated federal guidance
When a Dallas-area police officer fired shots into a moving car on Saturday night, killing 15-year-old Jordan Edwards, the officer did so in direct violation of federal guidance and widespread police department best practices. According to the officer’s police chief, he did so in violation of the department’s “core values” as well. ...
Jordan was in the passenger seat of a car authorities initially said was being driven backwards in an “aggressive manner” when a Balch Springs, Texas, officer opened fire. On Monday, police chief Jonathan Haber changed the official account, citing body camera footage that showed the vehicle was driving away when the officer fired his rifle at Edwards. Officers were responding to reports of “drunken teenagers” and heard gunshots when they arrived on the scene. Lee Merritt, an attorney representing Jordan’s family, said the teens in the car were not the ones police had been called about. He said Edwards and the teens he was traveling with were trying to leave a party, concerned that it might be getting violent, when police fired at their car.
The officer, who has not been identified, has been placed on routine administrative leave.
Alabama Rep Says Pre-Existing Conditions Are Your Fault
As House Republicans scramble to amass support for the latest incarnation of their cruel repeal-and-replace legislation, one GOP representative laid bare the heartless way in which conservatives see the debate over pre-existing conditions and affordable coverage.
The Republican healthcare bill, also known as Trumpcare, "will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher healthcare costs to contribute more to the insurance pool that helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they're healthy, they've done the things to keep their bodies healthy," Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday.
"And right now, those are the people who have done things the right way that are seeing their costs skyrocketing," Brooks said.
Think Trump is an authoritarian? Look at his actions, not his words
[The] narrative of Trump the authoritarian is popular among journalists like Vox’s Ezra Klein and academics like Yale historian Timothy Snyder. It’s the background mood music of a lot of liberal commentary in the US. But it depends on paying almost exclusive attention to what Trump says rather than what he does. If Trump were actually serious about consolidating his power, he might start by, oh, I don’t know, consolidating his power. ... Trump has failed to fill 85% of the positions in the executive branch that he needs to fill in order to run the government to his specifications. It’s a strange kind of authoritarian who fails, as the first order of business, to seize control of the state apparatus: not because there’s been pushback from the Senate but because, in most instances, he hasn’t even tried.
Ah, but Trump’s liberal and left critics will respond, that failure to fill key positions is all part of the White House’s master plan [of dismantling the administrative state]. ... What better way to do that than simply not staffing the agencies that are tasked with enforcing those rules and regulations? There are two problems with this theory. First, Trump has failed to fill positions in departments and agencies he actually wishes to empower and expand. He’s only filled one out of 53 positions in the Pentagon, two out of 14 in the Department of Homeland Security, one out of 7 positions in the intelligence agencies, one of out 28 positions in the Treasury Department, and almost none of the key positions in the Justice Department having to do with terrorism, drug crime prosecution, and the like. Second, many of those positions are not empty. Until Trump appoints someone to fill them, they will remain mostly occupied by holdovers from the Obama Administration – who will continue to enforce the thousands of rules and regulations Obama passed and Trump hates. ...
Trump, whose party is in control of all the elected branches of the federal government, has lost virtually every legislative battle he’s waged, and backed down from virtually every bluff he’s made. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was rebuffed by the judiciary, he tried to overhaul the Supreme Court with his infamous Court-packing scheme. Now that was an assertion of executive power. In the face of judges frustrating his agenda, all Trump managed was to emit a plaintive tweet promising to appeal their ruling: “I’ll see you in court.” Even that, Trump couldn’t be bothered, in the end, to do. Instead, he withdrew his appeal, revised his travel ban, and found his ban back in court. Where it remains.
When it comes to advancing the singular potency of the presidency – whether that means controlling public opinion, consolidating the power of the executive branch, or dominating Congress – Trump has been an abject failure. Whatever fantasies he (or the media or his critics) may have about the presidency abound, the last 100 days have shown that Trump has no realistic agenda for, or steady interest in, consolidating power.
DNC Shatters The Illusion Of American Democracy In Order To Keep People’s 27 Bucks
Well that didn’t take much. After all the time and effort that those of us in the alternative media have been pouring into our attempts to show people that democracy does not exist in America, the political establishment has stepped forward and admitted it candidly with its own face hole. A recently-released transcript of Florida court documents has revealed that the Democratic National Committee’s first line of defense in their motion to dismiss a lawsuit against them by defrauded Bernie Sanders supporters is to state that they are under no contractual obligation to provide the American people with real party primaries.
Yes, really. That’s their Plan A. In order to avoid a situation where they could be forced to return some of the small-dollar campaign donations of Sanders’ base, representatives of the regulatory committee for the Democratic party have tacitly admitted in a court of law that they are running a fake political party using the lie of legitimate primary elections to manufacture political engagement, and that democracy is officially dead in America. ...
The elites of the Democratic party are trying to have it both ways. They’re trying to maintain the system which obstructs independents and third parties from finding meaningful purchase within the political process, while at the same time ensuring that no democracy is happening within that rigid two-party system. They’re trying to maintain the “A vote for a third party is a vote for the Republican!” narrative from one side of their mouths while saying “It’s our party, we can rig the primaries however we want!” from the other. If Americans want to say that they live in a democracy, the major political parties can’t have it both ways. Either change the system so that other parties are viable, or give the people the ability to choose the nominees of the only two parties they’re able to choose from. Both of these would be ideal, one would be workable, but right now they have neither. Calling America a democracy is a joke.
Nebraska to become battleground over fate of Keystone XL pipeline project
More than 100 landowners and environmental activists are expected to descend on the town of York, Nebraska, on Wednesday to voice opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline as the state holds its first public meeting on the proposed construction since the Trump administration revived it.
Nebraska’s public service commission, responsible for the state’s regulation of infrastructure, has yet to approve a route for the Keystone XL, making it the last major hurdle ahead of the pipeline’s potential construction.
Activists leading the campaign against the pipeline told the Guardian that delegates to the meeting plan to raise a number of economic, environmental and property rights concerns over the project and will target Trump’s claims that the pipeline will use American steel and lead to thousands of jobs.
“We have the evidence on our side that this pipeline does not meet the public interest of Nebraska,” said Jane Kleeb, president of the Bold Alliance, and one of the Keystone XL’s leading opponents.
Life on the Keystone XL route
“Our people call it the black snake because it is evil,” says Tressa Welch, as thunder clouds steamroll the blue sky over the plains of Wolf Point. “And like snakes they come out of nowhere, they slither and strike unknown.”
She faces southwards where, a couple of miles away, forks of lightning crack over the Missouri River. The 2m acre Fort Peck Indian Reservation straddles this winding water source, providing sustenance for the almost 7,000 Assiniboine and Sioux tribe here and thousands of others throughout north-east Montana. It is the river that Welch and other Native American activists on the reserve say the Keystone XL oil pipeline – or the “black snake” – will corrupt.
The river maintains the deer, the fish, the native plants, sweet grasses and sacred sage. “Anything that threatens my way of life and my spiritual well-being, I consider myself at war with,” she says, her two-year-old daughter by her side. “I will do whatever it takes.”
Although the XL is expected to cross the Missouri just outside of the reservation, it will do so about 40 miles upstream of the tribes’ multimillion-dollar water treatment plant, which supplies clean water to communities throughout the entire region. A leak at this junction, they say, could be catastrophic. The project’s backers insist it will be safe.
The gargantuan underground pipeline is set to carry a daily load of 830,000 barrels of oil over 1,204 miles, from the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta, Canada – where it enjoys the support of the prime minister, Justin Trudeau – across the US border into eastern Montana. It will travel down to South Dakota, eventually linking with the first Keystone pipeline, which was completed in 2010, in southern Nebraska. The route connects not just countries and states, but three US presidencies. First proposed by the private Canadian infrastructure giant TransCanada during George W Bush’s final months in office, the project was eventually rejected by the Obama administration in 2015, only to be resurrected almost as soon Donald Trump was sworn in at the beginning of this year.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
In Order To Take Down The Deep State, We Must Collaborate Across Ideological Lines
Here’s Why Trump Is Talking About Breaking Up the Biggest Wall Street Banks
How Congress Could Make Steve Bannon’s Wildest Dream Come True
Cybersecurity for the People: How to Keep Your Chats Truly Private With Signal
Former Texas Prosecutor Probably Sent Innocent Man to His Death. Now He’s on Trial for Misconduct.
Abbas fears the growing influence of Barghouti
Reaching Out in Peace to Russia
Despite Everything, I Am Happy Hillary Lost
A Little Night Music
Homesick James - My Baby's Sweet
Homesick James & Snooky Pryor - Crossroads
Homesick James & The Hypnotics ~ Married Woman
Homesick James - Little And Low
Homesick James - Working With Homesick
Homesick James - Gotta Move
Homesick James Williamson - Lonesome Ole Train
Homesick James - She May Be Your Woman
Homesick James Williamson & His Dusters - Baby Please Set a Date
Comments
Hey Everybody!
Good evening and solidarity!
Why isn't the Dallas cop in jail instead of on Paid Vacation?
Why is the demonRatic party even halfway viable?
dRumph likes the trappings of power and hates the responsibility. I'd almost lay odds he quits before his term is up.
I'm sorry, I didn't take care of myself and got cancer 'cause all I could afford(not even) was your Shitty food. /s
I buy it from you and still don't own it? Fuck you, I no buy it!
My heart goes out to the Greek people getting the screws put to them Still?!?
I could go on, but what's the point?
Know Justice, know Love. I kinda like that. H/t peachcreek.
peace
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
evening tbau...
he's only a brand. but i doubt that he's going to throw in the towel before he loses the next election or gets wheeled out in a casket. his foreign policy is now being run by a military junta approved by the deep state, he's just a pitchman on that front. he'd have delegated the domestic policy to bannon, but bannon got too big for his britches. presumably, he'll find somebody to work out the details of domestic policy and how to navigate the fractious party politics in congress and delegate soon.
Good evening, Joe. That article doesn't
even begin to mention all of the dictators we've supported since WWII - Trujillo, Batista, Noriega, that clown in Kazakhstan, Saddam Hussain are just a few of the missing.
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 --
... And the Beat Goes On
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
evening jnh...
i am once again amazed at your ability to locate topical, illustrative cartoons.
have a great evening!
evening el...
a detailed listing of all of the awful dictators that the us has installed and/or propped up since wwii would be a long read, indeed. hell, even a listing of the us' current stock would be a longish read.
pinochet, duvalier, pahlavi, marcos, d'aubuisson,
somoza.
oh, and thatcher.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
America's foreign policy is not
conducted on behalf of the American people. I doubt that it ever has been. The idealistic notion that our wars are fought for the benefit of the people who fight them, is a kind of mythology that is deliberately perpetuated to deceive and motivate a conscripted populace. Virtually all of our various wars, alliances, enmities, interventions and so on, have been rather determined by the ambitions of a powerful few corporate interests and conglomerates -- and the wealthy elites that often benefit from such adventurism.
The average American does not benefit in the least from any of these national entanglements. Quite the contrary in fact, their cost is enormous. Yet somehow, our fellows are always ready and willing to pick up arms and fight, to "defend the nation" as it were, from one imaginary threat or another. Mostly imaginary in any case, or concocted. We seem so easily fooled -- again, again, and again.
native
Essay on Responsibility
Responsibility is the mantra of the right. 'You Loosers...Moochers. Come on poor people lift yourself up by your bootstraps!'
Free Healthcare? Free education? No! You moochers need "Skin in the game!"(actual HRC quote).
Take RESPONSIBILITY damn it!
Some beg to differ...as cogently explained in this essay...
https://umairhaque.com/love-and-responsibility-ff81bce8b3e8
Read and enjoy.
I want a Pony!
Oh...
Evening Joe nice EB as always.
I want a Pony!
evening arrow...
a lovely essay, thanks!
"take personal responsibility" largely means "don't bother me, i can't hear you, lalalalala."
I can't argue with the counterpunch article
I wonder how many people who didn't vote for Her in 08 because of her Iraq war vote did vote for her in 16 because she finally admitted that her vote was a mistake?
Probably the same ones who stayed quiet while Barack continued the Bush administration policies.
So Trump says that he is okay with reinstating Glass Steagle? Yeah sure he is.
Interesting that congress spent years investigating the banks after the big crash in 1929 but didn't hold one hearing after the one in 2008.
Does anyone believe that he's serious here?
BLOOMBERG NEWS: How long on GDP bounce back?
TRUMP: Listen to you. You’ll — you’ll start seeing things happen. You’ll start seeing things happen. Right now, this is the end of the Obama era.
BLOOMBERG NEWS: A year to get to 4 percent? Eighteen months?
TRUMP: I don’t like to put — you know, guidelines on it. I can say this. You know, everyone talks about the 3 percent, 3 percent. I think we can do far more than 3 percent. And I think we can do more than 4 percent, eventually.
Or here? Or believe that he even understands what the he is being asked?
Thanks joe.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening snoopy...
i suspect that a lot of those people probably voted for her out of fear of trump. it would be an interesting thing to poll.
undoubtedly, especially since the vast majority of democrats seemed quite satisfied with george w. obama's policies (not to mention war crimes).
heh, i'm sure the idea of glass-steagall crossed trump's radar. i'm sure that those nice vampire squids will explain it all to him.
Whatever Trump says,
anything at all that he says, you can take it to the bank that it's mostly just hot air.
native
Great news round up, eb, as is your way.
I intend to finish up a few pre-travel chores, then read the Greenwald screed.
One thing I do is attempt to look European. No goofy sneakers or tee shirts with some football team's logos, or sweats.
Europeans make fun of us wearing red and purple and green, and so forth. It shows respect to fit in, and with anti-American sentiments everywhere, I try not to stand out.
I should be able to pass as a Brit.
Until I open my mouth and say something. That not only pegs me as American, it pegs me as Texan. My drawl is so distinct, is the stuff of local legend.
No more war.
Find another way to get rich besides killing people you do not have any personal grievance with, nor fear as a result of their specific threats.
Texas made the news (s)hit list twice today. The cop killer (alleged?), and the (possibly)crooked prosecutor.
The State Bar of Texas Grievance Committee lawyers I have seen try cases are rookies, have about as much passion as a zombie. The jury will sleep through most of the trial.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
i wish the texas grievance committee lawyers good luck, that prosecutor sounds richly deserving of a comeuppance (and probably an orange jumpsuit). perhaps by revisiting much of the evidence from the original case, the defense attorney will keep the jury awake and engaged. it is a case with gripping details.
have a great evening.
Good article about the ineffective tyrant.
When democrats went into hysterics about Trump being the American version of Hitler, I thought it was hyperbole. First and foremost, Hitler had an entire party and violent apparatus behind him. Hitler represented a potent movement. Trump represented no movement other than himself, and nor did he build a movement with its own organized power base. Some violent drunk 60 year old from Hooterville at a speech does not a movement make. If Trump did have his own organization behind him, every post would be filled by now.
Now which is not to say Trump isn't dangerous. He still has the full force and power of the presidency much of which Obama left him. And resistance both outside and inside his party seems to be working on a number of issues.
But in thinking about Trump, I wonder how effective a Bernie Sanders or let us say an anti-war Paul Rand would have been as President. I think now that neither of them would have been able to get their policies passed by a Congress united against him by both parties. What would have happened to any proposal by Ron Paul to greatly reduce the defense budget? Think the democrats would support Medicare-for-all, or major college loan debt relief. Bernie like Trump, could have only changed what power of the Oval Office would allow. Now that is alot, but limited in time. For example, a DOJ that put banksters in jail, better regulators, etc.
Also, it would do well to watch what Trump has done in terms of aiding Russia. Nothing from what I can tell. No lifting of sanctions, more troops to border of Russia, nuke arms increase, blaming Russia for all violence in Syria, etc. Putin got a raw deal and was pimp'ed by Trump if there were collusion.
evening mr webster...
an excellent question - and one that is worth serious consideration as we plot and scheme to make real change.
having watched the deep state/neocons go after trump with their media wurlitzer blasting destructive propaganda at him until he cried uncle, i am guessing that sanders would be fighting tooth and nail still to get the things that he campaigned on. he might have somewhat less trouble than trump had, since sanders had no real stated foreign policy and has never gone out of his way to offend the mic or israel. chances are, he would have been quite happy to continue george w. obama's foreign policy, which was generally acceptable to the deep state, though they always want more war.
so, perhaps instead of running into a mic buzzsaw, sanders would be running into the neoliberal economics buzzsaw for his hostile rhetoric about wall street and banksters. given that wall street owns congress, i would guess that much of sanders' economic program would be doa.
Hola, Joe & Bluesters! Quick drive-by
to say 'hi,' and thanks for tonight's edition of News & Blues!
I had wanted to post a blurb about the Medicaid program called MERP, and post a clip from today's White House Briefing--but I'll have to give up for this evening, due to 'scripts.' (I worked almost an hour to clip the briefing video of Mulvaney, and then it wouldn't let me save it. Talk about aggravating--whew!
Anyway, I figure it will clear up eventually (it usually does), so I'll clip it in the future. Rather interesting--read several MSM accounts that stated that the budget was very much like one you would normally see come out of the 'O' Administration.
Apparently, the claim that Dems are making that they got concessions on ObamaCare, are flat-out false. As a matter of fact, Mulvaney challenged the White House Press Corp to show him the language in the budget bill that backed up that claim. (Crickets.) Also, Repubs got 21 billion in (defense) spending that they wanted; Dems got less than 5 billion in non-military discretionary spending, some of which Repubs also wanted. (IOW, McConnell was in favor of health spending for coal miners--many of which are in his state of Kentucky.)
Obviously, this is not good, but we need to watch what Dems do--not what they say.
(BTW, the reference to ObamaCare was about the CSR payments, and I certainly would hate to see them refuse to make them. As I understand it, since it wasn't in the bill, it will be a call for the White House, while there is a pending court decision.)
I tried to listen to FSC's interview earlier, but couldn't stomach it. I'm sorry, but everything that I'm seeing, tells me that she's still contemplating a run in 2020.
Hey, Everyone have a nice evening!
Mollie
"I think dogs are the most amazing creatures--they give unconditional love. For me, they are the role model for being alive."--Gilda Radner
"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.
evening mollie...
i'm sure that the democrats will find a way to screw up their leverage or trade away the farm for a few meaningless baubles. they're really talented losers. their two talents are losing and beating up on their base.
i'm sure that hillary will run again in '20 if she is physically able. she's eager to show off the fact that she's got both democrat party talents in abundance.
Wow! Well, one person
over at ToP gets it... (no, hillary, it wasn't the Russians)... http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/5/3/1646169/-Reflecting-on-2016-A-D...
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.