The Evening Blues - 5-26-22



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Aretha Franklin

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features r&b singer Aretha Franklin. Enjoy!

Aretha Franklin - Respect

“By simply not mentioning certain subjects, by lowering ... an iron curtain between the masses and such facts or arguments as the local political bosses regard as undesirable, Totalitarian Propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical rebuttals.”

-- Aldous Huxley


News and Opinion

Youtube discovers the memory hole.

Nuland-Pyatt Tape Removed From YouTube After 8 Years

The smoking gun proving U.S. involvement in the 2014 coup in Kiev has been removed from YouTube after eight years.

It was the most watched version of the intercepted and leaked conversation between then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, in which the two discuss who will make up the new government weeks before democratically-elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in a violent coup on Feb. 21, 2014.

The two talk about “midwifing” the unconstitutional change of government and “gluing it together” and of the role then Vice President Joe Biden should play and what meetings to set up with Ukrainian politicians.

The U.S. State Department never denied the authenticity of the video, and even issued an apology to the European Union after Nuland is heard on the tape saying, “Fuck the E.U.” Mainstream media at the time focused almost exclusively on that off-color remark, ignoring the greater significance of U.S. interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs. ...

The video was posted on April 29, 2014 and had 181,533 views before it was taken down, the most viewed version of the conversation on YouTube. Eight years worth of comments on the video have also been removed.

The removal of a video that had existed online for eight years raises major questions as it comes during the war in Ukraine. Corporate media has studiously avoided mentioning the causes of the current conflict, including NATO eastward expansion, the rejected Moscow treaty proposals in December, the civil war in Donbass and the 2014 coup in Kiev that led to the Donbass uprising and violent repression by the coup government.

[Consortium News has republished the transcript at the link as a preservation effort. -js]

YouTube Exec Claims YouTube Doesn’t Censor!

Patrick Cockburn Warns the West’s “Triumphalism” in Ukraine Could Prolong Conflict Indefinitely

Nato 'doing literally nothing' to stop Russia, says Ukraine

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, accused Nato of “doing literally nothing” in the face of Russia’s invasion of his country.

Kuleba praised the EU for its “revolutionary” decisions to back Kyiv but said the Nato military alliance had been “completely sidelined”.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kuleba said:

"Nato as an alliance, as an institution, is completely sidelined and doing literally nothing. I’m sorry to say it."

Intel-gate exposed, Nina's disinfo board 'paused' w/ Ray McGovern

'They were shooting directly at the journalists': New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on May 19 that it had not yet decided whether to pursue a criminal investigation into Abu Akleh's death. On Monday, the Israeli military's top lawyer, Major General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, said in a speech that under the military's policy, a criminal investigation is not automatically launched if a person is killed in the "midst of an active combat zone," unless there is credible and immediate suspicion of a criminal offense. United States lawmakers, the United Nations and ​the international community ​have all called for an independent probe.

But an investigation by CNN offers new evidence — including two videos of the scene of the shooting — that there was no active combat, nor any Palestinian militants, near Abu Akleh in the moments leading up to her death. Videos obtained by CNN, corroborated by testimony from eight eyewitnesses, an audio forensic analyst and an explosive weapons expert, suggest that Abu Akleh was shot dead in a targeted attack by Israeli forces.

The footage shows a calm scene before the reporters came under fire in the outskirts of Jenin refugee camp, near the main Awdeh roundabout. Shatha Hanaysha, four other journalists and three local residents said that it had been a normal morning in Jenin, home to about 345,000 people — 11,400 of whom live in the camp. Many were on their way to work or school, and the street was relatively quiet.

There was a frisson of excitement as the veteran journalist, a household name across the Arab world for her coverage of Israel and the Palestinian territories, arrived to report on the raid. About a dozen or so men, some dressed in sweats and flip-flops, had gathered to watch Abu Akleh and her colleagues at work. They were milling around chatting, some smoking cigarettes, others filming the scene on their phones.

In one 16-minute cellphone video shared with CNN, the man filming walks toward the spot where the journalists had gathered, zooming in on the Israeli armored vehicles parked in the distance, and says: "Look at the snipers." ... Salim Awad, the 27-year-old Jenin camp resident who filmed the 16-minute video, told CNN that there were no armed Palestinians or any clashes in the area, and he hadn't expected there to be gunfire, given the presence of journalists nearby.

But the situation changed rapidly. Awad said shooting broke out about seven minutes after he arrived at the scene. His video captures the moment that shots were fired at the four journalists — Abu Akleh, Hanaysha, another Palestinian journalist, Mujahid al-Saadi, and Al Jazeera producer Ali al-Samoudi, who was injured in the gunfire — as they walked toward the Israeli vehicles. In the footage, Abu Akleh can be seen turning away from the barrage. The footage shows a direct line of sight towards the Israeli convoy.

"We saw around four or five military vehicles on that street with rifles sticking out of them and one of them shot Shireen. We were standing right there, we saw it. When we tried to approach her, they shot at us. I tried to cross the street to help, but I couldn't," Awad said, adding that he saw that a bullet struck Abu Akleh in the gap between her helmet and protective vest, just by her ear.

[Much more detail at the link. -js]

Israel Tells U.S. It Killed Iranian Officer, Official Says

At the funeral in Tehran for a colonel in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, thousands of mourners packed the streets around the cemetery chanting “Death to Israel” and calling for revenge for his killing. The commanders of the Guards and the Quds Force — the powerful unit within the Guards responsible for operations outside Iran’s borders — were both in attendance, hinting at the colonel’s importance.

Col. Sayad Khodayee, 50, was fatally shot outside his home on a quiet residential street in Tehran on Sunday when two gunmen on motorcycles approached his car and fired five bullets into it, according to state media. Iran has blamed Israel for the killing, which bore the hallmarks of other Israeli targeted killings of Iranians in a shadow war that has been playing out for years on land, sea, air and in cyberspace. ...

A spokeswoman for the Israeli prime minister declined to comment on the killing. But according to an intelligence official briefed on the communications, Israel has informed American officials that it was behind the killing. ...

The Israelis told the Americans the killing was meant as a warning to Iran to halt the operations of a covert group within the Quds Force known as Unit 840, according to the intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified information. Unit 840 is tasked with abductions and assassinations of foreigners around the world, including Israeli civilians and officials, according to Israeli government, military and intelligence officials.

Israeli officials said Colonel Khodayee was the deputy commander of Unit 840, and was involved in planning cross-border plots against foreigners, including Israelis. ...

Iranian officials have not commented on Israeli accusations that Colonel Khodayee was involved in transborder terrorism plots. But some Iranian analysts said that the accusations were aimed at preventing the United States from agreeing to remove the Guards’ designation as a terrorist organization, and thereby block an agreement on the restoration of the nuclear agreement.

Bush is Biden is Bush

George W. Bush returned to the news last week. The man who once said, “Our enemies… never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we,” coughed up a gem of accidental truth about Ukraine. In the midst of blasting Vladimir Putin for suppressing dissent, he said:

The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.

Iraq too. Anyway. (laughs)

Although Bush in recent years has been regularly tongue-bathed by blue-party acolytes for speaking against Trump, with Katie Hill once going so far as to admit to tears as she pondered “how much better we’d all feel if Bush were president today,” press priests from CNN to NBC to The Guardian last week tossed him back overboard over his Ukraine miss. Stephen Colbert even “waxed nostalgic,” remembering the time before his current apple-polishing period, when he was an actual satirist under Bush: “I made so much fun of him, and he gave me so many reasons to do that.”

Propaganda demands Bush take a dive now. Not only did his recent honesty malfunction complicate messaging about the unique iniquity of Russian aggression, he’s a living reminder of the uncomfortable truth that he and Joe Biden have essentially merged to become the same president.

Biden is just a less likable, more deranged version of Dubya, a political potted plant behind which authoritarians rule by witch hunt and moral mania, with Joe floating on a somehow even fatter cloud of media protection than Bush enjoyed after 9/11. Today’s Biden is Bush, a helpless, terrified passenger dragged on a political journey beyond his comprehension, signing his name whenever told to appalling policies, like a child emperor or King George in the porphyria years.

Are Worldwide BREAD RIOTS Already Here?

JPMorgan Whistleblower Names Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair in Court Documents as Receiving “Emergency” Payments from Bank

An attorney turned whistleblower who worked in compliance at JPMorgan Chase, Shaquala Williams, has named former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair as one of the parties receiving improperly processed “emergency payments” from the bank.

Williams is suing the bank for retaliating against her protected whistleblowing activities by terminating her employment after she raised concerns about these payments to Blair and other serious compliance issues. (The case is Shaquala Williams v JPMorgan Chase, Case Number 1:21-cv-09326, which was filed last November in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York.)

The new revelation naming Tony Blair was contained in a transcript of Williams’ deposition that was filed with the court last week. Prior to that, Blair had been referred to simply as “a high risk JPMorgan third-party intermediary for Jamie Dimon…” in the Williams’ complaint.

The fact that Williams had raised concerns about these “emergency” payments to Blair before she was fired was confirmed by another deposition transcript filed with the court on May 20 from a compliance colleague.

Williams is a financial crimes compliance professional with more than a decade of experience at multiple global banks. Part of Williams’ role at JPMorgan Chase was to make sure that the bank was in compliance with a non-prosecution agreement the bank had signed with the Justice Department in 2016.

Amazon shareholders reject 15 motions on worker rights and environment

Amazon shareholders have rejected 15 resolutions brought forward by investors in a push to influence the company’s environmental impact and treatment of workers.

Shareholders voted on Wednesday against all the resolutions, most of which focused on worker rights and other social issues. The resolutions included calls for the company to report on worker health and safety and the treatment of its warehouse workers, and a review of Amazon’s use of plastic and changes to the company’s process for board nominations.

Amazon’s board had recommended that its shareholders vote against all resolutions, arguing in its proxy statement that it has already acted to address the underlying concerns of many of the proposals. Historically shareholders have voted with the board’s recommendations. Jeff Bezos, the company’s executive chairman, controls 12.7% of the overall vote.

While the resolutions are non-binding, companies often take some form of action if they receive the backing of 30% to 40% of votes. While the activist resolutions were shut down, investors approved executive compensation, board members and a stock split.

Progressives in Congress Push Google to Stop Collecting Abortion Patients' Location Data

"Google cannot allow its online advertising-focused digital infrastructure to be weaponized against women."

That's according to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), and 40 other progressives in Congress who sent a letter Tuesday to Google CEO Sundar Pichai urging reforms to data collection and retention practices given the anticipated reversal of Roe v. Wade.

While privacy advocates within and beyond Congress have long raised alarm about location data from devices such as cellphones, such concerns have risen in recent weeks since the leak of a draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion signaling the end of Roe, which affirmed the right to abortion.

If the court's decision to overturn Roe is finalized in the weeks ahead, abortion could swiftly become illegal in over half of U.S. states, according to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute. It is with that knowledge that more than three dozen federal lawmakers are urging changes at Google.

"We believe that abortion is healthcare," states the letter. "We will fight tooth and nail to ensure that it remains recognized as a fundamental right, and that all people in the United States have control over their own bodies."

"That said, we are concerned that, in a world in which abortion could be made illegal, Google's current practice of collecting and retaining extensive records of cellphone location data will allow it to become a tool for far-right extremists looking to crack down on people seeking reproductive healthcare," it continues. "That's because Google stores historical location information about hundreds of millions of smartphone users, which it routinely shares with government agencies."

As the letter details:

While Google collects and retains customer location data for various business purposes, including to target online ads, Google is not the only entity to make use of this data. Law enforcement officials routinely obtain court orders forcing Google to turn over its customers' location information. This includes dragnet "geofence" orders demanding data about everyone who was near a particular location at a given time. In fact, according to data published by Google, one-quarter of the law enforcement orders that your company receives each year are for these dragnet geofence orders; Google received 11,554 geofence warrants in 2020.

Reporting on the lawmakers' demand, Insider noted that "in March, a federal district judge ruled that Virginia police, in serving Google with a geofence warrant to get location data, violated the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches." ...

Highlighting the differences between what data is generally collected from Google's Android devices versus Apple iPhones with Google applications, the letter asserts that "Apple has shown that it is not necessary for smartphone companies to retain invasive tracking databases of their customers' locations."

"While Google deserves credit for being one of the first companies in America to insist on a warrant before disclosing location data to law enforcement, that is not enough," the letter adds. "If abortion is made illegal by the far-right Supreme Court and Republican lawmakers, it is inevitable that right-wing prosecutors will obtain legal warrants to hunt down, prosecute, and jail women for obtaining critical reproductive healthcare."

According to the lawmakers, "The only way to protect your customers' location data from such outrageous government surveillance is to not keep it in the first place."

Has America Tried Bombing Its Mass Shooting Problem?

There’s probably a correlation between the fact that the US is the only nation with a mass shooting epidemic and the fact that Americans are the most aggressively propagandized population on earth.

If you took any armed population and psychologically pummelled them from birth with narratives about how mass military slaughter is fine while turning them into underpaid, alienated gear-turners and giving them an artificial culture mass-produced in Los Angeles, you’d probably see some mass shootings.

There’s only so far you can warp the human psyche before it snaps. Bash hundreds of millions of people in the brain their entire lives with indoctrination programs telling them madness is sanity and sanity is madness, and eventually a few of them are going to wind up mass murderers.


It’s surely not a coincidence that the nation which serves as the hub of a globe-spanning empire that’s held together by mass murder and war propaganda and mass-scale psychological manipulation is the only nation with a mass shooting epidemic. But this will never be studied.

It will never be studied because empire is invisible to mainstream science and social psychology, in the same way it’s invisible to mainstream media, mainstream politics, and mainstream academia. The empire is not even acknowledged to exist within the spheres of mainstream thought, and this is a deliberately engineered reality. The spheres of mainstream thought which prevent people from understanding that we are dominated by an unacknowledged empire which stretches across nations and influences our lives more than virtually anything else our attention is diverted to are actively influenced by that very empire.

We are all marinating in the US-centralized empire: its influence, its propaganda, its artificially manufactured culture, its ways of thinking. We’re so immersed in it we can’t see it. It’s like water for fish to us. So we won’t see any research into its influence on the collective psyche.



the horse race



Krystal Ball: Dems Systematically DESTROY Their Own Future

'This Fight Isn't Over,' Says Cisneros as Cuellar Declares Victory in Razor-Close Primary

Clinging to a lead of fewer than 180 votes, nine-term Rep. Henry Cuellar declared victory early Wednesday in the closely watched Democratic primary runoff for Texas' 28th Congressional District as Jessica Cisneros, his progressive challenger, said the contest remained too close to officially call.

Cuellar, an anti-abortion Democrat with ties to the fossil fuel industry, currently leads Cisneros by a reported margin of 22,694 votes to 22,517, less than a percentage point.

"The votes are in, the margin will hold. We have won by 177 votes," the incumbent's campaign tweeted, an assessment that leading election analyst Dave Wasserman tentatively echoed.

But Cisneros, a human rights attorney backed by prominent progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups, wrote in the early hours of Wednesday morning that "this election is still too close to call, and we are still waiting for every ballot and eligible vote to be counted."

"Thank you to every single voter that came out to support our campaign," wrote Cisneros. "This fight isn't over."

Despite his right-wing policy positions and voting record on climate, abortion, immigration, and gun control—he has received an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association—Cuellar enjoyed the unwavering support of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), the top three Democrats in the U.S. House.

Pelosi, who helped push Cuellar over the finish line in his first contest against Cisneros two years ago, recorded a robocall for the 2022 primary describing the Texas incumbent as "a fighter for hard-working families"—even as he opposes House Democrats' flagship labor rights bill and a $15 federal minimum wage.

Cuellar specifically expressed gratitude to Clyburn, who campaigned for the right-wing Democrat in the final stretch of the runoff race, which saw billionaire-funded super PACs such as AIPAC's United Democracy Project spend heavily against Cisneros. Cuellar's fossil fuel industry allies also pumped money into the race.

Ballot Access Scandal UPENDS Michigan GOP Gov Race



the evening greens


World’s largest vats for growing ‘no-kill’ meat to be built in US

The building of the world’s largest bioreactors to produce cultivated meat has been announced, with the potential to supply tens of thousands of shops and restaurants. Experts said the move could be a “gamechanger” for the nascent industry.

The US company Good Meat said the bioreactors would grow more than 13,000 tonnes of chicken and beef a year. It will use cells taken from cell banks or eggs, so the meat will not require the slaughter of any livestock.

There are about 170 companies around the world working on cultured meat, but Good Meat is the only company to have gained regulatory approval to sell its product to the public. It began serving cultivated chicken in Singapore in December 2020.

Cattle, chicken and other livestock have a huge environmental impact due to methane emissions, the destruction of forests and water use. The consumption of conventional meat in rich nations must fall dramatically to beat the climate crisis, scientists say. Proponents of cultivated meat say it can provide the same taste and feel as conventional meat but with a far smaller environmental impact.

The creation of Good Meat’s 10 new bioreactors is under way, the company says, each of which has a capacity of 250,000 litres and will stand four storeys tall, far bigger than any constructed to date. The US site for the facility is due to be finalised within three months and operational in late 2024, reaching 11,800 tonnes a year by 2026 and 13,700 tonnes by 2030.


Also of Interest

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

Has America Tried Bombing Its Mass Shooting Problem? Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

We Are Going To Go Thru Hell, So What Now?

Capitalism and Baby Formula

Ukraine Propaganda - BBC Tries To Sell Telegram Rumors That Make No Sense

Housing Bubble Getting Ready to Pop: Unsold Inventory of New Houses Spikes by Most Ever, to Highest since 2008, with 9 Months’ Supply, Sales Collapse at Prices below $400k

Italy & Germany Buy Gas In Rubles Not Dollars For First Time!

Zelensky Speaks At DAVOS, Demands Putin Negotiate FACE-TO-FACE

Orban plays chess. Elensky regime; no retreat, calls west 'dumb f****.' Upside down flag.


A Little Night Music

Aretha Franklin - Baby, I Love You

Aretha Franklin - Don't Play That Song (You Lied)

Aretha Franklin - I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)

Aretha Franklin - Spanish Harlem

Aretha Franklin - Rocksteady

Aretha Franklin - Dr. Feelgood

Aretha Franklin - Think

Aretha Franklin - Chain of Fools

Aretha Franklin - A Change Is Gonna Come


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17 users have voted.

Comments

she is always a bright spot, no matter the news ..

does anyone believe fake meat is going to save the climate?
or fake news or fake wars
where is that fake ministry of truth?

Wink

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10 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

yep, that aretha was a ray of sunshine in a difficult world and is still.

fake meat, soylent green, who knows what they'll come up with next? they'll try everything that they can think of to profit from the problem that they caused.

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9 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

Here’s the one you meant.

https://www.ianwelsh.net/we-are-going-to-go-thru-hell-so-what-now/

Kissinger must be trying to save his soul cuz he knows that the grim reaper will be visiting soon.

Veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger on Monday said that Washington and Beijing must seek to avoid putting the Taiwan question at the center of their tense diplomatic relationship, adding that the need for the world's two largest economies to avoid direct confrontation is in the interest of global peace, CNBC reported.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Kissinger said: "The US should not by subterfuge or by a gradual process develop something of a 'two-China' solution, but that China will continue to exercise the patience that has been exercised up until now."

Kissinger's remarks, which reflected some pragmatic views in the US that see the dangers that damaged China-US ties would bring to the world, suggested that the Taiwan question is not something that can be argued or discussed, but the most important political foundation that all other negotiations are based upon, experts said.

Blinken and Austin have deciphered Biden’s military ramblings over Taiwan. Both said that America still admits that there is a one China policy and it has no military plans in case China invades. Has any president been corrected as many times as Biden has?

Beyond words and stupidity.

US military-led insect project feared to be weaponized and risks global food security, especially in ‘rival countries’ near its bio-labs

Since 2016, the advanced military research institute in the US proposed a defense program, known as the "Insect Allies," which it said was to confront potential food supply risks. However, the Pentagon uses insects to deliver a "genetically engineered virus" that could affect crop growth by altering which genes the plants express, media reported.

After being announced, the plan has received wide criticism from scientists and experts around the world, warning that the Insect Allies might open an easily weaponized technological "Pandora's box."

The intentions of the Pentagon are also in question - is it really to save humanity from starvation, or will it, on the contrary, deliberately cause a humanitarian crisis in order to serve some "military aims."

Experts reached by the Global Times said the Insect Allies is turning this concern into a real potential danger. "Why do they use insects as carriers? Why does the US build bio-labs near other countries like Russia? When the Pandora's Box is opened, a series of disasters will follow," said an expert.

However, this is just a tip of the iceberg as a project with a potential biological weapons threat. In addition to the Insect Allies program, the US has conducted biological experiments around the world in said notorious "bio-labs" disregarding human safety and natural ethics while blatantly violating the "Biological Weapons Convention."

Russia is not going to let this slide.

US infiltrated post-Soviet states with biolabs

Evidence of the labs’ true nature was uncovered by the Russian military during its offensive in Ukraine, Lavrov said, adding that Moscow will not allow the issue to slide.

“The experiments they conduct in those labs. We have long suspected that they are not peaceful and harmless,” he said.

“The samples of pathogens that were stored [at Ukrainian labs], the paperwork showed clearly the military character of the experiments. And the documents made it clear that there are dozens of these labs in Ukraine,” he added.

Moscow wants to update the Biological Weapons Convention, a 1972 international treaty that bans any research, stockpiling and use of such weapons and which both Russia and the US signed. The agreement has a major flaw in lacking a verification mechanism, similar to what the International Atomic Energy Agency or the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons use to ensure compliance in their areas of non-proliferation.

The US has been stonewalling a proposal to establish such a mechanism for over two decades, since 2001, Lavrov stressed. “Now it has become clear to us why they took this position while creating military biological laboratories throughout the world over all these years,” he said.

INCYMI probably one reason why the Hunter laptop was covered up before the election.

US Democrats use Ukraine biolab profits for campaign funding

Democrats in the US have partnered with Big Pharma companies and friendly foundations led by George Soros and Bill Gates to set up biological research in Ukraine, using the project to generate additional funding for elections, the Russian military claimed on Wednesday in its latest briefing.

“It needs to be said that the ideologues of US military biological research in Ukraine are leaders of the Democratic Party,” said Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov, the head of the Russian Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Force.

The US government set up a way to fund the military bio-research directly from the federal budget, but also used government guarantees to raise funds from “non-governmental organizations controlled by the leadership of the Democratic Party,” Kirillov added.

As an example of such organizations, he showed a slide with the names of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the [Bill and Hillary] Clinton Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society and investment funds, the Rockefeller Foundation, EcoHealth Alliance, and Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca Partners.

Too bad that we own any court that could handle this.

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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

thanks for the heads up, i fixed the link.

i don't think that there's anything that kissinger can do to redeem his past now, his reputation as a war criminal is sealed.

heh, no president in recent memory seems to have such a resistance to staying on message as biden. trump was corrected, but he was able to get with the program afterwards.

"insect allies," eh? it'll be interesting to see the evidence that russia brings to the table. if they can take down gates, soros, the clintons and some other democrat ne'er do wells, that would be a great gift to the united states and the world.

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12 users have voted.
Creosote.'s picture

@joe shikspack

After all, plants grow in soil, and that is filthy dirty,
and one must always be very clean

with more thanks to SNDG

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5 users have voted.
shaharazade's picture

@snoopydawg Kissinger has no soul to save. He's the devil incarnate. Creepy dude who should be gone daddy gone. Why in the hell do we still have to deal with these well known old war criminals who seem to just keep on having power and mouthing off. Dag get lost the lot of you including Killery. Guess I'll file this under things no one can do anything to end. Nothing anyone can do to stop the killing, or change the absolutely phony politics we are forced to live under. Even the so called 'progressives' we elect are not willing to speak out and put their money where their lying mouths are. Depressing. Why in the hell is Trump not in jail? Guess he is a colleague in crime with the rest of he rat bastards we 'elect'. What a sick joke our government on every level.

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9 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@shaharazade

I never thought I’d live to see the day when the “Too Old to Rule the World, But Too Young to Die Crowd” (apologies Ian Anderson) would meet at Davos and fight over what to do about Russia.

In a twenty-four hour period two of the most influential men on the planet came out swinging as to what course of action the Davos Crowd should take in Ukraine.

The first blows were landed by Mr. Realpolitik, Henry Kissinger, who most people were surprised to find was still alive. Kissinger true to form told everyone that it was time to begin negotiations for a settlement with Russia soon.

“Negotiations on peace need to begin in the next two months or so, [before the conflict] creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome,” the 98-year-old veteran diplomat said of the crisis. The outcome will determine the rest of Europe’s relationships with Russia and Ukraine alike, he said. “Ideally, the dividing line should return to the status quo ante,” he said.

“I believe pursuing the war beyond that point would turn it not into a war about the freedom of Ukraine, which had been undertaken with great cohesion by NATO, but into a war against Russia itself,” he added.

Kissinger is simply talking sense, knowing full well that the situation in Ukraine is getting very close to militarily unsalvageable for Ukraine. You know things are bad when the British Press is now acknowledging this, even though the Telegraph was told to change the original headline (follow link above):
….

On the heels of Kissinger’s pragmatism came George Soros’ dizzying pastiche of wholly constructed western narratives about Russia and China’s goals and their respective leaders’ shortcomings. Soros stayed completely on script with the neoliberal/neoconservative warmongering that Ukraine has put itself in a position to win this war and it is our duty as defenders of his Open Society to assist them no matter the cost.

Because if we do not, “Civilization may not survive.” The particular type of solipsism and hubris that Soros exhibits doesn’t just border on the pathological, it ignores it like Soros argues we should do for all borders.

In his worldview borders should be eradicated. So why are his puppets and acolytes so obsessed with the ‘territorial integrity of Ukraine?’

Soros is an ideologue. He has defined the world in terms that are incompatible with human nature. And he is losing. This is why he wants more commitment to kill the evil Russians who refuse to eat bugs, get sterilized and be eradicated from history, which he spent billions doing in Ukraine over the past eight years.

Going through the lies of his speech are almost not worth the time. They are, ultimately, just Soros’ projections of what he believes are Putin’s and Xi’s motives and goals with their current operations — war in Ukraine / lockdowns in China.

Boy it’d sure be hard to determine which of these 2 old codgers did more damage to the world. Soros has funded lots of regime changes, but Kissinger has been involved with them. My suggestion is both of them shuffle off this mortal coil and then they can duke it out in hell to see who’s worse.

Henry Kissinger stood at the center of this for decades. He groomed Klaus Schwab to build the WEF into what it is today, the premier influence peddling dirty tricksters and promoters of the worst ideas advanced in human history.

….
George Soros is a nouveau riche, Nazi collaborator and opportunistic vulture with delusions of adequacy. He’s played high sakes poker with the biggest players in the world and broken entire countries multiple times. His son has his legacy now, but he’ll lose that now that his dad has gone shitbird crazy

Soros is just your typical narcissistic bully, ready to tell you why you need to do his bidding to make him powerful. This will be the last time he makes a speech anyone listens to and the last time anyone will give a shit about who wins the fight between two old cripples at a globalist chug and tug.

The sooner the better! Shuttle arriving soon for both of them I hope. Good gravy Hell must be getting crowded with all the heinous warmongers arriving there on the #9 train going south. McCain, Bush, Powell, Albright…the Devil is having a grand time roasting marshmallows. Smile

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10 users have voted.

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

janis b's picture

@snoopydawg

My suggestion is both of them shuffle off this mortal coil and then they can duke it out in hell to see who’s worse … the Devil is having a grand time roasting marshmallows.

Who would have thought that sugar, water, and gelatine could be so formidable.

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snoopydawg's picture

Unbelievable if it’s true that cops waited outside the school instead of immediately going in and trying to stop the carnage.

Biden just told states to use any unspent Covid money on the cops and his George Floyd act did absolutely nothing to help the community. But then did anyone expect anything different from the crime bill Biden? Take away quantified immunity from cops and see the number of assaults and killings go down.

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13 users have voted.

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

@snoopydawg The police at Columbine did not enter the school until the shooting stopped. As the two teenagers committed suicide. At the time, big uproar why the cops did not enter the school. I spoke to a SWAT trainer I knew at the time. He said this is the priority cops follow (which he agreed to).
1. Go home safely yourself.
2. Good guys/innocents go home ok.
3. Bad guys okay.

Police at Columbine, put their safety and lives ahead of the students. After Columbine, FBI studied situation and said the policy should be to not wait but to storm and engage the shooters immediately.

Same but better actions by cops at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. I believe the armed school cop waited outside. (Trump really ripped on the guy.) But when city cops came they immediately ran into the school.

Obviously the cops at Uvalde were trained to put their lives ahead of everybody else, including children. That is unfortunately cop culture. And the public accepts it. All a cop has to do in a shooting is to say he feared for his life, and that gives him a license to kill anybody including innocent people. So if they they go to court over a killing, they will typically be acquitted.

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11 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

knowing that their kids were in danger and not being allowed in and then finding out that their kid was dead. Cops tackled one or more of the parents there and tazed another. I tried to think what I’d do if Sam had been killed at her doggie school…just heartbreaking.

On Tuesday, two years after the police murder of African-American George Floyd was captured on cell phone footage, sparking global protests against unending police violence, US President Joe Biden signed a token executive order dubbed the “Executive Order on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety.”

While aimed at presenting the illusion of “police reform” the toothless executive order will do nothing to stem the daily slaughter of workers, retirees and youth at the hands, boots, knees and barrels of US police.

Since the murder of Floyd, police have continued to kill at a steady pace. Data complied by mappingpoliceviolence.org found that in 2020, 1,132 people were killed by police in the US, while in 2021, 1,144 people were killed.

The site found that there were only 15 days in 2021 when police did not kill someone, and only 18 in 2020.

While police have continued to kill an average of three people a day, mappingpoliceviolence.org found that only 1 percent of police killings last year led to charges, with fewer than 1 percent resulting in a conviction.
….
Biden’s executive order, ostensibly aimed at “reforming” the police, will do nothing of the sort. The order requires the Department of Justice to “promote officer wellness” and “support programs” as well as requiring an “updated approach” to “recruitment, hiring, promotion and retention of law enforcement officers.”
….
As with other fascistic attacks on the democratic rights of the population, from abortion rights, to voting rights, to protecting LGBTQ persons, the Democratic Party as proven itself incapable and unwilling to do anything that would incure the wrath of their “Republican colleagues.”

….
That the order presents no meaningful check on police abuses was evident in the fact that it had the backing of the largest and most powerful police organizations in the country. In his speech, Biden personally thanked these organizations, the heads of whom attended the signing.

“Here today,” Biden said,“I want to thank the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Fraternal Order of Police, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association,” and the “Major Cities Chiefs Association” who “stepped up and endorsed what we are talking about.”

In a comment that perhaps speaks more truth than he intended, Biden hailed his executive order as the “most significant police reform in decades.”

He added that it will only apply to just over 100,000 federal police officers, leaving out some 700,000 state police who are not obligated to participate in any of the limited recommendations outlined in the order such as wearing body-cameras or banning choke-holds, unless “authorized.”


Following the fascist shooting in Buffalo, Biden spoke last weekend at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service, where he repeated his love of the police, telling the cops in attendance, “we should agree it’s [time] not to defund the police, it’s to fund the police.” Biden called on “every mayor, governor” to use billions in unspent pandemic-related stimulus money to hire more cops.

“Spend it now, this summer, when crime historically spikes,” Biden said.

Link

Jurors don’t hold cops accountable for some reason and in my local comments most people seem to worship cops just as much as they do the military. The police associations give billions to democrats over republicans, but neither party gives a damn what happens to us lower class peons. Until a few rich people are targeted by cops nothing will change.

Obviously the cops at Uvalde were trained to put their lives ahead of everybody else, including children. That is unfortunately cop culture. And the public accepts it. All a cop has to do in a shooting is to say he feared for his life, and that gives him a license to kill anybody including innocent people. So if they they go to court over a killing, they will typically be acquitted.

Some type of police reform was passed in the house, but Biden who told us that we had to elect him because he knew how to work with his friends across the isle couldn’t get them to sign on to the bill. In fact the only bill republicans helped democrats get passed was the $40 billion for Ukraine.

I wasn’t aware that happened at Columbine too. I did know one cop refused to go in at the Florida school. If you read the thread you will see conflicting stories about when the first cop met up with the shooter. Gawd I hate being cynical, but conspiracy theories abound in my brain over mass killings.

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9 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

i've been largely avoiding reading in much detail about the shootings. i know that it will just piss me off because nothing will be done about it and the same pattern will repeat again soon.

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13 users have voted.
ggersh's picture

end of the empire.....all pol's work for the man not the people

we're fucked!

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11 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

joe shikspack's picture

@ggersh

this one? yep, it's good:

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7 users have voted.
shaharazade's picture

@joe shikspack

Hope it gets a move on as it's killing the world and the planet. Fall baby Fall and be quick about it.

just wish it @joe shikspack

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10 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@shaharazade

sadly, i don't see the empire going down without taking much of the planet with it. the idiot ruling class that we can't seem to rid ourselves of will not loose their grip on power for fear of getting their just desserts.

i wish them away - to a banishment beyond the point where they can trouble us any further - and i wish it were so easy.

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10 users have voted.
ggersh's picture

@joe shikspack @joe shikspack @joe shikspack And here is more Hedges w/Jimmy on how Kissinger is
now further left then Bernie and the Squad.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNcTZR8P8EY]

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9 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

snoopydawg's picture

NATO vs Russia: what happens next

This ‘game-changing’ narrative comes courtesy of the same people who burned though trillions of dollars to secure Afghanistan and Iraq. And we saw how that went down.

Ukraine is the Holy Grail of international corruption. That $40 billion can be a game-changer for only two classes of people: First, the US military-industrial complex, and second, a bunch of Ukrainian oligarchs and neo-connish NGOs, that will corner the black market for weapons and humanitarian aid, and then launder the profits in the Cayman Islands.

A quick breakdown of the $40 billion reveals $8.7 billion will go to replenish the US weapons stockpile (thus not going to Ukraine at all); $3.9 billion for USEUCOM (the ‘office’ that dictates military tactics to Kiev); $5 billion for a fuzzy, unspecified “global food supply chain”; $6 billion for actual weapons and “training” to Ukraine; $9 billion in “economic assistance” (which will disappear into selected pockets); and $0.9 billion for refugees.

Yup that’s going to change the war and Russia will exit Ukraine with their tails between their legs. Congress is giving Ukraine $9 billion to pay for their military and government and pensions and just maybe some of it will make its way into the people’s pockets, but don’t hold your breath.

Also rumors are that NATO is going to go into the Black Sea to escort wheat out of Ukraine that Russia isn’t blocking, but Ukraine is. Anyone brain dead enough to think that will do anything except bring us to the brink of annihilation needs to be removed from power.

Biden’s going to try sanctioning any country that is buying Russian gas. I’m looking forward to paying $10 aren’t you? Gas went up $.10 in one day today. It’s now $4.70. Diesel is $5.60. FJB and his goons that brought this to us! Sideways.

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11 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

looks like ukraine is getting some lovely parting gifts, though not as many as they would hope. but not to worry about the defense firms - they're doing great.

midgrade gas is already over $5 a gallon here and diesel is around $6 give or take a nickel. i would not be surprised to see $10 a gallon. the forces that profit from it are just that rapacious and shameless and the people whose "electability" ride on it make themselves just that impotent so they can bask in the grift.

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10 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

We keep hearing about how corrupt Ukraine is, and, of course, there is some annual index ranking all countries by the amount or extent of their corruptness or corruption,, but consider this definition of corrupt:

having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain

In all likelihood, by that definition, most countries are likely to be about equally corrupt, because the key is willingness and our perception of corruption is more oriented toward the opportunity to act upon that willingness. If we were to measure corruption based on the total monies involved in corrupt behaviors and activities, the world's worst and most corrupt is surely the US, no other nation can come at all close. (Remember, fraud, our national sport, is also a crime)

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

it would be interesting if there were some sort of reasoned measurement system for a country's fidelity to its constitution (or body of law for countries without a written constitution). i would guess that the u.s.' fidelity to its damned piece of paper would suffer in relation to others.

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7 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

@joe shikspack @joe shikspack

"... all treaties made or which shall be made ...". And then, of course, the first and fourth and maybe fifth amendments too.

be well and have a good one

edit corrected ut to out

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3 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 --