The Evening Blues - 5-3-17
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago blues singer Jimmy Lee Robinson. Enjoy!
Jimmie Lee Robinson - Boss Man
"I mean, how lucky are we? What an amazing stroke of good fortune for the growing anti-deep state movement that’s emerging all across the political spectrum for CNN to repeatedly trot out a cute little Syrian girl reciting obviously scripted words in a language that she plainly does not understand condemning Bashar al-Assad and urging US intervention as though a seven year-old child could ever be some sort of authority on foreign policy! CNN’s collaboration with such an obvious work of war propaganda is the single greatest piece of evidence that the corporate media is lying to the American people about Syria in order to manufacture consent for a new regime change invasion. You really have to be a drooling, mindless idiot to not see through the way CNN’s Alisyn Camerota nods solemnly along as Bana sounds out what she was told to say syllable-by-syllable in the interview. It’s like they’re doing our work for us, telling the world “We’re helping the oligarchs lie to you about Syria,” and we’ll always have that to point at whenever Official Syria Narrative raises its vapid head."
-- Caitlyn Johnstone
News and Opinion
An excellent article worth reading in full. Here's a tease:
NYT Cheers the Rise of Censorship Algorithms
Just days after sporting First Amendment pins at the White House Correspondents Dinner – to celebrate freedom of the press – the mainstream U.S. media is back to celebrating a very different idea: how to use algorithms to purge the Internet of what is deemed “fake news,” i.e. what the mainstream judges to be “misinformation.” The New York Times, one of the top promoters of this new Orwellian model for censorship, devoted two-thirds of a page in its Tuesday editions to a laudatory piece about high-tech entrepreneurs refining artificial intelligence that can hunt down and eradicate supposedly “fake news.” ...
Since the Times is a member of the Google-funded First Draft Coalition – along with other mainstream outlets such as The Washington Post and the pro-NATO propaganda site Bellingcat – this idea of eliminating information that counters what the group asserts is true may seem quite appealing to the Times and the other insiders. After all, it might seem cool to have some high-tech tool that silences your critics automatically? But you don’t need a huge amount of imagination to see how this combination of mainstream groupthink and artificial intelligence could create an Orwellian future in which only one side of a story gets told and the other side simply disappears from view.
As much as the Times, the Post, Bellingcat and the others see themselves as the fount of all wisdom, the reality is that they have all made significant journalistic errors, sometimes contributing to horrific international crises. For instance, in 2002, the Times reported that Iraq’s purchase of aluminum tubes revealed a secret nuclear weapons program (when the tubes were really for artillery); the Post wrote as flat-fact that Saddam Hussein was hiding stockpiles of WMD (which in reality didn’t exist); Bellingcat misrepresented the range of a Syrian rocket that delivered sarin on a neighborhood near Damascus in 2013 (creating the impression that the Syrian government was at fault when the rocket apparently came from rebel-controlled territory). These false accounts – and many others from the mainstream media – were countered in real time by experts who published contrary information on the Internet. But if the First Draft Coalition and these algorithms were in control, the information scrubbers might have purged the dissident assessments as “fake news” or “misinformation.”
There also should be the fear – even among these self-appointed guardians of “truth” – that their algorithms might someday be put to use by a totalitarian regime to stomp out the last embers of real democracy. However, if you’re looking for such thoughtfulness, you won’t find it in the Times article by Mark Scott. Instead, the Times glorifies the creators of this Brave New World.
Let's Call Western Media Coverage of Syria By Its Real Name: Propaganda
Syria is proof of how low mainstream Western media are prepared to sink in the service of state power; it’s where journalistic standards, like global jihadists, go to die. Rank propaganda is the order of the day. Honest observers are appalled. Stephen Kinzer wrote that “coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press,” while Robert Fisk described the war as “the most poorly reported conflict in the world.” Patrick Cockburn registered a similar concern, writing that “Western media has allowed itself to become a conduit for propaganda for one side in this savage conflict.” This has grave implications:
News organizations have ended up being spoon-fed by jihadis and their sympathizers who make it impossible for independent observers to visit areas they control. By regurgitating information from such tainted sources, the media gives al-Qaeda type groups every incentive to go on killing and abducting journalists in order to create and benefit from a news vacuum they can fill themselves.
So the ideology-driven Western media, in allying themselves with the armed opposition in Syria, have helped to create a situation in which it pays to kidnap and murder people who seek to report the truth. Ergo, they have violated the canons of their profession in the most egregious manner possible. And you’ll have noticed that they’re totally shameless about it. None of this gives them a moment of pause. They keep pumping out the propaganda, day in, day out, never stopping to reflect on the potential consequences. When one story falls apart, they move on to the next one. The most, or perhaps only, important thing is to manipulate public opinion so that it corresponds to government policy. Beyond that, who cares?
[See article for a partial detailing of major propaganda themes. - js]
... There does appear to be at least one aspect of the battle we haven’t quite forgot: Bana Alabed, aka The Face (or Voice) of Aleppo. The seven-year-old earned that moniker by narrating the city’s gradual “fall” via Twitter. It mattered not that she was being cynically exploited as an instrument of pathos by her mother, who obviously controlled the account and who evidently forgot on occasion that she was tweeting on behalf of a seven-year-old girl (at one point, in a tweet that has since been taken down, she explicitly lobbied for World War Three). Bana, or the idea of Bana, served a useful propaganda function. You see, people in the West need to be shown dead or suffering children before they can, on the one hand, apprehend how despicable war is and, on the other, support another bloody US military adventure in the name of humanitarianism. Because you’d have to be a monster to look at the child and not feel motivated to “do something.”
That’s the way it works. Hence the image of the dead three-year-old refugee who washed up on a beach, or the one of the dust-covered boy sitting in the back of an ambulance, or Trump’s talk of “beautiful babies.” Of course, the effects of the humanitarian escalation, should it come to pass, are duly sanitized. We didn’t, for instance, see any pictures of dead Iraqi children that were killed as a result of the US invasion. Nor do we keep up with the Twitter account of some seven-year-old child living under siege in Mosul, where American bombs continue to rain down on civilian sites. That would be bad for business. But Bana is good for business. So good, in fact, that she now has a book deal with Simon & Schuster. You’ve just crossed over into The Twilight Zone.
Most of US political establishment dead set against cooperation with Russia
Trump and Putin had 'good' talk about ending Syria war, White House says
Donald Trump had a “very good” conversation with Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, about a diplomatic resolution to the Syrian civil war, including the creation of safe zones, the White House said on Tuesday.
The two leaders held their first known phone discussion since last month’s US missile strikes against a Syrian government airbase soured relations between Washington and Moscow.
“President Trump and President Putin agreed that the suffering in Syria has gone on for far too long and that all parties must do all they can to end the violence,” a White House statement said. “The conversation was a very good one, and included the discussion of safe, or de-escalation, zones to achieve lasting peace for humanitarian and many other reasons.”
The US said it would be sending a representative to ceasefire talks in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, on Wednesday. Trump and Putin also discussed cooperation to “eradicate terrorism” throughout the Middle East and how best to resolve the “very dangerous” situation in North Korea.
Is North Korea a Diversion for a US-Jordan Invasion of Syria?
"In the event of a de-facto partition of Syria, the US and its allies will get a strategically important region. It is through Deir Ezzor that the proposed gas pipeline from Qatar is supposed to run….The Deir Ezzor province is also home to Syria’s largest oil deposit, the Al-Omar. …the city and the province are of particular value since the deposits there contain the highly valuable light sweet crude usable in the production of gasoline and diesel fuel.”
— South Front, “The Stronghold of Deir Ezzor; What You Need to Know”
The United States is not going to launch a preemptive attack on North Korea. The risks far outweigh the rewards and, besides, the US has no intention of getting bogged down in a conflict that doesn’t advance its geopolitical objectives. The saber-rattling is just an attempt to divert attention from the Syria-Jordan border where the US and Jordan are massing troops and equipment for an invasion of Syria. That’s what’s really going on. The Korean fiasco is a smokescreen.
True, the Trump administration is milking the situation for all its worth, but that doesn’t mean that they want a war with the North. That’s not it at all. Washington wants to deploy its controversial THAAD anti-missile system to South Korea, but it needs a pretext to do so. Hence, the ominous threat of an “unstable, nuclear-armed North Korea”, that’s all the justification Washington needed to get its new weapons system deployed. Mission Accomplished.
But the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) isn’t aimed at North Korea, it’s aimed at China, and China knows it which is why it has protested its deployment repeatedly. The US wants to surround China and Russia with military bases and missile systems that are integrated into its broader nuclear weapons system. These lethal systems are a crucial part of Washington’s plan to pivot to Asia and rule the world into the next century. ...
At the same time, the media is trying to divert attention from critical developments in the Middle East, particularly the Syria-Jordan border where Washington has rallied its proxy-fighters into a makeshift army that will (likely) invade southern Syria, charge northward to Deir Ezzor, establish a no-fly zone over the occupied territory, and partition the area east of the Euphrates preventing loyalist forces from reestablishing Syria’s sovereign borders. That appears to be the basic game-plan.
Why Do North Koreans Hate Us? One Reason — They Remember the Korean War.
Let’s be clear: there is no doubt that the citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) both fear and loathe the United States. ... “The hate, though,” as long-time North Korea watcher Blaine Harden observed in the Washington Post, “ is not all manufactured.” Some of it, he wrote, “is rooted in a fact-based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers and the United States blithely forgets.”
Forgets as in the “forgotten war.” Yes, the Korean War. Remember that? The one wedged between World War II and the Vietnam War? The first “hot” war of the Cold War, which took place between 1950 and 1953, and which has since been conveniently airbrushed from most discussions and debates about the “crazy” and “insane” regime in Pyongyang? Forgotten despite the fact that this particular war isn’t even over — it was halted by an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty — and despite the fact that the conflict saw the United States engage in numerous war crimes which, perhaps unsurprisingly, continue to shape the way North Koreans view the United States, even if the residents of the United States remain blissfully ignorant of their country’s belligerent past. ...
“What hardly any Americans know or remember,” University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings writes in his book “The Korean War: A History,” “is that we carpet-bombed the north for three years with next to no concern for civilian casualties.” How many Americans, for example, are aware of the fact that U.S. planes dropped on the Korean peninsula more bombs — 635,000 tons — and napalm — 32,557 tons — than during the entire Pacific campaign against the Japanese during World War II? How many Americans know that “over a period of three years or so,” to quote Air Force General Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, “we killed off … 20 percent of the population”?
Twenty. Percent. For a point of comparison, the Nazis exterminated 20 percent of Poland’s pre-World War II population. According to LeMay, “We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea.” ... Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who was a State Department official in charge of Far Eastern affairs during the Korean War, would later admit that the United States bombed “every brick that was standing on top of another, everything that moved.” American pilots, he noted, “were just bombing the heck out of North Korea.” ...
Millions of ordinary Americans may suffer from a toxic combination of ignorance and amnesia, but the victims of U.S. coups, invasions and bombing campaigns across the globe tend not to. Ask the Iraqis or the Iranians, ask the Cubans or the Chileans. And, yes, ask the North Koreans. ... If another Korean war, a potentially nuclear war, is to be avoided and if, as the Czech-born novelist Milan Kundera famously wrote, “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” then ordinary Americans can no longer afford to forget the death, destruction and debilitating legacy of the original Korean War.
Al-Qaeda claims it is ‘fighting alongside’ US-backed coalition forces in Yemen
Qasim al-Rimi, who has led the branch of the global jihadist movement known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap) since his predecessor was killed in 2015, told the group’s media arm al-Malahem on Sunday that his followers were de facto aligned with an array of forces in the complex conflict.
“We fight alongside all Muslims in Yemen, together with different Islamic groups,” he said, including “the Muslim Brotherhood and also our brothers among the sons of (Sunni) tribes.”
While al-Rimi did not elaborate on what he meant by “alongside”, many Sunni tribal militias, as well as the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood movement and conservative Salafis, are allied to the exiled Yemeni government fighting against Shia rebels known as Houthis who seized control of the capital Sanaa in 2014.
The militias receive extensive funding and arms from the US-backed Saudi-led coalition, which has supported President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi with air strikes and ground troops since March 2015.
Alarm grows in Washington as Saudi coalition attack on Yemen port appears imminent
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers urged Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday to reconsider his support for a seemingly imminent assault by a Saudi-led coalition on the crucial Yemeni port city of Hodeida. “In the face of Yemen’s senseless humanitarian tragedy, where 19 million people need emergency support, we are committed to using our Constitutional authority to assert greater oversight over U.S. involvement in the conflict and promote greater public debate regarding U.S. military participation in Yemen’s civil war, which has never been authorized by Congress,” the legislators said in a letter.
The letter comes on the heels of another, signed by 55 legislators, to President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions insisting that any direct U.S. involvement in Yemen be brought before Congress for authorization. In a trip to Saudi Arabia in April, Mattis hinted at direct U.S. military and intelligence support for the Saudi-led coalition, which is seeking to dislodge the Shiite-led Houthi rebels from Sanaa and other areas they control in Yemen. ...
“Last month, in a bipartisan request, 54 of my colleagues and I asked President Trump a simple question: what legal justification is the White House claiming for escalating U.S. involvement in Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen — a war that’s never been authorized by Congress?” Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said in an email. “With a potential green light from President Trump, the Saudis appear to be gearing up to destroy the lifeline to food imports for millions of Yemenis on the verge of starvation.” ... The loss of Hodeida could force the Houthis back to the negotiating table, as the coalition hopes, but the bloodshed expected could also deepen the war's divisions and prolong Yemen's immense suffering.
US airstrike turned a home in Iraq's Mosul into a death trap
Accounts from witnesses and survivors cast doubt on American suggestions that the Islamic State group was to blame for the deaths of more than 100 people taking refuge in a house hit by a U.S. airstrike earlier this year in Mosul, the deadliest single incident of the months-long campaign to retake the Iraqi city. U.S. officials said soon after the March 17 strike that investigations could find that militants forced people into the building, booby-trapped it with explosives, then lured in the strike.
None of that happened, according to seven witnesses and survivors who spoke to The Associated Press. Instead, they described a horrifying battlefield where airstrikes and artillery pound neighborhoods relentlessly, trying to root out IS militants, leveling hundreds of buildings, many with civilians inside, despite the constant flight of surveillance drones overhead. Displaced families scurry from house to house, most of them driven out of their homes in other neighborhoods by IS militants, who herd residents at gunpoint out of districts about to fall to Iraqi forces and push them into IS-held areas. ...
The witnesses all told the AP that no one was forced into the building that was destroyed on March 17. It was seen as safe because it was not on a main road and was only two stories tall, making it unlikely to be used by IS militants as a sniper's position that might be hit by an airstrike. Its owner, Tayseer Abu Tawfiq, was a respected local businessman who let anyone in need stay with his own family of 14.
U.S. Central Command has refused to comment on the strike until its investigation is completed.
Orban is probably not a nice guy, but it looks like his detractors have been copying (or have been influenced to copy) American anti-Putin propaganda. Hopefully, they are not in the process of exchanging a bad leader for lackey(s) of an external power.
Hungarians take to the streets to protest rising Russian influence
Thousands of Hungarians marched through the capital Budapest Monday, chanting “Europe, not Moscow” in protest at the authoritarian government’s perceived embrace of Russian influence.
The rally was the latest major demonstration in recent weeks to challenge Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s vision for the country, as the conservative leader openly attempts to steer Hungary away from Western liberal values and, critics say, increasingly draws from the playbook of Putin’s Russia. It came just two days after Orbán was summoned to a meeting of fellow EU center-right parties to hear European concerns over controversial new Hungarian laws that have been widely criticized as an attack on academic freedom.
Monday’s “We Belong to Europe” protest, held on the 13th anniversary of Hungary’s accession to the European Union, was organized by Momentum, a new, youth-led political movement that says it plans to contest the next elections in April. At the start of the rally, Momentum leader András Fekete-Győr accused Orbán of “driving the nation toward Moscow.” “Instead of the rich, modern, and free Europe, he sets the poor, oppressed, and underdeveloped Russia as the example for our country,” he said.
Once a critic of Moscow, Orbán has more recently praised Russia as a model for the “illiberal” state he seeks to create in Hungary, and is said to have taken a lead from the Kremlin’s “foreign agent” laws when cooking up controversial proposals to clamp down on foreign-funded, nongovernmental organizations. ... The deepening ties between the two countries, which include a Russian loan in 2014 to expand Hungary’s only nuclear power plant, has seen Russian President Vladimir Putin visit Orbán twice in recent years.
[Twice!!! Wow, that's a lot of times to visit a neighbor in "recent years." - js]
EU warns the U.K. that “accounts need to be cleared” before Brexit can happen
Hopes for a smooth Brexit are fading, as London and Brussels clashed over reports of a 100 billion euro “divorce bill” Wednesday. Such figures have been dismissed by British lawmakers as preposterous, but the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator has warned that “accounts need to be cleared” before any exit can take place.
Michel Barnier’s remarks came at a press conference Wednesday where he published the EU’s guidelines for negotiating phase one of the U.K.’s departure, which will focus on Ireland, citizen’s rights and how much money Westminister will have to pay Brussels before it can leave the organization.
It is the final aspect of these negotiations which is likely to cause the most controversy, particularly in the U.K. where any financial settlement is being framed as a punitive measure, though Barnier was at pains to point out that this was not the case. “There is no punishment, there is no Brexit bill.” He added that the EU has never asked the U.K. for a blank cheque, but that it was a matter “of balancing the books, and accounts which need to be cleared” before Britain can leave the union. ...
On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported that the final bill presented to the U.K. could be as much as 100 billion euro, based on its own analysis of stricter new demands driven by France and Germany.
Face to Face: Le Pen, Macron square off in final debate
Republican moderates set to thwart party's bid to repeal Obamacare
The push to repeal and replace Obamacare seemed likely to fail yet again as many House Republicans on Tuesday expressed unease with how the proposed legislation would affect people with pre-existing conditions.
In a reversal of the dynamic when Republicans last attempted to repeal Obamacare in March, the new plan has received backing from the Freedom Caucus, a recalcitrant group of arch-conservatives who are more often associated with spoiling the GOP leadership’s agenda than supporting it. This time around a significant number of the holdouts are moderates who are making a rare break with the leadership to oppose the legislation. ...
Republicans disagree publicly about how the new amendment will affect Americans with pre-existing conditions. Paul Ryan, the House speaker, has stated that sicker Americans would be “better off” under the Republican healthcare plan, and promised that there are a “few layers of protections for pre-existing conditions in this bill”. But the bill is opposed by a coalition of influential advocacy groups, including the American Medical Association.
These changes have alienated previously loyal members of the Republican caucus. On Tuesday, Fred Upton of Michigan, the former chairman of the House energy and commerce committee, announced his opposition to the new version of the healthcare plan, saying an amendment added to appease conservatives “torpedoes” protections for people with pre-existing health conditions. At least 20 Republicans have publicly stated their opposition to the bill and several more remain undecided. House Republicans can only afford to lose 22 votes and pass the bill, assuming all Democrats oppose the measure.
Police officer who shot and killed unarmed black man pleads guilty to federal offense
A white police officer who argued that he fired eight times at an unarmed black man because he feared for his life pleaded guilty to a civil rights charge that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison Tuesday.
Michael Slager pulled Walter Scott over in April 2015 over a busted brake light. When Scott fled the scene, Slager opened fire and hit him five times in the back. The 50-year-old died from his injuries at the scene. The killing was captured on video and became the focus of Black Lives Matter protests across the nation.
Though Slager’s plea deal doesn’t mention race, it does acknowledge that Slager’s “actions were done willfully, that he acted voluntarily and intentionally and with specific intent to do something that the law forbids.” By admitting he sought to deprive Scott of his civil rights — a federal offense — Slager may end up spending decades behind bars.
Justice department won't charge white officers in killing of Alton Sterling
The US justice department has declined to bring charges against the white police officers involved in the 2016 fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, a black man in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, according to multiple reports. The 37-year-old was killed last July after two officers wrestled him to the ground and opened fire from close range in an incident that caught on video by eyewitnesses. The case was referred quickly to federal civil rights investigators after calls from Sterling’s family and unrest on the streets of Baton Rouge.
Both the New York Times and the Washington Post quoted anonymous justice department officials confirming that no charges would brought in the Sterling case. The justice department did not respond to a request for confirmation. L Chris Stewart and Justin Bamberg, attorneys for the Sterling family said they had not been informed by the department of “any decision or announcement”.
If confirmed, the decision in the Sterling case will mark the first such announcement made by the justice department under the Trump administration and has already been interpreted by activists as a step backwards under new attorney general Jeff Sessions, a staunch supporter of law enforcement.
Up to 55,000 Haitians Face Deportation If Trump Refuses to Extend Temporary Protected Status
Even money talks bigger and louder in Texas.
Private Prison Corporation Wrote Texas Bill Extending How Long Immigrant Children Can Be Detained
A bill written by a private prison operator to assist its immigration detention business could advance through the Texas state Senate this week, despite vocal protest from civil rights groups. The legislation would allow family detention centers to be classified as childcare facilities, enabling Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to detain women and children for longer periods. ... During the migrant influx of 2014, the Obama administration contracted the construction of two giant family detention centers in south Texas — one for each of America’s biggest private prison companies — to hold women and children seeking asylum. ... However, because of multiple judicial rulings dating back to 1997, no undocumented child can be held for over 20 days in anything but a licensed “non-secure” childcare facility.
Almost nothing about these detention centers meets that definition. Grassroots groups have given them the grim nickname “baby jails,” and a survivor of a WWII-era Japanese internment camp said the facilities “triggered distressing associations of my own experience as a child.” Reports of inadequate medical care, sexual abuse, improper solitary confinement, and permanently stunted child development proliferate. Most of all, the presence of locks on the doors contradicts the idea of a non-secure facility. “They’re not allowed to leave. That’s jail,” said Mary Small of the Detention Watch Network, a national coalition working on immigration issues.
The Texas Department of Family Protective Services granted the facilities childcare licenses, but last year a state judge blocked the designation. So Geo Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator, went to work assembling legislation that would countermand the judicial ruling. The bill would lower state childcare standards for family detention centers, excluding the facilities from regulations such as ones that prohibit housing children and unrelated adults in the same room. ...
If the bill, which cleared a Senate subcommittee last week, passes, women and children could be held ... indefinitely while awaiting deportation. Without the bill, the facilities would likely have to shut down, said the bill’s Senate sponsor, Bryan Hughes. The Karnes facility earns about $55 million per year for the Geo Group. But in part because of the standing judicial order, the population is only about 100 in an 830-bed facility.
Pffffttt!!!
Hillary Clinton "I'm part of `the resistance' now"
Speaking at a luncheon for the charity Women for Women International Tuesday, Clinton mocked President Trump’s performance in office so far and gave she called her “excruciating analysis” of why she lost last November. “I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28th and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off,” she told moderator Christiane Amanpour. Clinton added that she’s writing a book and it’s “is a painful process reliving the campaign.” ...
A significant portion of the interview was spent discussing possible reasons behind Clinton’s loss in the presidential election with Clinton pointing the finger, if not by name, at Russian President Vladimir Putin. ...
Clinton acknowledged that she made mistakes in the campaign: “Oh my gosh, yes. You know, you’ll read my confession and my request for absolution.” But then reiterated that not all of the problems with her campaign were self-caused. “The reason why I believe we lost were the intervening events in the last 10 days,” she said.
Clinton also indicated that she will continue being active and speaking out as “a private citizen and a part of the resistance.”
The election may be over but the campaign may never will be.
.@jaketapper: Hillary Clinton takes full responsibility for her election loss... except for Comey, Putin, WikiLeaks, misogyny, and the media pic.twitter.com/PVKzGzIZTn
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) May 2, 2017
Graham calls for Susan Rice to testify on unmasking allegations
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is reportedly calling on former national security adviser Susan Rice to testify before a Senate subcommittee next week regarding whether the Obama administration tried to "politicize intel" during the 2016 presidential election.
President Trump accused Rice last month of improperly unmasking American citizens caught up in incidental surveillance in an effort to implicate members of his campaign during probes into Russian meddling in the election. Rice denied those allegations in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria over the weekend, saying she never did "anything that was untoward" with intelligence that she received.
Graham, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and chairs the subcommittee on crime and terrorism, said that, while it was clear that Russia interfered in the election, congressional investigators also need to get to the bottom of the allegations against Rice.
Jared Kushner fails to mention another conflict of interest, this time with Goldman Sachs and George Soros
Jared Kushner and wife Ivanka Trump are no strangers to business arrangements that present ethics complications for their jobs as top advisers to Donald Trump. The latest snag: Kushner failed to disclose his stake in the real estate startup Cadre, which is partly owned by George Soros, Peter Thiel, Goldman Sachs, and other investors.
The trouble with this, of course, is that big banks like Goldman Sachs and investors like Soros are exactly who the federal government is supposed to regulate without conflicts of interest.
Kushner’s lawyer told the Wall Street Journal that Kushner previously disclosed his stake in Cadre’s parent company and that he has “resigned from Cadre’s board, assigned his voting rights, and reduced his ownership share.”
Keystone defiance triggers assault on a constitutional right
Last month, South Dakota’s Republican governor Dennis Daugaard, a longtime supporter of the XL, signed Senate Bill 176. The new law allows local officials to prohibit groups larger than 20 from congregating on state land, and could criminalize those who attempt to protest on state highways. (The Montana legislature is considering similar legislation.) It was pushed through, without consultation with tribal leaders in the state, as an emergency measure, a follow-on response to the direct action protests at Standing Rock in North Dakota.
Many Native Americans here view the new law as a further assault on their rights after centuries of disenfranchisement. Hundreds are already veterans of Standing Rock, which borders this reservation to the north. The council chairman Harold Frazier was present throughout these protests, watching as his contemporaries were tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets by police. “It is something I will never forget,” he says, later branding the new law unconstitutional and suggesting it will be challenged in court. “It was so awesome to see the strength of our people.” ...
Ninety miles south, in the state capital of Pierre – a slight detour from the XL’s proposed route – the governor was not available to be interviewed about the new law. Instead, the administration put up a member of Daugaard’s cabinet, who is adamant the legislation does not discriminate against Native American protesters. Steve Emery, the Republican secretary for tribal relations and himself a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, is, of course, expected to hold the governor’s line on the issue. But during an interview at his secretarial office, he made an honest admission that is likely to frustrate his boss by undermining the administration’s primary justification for supporting the XL in the first place. “I certainly don’t think it [the XL pipeline] is going to make any great economic impact on South Dakota or on the native tribes that share our borders,” he says. Then what is it that the tribes in this state do not understand about the pipeline that explains the Daugaard administration’s support for it? He pauses, takes a sip of water and after an awkward silence responds: “I am not really sure how to answer that, because I am sure they probably know more about the pipeline than I do.”
Black rhinos return to Rwanda 10 years after disappearance
Around 20 endangered eastern black rhinos are returning in an “extraordinary homecoming” to Rwanda after the species disappeared from the country 10 years ago, the African Parks organisation has said. The rhinos are being moved from South Africa to the Akagera national park in eastern Rwanda, according to the non-profit group that manages protected areas for African governments. “This extraordinary homecoming will take place over the first two weeks of May,” it said in a statement.
The eastern black rhino, one of the sub-species of the rhinoceros, is in critical danger of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Back in the 1970s, more than 50 black rhinos thrived in the savannah habitat of the Akagera park, but their numbers declined due to wide-scale poaching and the last confirmed sighting was in 2007.
North Carolina Hog Farms Spray Manure Around Black Communities; Residents Fight Back
Flint Residents Could Lose Their Homes Over Unpaid Bills for Poisoned Water
The city of Flint, where the pipes have still not been fixed and the water crisis is ongoing, is threatening to place tax liens on people's homes for non-payment of water bills, according to a local news source.
NBC affiliate 25News reported Tuesday that more than 8,000 people have received notice from the city that they are "at risk of losing their homes to foreclosure if they don't pay up on their water bills" by May 19.
"We have to have revenue coming in, so we can't give people...water at the tap and not get revenue coming in to pay those bills," Al Mooney of the city's Treasury Department said to the outlet. ...
As Common Dreams reported in late April, three years after the crisis began, Flint still does not have clean water. Residents must purchase filters to reduce the lead in their water, and the city says it will be three more years before all of the city's lead pipes are replaced.
In March, the state of Michigan ended a program that reimbursed residents for most of their water costs in the wake of the lead crisis, and in April, the city began shutting off water service to residents with past due bills.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Just A Friendly Reminder That The Establishment Is Terrified Of Tulsi Gabbard
Hillary Lies About North Korea And Syria, Proves She Was The More Hawkish Choice
The Syrian Side of the Story You Never Hear
War, Morality, and How to Get There From Here
As tensions mount over Syria and North Korea, World War III again a U.S. fear
Government Smearing of Israeli Critics
Readers Pummel New York Times Writer Over His Big Bank Stance
Why Civil Resistance Works and Why the Billionaire-Class Cares
A Little Night Music
Jimmie Lee Robinson - Got To Have Some
Jimmie Lee Robinson - Ah' W Baby
Jimmie Lee Robinson - 3 O'Clock Blues
Jimmie Lee Robinson - See See Baby
Jimmie Lee Robinson - Rosa Lee, Twist It Baby
Jimmie Lee Robinson - I'll Be Coming Home
Jimmie Lee Robinson - All My Life
Jimmie Lee Robinson (as Lonesome Lee) - Cry Over Me
Jimmie Lee Robinson - Lonely Traveling
Jimmie Lee Robinson - Tell Me Mama
Comments
Comey - Assange
Comey testified at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today. Lying as usual.
He is making me ill.
I am glad the McClatchy writer checked Assange's twitter page to see if he had said anything. I'm sure most (or all) other media did not, and just let Comey's lie stand.
McClatchy
Ah, Julian, Julian, Julian. Please try to keep up.
Everybody knows that officials from the Executive Branch are allowed to lie to Congress under oath. We don't call that misleading while under oath. We call it the least untruthful testimony.
evening olinda...
good to see you!
i heard a brief bit of comey's testimony this afternoon in the car. he just sounded pitiful. i'm not at all surprised to find out that he told bald-faced lies under oath, i'm sure that there will be no repercussions because they were exactly the sort of lies that congressworms wanted to hear.
Butcher of Libya
OMG, he called her the Butcher of Libya. Be careful, Julian. He is starting to make me nervous. And, she did say "Russian WikiLeaks." Not Russia, and WikiLeaks, but Russian WikiLeaks. Disgusting, as usual.
i've seen that appellation...
"the butcher of libya" elsewhere. it's fitting, i hope that it catches on, though it does kind of remind me of the lamentable christopher hitchens' rhetoric.
I hope Putin is able
to discern some rational sense, or filter some clear intention, from Trump's incoherent thought processes. Nobody else seems to have been able to.
native
From what I have been reading, Putin has given up.
Seems Russians believe they are seeing the Obama situation at the end of his term where Obama lost all control over the CIA and Pentagon. And also, that Trump is not a rational actor but driven arbitrarily by the vagaries of US politics.
Trump didn't lose control over those agencies
He gave them total control because he thinks that they know more about war than he does which totally destroys the concept of having a civilian being in charge of the military.
But Putin is right, this country's leaders are not to be trusted.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening native...
heh, if putin can figure out trump and get him to do something that might improve the chances of peace, i say we give him a nobel prize.
Reagan’s thought processes were pretty incoherent
And the political and media establishment covered for him, from start to finish.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/reagan-jokes-about-bombing-ru...
“Moment of poor taste,” huh? Would the media let Trump get away with “joking” about the bombardment of Russia beginning in five minutes?
Good evening, Joe. The first two articles are perfect
natural companion pieces - well done.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
thanks!
Hi, Joe. War on wikileaks is war on the First Amendment.
evening hw...
it just goes to show you that the powers that be are just as angry at real news as they are at so-called fake news.
Angrier. Real news is harder to deny.
The view on Wall Street
evening gj...
i guess wall street is where the optimists meet.
They must be looking at that debt
they use for those buybacks and maybe decided that's not sustainable? I know my own company has LOTS more debt and has been piling it on for the last couple years to do just that. They brag about it too, and tell us all how that's so good, good, good for "investors." Its all I can do not to quit some days but they know none of us can afford to do that so there's no longer even any risk of seeming unethical for them, where else we gonna go?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I'm stunned! Today's headline - VA May Close 1,100 Facilities!
For cryin' out loud--I've been hyperventilating about the VA Choice Act since its signing and implementation in August 2014, but even I would never have dreamed that, in spite of the measures allowed by the Choice Act, which privatized Medical Services, and began the dismantling of many VA federal [civilian] employee protections regarding firing, demotion, suspension, etc.--we would, almost overnight see 1,100 of the approximately 1,500 facilities being considered for shuttering, based upon the model of Base Closing Commissions used in days past.
What the h*ll!
Hey, gotta run 'the B' out before dark, but I'll be back to post a link to today's AP story about this development.
You know, it was just yesterday that I stumbled across a WH transcript of a Shulkin Press Briefing, in which the new VA Director (also, a VA undersecretary in O's Administration) set out his plans to foster more 'accountability' in the ranks of the VA civilian personnel. I had planned to post that here tonight, but that's small taters compared to this news.
My question is - "Where the heck are the federal unions?"
Hey, thanks for tonight's edition of News & Blues, Joe. It's a very good feeling to know that there's a place that one can 'rant'--especially, at times like these.
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 wonder if anybody has done a study to see if the private health care system has enough excess capacity to take up the slack. oh, never mind, everything's better in the private sector and the capacity will magically appear out of the invisible hand's invisible trouser pockets.
Very apt comment, Joe--especially since 10,000 Boomers
will reach the age of 65 every day for the next 19 years (since 2011), which can't help but add to the medical community's burden of producing enough physicians/physician assistants/NP's, etc., to care for our aging society.
Here's the link that came down on my cell phone feed. From AP,
Which is what I've been b*tching about for weeks, now!
I was asking about a web cam the other night. When Mr M saw that, he reminded me that we have one on [built in] on one of our laptops--the one that we use when we watch Netflix. Duh! Anyhoo, I checked it out, and it even has a software app, so I think I'll give it a shot, and see if I can operate the darn thing.
'Mister B' has graciously agreed to star in my first attempts at videography. It's great to have an amiable and captive associate!
In the meantime, Democrats are getting ready to 'message' about a WSJ op-ed which calls for the Administration to raise the eligibility age for Social Security eligibility (to offset tax cuts). Their talking point will be that the tax cuts are a giveaway to the rich.
Talk about gall--after 8 years of seeing dribs and drabs of the Bowles-Simpson proposal pushed through (incrementally), they're going to point fingers at the other Party--which, to date, has declared that they won't touch Social Security.
(Not to say that I trust that, indefinitely--my 'guess' is that Repubs might wait until after the mid-terms to go for the cuts.)
Still, it seems a little like 'the pot calling the kettle black,' to me.
Frankly, I have to wonder if there might be an element of Kabuki Theatre going on. I say that, because in spite of Schumer's protestations, all kinds of political program hosts have referenced his close, decades-long association with DT. Heck, DT even held a fundraiser for Schumer at Mar-A-Lago several years ago!!!
Hey, Everyone have a great weekend in advance!
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.
oh, about those video cameras...
if you find that the laptop camera is not as wonderful as you might hope, you might find that the gopro hero cameras are small, fairly easy to use (not many controls) and fairly flexible. some of my friends use them and the quality of the video that they shoot is pretty good.
Thanks. Duly noted, and GoPro gets high marks, too! EOM
Mollie
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
Just one more way to keep on skimming
off of government, and when they break it, who cares?
I have a good friend who works at VA, not medical but part of the intake process for Vets. She was sort of forcibly promoted, black woman so she filled someone's quota and she HATES her job right now. She sees the skimming, big time, and has told me that the whole thing is being run in the Corporate manner now. While they talk about closing medical facilities, some of the shit the VA will pay for that she deals with is astounding. And all of that, almost every single bit of it, goes out to some civilian contractor who rakes off the skim. They don't care whether they break government as long as they get theirs.
My friend has like 6 years left before she can retire and she counts the days. She used to love her job and has done social work for years, but now she's stuck in the administrative hell and hates what she sees. She's somewhat of an enforcer and has denied some really wasteful shit, but it's only a drop in the bucket and she knows that all too well.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
lizzyh7, thanks for sharing your friend's experience
as a VA civilian employee. Gotta run a quick banking errand, but more to say about the toxic changes that are occurring, at tonight's EB.
Glad your friend gets to retire in 6 years--hopefully, it'll go by quickly. I said, recently, that as much as I truly enjoyed my federal career, and wouldn't have traded it for any other, from what I'm reading now regarding so-called 'reforms' aimed at the Civil Service System/federal employees, I couldn't in good faith recommend government service to anyone. Heck, I just thank my lucky stars every day that I was able to retire, when I did.
Have a good one!
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.
"I have a good friend who works at ..."
You know how when someone says they understand and you know they don't, really, understand.
This is one of those simpatico moments, because as a retired university professor, I do understand. As said, "it'll go by quickly ... I truly enjoyed my (educational) career ... (I can't) in good faith recommend (it) to anyone ..."
Your friend is (sadly) in a growing demographic. This is symptomatic of the corporatizing of our governmental and educational institutions. I spent (almost to the day) sixty years in classrooms. It was only during the last few years that these systemic morphological changes became catastrophic. The decent into chaos seems eminent but strangely not inevitable. But that is another story for another time.
Hey, PR--always good to have one's feelings validated! :-D NT
Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.
...fuck...
Whelp, my SO got her IUD replaced 3 years early, and I thought she might be being a tad paranoid.
Time to get all my medical care while I can. It might be going away. (Although Shuttering Portland Hospital would be insane, considering the size... Of course, it's also in a Blue District, and I don't trust democrats to fight for the troops if they can make a buck by saying "Yes, sir, Mr. Corporate Slime, Sir!")
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Hi, DMW! Thought of you when I saw
this piece. Glad your SO was proactive--always a good idea, anymore.
Hope you Guys get to keep the Portland facility. From the way you've spoken about it, I can't imagine that it would wind up on the closure list. But, if it were me, I'd probably try to get as much care as I needed--just in case.
Good luck! Please let us know if you hear anything about how this 'closure thing' will work, since you're on the ground. Mr M is eligible for VA care, but, hasn't had the occasion to use a VA facility (yet). Hey, we care, because for many vets, it may be the only care they are eligible for, or, that they can afford. And, one never knows--one day, he may need care that the VA is best suited to render.
Bottom line, VA medical services are part of 'the contract' that is owed veterans. And we'd like to see it honored.
Have a good one!
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.
Another progressive knocks off a corporate Democrat
it's happening
Very good news.
I hope the mayor of Baltimore is next for vetoing $15/hr min. wage. I gonna bet as these types of victories go on, the "Sanders movement" could get stronger.
evening mr webster...
it couldn't happen to a more deserving person. pugh's progressive opponent, should they appear, will be fighting a fairly powerful political machine, though.
The Caitlyn Johnstone piece incredible video
Of an CNN host visibly outraged that a congressional representative would not allow foreign policy be dictated by a seven year old kid. Trapper or is it Tripper had to delete a tweet urging people to understand what is going on in Syria by reading her tweets.
On Syria looks like maybe the missile strike by Trump may have serious ramifications. To take Raqqa will require boots on the ground and looks like nobody wants to help the US do it now.
Also, the damage to the airport struck by the cruise missiles looks to be minimal because a good number of them never got to the target. Now some speculation that the Russians used electronic jamming devices to divert them. I do remember in the invasion of Iraq that some military people were concerned that the Russians would give Saddam devices that could knock out GPS and make cruise missiles lose their targets.
Evening Joe...
the noise says that Trumpcare has the votes to pass in the house tomorrow.
i say, "go for it," repugs.
In addition, i'm bewildered: why attack Comey now, as Feinstein and others did today; someone wrote in their defense, 'for eventual credibility,' but, if there are two prosecutors involved
in this Russia BS already--as has been reported--why shoot down him down at this juncture?
Also, like most of us here, i wish not to engage in a new Pacman-clinton game.
As always, thanks for the work, the news and blues.
evening smiley...
trumpcare will certainly build the republican's reputation should they be able to pass it, even if it doesn't make it through the senate.
i suppose that they continue the attack on comey because they still need an alternate narrative for the loss of the election.
joe, Texass made it into your round up
twice. Deservedly. We suck.
In the near future, we will pay lots of money to go online to speak in code.
I try not to hate anybody. I am more inclined to be angry at a person, or disgusted by them, but I feel myself hating Hillary Clinton, the creator of a new PAC, as inevitable.
Great work, dude.
It is storming here. I am just back from my barn, from feeding my horses. I think I will grab some sheet music, play some Chopin on my Chickering Grand, a birthday gift from my parents on my 12th birthday. They sold half our herd of cattle to buy it.
Not all Texans are ill-bred whack jobs. Some of us are fucking sophisticated.
George Washington had a Chickering. I think Robert E Lee had one. Sam Houston had one. When I was in the 4th grade, during a school tour of his museum in Huntsville, Texas, I was allowed to play it.
I played a Bach fugue, and they handed me some hymnal, I sight read whatever they opened the page to. I remember everyone singing. I think it was "The Old Rugged Cross".
If I die tomorrow in the Istanbul airport, I have lived an extraordinary life.
In Texas, in a town of 700 people.
Thanks Mom and Dad, RIP.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
heh, i know a number of people from texas. they are all fine and decent people. heck my sister lived in texas for a number of years and her children partially grew up there. they all turned out great.
let's hope that istanbul treats you well and you return to live a lot more of your extraordinary life and occasionally share your stories with us.
safe and pleasant travels!
@joe shikspack Thanks. Sweet of you
Thanks. Sweet of you to not mark me as an incorrigible, and there are actually some positives about my state.
The same lady who got permission for me to play that historic piano is the same lady who kicked me out of the local Baptist Church , age 11, because I took ballet lessons from a Russian prima ballerina who had escaped Russia, got 40 miles from my house. My Mom was on it! Incredible experience.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I wish there was a way that everyone in this country had to read
The Evening Blues so that they can see what our government and country are doing to us and the rest of the world.
It's hard to pick just one of tonight's articles and say it's the worst one, but I'm going with the article on the women and children being held indefinitely in prison. For the same amount of money spent on the prisons they could build a nice community complex and let these people live in decenct accommodations while their cases move through the courts.
These women and children had to flee their homes and country because of the actions of this country and they shouldn't be punished for it.
The second worst was the article about the port in Yemen being destroyed while 19 million people are starving to death?
That's 3 times more than the 6 million Jews and others who were killed by Germany.
I just hope that there is a God who will punish everyone who had a hand in making the decisions for the wars and the weapons used in them because that means that there is a Hell waiting for them.
How many times is the world going to say Never Again yet continue to keep doing these things?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
evening snoopy...
sadly, manunkind has a hard time transcending the ugly lizard-brain parts of tribalism despite the fact that the other parts of the manunkind brain allow it to think "never again" in the abstract. it is a sadness that refuses to leave us.
Evening joe and bluesters.
So much waste, and possibility wasted.
Environmental justice is so much about waste and its management.
An army of individuals working to protect hog farming, sounds like an appropriate interpretation of another kind of war.
The civil rights act of 1964 was more than 50 years ago. Where is the progress in civil rights and good health for low income people?
“Can’t you hear me when I call.
You may be big, but you not so tall, tall at all”.
Thank you for Jimmie Lee Robinson.
evening janis...
it's well to remember that big ag is just another industry, and the thinking processes that apply to other industrial pursuits is applied to large-scale farming. so it's kind of not surprising, i suppose, to see that the nasty pollutants that are produced by big ag (chemical runoff, genetic drift, animal sewage, etc.) are thought about the same way that, for example, an oil refinery or a chemical plant might think about them - which is to say that whatever costs dealing with them produces are to be as much as possible shifted (externalized in econ-speak) onto the public.
have a great evening!
What a lot of shifting
of shit that goes on under our noses.
My good evening will begin as soon as I finish the relentless weeding.
Thanks joe.
Obamacare just collapsed in Iowa
link