The Evening Blues - 6-17-21



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bobby Mitchell

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans r&b singer Bobby Mitchell. Enjoy!

Bobby Mitchell - I'm Gonna Be A Wheel Someday

"Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy."

-- George F. Kennan


News and Opinion

Little left to chance in carefully-curated Geneva summit

Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin hadn’t even sat down before tensions boiled over at the 18th-century Villa La Grange, a fine Swiss manor house besieged on Wednesday by a 21st-century press pool. The two men looked cordial enough as they shook hands for the first time as leaders. But the sun-struck journalists behind them pushed and shouted, some knocked to the floor, as they fought to get in to the leaders’ only joint appearance of the day. ...

It was a rare moment of chaos in a carefully curated Geneva summit that intentionally left little to chance. For Biden, the summit was designed as the anti-Helsinki, a chance to show that he would not be taken advantage of by Putin like Donald Trump had in Finland in 2018. That meeting went so poorly that Fiona Hill, a former Trump adviser, said she considered faking a medical emergency or pulling a fire alarm to end the press conference. ...

It went about as well as it could have. Speaking after the four-hour talks, Putin praised Biden’s “moral values” and called the talks “extremely constructive”, while calling their relationship a “pragmatic one”. He still peppered his remarks with claims that the US was funding his opposition and appeared to sympathise with the Capitol Hill rioters (Biden called it “ridiculous” to compare them to Russia’s opposition). But there was hope, however ephemeral, for progress. “There is no happiness in life, only glimmers of it. Cherish them,” Putin said, paraphrasing Tolstoy. He looked rather upbeat.

Biden, who spoke second, said he believed that Putin “was not looking for a cold war”. “It was important to meet in person. I did what I came to do,” said Biden. He claimed that he had threatened Putin with retaliation if 16 kinds of critical infrastructure were targeted with cyber-attacks, but said the conversation was “not hyperbolic”. “There’s been too much of that going on,” he added, saying that within the next six months to a year, “we’ll find out … whether we have a strategic dialogue that matters”.


Biden and Putin Agree to Begin Work on Arms Control & Cybersecurity in Effort to Avoid New Cold War

Biden warns US will hit back if Russia continues with cyber strikes

The US will retaliate if Russia continues to carry out malicious cyber-attacks against American targets, Joe Biden said on Wednesday, after holding “good and positive” talks in Geneva with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. Speaking after their first face-to-face summit, Biden said he had made clear the Kremlin had to “abide by the rules of the road” or face unspecified consequences. Putin was aware the US possessed “unrivalled” cyber capacities, Biden stressed.

After three hours of talks, Biden said he wanted to reestablish US-Russian relations on a predictable and pragmatic footing, after the chaos and embarrassment of the Trump era. He did not believe Putin wanted a new cold war, but admitted he did not know if his Russian counterpart would change his behaviour. ...

Speaking in his solo press conference, Putin said the discussions were conducted without “hostility”. “Quite the contrary,” he said. He described Biden as a balanced and experienced person who “spoke the same language”, and who had talked fondly about his family and mother. Putin added: “It showed an understanding of his moral values. That’s all quite attractive. It doesn’t mean we looked into each other’s eyes or souls. We have to represent our countries. The relationship is a pragmatic one.”

The summit – carried out amid low expectations – got results. Both sides agreed that their ambassadors would return to their posts in Moscow and Washington, at a date to be fixed.

The two leaders also announced a new expert US-Russian working group which would consult over a wide range of issues. They include the renewal of the Start Three nuclear treaty, which is due to expire in 2024, and cybersecurity. Putin denied that Russia was behind a string of recent cyber-attacks on the US, among them last year’s devastating Solar Winds intrusion into federal institutions and the 2016 raid on Democrat party servers. Washington has attributed both incidents to Russian intelligence operatives.


America’s Soup-Brained President Says The US Never Interferes In Other Countries’ Elections

During an astonishingly sycophantic press conference after the Geneva summit with Vladimir Putin, President Biden posited an entirely hypothetical scenario about what the world would think of the United States if it were interfering in foreign elections and everybody knew it.

When AP’s Jonathan Lemire asked the president of the most powerful government in the world what “consequences” he’d threatened the Russian leader with should the Kremlin interfere in US elections going forward, Biden meandered his way through one of his signature not-quite-lucid word salads, and then said the following:

“Let’s get this straight: How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with the elections directly of other countries, and everybody knew it? What would it be like if we engaged in activities that he is engaged in? It diminishes the standing of a country that is desperately trying to make sure it maintains its standing as a major world power.”

The fact that the entire press corps did not erupt in side-splitting laughter at this ridiculous utterance is in itself proof that western news media is pure propaganda. The United States has directly interfered in scores of foreign elections since it began its ascent to global domination at the end of the second World War, to say nothing of all the coups, color revolutions, proxy conflicts and regime change military invasions it has also participated in during that time. The US openly interfered in Russia’s elections in the nineties, and literally just tried to stage a coup in Bolivia by interfering in its democratic process. The US is far and away the single most egregious offender in the world on this front, which is largely why it is perceived around the world as a greater threat to democracy than any other government.

This is not a secret, internationally or in the United States. Anyone who has done any learning about the US government’s actual behavior on the world stage knows this. Hell, a former CIA director openly joked about it on Fox News a few years ago.

Fox’s Laura Ingraham unsurprisingly introduced former CIA Director James Woolsey as “an old friend” in a 2018 interview about Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 alleged members of a Russian troll farm, in which Woolsey unsurprisingly talked about how dangerous Russian “disinformation” is and Ingraham unsurprisingly said that everyone should actually be afraid of China. What was a bit surprising, though, was what happened at the end of the interview.

“Have we ever tried to meddle in other countries’ elections?” Ingraham asked in response to Woolsey’s Russia remarks.

“Oh, probably,” Woolsey said with a grin. “But it was for the good of the system in order to avoid the communists from taking over. For example, in Europe, in ’47, ’48, ’49, the Greeks and the Italians we CIA-”

“We don’t do that anymore though?” Ingraham interrupted. “We don’t mess around in other people’s elections, Jim?”

Woolsey smiled and said said “Well…”, followed by a joking incoherent mumble, adding, “Only for a very good cause.”

And then they both laughed.

The fact that not one person in the press pool questioned or criticized Biden’s outrageous remarks tells you everything you need to know about the western media and what its real function is. This is further illustrated by the rest of the behavior of these odious propagandists during the summit, which was illustrated quite well by the glowing praise of Democratic Party insider Andrea Chalupa on Twitter:

“The winners of #GenevaSummit2021 are the White House press corp,” Chalupa said. “Excellent questions confronting Putin and challenging Biden on holding a summit with a ruthless dictator. And they literally held their ground when shoved by Putin’s security and propagandists.”

That actually says it all. Western reporters are forbidden by their oligarchic owners from ever confronting power in any meaningful way; the closest they’re ever allowed to get to punching up is challenging the leaders of CIA-targeted governments, and demanding to know why their own officials aren’t being more hawkish and aggressive toward those leaders.

As RT’s Murad Gazdiev pointed out, “ABC, NBC, BBC, CNN, and many other Western outlets were invited for Putin’s press conference. No Russian media was invited to Biden’s press conference.” The whole thing was a navel-gazing, masturbatory cold war propaganda orgy where western “journalists” made up fantasies about their soup-brained leader staring down Putin, where they yelled nonsense about Alexei Navalny at the Russian president and then fangirled at Biden’s response.


Real journalists go to Belmarsh Prison for exposing US war crimes. Western propagandists ask Putin why he’s such a doodoo dumb dumb poopy head and then dream about Pulitzers all night.

Western news media exists to funnel propaganda into the minds of the public. It is controlled by plutocrats who work in alliance with opaque government agencies to weave narratives about why the US government needs to do the things it had already planned on doing anyway. This gets more obvious by the day.

Israel’s “change coalition” facilitated, then criticized, a Jewish supremacist rally in East Jerusalem, where Palestinians were threatened by racists and assaulted by the police

Palestinians in Jerusalem were given a stark demonstration of how little has changed for them since Israel’s so-called “change coalition” took power this week, as they watched Israeli police officers close the center of the Old City to its Palestinian residents on Tuesday so that Jewish supremacists could wave Israeli flags and chant “Death to Arabs” outside their homes. Ahmad Tibi, a member of the Joint List of Palestinian parties in Israel’s parliament, told reporters before the march that since the new government had taken the same decision as the one led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to enable it, “it seems that in these issues — national and political issues — there is no change, as they are claiming.”

The decision by Israel’s new government to allow the provocative march to take place was also criticized by the leader of the only Palestinian faction in the new coalition government, Mansour Abbas, who pointed to the country’s legal framework for restricting freedom of speech when it is likely that an expression could cause “real harm” to public safety or incite violence or racism. Before the rally, Abbas said that the public security minister and the police should have canceled the march on just those grounds, calling it, “an unbridled provocation, which is based on shouts of hatred and incitement to violence, and an attempt to set the area on fire for political reasons.”

After video of the “Death to Arabs” chant and others celebrating ethnic cleansing and murder circulated online, one of the Israeli coalition’s leaders praised the police for securing the march, but denounced the young, religious extremists who called for the murder of the city’s non-Jewish residents.


That, it seemed to many observers, is the extent of change on offer from Israel’s post-Netanyahu government: facilitating a racist rally intended to demoralize and terrify the millions of Palestinians who live under Israeli rule without equal rights, but feeling bad about it.

Black Lives Matter protesters make Palestinian struggle their own

Palestinians and Israelis have seen some of the worst violence in years after Israeli settlers forcibly expelled Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in May. US news surrounding the region died down after Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants, but with a new far-right, pro-settlement Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, now assuming power, many US activists on the left are determined to keep a fire lit. And they are using the intersection of local and international causes to address state-sanctioned police violence across the borders. Black Lives Matter, the US-based movement, recently came out in support of Palestinians’ fight for liberation.

On a cloudy Sunday in a New York City park, a group of local, leftist politicians gathered to lead a joint protest to defund the NYPD and end the billions of dollars in US aid to Israel. The New York state senator Jabari Brisport from Brooklyn addressed the crowd in a fervent speech: “Whether it’s in Astoria, whether it’s in Brooklyn, whether it’s in Ferguson, whether it’s in the West Bank, we say: ‘Hell, no.’ The choice is made to spend money not on schools, not on housing, not on healthcare, not on transportation, not on childcare, but on oppressing marginalized people.”

The activist and former Women’s March co-chair Linda Sarsour, who is of Palestinian descent, made a surprise appearance as well. “What’s happening in Palestine is apartheid. You cannot redefine apartheid for your own political interest,” Sarsour said. “The Palestinian people aren’t asking for favors from anybody. What we want is justice and freedom and liberation.”

The march, organized and led by the New York state assembly member Zohran Kwame Mamdani, began with the chant, “When I say BDS, you say BLM.” BDS, which stands for the boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, is a movement that launched in 2004 in an attempt to end US aid to Israel and hold Israel accountable for its occupation of Palestinians.

“Protests against racist state violence in the US, under the Black Lives Matter slogan, have pushed organizers to draw parallels in the anti-racist, anti-colonial struggles that connect us all, from the US to Palestine,” a spokesperson from the BDS movement told the Guardian in a statement.

Biden Backs 2002 AUMF Repeal as Schumer Announces Senate Vote

Just ahead of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announcing a vote on repealing the Iraq war authorization later this year, the White House this week declared its support for legislation to end the 2002 measure—a development welcomed by Democratic lawmakers and progressive groups that have demanded an end to "endless wars."

At issue is Rep. Barbara Lee's (D-Calif.) H.R. 256, which would repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 that passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The repeal measure—whose supporters now include even right-wing groups like Americans for Prosperity—has 134 bipartisan co-sponsors. The House is set to vote on the bill Thursday.

In a statement of administrative policy released (pdf) Monday announcing support for H.R. 256, the Biden administration said that "the United States has no ongoing military activities that rely solely on the 2002 AUMF as a domestic legal basis, and repeal of the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current military operations." The statement also declares President Joe Biden's commitment to working "with the Congress on repealing and replacing other existing authorizations of military force."

Iran prepares to vote for new president

The Delta variant is spreading. What does it mean for the US?

Scientists in the United States are anxiously watching the Delta variant of Covid-19, as it spreads through an unevenly vaccinated American public and an economy that is rapidly reopening. The Delta variant, first identified as B.1.617.2 in India, is believed to be more transmissible than both the original strain of Covid-19 and the Alpha strain, first identified in the United Kingdom.

“We’ve moved [Delta] to the top of our list of variants to study,” said Andrew Pekosz, a professor in Johns Hopkins University’s molecular microbiology and immunology department, and an expert in how viruses interact with the respiratory system. “The data out of the UK showing how quickly the Delta variant became the dominant variant there is strong evidence that it is more transmissible than the Alpha variant, which we already thought was more transmissible than the original lineages,” said Pekosz.

The Delta variant is spreading at an uncertain time in the US. Covid-19 cases have fallen far below the winter peak, from an average of more than 250,000 new diagnoses a day in January to about 14,000 a day in June. Fewer cases have coincided with fewer hospitalizations and deaths. ...

But, even as pandemic guidelines recede, Delta has roughly doubled every two weeks in the US, a pattern once followed by Alpha, the variant first discovered in the UK, which eventually came to represent the vast majority of new US infections. The Delta variant has also delayed the UK’s planned reopening. ...

The doubling of cases has led some, such as the former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb, to predict that Delta may represent as much as 10% of US cases by mid-June. The CDC officially elevated Delta to a “variant of concern” this week. A “variant of concern” designation puts Delta in the same category of increased surveillance as Alpha and Gamma (the variant first identified in Brazil).

Wealth secret of the super rich revealed: be born into a rich family

Self-made billionaires including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk made huge profits during the Covid-19 pandemic but a new report shows there’s no beating family money when it comes to getting – and staying – really, really rich.

Ten of the US’s richest families, including the Walmart family and the dynasties behind industries including candy and cosmetics, also saw their assets balloon over the pandemic, with a shared increase in their combined net worth of over $136bn in 14 months, according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) published on Wednesday.

The report, Silver Spoon Oligarchs, details how these families have not only increased their wealth by billions in the last year, but have also worked to ensure the system supports this exponential growth over decades. Chuck Collins, a co-author of the report and director at IPS, said: “If the system is functioning as it should, we should not see wealth accelerating over generations, it should be dispersing.” ...

Collins, director of the IPS Program on Inequality and the Common Good, said these families weren’t just making more money, they were also getting better at putting it out of reach of taxation. The report outlines six “habits of highly entrenched dynasties”, which include limiting charitable donations and avoiding taxation through tools such as dynasty trusts, which protect the ultra-wealthy from getting taxed on money transfers over a long period of time.

Another habit is fighting tax increases for the wealthy. The Mars family corporation, Mars Inc, has spent more than $20m in the past 10 years on lobbying, including $720,000 in 2020 on “issues related to estate and gift tax reform”, according to the report.

Colin Rogero: Millions On The Verge Of HOMELESSNESS While Biden Does NOTHING

Leaked Audio of Sen. Joe Manchin Call With Billionaire Donors Provides Rare Glimpse of Dealmaking on Filibuster and January 6 Commission

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, in a private call on Monday with a group of major donors, provided a revealing look at his political approach to the most thorny issues confronting lawmakers. The remarks were given on a Zoom teleconference session that was obtained by The Intercept. The meeting was hosted by the group No Labels, a big money operation co-founded by former Sen. Joe Lieberman that funnels high-net-worth donor money to conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans. Among the gathering’s newsworthy revelations: Manchin described an openness to filibuster reform at odds with his most recent position that will buoy some Democrats’ hopes for enacting their agenda. ...

The wide-ranging conversation went into depth on the fate of the filibuster, infrastructure negotiations, and the failed effort to create a bipartisan commission to explore the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, and offers a frank glimpse into the thinking of the conservative Democrat who holds the party’s fate in his hands. Manchin told the assembled donors that he needed help flipping a handful of Republicans from no to yes on the January 6 commission in order to strip the “far left” of their best argument against the filibuster. The filibuster is a critical priority for the donors on the call, as it bottles up progressive legislation that would hit their bottom lines.

When it came to Sen. Roy Blunt, a moderate Missouri Republican who voted no on the commission, Manchin offered a creative solution. “Roy Blunt is a great, just a good friend of mine, a great guy,” Manchin said. “Roy is retiring. If some of you all who might be working with Roy in his next life could tell him, that’d be nice and it’d help our country. That would be very good to get him to change his vote. And we’re going to have another vote on this thing. That’ll give me one more shot at it.” Regarding Blunt, Manchin appears to be suggesting — without, perhaps, quite explicitly saying so — that the wealthy executives on the call could dangle future financial opportunities in front of the outgoing senator while lobbying him to change his vote. Senate ethics rules forbid future job negotiations if they create a conflict of interest or present even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Manchin, notably, doesn’t suggest that the donors discuss a job, but rather says that people who Blunt may later be working with would be likely to have significant influence, reflective of the way future job prospects can shape the legislative process even when unspoken. ...

The January 6 commission got 56 votes, four short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster — a thorough embarrassment for those like Manchin who claim bipartisanship is still possible in the divided Senate chamber.

Indigenous Canadians win right to use original names after forced assimilation

Indigenous people in Canada who were forced to use European names on official documents can now apply to restore their original names, in a new policy unveiled as the country’s government seeks to atone for historical abuses.

“For far too long, Canada’s colonial legacy has disrupted Indigenous peoples’ Indigenous naming practices and family connections from being recognized,” Marc Miller, minister of Indigenous services, said in a statement, adding that the new policy would allow residents to reclaim “the dignity of their Indigenous names”.

The announcement comes as the country grapples with the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school, which has brought renewed focus to the country’s grim colonial past. ...

In 2015, the commission announced 94 “calls to action” to help reconcile Indigenous peoples and Canadians, but the majority have gone unheeded. The federal government’s recent decision to allow name changes to official documents, six years after the commission’s report, reflects the 17th call to action.

Ex-St Louis officer’s conviction points up revolving door for disgraced police

A former St Louis police officer with a track record of violence, including the killing of a mentally disturbed Black man that was condemned as amounting to an execution, has been convicted of beating a suspect as he lay restrained and prostrate on the ground. Ellis Brown III was found guilty by a federal jury last week after an internal police inquiry cleared him over a car chase in 2019 which ended with the then detective severely kicking Steven Kolb after he surrendered. ...

But Brown is better known as one of two St Louis officers who shot dead Kajieme Powell in 2014, just 10 days after another police officer killed Michael Brown a short distance away in Ferguson. ... The former detective left the St Louis police several years later after he was caught lying about a car pursuit that resulted in a crash.

But Ellis Brown’s history, including other allegations of violence and of fabricating evidence, has raised questions about the ease with which police officers with bad records are able to move between departments after he swiftly found a job with the city of St Ann, a St Louis suburb. There Brown rose to be head of detectives until his arrest for assaulting Kolb.

Kolb was arrested after a high-speed chase through St Louis before he crashed along with several police cars. He tried to make a run for it before lying on the ground with his hands outstretched. Brown then assaulted him, breaking ribs and bones in Kolb’s face. “Ellis Brown was interested in one thing and one thing only: retribution,” the prosecutor, Sirena Wissler, said in her closing argument. ...

The St Louis Post-Dispatch reported that officers with poor records are shuffled between dozens of small police forces in the St Louis area as small municipalities with tight budgets overlook histories of misconduct in order to hire experienced officers forced to accept lower pay.



the horse race



Heated NYC Mayoral Primary Race Enters Final Days; City Uses Ranked-Choice Voting for First Time

HRC Endorses Shontel Brown, Confirms Hatred For Bernie?



the evening greens


Scientist Who Spent Year at 'Epicenter' of Climate Crisis Warns World May Already Have Hit Arctic 'Tipping Point'

The atmospheric scientist that led a major year-long Arctic research expedition said Tuesday that the world may have already hit one of the so-called climate "tipping points."

"The disappearance of summer sea ice in the Arctic is one of the first landmines in this minefield, one of the tipping points that we set off first when we push warming too far," said Markus Rex of the Alfred Wegener Institute, reports Agence France-Presse.

"And one can essentially ask if we haven't already stepped on this mine and already set off the beginning of the explosion," he added.

"During the Mosaic expedition, the ice in the spring of 2020 receded more quickly than ever before on record," Rex said. "The expansion of the ice was only about half as large in the summer than decades ago and only about half as thick as during the times of [Norwegian explorer Fridtjof] Nansen and his expedition with Fram, a wooden sailboat, almost 130 years ago."

The time remaining to rein in the climate crisis and avert a scenario of an ice-free Arctic in the summer is limited, Rex said.

"It's urgent," he told DW.  "We probably still have a short, brief time window to save the summer Arctic sea ice."

Barring such action, Rex warned of "a cascade of further tipping pints in the climate system that could let our climate drift away from the current state it has."

"I think we still have that window, but we need to act quickly now," he stressed. "We need to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases drastically, and we need to do that during the next decade." He also called for a mid-century goal "at the latest" to be climate neutral.

The international, multidisciplinary team Rex led was comprised of hundreds of scientists representing over a dozen countries. The Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) team set sail on the German research vessel Polarstern in September of 2019 to gather data from what Rex called "the epicenter of global climate change" and study "areas that are beyond anything we've ever seen before." The team returned in October last year with a trove of data including 1,000 ice samples.

Rocky Mountain Forests Burning More Now Than Any Time in the Past 2,000 Years

The exceptional drought in the U.S. West has people across the region on edge after the record-setting fires of 2020. Last year, Colorado alone saw its three largest fires in recorded state history, one burning late in October and crossing the barren Continental Divide well above the tree line.

Those fires didn’t just feel extreme. Evidence now shows the 2020 fire season pushed these ecosystems to levels of burning unprecedented for at least 2,000 years.

That evidence, which we describe in a study published June 14, 2021, serves as a sobering example of how climate change is altering the ecosystems on which lives and economies depend. A previous study nearly a decade ago warned that by the mid-21st century, climate warming could increase burning past historical levels and transform some Rocky Mountain forests. Our results show such changes in fire activity are now underway. ...

We used such records of past fires preserved in the sediments of 20 lakes in the central Rocky Mountains. In total, the dozens of researchers who helped analyze these cores counted over 100,000 tiny charcoal pieces, within the thousands of 0.5-centimeter layers of lake sediments examined. Identifying distinct increases in charcoal accumulation within the cores allows us to estimate when fires burned around a lake, and compare today’s patterns to those of the distant past.

The result: The extensive burning over the 21st century is unprecedented in this region in the past 2,000 years. We estimated that fires burned the forests around each lake once every 230 years, on average, over the past 2,000 years. Over just the 21st century, the rate of burning has nearly doubled, with a fire now expected to burn a given spot once every 117 years.

Sweltering Texans urged to reduce cooking and cleaning to ease grid strain

As temperatures rise to unseasonably warm levels across Texas this week, its citizens are being asked to use less energy on basics like cooking and washing clothes to ease strain on the state’s power grid that is struggling to generate enough electricity to cope with the high temperatures.

The move triggers memories for many Texans of the cold snap in the winter that incapacitated much of the state’s power infrastructure and raises fears that Texas – and other US states – are not prepared to deal with the extreme weather events that come with the global climate crisis.

The authority running the Texas power grid has asked Texans to set thermostats to 78F (25.5C) or higher, turn off lights and pool pumps and avoid using large appliances such as ovens, washing machines and dryers.

This is the second time that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot) has issued such a call for conservation since the winter storms in February left more than 4.8m homes and businesses without electricity for days. The crisis was blamed for more than 100 deaths and $130bn in costs. ...

Summer hasn’t even officially begun, and the early calls for conservation raise questions over what will happen in the coming months and years as the global temperature continues to rise.


Also of Interest

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

Absent Biden Policy, Justice Department Pursues Death Penalty in Boston Bombing Case

Washington’s Rebranding of Syrian Al-Qaeda’s Founder

Creating Enemies: China Reacts to NATO Targeting It

Summit Summary

Democratic Congress Members Want What Republicans Want

Progressives Push for High-Speed Rail Funding in Infrastructure Deal

Dead ‘murder hornet’ near Seattle is first found in US this year

Krystal and Saagar Interview Joe Rogan On Politics, The Art Of Podcasting & More


A Little Night Music

Bobby Mitchell - Well I Done Got Over It

Bobby Mitchell & The Toppers " Schoolboy Blues

Bobby Mitchell - I Would Like To Know

Bobby Mitchell - Don't Mess With My Woman

Bobby Mitchell - Goin' Round In Circles

Bobby Mitchell - Nothing Sweet As You, I Wish I Knew

Bobby Mitchell - Sister Lucy

Bobby Mitchell - Mama Don't Allow

Bobby Mitchell - Send Me Your Picture

Bobby Mitchell - Try Rock' N' Roll!

Bobby Mitchell - You’re Doing Me Wrong


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Comments

mimi's picture

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5 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

@mimi

easy to prove false,

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

@mimi

i would say that biden is the more transparent liar and, while i do not follow putin closely at all - especially in his domestic environment, i would go ahead and guess that biden is a far more practiced liar.

putin is certainly a superior diplomatic liar.

that's my guess anyway.

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8 users have voted.
ggersh's picture

Thanks for the Blues n News Joe!

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13 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

biden's people did a great job of shielding him from difficult questions. putin is far more competent and can handle an actually hostile press.

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8 users have voted.
ggersh's picture

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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

up
6 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

These reporters interviewing or asking questions of Putin aren't asking questions so much as making anti-Putin statements. I notice that when they get home sorta to speak, they prim and pimp that they stood up to Putin and destroyed him with their questions. "Yah yah, I asked Putin if he was a poopy head, and he was too scared to answer me."

I did not watch the Biden press conference but I understand it was totally scripted in that he had a list of which reporters to call on.

As for the summit. Seemed more a PR stop for Biden meant for domestic and NATO consumption.

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10 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@MrWebster

one would hope that there was more substance at the summit than was revealed by the steno pool outside.

biden did seem to get a pr boost from his fawning presstitutes, but i would imagine that putin got some good pr for the people back home, too. i would imagine that every time that putin faces a hostile and disrespectful western press, it translates into sympathy and popularity with the folks back home.

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8 users have voted.

@joe shikspack I think you got it right about the interviews making Putin look good to a domestic Russian audience. People think Russia is some sort of North Korea when in fact Russians have access to all Western media. And also, Navaly obsession at the summit among Western media--he is going to look like a pawn of the West. One pundit who knows about Russia said what does one think when all of this anti-Russian propaganda is shown on Russian mass media.

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6 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

Interesting but not surprising about the reputation rehabilitation attempt with the Al Nusra leader.

Also interesting and not funny, except sardonically is Biden getting tough about all the hacking that we have no evidence whatsoever is coming from Russia including, of course, the hack that never really occurred at all. Was that pure theater?

be well and have a good one

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9 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

yeah, the powers-that-be have been trying to rehabilitate and arm al qaeda and its offspring for quite a while since they are so good at fighting, dying and keeping our profitable fashion line of forever wars going.

the hacking thing makes you wonder if being the "leader of the free world" means never having to provide conclusive evidence of war provocations.

have a great evening!

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8 users have voted.
CB's picture

@enhydra lutris
The names of Natasha and Boris in Cyrillic characters were found proving beyond a doubt that it was the Russkis.

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10 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@CB

i'm sure that they will notify fearless leader immediately that the cat is out of the bag.

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8 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

tomorrow's eb will be a music only post. so if you want news tomorrow, um, bring your own? Smile

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9 users have voted.

@joe shikspack that's a news invitation to lurid cases I took this week! LOL!
Lots of news tonight to piss me off, first and foremost, death penalty for the bomber guy.
People running the Texas energy set up are just a piece of work, educating us on what we should responsibly use in our homes, as they shirk responsibility for the problems. Good thing I am in a co-op.
Take care, and take care of your personal business tomorrow evening.

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8 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

joe shikspack's picture

@on the cusp

heh, i can pretty much guarantee you will like the music tomorrow. maybe it will distract you from your lurid case load. Smile

the weather is supposed to be gorgeous tomorrow, so we are headed out for the day to enjoy some nature in the form of a huge lily garden out in almost western maryland. we'll say hi to the frogs for y'all.

have a great evening!

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6 users have voted.

@joe shikspack during the interview with the accused.
Sigh...
A picture I took years ago at Monet's home outside of Paris.

LilliePads.png
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6 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981