The Evening Blues - 6-27-18



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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Lightnin' Hopkins

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins. Enjoy!

Lightnin Hopkins - Baby Please Don't Go

“A crude age. Peace is stabilized with cannon and bombers, humanity with concentration camps and pogroms. ... Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of the world.”

-- Erich Maria Remarque


News and Opinion

Why do they flee?

Those in the US generally opposed to immigration make it a point to declare or imply that the United States does not have any legal or moral obligation to take in these Latinos. This is not true. The United States does indeed have the obligation because many of the immigrants, in addition to fleeing from drug violence, are escaping an economic situation in their homeland directly made hopeless by American interventionist policy.

It’s not that these people prefer to live in the United States. They’d much rather remain with their families and friends, be able to speak their native language at all times, and avoid the hardships imposed upon them by American police and other right-wingers. But whenever a progressive government comes to power in Latin America or threatens to do so, a government sincerely committed to fighting poverty, the United States helps to suppress the movement and/or supports the country’s right-wing and military in staging a coup. This has been the case in Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Honduras.

The latest example is the June 2009 coup (championed by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) ousting the moderately progressive Manuel Zelaya of Honduras. The particularly severe increase in recent years in Honduran migration to the US is a direct result of the overthrow of Zelaya, whose crime was things like raising the minimum wage, giving subsidies to small farmers, and instituting free education. It is a tale told many times in Latin America: The downtrodden masses finally put into power a leader committed to reversing the status quo, determined to try to put an end to two centuries of oppression … and before long the military overthrows the democratically-elected government, while the United States – if not the mastermind behind the coup – does nothing to prevent it or to punish the coup regime, as only the United States can punish; meanwhile Washington officials pretend to be very upset over this “affront to democracy” while giving major support to the coup regime. The resulting return to poverty is accompanied by government and right-wing violence against those who question the new status quo, giving further incentive to escape the country.

Trump provides rationale for violence to his knuckle-dragging followers, "She has just called for harm to supporters."


Anger in America

Many blame today’s populist rebellion in the West on the far right, which has won votes by claiming to be responding to working-class grievances, while stoking fear and promoting polarization. But, in blaming leaders who have seized on popular anger, many overlook the power of that anger itself, which is aimed at elites whose wealth has skyrocketed in the last 30 years, while that of the middle and working classes has remained stagnant. ...

Much of the US population is working harder than ever, yet has suffered a decline in living standards, compounded by high levels of household debt and, in many cases, lack of health insurance. The top 10% have easy access to higher education that will enable their children to have the same privileges as them; the bottom 90% must work much harder to cover sky-high tuition fees, and typically graduate with a heavy debt burden. The top 10% receive first-rate medical care; the bottom 90% often do not, or must pay an exceptionally high price for it.

Taxation is supposed to level the playing field. But US Republicans have long pushed to lower taxes on the rich, arguing that lowering marginal tax rates will promote investment, employment, and economic growth, which will cause the wealth to “trickle down” to the rest of society. In fact, tax cuts for the rich merely further entrench their advantages, exacerbating inequality. Making matters worse, the poor pay more indirect taxes (on land, real estate, and consumer goods), and the bottom 20% of the US population pays more than twice what the top 1% pays in state taxes. Add to that the challenges posed by automation and robotization, not to mention increasingly frequent and intense natural disasters, and it is not hard to see why so many people are so furious.

According to Stewart, the 9.9% is “the staff that runs the machine that funnels resources from the 90% to the 0.1%,” happily taking its “cut of the spoils.” But the inequality that this machine generates can have serious consequences, as it spurs social discontent and, as we are seeing in the US today, erratic policymaking. As the Austrian historian Walter Scheidel argues, inequality has historically been countered through war, revolution, state collapse, or natural disaster.

US President Donald Trump has exploited popular anger to advance his own interests. But he did not create that anger; America’s elites have spent decades doing that, creating the conditions for a figure like Trump to emerge. Now that Trump is in charge, the conditions of the 90% are set to deteriorate further.

Anti-Trump Mood: Top figures hounded by activists amid immigration policy row

In defense of the Red Hen

On Friday, the owner of the Red Hen, a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her establishment after employees objected to serving her. ... These incidents reflect an outpouring of revulsion and horror among millions of Americans at the Trump administration’s policy of separating refugee children from their parents, a practice condemned as torture by the United Nations. ... No one would claim that these individual actions represent a strategy for fighting Trump, but they reflect vast and intense social anger, not just over the inhuman treatment of impoverished refugees, but against inequality, war, the militarization of society and attacks on democratic rights. This is why, amid general sympathy and support for the Red Hen among the American people, the response of the Democratic Party and the corporate media has been to subject its owner and employees to pompous and hypocritical lectures about “civility.”

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (Democrat from New York) took to the Senate floor Monday to declare, “No one should call for the harassment of political opponents. That’s not right. That’s not American.” Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi denounced “harassment” of Trump officials as “unacceptable,” and declared that “we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity.” ...

What accounts for the Democrats’ sudden concern for the sensibilities of Trump and his associates?

For the past two years, the Democratic Party, the Post and the New York Times have been waging a factional war against Trump centered on allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US election and collusion by the Trump campaign with Moscow. A special counsel has been appointed, Trump’s former campaign manager has been jailed, and his lawyer’s office and home have been raided by the FBI. For good measure, the press has thrown in sex scandals regarding porn stars and call girls. No accusation has been too disgusting to air, in keeping with the nature of the conflict—a palace intrigue centered on disputes over foreign policy within the ruling elite. This anti-Russia, anti-Trump campaign, while resonating with sections of the political establishment and the affluent upper-middle class, has left the general population cold. But now, the anti-Russian narrative has suddenly been superseded by mounting popular anger over real crimes committed by the Trump government: the torture and imprisonment of children; the construction of concentration camps; threats to dispense with due process.

The Democrats have denounced the protests against Trump’s accomplices because they are instinctively hostile to any form of spontaneous popular anger that cannot be channeled along reactionary lines that are harmless to capitalism. On fundamental policy issues—militarism and war, austerity, attacks on democratic rights—there is little that separates the two parties. In fact, as Trump correctly notes and former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson acknowledged on Sunday, immigrant children were separated from their families and jailed under Obama.

The Democrats and Trump speak for different factions of the criminal financial oligarchy that dominates American society. ... While Trump makes use of every opportunity to whip up his fascistic base, the Democrats live in perpetual fear that a movement will develop from below centered not on their pet issues of sex and war policy, but on revolutionary issues.

An excellent piece worth a full read:

Would You Serve a Cheeseburger to Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Where’s Your Line in the Sand?

How evil does someone have to be before you’d find it generally acceptable for a restaurant or business to refuse them service? Where’s your line in the sand? What if they killed the owner’s children? What if they burned your house down? Stole from your mother and punched her in the face? Should the owner, just out of good, old-fashioned decency, still serve them? What if they were known to drop bombs on innocent people — ripping bones from flesh and leaving only fragments of families behind? Should you still cook and serve them a cheeseburger? What if they were a rapist? What if they raped a family member of yours? Or a stranger? What if they were known to have kidnapped children? Your children? Other people’s children? And they are still missing?

Where’s your line in the sand? Would you cook dinner for Hitler? How about Osama bin Laden? Is that too much? Is that your breaking point? At what point is it acceptable to say, “You know what? I cannot, in good conscience, serve this person a meal. This person is inhumane and dangerous, and I want no part of making their life better or easier.”

Last week, as you probably saw, a Virginia restaurant owner — after surveying her employees — asked White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, refusing to serve her a meal. Sanders left. The move has been universally panned as cruel and excessive by conservatives. A sizable chunk of Democrats agree. ... My basic feelings about Sanders mirror those of the restaurant owner in Virginia: I see her as a spokesperson for a truly evil man. She protects his lies. She defends his most vile policies that cause actual harm. She defends his decisions to forcefully separate infants and children from their parents at the American border. She deflects and dodges and lies about the scores of women that have accused Donald Trump of sexual assault and harassment. She defends Trump’s complete inaction on gun control. The list goes on and on.

She’s not simply serving our country or following orders. She opted into this position and thinks on the fly about how to defend Trump’s worst actions on a daily basis. ... When Sanders defends it, as a member of the administration, she is absolutely complicit. And let’s be clear: I don’t see her as evil because she’s a Republican or a conservative, but because she enables and protects an evil man.

Former Dir. Of Nat’l Intelligence Accidentally Reveals Too Much In New Interview

Former Nato chief Javier Solana denied US visa

Javier Solana, a former secretary general of NATO who played a central role in negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program when he was the European Union’s foreign policy chief, has been denied electronic authorization to enter the United States because of a visit to Iran in 2013.

Mr. Solana said on Monday that his renewal application on the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA — which determines the eligibility of visitors from certain countries to travel to the United States without having to apply for a visa — had been rejected for the first time. He said he would apply for a visa instead, a more cumbersome and expensive process. ...

In 2016, the Obama administration, responding to restrictions decided in Congress, tightened requirements to prevent citizens of 38 countries who had traveled to Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria or Yemen after March 1, 2011, from coming to the United States under the online visa-waiver program. It also required visa applications of people from the 38 countries who were also citizens of Iran, Iraq, Sudan or Syria. Such travelers are required to go through the full vetting process required to get a visa, including an in-person interview at a United States Embassy or Consulate.

Supreme Court Ratifies Trump’s ‘Muslim Ban’: ‘A Clear Violation of Rights’

With “Muslim Ban” Ruling, Trump’s White Supremacy Has Moved From the Campaign Trail to the Supreme Court

Welcome to the White Supremacy Court. On Monday, the court’s conservative majority produced a 5-4 ruling in favor of racially gerrymandered congressional maps in Texas. On Tuesday, in another 5-4 verdict, the right-wing quintet took an even bigger step toward institutionalizing discrimination and bigotry by ruling in favor President Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban.”

“SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS TRUMP TRAVEL BAN,” tweeted the president on Tuesday morning. “Wow.”

Wow, indeed. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said that Trump’s executive order had “a legitimate grounding in national security concerns,” rather than religious discrimination. Yet in December 2015, at a rally in South Carolina, Trump called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”

In March 2016, in an interview with CNN, Trump claimed, “Islam hates us” and suggested the United States was “having problems with Muslims coming into the country.” In January 2017, in an appearance on Fox News, his campaign adviser Rudy Giuliani admitted that when Trump “first announced it, he said, ‘Muslim ban.’ He called me up. He said, ‘Put a commission together. Show me the right way to do it legally.’” In November 2017, Trump retweeted three anti-Muslim propaganda videos from the far-right group, Britain First.

To be clear, the conservatives on the court were not unaware of any of these remarks and retweets. In fact, the Hawaii v. Trump ruling, which approved the “Muslim ban,” might have made more sense if they had been. What makes Tuesday’s decision so bizarre and disingenuous is that Roberts noted and quoted each and every one of them in his 39-page opinion. Yet the chief justice and the rest of his reactionary crew were still able to conclude that the president’s executive order was “expressly premised on legitimate purposes” and said “nothing about religion.”

This is white supremacy in action. This is what happens when anti-Muslim, anti-minority animus becomes widespread. Normalization leads to legalization.

1944 Korematsu opinion on Japanese American internment is tossed out

In its ruling Tuesday upholding President Trump’s controversial travel ban, the U.S. Supreme Court added a secondary eye-popping decision: It overruled its 1944 opinion that validated the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II — calling it unconstitutional.

The 74-year-old internment case was based on a lawsuit filed by Fred Korematsu, an Oakland-born man who challenged President Franklin Roosevelt’s executive order that led to the eviction and internment of 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans from the West Coast following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. At the time, the U.S. Supreme Court called the imprisonment of citizens constitutional because of military urgency and the need to take “proper security measures.”

On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts, rejected arguments that likened Trump’s travel ban on mostly Muslim-majority countries to the internment of Japanese Americans. Roberts argued in the majority opinion that Trump’s policy is constitutional because it was based on national security concerns rather than race or religion.

He added: “The dissent’s reference to Korematsu, however, affords this Court the opportunity to make express what is already obvious: Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and — to be clear — ‘has no place in law under the Constitution.’”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, wrote, “This formal repudiation of a shameful precedent is laudable and long overdue. But it does not make the majority’s decision here acceptable or right. By blindly accepting the Government’s misguided invitation to sanction a discriminatory policy motivated by animosity toward a disfavored group, all in the name of a superficial claim of national security, the Court redeploys the same dangerous logic underlying Korematsu.”

Neo-Nazi who killed Heather Heyer in Charlottesville was just charged with 29 hate crimes

The young neo-Nazi who rammed his car into a crowd of protesters during last summer’s violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was indicted Wednesday on 29 counts of federal hate crimes.

One of the charges staring down James Alex Fields Jr., a 21-year-old from Ohio, specifically relates to the death of Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old counterprotestor fatally hit by Fields’ vehicle when he careened into the crowd. Fields is also facing state charges, including first-degree murder, for Heyer’s death.

“At the Department of Justice, we remain resolute that hateful ideologies will not have the last word and that their adherents will not get away with violent crimes against those they target,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “Last summer’s violence in Charlottesville cut short a promising young life and shocked the nation.”

Anthony Kennedy is retiring, and Trump will get another Supreme Court judge

Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement on Wednesday, giving President Donald Trump another opportunity to fill yet another Supreme Court seat just a year and a half into his presidency — and all but ensuring a reshaping of American law for decades to come.

Kennedy will officially step down on July 31.

The Supreme Court may have just killed public unions

The Supreme Court just dealt unions and workers a devastating blow. The case, Janus v. AFSCME, dealt with the fees that public unions can collect from non-members. In a 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that people who aren’t union members but are represented by a public union cannot be forced to pay fees because fees violate their freedom of speech. Instead, union dues must be opt-in only.

In the past, when workers decided to be represented by a union, they paid union dues if they joined the union, or “fair share” or “agency” fees if they decided not to join, to support their union’s collective bargaining activities. But not all workers want to join, and by federal law, they can’t be forced to. But those workers were still covered under the union’s collective bargaining agreement, meaning they reaped the benefits of the union’s efforts to negotiate wages and other working conditions.

Now, unions won't be able to collect those fees. And getting rid of them essentially defunds unions and can keep workers from being able to collectively bargain. ...

As one of several decisions split by a single vote from the Supreme Court this term, the case confirms how much Neil Gorsuch’s nomination has transformed the court. Notably, the justices voted-5-4 Tuesday to let President Donald Trump’s controversial travel ban stand by just one vote. By preventing President Obama from nominating his replacement to the court, conservatives stacked the bench in their favor, and the decisions this term could motivate a Democratic backlash.

UPS workers denounce sellout deal “in principle” between company, Teamsters

United Parcel Service (UPS) workers have reacted with anger to the sellout deal reached in principle last week between the company and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

The Teamsters are seeking to impose historic givebacks on UPS workers, who have voted by 93 percent to authorize a strike against the giant package delivery corporation. The union-company deal would create a second tier of lower-paid “hybrid drivers,” a major assault on one of the few remaining decent-paying jobs at the company. Earlier leaks that the Teamsters had originally proposed this new category of drivers prompted widespread outrage among the rank and file.

Roughly two-thirds of the company’s 230,000 workers are employed part-time and are paid as low as $10 per hour. The contract would increase the starting part-time wage to $13 per hour, increasing to $15.50 by the end of the contract in 2023, leaving these workers at poverty-level wages. The proposal, moreover, starts out at even less than the $15 per hour which facilities on the West Coast are already beginning to pay in response to high turnover.

Displaying contempt for the intelligence of the membership, lead Teamsters negotiator Denis Taylor claimed in a statement released Thursday that the deal “is among the very best ever negotiated for UPS members.”

Taylor also warned UPS workers not to “rely on the misinformation that is circulating on the Internet.” Taylor, union President James P. Hoffa, and the rest of the Teamsters bureaucracy are terrified that workers will take to the social media to cut through the union-company lies and organize independently and in opposition to the unions, as took place at the United Auto Workers in 2015 and among teachers in West Virginia and Oklahoma earlier this year.



the horse race



Did Sen. Warner and Comey ‘Collude’ on Russia-gate?

An explosive report by investigative journalist John Solomon on the opinion page of Monday’s edition of The Hill sheds a bright light on how Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and then-FBI Director James Comey collaborated to prevent WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange from discussing “technical evidence ruling out certain parties [read Russia]” in the controversial leak of Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.

A deal that was being discussed last year between Assange and U.S. government officials would have given Assange “limited immunity” to allow him to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been exiled for six years. In exchange, Assange would agree to limit through redactions “some classified CIA information he might release in the future,” according to Solomon, who cited “interviews and a trove of internal DOJ documents turned over to Senate investigators.” Solomon even provided a copy of the draft immunity deal with Assange. But Comey’s intervention to stop the negotiations with Assange ultimately ruined the deal, Solomon says, quoting “multiple sources.” With the prospective agreement thrown into serious doubt, Assange “unleashed a series of leaks that U.S. officials say damaged their cyber warfare capabilities for a long time to come.” These were the Vault 7 releases, which led then CIA Director Mike Pompeo to call WikiLeaks “a hostile intelligence service.”

Solomon’s report provides reasons why Official Washington has now put so much pressure on Ecuador to keep Assange incommunicado in its embassy in London. The report does not say what led Comey to intervene to ruin the talks with Assange. But it came after Assange had offered to “provide technical evidence and discussion regarding who did not engage in the DNC releases,” Solomon quotes WikiLeaks’ intermediary with the government as saying. It would be a safe assumption that Assange was offering to prove that Russia was not WikiLeaks’ source of the DNC emails.

If that was the reason Comey and Warner ruined the talks, as is likely, it would reveal a cynical decision to put U.S. intelligence agents and highly sophisticated cybertools at risk, rather than allow Assange to at least attempt to prove that Russia was not behind the DNC leak. The greater risk to Warner and Comey apparently would have been if Assange provided evidence that Russia played no role in the 2016 leaks of DNC documents.

Progressive Challengers Won Big in Races Across The Country and in Maryland Tuesday Night



the evening greens


Methane leaks from US gas fields dwarf government estimates

Methane leaks from the US oil and gas industry are 60% greater than official estimates, according to an analysis of previously reported data and new airborne measurements. Because methane is a potent greenhouse gas, scientists say that the unaccounted-for emissions could have significant impacts on the climate and the country’s economy. The lost gas alone is worth an estimated US$2 billion a year, scientists say.

The analysis, published on 21 June in Science, is one of the most comprehensive looks yet at methane output from US oil and gas production, and reinforces previous studies that suggested emissions outpaced government estimates. That research prompted the US government to develop regulations that would restrict methane emissions from oil and gas production — rules that US President Donald Trump is now attempting to roll back.

The latest study shows that the US oil and gas supply chain emits about 13 million metric tons of methane, the main component of natural gas, every year. That's much higher than the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) estimate of about 8 million metric tons. This discrepancy probably stems from the fact that the EPA’s emissions surveys miss potential sources of methane leaks, such as faulty equipment at oil and gas facilities, says study leader Ramón Alvarez, an atmospheric chemist at the Environmental Defense Fund, a non-profit group in Austin, Texas.

Anti-pipeline activists are fighting to stop Line 3. Will they succeed?

Local citizens on the US’s northern border with Canada are mobilizing against another controversial project to pump oil from the Canadian “tar sands” to the US. Like the infamous Keystone pipeline through Nebraska or the Kinder Morgan pipeline through British Columbia, this pipeline - known by the innocuous name “Line 3” - has roused grassroots resistance from local citizens concerned about the project’s environmental and cultural impact.

The coalition of citizen groups opposed to the massive pipeline has done its homework. Activists have studied the issue closely, producing evidence that, as usual with such a project, it will create next to no permanent jobs in the Minnesota area where the pipeline will run. They’ve detailed the enormous financial cost that an oil spill will exact. And they’ve calculated how much climate-wrecking carbon Line 3 will carry: the equivalent of about 50 coal-fired power plants.

But the beauty of the fight goes beyond this picture of citizens in action. Because indigenous groups along the pipeline route — the very people on whose backs the American republic was unwillingly planted, and who have had essentially no voice in the country’s decisions – are playing a key role in the leadership of the anti-pipeline movement. Not only have several tribal nations officially intervened in the case, sending lawyers to battle the pipeline, but tribal members have shown up by the hundreds to public hearings. Winona LaDuke, a veteran Native American activist and remarkable orator, has led a series of horseback rides along the pipeline route. Last year a group of Native youth organized a 250-mile “Paddle to Protect” canoe protest along the Mississippi River, which will be crossed twice by Line 3.

If you thought the earlier Standing Rock pipeline protests were a one-time demonstration of indigenous power, you were mistaken: on both sides of the border North America’s First Nations are standing up to remind the rest of us how badly we’ve abused the land we took. All of this organizing and activism seems to be working; this winter an administrative law judge recommended against granting the Enbridge corporation the route it wanted for the pipeline. Minnesota’s Department of Commerce, after a long analysis, found that the state had no need of another pipeline. 68,000 Minnesotans have presented the Public Utilities Commission with arguments against the pipeline, compared with 3,000 in favor.

But in a nation where corporate power usually holds sway, all that may not be enough.

One football pitch of forest lost every second in 2017, data reveals

The world lost more than one football pitch of forest every second in 2017, according to new data from a global satellite survey, adding up to an area equivalent to the whole of Italy over the year. The scale of tree destruction, much of it done illegally, poses a grave threat to tackling both climate change and the massive global decline in wildlife. The loss in 2017 recorded by Global Forest Watch was 29.4m hectares, the second highest recorded since the monitoring began in 2001.

Global tree cover losses have doubled since 2003, while deforestation in crucial tropical rainforest has doubled since 2008. A falling trend in Brazil has been reversed amid political instability and forest destruction has soared in Colombia. In other key nations, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s vast forests suffered record losses. However, in Indonesia, deforestation dropped 60% in 2017, helped by fewer forest fires and government action.

Forest losses are a huge contributor to the carbon emissions driving global warming, about the same as total emissions from the US, which is the world’s second biggest polluter. Deforestation destroys wildlife habitat and is a key reason for populations of wildlife having plunged by half in the last 40 years, starting a sixth mass extinction.

“The main reason tropical forests are disappearing is not a mystery – vast areas continue to be cleared for soy, beef, palm oil, timber, and other globally traded commodities,” said Frances Seymour at the World Resources Institute, which produces Global Forest Watch with its partners. “Much of this clearing is illegal and linked to corruption.” Just 2% of the funding for climate action goes towards forest and land protection, Seymour said, despite the protection of forests having the potential to provide a third of the global emissions cuts needed by 2030. “This is truly an urgent issue that should be getting more attention,” she said. “We are trying to put out a house fire with a teaspoon.”


Also of Interest

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

Intercepted Live From Brooklyn With Sy Hersh, Mariame Kaba, Lee Gelernt, and Narcy

How Comey intervened to kill WikiLeaks' immunity deal

U.S. Foreign Policy Created the Immigration Crisis

“No One Will Believe Baboon Complaints” — Racist Abuse in Immigration Detention on the Rise in Trump Era, Report Says

Federal Judge Frees Salvadoran Teen Accused of Gang Ties, Pens Lengthy Rebuke of His Detention by ICE

Why Venezuela Reporting Is So Bad

After “Dark Times” in Pretrial Detention, Reality Winner Sought Closure in Plea Deal

An Extremely Consequential Supreme Court Decision Slipped Under the Radar

Ocean spray on Saturn moon contains crucial constituents for life


A Little Night Music

Lightnin' Hopkins - Ain't Nothin' Like Whiskey

Lightnin' Hopkins - Gin Bottle Blues

Lightnin' Hopkins - Black Cadillac

Lightnin' Hopkins - Fast Mail Rambler

Lightning Hopkins - Business You're Doin'

Lightnin' Hopkins - Baby You're Not Going To Make A Fool Out Of Me

Lightnin' Hopkins - Short Haired Woman

Lightning Hopkins - Gotta Move Boogie

Lightning Hopkins - Big Mama Jump

Lightning Hopkins - Movin' On Out Boogie


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Comments

Azazello's picture

I always enjoy Lightnin' Night at the EB.
I add something to the discussion of emigration from Central America and its causes.
99% of all the cocaine consumed in the US comes overland from South America. Look at a map, the Central American countries are a bottleneck in this trade. So, of course, gangs will be very powerful in those countries, and of course, their governments will all be corrupt, taking money from the narcos for allowing, or facilitating, the transit. This aspect of the problem isn't getting much coverage.
Have a nice night and remember, rats and wigs will get you killed.

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

heh, i always enjoy putting together the music for lightnin' night. i ran across a bunch of his herald singles on youtube this time, which was pretty cool.

your point about the drug trade is a good one. in general, the u.s. creation of a thriving black market in drugs is key to generating chaos, corruption and social instability south of the border, which enhances the empire's ability to control the region. between the u.s. created black market and the market manipulations from trade deals, i'd guess you'd have the cause of the vast majority of migration north.

have a great evening!

ok, off to dinner, back in a bit.

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gettin richer on the drug trades everyday. Sorta like prohibition. Long as the eagle is ill, money to be made. Greedy bastids. Killen us normal addicts. All for a damn dollar.

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joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

absolutely. the drug trade creates the unstable conditions for the cia to thrive. it creates a culture of violence, corruption and underhanded dealings that is the cia's stock-in-trade. if the drug war ended, those guys would have to work really hard to find something to replace it.

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The Aspie Corner's picture

He refers to Maxine Waters as low IQ while being low IQ himself. If he had any ability to think critically, he wouldn't be doing or saying anything that he has. Not that I'm giving the right-wing pigs in the Democratic Party any credit, but Trumpy Boy is literally the pot calling the kettle black.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

joe shikspack's picture

@The Aspie Corner

heh, it's like this:

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@joe shikspack but it is funny

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Attacks on Alexandra and progressive policies already under attack by corporate lackies and democrats. MSNBC had on republican consultant Schmidt bashing Alexandria. Pelosi basically said "fck her" but nicely. A TOP pro-diary on Alexandra had the boo-birds out spouting gop talking points (much like Clintonites did on Bernie).

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joe shikspack's picture

@MrWebster

i'm sure that the dems will do everything that they can to stop her from getting elected, and if she is, everything that they can to undermine her. the corporate dems can't bear the idea of even somebody modestly interested in improving the lot of the working classes - that would tarnish their brand.

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detroitmechworks's picture

Took a long walk, had some good conversation, and overall was just better. Tuned out the world, concentrated on the people. Talked to the veterans.

Funny thing I noticed today. Nearly every veteran I talk to has Killed their TV. It's an expense we don't need, because most of us have stopped watching TV. The propaganda is so blatantly obvious, it's just a waste of time to watch. When we do watch something, it's a show that's been recommended by friends. (Which is how I got into Dr. Who, honestly)

And note to young nerds, since I got into a conversation with one. While it's really nice to hear your personal stories about what you think about a fandom's canon... it's REALLY rude to interrupt people in the middle of their rebuttal. If you turn off the TV, you'll see that most real people wait patiently for their turn to speak. Speaking over me just makes me not want to speak to you again.

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

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

joe shikspack's picture

@detroitmechworks

nice bouzouki!

not watching teevee = higher quality of life.

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Lookout's picture

It is lightin' here as I listen to lightin'. Another half inch after a 2 inch rain yesterday. Talked with a friend in NM yesterday...they get 8 inches of rain per year. Sometimes we get that in one day. Seems in years of high volcano activity lead to more rain for us. One advantage is the Canterelles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanterelle . We've eaten them the last two days with the last of the snow peas. Also harvested our first Cherokee purple tomato this evening https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_purple Yum.

Perhaps better election news? Despite criticisms, defeating corporate dims is a victory to my mind. Granted not enough to really change the corrupt system, but enough to make me feel better. Reckon that's by design?

Hedge's suggest the system isn't broken...everything is going as planned. Certainly the endless wars seem by design. As does the endless fossil fuel burning and the exploitative extraction.

Even with some good news from the election front, it seems a long up hill struggle. Like my road, the Sisyphus road, rain washes it downhill, tractor pulls it back up hill. After getting the road in shape yesterday here comes another 2 inches last night and the road is to re-grade again. so is our struggle ... constant. Let us not lose heart. We still have much to do.

There are more than 900 streets named after Dr King but there are also some 2.5 million people in US jails, prisons, youth facilities, military prisons and jails in Indian country. The population of those facilities constitute 25% of the world’s incarcerated population as compared to 5% of the planets population at large. Twenty-five percent of the world’s population serves as fodder for a vast prison industrial complex with global dimensions that profits from strategies designed to hide social problems that have remained unaddressed since the era of slavery.

Moreover, police violence and racist vigilante violence is at its height. The Travon Martin case in the US recalls the Stephen Lawrence case here. But also Islamophobic violence is nurtured by histories of anti-black racist violence. There is simultaneously a saturated geographical presence of the culture of the Black Freedom Movement and a lack of anything more than abstract knowledge about that movement.

http://criticallegalthinking.com/2013/11/25/transcription-angela-davis-f...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veiJLhXdwn8]

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

joe shikspack's picture

@Lookout

mmmm... cherokee tomatoes. i'm hoping that mine make a comeback this year. last year they got too much water and they split and got stem rot.

it sure feels satisfying to see some of the corporate dems get successfully primaried, but, like you suggest, i'm sure the feeling will pass in time as the new dems get absorbed by the system and corrupted. while hedges' gloom and doom is something that i find difficult to take a steady diet of, he's probably quite right about events proceeding within the range of acceptable outcomes of the ruling class.

have a great evening.

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lotlizard's picture

How about appointing judges who know something about the actual world we live in nowadays, like the changes that tech and the Web have wrought?

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180621/11542940083/judge-att-merger-...

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divineorder's picture

Glad to see Grayson won the primary.

Heh. Biden endorsed the incumbent Dem, as did Lujan, but identity politics did not win out.
https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/05/29/biden-endorses-...

Biden’s endorsement is seen as gold in Democratic primaries. He’s one of the party’s most popular figures and his endorsement is usually followed up with robocalls and mailers of support. Biden has stayed out of many Democratic primaries, but endorsed in four Florida bellwether contested contests, all of which Democrats won.

Biden has endorsed two other Democrats for Congress in Florida, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Nancy Soderberg. Nationwide, 21 Biden-backed candidates at federal, state and local levels won their races; only three lost.

In a preview of his support to come, Biden said that “Darren helped President Obama and I get elected twice and now he is working to protect the progress we made and help build upon it. We need Darren in Congress to keep our kids safe from guns; defend Social Security, Medicare, and Obamacare; protect our environment; and fight for our values.”

There is no doubt where Grayson stands on imperialism.

Loved his 'War is making you poor' bill a few years ago. Who else even tries?

His election won't keep us from the next round of extinctions, but at least someone will be talking about solutions.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.