The Evening Blues - 8-19-21
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Louisiana guitarist Tab Benoit. Enjoy!
Tab Benoit - I Put A Spell On You
"Welcome back to Serious News Network. For years experts have been trying to understand how dropping military explosives on people could fail to advance humanitarian aims. Here to shed some light on this mystery is an employee of a think tank that’s funded by arms manufacturers."
-- Caitlin Johnstone
News and Opinion
EXPOSING Grifters Of Afghan War: Defense Contractors, Presidents, Media
Biden says US troops may stay in Afghanistan beyond 31 August deadline
Joe Biden has suggested there was no way for the US to withdraw from Afghanistan “without chaos ensuing”, and said US troops may stay past a 31 August deadline to evacuate Americans there.
As critics in the US and abroad questioned his handling of the withdrawal, the president said in his first on-camera interview since the Taliban took Kabul that troops would stay in the country to get American citizens out. “If there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out,” Biden told ABC News, implying that he would heed US lawmakers who had pressed him to extend the 31 August deadline that he had set for a final pullout.
At the same time, Biden defended his administration’s handling of the withdrawal. ‘The idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. The sentiment contradicts what Biden had said weeks back when he insisted that the “likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban over-running everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely”.
“The Afghanistan Papers”: Docs Show How Bush, Obama, Trump Lied About Brutality & Corruption of War
Michael Tracey: IGNORE 'FAKE' Afghan Experts, Real Tragedy Was Corrupt War Itself
Taliban official rules out democracy in Afghanistan
Waheedullah Hashimi, a spokesperson for the Taliban, told Reuters that the country was likely to be governed by a ruling Taliban council, while the Islamist militant movement’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, was expected to remain in overall charge, in a role akin to the president.
The power structure that Hashimi outlined would bear similarities to how Afghanistan was run the last time the Taliban were in power from 1996 to 2001. Then, supreme leader Mullah Omar remained in the shadows and left the day-to-day running of the country to a council. ...
“There will be no democratic system at all because it does not have any base in our country,” Hashimi said in an interview with Reuters. “We will not discuss what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is clear. It is sharia law and that is it.”
IMF suspends Afghanistan's access to Fund resources over lack of clarity on government
Taliban face financial crisis without access to foreign reserves
Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers are likely to face a rapidly developing financial crisis, with foreign currency reserves largely unreachable and western aid donors – who fund the country’s institutions by about 75% – already cutting off or threatening to cut payments. While the hardline Islamist group has moved in recent years to become more independent of outside financial supporters including Iran, Pakistan and wealthy donors in the Gulf, its financial flows – amounting to $1.6bn (£1.2bn) last year – are far short of what it will require to govern.
On Wednesday, Afghanistan’s central bank governor disclosed that the country has $9bn in reserves abroad but not in physical cash inside the country after the Biden administration ordered the freezing of Afghan government reserves held in US bank accounts on Sunday.
Ajmal Ahmady wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the majority of that – about $7bn – was being held in US Federal Reserve bonds, assets and gold, adding that its holdings of US dollars were “close to zero” as the country had not received a planned cash shipment during the Taliban offensive that swept the country last week. “The next shipment never arrived,” he wrote. “Seems like our partners had good intelligence as to what was going to happen.”
Ahmady noted that the lack of US dollars would probably cause the afghani to depreciate and inflation to rise, hurting the poor. Getting access to those reserves will probably be complicated by the US government considering designating the Taliban as a sanctioned terror group. ...
Complicating the issue for the Taliban is the threat to aid flows that have long sustained Afghanistan’s government – they account for 42.9% of GDP. Germany, one of the country’s top donors, has said it is halting development aid, and others have threatened to do the same. Berlin had been due to provide aid of €430m (£366m) this year.
Krystal Ball: Deep State DECLARES WAR on Joe Biden
Meng Wanzhou extradition case wraps up but verdict will take months
After two and a half years of legal wrangling, an extradition hearing over Meng Wanzhou has wrapped up, leaving the fate of Huawei’s chief financial officer – and potentially that of two detained Canadians caught up in a geopolitical tussle – in the hands of a British Columbia judge.
The arrest and legal saga of the telecoms executive has become a source of immense tension between the economic superpowers China and the United States, but it has been Canada – and two of its citizens – that have suffered the steepest collateral damage.
Meng, daughter of the Huawei founder, Ren Zhengfei, was arrested on a provisional warrant on 1 December 2018 as she transited in the Vancouver airport, en route to Mexico City. ... Officials with the US justice department allege that in 2013, Meng misled bankers at HSBC about the relationship between Huawei and affiliate SkyCom, putting the bank at risk of breaching US sanctions against Iran. The US wants her extradited to New York to face criminal charges.
But Meng’s legal team argued earlier this week that the bank had never faced civil or criminal consequences for breaching American sanctions. Over three days, her lawyers also suggested to the court that there had never been a fraud case in Canada where the mere possibility of prosecution would merit charges, especially if no loss was suffered by the victim. ...
Meng’s legal team also questioned the US evidence, calling it “manifestly unreliable” and suggesting that the only conclusion a court could reasonably make would be to release her.
Chinese president vows to ‘adjust excessive incomes’ of super rich
China’s president has vowed to “adjust excessive incomes” in a warning to the country’s super-rich that the state plans to redistribute wealth to tackle widening inequality. According to reports in state media, Xi Jinping told officials at a meeting of the Chinese Communist party’s central financial and economic affairs commission on Tuesday, that the government should “regulate excessively high incomes and encourage high-income groups and enterprises to return more to society”.
The commission said it would pursue its “common prosperity agenda”, which has become the main focus of China’s policymaking after reports of discontent within the party’s central committee over the rise of a new class of wealthy entrepreneurs. ...
Since last November, when regulators prevented the tech company Ant, 33% owned by its sister company Alibaba, from floating on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges – a move that would have cemented the position of its boardroom chair, Jack Ma, as one of the world’s richest men – the Chinese Communist party has sought to crack down on the almost weekly creation of billionaire company bosses.
Stocks on the Shanghai exchange have fallen since a peak in February after a string of similar regulatory clampdowns on the financial sector and penalties on industries forced to comply with tighter environmental rules. As a result, the country’s richest tycoons have already seen their wealth shrink. The combined net worth of the two dozen Chinese billionaires in tech and biotechnology whose holdings are tracked by Bloomberg dropped 16% since the end of June, according to analysis by the Financial Times.
Separating FACT FROM FICTION As Biden Recommends Booster Shots
Biden says Americans can get Covid booster shots starting next month
Joe Biden said on Wednesday his administration planned to make Covid-19 vaccine booster shots available to all Americans starting on 20 September as infections rise from the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
The White House is prepared to offer a third booster shot starting on that date to all Americans who completed their initial inoculation at least eight months ago, the US Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
“This will boost your immune response,” Biden said at the White House. “It’s the best way to protect ourselves from new variants that could arise.”
The president urged anyone 18 or older who got the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine to seek a booster shot eight months after their second dose, echoing the advice from his pandemic response team.
Jabbed adults infected with Delta ‘can match virus levels of unvaccinated’
Fully vaccinated adults can harbour virus levels as high as unvaccinated people if infected with the Delta variant, according to a sweeping analysis of UK data, which supports the idea that hitting the threshold for herd immunity is unlikely.
There is abundant evidence that Covid vaccines in the UK continue to offer significant protection against hospitalisations and death. But this new analysis shows that although being fully vaccinated means the risk of getting infected is lower, once infected by Delta a person can carry similar virus levels as unvaccinated people.
The implications of this on transmission remain unclear, the researchers have cautioned. “We don’t yet know how much transmission can happen from people who get Covid-19 after being vaccinated – for example, they may have high levels of virus for shorter periods of time,” said Sarah Walker, a professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at the University of Oxford.
“But the fact that they can have high levels of virus suggests that people who aren’t yet vaccinated may not be as protected from the Delta variant as we hoped.” ...
The analysis did not directly investigate whether the lower level of vaccine protection against Delta affected jabs’ ability to prevent severe disease. However, Dr Penny Ward, a visiting professor in pharmaceutical medicine at King’s College London, noted: “The low incidence of hospitalisation seen to date suggests that in this respect at least the vaccines are protecting individuals from developing severe Covid.”
'A Big Win': USPS Must Turn Over Docs About DeJoy's Potential Conflicts of Interest
A leading government ethics watchdog on Wednesday cheered a federal judge's ruling ordering the United States Postal Service to hand over documents concerning potential conflicts of interest involving embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates on Tuesday granted Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) a full summary judgment (pdf) and ordered the United States Postal Service (USPS) to give the advocacy group seven documents it requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
USPS claimed the documents were FOIA-exempt. According to Law & Crime, "Four of the documents concerned a request for a certificate of divestiture from DeJoy and the remaining three concern his recusal from matters where he may have a conflict of interest."
As CREW explained Wednesday:
Over the past seven years, the USPS has reportedly paid approximately $286 million to XPO Logistics, DeJoy's ex-employer, and has "ramped up its business" with the company since DeJoy's appointment as postmaster general. After his appointment, DeJoy continued to hold financial interests in XPO totaling between $30 and $75 million. DeJoy also held a significant amount of stock in Amazon, a major USPS competitor.
Earlier this month, Common Dreams reported on growing calls to fire DeJoy following the revelation by The Washington Post that USPS will pay XPO Logistics $120 million over the next five years. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) responded to the Post report by calling DeJoy a "walking conflict of interest."
Last Friday, a Post report that DeJoy had purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of publicly traded bonds from Brookfield Asset Management—where USPS Board of Governors Chair Ron Bloom is a managing partner—fueled further calls for DeJoy's termination, with Connolly calling Bloom and the postmaster general "bandits" whose "conflicts of interest do nothing but harm the Postal Service and the American people."
CREW communications director Jordan Libowitz called Bates' order "a big win not just for CREW, but for transparency advocates everywhere."
"DeJoy's decision-making as postmaster general has raised some serious ethical questions—now we should finally get some answers," Libowitz added. ...
In addition to the alleged conflicts of interest in connection with XPO Logistics and Brookfield Asset Management, CREW, in advocating DeJoy's ouster, notes that:
- DeJoy and his wife, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada, got their jobs after contributing $2 million to Trump's campaign coffers;
- DeJoy is the first person in decades to lead the USPS without any previous experience in the agency;
- DeJoy is under federal investigation for allegedly operating a scheme where he asked employees of his former company to make campaign contributions, then arranged for bonus payments to reimburse the employees; and
- DeJoy apparently violated federal criminal laws by commanding the USPS to make policy changes at the agency that would depress or delay voting by mail in the 2020 election.
"Bottom line: Louis DeJoy has overseen an attack on the Postal Service and on American democracy itself," CREW tweeted Wednesday. "The USPS Board of Governors must fire him before it's too late."
Ted Cruz’s campaign may have spent $150,000 on copies of his book
Ted Cruz’s campaign spent more than $150,000 at US book chain Books-A-Million in the months after the Texas senator’s book was published, Forbes has reported.
Cruz, who was prominent among the Republicans trying to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election, published One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History in September. A financial disclosure he filed on Monday, reported on by Forbes, shows he received almost $320,000 as an advance in 2020 from the book’s publisher Regnery Publishing. ...
The end-of-year report from Cruz’s committee, filed with the Federal Election Commission, reveals that two weeks after One Vote Away was published, his campaign spent $40,000 at Books-A-Million. Shortly afterwards, it spent a further $1,500, and in December, another $111,900. All of the purchases are described by the campaign as “books”, and Forbes speculated that they may have been used to boost his book sales, quoting Brett Kappel, a lawyer specialising in campaign finance, who said that “the FEC has issued a long series of advisory opinions allowing members to use campaign funds to buy copies of their own books at a discount from the publisher, provided that the royalties they would normally receive on those sales are given to charity”.
On Contact: American coup d'état
'Long Overdue': EPA Bans All Food Uses of Neurotoxic Pesticide Chlorpyrifos
Public health experts and labor rights advocates celebrated Wednesday after the Biden administration announced that it "will stop the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos on all food to better protect human health, particularly that of children and farmworkers," following decades of demands for government intervention spurred by safety concerns.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its final rule on chlorpyrifos days before a court-ordered deadline stemming from legal action by advocacy groups that have long sought a ban on the pesticide, which is tied to permanent brain damage in children.
"We welcome EPA's long overdue decision to cancel this neurotoxic insecticide," said Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety, in a statement. "Since farmworkers, pregnant people, and young children are especially vulnerable to harm from exposure to chlorpyrifos, a cancellation of this dangerous product was the only choice."
Pesticide Action Network executive director Kristin Schafer said that the agency "has released a plan that aligns with what scientists have known for decades: Chlorpyrifos is much too dangerous to be using, and its continued use has put children, farmworkers, and rural communities at risk." ...
Although fears of the harms to children led the EPA to end household use of chlorpyrifos two decades ago, as a recent report from the public interest law firm Earthjustice showed, the pesticide and other organophosphates are still widely applied to crops across the United States.
As The New York Times reports:
In an unusual move, the new chlorpyrifos policy will not be put in place via the standard regulatory process, under which the EPA first publishes a draft rule, then takes public comment before publishing a final rule. Rather, in compliance with the court order, which noted that the science linking chlorpyrifos to brain damage is over a decade old, the rule will be published in final form, without a draft or public comment period.
Michal Freedhoff, the EPA assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, told the Times that the "very unusual" court directive "speaks to the impatience and the frustration that the courts and environmental groups and farmworkers have with the agency."
"The court basically said, 'Enough is enough'" Freedhoff said. "Either tell us that it's safe, and show your work, and if you can't, then revoke all tolerances."
In a statement, EPA Administrator Michael Regan recognized frustration with the agency's inaction—particularly under former President Donald Trump—up until the new rule's release.
"Today EPA is taking an overdue step to protect public health. Ending the use of chlorpyrifos on food will help to ensure children, farmworkers, and all people are protected from the potentially dangerous consequences of this pesticide," Regan said. "After the delays and denials of the prior administration, EPA will follow the science and put health and safety first."
The agency's statement acknowledged the rule aligns with moves by other policymakers, noting that "a number of other countries, including the European Union and Canada, and some states including California, Hawaii, New York, Maryland, and Oregon have taken similar action to restrict the use of this pesticide on food."
While applauding the EPA rule, advocates also emphasized decades of delays.
"We are relieved that the EPA has finally put an end to the use of chlorpyrifos. Years of backtracking put the health of countless children and farmworkers at risk by negligently and intentionally overlooking the harms of a terrible pesticide," said Anne Katten, Pesticide and Work Safety Project director at the CRLA Foundation. "Finally, our fields are made safer for farmworkers and our fruits and vegetables are safer for our children."
Advocates of outlawing chlorpyrifos also urged the EPA to take action on additional uses of this pesticide as well as other harmful organophosphate pesticides.
Multibillion-dollar Louisiana plastics plant put on pause in a win for activists
The US government has placed further delays on a proposed multibillion dollar plastics plant in south Louisiana, marking a major victory for environmental activists and members of the majority Black community who have campaigned for years against construction.
The planned $9.4bn petrochemical facility, owned by Formosa Plastics, would roughly double toxic emissions in its local area and, according to environmentalists, release up to 13m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year, the equivalent of three coal-fired power plants, to become one of the largest plastics pollution-causing facilities in the world.
The 14 separate plastic plants, spread over a gargantuan 2,300 acres of land in St James Parish, could also emit up to 15,400 pounds of the cancer causing chemical ethylene oxide.
On Wednesday, the US Army Corps of engineers, the agency responsible for granting key construction permits under the Clean Water Act, announced it would commission a full environmental impact statement, which advocates say could delay future construction for a number of years. The announcement comes after the agency suspended an earlier permit last November, after acknowledging errors in its original analysis.
In a short memo, Jaime Pinkham, the acting assistant secretary for the Army for civil works, offered little detail on the parameters of the new review, but said it would “thoroughly review areas of concern, particularly those with environmental justice implications”.
Major UN biodiversity summit delayed for third time due to pandemic
A key United Nations biodiversity summit has been delayed for a third time due to the pandemic, the Chinese environment ministry has announced, as environmentalists pledged the delay would “not mean taking our foot off the pedal”.
In a statement, the Chinese ministry of ecology and environment confirmed that Cop15, the biggest biodiversity summit in a decade, would be delayed, and that negotiations for this decade’s targets will be split into two phases so that governments can meet face-to-face in Kunming, China, in the first half of 2022.
The talks had been scheduled for October this year after two previous delays due to the coronavirus pandemic. The first phase of the meeting, which will be largely procedural, will be held in the Chinese city between 11 and 15 October, with most people attending virtually. Countries will then negotiate the targets for the global biodiversity framework that governments will aim to meet by the end of the decade in Kunming from 25 April to 8 May 2022.
The draft text of the framework includes proposals to reduce pesticide use by two-thirds, eliminate plastic pollution and protect 30% of the Earth’s land and sea.
'The World Is Watching': Indigenous Critics of Line 3 Meet With UN Human Rights Expert
Indigenous women who are leading the fight against Enbridge's Line 3 tar sands pipeline met virtually with a United Nations expert on Tuesday to discuss human rights abuses of those who have joined the movement opposing the polluting project.
"We met with the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights defenders because gross human rights violations are occurring at the hands of police in [a] financial relationship with Enbridge," Giniw Collective founder Tara Houska of Couchiching First Nation said in a statement.
Houska and Honor the Earth executive director Winona LaDuke of White Earth Nation have submitted a formal complaint about actions by law enforcement in Northern Minnesota to Mary Lawlor, the U.N. special rapporteur.
LaDuke and Houska, with support from the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), shared with Lawlor details about what Line 3 opponents have endured while protesting the Canadian company's effort to replace an aging pipeline with one that will have larger capacity and cross 200 waterways as well as Anishinaabe treaty territory.
When approving Line 3 in 2018, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission required a Public Safety Escrow Trust funded by Enbridge to reimburse law enforcement for policing costs related to the pipeline—an arrangement that has angered activists on the ground.
Motherboard reported earlier this month that the company has paid police $2 million through the trust. According to the Pipeline Legal Action Network, more than 700 water defenders have been arrested for actions opposing Line 3 in Minnesota.
"Minnesota law enforcement has used pain compliance, psychological trauma, threats, rubber bullets, mace, and chemical warfare on people standing up for water," Houska explained, "which it then bills to a fund Enbridge pays into to the tune of $2 million to date—most of these charges are misdemeanors, all of them are nonviolent."
"We pose no threat. Enbridge threatens Anishinaabe cultural survival, the drinking water of millions, and the public's trust," she added. "Since the U.S. government is yet again failing Indigenous people and future generations, we turn to the international community. The world is watching."
LaDuke thanked Lawlor "for putting attention on what's happening in Northern Minnesota, where an international fossil fuel corporation is once again brutalizing Indigenous people to expand the footprint of its toxic and unneeded tar sands oil project."
"State and local government are working directly at the behest of the Enbridge corporation, and the Biden administration has turned a blind eye," she said, "so we hope that international attention can protect the rights of our people and the water we all depend on."
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Biden’s Mounting Pandemic Failures
Michael Hudson: Biden Forfeits His Afghan Victory by Defending His Deep State Advisors
Former Afghanistan president Karzai talks with Taliban about power transfer
Afghanistan - What Will Happen Next? A Provisional Government And A New Constitution.
'Twenty Years of War Have Failed': Progressive Caucus Urges US Diplomacy With Taliban
Serious News For Serious People: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Manchester University puts Palestinian solidarity statement back in gallery
Rightwing lobbies and dark money funders backing assaults on voting rights
Progressive Democrat Morgan Harper Launches Campaign Against Rep. Tim Ryan for Ohio Senate Seat
Illinois city’s reparations plan was heralded – but locals say it’s a cautionary tale
T-Mobile breach exposes personal information of 40 million US users
Israeli Company Illegally Seizes Ben & Jerry’s Trademark in the West Bank
US Military Should Give Back Hawaii Lands
Biden DEFIANT Amid Absolute CHAOS At Kabul Airport
Jimmy Dore: WashPo Fact Checker 100% Wrong On Facts
Rising: Ryan Grim: Cable News HIDING Defense Industry Ties Of Its Military Analysts
Rising: TX Court Upholds Abortion Ban In SHOCK Ruling, Sets Up Roe V Wade SCOTUS Fight
Rising: U.S. Military Biometrics Devices SEIZED By Taliban To Roundup Afghan-US Allies
A Little Night Music
Jimmy Thackery & Tab Benoit - I Ain't Broke
Tab Benoit - Nothing Takes The Place Of You
Tab Benoit - I Got Loaded
Tab Benoit - Down In The Swamp
Tab Benoit - The Blues Is Here To Stay
Tab Benoit - Louisiana Style
Buddy Guy, Tab Benoit & Quinn Sullivan - Drowning on Dry Land
Tab Benoit - Crawfishin'
Tab Benoit - Hot Tamale Baby
Comments
War by Other Means
Now we're witholding---freezing---the Taliban's money. Punishing and starving the people of Afghanistan. Like Venezuela. and Cuba. And Iran. Sanctions. Freezing. It's no comfort to learn that the IMF is doing the same.
What am I missing? This is outright criminal behavior as far as I cn tell. Sieges are cruel and horrific. and will not work. This is the narcissistic bully revenge story our country calls "policy."
In other news, Senators Wicker(R) MS, King (I) ME and Hickenlooper (D) CO have tested positive for Covid. 3 or more out of 100 senators all vaccinated. How about those "efficacious" stats, now, Fauci.
Good Evening Joe. I'm loving Tab Benoit playing as I type. Also Caitlin's quote nails it.
NYCVG
evening nycvg...
yep, the bombing of the afghans is mostly over for now. now the starving will begin.
wow, a surprisingly large number of senators have gotten covid, though i'm not sure which/how many of them were vaccinated before they got infected.
The 3 cited
for today have all been vaccinated.
NYCVG
Until Next Time...
A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma
♫ Come tiptoe through the Talibs with me . . . n/t
If you're going to do it......do it right.
[video:https://youtu.be/zcSlcNfThUA]
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
Wrong Country, Tulips are from Holland.
Poppies are from Afghanistan here's the song you want
be well and have a good one
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 --
Yes, the Soviets said the exact same thing
the Americans said in 1989, "We have achieved our goals."
This is now the second time the Americans are saying that they have achieved their goals in Afghanistan. The first time was in 1989.
evening jnh...
great to see you!
i guess it's hard for great powers to admit they were defeated by a bunch of medieval mud-hut and cave dwellers.
have a great evening!
Afghanistan, it was all about the money
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEvudTSS0x0]
Assange also nailed it, and that's why he sits in Belmarsh. One might think that the "war" is now all but over tptb would be a forgiving bunch.....nope, never gonna happen folks
https://centipedenation.com/second-column/wikileaks-shares-an-old-clip-o...
stay safe everyone!
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
Everything is about the money,
.
The pandemic is about the money - get the vaccine!!! Get a booster!!! Enrich the pharmaceutical companies!!!
There is a cure - it is called IVERMECTIN. It costs $.02/pill.
Everything is about the money.
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
evening ggersh...
good clips, thanks!
i hope the awareness that the winners of the war were the defense contractors and their role in perpetuating the war moves from fringe media into the mainstream.
Feminism!
evening gj...
we're #1! we're #1!
Greetings everyone ...
Lots of good reads in the EB tonight. I recommend Taibbi and, especially, Michael Hudson from the bottom section. Very good, even if it needs an edit. This one is good too: Progressive Critics Say Investors in US Weapon-Makers Only Clear Winners of Afghan War
Here's Michael Tracey's piece: Ignore The Fake "Experts" — The Real "Catastrophe" In Afghanistan Was Always The War Itself
Here's Pepe Escobar from the 16th, in case you missed it: The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan back with a bang
Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal did a livestream with Pepe today: YouTube( 2hr.5min.) One of the best livestream discussions I've ever seen. I watched every minute of it. These guys know what wars and regime-changes are all about and Pepe is always good on the pipelines and stuff. Highly recommend.
I was with Caitlin 'til she got to the very end.
First of all, not all leftists are Marxists. There were leftists before there were Marxists and not everybody on the left bought in on the Marxist fairy-tale. And secondly, again, there's no such thing as an uprising against a system. What would that even look like ? You can overthrow a government and maybe the new one will institute a new system. But you can't overthrow a system, especially if you can't even define it.
Have a nice night.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Can't go wrong with Pepe Escobar
for reliable information on the Great Game in Asia. I have followed him for 3 decades and never once has he led me astray.
evening azazello...
here's pepe on grayzone. i haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but it's probably interesting at the very least.
please solve for x and y.
It's well worth your time
Pepe Escobar is excellent.
Religious belief is comforting.
It offers a certainty and simplicity that doesn't exist in the real world.
For some x, y = Satan, for others y = the "capitalist system".
There is no single y that is the cause of all the world's problems.
Would that it were that simple.
We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.
Why does Blinken (a Mike Pompeo) wannabe still have a job?
A few excerpts from the article.
https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/568674-us-diplomats-in-afgh...
Here is another thing that Blinken likely will screw up.
Link to the informative article.
https://ejmagnier.com/2021/08/19/lebanon-is-under-maximum-pressure-and-t...
Some additional input.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2021/08/19/664750/Nasrallah-Iranian-fuel-h...
evening humphrey...
why does blinky still have a job?
shhhhh! i don't want to see where he will fail upwards from secretary of state!
Good evening, joe and bluzerz ~
It's a shit show!
Enjoy the evening!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
evening ra...
heh, perhaps we should all move to flushing, new york.
have a great evening!
The whole world was in Flushing Meadows symbolically in 1964…
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=world%27s+fair+1964
I seem to recall Disney showing off their “audio-animatronic” Abe Lincoln, a lifelike dummy that moved and talked, and a General Electric rotating panorama, extolling the “♫ great big beautiful tomorrow” we were all going to have, thanks to electrical appliances in the home.
Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship in Spain tried to improve its image by shipping the original of the painting The Naked Maja across the Atlantic and making it the centerpiece of the Spanish pavilion.
From the
national Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook
Senior class trip -- NYC
(It's a Small World was later installed at Disneyland which unfortunately I rode once.)
Good evening Joe. Thanks for the evening blues.
For anybody who hasn't watched it yet, Max Blumenthal has an 8/17 Greyzone show under the subheading of Foreign Agents at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ruu9aDHTqJU where he and Marcie Smith Parenti. discuss the work, writings, techniques and such of Gene Sharp who is an architect of the soft coups and color revolutions we have seen in the past that is very informative and possibly even a must watch, if only to find out about From Dictatorship to Democracy which is Sharp's handbook on how to pull this shit off.
be well and have a good one
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 for the link.
quite a while ago i started reading sharp's book, which used to be available to download online (don't know if it still is). as i was reading it, i came to the conclusion that the right could probably pull off a color revolution in the u.s. because they have an agenda that they broadly agree upon. the left probably can't because it can't agree on even the most basic stuff in large numbers.
Corporate- and Pentagon-endorsed BLM, CRT, LGBTQIA+, and DEI
(diversity, equity, inclusion) already amount to a color revolution of sorts, with the new “rainbow flag plus black and brown” as the “color”…
It’s hardly “left” though, now, is it?
The Left in the US is all dressed up with nowhere to go.
.
Unlike the Right, the Left has never established a major political party in the US. This makes it impossible to mount any sort of revolution. The Foreign Right-wing parties in Europe and beyond have strong affiliations with the Republicans in the US. Foreign Left-wing parties do not resonate with the Democrats at all..
I am worried about Joe Biden.
Looks like the Deep State media is big time shitting on Biden and will not allow anybody supporting Biden on withdrawal. They have their marching orders.
But the American people so far are on Biden's side barely.
Afghanistan war unpopular amid chaotic pullout: AP-NORC poll
Will we see a President Harris?
evening mr w...
i wouldn't be surprised to see them take biden down. we're talking about billions of dollars in profits every year - you don't cut off these people from that much profit without them sticking a knife in your back.
This pretty well sums it up.
Krystal: Follow the money
Well no duh. Most of us knew that was the biggest reason for why we were staying in Afghanistan for so long. It’s never about bringing freedums and decrepit American style democracy because we don’t even have it here. OBL was also not the reason since nor was it about protecting women and children because we killed so many with our bombs and troops got caught massacring them and tried to cover it up. Then there were the many weddings and funerals we bombed..the list is long.
Meanwhile here at home the Sacklers were flooding American cities with opioids and gee congress never bothered to put a stop to it or rarely do investigations on it. Now the Sacklers are threatening to withhold the money they have to pay for their crimes. I didn’t know criminals had that kind of power. Guess if you’re rich enough and pay your friends to look the other way…
Here’s a shocker. Thanks Obama you POS!
After Bibi’s speech to congress trying to derail the Iran deal, Obama should have rescinded that order. But then the dual citizens of US/Israel might have gotten angry or something. But didn’t Clinton give China nuclear technology or the plans for building nuclear weapons? Oh well it’s not like presidents are above the law or anything. How many terrorists have we supported through the centuries?
evening snoopy...
thanks for the articles! yep, it's just about always about the money. and when it's not, it's about the global-domination ambitions of children who refuse to grow the fuck up.
apparently, a lot of classified information found its way to china on clinton's watch. some of it probably helped china advance considerably in their weapons design and defense strategies.
Even more went to China from Mrs Clinton
when she used her private email server. China either hacked into her account or….but Comey declared that she hadn’t been grossly negligent because she didn’t intend to break the rules for government accounts. Or something. Nor did people learn about what the NYC FBI found on her laptop. They were going to expose it, but Lynch threatened them..long story.
I had to wear pants today and turn the heat on. It snowed somewhere down in the central Utah mountains. Couple inches. Tuesday it was in the high 90's. Reminds me of 1983 when it was so cold and rained every weekend and when we finally went to the Uintas the wildflowers were just blooming. I’m sure every state says that if you don’t like the weather just wait 5-10 minutes.
First one is where I’m heading soon. Hey maybe I can have a fire then. And roast milky ways.
How in hell can you plan for something that might happen if you are following the science?
Virus mutations are what the virus decides to do not something that can be predicted to my knowledge. And are the booster vaccines for each individual mutation or just a shot in the dark and hoping that you get it right? But then Biden said that they had been planning for booster shots for a few months. Okay that doesn’t make sense to me either. And for gawd’s sake Walensky does not inspire confidence for me one bit. But then neither does Fauci.
Ehh again?
you find you're considerably behind your real full capability of being responsive."
Don’t you respond to something AFTER it happens because how can you respond to something BEFORE it does if you don’t know how it’s going to change? Sorry but I’m confused…or am I.
Biden telling the deep state to F off!
So we were there in Afghanistan to fight their civil war?
heh...
a trip to someplace that is getting snow sounds pretty delightful to me just about now.
that mutations are quite likely is a prediction that's probably pretty safe to make. exactly what those mutations will look like is (as i understand it) not very predictable.
the booster vaccines that are in the works i think are more of the same vaccine. i have read that there is some consideration of tweaking the formula should the effectiveness degrade against new variants, but that is not what is proposed for the next round.
Afghan capital remains calm
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX3ZUz8LBn4]
uhh --
Which JFK assassination speculator has Mossad/Israel on the list of possible culprits?
Surprising, but not really
Israel has lots of power and i just wasn’t aware of it until recently. One article said that they either have blackmail material against most countries or they’ve threatened them with nukes. I read it long ago so I can’t provide links. They got away with spying on Trump when listening devices were found outside the WH and didn’t they blackmail Clinton on the Lewinsky scandal? He sure paid a low price for perjury. Brennan and Clapper also perjured themselves but got away with it.
Yeah Israel’s involvement in the assassination of JFK wasn’t on my bingo card this year. Oliver Stone's new movie sounds interesting. The files are still being blocked for release possibly by the CIA. I hope we get to know the truth about it before I die.
Was never on my bingo card either.
Then five years later a disturbed Palestinian immigrant offs RFK.. Hmm.
Perhaps we already know the truth -- as unsatisfying as it is.
Not what I would call a positive press headline. LOL
That’s so funny
I’m not sure they see how dumb that looks especially after we just had another Saigon episode in Afghanistan.
Kamala: "America is back!"
Vietnam: "We kicked you out once and we can do it again if we need to!"
I’m having trouble getting Twitter to load tweets if I open it from safari. It started yesterday and I get a something is wrong message and try again. Anyone else having this problem? Little help please.
Not sure that this will help but twitter seems to have changed
how things work.
I have never had a twitter account so I am not able to comment. That is fine by me. However recently I am not able to open threads. I was able to find a workaround by clicking on opening in a new link. I am not sure if this will help with your issue.
Thanks
I open tweets in a new tab, but it just had stopped working. If I click the date and open in a new tab it works. Or in the Twit app.
Danny DeVito had a blue check which Twitter gives ‘verified' accounts, but after he tweeted support for frito lays workers Twit rescinded his blue check. The message is that the blue checks follow the party line or else. Not an earth stopping event, but an interesting one I think.
Caitlin on DeVito
From her article on Julian Assange from 2017.
This is what I alluded to about Hillary’s laptop. Both are worth a read.
The tweet
A couple of problems with your comment.
First, you skipped the context for Caitlin's first tweet. Here it is:
Second, and more serious, you linked to Caitlin's July 2017 article on twitter verification and excerpt her first two paragraph, but with no disclosure what follows beginning with "In a stunning development" is from the Hub Pages piece. As if you didn't quite understand what Caitlin's article was about. IOW Julian Assange has never claimed that he was in possession of child porn from Podesta's email, and Hub Pages was one of the entities pushing the Pizzagate hoax.
I explained the DeVito tweet
Then I posted it when I found it again. I did understand what Caitlin's point was. As for Wikileaks emails I’m not sure what your point is. If you’re confused you can look at the article at it’s source which I always recommend people do. I didn’t say Assange had the porn himself. He exposed that Podesta did which you can see if you follow the links in the original article. I have written about that years ago when it first came out.
From the archived article:
Could have been clearer, but again if you follow the links…
I’m not confused about what I wrote but I am at your comment.
Normally on disagreements,
I let it drop after a couple of comments, but not this time because you are still wrong.
First, it's not acceptable to post a claimed excerpt from a writer that includes several paragraphs not written by that writer. It was so "off" that it led me to go a read Caitlin and then sort out where the major part of the excerpt you posted came from.
Second, Caitlin's article is about the poor quality of twitter's verification. Cutting off authentic twitter accounts (as in the recent instance of Danny DeVito) and allowing fake accounts to continue and appear to be authentic. She more than suggested (as there was no way for her to authenticate) that the "at Julian_Assange" twitter account was fake. Her first clue, and with which she led her piece, looked at the Hub Pages newsfeed and the article that promulgated that incendiary claim in the tweet "at Julian_Assange." Second clue -- that tweet sounds no more like what Assange and Wikileaks issues than the Porn Hub words you put in Caitlin's mouth.
For the record, Assange has never made claims based on materials that he doesn't possess or hasn't seen and verified as authentic. Thus, if you believe that fake tweet is real, you also have to believe that he had possession of kiddie porn from the Podesta files. And that Assange and Wikileaks wouldn't turn the materials over to several authorities for criminal investigations. Not believable in the least.
I’m more confused
It sounds like you’re problem is more with how Caitlin wrote her essay. As for my excerpts I posted 2 paragraphs and linked the archived article which I included an excerpt in my comment. As for you having to read at the source I recommended that you do it in my 1st reply. As I said I think if people are interested in the excerpt to read at the source. I also recommended fully reading both articles. I can’t make you do it only suggest you do.
As for the Assange stuff I’m really lost.
Who says he did? I didn’t and said that he posted some of Podesta's information about being a pedophile. Again if you follow the links you’ll see some of the art he has in his home. Again I have covered this before and have seen how atrocious they are.
In one article it states that just reading the descriptions of what’s being offered someone in law enforcement should be taking a closer look at it. Whitney Webb has written extensively on Epstein and how many administrations have been tied to child sex trafficking going back to prohibition days.
So read the articles to get clarity or don’t. Sorry that you couldn’t follow what I wrote. It happens. But even though there is lots of evidence of evil doings I doubt anyone will ever be charged for anything. Focusing on porn hub seems like a squirrel because it distracts from some awful and hideous acts too many powerful people are getting away with. Pizza gate too is either a distraction or saying it’s a conspiracy theory just so people think it is.
I found the Epstein saga interesting because it’s so heinous. Other than that…
Where did you get that I have a
problem with Caitlin's 2017 article on the twitter verified accounts? Her article was perfectly fine. And I have read it along with the clickbait Hub Pages article.
What I have a problem with it how you used it in your first comment -- an illustration:
Only the first two paragraphs were from Caitlin's article. With no break or disclosure, the others were from the Hub Pages article making it look as if it was all from Caitlin's article. Caitlin critiqued Hub Pages in her opening and labeling it clickbait. Adequately informing her readers not to trust it.
Where was that? The only thing I've ever seen is that tweet by "@ Julian_Assange" which is a fake Assange account and was used as the source for your linked Hub Pages article.
Assange has stated that Wikileaks published all the Podesta files that they received. Nothing about anyone being a pedophile in those files.
Dragging in the unrelated Jeffrey Epstein into our dispute is poor argumentation. Much remains unknown about his scams. Yeah, I read the Whitney Webb articles on Epstein and wasn't impressed. Lots of dots (many fictional) that she connects with fantasy links.
(Years ago a lawyer friend was totally convinced about the McMartin Preschool pedophilia ring. The stories were too fantastic and implausible for it to be true. Who got that one right?)
Consider a question -- with so many women having come forward with claims of having been sexually abused by Epstein when they were underage (claims that for the most part I accept as true) except for Maria Farmer who was in her twenties, why is there a paucity of claims that Epstein/Maxwell then passed them along to other men? If that were the source of his substantial annual income and wealth, there should be scads of women reporting that they'd been trafficked. Particularly since there's a pot of money that victims may be able to access.
The overwhelming majority of child and adolescent sexual abuse occurs in the home and is perpetrated by relatives and close family friends and secondarily perpetrated by trusted members of the community - teachers, coaches, doctors, boy scout leaders, priests/ministers, celebs, ie Jimmy Saville and R Kelly. Very rarely do such perps act in collusion with other perps. Child porn may proliferate on the internet, but that's because the purveyors and customers don't expect to get caught, and it's a solitary perversion for the customers. So, I'm not dismissing the prevalence of child and adolescent sexual abuse. That said, the postulation of pedophile rings to serve political and/or uber wealthy persons never seems to lead to the exposure of such a ring.
I sometimes have problems
with the twitter link. If it doesn't work I click on the https link in the body and it usually works. It sometimes works if I reload the page and click a second time.
No rhyme or reason.
Try clearing your Safari history and website data
It seems Twits are throttling functionality to repeat users who have not signed up for an account. By signing up you must agree to their terms of service which likely includes the granting of all sorts of invasive permissions to collect and monetize your personal profile while minimizing their legal liabilities.
I’d like to preserve my delusion that I still have a semblance of personal privacy on the internet, even though it’s clear that ship sailed long ago.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
I use Firefox and EVERYTHING gets deleted
upon closing. No history or other settings.
Biden confused & angry despite
scripted questions.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLcXqhE2ZlA]
By now, an MSM interviewer could literally be playing patty-cake
with Biden, and he’d still get confused and angry.
Golly! This is mighty generous of them.
A image posted by CB last night.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/568695...
It might be a tad crowded but
still safer than patio seating.
One source said his remains were found in the C-17’s wheel well
Gruesome either way.
https://twitter.com/BabakTaghvaee/status/1428048845397807112
I don't understand why anybody
would attempt hitching a ride on an airplane that way. I understand a few of the dozens of people running alongside the speeding aircraft got run over by the wheels.
There appeared to be some sort of mass psychosis taking place. Darwin Awards to all of them.
This might easily qualified as a ZINGER!
https://tass.com/politics/1327935
and the winner is
Russia takes a victory lap
NYCVG
Absolutely brutal! But this is the President.
Obviously Biden sucks but the Republicans are even worse. Woe is us!