The Evening Blues - 8-8-17



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Junior Kimbrough

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features North Mississippi hill country blues musician Junior Kimbrough. Enjoy!

Junior Kimbrough - All Night Long

"All of the western nations have been caught in a lie, the lie of their pretended humanism; this means that their history has no moral justification, and that the west has no moral authority."

-- James Baldwin


News and Opinion

With any luck this will be a prelude to the much-needed criminal trials for those who ordered and committed the US torture program.

Creators of the CIA's 'enhanced interrogation' program to face trial

A civil lawsuit brought by three victims of the CIA’s torture program against the two psychologists who created it will go to court on 5 September in Washington state, after a judge ruled that more than a year of discovery had yielded sufficient evidence to support the plaintiffs’ claims.

Judge Justin Quackenbush issued a written opinion on Monday in the suit, in which James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen are accused of designing, promoting and sharing responsibility for the interrogation methods to which the three men were subjected.

It will now be up to a jury in Spokane, Washington, to decide if the psychologists, who reportedly were paid $75m-$81m under their contract with the CIA to create the so-called enhanced interrogation program, are financially liable for the physical and psychological effects of their torture.

Two of the men, Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian national, and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, who is Libyan, survived their ordeal in a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan in 2003; they are now free and living in their home countries. The third, an Afghan national named Gul Rahman, died as a result of torture in the facility.

“This is a historic day for our clients and all who seek accountability for torture,” said Dror Ladin, one of the ACLU attorneys who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the three men in October 2015. “The court’s ruling means that for the first time, individuals responsible for the brutal and unlawful CIA torture program will face meaningful legal accountability for what they did. Our clients have waited a long time for justice.”

Way to go Obama and neocons!

Al Qaeda is thriving in Syria’s chaos

In the shadow of ISIS’ barbaric rise in Syria and Iraq, another familiar terror group is experiencing a quiet renaissance: al Qaeda. Al Qaeda officially entered Syria’s civil war in January 2012 with the explicit goal of dislodging President Bashar Assad and establishing an Islamic state. But the group soon saw a chance to reinvent itself amid Syria’s chaos, according to terrorism experts and security analysts. Now, five years later, concerns are growing that Syria could become a key base for al Qaeda’s global terrorist operations.

In the years since it entered the Syrian conflict, al Qaeda has established its local affiliate as one of the most dominant rebel groups in the country and has quietly amassed its “largest guerrilla army in history,” said terrorism expert Thomas Joscelyn, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

In 2011, Osama Bin Laden’s body was dumped at sea and al Qaeda’s strategic defeat was declared “within reach” by then–U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. But the terror group that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks has quietly evolved, with Syria the latest addition to its list of recent successes, including Yemen, Somalia, and West Africa. In recent years, al Qaeda has extended its influence through newly empowered local proxies, and in Syria’s Idlib province the terror outlet has won valuable territory in the heart of the Middle East.

Al Qaeda, through its local affiliate, the militant alliance Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS, also known as Organization for the Liberation of the Levant), recently cemented its dominance in the northwest province of Idlib by seizing territory from rival rebel group Ahrar al Sham. The victory, which involved some of the heaviest fighting between rebels since the war began, was “part and parcel of everything they’ve been laying the groundwork for the better part of the last several years,” said Colin P. Clarke, author of “Terrorism, Inc.: The Financing of Terrorism, Insurgency, and Irregular Warfare.”

Shifting Battlefield in Syria's Proxy War

Four more wars years!

Anti-IS operations enter fourth year

The US-led coalition campaign to destroy the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria enters its fourth year this week, and the Pentagon believes the jihadists' defeat is inevitable.

On August 8, 2014 two FA-18 jets launched from the USS George W. Bush aircraft carrier in the Gulf and dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on IS fighters near Arbil in northern Iraq. The action marked the beginning of an intense aerial bombardment that was later augmented by the training and equipping of local forces to fight IS, first in Iraq and then in Syria. ...

In the three years since the campaign began, 70 percent of the territory IS once held in Iraq has been recaptured, and 50 percent in Syria. ...

Even though experts foresee the eventual collapse of IS's self-declared "caliphate," the jihadists have fought back by calling on followers to launch terror attacks across the globe.

After military shake-up, Erdogan says Turkey to tackle Kurds in Syria

Days after a reshuffle of Turkey's top military commanders, President Tayyip Erdogan has revived warnings of military action against Kurdish fighters in Syria that could set back the U.S.-led battle against Islamic State. Kurdish militia are spearheading an assault against the hardline militants in their Syrian stronghold Raqqa, from where Islamic State has planned attacks around the world for the past three years.

But U.S. backing for the Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria has infuriated Turkey, which views their growing battlefield strength as a security threat due to a decades-old insurgency by the Kurdish PKK within in its borders.

There have been regular exchanges of rocket and artillery fire in recent weeks between Turkish forces and YPG fighters who control part of Syria's northwestern border. Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO after the United States, reinforced that section of the border at the weekend with artillery and tanks and Erdogan said Turkey was ready to take action.

U.S. May Begin Airstrikes Against ISIS in Philippines

The Pentagon is considering a plan that allows the U.S. military to conduct airstrikes on ISIS in the Philippines, two defense officials told NBC News.

The authority to strike ISIS targets as part of collective self-defense could be granted as part of an official military operation that may be named as early as Tuesday, said the officials. The strikes would likely be conducted by armed drones.

If approved, the U.S. military would be able to conduct strikes against ISIS targets in the Philippines that could be a threat to allies in the region, which would include the Philippine forces battling ISIS on the ground in the country's southern islands.

North Korea's nuclear threat at a 'new stage', warns Japan

Japan has warned that the threat from North Korean nuclear weapons has reached a “new stage” now that it appears to have developed an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the US mainland. In its defence white paper, Japan’s government said Pyongyang’s weapons programme had “advanced considerably,” adding that it was possible that the regime had acquired the ability to miniaturise nuclear warheads.

“North Korea’s development of ballistic missiles and its nuclear programme are becoming increasingly real and imminent problems for the Asia-Pacific region including Japan, as well as the rest of the world,” said the report, which ran to more than 500 pages.

Japan’s defence ministry said that security threats had reached a new stage after the North conducted two nuclear tests and more than 20 ballistic missile launches last year. The report went on to speculate that North Korea had improved its technological expertise to the point where it could theoretically marry a nuclear warhead with a missile.

China may conduct 'small-scale military operation' to remove Indian troops from Bhutan border region

China could conduct a "small-scale military operation" to expel Indian troops from a contested region in the Himalayas, according to an article published a Chinese state-controlled newspaper.

Indian troops entered the area in the Doklam Plateau in June after New Delhi's ally Bhutan complained a Chinese military construction party was building a road inside Bhutan's territory.

Beijing says Doklam is located in Tibet and that the border dispute between China and Bhutan has nothing to do with India. It has demanded Indian troops withdraw.

Chinese and Indian media have taken a strident approach, with an article in the Chinese state-owned Global Times quoting a research fellow at the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences saying China is preparing to initiate a "limited war" to push Indian soldiers out of the area.

Contracting the Afghan war out to Blackwater - what could possibly go wrong?

Blackwater Founder's 'Disturbing' Plan to Privatize Afghan War Gains Ground

As President Donald Trump vents his frustration with the United States' "losing" strategy in Afghanistan, the "notorious mercenary" and Blackwater founder Erik Prince has seized the moment to offer his favored alternative: privatize the war.

According to a report by Katrina Manson of the Financial Times on Monday, Prince has drafted a proposal—dated August 2017—that would hand the longest war in American history over to a private "band of experienced sergeants," who would fight alongside U.S.-trained Afghan forces. Prince, Manson writes, "proposes a two-year plan for fewer than 5,000 global guns for hire and under 100 aircraft, bringing the total cost of the U.S. effort to turn round a failing war to less than $10 billion a year." ...

Prince, the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, argues that Trump should "restructure" the war—a process he suggests would resemble "bankruptcy reorganization"—by "aligning U.S. efforts under a presidential envoy," which in a previous op-ed he called a "viceroy." Following the publication of his most recent piece, Prince appeared on CNN and noted that Steven Bannon, "some folks" at the National Security Council, and "quite a few" members of Congress have been receptive to his plan to privatize the war. The Financial Times further noted that "Central Intelligence Agency director Mike Pompeo visited Afghanistan last week to assess U.S. strategy and in part to consider how Prince's proposal might fit into it."

Technology Firms Lining Up to Build Trump’s “Extreme Vetting” Program

On July 18 and 19, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division hosted an “industry day” for technology companies interested in building a new tool for the Homeland Security apparatus. The event was only supposed to take one day at the Crystal City Marriott in Arlington, Virginia, but was expanded to two after what ICE called an “overwhelming response” from interested companies. According to an ICE document titled “Extreme Vetting Initiative” provided to potential contractors, the agency’s current ability to evaluate an immigrant’s potential for criminality or terrorism is inadequate, “fragmented across mission areas and are both time-consuming and manually labor-intensive due to complexities in the current U.S immigration system.” ICE is simply digging around so much, at such a fever pitch under Trump, that they’ve created a hopeless backlog. ...

ICE’s hope is that this privately developed software will help go far beyond matters of legality to matters of the heart. The system must “determine and evaluate an applicant’s probability of becoming a positively contributing member of society, as well as their ability to contribute to national interests” and predict “whether an applicant intends to commit criminal or terrorist acts after entering the United States.” Using software to this end is certainly in line with Trump’s campaign rhetoric — during a rally in Phoenix, he described how “extreme vetting” would make sure the U.S. only accepts “the right people,” using “ideological certification to make sure that those we are admitting to our country share our values and love our people.”

Sign-in sheets from the ICE event show a sizable private sector turnout, including representatives from IBM, Booz Allen Hamilton, LexisNexis, SAS, and Deloitte, along with a litany of smaller firms, such as Praescient Analytics, Red Hat, PlanetRisk, and Babel Street. ...

Interested contractors were told their system must be capable of scraping not only “data in various law enforcement databases” and “other government agency computer systems” (including FALCON, an immigration database created by Palantir) but will extensively exploit anything that can be found on the public internet in order to provide “continuous vetting” of foreign visitors for the entirety of their stay.

Formerly Jailed CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou: Jeff Sessions Is Extending Obama's War on Leaks

U.S. Credit-Card Debt Surpasses Record Set at Brink of Crisis

U.S. consumer credit-card debt just passed an ominous milestone, beating a record set just before the global financial system almost collapsed in 2008.

Outstanding card loans reached $1.02 trillion in June, data from the Federal Reserve show, as lenders including Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. compete to sign up cardholders who may carry balances -- a relatively lucrative business in a prolonged period of low interest rates.

'Make Your Stand': Medicare for All Supporters Ready to Hold Dems to Account

As popular support for single-payer continues to grow and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) prepares to introduce Medicare for All legislation, the Establishment wing of the Democratic Party is reportedly "alarmed" by the shifting dynamics and fearful "of primary election challenges" if they don't support Sanders's proposal.

"Democrats who don't get behind it could find themselves on the wrong side of the most energetic wing of the party," Politico reported Monday. ...

"Any Democrat worth their salt that doesn't unequivocally say Medicare for All is the way to go? To me, there's something wrong with them," Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution—the political group that formed out of Sanders's presidential campaign—told Politico. "We're not going to accept no more hemming and hawing. No more game playing. Make your stand." ...

Mounting public support of a Medicare for All national healthcare system could sway centrist Democrats, and perhaps even Senate Republicans, who are up for reelection in 2018 or 2020. A national poll released by Quinnipiac last week found that a majority of American voters overall, and 67 percent of Democrats, believe that replacing the nation's current healthcare system with a single-payer system—"in which the federal government would expand Medicare to cover the medical expenses of every American citizen"—is a good idea.

Secret supervised drug injection facility has been operating at US site for years

For nearly three years, in an undisclosed US city, a social service agency has quietly been inviting people to inject illegal drugs at a clandestine site, without the government’s approval. More than 100 people have injected drugs at the site, according to data released Tuesday about the 2,754 injections. This data provides the first glimpse of what it would look like if the US decided to follow 10 other countries and open supervised injection facilities.

Researchers said two people’s lives were saved because they overdosed at the site, where staff had immediate access to the opioid reversal drug naloxone, and 90% of people who used there said they would have injected in a public restroom, street, park or parking lot if the site had not been available. ... The secret site is modeled after legal facilities in countries including Canada, Denmark and France, where users can take drugs in a safe space with clean supplies. These facilities have been found to provide safety for users as well as communities where used needles can litter the streets, parks and public restrooms.

The site’s existence, an act of public health civil disobedience, is a throwback to unsanctioned needle exchange sites that appeared during the HIV/Aids crisis. In Canada, where supervised injection sites exist, activists have also created “pop-up” injection tents to respond to the opioid crisis.

Orrin Hatch, the Original Antitrust Hipster, Turns on His Own Kind

Before Congress checked out for the August recess, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, made sure to use some of the waning moments to come to the defense of giant internet platforms, contradicting a long history of concern over the power of tech monopolies, a concern that lasted right up through last year.

In a Thursday speech, Hatch warned about the rise of “hipster antitrust,” a flailing attempt at a derisive term for a group of experts and observers who look uneasily at growing concentrations in every sector of our economy. These hipsters — for the sake of sanity let’s just call them anti-monopolists or the New Brandeis movement — believe that antitrust officials at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have for the past 35 years viewed the question of anti-competitive mergers and industries too narrowly, guided by something called the “consumer welfare” standard.

Initiated by failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and associates at the University of Chicago, the consumer welfare standard maintains that, as long as merging companies make the case that prices will drop and “efficiencies” will occur due to their combination, the merger should go forward. Anti-monopolists, seeing how market concentration has affected not just prices but wages, suppliers, quality of service, regional inequality, economic dynamism, and democracy itself, believe the authorities must look at economic sectors with a much broader lens.

It’s an odd time for Hatch to have backed off what was once a lonely crusade, just as the wings of both parties are coming around to the issue. Anti-monopoly politics has gotten high-level buy-in from Democrats, who placed trust-busting at the head of their “Better Deal” agenda. Even alt-right populist Steve Bannon has told people privately he favors regulating Google and Facebook as public utilities.

[Check out the rest of the article for some speculation about Hatch's motivation for his about-face on tech anti-trust. Hint: Hatch is up for re-election and Microsoft is contributing heavily to his campaign. - js]



the horse race



Secretive search for man behind Trump dossier reveals tension in Russia inquiry

Two US congressional staffers who travelled to London in July and tried to contact former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele were sent by a longstanding aide to Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House intelligence committee and a close ally of the White House. The trip has brought back to the surface a continuing struggle for control of the committee’s investigation into Moscow’s role in the 2016 US election. The reliability of a dossier compiled by Steele, containing explosive allegations of extensive secret collusion between Trump and the Kremlin, is a key part of that investigation.

The two staffers turned up unannounced at Steele’s lawyers’ offices while the former MI6 officer was in the building, according to a report by Politico on Friday. But the committee’s leading Democrat, Adam Schiff, said on Sunday neither he nor his Republican counterpart had been informed about the staffers’ London trip. A congressional official insisted, however, that the staffers were in London on official committee business. He said they had been told to make contact with Steele’s lawyers, rather than Steele himself.

Nunes stepped aside from the committee’s Russia investigation in April, months before the London trip, after becoming the subject of an inquiry by the House ethics panel into whether he disclosed classified information in a bid to discredit the Obama administration. The Republican congressman Mike Conaway took over Nunes’s duties directing the Russia inquiry. Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, has since praised Conaway’s cooperation into investigating the links between the Trump campaign and Moscow, but has also complained that Nunes has continued to intervene in the investigation, despite his understanding to stay out of it pending the ethics inquiry.



the evening greens


Government climate change report leaked amid fears Trump admin might suppress it

Donald Trump might not believe in climate change, but scientists working under him sure do.

Scientists from 13 federal agencies have produced a climate change report highlighting the stark rise in temperature over the last several decades and the role human activity plays in it, according to the New York Times, which obtained a private, draft copy.

The report’s findings directly contradict claims by President Trump that global warming is a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese, as well as claims by Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt that carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming.

The draft report, which is part of the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment, was approved by National Academy of Sciences, according to the Times, but it is currently awaiting approval from the Trump administration. Government scientists cited anonymously in the Times say they’re worried the report could get suppressed.

Meet the Senior Federal Official Blowing the Whistle on Trump's Suppression of Climate Science

The Extinction Event Gains Momentum

Imagine for a moment that phytoplankton, the foundation of the aquatic food web startlingly dies off. All of a sudden gone! Phytoplankton feeds everything from microscopic zooplankton to multi-tonne Blue Whales (the largest animal on Earth). But first and foremost, every 2nd human breath is oxygen produced by phytoplankton. Without phytoplankton, life dies.

According to Dr. Boris Worm, marine research ecologist at Dalhousie University and head of the Worm Lab study of marine biodiversity: The planet has lost 40% of plankton production over the past 50 years, primarily as a consequence of climate change/global warming. “We are changing the geology of the planet. We are changing the ocean chemistry… The anthropocene means that what happens to this planet is now in our hands.” (Boris Worm, et al, Global Phytoplankton Decline Over the Past Century, Nature Vol. 466, Issue 7306, July 29, 2010 and interview in Racing Extinction)

“Falling oxygen levels caused by global warming could be a greater threat to the survival of life on Earth than flooding, according to researchers from the University of Leicester.” The study claims an increase of water temps of six degrees Celsius, which could occur as soon as 2100, could stop oxygen production by phytoplankton. (Source: Global Warming Disaster Could Suffocate Life on Planet Earth, Research Shows, University of Leicester Press Office, Dec. 1, 2015).


Also of Interest

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

Liberating Europe from Russian Gas

Trump’s Deceptive Drive to Kill Iran-Nuke Accord

The Strange Case of Imran Awan

A New Twist in Seth Rich Murder Case

Landlord troubles: rich San Franciscans in uproar after their private street is sold

Unlearning the myth of American innocence


A Little Night Music

Junior Kimbrough - Leaving in the Morning

Jr Kimbrough - Done Got Old

Junior Kimbrough - Lord Have Mercy On Me

Junior Kimbrough - Most Things havent Worked Out

Junior Kimbrough - Sad Days, Lonely Nights

Junior Kimbrough - Pull your clothes off

Junior Kimbrough - Do the Rump!

Junior Kimbrough - Old Black Mattie


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Unabashed Liberal's picture

to my comment (in another thread) about the rising OOP costs of the Traditional Medicare program.

. . . Here's a sample of the recent rate increases.

(Annual) Part B Deductible

2013-2015 $147

(After signing of 'Doc Fix' Bill in 2015)

2016 $166

2017 $183 . . .

Same goes for the (Annual) Part A Deductible, and for the Monthly (Base) Premiums.

I'll catch up with you Guys later this evening, and hopefully, have a video to post which I've clipped from a C-Span interview.

As usual, thanks for tonight's News & Blues!

Mollie


“I believe in the redemptive powers of a dog’s love. It is in recognition of each dog’s potential to lift the human spirit, and therefore, to change society for the better, that I fight to make sure every street dog has its day.”
--Stasha Wong, Secretary, Save Our Street Dogs (SOSD)

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

divineorder's picture

@Unabashed Liberal

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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.

Unabashed Liberal's picture

@divineorder

pair of Cheetahs.

Sorry that I didn't post the video--couldn't locate it at C-Span. I'll search a bit more tomorrow.

One of these days, I'm going to start saving stuff on a thumb drive--which I almost never do, unless it's business-related.

Actually, once I was 'locked out' of a clip that I made, from a Pete Peterson annual shindig. (IOW, they didn't delete it, just made it unavailable for viewing.) It was of Kent Conrad, laying out which of the 'cuts' to Social Security that he wanted to see implemented, as part of the so-called Grand Bargain. I 're-clipped' the segment, and was locked out of it again! They must have little to do there at C-Span, if they're resorting to censoring clips made from material that they've posted.

Mollie

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

joe shikspack's picture

@Unabashed Liberal

thanks for the info, looking forward to hearing more.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

@joe shikspack

original comment that I linked to, and for some reason, was unable to edit the comment. (But, I did post a reply to my erroneous comment, and made the correction in it.)

Also, I couldn't find the video that I referenced, earlier. Maybe tomorrow will be better!

Wink

Mollie

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

Azazello's picture

From Liberating Europe ...:

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern have publicly condemned the law, which could prevent them from benefiting from the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline, declaring: “we cannot agree with threats of illegal extraterritorial sanctions against European companies which take part in the development of European energy supply.” Brigitte Zypries, head of Germany’s Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, says the new sanctions are “against international law, plain and simple… Americans cannot punish German companies because they [do business] in another country.”

Maybe this will finally blow up NATO.
This is disturbing: Evidence of Google blacklisting ...

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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

yep. the germans seem to be pretty seriously pissed, maybe even enough to raise some hell - or better yet, speak plainly and forcefully. it's about time somebody stood up to the empire.

glad to see that wsws is staying on the google censorship story, thanks for the link!

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Azazello's picture

@joe shikspack
just like Syria. Europe's gas market is the prize. There already is a Nord Stream pipeline. It runs from Vyborg, Russia direct to Greifswald, Germany under the Baltic Sea. Nord Stream 2 would double the current capacity of cheap Russian gaz. The Germans don't like being forced to buy US or Saudi gas. Not only that, some are questioning the NATO requirement of 2% GDP "defense" spending. Reuters

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

lotlizard's picture

@Azazello  
that laid the ground for the reunification deal with Gorbachev and the Soviet armed forces?

I live in Dresden now . . . if the war fans and profiteers of both parties in Congress had taken good-faith dealings with Russia off the table as they have now, that would never have become possible.

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divineorder's picture

camping there and in Zambia recently, and when they asked about about our President I replied that if they wouldn't ask about mine, I wouldn't ask about theirs. They laughed and most quickly changed the subject.

Acting President Baleka Mbete's to-do list

http://www.iol.co.za/news/opinion/acting-president-baleka-mbetes-to-do-l...

If the vote today on the motion of no confidence goes against President Jacob Zuma, Baleka Mbete will wake up tomorrow Acting President of South Africa. Chuck Stephens has 10 things she needs to do right away.

1. Call Deputy Speaker Tsenoli. Inform him that as the House Speaker becomes Acting President, then the Deputy Speaker must become the Acting Deputy President.

2. Call ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe and book an appointment to discuss cadre deployment for a new president. Ask him for a short list that can be tabled in Parliament for a secret vote.

3. Call the Director General of Home Affairs and ask him to snafu some passports: Gupta brothers, Brian Molefe, Hlaudi and Aguma, etc. They are not to leave the country. They are flight risks. SNIP

There's more. However, she will not get to the list nor be acting Pres since the no confidence vote was not a success. Meh.

Jacob Zuma Beats Back No-Confidence Vote in South Africa
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/world/africa/jacob-zuma-south-africa-...

Sad to see this. Many people are in trouble, crime is a serious issue, traveling there in the future even more of a risk. Poaching will probably continue to be on the upswing as well due to hunger.

SNIP

South Africa’s unemployment rate is 27.4 percent and rising. Living conditions have improved since the demise of apartheid in 1994, but the gains have slowed. Public debt is rising, and experts say the country needs to restructure inefficient state-owned enterprises.

Municipal elections last year delivered a major blow to the A.N.C.’s control of Johannesburg and several other cities. After Mr. Zuma summarily dismissed a finance minister considered a bulwark against corruption in March, ratings agencies downgraded the country’s debt to junk status.

Mr. Zuma’s term as president runs until 2019, but the party is gearing up to meet in December to choose new party leaders for the next five years. Mr. Zuma’s narrow victory on Tuesday could empower his critics within the party and weaken supporters like his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who is a former home affairs minister and a contender to succeed him as party leader.

“We can expect mass mobilizations across the country and a massive battle within the A.N.C. before December,” William Gumede, a scholar at the University of the Witwatersrand, predicted. “This will send an extremely negative message to investors and ratings agencies.”

Here's a photo of a different type of predator from our most recent trip :205 (1024x683).jpg Rare cheetah brothers on the hunt. Kruger National Park, July, 2017

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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.

joe shikspack's picture

@divineorder

sorry to see that south africa is having as much trouble ridding itself of its corrupt, deeply entrenched bureaucrats as we have in the us.

nice shot of the cheetahs! thanks, look forward to seeing more shots from your travels.

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divineorder's picture

@joe shikspack

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0 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@divineorder

pretty much anywhere you look, virtually every country's elites have grown fat, nasty, corrupt, violent and the normal political processes don't seem to be enough to restrain them anymore. it's a sad state of affairs.

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divineorder's picture

@joe shikspack

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0 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@divineorder

i'm not sure that even a war or 5 could help donnie now.

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divineorder's picture

@joe shikspack .

1.1.1.1

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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.

Amanda Matthews's picture

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

joe shikspack's picture

@Amanda Matthews

excellent cartoon. thanks!

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

snoopydawg's picture

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

paradigmshift's picture

I want to write an essay about this, but I definitely don't have enough info yet, much less verification.....Through a very strange set of circumstances, I had a one hour long 1 to 1 conversation with a local candidate that I really like (the only person I like for any of the upcoming races) that alluded to a VERY discouraging story about the local DSA chapter. This person has done one thing that I find very impressive, is very active, is sincere (no way it is fake), etc. I have not/cannot verify this person's story, and have no details. This person is now so untrusting (made me paranoid too) that he/she suspects even me and may not contact me back. This person is afraid to give me her/his call list, so I can't help campaign, I assume this candidate is not working beyond friends/family. He/she has been through hell. Not sure what to do as I have no political contacts.

In the same conversation, this candidate explained that Our Revolution was supporting a bad candidate (for a DIFFERENT race), this candidate sounds like an Obama/Clinton clone, but admittedly, things are so bad here that I think Our Revolution may have endorsed the least bad candidate for that race.

I am not YET knowledgeable about the local/state races (I just like this one person a lot), so I should take that into consideration too, I guess.

I need more info right now, waiting (hoping) for this candidate to contact me back, if I don't hear back, I guess this story ends for me, but I still am wondering about the local DSA branch. God, politics is so evil.

If anyone has any good contacts with DSA and thinks this is worthy of passing the word on, please message me. Thanks!

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"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

joe shikspack's picture

@paradigmshift

heh, i haven't talked to anybody in dsa since the 80's. however, one thing that you might consider doing is attending the local chapter's meetings, get to know some of the people and carefully poke around the controversy over a period of time.

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paradigmshift's picture

I just wish there was some way I could help this current candidate before its too late. I really like her/him. But damn, this person won't even let me help her/his campaign, and I don't have a whole of opportunities to help around here. Maybe I will hear back. Groan.

Edit: Crap, this was supposed to be a response joe. Sorry.

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"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

joe shikspack's picture

@NCTim

what's shakin?

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NCTim's picture

@joe shikspack Trying to stay ahead of whatever is chasing me.

Beach Boy down. RIP

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

joe shikspack's picture

@NCTim

i hear that he played lead guitar on this one:

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Azazello's picture

@joe shikspack
but a bunch of other ones too, and for a bunch of different pop groups.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16qsYreBJZE width:400 height:240]

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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

as a member of the wrecking crew and played on hundreds of records.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

@NCTim

and I formed a 'trio' for a couple years, playing music for various functions. This was one of my favorite Campbell tunes. I got to play a soli (keyboard), and one of the guys was a real gifted tenor, who really did justice to Campbell's work (I thought). Both played guitar, as well as percussion.

Hey, hope you're doing well.

Mollie

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.