The Evening Blues - 9-2-20



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bumble Bee Slim

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Piedmont blues guitarist and singer Bumble Bee Slim. Enjoy!

Bumble Bee Slim - Tired Of Your Low Down Nasty Ways

“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”

-- Thomas Jefferson


News and Opinion

Worth a read despite the cognitive dissonance readers are likely to experience reading the discussion of the "recovery" from the 2008 bankster corruption-induced crash.

Rebuilding the Economy Will Require Joe Biden to Think Very Differently Than 2009

Joe Biden’s invocation of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, in the opening words of his convention acceptance speech, offered a flash of hope that, in broad terms, the Democratic nominee has grasped the scale of the Covid-19 crisis. Yet before Biden even spoke, the head of his transition team, former Sen. Ted Kaufman, undercut that hope, telling the Wall Street Journal that, in effect, Biden didn’t mean it. “When we get in, the pantry is going to be bare,” Kaufman said. “When you see what Trump’s done to the deficit … forget about Covid-19, all the deficits that he built with the incredible tax cuts. So we’re going to be limited.” After being called out by David Sirota, the Biden campaign split the difference: There will be “stimulus” in the short run, retrenchment later. The reassurance is not reassuring. For, like the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force report on which the Democratic platform is based, it confirms that economic thinking on Team Biden, even among its most progressive elements, is essentially the same as that behind the Obama-Biden strategy for the previous economic crisis, from 2008 to 2009. But the underlying situation now is in many ways much more serious and intractable.

The 2008 crisis was, at its core, a financial one. It stemmed from a rash of financial frauds, which generated a simulacrum of economic growth through mortgage loans that would never be honored in full — and that were designed, and targeted, to ensure that they could never be honored in full. When the frauds were exposed and the housing market collapsed, millions lost their jobs; millions more lost their homes. Still, overall and over time, the crisis was amenable to the conventional “Keynesian” fix: a large injection of money. The residual arguments over the Obama-Biden program in 2009 are merely over whether the injection was large enough, and whether a larger one might have averted the political backlash that hit the administration in 2010. [Quibble here: residual arguments also include to whom the Keynsian injection was targeted and there are vast numbers of people whom were not made whole after the bankster corruption-induced crash. -js] ...

There are three reasons why the experience of the last expansion is will not be repeated now. First, the pandemic has obliterated the global market for many advanced capital goods in which America excels. Aircraft are a major example. The civil aviation industry depends on worldwide demand, not U.S. demand, and world demand is dead so long as more airworthy planes are parked on the ground than are in the air. In a slightly different vein, the U.S. oil business turns on a world price. It is doomed so long as the selling price is half the cost of getting fracked oil from the ground in West Texas. Construction of offices and retail malls: also dead and done as a substantial share of clerical work shifts to the home office and of shopping to online distributors. The sale of automobiles will slow as commuting and shopping demand fewer miles of travel, and cars therefore last longer. In many other sectors, cheap digital equipment will replace expensive facilities and human labor. Overall, the next recovery will not be kickstarted by exports, by business investment, or by the purchases of durable consumer goods. There is nothing that Keynesian stimulus can do about that.

When we come to the consumer, there is an even bigger problem. It is that the largest share of increased spending in the last recovery — and the secret of American success at job creation — was not in the purchase of goods, but in the production and consumption of services. The U.S. economy after the crisis saw a vast growth in jobs in bars, restaurants, coffeehouses, hotels, resorts, spas and casinos, gyms, ride-shares, massage and tattoo parlors, hair and nail salons, boutique shops, and high-end grocery stores, as well as in child care, education, cultural events, and elective medical procedures – the entire panoply of services with which a wealthy society tends to pamper itself. In effect, the U.S. economy became a gigantic carnival of doing each other’s washing and scratching each other’s backs. The pandemic has washed much of that away. Direct personal contact, crowded spaces, and mixing are the essence of many services and have been suppressed, necessarily, for health reasons — and will remain. There is an assumption, in many quarters, that if and when the pandemic recedes, these will simply return, and things will start up where they left off. This is neither a safe assumption nor even a reasonable one. ...

Third, as the pandemic lingers and people cannot work, arrears for rent, mortgages, and utility bills are piling up. According to one survey, about a third of households failed to make their full rent or mortgage payment in July — for the fourth month in a row. Landlords have begun again to file for evictions — understandably from their point of view but disastrously for the economy as a whole. As the fear of eviction or foreclosure returns, households will save even more, and spend even less, hoping to have enough in reserve, in case of bad luck or sustained joblessness, to keep the bailiff from the door.

Kenosha Journalist Quits over Coverage of Jacob Blake Protests, Citing Ignorance, Lack of Diversity

Trump blames racism in policing on 'bad apples' during visit to Kenosha

Donald Trump brought his politics of division to Kenosha, Wisconsin, planting himself firmly on the side of law enforcement rather than civil rights protesters during a contentious visit to the city. The US president insisted that racial injustice in policing is due to “bad apples” rather than being “systemic” and that a silent majority of Kenosha residents are most concerned about “law and order” rather than racism. ...

On Tuesday, the Blake family held a community gathering at the shooting site with a DJ playing music and tables set up so people could register to vote, get a haircut, take a coronavirus test or write a messages to put in Blake’s hospital room. The president was not invited.

Trump’s motorcade passed crowds of demonstrators, some holding pro-Trump signs, others jeering while carrying placards that read Black Lives Matter. Under heavy police guard, including several armored vehicles, Trump toured the charred remains of a block including a furniture shop that was burned down. Then, flanked by the attorney general, William Barr, and the acting homeland security secretary, Chad Wolf, Trump hosted a meeting at a high school of community and business leaders, law enforcement officials and pastors against a backdrop of photos showing vandalism. ...

Trump told the meeting that “violent mobs” in Kenosha damaged or demolished at least 25 businesses, burned down public buildings and threw bricks at police officers. “These are not acts of peaceful protest but, really, domestic terror,” he said. He pledged the federal government will provide $1m to police, nearly $4m to small businesses for their recovery efforts and a further $42m statewide for public safety.

"A few bad apples" really get around:

'I'm still hurting': encounter with Phoenix police leaves teenage girl with permanent burn scars

A teenage girl says she suffered serious burns and lasting injuries when Phoenix police officers pinned her to scalding hot asphalt during a heatwave last year, the latest brutality claim against a department that has faced growing backlash over its use of force.

On 20 August 2019, Phoenix police were responding to calls of a fight between a group of high school students when Roniah Trotter, 17, said a policeman grabbed her and held her face down on the sidewalk while trying to arrest her, placing his knee on her back. By the time officers allowed her to get off the ground, she had suffered second-degree burns across her shoulder and arm, her medical records show. There were record-breaking 113F (45C) temperatures that day.

“My face was burning,” Trotter, now 18, told the Guardian one year after the arrest left her with permanent scars. “When they did eventually get me off the floor, the pavement had burned my skin off.” Trotter, then a junior in high school, was jailed and charged with assaulting an officer.

The teenager, who filed a formal lawsuit against the department on Monday, is speaking out and sharing photos of her injuries at a time when police across the US are once again under scrutiny for the ways they assault, abuse and kill Black Americans.

In Phoenix, a 28-year-old man died in police custody last month after police held him down on hot asphalt for several minutes. In July, the Guardian obtained footage of an officer in the city slamming a 23-year-old woman to the ground within seconds of a traffic stop, and in August, two women shared accounts of sexual abuse by police. An officer in another case is facing sexual assault charges.

“Breonna Taylor lost her life. Thank God that wasn’t me. But I’m still hurting,” said Trotter. “The cops have to be held accountable for what they did to me.”

More "bad apples."

Los Angeles: sheriff's deputies fatally shoot Black man stopped for riding bicycle

Two Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies fatally shot a Black man after ordering him to stop on his bicycle, the latest police shooting to rock the region in recent months. Family members identified the 29-year-old as Dijon Kizzee, 29, CBSLos Angeles reported. Officers shot him on Monday afternoon, after they tried to stop him for allegedly violating vehicle codes.

Kizzee’s body was left in the streets for hours, sparking a large demonstration of angry residents and activists demanding accountability for a sheriff’s agency with a legacy of controversial killings, brutality cases and corruption scandals.

The sheriff’s lieutenant Brandon Dean said two deputies from the South Los Angeles station had been driving in the South Los Angeles neighborhood of Westmont when they saw a man riding his bicycle in violation of vehicle codes, according to the Los Angeles Times. It was not known which codes the man allegedly broke, Dean said.

When deputies tried to stop the man he dropped his bike and ran, with deputies in pursuit, according to Dean. Deputies again tried to make contact with the man, Dean said. According to the department, the man then punched a deputy, though police have not provided any evidence to substantiate this claim. . The man dropped a bundle of clothes and the deputies spotted a black handgun in the bundle, at which point both opened fire, Dean said. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said no deputies were injured.

Protesters also criticized the department for handcuffing the man after shooting him and leaving his body in the street for hours.

Man with ties to 'boogaloo' movement charged with threatening health officer over pandemic

A California community college instructor with ties to the far-right, anti-government “boogaloo” movement was in custody on suspicion of sending two dozen misogynistic and threatening letters to a county health officer involving the coronavirus pandemic.

The Santa Clara county sheriff’s office said on Tuesday that Alan Viarengo, 55, was arrested last week and charged with felony counts of stalking and threatening a public official. Investigators also seized 138 firearms, thousands of rounds of ammunition and explosive materials from Viarengo’s home in Gilroy.

Viarengo allegedly sent a series of letters to Dr Sara Cody, the Santa Clara county health director. Investigators said the letters became “increasingly aggressive, offensive and threatening” over time and contained slogans and imagery from the “boogaloo” movement, a loosely organized, right-wing extremist group known for anti-government, anti-police and pro-gun beliefs.

Viarengo has not entered a plea. His bail was revoked and he remains in jail.

How did the US's mainstream right end up openly supporting vigilante terror?

Kyle Rittenhouse, a “Blue Lives Matter” fanatic, Donald Trump supporter and militia member, has been charged with murder. ... While the Trump campaign quietly disavowed this enthusiastic supporter, insisting he had “nothing to do with our campaign” (as though anyone had suggested otherwise), the president himself defended Rittenhouse, saying he appeared to have been acting in self defence. Message boards such as Reddit and 4chan are humming with commentary supporting Rittenhouse. Predictably, every accused lone-wolf murderer generates an online fan club. Likewise, the Christian right has already raised $250,000 for Rittenhouse’s defence. ...

The brazen overtness of the right’s dalliance with vigilante terror in answer to Black Lives Matter has been some time in the making. Trump has done as much as he can to mainstream the violent far right in the same way that he has normalised conspiracist paranoia with his birtherism, climate denialism and references to the “deep state”. From his declaration that armed Charlottesville protesters were “very fine people” to his defence of armed protesters in Michigan, and his exhortations to rightwing paramilitaries to “LIBERATE MINNESOTA”, “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and then “LIBERATE VIRGINIA” from Covid-19 lockdown, Trump lets the purveyors of armed fury know just whose side he’s on. ...

There is a broader context for America’s turn toward what writer Huw Lemmey accurately characterises as a sub-Verhoeven dystopia. Rapture-seeking movements such as QAnon, or those prepping for the “boogaloo”, are working the margins of a culturally mainstream phenomenon. Although the US has always been immersed in the fantasy of “regeneration through violence”, rarely has so much of the country been so thoroughly in the grip of adrenaline-pumping, apocalyptic excitement and conspiracist paranoia. In both conspiracy theories and apocalyptic fantasies, life is reduced to a cosmic showdown between good and evil. The traumas and disappointments of life are folded into a millenarian revenge fantasy-cum-death wish, as in the enormously popular series of Left Behind novels about rapture and the struggle with the papal antichrist. Such apocalyptic thinking reverberates through a network of institutions, including white evangelical churches, Fox News and the Republican party itself.

Trump’s rhetoric has always invoked gruesome apocalyptic scenarios if his opponents win. This year’s Republican convention is fully channelling this mania, with speakers shouting about liberals who want to “enslave” Americans, steal their freedom and turn the US “into a socialist utopia”, or comparing the Democrats to “communist China”. Notably, the convention paraded a white couple arrested and charged for waving guns at Black Lives Matter protesters, who claimed that the Democrats would abolish the suburbs and let the criminals move in next door. Truly, the end times. ...

Today’s conspiracist bricolage thrives on the collapse of consensus reality, and on the disintegrating authority of older gatekeepers of truth. More importantly, it milks a fascination with the destruction of one’s enemies and, tacitly, oneself. In the past, apocalyptic fantasy has been seen as a paranoid reaction to economic deprivation and political persecution. That was true of peasant movements such as the Lazzarettists, who launched a violent revolt against the government and the ruling class in 19th-century Italy, but it hardly explains the disproportionately affluent Trump base, and it doesn’t explain rich Washington journalists such as Tucker Carlson rationalising murder in cold blood. Apocalyptic conspiracy thinking is, above all, a theodicy: it explains evil, and says what will be done about evil. The end times thinking that is sweeping the US, and justifying every new outrage, is the theodicy of groups frightened of losing their power and arming themselves to defend it.

US refuses to join international effort to develop Covid-19 vaccine

The US government has said that it will not participate in a global initiative to develop, manufacture and equitably distribute a vaccine for Covid-19 because the effort is co-led by the World Health Organization.

The Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (Covax) is a plan developed by the WHO, along with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and is meant to accelerate the development and testing of a vaccine and work toward distributing it equally. The WHO announced last month that more than 170 countries were in talks to participate in Covax.

Asked to confirm a report in the Washington Post that the US will not be joining Covax, a White House spokesman, Judd Deere, said in a statement: “Under President Trump’s leadership, vaccine and therapeutic research, development, and trials have advanced at unprecedented speed to deliver groundbreaking, effective medicines driven by data and safety and not held back by government red tape.

“The United States will continue to engage our international partners to ensure we defeat this virus, but we will not be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China.”

August was deadliest month for coronavirus in California and Idaho

As August came to a close, several states marked the month as their deadliest yet in battling the coronavirus pandemic, including Idaho and California. According to an LA Times analysis, California reported 3,745 Covid-19 deaths in August, an 18% increase since July. With 700,000 coronavirus cases, California had the most in the country. Meanwhile in Idaho, the number of deaths last month nearly doubled.

But as the US reached the milestone on Sunday of more than 6m coronavirus infections nationwide, it is midwestern states such as Iowa, North and South Dakota, as well as Minnesota that have emerged as the nation’s fastest-growing areas for the virus. On Sunday, White House coronavirus taskforce experts cautioned Iowa lawmakers that the nation’s current hotspot should close bars in 61 counties and test all returning college students.

Still, Iowa State University planned to host 25,000 fans at its football home opener in Ames on 12 September, despite the New York Times labeling it the country’s worst coronavirus “hotspot” city. ...

But while new daily cases have continued their downward trend and the rate of daily reported deaths remains well below its spring peak, the total more than doubled on average since early July. The US is currently on track to reach a sobering total of 200,000 deaths by mid-September.

“We Feel Betrayed”: NYC Reaches Deal with Teachers to Reopen Schools & Avert Strike, But Is It Safe?

Tony Abbott: some elderly Covid patients could be left to die naturally

Tony Abbott, the former Australian prime minister tipped to become a UK trade envoy, has railed against Covid “health dictatorships”, saying the economic cost of lockdowns meant families should be allowed to consider letting elderly relatives with the coronavirus die by letting nature take its course.

He claimed it was costing the Australian government as much as $200,000 (£110,000) to give an elderly person an extra year’s life, substantially beyond what governments would usually pay for life-saving drugs.

Abbott said not enough politicians were “thinking like health economists trained to pose uncomfortable questions about the level of deaths we might have to live with”. More politicians should have asked whether the cure was proportionate to the disease.

Trump Delivers Eviction Relief For MILLIONS, Can Dems Keep Up?

Poll Shows Number of Unemployed People Struggling to Cover Basic Needs Has Nearly Doubled Since GOP Killed $600 Federal Boost

After Senate Republicans allowed a $600-per-week boost to federal unemployment benefits to expire at the end of July, the share of jobless Americans struggling to afford basic necessities in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic crisis nearly doubled, according to polling released Tuesday by Morning Consult.

The survey found that "the share of unemployed workers unable to cover their basic expenses with their unemployment benefits rose to 50% in August, or an estimated 8.3 million Americans." Comparatively, 27% of unemployment insurance (UI) recipients couldn't cover the basics in July, while the weekly boost was still in effect.

As the intertwined public health and economic disasters forced millions out of work this spring, Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed a Covid-19 relief package that added the $600 boost. However, Republican lawmakers and the president have resisted attempts by Democrats to continue the expansion—clinging to their debunked claim that the temporary relief was deterring people from returning to work.

More than five months later, millions remain out of work and economists warn that there are millions more people unemployed than there are job openings, so the employment crisis is expected to persist. Although Trump took executive action in August to use disaster relief money to increase UI benefits by $300 per week—with states contributing another $100—funds are limited and the rollout has been slow.

"The president's executive memorandum is a nothing burger and a false promise that actually does more harm than good because it diverts attention from the desperate need for the real relief that can only come through legislation," Heidi Shierholz, senior economist and director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute, said last month.

Trump put out that widely criticized memo and three others after months of fruitless debates and the GOP-controlled Senate refusing to vote on the House-approved Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act (HEROES) Act, despite millions of Americans struggling to afford housing, utilities, food, healthcare, and other essentials during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, as Common Dreams reported earlier Tuesday, new polling from Gallup and West Health revealed that 50% of Americans are concerned a major health event could lead to bankruptcy, a five-point increase from a survey last year.

Amazon's Union Busting Spies

'The Corruption Is Bottomless': Documents Reveal Chair of Postal Service Board Is Director of McConnell-Allied Super PAC

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's deep and longstanding ties to U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors chairman Robert Duncan are coming under heightened scrutiny after corporate paperwork filed Monday listed Duncan as a director of a major GOP super PAC closely aligned with the Kentucky Republican.

The new filing (pdf) with Virginia's State Corporation Commission—an independent regulatory agency that oversees political action committees—names Duncan as one of three directors of the Senate Leadership Fund, a massive super PAC that has spent nearly $18 million in support of Senate Republicans thus far in the 2020 election cycle.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Senate Leadership Fund has recently received multi-million dollar donations from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and other right-wing billionaires.

Duncan—who raised more than $400 million for the GOP during his tenure as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2007 to 2009—was nominated to the USPS Board of Governors by President Donald Trump in 2017 confirmed by the McConnell-led Senate in August of 2018. A McConnell spokesperson told the Louisville Courier Journal last month that the GOP leader recommended Duncan to Trump.

"As a businessman, a public servant, and a dedicated mentor to young people, Mike is an outstanding choice to help oversee the world's largest postal organization," McConnell said in an April 2018 Senate hearing considering Duncan's nomination.

News of Duncan's current high-level role on a super PAC closely linked to McConnell added fuel to growing concerns that recent USPS operational changes imposed by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy—a Republican megadonor to both McConnell and President Donald Trump—are a ploy to influence the outcome of the November election in the GOP's favor and, ultimately, privatize the Postal Service.

The sweeping changes—many of which DeJoy vowed to suspend last month in the face of immense public backlash—have dramatically slowed package deliveries across the nation and intensified concerns about the timely arrival of mail-in ballots in November. Last month, Democratic lawmakers urged the Board of Governors to remove DeJoy over his mail service changes and conflicts of interest, but members of the board—which unanimously appointed DeJoy in May despite his lack of USPS experience—have remained supportive of the postmaster general.

"Can the GOP's takeover of USPS be any more blatant?" economist Robert Reich asked Monday in response to the new filing.

"The corruption is bottomless," added Renee Graham, a columnist for the Boston Globe.

During a House Oversight Committee hearing last month, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) called attention to Duncan's ties to the Senate Leadership Fund and American Crossroads, another major Republican super PAC. Duncan confirmed that he on the boards of both GOP organizations while also serving as chairman of the USPS Board of Governors.

Lawmakers and progressive commentators suggested that McConnell's close relationship with the top official on the USPS Board of Governors could have something to do with the Republican leader's refusal to consider House-passed legislation providing $25 billion in emergency funding for the Postal Service. In a tweet last month, McConnell dismissed widespread concerns about mail slowdowns across the U.S. as "overblown conspiracy theories."



the horse race



BIDEN Polls Under TRUMP in Michigan! Michael Moore ATTACKED For Being Alarmed!

'Red Mirage': Democratic Data Firm Predicts Post-Election 'Chaos' Over False Trump Landslide

The head of a Democratic political data agency is warning that with a record number of Americans expected to vote by mail in November, it is very likely that early election results will appear to show that President Donald Trump has won in a landslide, even if he ultimately loses after all outstanding votes are counted.

Josh Mendelsohn, CEO of Hawkfish—a data analytics agency founded last year by mutli-billionaire former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg to support Democratic candidates—sat down for an interview that aired Monday on "Axios on HBO" in which he predicted "chaos in America" after the polls close on November 3.

"We believe that on election night, we are going to see Donald Trump in a stronger position than [he] actually is," Mendelsohn said, calling this phenomenon a "red mirage."

Mendelsohn said he is "sounding the alarm and saying that this is a very real possibility, that the data is going to show on election night an incredible victory for Donald Trump."

"Twice as many voters intend to vote by mail," Mendelsohn explained, pointing to surveys showing that 40% of ballots will be cast by mail. Among Democrats that figure rises to 48%, while for Republicans it's just 23%, although studies have shown there is no evidence that voting by mail favors either major party, or that it results in fraud.

According to a June Pew Research Center survey, conducted in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, around two-thirds of Americans are in favor of "no excuse" early or absentee voting.

"Absentee ballots are harder and slower to count," added Mendelsohn, who said that swing states including Florida, Pennsylvania, and Virginia may initially appear to have gone to Trump, but could later break for Biden.

"This isn't misinformation, it isn't disinformation or using fear as a tactic," said Mendelsohn. "There are objective truths in the world today."

When asked if Americans would accept these truths, Mendelsohn said, "I think that's the America we wished we lived in." However, he added that "we've got Trump... messaging through tweets and in speeches at rallies this notion that any change from the result on election night... means fraud has entered the equation."

The president has repeatedly cast aspersions on mail-in voting, while voicing support for absentee voting—apparently unaware that they are the same thing.

Ed Markey BLOWS OUT Kennedy, 'All Bets Are Off' In Rebuke Of Pelosi



the evening greens


The End of Oil? Pandemic Adds to Fossil Fuel Glut, But COVID-19 Relief Money Flows to Oil Industry

Trump administration rule seeks to make drilling easier in national forests

The Trump administration is proposing to make it easier for oil and gas companies to drill on US forest service lands. A proposed rule would eliminate key environmental reviews and public notice requirements, according to environmental advocates.

Currently, 2.7 % of the acreage of the national forest system has been leased by energy industries. An analysis by The Wilderness Society finds that the changes would make drilling more likely on more than 9m acres of land with high, medium or moderate development potential in Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming. Many of the forests are near tribal lands or include the traditional territories of indigenous peoples, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Western US forests could see the biggest changes, but the rule could also affect the east coast, where there is far less forest service land. Drilling within forests would require clearing trees for well pads and disrupting the ecosystem for roads and pipelines.

Microplastic pollution devastating soil species, study finds

Microplastic pollution causes significant damage to populations of soil-dwelling mites, larvae and other tiny creatures that maintain the fertility of the land, research has found.

The study notes that discarded bags, cups, threads and other forms of plastic waste are concentrated more in the earth than the oceans, with similarly dire consequences for the abundance of species that live below the surface.

Mites, roundworms, springtails and other forms of microarthropod and nematode are barely visible to the human eye, but they play an essential role in recycling carbon and nitrogen and breaking down organic matter into a form that bacteria can consume.

They are increasingly threatened by oil-based synthetic refuse. The new paper, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society, notes that humanity has produced 6,300 million metric tonnes of plastic waste since 1950, of which 79% has accumulated in landfills or leaked into the natural environment.


Also of Interest

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

Michael Hudson: How an “Act of God” Pandemic Is Destroying the West: The U.S. Is Saving the Financial Sector, Not the Economy

Election 2020 - The Color Revolutions Are Coming Home

FLASHBACK: Ed Markey's Battles With Wall Street

Freedom Rider: The U.S. Is a Racist Militia

Joe Sanberg: COVID Exposes LIE Of U.S. Healthcare System

Krystal and Saagar: Biden Campaign's CRINGE Animal Crossing Youth Appeal Strategy


A Little Night Music

Bumble Bee Slim - Greasy Greens

Bumble Bee Slim - I Done Caught My Death Of Cold

Bumble Bee Slim - Right From Wrong

Bumble Bee Slim - Hobo Jungle Blues

Bumble Bee Slim - Fattenin' Frogs For Snakes

Amos Easton (Bumble Bee Slim) - I Keep On Drinkin'

Bumble Bee Slim - No Woman No Nickel

Bumble Bee Slim - Burned Down Mill (Take A)

Bumble Bee Slim - If The Blues Was Whiskey


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snoopydawg's picture

Thread

I’ve said all along that secret courts making secret rules doesn’t make them legal. Let’s see what the Supreme Court says about this.

Biden sounds tired.

And what’s with the heavy sigh at the end? And do you know that Russia is now telling everyone here that Biden has dementia? Yup. But DHS doesn’t believe the report so they withheld it from democrats. Lots of could’ve and beliefs and other words that aren’t proof being bandied about. In other words there’s no proof. Neera has been tweeting about this all afternoon. I’ll try to find one.
Heavy sigh....

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19 users have voted.

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

Pluto's Republic's picture

@snoopydawg

I missed this.

And do you know that Russia is now telling everyone here that Biden has dementia? Yup. But DHS doesn’t believe the report so they withheld it from democrats.

No. Wait.
I found it.

2020 is giving 2016 some competition on the most corrupt insider sabotage of any election in US history.

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12 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
snoopydawg's picture

@Pluto's Republic

If you want to read the report look on HuffPost or DK. Both wrote about it this morning. I haven’t read this yet. But since all news comes from the same source I probably have.

https://t.co/E2Af2hBsTz?amp=1

God you people reek of desperation. Just think of what we see and hear while watching Biden and ask how exactly Russia has anything to do with what I am seeing..They don't. The man is in bad shape.

Biden has said that Russia is also interfering with the BLM and causing disruption here. Lol..it’s like that Taliban story that wants us to believe that they will only kill US troops if they’re paid to.

Biden just told blacks that they haven’t actually believed that there is a racism problem here it’s just Russia telling you that there is. He should have been fried for that. But the sycophants just saw Russia is to blame and got more upset.

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15 users have voted.

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

Pluto's Republic's picture

@snoopydawg

Looks like our posts crossed.

This one is excellent, too.

All Russia all the time.

The Rogue Federal Government has revealed that it is depraved beyond all repair. This failed Empire has gone insane (a fate shared by many failed empires). The US is poised to blow-up itself and the entire world to hide its crimes and deceit. Anyone with the power to stop this madness is, alas, one of the corrupt.

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14 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Pluto's Republic's picture

Novichok nerve agent used in Alexey Navalny poisoning, says German government

(CNN)Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent from the Novichok group, the German government said Wednesday, urging the Kremlin to explain itself.

Navalny, who fell ill on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow last month, is being treated at a Berlin hospital.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said toxicological tests on samples taken from Navalny had been carried out at a German military laboratory, providing "unequivocal evidence of a chemical nerve agent" from the Novichok group -- Soviet-era chemical weapons.

In a statement, Seibert said it was "startling" that "Navalny was the victim of an attack with a chemical nerve agent in Russia."

"The federal government condemns this attack in the strongest possible terms," the statement said, adding: "The Russian government is urged to explain itself regarding the incident."

.

Novichok, the world's lousiest nerve agent, which never works right and isn't even made in Russia.

Oh brother.

I guess they'll put him into the witness protection program with the Skripals. They can be neighbors. There's a sitcom here, waiting to happen.

@Pluto's Republic

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
joe shikspack's picture

@Pluto's Republic

one has to wonder if these people are so lacking in imagination that they can't make up a new narrative or even a new dangerous chemical name, or if they thought that the last narrative they faked (skripalgate) went so well that they just wanted to repeat it.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@joe shikspack

...Navalny was not poisoned with a cholinesterase inhibitor. It a common poison and I assume he was. A common insecticide will leave the same chemical signature behind. However 'Novichok' cannot be handled safely outside of a lab. A single gram can kill thousands of people.

Evoking Novichok is obvious propaganda.

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13 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic @Pluto's Republic just as a international delegation of chemical arms experts arrived in Damascus, that happened. Just as Russia was about to host the World Cup, the same thing happened. Either someone has absolutely the worst timing in the world, or . . .
Is anyone noticing a pattern?

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13 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

damn, the wheels of "justice" grind slowly. i assume that the administration will appeal this all the way up to the scotus - not that the law could stop the demented morons in gummint from doing whatever fascist bullshit they please.

biden does sound tired. and he's hardly been off of his basement couch to go campaign.

heh, nobody needs russia to tell them that biden is an old horse who should be put out to pasture.

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12 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

@joe shikspack

...to stop Joe's live appearances and hide him in the basement.

Not that I think this is anything but a coincidence.

Thanks for the news, Joe. It seems extra creepy lately — but I guess it's been this way since 2016, when we entered the Twilight Zone.

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11 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
joe shikspack's picture

@Pluto's Republic

i guess when creeps manufacture the news, you get creepy news. Smile

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9 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@joe shikspack
and don't you dare doubting the seriosity of German chemists. (I am one and that should be all to know about them). They know their chemicals. They just are political dummies. Who has the greater interest in blaming Russians for the poisoning? Germany or the US or God forbid even the evil Russians themselves ?

Mysteries over mysteries. I need a nap again and we are still in the morning hours here in Germany.

Nothing for Ungood and with apologies for napping too much and reading too late.

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5 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

@mimi , from provoking Russia. The German chemists identified the type of poison correctly. The German government's mock hysteria over Novichok is done as a favor to the US. Many EU leaders get rich by pretending they are terrified of Russia, which provides the excuse for NATO's illegal aggression. The US regularly feeds European leaders tainted and targeted intellligence to help them pretend.

The US is the only nation that gains from putting Russia on a war footing. But they only get closer to their own doom.

The US once had important powers in the world. But it squandered its Diplomatic Powers by using military terrorism and threats, even against allies, to get its way. It once had a Trustworthy Currency, but it debased the dollar by psychotic levels of defense spending that put the nation into hopeless debt. The US further allowed its oligarchs and political elite to raid the national treasury through tax cuts, war profiteering, and corporate welfare — stimulus and subsidies — much of which is hoarded offshore in Family Foundations. The dollar's days are numbered.

The Model Democracy of the US is a pile of ashes; the US is swimming in blatant political corruption. Politicians are legally bribed for votes that benefit corporate profits with tax cuts, subsidies, and deregulation — while the corporations degrade the environment as they asset-strip the nation's remaining natural resources. The American Dream has sunk into a Plantation Economy. People now shop at a few giant monopoly stores, while their low-paying jobs provide them no personal security. Masses of formerly middle class families are homeless, unhealthy, uneducated and misinformed, waiting in food lines and living from hand to mouth. Millions of them compete for a handful of jobs. They are politically divided, socially dysfunctional, armed to the teeth, and penned in, between borders and departure points, by militarized police. Policing in the US is the Jobs Program for the nation's growing population of psychopaths and the formerly deployed.

No people, anywhere in the world, want's anything that looks like the US dystopia — except to further asset strip the helpless nation for profit if they can. Mostly the US provides a ghastly train wreck for their daily entertainment.

The only real power the US has left is Destructive Power. The US has no Positive Power. The US has nuclear weapons. But they are not the best nuclear weapons. They are not the biggest or the fastest or the most numerous nuclear weapons. If the US dares to use them, the US homeland will be destroyed and radioactive for thousands of years in a matter of minutes. Yes, much of the world will be destroyed — but the fact that the US and everyone in it is fully vaporized is the important thing to keep in mind right now. Americans should be reminded of this constantly. Incessantly.

This is how all the stories about modern empires end.

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4 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Azazello's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg
All the MSM goes along with it, CNN: After FBI tip, Facebook says it uncovered Russian meddling
It's inoculation against the truth. So you say to a PMC Dem person you know, "Listen to him speak, Joe has dementia." They say, "Oh no, that's Russian disinformation. Everybody knows that. Haven't you read the New York Times?"

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12 users have voted.

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

JekyllnHyde's picture

... not!

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17 users have voted.

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

joe shikspack's picture

@JekyllnHyde

good to see you. thanks for the most hopeful graphic ever posted here. Smile

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11 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@JekyllnHyde
call it 'Plurre' in German. Wink

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3 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

From the Richard Seymour article:

In an era of anti-communism without communism, Trump charges that Black Lives Matter protests are led by Marxists, “leftwing extremists” and others out to destroy “the United States system of government”. Thus, the crises that afflict the US are figured as a diabolical plot, much as past generations of anti-communist blamed worker strikes and civil rights struggles on what John Rankin of the House un-American activities committee called “this great octopus, communism, which is out to destroy everything”.

No Donald, you moron, we're not Marxists and we don't want to destroy the "United States system of government." We want the US government to do right by the people, that's all.

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14 users have voted.

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 guess if you think of america as a machine for making a relative few enormously wealthy and keeping the rest pacified or so encumbered by the struggle to survive that they cannot respond effectively to their oppression, the government doing right by the people would indeed destroy everything they have created.

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11 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

@joe shikspack @joe shikspack
Who is more likely to think of "America as a machine for making a relative few enormously wealthy ...", the idiot Trump, who gets what little history he knows from movies and TV, or a leftist who has actually read some history?

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9 users have voted.

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

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

it is an interesting question, but i suppose that one doesn't have to see the machine to see what it does, so to speak. trump may only be dimly aware of why he is fighting "marxists."

during the 2016 campaign trump said that he had purchased politicians, so he is well aware of what he and his class do to get what they want. one would presume that he has no desire for that to end.

certainly, any decent anti-corruption reforms (always led by "marxists" doncha know) would throw a monkey wrench in the machine, therefore it must be fought with everything trump has.

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9 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

I arrived at this awhile back for different reasons, but I am glad to see their peers calling the CDC out, finally:

The CDC has failed: Ex-health officials urge states to abandon agency
In the void of “sensible guidance from the CDC,” states and leaders need to act.

9/1/2020

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is promoting policies that will prolong the COVID-19 pandemic and, as such, states and local leaders should disregard the agency and strike out on their own. That’s according to Harold Varmus, the Nobel-prize-winning scientist and former director of the National Institutes of Health, and Rajiv Shah, the former administrator of the United States Agency for International Development and current president of the Rockefeller Foundation.

The two laid out their argument against the CDC in a searing opinion piece in The New York Times Monday, titled: “It Has Come to This: Ignore the CDC.”

Varmus and Shah’s dramatic disavowal of the country’s leading public health agency was spurred by its abrupt changes last week to COVID-19 testing guidance, which now discourages testing of people who have been exposed to the pandemic coronavirus but do not have symptoms.

Doctors, public health practitioners, and infectious disease experts roundly decried the changes, noting that evidence clearly indicates that people without symptoms play a significant role in spreading the pandemic coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. The president of the American Medical Association called the change “a recipe for community spread and more spikes in coronavirus.” The Infectious Disease Society of America called for “the immediate reversal” of the change.

So far, it seems the majority of US states have already decided to reject the CDC’s new guidance....

.

Are Technica does a good job of explaining some of the main issues. This is a very serious failure for this nation and a serious danger for your health. The CDC's failures are rooted in corruption and profiteering. And incompetence.

What's been going on in the US is alarming. The world is closing their borders for good reason.
Worth a read.

Look to WHO to stay informed.

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12 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
joe shikspack's picture

@Pluto's Republic

for the article. very interesting.

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7 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@Pluto's Republic

which now discourages testing of people who have been exposed to the pandemic coronavirus but do not have symptoms.

Can anything else be said that shows that they have given up on containing this epidemic and just want it to run its course? One of Trumps men has been talking about herd immunity a lot. He’s another person who has no knowledge of his position, but he’s a Trump yes men.

Some workers are not being told that they and their coworkers are infected or sick. Some are told to keep working even though they are infected and sick. I bet that happened at the meat processing plants from the beginning. This culling of the herd will continue until they achieve their goal.

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11 users have voted.

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

@snoopydawg I agree with you.

It's possible that their understanding of herd immunity is as misguided as their understanding of what one bad apple can do. The bad apple isn't an exception that is tolerable. It spoils the whole barrel.

Herd immunity is what happens when everybody who Can get immunized does so and thereby protects those who cannot get immunized---babies, for example, or people with compromised immune systems.

Having vast numbers of Americans get sick and die from Covid does NOT give herd immunity because re-infection is possible and even a mild case of Covid can injure our heart and lungs.
'
Culling is more likely the outcome and the goal. There is zero positive outcome from allowing the virus to spread.

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8 users have voted.

NYCVG

@NYCVG ,I am expendable.
(That my tax bill is more than half of my payments notwithstanding...
Just dammit it all.
TLOMLgot his blue grass fill, played me some Tchaikovsky,so all is well, we are prepared for what comes, and so hope you and others are,as well.
Take care of of you and yours, and keep the wonderful ebs coming.

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5 users have voted.

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

enhydra lutris's picture

first poison Germany alleged to have found made that claim unsustainable, so now they'e going with demonic unicorns novichok. Whatever happened to plain old arsenic?

Thanks for the EB

be well and have a good one.

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10 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

i just wish they had more imagination. i expect something worthy of tom clancy from the russians, so if western intelligence agencies are going to make something up, they owe it to us to make it interesting.

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9 users have voted.

Or at least potentially. The bradykinin hypothesis might explain the seemingly inexplicable set of symptoms seen in many covid-19 patients and suggests drugs that we already use for other issues that may help.
It's early, and this may not pan out, but I'll take any good news when I see it.
I can't imagine how the US response could have been worse.

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7 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

@peachcreek

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5 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
joe shikspack's picture

@peachcreek

thanks for the link!

i hope that the info in it speeds up efforts at treatment of covid, it certainly sounds promising.

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2 users have voted.