The Evening Blues - 9-2-21



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Jimmy Johnson

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Jimmy Johnson. Enjoy!

Jimmy Johnson - You Don't Know What Love Is

"Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible."

-- A. Philip Randolph


News and Opinion

Since 9/11, US Has Spent $21 Trillion on Militarism at Home and Abroad

In the 20 years since the September 11 attacks, the United States government has spent more than $21 trillion at home and overseas on militaristic policies that led to the creation of a vast surveillance apparatus, worsened mass incarceration, intensified the war on immigrant communities, and caused incalculable human suffering in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and elsewhere.

According to State of Insecurity: The Cost of Militarization Since 9/11 (pdf), a report released Wednesday by the National Priorities Project, the U.S. government's so-called "War on Terror" has "remade the U.S. into a more militarized actor both around the world and at home" by pouring vast resources into the Pentagon, federal law enforcement, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), an agency established in response to the September 11 attacks.

Released in the wake of the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan after two decades of devastating war and occupation, the new report argues that the Taliban's rapid takeover of the country "raises deep questions about our military investments to date."

"Twenty years ago, we were promised a vision of the War on Terror that did not come to pass: that Afghanistan would not become a quagmire, or that the Iraq War would be over in 'five weeks or five days or five months' and cost a mere $60 billion," the report notes. "As the country went to war and refocused domestic security spending on terrorism, few had any inkling of the far-reaching ramifications for the military, veterans, immigration, or domestic law enforcement."

The National Priorities Project (NPP), an initiative of the Institute for Policy Studies, estimates that of the $21 trillion the U.S. invested in "foreign and domestic militarization" in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, $16 trillion went to the military, $3 trillion to veterans' programs, $949 billion to DHS, and $732 billion to federal law enforcement.

In addition to fueling death and destruction overseas, the new report stresses that spending on overseas wars heightened domestic militarization, making police crackdowns on dissent at home even more violent.

"There is evidence that the War on Terror drove transfers of military equipment to police, as surges ended and the Pentagon looked to divest from surplus equipment," the analysis notes. "Transfers in 2010, when the military was still deeply engaged in the War on Terror, totaled $30 million. Over the next few years, the U.S. pulled forces out of Iraq, and military equipment transfers skyrocketed, peaking at $386 million in 2014. Today, transfers are still far higher than they were early in the War on Terror, totaling $152 million in 2020 and $101 million in just the first half of 2021."

Lindsay Koshgarian, program director of NPP and lead author of the new report, said in a statement Wednesday that "our $21 trillion investment in militarism has cost far more than dollars."

"It has cost the lives of civilians and troops lost in war, and the lives ended or torn apart by our brutal and punitive immigration, policing, and mass incarceration systems," said Koshgarian. "Meanwhile, we've neglected so much of what we really need. Militarism hasn't protected us from a pandemic that at its worst took the toll of a 9/11 every day, from poverty and instability driven by staggering inequality, or from hurricanes and wildfires made worse by climate change."

House Panel Approves $37.5B Boost to Pentagon Budget

With public awareness of U.S. war spending elevated in the wake of American troops exiting Afghanistan, a House of Representatives panel on Wednesday approved a $37.5 billion increase to the Pentagon budget from last year, angering progressive lawmakers and anti-war activists.

The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) voted 42-17 to approve Ranking Member Mike Rogers' (R-Ala.) amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2022 (H.R. 4350). Fourteen Democrats joined with the panel's Republicans to support it.

As Common Dreams reported Tuesday, the NDAA amendment would add $25 billion to President Joe Biden's $753 billion topline military spending request for the next fiscal year—at a time when progressives are calling for bold investment in urgent human needs.

"Today, the House Armed Services Committee voted to put arms dealer profits before the needs of everyday people," Win Without War senior Washington director Erica Fein said Wednesday. "Let's not mince words: Every congressperson who voted for this should be ashamed."

The advocacy group called out the committee's Democrats and Republicans who voted for the amendment while also thanking those who spoke out and voted against it.

"Right now, people around the country are struggling to survive in the middle of a pandemic that has already taken the lives of millions," Fein said. "Right now, families are being thrown out of their homes because they can't afford rent. Right now, lives are being upturned in Louisiana, California, Tennessee, and beyond by the devastating effects of climate change."

"In the midst of all of this, HASC chose to spend tens of billions of dollars inflating the already bloated Pentagon budget and lining the pockets of wealthy arms-makers at the expense of working families," she continued. "It is astonishing that now, of all times, when we should be continuing to end our endless wars, HASC is doubling down on the same approach to national security we've seen fail for decades."

Fein, on behalf of her group, added that "we urge the full House to reject this dangerous Pentagon giveaway when it considers the NDAA later this month."

That call was echoed by members of the women-led anti-war group CodePink.

"A day after the United States withdrew from one of the most costly wars in history, the absolute LAST thing congressional representatives should be doing is increasing the Pentagon budget," said CodePink national co-director Carley Towne in a statement.

"Add to that the fact that we're facing Covid, an ongoing climate catastrophe, and a struggling economy and it's clearer than ever that we cannot allow our representatives to continue this costly and destructive forever war paradigm," Towne said. "We need to slash the Pentagon budget and invest in what will truly make us safe: healthcare, a Green New Deal, and public housing."

CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin called Wednesday's vote "unbelievable."

"After wasting over $2 trillion on the Afghan fiasco, the House Armed Services Committee just voted to give the Pentagon $25 billion MORE than the enormous 2022 Pentagon budget Biden had asked for," she said. "Talk about corruption! Look no further than our Congress!"

Women can continue working in Afghan government, say Taliban

Women can continue to work in government in Afghanistan but are not guaranteed cabinet or other senior positions, a Taliban spokesman has said. Asked whether women and ethnic minorities would have a place in the new Afghan government, the deputy head of the Taliban political office in Qatar told the BBC senior positions in the new administration would be filled on merit.

Nearly half of civil service jobs in Afghan ministries were occupied by women who “should come back to their work”, the official said, but “in the new government that will be announced, in the top posts, in the cabinet, there may not be women”.

The Taliban are expected to name a government in the next few days but have yet to declare how they intend to govern – unlike the last time the group seized power in Afghanistan in 1996, when a leadership council was formed within hours. ...

The Islamist militia, who have promised an amnesty for all nationals who worked with foreign forces and organisations, have so far focused on keeping banks, hospitals and government machinery running since their unexpectedly rapid takeover. But long queues outside banks and soaring prices in bazaars have underlined the everyday worries facing Afghanistan’s population, with growing economic hardship emerging as the new rulers’ most urgent challenge.

Israel says US plan to reopen Jerusalem consulate is ‘bad idea’

Israel has said a US plan to reopen its consulate in Jerusalem that was traditionally a base for diplomatic outreach to Palestinians is a “bad idea” and could destabilise the prime minister’s new government. The previous US administration of Donald Trump signalled support for Israel’s claim on Jerusalem as its capital by moving its embassy there from Tel Aviv and subsuming the consulate in that mission.

It was among several moves that incensed the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as capital of a hoped-for, future state.

President Joe Biden has pledged to restore ties with the Palestinians, back a two-state solution and reopen the consulate. It has been closed since 2019, with Palestinian affairs handled by the embassy.

“We think it’s a bad idea,” Israel’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid, told a news conference on Wednesday when asked about the reopening. “Jerusalem is the sovereign capital of Israel and Israel alone, and therefore we don’t think it’s a good idea.

Asked for comment, Wasel Abu Youssef, an official with the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization, said Israel was trying to keep the status quo and block any political solution.

Covid rates among US children and teens rise as new school year begins

Just as young Americans are starting a new school year, Covid-19 rates among children and teens are rising to rates that have not been seen since the pandemic’s winter surge, before vaccines were made widely available.

On a state level, local leaders have noticed a sharp uptick in cases among children. In Maricopa county, Arizona, home to Phoenix, children under 12 make up one-sixth of the county’s Covid cases, and 6% of hospitalizations are children. In Tennessee, children under 18 are making up nearly 40% of cases in the state, with over 14,000 cases among children. Texas has reported 20,256 positive cases in the new school year, along with 7,488 cases among staff.

By the end of August, children represented about 15% of all Covid-19 cases across the country. This comes amid mixed messaging from several Republican governors’ on mask guidance in schools.

While most children will develop relatively mild symptoms, including runny noses, coughs or fevers, with Covid-19, some children have been developing more severe cases of Covid-19 that lead to hospital stays. Among 24 states that reported hospitalizations of children, they ranged from 1.6% to 3.6% of all hospitalizations. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that an average of over 300 children are being admitted into the hospital with Covid each day.

While Covid-19 cases among children and young adults were once rare, the more-transmissible Delta variant has made the younger demographics more susceptible to the virus.

Ryan Grim: The Government Is Broken Beyond Belief, Can’t Add Basic Dental To Medicare

Elijah McClain Pleaded “I Can’t Breathe” Before His 2019 Death. Now 3 Police, 2 Paramedics Charged

Elijah McClain: Colorado grand jury indicts five over Black man’s death

Colorado’s attorney general said on Wednesday that a grand jury had indicted three police officers and two paramedics in the killing of Elijah McClain, a Black man who was put in a chokehold and injected with a powerful sedative two years ago in suburban Denver. The 23-year-old’s death gained more widespread attention during last year’s protests against racial injustice and police brutality following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

McClain’s pleading words that were captured on police body-camera video – “I’m just different” – have been posted on signs at protests and spoken by celebrities who have joined those calling for the prosecution of the officers who confronted McClain as he walked down the street in the city of Aurora after a 911 caller reported he looked suspicious.

McClain, a massage therapist whom loved ones described as a gentle and kind introvert who nevertheless wanted to “change the world”, was also a music lover who volunteered to play his violin to comfort cats at an animal shelter.

The attorney general, Phil Weiser, said all five officers and paramedics were charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, and some face additional charges.

Facing pressure during a nationwide uprising for racial justice and an end to such egregious killings, the Democratic governor, Jared Polis, ordered Weiser in June 2020 to open a new criminal investigation. ... A district attorney had said in 2019 that he could not charge the officers because an autopsy could not determine how McClain died.

Ninety-nine percent of people arrested by Beverly Hills ‘safe streets’ unit were Black, suit says

Nearly all the people arrested by a Beverly Hills police taskforce over the past year were Black, according to a new lawsuit which alleges egregious racial profiling in the wealthy California city.

The complaint, filed Tuesday by the prominent civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, alleges that out of 106 people arrested by a Beverly Hills police “safe streets” taskforce, 105 were Black and one was a dark-skinned Latino person. Between March 2020 and July 2021, the unit unjustly stopped and arrested Black civilians who were roller skating, scootering, driving and jaywalking a few feet outside the crosswalk, the suit said.

The unit, also known as the Rodeo Drive taskforce, was set up last year in response to “a significant increase in calls for service in our business community”, according to the city, which is one of the richest municipalities in the US and less than 2% Black.

The plaintiffs in the suit, which was filed as a class action, are Jasmine Williams and Khalil White, a couple on vacation in Beverly Hills last September. They had been riding a scooter when police detained them “without any reasonable suspicion or probable cause”, lawyers wrote, saying officers demanded their IDs to run their names through a criminal database even though they hadn’t committed a crime. The couple “peacefully” objected to the officers “abusing their police powers” and were subsequently handcuffed and arrested on “multiple fabricated charges”, the complaint said, adding that prosecutors later dropped the charges.

RIP Roe v. Wade? SCOTUS Won’t Block Texas Abortion Ban That Is “Clearly an Unconstitutional Law”​​

SCOTUS supports the Texas Taliban:

Democrats condemn supreme court for failing to block Texas abortion law

Top Democrats across the country are condemning the US supreme court over its silence on Texas’s latest and most extreme abortion law to date after it came into effect on Wednesday. The so-called “Heartbeat Act”, which was signed into law by Greg Abbott, the state’s Republican governor, in May, bans abortions at six weeks and does not make exceptions for incest and rape. Furthermore, it empowers private citizens to sue any abortion provider who violates the law.

Texas is the first state to ban abortion this early in pregnancy since Roe v Wade, and last-minute efforts to halt it through an appeal to the US supreme court by Tuesday did not succeed, as the Guardian reported.

Democrats including Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton have criticized the supreme court for not taking up an appeal that would have at least temporarily blocked the law. In a statement released on Wednesday, Biden criticized the law, saying that it “blatantly violates the constitutional right established under Roe v Wade and upheld as precedent for nearly half a century”.

“The Texas law will significantly impair women’s access to the healthcare they need … And outrageously, it deputizes private citizens to bring lawsuits against anyone who they believe has helped another person get an abortion.” ...

As Democrats denounce the supreme court over its silence, the country’s highest court is set to take on a Mississippi abortion ban in its next term, which begins in October. The Mississippi law bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.



the horse race



Dems FREAK Latinos May Not Show Up For Newsom In Recall Election



the evening greens


Climate-Driven Weather Disasters Increased Fivefold Over Past 50 Years: UN Agency

The number of extreme weather disasters driven by the climate crisis has increased fivefold over the past 50 years, killing more than two million people and costing $3.64 trillion in total losses, a United Nations agency said on Wednesday.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says its "Atlas" report is the most comprehensive review of mortality and economic losses from extreme climate and weather incidents ever produced. It surveyed some 11,000 events between 1970 and 2019.

The report highlights major catastrophes such as Ethiopia's 1983 drought—the single most fatal event with 300,000 deaths—and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which was the most economically costly, with losses of $163.6 billion.

The report finds that from 1970 to 2019, weather, climate, and water hazards accounted for 50% of all disasters, 45% of all reported deaths, and 74% of all reported economic losses.

"The number of weather, climate, and water extremes are increasing and will become more frequent and severe in many parts of the world as a result of climate change," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

"That means more heatwaves, drought, and forest fires such as those we have observed recently in Europe and North America. We have more water vapor in the atmosphere, which is exacerbating extreme rainfall and deadly flooding. The warming of the oceans has affected the frequency and area of existence of the most intense tropical storms," Taalas continued.

The report finds that more than 91% of the two million deaths occured in developing countries, where there is weaker infrastructure and warning systems. The leading cause of death was drought, followed by storms, floods, and extreme temperatures.

While deaths from extreme weather events have decreased almost threefold from 1970 to 2019 due to improved disaster reporting, economic losses are rapidly skyrocketing.

According to the report, economic losses have increased sevenfold, surging from $175.4 billion in the 1970s to $1.38 trillion in the 2010s.

Environmental Activist CALLS OUT Failure To BLOCK Line 3 Pipeline Project, ‘This Impacts EVERYONE’

Climate Groups Launch Campaign to Exclude Natural Gas From Key Federal Energy Policy

Stressing that every stage of natural gas production pollutes the Earth's air and water, a coalition of climate and social justice groups on Wednesday launched an initiative aimed at strengthening a proposed federal energy policy by ensuring that it excludes gas.

Sunrise Movement, Greenpeace USA, Oil Change U.S., and other partners launched the Gas Is Not Clean campaign, an effort to ensure that the federal Clean Energy Standard (CES)—a policy proposal requiring a mininum share of electricity to be generated from clean sources—does not include gas.

According to Sunrise Movement, the new campaign "will build pressure on politicians to commit to prioritizing truly clean, renewable energy... by making clear that gas is not clean, and that every stage of its production—extraction, processing, transport, and combustion—generates toxic air and water pollution."

The initiative's website will track which federal lawmakers support excluding a natural gas carve-out from the CES, while serving as a resource for lawmakers and their staffers. The campaign also says it will be "engaging members of Congress through digital amplification, Hill blasts, and local organizing efforts."

On August 24, the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted along party lines in favor of a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation blueprint that includes federal tax incentives of around $150 billion to $200 billion for CES implementation. In the absence of a universal definition of what constitutes "clean" energy, the fossil fuel industry has been lobbying for the inclusion of natural gas in the CES.

Republican and right-wing Democratic U.S. lawmakers have also pushed for what they call a "technology-neutral" approach to meeting the Biden administration's goal of generating 80% clean power by 2035. In June, Reps. David B. McKinley (R-W.Va.) and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) introduced an industry-backed bill that would extend partial credit to natural gas generation as part of a plan to reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2050.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), on the other hand, says there is absolutely no room for natural gas in the CES.

"With climate disasters coming at us from every direction, the stakes of the reconciliation bill could not be higher," Bowman said in a statement. "This is our moment to turbocharge the transition to a green, just economy, and the Clean Energy Standard can play a key role—but it needs to be as ambitious as possible on renewables, and it needs to exclude gas."

"This is not complicated, and we can't allow the gas industry to confuse the issue," he added. "No fossil fuels, period."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stands with his party's progressive wing in staunchly opposing natural gas inclusion in the CES, asserting in July that it is "an imperative, not just an option... to stop all of the expansion of coal, oil, and gas throughout our country and, frankly, throughout our world."

"You've gotta get to the 80%," Schumer told The New Republic, referring to the White House's 2035 clean power goal. "Gas doesn't help us get there... The number one goal is to get to the 80%, period."

Climate advocates are pushing for a Renewable Energy Standard (RES)—a policy adopted by at least 28 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico—that would ideally achieve a 100% renewable energy portfolio for the U.S. electrical grid by the end of the decade. Such a policy would include renewable energy technologies like solar and wind, while excluding gas, carbon capture and storage, biomass, nuclear, and other false climate "solutions."

An interesting read:

After slavery, oystering offered a lifeline. Now sewage spills threaten to end it all

On a cold winter morning early this year, Mary Hill was helping her 101-year-old mother get ready for the day when she received a distressing email alert. Tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage were heading for her prized family oyster beds. Yet Hill was not surprised that the wastewater pipe built in the 1940s had succumbed to corrosion. “Here we go again,” she thought grimly. Hill is one of the last remaining Black oyster-people in this part of the US east coast, and is part of a tradition that stretches back generations, to the end of slavery. Yet spill after spill of sewage is threatening to end Hill’s livelihood and her historic occupation, and are part of a broader problem in nearby communities: Black people are disproportionately suffering under the weight of a sewage crisis.

For four months, Hill was unable to harvest her oysters because of the leak. “It is devastating,” Hill said. “It seems like a form of systemic racism not just for me as an African American female, but for those who are not the 1%.” Alongside the leaks into the river, there are sewage problems in homes in historically Black communities in this part of coastal Virginia, where some residents cannot flush their toilets and face an overflow of green, sludge-like algae. It is a symptom of decades of neglect by the cities’ governments. Majority white neighborhoods in the area are supplied by city-run sewer systems that take wastewater away from their homes. Many houses in majority Black villages, some founded by freed slaves, rely on individual septic tanks because the city sewer lines don’t extend to their homes. These tanks often have sewage backups, and if not routinely maintained can contaminate the water both above and below ground. The sewage discharge problems grow far worse when the area floods, which is becoming more frequent as sea level rises.

In the sprawling waterways of Virginia, formerly enslaved people like Hill’s great-great-grandparents carved out economic independence, working for themselves when the civil war ended. By 1870, more than a dozen African American oystermen cultivated a livelihood for their families, working the water on the James River peninsulas. Hobson, the beloved village where Hill grew up, is one of the few historic Black oyster communities in the nation. “We found our livelihood in oystering,” Hill said while sitting on the porch of the house she grew up in. Behind the one-story wooden house, generations of Hills dating back to 1700s are buried in the family cemetery. “What was such a blessing about this industry – I felt that we were wealthy,” Hill said. She recalled her father working the boat, rain or shine, and her mother baking the oysters that he brought home.

Hill inherited 2,000 acres of family oyster grounds on the James river and its tributaries. She tends to them, cares for her mother, and also established wholesale dealership Barrett’s Neck Seafood two years ago. Despite the financial pressure of starting a business, and the cost of fixing the two boats she owns, she means to tend to her oysters for as long as she is able to.

But the spills have put all her labors on an indefinite pause.

Climate Progress Is On Fire

In 2013, California passed a landmark law that capped greenhouse gas emissions, but let companies offset their pollution overages by investing in forest preservation throughout the country — the idea being that trees absorb excess carbon from the atmosphere. The statute was considered a model initiative to combat climate change, while providing businesses some flexibility in reducing their pollution. Eight years later, though, there is a big problem: As of last week, there were more than 41,000 wildfires across the country, torching more than 4.6 million acres — a swath nearly the size of New Jersey. And more than 150,000 of those acres have been in West Coast forests that were supposed to be offsetting corporations’ carbon emissions.

When the original program was conceived, California presumed that some forests would naturally burn — and therefore the law required polluters to buy slightly more woodland as an insurance mechanism to account for such losses. But experts say the amount of woodland set aside in these so-called “buffer pools” wildly underestimated the amount of trees that are now burning in the era of climate change. And companies that invested in forestland to counter their greenhouse gas pollution and look responsible are not obligated to invest more when wildfires subsequently incinerate those offsets.

The result: The fires are now burning up the much-touted emissions reduction projects that are necessary to combat the climate crisis.

When forests burn, they release carbon dioxide. That’s why California’s carbon offset projects were designed to set aside 2 to 4 percent of their forests as excess woodlands to account for such emissions. But the size of these buffer pools are “nowhere near adequate for the risks that forests face in the United States in a changing climate,” said William Anderegg, Associate Professor, University of Utah and lead author of a 2020 paper that assessed climate-driven risks to carbon offset projects. Anderegg has found that the risk of moderate and severe wildfires across the U.S. roughly doubled between 1984 and 2000 — an increase partly driven by climate change. According to him, the 2 to 4 percent of woodland set aside in California’s carbon offset projects were never enough to cover wildfire losses, even before accounting for the impacts of climate change.

Firefighters in make-or-break fight to keep Caldor fire from Lake Tahoe

Firefighters battling a ferocious wildfire in the Lake Tahoe Basin are facing critical hours as they work to prevent the flames from reaching a resort city at the southern tip of the lake. Crews gained ground on the behemoth blaze raging on the California-Nevada border, officials said Wednesday, despite dry gusty conditions and difficult terrain.

The Caldor fire did not make as strong a push toward Tahoe as it did the previous day, said the operations section chief, Tim Ernst, as winds came up less strong than expected and bulldozers made progress creating fire lines. ...

Pushed by strong winds, the Caldor fire has expanded in recent days. Stephen Vollmer, a fire behavior analyst for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said embers were being cast up to a mile out in front of the fire, creating new ignition points, including in some parts of the dense forest that have not burned since 1940 or before. “With those winds, as [the fire] ran through the forest it created what’s called an active crown fire run, where the fire actually goes from treetop to treetop,” Vollmer said.

The fire crossed two major highways earlier in the week and swept down slopes into the Tahoe Basin, where firefighters working in steep terrain were protecting remote cabins. Cal Fire division chief Erich Schwab said some homes burned, but it was too early to know how many. “The fire burned through there extremely fast, extremely hot. And we did the best that we could,” he said Tuesday night.

More than 15,000 firefighters were battling dozens of California blazes, with help from out of state crews. The threat of fire is so widespread that the US Forest Service announced Monday that all national forests in California would be closed until 17 September. The Caldor fire has scorched more than 319 sq miles (826 sq km) since breaking out 14 August.


Also of Interest

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

Star Trek Versus Imperialist Doctrine

To Counter U.S. Hostility China Moves Towards People Centered Policies

The Palestinian Authority’s crackdown on protest shows it will never serve its own people

Refugees After the American Revolution

‘Open season on media’: journalists increasingly targeted at Los Angeles protests

UK judge orders rightwing extremist to read classic literature or face prison

Study Finds Extinction Risk for 30% of Tree Species

Paws for thought: dogs may be able to figure out human intentions

LEAKED Biden Afghan Call Spurs Calls For IMPEACHMENT

Exposing deceptive defectors and dissidents, from North Korea to Iraq, China to Syria


A Little Night Music

Jimmy Johnson - Somebody Loan Me a Dime

Jimmy Johnson - Tobacco Road

Jimmy Johnson - Cold Cold Feeling

Jimmy Johnson - Feel Like Breaking Up Somebody's Home

Jimmy Dawkins & Jimmy Johnson - I Want To Know

Jimmy Johnson - My Baby By My Side

Jimmy Johnson - Strange Things Happening

Jimmy Johnson - Strange How I Miss You

Jimmy Johnson - Heap See

Jimmy Johnson - Jockey


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Comments

Lookout's picture

Hope you're all doing well. Saw that Ida smacked the NE pretty bad. Did you weather it okay js? Didn't check the EB last night where you may have talked about it.

Weird with fires in the west and floods in the East. Climate chaos come home to roost...world wide. All as TPTB clobber first nations peoples trying to stop the insanity. If only they understood the lust for money they would embrace the pipelines. And if only we didn't, they wouldn't be built.

enjoyed the Jimmy Johnson and loved the quote

"Make wars unprofitable and you make them impossible."

thanks for all the news and your work!

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16 users have voted.

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

@Lookout Clearly, War's on the permanent menu of the dying empire. As long as it's profitable, it will be # 1 on our hit parade. Since our country's agenda's decided by paid-off puppets in DC and the individual states, War is Where the Money is and will stay. Long after most of us are gone.

Meanwhile---the climate evolution is stunning and happening right before our eyes.

NYC had its first Emergency Flash Flood alert, a tornado alert, and more last night. The normal monthly rainfall is about 4" and last night in a few hours we had 7"

My garden was a mess but after one more day of full sun, all my plants should still make it well into October, if not November.

To understand how breath taking this is, in my long life of gardens both large out in the country and here on my tiny high floor balcony, Labor Day was the acknowledged Closing Time. Annuals were done. And don't even think of putting next year's annuals outside until After Memorial Day weekend.

This year my annuals were started and seeds planted and babied indoors well before the beginning of May. Out and flourishing from the beginning of May. My clean-up began today and will continue after another day of sun has dried us out a bit.

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11 users have voted.

NYCVG

lotlizard's picture

@NYCVG  
reaching levels not seen since 1869.

https://6abc.com/hurricane-ida-remnants-major-flood-stage-schuylkill-riv...

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11 users have voted.

@lotlizard

Pretty much how NYC feels today

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9 users have voted.

NYCVG

joe shikspack's picture

@Lookout

my area did just fine. we got a couple of inches of rain and very little wind in my immediate area. we had a tornado watch, but the tornadoes skipped my area and touched down in annapolis which is about 25-30 miles from me as the crow flies.

i saw a couple of trees with shallow roots topple because the ground around them got heavily saturated, but that was about it for damage around me. we didn't even lose power and today everything seems back to normal.

it is hard to believe that even with the west on fire, disastrous weather and the ocean in the gulf catching on fire that our dark overlords can't be budged from their efforts to make things worse.

take care and have a great evening!

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9 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@joe shikspack

I'm sorry to say. But on we go, and in the scheme of things all is well in the holler.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o26HgKCcT0]

[Chorus]
Yeah gettin' by on gettin' by is my stock-in-trade
Living it day-to-day
Picking up the pieces wherever they fall
Just lettin' it roll
Lettin' the high times carry the low
Just living my life easy come, easy go

have a good one.

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7 users have voted.

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

CB's picture

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9erXi4vdng]

The Uyghur narrative has been floating around for a few years now. But which, if any, of those stories are founded in truth? Why do people in the West know so little about China? Is China the root of all evil? Special guest, author and historian Matthew Ehret joins Aziza on the Truth Be Bold Podcast to deconstruct the anti-Chinese narrative that dominates Western media and rhetoric.

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14 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@CB

thanks for the video. it's always difficult to figure out what to believe regarding uighurs in china. there's the stuff spouted by u.s. government sources and their media flunkies (which is undoubtedly crap) and then there's the stuff spouted by alternative media sources in counterpoint. unfortunately, even though people make allegations and quote statistics, there is no way for the average person to verify them. so it's down to a credibility contest i suppose.

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6 users have voted.
CB's picture

@joe shikspack
Matthew Ehret goes much deeper in also explaining the historical background since the opening up of China to the world's financial markets in 1971 by Kissinger. For example, he tells us that Premier Chou en-Lai agreed to implement the Rockefeller-World Bank demands that a one child policy program be imposed to curb population growth. There are a large number of other interesting facts he also brings forth in this video.

One of the best backgrounders on China vs the Western Empire that I've heard. Highly recommend.

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6 users have voted.
CB's picture

@joe shikspack @joe shikspack
I've found Daniel Dumbrill to be a reliable and credible source of information.

Of course there is the well known Grayzone. They produced a good expose on US manufactured propaganda. They have also included the Ughurs in China (cued).

[video:https://youtu.be/pJCY7dS7StU?t=3896]

(Sep 1, 2021
On Foreign Agents, Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton expose the biggest frauds recruited as defectors and dissidents to lie about Official Enemies by the US regime.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MUMocaX5zg]
Discrimination against China has now become a "wealth code" for many people, especially against Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong.

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snoopydawg's picture

Orwell is shouting from his grave. "I tried to warn you! Now look."

"Giving up ones Liberty for safety is a boneheaded move." - Ben Franklin.

Biden mentioned that unvaxxed people shouldn’t use the interstate.

Unbelievable.

859D0895-5AF1-4F4F-AF54-9EC1DD8BB0FB.png

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

Wowzer!

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

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs]

Most prophetic TV series ever---The Final Enemy Benedict Cumberbatch 2008 5 episodes

(Yes, i realize i've tried to spread the alarm and get people to watch this show, many many times.)

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NYCVG

@snoopydawg

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

heh, if i lived in australia, i think that that i would probably eliminate any social media presence and get rid of my phone.

the aclu seems to be barking up the wrong tree. as mose allison says, if you got questions, ask me nice:

have a great evening!

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CB's picture

@snoopydawg

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As an added bonus Blinken haz a sad.

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@humphrey on it will go. Turkey, eventually.

The Big War and we have lost.

In a few days, nobody will even mention Afghanistan. And politicians can complain and threaten about China and Russia all day long. Too late.

The Pentagon can keep building weapons we will never need or use for a War we have already lost.

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8 users have voted.

NYCVG

joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

heh, in the end ghani showed that he was exactly the neocon he was formed to be. after all, the guiding principle of neocons is "take the money and run."

have a great evening!

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7 users have voted.

@joe shikspack Take The Money And Run - The Steve Miller Band

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

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

i don't know if steve miller intended to write a neocon anthem, but the hook works. Smile

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joe shikspack's picture

@lotlizard

it's interesting that a lot of western nations seem to be in a state where governance is contested very narrowly and durable governing coalitions are difficult to form. it's curious.

have a great evening!

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6 users have voted.

America is shrinking.

For those unaware of Alba.

https://albainfo.org/what-is-the-alba/

What is the ALBA and who supports it?
The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America (or ALBA for short) was founded on the 14th of December 2004 when presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba signed protocols bringing the agreement into existence. In its own terms the ALBA is defined as an “integration platform” whose fundamental purpose is to achieve “integral development” for Latin America and the Caribbean through a process of integration inspired by the likes of Simon Bolivar and Jose Marti. Beyond a narrow focus upon trade which has tended to mark other regional agreements, the ALBA professes to be a “political, economic, and social alliance in defence of independence, self-determination and the identity of peoples comprising it” (ALBA-TCP 2010a).

From modest beginnings the ALBA has grown to include eleven full member states which, in order of joining, are: Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Ecuador, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Grenada and the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis.

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enhydra lutris's picture

Thanks for including I'm a Jockey - that was my intro to JJ, first the song, then the album.

Sounds like China is definitely getting its act together. Which presumably means that the propaganda, covert ops and all of the rest will increase enormously as well. The right wing war on the press and the cops laissez faire attitude toward it in LA is no surprise. LA and So Cal cops have had a reputation since I was a kid, and dating back to the dust bowl that is pretty much too horrible for words. Not that anyplace else is too likely to be any better, but LA is a known known, as they say.

Hands and wrists are acting up again. No a covid symptom, but hey, maybe its a delayed reaction to my shots back in February, but I don't think they give out the good meds for that. Wink

Ah well,

be well and have a good one

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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

sorry to hear about the hands and wrists. one of my former co-workers used to have carpal tunnel problems. he swore by a day off with beer and bbq on the porch as a cure-all. i was never sure if it really worked, but he always looked happier the next day. Smile

i would imagine that as events progress, we shall all tire of hearing about the evils of china as much as we have tired of hearing about the evils of russia, russia, russia.

from the stories i've been seeing, it looks like cops in most of the western cities where fascists and anti-fascists face off, are more than happy to look away and let them have it out, public safety be damned. i guess we can expect this wherever the cops don't have a decisive monopoly on violence.

have a great evening!

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enhydra lutris's picture

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6 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 --

@enhydra lutris
and let me know if you see what I see.

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@JtC
it's fixed now.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@JtC

Gregpalast.com. I got the article in my e-mail, couldn't really post that, clicked a link therein to his homepage, found and opened the article there and went copypasta on the link. I assume something weird happened???

be well and have a good one

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2 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 --

@enhydra lutris
this:

https://allwebco-templates.com/support/S_edit_character-problems.htm

I tried all different ways to view the page and they all parsed the same. A little later it was corrected so I assume it was an issue on Palast's site

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Azazello's picture

@enhydra lutris
With no compensation whatsoever for the current owners, whoever they are.
Government should say, "Here's a trillion dollar fine and, by the way, we're taking the company."

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

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/570674-progressives-hit-manchin-after...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) faced swift criticism from progressives after he urged Democrats to “hit the pause button” on a $3.5 trillion spending package that would advance key parts of President Biden’s legislative agenda.

Manchin on Wednesday called on his colleagues to hold off on “rushing to spend trillions on new government programs” as the party drafts the forthcoming package, citing concerns about what he referred to as “runaway inflation,” the coronavirus delta variant and the recent withdrawal of the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

but these people are going to have to put on their comfortable shoes and visit manchin's state, make some noise and run some anti-manchin ads.

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@humphrey @humphrey @humphrey NYC had 6.91 inches of rain in a 24 hour period. Ihe most intense hour dropped almost 4 inches.

Even the best parts of NYC sewer system can handle fewer than 2 inches an hour.

Apparently, there are few to none possible ways to fix this even a little bit.

Residents of the lowest lying land with the fewest sewer systems, pipes, etc and no sewers at all are----You Guessed it---lowest income part of the population. Few, to no sewer systems, parkland, trees, etc.

This will not be fixed. Increasing uninhabitability is inevitable. Then, removal or climate migration.

The path to hell will not be dry and hot in this instance. Hot, maybe, but soaking wet.

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NYCVG

lotlizard's picture

on the day of the funeral and forcibly buried it somewhere else under military guard.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/2/india-kashmir-lockdown-syed-ali-...

The way Western media steadfastly look away and do that “strategic silence” thingy when it comes to Kashmir and its people, you’d think it was Palestine or someplace.

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Edited to add one more.

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lotlizard's picture

and that their Leftie worldview is the answer, then it is completely logical for them to try to indoctrinate younger generations into that worldview.

That’s not surprising; what is surprising is that nobody in charge in California seems to have noticed anything unusual until a right-wing specialist in journalistic exposés spotlighted it.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9952361/California-teacher-Anti...

And:
So the supposed “trans woman” in the Wi Spa incident, whom some LGBTQ+ and allies rushed to defend, turns out to be a registered sex offender, whom the authorities have now decided to indict for indecent exposure.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/02/person-charged-with-inde...

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enhydra lutris's picture

@lotlizard

nobody in charge in California

seems likely to be the answer to that and many other questions. Folks in Sackamenna and other locales make noises and the people largely do whatever they feel like they can get away with.

be well and have a good one

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4 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 --